Recap for November 4, 2007

Good morning, everyone. We went around with introductions, and welcomed two first-time people.

Next week we will consider a document about our vision and mission [attached below].

This morning we heard Steve’s story. Much of the ensuing conversations focused on the ways people get involved with movements.

We welcomed Bernie Kleina, exec dir of the Hope Fair Housing Center, in Wheaton, Ill. [See their web page here]. An introduction to some of his photographs on display can be read here. [You can read more about Bernie here.]. He shared with us a video about a law professor, tenured faculty at the University of Richmond, an African American woman, who was recently denied rental housing based on color. Her story described the consequences of the personal insult of housing discrimination. “It is not just something that happens, and you get used to it after a while. Who should get used to being degraded? Who should have to get used to that?”

Bernie got involved in civil rights after watching marchers beaten in Alabama, and realized he could not just do nothing. His first visit to Alabama (in which he was arrested for parading without a license, in a party of five—that and black people walking together constituted a parade in those days) helped him realize that discrimination is not a Southern issue—it is for all of us.

He now has a display of photographs traveling the country that describes the situation in Chicago, which is as segregated as ever. [The exhibit is entitled [The Chicago Freedom Movement — Remember Why You're Here, Brother.] Part of the story is about how basic discrimination is still rife—he told a story of lunch counter discrimination. His group has sent out groups of testers, to see if various merchants and public facilities treat people the same regardless of color. One of the things the testers show us is that apparently good treatment at stores is revealed as something else—such as an African American who felt like he was being treated well at a jeweler, but the comparison pointed out that whites were shown several watches at a time, instead of one. Or how polite treatment by potential landlords masks outcomes starkly marked by color.

He quoted another M. L. King Jr. speech, “When the guns of war become a national obsession” that something happens to conscience—it becomes mutilated and deaf to justice. [See King’s most famous speech on Vietnam here, and another of his speeches on the war here].

The task now: Enforce the law. Keep sending out the message that all of us are protected by fair housing laws. And we need to keep working at the obvious inequities, such as in education, that produce very different starting places for people.

We were introduced to a four-page document describing our values, mission and activities. Well, we were going to go into it (at 5 minutes to 12 we had not yet presented it). But Dexter introduced the discussion with an additional topic that emerged out of the last few weeks’ discussion of our values/mission document: What is Whiteness? This was the topic of a lecture he presented at UPS, and at a recent conference. Whiteness is a “discursive formation,” an idea that is widespread—in knowledge, the ways people think we should act, actual practices of the way we live. Historically, whiteness has been framed as an essential part of being American. He shared some quotes from Hector St. John, do Crevecoeur, the third of his Letters from an American Farmer, 1782. American identity is a mixture of white national origins from northern Europe. The melting pot metaphor meant melting Swedes and Germans and English. At the time Crevecoeur was writing, the population of the United States was about 16 or 17% African origins (the slave trade went on for another quarter century). Part of whiteness is to render nonwhites as invisible. We discussed some of the implications of who the Census historically decided to count—some people are missing from those old figures, for reasons (such as trying to exterminate a people). A similar issue arises with regards to crime statistics—the reported figures are a product of a place where whiteness is the norm—so white on white crimes are underreported.

The first black newsletters in the United States, in about 1827, proclaimed that for too long others have spoken for black folks, and that the description of racism need to come from the voices of those not yet heard. More recently, one of the points made by black scholars was that Europeans would be surprised to hear how many people are not part of the white European peoples, and not Christian, either.

One target of the concept of whiteness is to “de-center” it—being white is offered as the default category, as being Normal. And as heard from Bernie this morning, and as several Conversation members have said before, pretty much all white people have to learn they are white. It is not apparent in the general culture, and it is an idea that is warred upon in most social circles. [A discussion of whiteness is appended to the end of these minutes.]

Winthrop Jordan, in his book White over Black (Norton, available as a paperback book—he also wrote The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States.), has traced the origins of whiteness as a concept back to the early 16th century. Whiteness was framed as laudable and glorious, and blackness was framed as base and corrupt. As successive groups came to the USA, they worked to become acceptable—to become white (Irish, Jews, Italians, etc., were not regarded as white). There was one group that could not adjust.
Members of the Conversation brought up several points about the concept of whiteness and its uses, and interpretations. One example that came up—why are crime statistics reported by race? Why not do it by religion (how many crimes committed by Presbyterians?)? Another example—of white America learning to see blackness as a threat, as in the case of a Michigan university that was 70% white but whose white students believed it was 70% black. We also mentioned a couple of times how science, social science, and media are brought into the service of justifying whiteness. Media treatment of whiteness is instrumental in transmitting the ideas—the genre of the Western, for example. We discussed, for a while, the historical construction of whiteness back in the 16th through 19th centuries, such as in the treatment of the native peoples here, the use of biblical interpretation to provide a justification of whiteness as normal. Several people gave examples of treatments of native peoples, such as stories presented in the book 500 nations.

