Many people have taken risks, passed laws, and sacrificed much--even their lives--to create a society where a person of any ethnicity can drink out of any public water fountain or use any public bathroom.

Those symptoms of racism represented a small section of the river of societal discrimination. Though we as a nation have accomplished much, it is now imperative that we address the causes and conditions that perpetuate societal prejudices such as racism in the first place. To do otherwise would be like pulling people out of the river as they flounder past. We would be confronting merely the symptoms of racism for a long, long time.

Healing Our Nation Network educates and organizes people to go to the source by addressing the Cycles of Conditioning that perpetuate racism within the institutions of our nation. By addressing the Cycles of Conditioning, people come to recognize the importance of the care of children, to understand how prejudice is learned, and to acknowledge the impact of prejudice that has become institutionalized into the fabric of society. This recognition empowers the individual to more effectively address discrimination on a personal level.

During our advanced programs, participants explore how to take action on the institutional level to overcome the Cycles of Conditioning that foster racism and how to more effectively work for change within their community. As we use racism as a template for addressing institutionalized prejudice, we also prepare people to address other forms of discrimination such as sexism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia.