DemocracySpace.org

Friday vignettes

The national meeting is now in full swing. Here are some highlights from our morning workshops and the lunchtime program:

• At "Taking the Lead: Young People Organizing Dialogue for Action," graduating seniors Joe Altal of Waterford Union High School in Wisconsin and Omari James of Sherwood High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, shared their personal stories, while activists Amina Makhdoom and Tessa Garcia McEwen described their own journeys toward working for diversity. Participants in this workshop kicked off the event with a "Speed Dating" exercise during which everyone got about one minute to talk with someone else about each of these topics "Describe your community," "Does race and ethnicity play a role in your everyday life? How?", "What do you hope to learn at this workshop?" and "McCain or Obama? Why?"

• This quote from Judith H. Katz was projected behind the speakers at the "Why Addressing Racism is Key to Making Progress on Other Issues" panel: "Unless we can imagine a world without oppression, we can't create one ..." During the session, Beth Broadway of the Community Wide Dialogue to End Racism in Syracuse told of a yearlong dialogue (held once a month) pairing Italian-Americans with recently arrived Southeast Asian immigrants. At the very first meeting, an Italian-American leader asked this as the very first question: "How come you people are coming in here and taking over our neighborhood?" But after a year of talking with one another and realizing that both groups had come to the United States to flee political oppression, they planted a peace garden together and take part in one another's social events. The year of dialogues "changed everything," Beth said.

• Derek Okubo, vice president of the National Civic League, helped pay tribute to his former boss, the late John Parr, who led the NCL from 1985 to 1995 and who later founded the organization Civic Results. Derek described John as a dedicated mentor, a person of great humor, and someone who was fiercely intelligent but who didn't flaunt his smarts. He noted how John always seemed to have complete command over the seemingly chaotic stacks of papers in his office, and over his wide interests in everything from sports to politics to tractor repair. When Parr first talked about increasing public involvement in government 30 years ago, the notion seemed crazy - but now, it's well accepted. "The best way to honor John is to recognize that the wealth of the communities we serve is greater than us," he said.

• The Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center accepted its $1,000 prize for Everyday Democracy's Making Every Voice Matter video contest. (See their video here.) Amy Tompkins of the INRC noted that they'll use the prize money to buy digital photography and videography equipment to encourage even more storytelling in their neighborhoods - a project that's already been launched among youth in the city's Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.

Talk about 'The Visitor'

Today marks the opening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, destined to be one of this summer's blockbuster movies. Sometimes, you just want to see a fun movie, and Indy always delivers. But many of us also like movies that challenge and expand our ways of seeing the world. The Visitor is such a film, and its filmmakers are actively encouraging people to talk about it.

Made by the same folks whose previous films include The Station Agent and Sideways, The Visitor is the story of Walter Vale, a 62-year-old economics professor who is essentially sleepwalking through life until he meets a young immigrant couple living in New York City - living, in fact, in his long-neglected apartment. Walter lets the couple - Tarek, from Syria, and Zainab, from Senegal - stay with him while they look for another apartment, and they become friends.

The Visitor is really two stories in one as it traces the professor's midlife reawakening and examines the human consequences of the U.S. practice of detaining and deporting immigrants without due process. According to a fact sheet accompanying the film, about 283,000 detained immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are held annually in more than 400 detention centers and prisons at a taxpayer cost of about $95 per detainee each day - even though the overwhelming majority pose no threats to our communities.

The Visitor offers no easy answers. It admits that people can do the wrong thing: sometimes without knowing, often because, as one character says in the film, "After a while, you forget and you feel like you belong." It shows how people become dehumanized, and rehumanized. Its ending projects the possibility of future happiness for at least one character, yet it also leaves hanging the idea that people often face uncertain futures, sometimes in countries that have proven hostile to their families and loved ones.

Because the film lends itself to conversation, its producers have taken a cue from book clubs to provide discussion guides for people who want to watch the film in a group and discuss it afterward. The hope is that many people will also go on to take part June 19 in a "Night of 1,000 Conversations" to talk about due process and human rights protections for everyone living in America, whether here legally or not, and seek reform from the Department of Homeland Security to assure these rights. As one participant quoted at the Rights Working Group website notes, "These are basic human rights. You don't have these rights because you're a citizen. You have these rights because you were born."

Have you seen The Visitor? What did you think? I've posted all the discussion guide questions in the comments below. Please share your thoughts now if you've seen the movie - and if you haven't, think about catching it over the long holiday weekend, then contributing your ideas below.

Friday digest-open thread 5/2/08

Have you registered yet for "Making Every Voice Matter," Everyday Democracy's National Meeting, set for June 12-14 in Denver? There are only 10 days left to get the early-bird rate, good through May 12. (Until then, individual registration is $200; afterward, it's $230.) Team, youth, and single-day discounts are available. Registration includes meals, workshops, and a fabulous Friday-night Civic Fair. Click here to get much more information, and here to check out the preliminary conference program. We hope to see you in Denver!

Last Friday, three New York City police officers were acquitted of all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, an unarmed man who was killed in November 2006 in an incident in which the police fired 50 bullets. As seen on our website, New York Faith & Justice - a diverse group of churches, faith organizations, and individuals dedicated to addressing poverty-related injustice - called this week for NYPD  Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to endorse the Conversations for Change project and mount a city-wide truth commission on police-related violence. The Conversations for Change aim to bring together citizens and police officers, using discussion guides developed by Everyday Democracy (formerly the Study Circles Resource Center). Pilot circles have taken place, and the project will culminate in a five-week community-wide series of up to 50 small group conversations between police and members of their communities this fall. Click here to learn more about New York Faith & Justice and here to see Everyday Democracy's tools for forging better police-community relations.

Our friends at Movement Vision Lab have gotten into the podcasting game, with portable interviews of leaders like Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union, Gabe Gonzalez from the Center for Community Change, Burt Lauderdale of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and Emira Palacios of Sunflower Community Action in Kansas. You can access individual interviews or - better yet - subscribe to the podcasts via the link to iTunes from this page.

This week marked the fifth anniversary of President George W. Bush's declaration that major combat operations had ended in Iraq, and yet the war continues with no end in sight. As seen on the NCDD website, an organization called Vets4Vets is offering free weekend workshops all over the country where returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have a chance to share their stories and set up peer groups for continued support and conversation. More than 500 Iraq-Afghanistan veterans have taken part in 22 weekend workshops over the past two years, and local groups are meeting in eight cities across the U.S. with more forming every month. For more info, check out Vets4Vets' website.

What have you been working on this week? What's ahead? Share your comments below.

'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.

 

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!

Spitzer: What will we learn?

Most of the commentary about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's fall from power has centered around why the crusading politician chose to jeopardize his career for repeated high-priced sex, and the angst suffered by people who thought Spitzer truly was a different breed of leader. In his syndicated column, Leonard Pitts writes:

... I know there's nothing new about hypocrisy. There is, however, something new about this era of cellphone cameras, 24/7 news cycles, YouTube, diminished privacy and intrusive journalism. You'd think a smart man (that's not an oxymoron, right?) would realize this and adjust accordingly. ... Instead, with an arrogance that beggars description, with a hubris that blots the sun, they try to game the system. And when it catches up with them, they don't even bear the greatest cost. No, that's borne by wives who must stand, dead-eyed and humiliated, by their sides through the ritual of apology, by children who must go to school the day after, by constituents who believed and now see that belief betrayed.

Do you know how hard it is to believe? To overcome cynicism and inertia and place fragile trust in the hands of someone who claims to represent values higher than expedience and self? Do you have any idea how much a fool you feel to see that belief, tenderly given, callously trampled? Do you know how much less likely you are ever to give belief again? And finally, do you know how much it damages us, the larger us, when faith is calcified by cynicism? When we become unable to believe?

Writing at his blog, Rich Harwood of The Harwood Institute takes a different tack - that perhaps the lesson we can learn from Spitzer is that we ought not make our all-too-human politicians bear the mantle of leadership alone. He says:

... the Spitzer saga makes me think about notions of "imperfection."  I often think that in our desire to ascribe mythic qualities to leaders, we forget -- indeed, I think we actually seek to deny -- the reality that we all, including our leaders, are imperfect. ... Looking at Eliot Spitzer's career, I am in awe of the courage he exercised in taking on so many battles. He clearly put a stake in the ground about what he valued and he stepped forward time and again, against great odds, to pursue his aspirations. Anyone who seeks real change will be required to step forward in some way. But I am also reminded that as we act courageously we must exercise humility: that we alone cannot change the world, but that we can play a role; that in our victories we must never take more credit than is due, nor gloat in the defeat of others; and in our attempts to create change, we must know there will be times when we are wrong.

Harwood closes with a personal anecdote about how disappointed officials of a foundation lamented that he couldn't "fix" a town. He replied, "Of course, I didn’t. No one individual can. It will be the people of this community, together, who will put this town back on a better course."

Dare we hope that this will be the real lesson of Eliot Spitzer's fall: that we will get more done - and be infinitely less disappointed in our elected officials - if we can broaden the base of leadership in our communities, states, and nation?

Friday digest-open thread 1/11/08

So it looks like we may finally get the real national conversation on race that many Americans have been seeking for decades. In the wake of Barack Obama's rise as the first African-American presidential candidate to win the Iowa Caucus, news reports, blogs, and coffee shops are abuzz with his success and what it might mean for broader racial - and perhaps generational - politics in our nation. But in an essay in the current issue of Newsweek, Ellis Cose writes:

All the celebrating notwithstanding, Obama is still a long way from wrapping up the nomination, much less the election. For all his allusions to harmony and change, he has not yet demonstrated that we have ceased to be "a collection of Red States and Blue States," as he put it, but are one, united America. Indeed, in the end, the messages of change and unity may find themselves in conflict. For as beautiful as the dream of one America may be, the reality is of a country where income disparities are growing, not narrowing, and where the very privileged have less and less in common with those who are constantly struggling. Two generations after the major rights were fought and won, we are still a nation whose inner cities and barrios are full of people with no real sense of a better tomorrow. In an era when incarceration is seen, in certain neighborhoods, as the nearly inevitable fate of young men, talk of one, united, bighearted America can seem like something of a joke. Their problems will not be solved, nor their outlook notably changed, simply because America elects a new president—even one who is young, attractive, black and runs on a platform of national unity.

Against this backdrop of hope mixed with realism, the Study Circles Resource Center - soon to be renamed Everyday Democracy - is pleased to announce a new  Communities Creating Racial Equity initiative. As seen on the SCRC website, eight communities will embark with us on a process "aimed at helping communities create and sustain public engagement and community change on issues around racial equity." The communities include Stratford, Connecticut; Syracuse, New York; Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland; Lynchburg, Virginia; Burlington, Vermont; Jacksonville, Florida; Sacramento, California; and New Haven, Connecticut. Read more here.

Meanwhile, back on the campaign beat, Rich Harwood of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation has advice for all the presidential candidates:

Now, the presidential candidates have discovered that "hope" is the coin of realm and that "change" is required. Campaigns have a way of dressing up ideas, proposals, and new directions in language and packaging that can appear to be citizen-centered and community-driven, but in reality remain very much about Washington and politicians and policies that touch the edges of change. But such words, and even the deeds that may follow, will only transform America if we're called upon to step forward to bring about new conditions in our communities, to tackle tough issues such as entitlements, or to pursue policy initiatives that inevitably will require serious trade-offs and sacrifices.

Read more here, and also consider downloading a print or audio copy of Rich's new essay, Make Hope Real.

In other news:

The community of Cortlandt, New York, is forming a diversity task force and plans community dialogues and outreach programs following a cross-burning at the home of a black family last November. Organizer the Rev. Adolphus Lacey of Mount Olivet Baptist Church in nearby Peekskill told the local media that the cross-burning "revealed an underbelly of underlying intolerance we want to deal with."

Climate dialogues have been launched in Port Townsend, Washington, and in other Puget Sound-area communities. Phil Mitchell, director of the Greater Seattle Climate Dialogues, describes the dialogues as "a grassroots, science-based process that aims to bring the whole community into this crucial conversation."

UU Allies for Racial Equity, building an anti-racism movement among Unitarian Universalists, will hold their annual conference February 1-3 in Memphis, Tennessee. The multigenerational gathering is for whites who share a goal of learning to work to end racism and being allies to people of color. Click here for more info and registration details.

Please add your comments on these stories below. And if you have a news tip or see a timely piece of commentary for the weekly digest, email it to us with the relevant links.

Ossining minds the gap

The December issue of The American Prospect has an article on how New York's Ossining High School helps African-American male students enjoy the benefits of both a racially integrated school and segregated enrichment activities. Dana Goldstein writes:

At their Wednesday afternoon meetings, the Earthquakers discuss topics ranging from responsible fatherhood to interracial dating to long-term career planning. They fill out worksheets in which they're asked to imagine adult lives as intellectuals, entrepreneurs, artists, and family providers. If a student walks into the meeting late, he immediately drops to the floor, unasked, and does 15 push-ups.

Some people are saying Earthquake is a cult," laughs sophomore Jamal Rodney. "I was never really a good student in eighth grade, but in ninth grade, everything turned around. I joined Earthquake, and now I'm making the high honor roll. I got chosen to be in the National Honor Society." He and the other club members proudly say that last year, all but one of Project Earthquake's seniors graduated and headed on to higher education.

The article also describes other ways in which Ossining has innovated to promote integration. In the 1970s, the district redrew its elementary school boundaries to minimize resegregation that was taking place due to housing patterns. In the 1980s, the district tweaked its elementary assignments again to have all kindergartners and first graders go to one school, all second and third graders attend another, and all fourth and fifth graders at a third. Goldstein writes:

When the former superintendent suggested last spring that the district consider moving back to K-5 elementary schools, in part because studies show that transitions from school to school can depress some students' achievement, the public outcry was enormous, mostly due to fears of re-segregation. 'I think there's a feeling in the community that the Ossining Plan is sacrosanct, that it's one of those things you just don't touch," explains Superintendent (Phyllis) Glassman.

But as Goldstein notes, Ossining is an anamoly in a nation where resegregation is on the rise and where the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year against public school programs that categorize students by race. The entire article is a fascinating look at a community that's shown a continued commitment to closing the achievement gap. Read it all here.

The Study Circles Resource Center, soon to be renamed Everyday Democracy, can help communities ensure that every student has the opportunity to succeed in school. Click here to learn more.