One teacher described how, in her classroom, she had students draw a timeline of the peoples here in North America, over the last 30,000 or so years, which highlights how recently were whites here, how many of the changes that constructed the present situation occurred a very short time ago, as a way of getting at the way we have constructed the present as normal.

One person introduced the idea of what the world would be like, if there were only 100 people in it, but in the same mix as at present. A graphical presentation of that is here, and a text presentation is here.

Another person reported that she hears, over and over again, that here in Pierce County there are no real problems of racism. “Why do you always go on about it?” She described whiteness as similar to a cancer, affecting the whole society and easting away at us at so many levels.

One person attended a Diabetic Association conference yesterday at Stadium High School, and one of the presentations highlighted how the diversity of Pierce County is increasing—and so is the spread of diabetes. This was linked to the gentrification of the Hilltop area—mostly a white phenomenon—and how this distracts attention from the ways poverty is linked to diabetes, and affects so many nonwhite peoples disproportionately.

Does multiplication of diversity, do differences, have us press toward the middle—the middle being white, protestant, and so on? Criticisms of African-Americans for keeping the hyphen are signs of whiteness in action: why can’t you people be like the middle? When we press towards common cultural standards, which ones are we going to use? The standard is whiteness. One example ended with a question--You smell any culture you walk into—the food, the spices, are different—but, what does one say about the difference?

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A discussion of whiteness, by a member of the Conversation.

What does it mean to use the concept of white privilege, or whiteness? At one level, it means the set of advantages that accrue to whites simply by virtue of their color (historical ones, such as labor laws that excluded predominantly black occupations, programs to promote home ownership or college attendance that accrued predominantly to whites, or present ones, such as the way people are treated at automobile dealerships). The advantaged group regards its position as the social norm, so that the holders of privileges do not recognize them as such.

This entails a power to name and define issues, such as the way the affirmative action debate is framed. For example, in the recent case of the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies, the President and the media almost exclusively focused on the University’s bias in awarding black applicants twenty points (out of one hundred and fifty) based on race. There were other point bonuses that were seldom mentioned. Applicants from Michigan’s upper peninsula area, which is almost exclusively white, received sixteen points. Poor applicants receive twenty points—but the twenty points were not added if the applicant already received the points based on race. Ten points were given to students from top ranked high schools, and another ten for students who took several Advanced Placement courses, and four points if one’s parents attended the University—categories overwhelmingly of white applicants. Whites who scored on all of these categories would receive fifty-eight points, but little was said about this in the public debate. Whiteness is the default category, and goes largely unexamined.
Non-whiteness is defined as the Other, and is suspect if any privilege accrues to it.

Can we admit white privilege exists? The concept is a staple of critical race theory, critical legal studies, and similar academic fields, but it has not penetrated mainstream social science or popular political dialog. One very valuable insight from these fields is apparent from their methodology. Critical race theory, in particular, employs a lot of narrative. This tends to focus on the experience of people who have experienced discrimination. Most accounts of justice in mainstream political theory, by contrast, treat such perspectives in a formal fashion, if at all. So part of systematic ignorance is the methodologies that encourage abstraction as if that covered relevant perspectives, when it clearly does not.

How do we see privilege? What period do we examine? Why not start when I was born? Why not start when my mother was born? Do we want to include a period that will tally the benefits accrued from the 1862 Homestead Act? My family benefited from it, black families did not. Do we want to include a period that will include the benefits accrued from grants of land in the mid-17th century? My family benefited from some of those. Or, what about benefits from the relatively open immigration policies of the mid-19th century? How do these make a difference? My mother’s family was able to take money from these sources out of Massachusetts, and use it to build wealth in cattle and banking in Kansas. They lost most of it in the Depression, but the kids, including my grandfather, went to prep schools and to college. They also had a restaurant and a big house that provided their income and a home during the Depression, and they were in a fairly good position when the economy got better. They could send their surviving child, my mother, to a private college. There she met my dad, whose family had similar wealth that they did not lose during the Depression (although his grandmother gave it all away to the Methodist church). After WWII my dad went to college and got a Stanford MBA, courtesy of the GI Bill. I grew up in a nice home on a ranch my parents bought with a GI Bill loan at less than 6% interest. So there was no question about whether I would go to college, and the professional world was open to me. All I had to do was study and avoid jail. I went through college when public support for education was at its all-time high. A half-time minimum wage job would pay for college and the cheapest apartment in Seattle’s university district. Graduate school was financed completely on scholarships. When I finished school I had no debts. My kids all had the expectation of going to college, and could afford it without too much in loans. These benefits accrued to living persons, people I knew. This is a story not untypical for white families, but very rare for black families.

The important thing to notice here is the role of government policies. New Deal policies of the 1930s that helped workers (such as rights to form unions, minimum wage, and relief to the unemployed) required the support of Southern Democrats, who were able to exclude agricultural and domestic workers from coverage under the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Local administration of relief programs allowed exclusion where racial segregation was the norm. In the South, white privilege grew stronger because of the New Deal. These programs helped make covered workers much better off—while excluded workers were left behind.

The GI Bill opened educational opportunities after WWII, but these went overwhelmingly to whites, in large part because the armed services, colleges and universities practiced segregation. GI Bill home and small business loans, which expanded home and business ownership, operated through lending institutions that discriminated and redlined. The effects of this were bigger than individual decisions about where to live, although those choices were probably influential in Northern Democrat lawmakers’ role in policies.

The major results of these policies are seen in wealth. Average income of black households is about 2/3 that of white household; but average wealth of black households is about 1/10 that of white households. Over 70% of white households own their home, about 25% of black households own their homes, worth about 60% as much as those of white households.

During the lifetime of people I have known, these and similar programs helped white families get ahead in life. The advantages were not available to black families.

(The following are footnotes for the above article, but this blog does not allow for their formatting. I've included them here, though they are not properly identified with the sections which they reference.)

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1. One of the most extensive discussions of white privilege is Stephanie M. Wildman, et.al., Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America (NY: New York University Press, 1996), with a definition at p.13. A concise description of white privilege is found in Barbara J. Flagg, “Whiteness as Metaprivilege,” 18 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 1(2005) pp. 1-12. James Baldwin used the concept in several ways. See his ”On Being White…and Other Lies,” Essence April, 1984, and The Fire Next Time (NY: The Dial Press, 1963), where he argues, for example, that whites expend a lot of energy in order to not be judged by blacks. See also Wells, Revilla and Holme, Op.Cit.; Wildman, 2005.
2. GRATZ V. BOLLINGER (02-516) 539 U.S. 244 (2003).
3.The examples are from Tim Wise, Whites Swim in Racial Preference, Posted on http://www.alternet.org/story/15223/, February 20, 2003.
4. On the failure of the concept to penetrate mainstream political dialog, see Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy 5. This point is made by Devon W. Carbado and Mitu Gulati, BOOK REVIEW: The Law and Economics of Critical Race Theory: Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory. 112 Yale L.J. (May, 2003) 1757.
6. See, for example, Ian Shapiro, Democratic Justice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). The book is an excellent demonstration of the strength of a democratic understanding of justice, and is at the same time systematic and tied to concrete examples in our politics. Yet it pays virtually no attention to the justice issues connected to the color line. I use it as an example here because it is among the very best recent books in political theory.
7. These examples are suggested in George M. Fredrickson, “Still Separate & Unequal,” a review of Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (NY: Norton, 2005), The New York Review of Books, Volume 52, (November 17, 2005) Number 18.

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DRAFT

The Conversation Tacoma

Values and Mission

The Conversation is a group of South Sound residents committed to building just communities. We promote social justice through talk and action. We strive to be one of the just, open, compassionate communities we are working to establish in Tacoma and beyond. The Conversation is a family, an affinity group, a think tank, and a safe house. We work to envision and procure a better world.

Two questions guide our work together: The first is philosophical: what is the meaning of our lives – our relationship to each other, the world, the universe? The second is practical and pragmatic: What are our immediate socio-political responsibilities and how do we fulfill them in a world burdened by bigotry, mistrust, and suffering?

Goals and Process

At the Conversation’s weekly gatherings, we engage with issues, values, tasks, and one another. In order to sustain genuine engagement over the long term, Conversation participants engage in four processes:

We talk purposefully and listen respectfully: share life stories; generate ideas and strategies; learn across difference; seek guidance and renewal from activists, artists, teachers, scholars, wisdom texts, and faith traditions; study root causes of social injustice; learn about peace and justice initiatives.

