Keynote: Togetherness Wayfinding
Videos of the February 20, 2025 Conference
On February 20, 2025, Dr. Sheena Michele Mason brought into fruition "Abolishing Racism: Creating a Future without Race” with collaborators Drs. Hoda Mahmoudi (The Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland) and Kate Seaman (Assistant Director of The Bahá'í Chair for World Peace) at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Mason delivered the afternoon keynote titled, “Togetherness Wayfinding: Navigating to a Future without Racism.”
This keynote explores how the togetherness wayfinder can serve as a practical guide for educators, activists, policymakers, and anyone committed to social justice. It demonstrates how adopting alternative practices and perspectives can lead to the deconstruction of systemic racism and foster a more inclusive and equitable society. Her keynote is an invitation to join the movement toward a post-racist world, where the togetherness wayfinder lights the path forward.
Additionally, Dr. Mason moderated the other sessions on the arts, music, and humanities and philosophy, theology, and science. You can save and watch the entire conference playlist.
Biography: Sheena Michele Mason is an assistant professor of English at SUNY Oneonta. She holds a PhD with distinction in English from Howard University in Washington, DC, USA, and specializes in Africana and American literary studies and philosophy of race. She is published with Oxford University Press, Palgrave MacMillan, Cambridge University Press, and the University of Warsaw among other presses. She is the innovator of the togetherness wayfinder (formerly and alternatively called the theory of racelessness) and founder of Togetherness Wayfinder, an educational firm. Her book The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race Is the Future of Antiracism shows how ending our belief in “race” and practice of racialization is required toward the goal of ending the causes and effects of racialized dehumanization.