DemocracySpace.org

Reflections on racial equity work

On April 3, Everyday Democracy, along with 322 other organizations and a total of 29,000 people in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut participated in the YWCA's "Stand Against Racism" event. Following the event, Jon Abercrombie, one of our senior associates, shared his thoughts and reflections on his racial equity work. We're sharing his reflections with you here on DemocracySpace.

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"Below I will summarize some of the thoughts and feelings I have collected about my own work and about our work together on racial equity and white privilege.  These thoughts have been with me for some time, actually, since our last conversations on race.

"First there are gifts that come to mind.

• The strengths of our relationships and our staff.  My life has been touched by all of our staff, and particularly touched and changed by colleagues with whom I have had a chance to work more closely around the country.  I walk away from our work opportunities grateful for unusually gifted people even when they plant bats in my suitcase, almost get me arrested in North Dakota, and try in other devious ways to shorten my aging life.
• The strength of the team members who have worked so hard and so well in developing the racial equity guide and navigating our relationships with funders.  Carolyn and Sue, for example, have produced a guide that will grow with us well over time.
• An organization that gives leadership across the country in deliberation that takes seriously the malicious influence of racial prejudice and racism in a variety of public issues. Martha’s stature in this field of work and her commitment over the years is why this issue has remained central to what we do.

"Secondly, the wishes and the things I hope for. 

• That we will maintain our commitment to the principles that we have learned and effectively employed in this work.  Our power comes from creating safe places for conversations about racial equity, white privilege, improved schools and a range of important civic decisions.  We will have the political right criticize us for advocating too much and we will have the political left criticize us for advocating too little.
• That we will continue to allow communities to go as far as they can given their resources and the particular conditions in their community.  I have worked with several powerful foundations and have watched them move from helping communities set their own goals, to deciding which goals are acceptable.  In time the foundations, with good intentions, decreased local choices and increased their own control.  Oddly an interesting thing happened: as foundations have dictated the acceptable outcomes, creativity decreased and real change decreased.  It is a path that is subtle.  It is driven by foundation goals and foundation deadlines that are often incompatible with community needs and community change.
• That we will continue to push for racial equity while holding onto the overarching goal of human equity.  In our own work I have observed the pressure from some activists to take harder positions.  In Austin, TX, a leader from one community group said, with understandable anger that she did not plan to talk to white people who did not apologize first.  'They need to feel the pain first.'  It is easy to comprehend the feelings that drive this, but in public deliberation we know this is a dead-end street.  Another person wanted us to start the conversation on racial equity by opening with "naming the sins."  Blame and fear increase the possibility that our efforts will not succeed.
• That our own conversations about racial equity and white privilege in Everyday Democracy will build on the principles that have been effective.  Our stories are all different and powerful.  If we each feel that our own stories are important, we will have deeper relationships to each other. We will also have greater commitment to each other and to the work we do.  Then we can better model how these types of conversations will work in the communities we serve.  I wish together we could spend more time using our own race guide.
• That we can find enough time for our own productive conversations.  I look forward to our work in early June.  I know that we are having gifted leaders to help us in the process.  I also know that it is easy to fill our time with important instruction when we need adequate time to bring our conversations to more effective stopping points (the conversation never ends).
• That I can learn how to bring my whole story, without defensiveness or self-blame to the table.  It is not others who keep me from bringing my whole story to the table.  It is my own inner monitor, well educated by many encounters and painful training opportunities. 

"In the end I know what I want for myself.  I want to learn better how to use any advantages I have to change the ways that racial privilege, racial prejudice, racial fear and blame undermine our world, our country and our local communities.  When I lead dialogues on transportation in Atlanta and in Georgia, decisions are made that are based on race.  When I sit with school boards to help them open up their work to the voices of the entire community, their responses are shaped by race and the barriers that have been created for many decades.  I want us to explore the ways that we engage theses issues when communities use our race guide, and I want to find ways to engage these issues even when there are other pressing needs in the community.  

"Finally, I want us to be clear with each other about what we know and feel.  It is the greatest power we have. 

"Thank you for your patience. Life and the powers that be are still trying to improve me."

