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Friday digest-open thread 6/6/08

Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of Robert Kennedy, which seems to be passing more quietly than the April anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. Nick Bryant, author of The Bystander: John F Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality, penned this remembrance of the president's younger brother for BBC News. He starts with Kennedy's own reaction to Dr. King's death, and how he stood on a flatbed truck and appealed for calm, saying, "What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black." Two months later, Kennedy was assassinated, too. The video above recounts both Kennedy's speech and his killing.

Last month, more than 400 people in Jacksonville, Florida, took part in a Dinner With a Difference and got a taste of dialogue-to-action study circles on race and racism. Jacksonville's Project Breakthrough received more publicity recently when six dialogue participants sat down to tell of their individual experiences in the full round of study circles that recently concluded in Jacksonville. Here are their stories.

The Girl Scouts of America are stepping up efforts to welcome more Hispanic girls into their activities. Ari B. Bloomekatz of the Los Angeles Times wrote in a story this week:

Reflecting an increased effort by the Girl Scouts to attract young Latinas and their mothers, the Spanish Trails Council in Montclair is offering a bilingual camp for the first time this summer. The one-day "Las Divas de Hoy" will be held twice over the summer. Many of the planned activities are the same as other Girl Scouts camps -- painting nails, crafts and fashion shows -- but there will also be salsa dancing and flower arranging. Most important, said Idalia Silva, the council's community partnership manager, is that Spanish will be the predominant language.

Read more here, and see the Girl Scouts' Spanish-language website here.

The Associated Press reported today that young Americans view Barack Obama's race as an asset and a non-issue. Martha Irvine writes: "For young voters, Rosa Parks' refusal to sit at the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 is schoolbook history. Even the racially charged 1992 riots in Los Angeles are a distant memory. The United States is far from a blueprint for racial harmony, but for today's young adults — all born after segregation was outlawed in the mid-1960s — race is not the issue it once was."  Read more here.

In other election-year news, Michael Waldman (author of the new book Return to Common Sense: Seven Bold Ways to Revitalize Democracy) writes in this Newsweek essay that the United States can build on the enthusiasm of this year's record-breaking primary voter turnouts by enacting public financing of congressional campaigns; eventually abolishing the Electoral College; and ending voter registration "as we know it," granting the right automatically to every citizen. After all, he notes: "Former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter chaired a commission that concluded, 'The registration laws in force throughout the United States are among the world's most demanding … [and are] one reason why voter turnout in the United States is near the bottom of the developed world.' Today, some 50 million eligible American citizens are not on the rolls."

What news stories piqued your interest this week? Please offer your comments below. The Friday digest will be back two weeks from today, after Everyday Democracy's Making Every Voice Matter national meeting next week in Denver.

Lynchburg moves toward action

This video captures footage and interviews from participants at the Lynchburg Community Dialogue on Race & Racism Action Forum and Youth Dialogue. The three-day Action Forum was open to all and held in a vacant department store where participants could come and go as they were available. 

The attendees had an opportunity to view and vote on the top two ideas from the recently completed 58 Study Circles. Activities included mini-study circle experiences, video taping of personal stories, viewing of all of the ideas from the Study Circles, and an opportunity to make a personal commitment to individual and/or group action related to reducing racism within our community. The votes from the action forum were then tallied and reported out to the community with the next steps.

The Youth Dialogue was a one-and-a-half day event where teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 had an opportunity to participate in honest and open dialogue around the issues of Race & Racism. The top ideas from the Youth Dialogue were also on display during the Action Forum for participants to vote and view.

The Action Forum was an energetic, community-wide event that brought together study circle participants, program volunteers, and the community-at-large to celebrate and support the work of the study circles.  The Action Forum represented a significant step on our journey from recognition of a problem to dialogue to action to change.

Leslie King is assistant coordinator of the Lynchburg Community Dialogue on Race & Racism. Click here to visit the program's website and learn more about what's happening in Lynchburg.

