2025 White Privilege Conference
by Melanie-Claire Mallison
Ithaca Meeting
In March of 2025, ten members of NYYM attended the three-day White Privilege Conference (WPC26) in Hartford Connecticut. Along with approximately 500 other participants, we examined and explored issues related to white privilege and white supremacy. WPC26 included plenary speakers and poets — Jessica Care Moore, Dr. OiYan Poon, Dr. Dante King, and Dr. Omékongo Dibinga. Along with over 40 workshops and many chances to network, there was a Sock Hop where attendees literally donated socks to a local charity and then danced together!
As Carol Mallison described the conference, “…it was an amazing experience to be with over 500 of ‘my people!!’ We represented all ages, all ethnicities, all levels of education and experience. And, one thing we had in common was a passion for equality…”
The White Privilege Conference was created in the year 2000 by Dr. Eddie Moore Jr., who serves as the Founder and Executive Director of The Privilege Institute (www.theprivilegeinstitute.com/), which now hosts the WPC. Under Dr. Moore’s direction, “The White Privilege Conference has become one of the top national and international conferences for participants who want to move beyond dialogue and into action around issues of diversity, power, privilege, supremacy, and antiracism.”
Helen Garay Toppins wrote in her summary, “I attended the WPC because I was motivated to do so by Friends General Conference’s Ministry on Racism. Their ministry advised me that the ‘Caucus for People of Color would provide a safe environment to share information, feelings, experiences, and interactions and serve as a vehicle for mutual support and collaboration.’ This was certainly true for me. I was particularly nourished by the Black Women’s Think Tank.”
Robin Mallison Alpern offered a workshop titled “White Women Facing Truths of Complicity & Accountability” and said of her experience at the conference, “As a white person, I found both support and challenge. I learned from Black, Indigenous and People of Color as well as white people speaking difficult truths, and partnering authentically to make change. And although the conference feels like a small city, founder Dr. Eddie Moore Jr. has a way of making participants feel personally welcomed.”
Friends General Conference (FGC) is a WPC sponsor, and they say, in part, “The White Privilege Conference… provides a forum for critical discussions about diversity, multicultural education and leadership, social justice, race/racism, sexual orientation, gender relations, religion and other systems of privilege/oppression.”
To summarize Melanie-Claire Mallison, “WPC26 was the very definition of a challenging, exhausting, exhilarating … I will read and study and save up to attend the WPC27 in Seattle next April. My parents gave me the foundation [of antiracism]. Upon that, I must help build a world of equity and justice.”
Deeply experiencing this conference challenges what we think we know and how we think society works. As Karen Snare wrote in her summary: “I learned two important things at the White Privilege Conference this year. I became clear that some people view racism as interpersonal interactions and some focus their attention on exploitive systems. Each group in some ways speaks its own language, and may have trouble understanding the other. And I will have a better chance of meaningful conversations if I can use the language that makes sense to the person I'm talking to. My other important learning came from a very powerful presentation by Dr. Dante King, which made me aware of a number of laws put into place in the early years of this country that were not only centering white people and attempting to justify slavery, but were deliberately and explicitly anti Black. I had to some degree fallen into the trap of letting white settlers off the hook because they were products of their time and perhaps didn't know any better. The evidence presented in that speech made clear that those lawmakers were motivated by malice, not by ignorance.”
Our full report is online at the NYYM website (in the Summer 2025 Minutes) and includes a sample list of the conference workshops and just a few of the many resources we discovered over the three days. All of us named here would be happy to chat with you about The White Privilege Conference and share our many other resources, too numerous to include in the online report.
Through this report, we hope to inspire you to join us in this vital and energizing work.
To that end, we strongly and lovingly encourage Friends to attend WPC27 being held in Seattle, WA; April 22-25, 2026. FGC offers a registration discount for Quakers attending WPC, so be sure to look for their communications regarding WPC27. (www.theprivilegeinstitute.com/wpc27)