Abie

Communities Creating Racial Equity roll up their sleeves to take action

Everyday Democracy's 2009 "Communities Creating Racial Equity" Learning Exchange brought together eight communities from around the country to share and learn together on what it takes to build racial equity. Each of the communities face unique challenges, but all of them share the goal of using dialogue to create institutional change on racism. The Everyday Democracy two-day event was chock-full of hands-on workshops. Participants walked away with...

• a deeper understanding of racial equity and its impact on communities;
• tools to tell the story of their dialogue-to-change effort;
• resources and advice to effectively evaluate progress on creating institutional change;
• a network of people who can help them work through challenges

Watch the communities in action!

Learning Exchange focuses on creating racial equity

This week, Everyday Democracy hosted a learning exchange for the "Communities Creating Racial Equity" initiative. The two-day event gave participating communities the opportunity to...

-explore more what it means to take on structural racism and racial equity;
-learn more about building evaluation and storytelling into their programs;
-and work through the challenges they face in moving dialogue to action and change.

Check back here next week for photos, videos, stories and more! 

Stand Against Racism this Friday!

If you live in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, consider joining the YWCA’s “Stand Against Racism” event this Friday, April 3. Stand Against Racism is a movement that aims to eliminate racism by raising awareness through this annual event. Everyday Democracy is hosting a private event for staff and associates to deepen our understanding of racism and its impact on deliberative democracy. Come back to DemocracySpace.org after April 3 to read about our experience.

Learn more about the event at http://www.standagainstracism.org/index2.html

To sign up as a participating organization or individual, go to http://fs18.formsite.com/ywca/form792769482/index.html

Taking seriously the needs of youth

What better way to share your news of your dialogue-to-change effort than on YouTube! This week, a YouTube video created by Woodbine, Iowa, came to our attention. The community came together in dialogues to find ways to address area poverty through Horizons--an anti-poverty leadership program of the Northwest Area Foundation--and came out with a new youth mentoring program. 

After taking part in dialogues to find solutions and sharing ideas in an action forum, residents  realized that they needed to do more for their young people to succeed and thrive in and out of school. They identified the TeamMates™ as a program that could empower the youth. Watch how the program came to be and what it's accomplished in the community so far.

 

Is anybody listening?

I came across this story a few days ago, and I thought it would be something you all would enjoy/appreciate/be inspired by/be touched by.

I was sitting on my couch last Friday night, with my roommates' dogs, Dakota and April, eating my quesadilla for dinner, watching the Newshour with Jim Leherer, and this story about an English class at the Village Academy High School in Pomona, California, came on. The students, after reading “The Great Gatsby” and contemplating the American dream, began to tell stories about how they felt the economic situation was thwarting their hopes to realize that dream. Their teacher offered to help them create a video through which they could tell their stories and then send it to the presidential nominees. They called it, “Is Anybody Listening?” (See video below.) President Obama mentions the students and their video in his speech on education, which you can see in the Newshour clip.

The students bared their souls -- their hopes, their fears, their worries. I sat on my couch, quesadilla in hand, sobbing. But, the students' action represents the story of democracy. As a result of this video, they realized they have the ability to help others and were empowered to create what they call the Village Project. Through this project they help students connect with services, or just give generously from what they have. It’s a sobering story, and a sobering video, but shows democracy at work in the lives of young people.

I hope you are as inspired by their stories as me.

Honoring a dedicated dialogue-to-change coordinator

Last Thursday, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents named Roseann Mason, director of Community Dialogues in the Center for Community Partnerships at UW-Parkside, as one of their first-ever winners of its Regents Diversity Awards in Madison. The new awards program recognizes and supports individuals and programs in the UW System that foster access and success in university life for historically underrepresented populations.

Roseann developed Diversity Circles to recognize and counter racism in its many forms. The circles, which launched in 1999, have been integrated into local high schools since 2003. Read this story about the program’s “Diversity in Action Conference” for high school students.

Each of the Board’s winners will receive up to $5,000 to support their professional development or to continue the program being honored.

Congratulations, Roseann!

Community blogging from Julie Fanselow

Julie Fanselow, who managed and wrote content for DemocracySpace until last September, recently wrote an article for the National Civic Review titled "Community Blogging: The Next Wave of Citizen Journalism. While Julie was writing on this blog, she viewed her job as helping individuals create online communities that would benefit their physical communities.