Jax dinner serves hope

The Dinner with a Difference held last week in Jacksonville, Florida, was a great success. We had approximately 430 attendees, many who were totally new to the study circle process of action-oriented dialogues that bring together a wide variety of people. The event brimmed with energy and allowed everyone to get a taste of a study circle session.

After the catered meal, we began by looking at a video which depicted the disparities between races in everyday life. Then we had more than 40 facilitators, each speaking with groups of 10 to 12 people each at separate tables. Everyone openly and honestly discussed the video along with their perceptions of race in Jacksonville.

At the end of the evening we had closing thoughts and a strong next-steps statement which motivated people to continue to learn about the study circle process and get more involved. Our director, Charlene Taylor Hill, summed up the event’s vision and sent everyone home with a sense of purpose. Many business, civic, and political leaders who normally would not be at this type of event were there. The biggest comments were that people now had a feeling of "hope" and that "the city has never had an event like this before.”

We are now moving forward and looking to capitalize on the success by launching more study circles, identifying potential facilitators, and establishing relationships with new coalition partners. Internally, we are moving forward in setting up our action Forums, planning a facilitator gathering to introduce Anthony Butler, the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission’s manager of education and community outreach, and establish a new focus. We are also looking to refine our coalition partner list and focus on a more specific aspect of the racial equity issue as it pertains to a particular social ill in our city. All in all we are excited about where we are and eager to move to the next step: focused action.

Lisa Stafslien works for the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission, one of nine programs taking part in Everyday Democracy’s Communities Creating Racial Equity initiative. Contact her here.

If your community would like to post a report of its organizing work here at DemocracySpace, please contact blog manager Julie Fanselow. 

'We' got game - or do we?

It was a big weekend for sports fans. The NBA and Stanley Cup hockey playoffs are in full swing, the NFL draft captivated football devotees, and the 2008 baseball season is hitting its stride. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts wrote late last week how sports have "a singular ability  ... to make people say 'we.'" He continued:

It happens much less often in other areas of civic life. No one says ''we'' when they talk about homelessness or hunger, no ''our'' enters the discussion of fatherless families or abortion rights, ''us'' is a stranger to the debate over failing schools and crime. Those conversations are framed by words like ''them'' and "they.''

I have no bone to pick with sports. Still, I find myself thinking a healthier society would find common cause beyond the ball field and the basketball court, would regard working toward great and ambitious goals as a civic obligation.

He pointed to the Civil War, the Depression, the War on Poverty, and even the Apollo space program as examples of times when our nation has come together to work for the greater good. But in recent decades, too many politicians and pundits have been short on vision and long on divisive rhetoric.

Yet the tide may be turning, Pitts suggests, as Barack Obama "has been able to build a political movement on a simple promise to bring people together" and John McCain "has lately been calling people to ''sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself.'" Pitts ends his column by asking us to remember the first three words in our Constitution: We, the People. (Read the whole column here.)

Anyone who could have lurked on our Communities Creating Racial Equity Learning Exchange last week would know that all across the United States, "we" remains the operative word for activists who are intent on being sure that everyone within their communities has the chance to speak out, to take action, and to be part of building communities that thrive. (I've posted notes from the introductory session at our wiki so you can easily see just a taste of the tremendous work they're doing.)

And there are hundreds of other communities getting in the game, too. Whether your city (or even your neighborhood) is ready to work on racial equity, youth issues, or growth and sprawl, Everyday Democracy has tools to help you put points on the board. Look at our website to learn what others are doing and how you can get started.

'A Very Human Being'

In lieu of the Friday digest this week, here's a poem that Imam Abdur-Rahim Muhammad of Auburn, New York, wrote  - and recited by memory to us during the Communities Creating Racial Equity Learning Exchange this week:

A Very Human Being

I gave him just a passing glance -
His face and hair, his shirt and pants -
All covered in a split-second no more;
After all, I'd seen "his kind" before.

... But a spark in his eyes surprised me, and then
He opened his mouth, and surprised me again
For what came from him came to me unexpected;
Its echo, inside me, could not be rejected.

