Andrea Ayvazian and Beverly Daniel Tatum

As a biracial team, Andrea Ayvazian and Beverly Daniel Tatum lead public forums and seminars on racism for Communitas Incorporated, a nonprofit organization that provides community diversity training and consultation. In the following viewpoint, Ayvazian and Tatum assert that diversity-training programs that promote dialogue between whites and people of color are an effective way to confront racial discrimination on a community level. Well-organized forums led by skilled facilitators can, in the authors’ opinion, encourage honest, revealing, and empathetic discussion. Such dialogue, the authors contend, battles discrimination by helping people of different races to more fully understand each other as individuals. Ayvazian is the director of Communitas Incorporated in Northampton, Massachusetts. Tatum is an associate professor of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She is also...