While some view blogs as self-promoting and narcissistic, Julie writes of the potential they have to foster democracy in local communities. In one community, Northfield, Minn., the blogger behind the blog Locally Grown brought to light activities of the local government that community members didn't know about. The blog also serves as a source of on-line organizing that leads to action.

As part of the anti-poverty program Horizons, rural communities scattered throughout the Northwest maintain blogs to keep the community updated on their efforts to address poverty through leadership training, dialogue-to-change efforts and visioning projects.

One of the recommendations from several community bloggers is to keep the blog fun, and to use lots of photos. (Notice the lack of photos in this post!) Through all of the activities within your community, there are bound to be loads of photos floating around! Photos certainly add visual interest to a blog.

All in all, blogging is fun, but it can also serve an important purpose in fostering democracy and helping communities work toward their goals.

Another Picture Of Democracy

America is anxious, for obvious reasons.  But in the chilly media stream that rushes over us every day, endlessly re-looping the litany of horribles, and what politicians and opinionistas say the government must do about them, no one ever turns the mirror around.

Never any headlines about what we-the-people need to do to become more effective partners in this great experiment called self-government.  To become more valuable as citizens -- wiser and better able to contribute to the sustainable solutions that politicians alone clearly cannot deliver.

Yes, there are rising calls to service, to volunteer in our communities.  And that is a very good thing indeed.  But as critical as volunteering and voting are, what's missing is any emphasis on the third leg of civic engagement -- which involves citizens keeping themselves well informed about the issues that shape all our lives, and actively engaged in political decision-making and problem-solving.  In those departments, according to all the research, we've got a lot of work to do.

So it's critical we shatter the silence about our third leg civic obligations.  And I can't think of a better way to start than by shining a bright spotlight on the incredible work being done in the deliberative democracy field.  

Which is one of the motivations behind "Song Of A Citizen" -- a non-profit venture I've launched to produce a slate of films and web videos with a singular purpose -- to inspire a radical upgrade in the concept of civic engagement in America by re-framing the role of the citizen in relation to political decision-making.  In other words, to re-link the self to self-government.

I'm currently in production on an innovative Video Op-Ed series for the Internet -- featuring brilliant thinkers from various disciplines -- each offering their take on what it really means to be a responsible and effective citizen, why it matters, how we're doing, and how we can do better.  All wrapped up in a very compelling visual style. 

Martha McCoy did one of these pieces called "Another Picture Of Democracy," and it's really powerful.  You can view it, and some others at: http://songofacitizen.blogspot.com

Martha's commentary in her video op-ed so inspired me that I thought I'd use her title for this blog post.  Because I'm all about alternative "pictures" as a way of communicating change.  And because Martha said something in her video that really got me thinking about the big "how" of bringing about big change.

Humbly referring to her work, she avers:  "there is no one magic bullet process that will make our democracy stronger and more alive."   But I actually think that deliberative processes are pretty darn close to a magic bullet.

Locally and nationally, we have a matrix of pressing problems, to say the least.  We urgently need solution-generating machines.  Not only to solve particular problems, but to empower citizens to keep the machine parts moving smoothly.  And deliberation does all of that.  Uniquely.  Powerfully.

So we need to find ways of scaling it up a thousand fold so that ordinary Americans everywhere can start transforming themselves from civic spectators into problem-solving participants -- from citizen slackers to citizen superheros.

And so America can recapture its capacity to dream big dreams.  And in so doing, give ourselves and future generations an inspiring new picture of what democracy can look like.

So, magic bullet?  Maybe not exactly.  But imagine deliberative forums in every community in the land -- all the time -- as a permanent fixture of self-governance.  That would bring its own kind of magic, don't you think?

So how do we bring deliberation to scale?  

My small contribution is to paint moving pictures -- and use the medium of the moment to spread the word.  Others want government to lead the way.  What are your thoughts?

Penny Wood tells the story of Hot Springs' new youth club

This is an excerpt from Everyday Democracy's Tell Us Your Story interview with Penny Woods.

Young people in Hot Springs, S.D., don't have much to do outside of school, especially those coming from low-income families. Penny Wood kept this in mind as she and key people in the community, including the mayor, school superintendent, and Hot Springs Star publisher, worked together to bring a new Boys & Girls Club into town.

Wood, who took part in Hot Springs' Horizons anti-poverty program and joined an action group to do something for young people in the community, shares the story of how the Club came to be.

Read Wood's story.