Experience deserted me, inside my brain went cold
Faced with a category that I couldn't pigeonhole;
"This one's not like the rest of them"; but even I was seeing
My stereotypes refused to bend - to fit a human being!

I started getting angry then, but really at myself;
My noble, lofty principles had fallen off their shelf
I had to reassess them, now confronted and adjusted,
For here - inside of my own mind - a bigot had been busted!

Life on other worlds may seem impossible to find,
But here on earth, to recognize a human heart and mind
Is harder still for those who think that just a certain kind
Of people qualify, with all the rest somewhere behind!

The sorry truth is this for those who claim to have priority:
Denying others' birthright bares their own inferiority!
To change this sorry state of mind, disguised as "the human condition"
And remake the world, in human form,
Is every single human being's mission!

Reactions? Post your thoughts here or send them via email to rightarm2000 at adelphia dot net.

 

What are you taking home?

The first Communities Creating Racial Equity Learning Exchange is winding down. Here are some photos of us all learning, sharing, and playing together (and there are more in the photo album at right). Go to the comments to add your reflections on the work you did here this week.

Day 2 @ the Learning Exchange

Everyday Democracy executive director Martha McCoy posted this in the comments at the end of Day 1 of the Communities Creating Racial Equity Learning Exchange:

We had a good day of sharing yesterday (as Julie's posts and comments of others capture)... today will be an exciting day of building on the energy and momentum we've begun.

Looking forward to another day of deep learning. Amazing to see the commitment to racial equity in the room.

This makes me think of the energy and diversity that will be at Everyday Democracy's national conference in June.... this is just a more intense, specifically oriented learning community here this week.

I plan to live blog in the comments throughout today, then we'll put up a photo gallery and "takeaway" thread later today or tomorrow for participants to record your top impressions and/or goals from this week's sharing. Your comments are welcome below this post, too.

And if Martha's comment about our national meeting (planned for June 12-14 in Denver) piques your interest, you can get more information here.

On to Day 2!

Welcome to the Learning Exchange

About 50 people have gathered in East Hartford, Connecticut, this week from around the country to join in the first of two Learning Exchanges for Communities Creating Racial Equity. Everyday Democracy executive director Martha McCoy (below) greeted us by saying that the program is "a step in a dream we've had for a long time."

Formerly known as the Study Circles Resource Center, Everyday Democracy began focusing on racism during the 1992 civil disturbances in Los Angeles after the Rodney King beating. But in the 16 years since then, America has changed the way we talk about racism, McCoy said.

Early discussions were driven by King's plaintive question, "Can't we all just get along?" At first, it was enough for tens of thousands of people to come together in communities nationwide to talk about racial differences. Eventually, however, communities - and SCRC - understood that real change had to come on the institutional and policy level. Today, Everyday Democracy helps lead the effort to turn community organizing and dialogue into substantive change.  "We're working on two of the leading edges in the country," McCoy said: racial equity and making democracy work better.

CCRE participating communities include South Sacramento County, California; New Haven and Stratford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland; Syracuse, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and Lynchburg, Virginia. Today at the conference, communities will tell their stories, discuss structural racism, and learn tools for evaluation and communication. Tomorrow, participants will look forward to the next six to 12 months of work, using markers of progress we'll identify this week (and backed by action grants that Everyday Democracy will award via generous funding from the Kellogg and Mott Foundations).

And along the way - via DemocracySpace, our website, and other tools - we'll share much of the communities' progress with you so that cities and towns beyond the initiative can take what we're learning and make it your own.

Friday digest-open thread 4/18/08

It's time to announce the spring selection for our Everyday Democracy Book Club. Join us here at Democracy Space at 1 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, May 15, as we'll meet with Everyday Democracy senior associate Matt Leighninger to discuss his book The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same. In the book, Matt - who also is executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium - tells how communities all across the nation are seeing how officials and citizens can work together to address pressing issues.

This will be a great opportunity to share stories of "shared governance" and learn from other communities (and Matt's considerable expertise). Order the book from your local bookstore or online, and be sure to mark your calendar for May 15. And if you missed our last book club with Frances Moore Lappé, you can read the transcript here.

Speaking of the DDC, thanks to Joe Goldman for his tip on this recent article on Politico.com, in which e-democracy advocate Steven Clift asked this timely question: “Isn’t it interesting that the best-designed government websites are those collecting your taxes, while the worst sites are those giving you a say on how your taxes are spent?” The article tells how many other governments are way beyond ours in offering the public a chance to comment on legislation, submit petitions, and more. For example, write authors Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifr, "In England, anyone can submit an e-petition directly on the 10 Downing Street website, and the most popular ones are featured on the site’s home page. More than 7 million people — one in 10 British citizens — have signed one of those petitions since the site’s launch in the fall of 2006."

Next week, Everyday Democracy will be holding the first of two Learning Exchanges for the nine communities involved in our Communities Creating Racial Equity initiative. Two important articles on this topic crossed our desks this week. Education Week had the bad but not unsurprising news that the academic achievement gap grows fastest for bright African-American children, particularly in schools with higher black populations, "where test scores are lower on average, teachers are less experienced, and high-achieving peers are harder to find."

Meanwhile, criminal injustice is in the spotlight in the current issue of the alumni magazine for Brown University, where economics professor Glenn Loury has been working to bring greater attention to the fact, as author Beth Schwartzapfel wrote, "that the number of black men incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails—a number wildly disproportionate to their representation in the general population—reflects the social dishonor to which African Americans are still subject today, a dishonor with roots in U.S. slavery." Click here to read "A Nation of Jailers."

The good news is that many communities are proactively deciding to address racial inequity, often with the help of resources from Everyday Democracy. If you caught yesterday's water cooler, you learned how Lynchburg, Virginia, successfully held the action forum for its first round of "Many Voices - One Community" dialogues on race and racism this week, and how activists from New Haven and Stratford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Syracuse, New York; and Memphis, Tennessee are being - and leading - the change they want to see in their communities.

Next week at DemocracySpace: We'll have news from communities walking the walk for Earth Day and two days of live blogging from the CCRE Learning Exchange. If you like what you read here, you can get it delivered right to your email box by subscribing via the link atop the right-hand side of the page.

Happy Passover to our Jewish readers!

Welcome to the water cooler (4/08)

Update ... click here for the easier-to-read, threaded version of this discussion.

Welcome to the water cooler, DemocracySpace’s series of virtual roundtables with interesting people who are doing citizen engagement work. I’m Julie Fanselow, online organizer for Everyday Democracy (formerly the Study Circles Resource Center) and your moderator for today’s session. Our topic today is how local activists are working to create greater racial equity in communities across the nation.

Here's how today's live blog will work: We have a series of questions (posted yesterday) that I'll ask starting at 1 p.m. Eastern to guide our discussion. To see them, click on the word "comments" below this post.

To answer the question or make a comment, look for the phrase "POST A COMMENT." Below it, insert your name (real names, please); email address (it will not be visible online); and, if you like, the URL of your organization or program’s website. Write your question or comment in the box, then click “post.” In addition to my questions, feel free to ask a question of your own, or share other information on how your community is working to dismantle racism.

Please note: You will need to refresh your browser periodically to see the latest questions and comments that have been posted and answered. If traffic gets heavy, you may be asked to verify your comment with a "captcha check," or typing in a string of letters.

We'll post a rethreaded, easier-to-read version of this live blog at our wiki within 24 hours. (You can read past water cooler discussions there, too.)

We'll blog live here until 2 p.m. Eastern. Thank you for your good work and for taking part in this discussion! And please visit DemocracySpace regularly for more news that will help you engage growing numbers of diverse people to create positive community change. (You can have each day's post - usually just one each weekday - emailed to you via the "subscribe" box in the upper right-hand corner of the blog.)