Racial anxiety is an unconscious stress experienced in cross-racial interactions, which may contribute to microaggressions and result in undue cognitive burden for BIPOC. This session will support BIPOC participants in applying inner strengths to move through racialized encounters and hold white participants accountable to minimize the burden on BIPOC.

Racial anxiety is a well-established cognitive experience that is often absent from conversations about racialized interactions and their impact, necessary interventions to overcome interpersonal racism, and the possible healing for BIPOC from these exchanges.
 
 Research shows that racial anxiety can be experienced by BIPOC and by white people, due to worries about how a cross-racial interaction will go. Racial anxiety initiates a feedback loop, whereby negative encounters increase anxiety about future interactions. Though it's unconscious, its impact is profound. Racial anxiety results in a cognitive cost and depletion for BIPOC, and the burden of navigating others’ anxieties. White people worry about how they may be perceived, which can impact relationships with BIPOC colleagues, friends, and community members, and lead to avoidance of equity work.
 
 This session brings this unconscious phenomenon to light, so BIPOC participants can understand what is happening for themselves or for anyone they encounter and gain strategies of self care and to prevent experiencing microaggressions. White participants will also gain awareness and strategies for overcoming racial anxiety and minimizing racial microaggressions. While open to audiences of all identities, the session aims to decenter whiteness as we reckon with racial anxiety and its impact on BIPOC.
 
 This session is co-facilitated by a cross-racial pair of facilitators who have been collaborating on this content for several years. The session will be grounded in theoretical frameworks and research, and will focus heavily on interventions that participants can apply immediately at the individual level and within organizations or institutions.