We take action: create social justice programs for the community; join local struggles for equity and peace; produce venues for artistic expression; support one another’s programs and performances, as participants and as audience.

We provide sustenance: establish a safe place to explore issues misrepresented or shrouded in silence elsewhere; find our voices; nurture social activists; renew our courage; strengthen bonds of friendship and trust.

We seek transformation: recognize and challenge our biases; acknowledge our limits and then go beyond them; align our actions and words with our deepest commitments; develop our resilience, power, and capacity for change; celebrate our achievements.

Talk and Action

Our talk and our action emerge from the interests and expertise of those who attend weekly Conversation meetings. There we engage critically with such issues as the legal system, wages, housing, food, healthcare and education. We also take action through programming and advocacy work in three areas: 1) Education; 2) The Arts; 3) Peace and Social Justice. Like the Conversation itself, all of our activities are open to South Sound residents of every race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, religion, and sexual orientation.

Since it’s inception in January 2006, the Conversation has envisioned, initiated, and brought to fruition:

1) Education
Conversation members have created Tacoma Conversation Education, an interest group meeting bi-weekly to scrutinize Tacoma public education policies, advocate for policy and curricular change, and address the achievement gap through on-going interactions and debate with the Tacoma School Board and local officials. This group will continue to seek equity in education for all Tacoma children through grass-roots involvement in policy change.

2) The Arts
Conversation members produced SoJust 2007, a one day program to promote justice through art, music, and dance, to conduct a food and coat drive for Tacoma children in need, and to share information with the local community on how to make change. This program will be continued as an annual local event.

3) Peace and Social Justice
Conversation members produced “Redeeming the Vision,” an annual program to celebrate Martin Luther King’s prophetic vision and to educate the community regarding the full depth and significance of his liberatory message. This celebration will be continued as an annual Tacoma event.

The Conversation also actively supports local initiatives that coincide with our vision and have been created or actively supported by Conversation members:

1) Education
The on-going initiative on education and the color line emerging from the 2006 Race and Pedagogy Conference and the 2007 Race and Pedagogy Summit

2) The Arts
Attend and promote The New Orleans Monologues

3) Peace and social justice
Participate in and attend United for Peace of Pierce County debates on the Iraq war

Envisioning a Future

To envision a future, we address philosophical and practical dimensions of our work. To respond to the philosophical question -- what is the meaning of our lives, our relationship to each other, the world, the universe? -- we need to develop further in these directions:

Deepen our knowledge of African American history, the history of marginalized groups, and the processes of marginalization

Learn more from one another and from our various cultural perspectives

Deepen our encounters with faith traditions and wisdom texts so that they inform our work and our relationships

Practice forms of challenging one another that allow us to address the hard questions while keeping our bonds of friendship and trust intact

Give each person opportunities to lead, to develop cultural competence, to become more ideologically flexible, more resilient, better prepared for hostilities we encounter elsewhere, better able to work with fear and overcome voicelessness

To address the practical question -- What are our immediate socio-political responsibilities and how do we fulfill them?– we need to sustain our current commitments but also expand beyond them by acting creatively in these areas:

Develop more programming for children and youth at the Conversation and in the community—such as monthly classes (on hip-hop; on artist as change agent, etc.)

Develop more programming for children at the Conversation and in the community, such as visual or written arts programming

Increase our presence in the community, at elections, in schools, at School board meetings, at city council, at anti-war rallies

Serve as a community resource on racial justice: provide programming that engages people in the journey to justice through anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anticlassist practices

Become more intergenerational, more diverse, more supportive

Develop multiple levels of leadership

Grow our volunteer base

Connect with our community through joint programming

Help families and neighborhoods become centers of social justice
Enacting Our Vision

At the Conversation, talk is action because it provides us with momentum and direction for wise action. Action is talk because our actions communicate our values and commitments, our vision for a better world. When we enact our vision, we serve others, and we develop our own resources, physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual.

Our action focus for 2008:

Plan carefully for service and social action

Organize SoJust 2008

Organize Redeeming the Vision 2009

Extend the influence of Tacoma Education Conversation on public education policy

Sponsor a 2008 youth summit

Identify and develop new leaders for the Conversation and the South Sound

Establish a weekly or monthly Conversation youth group that meets in the afternoon

Create a partnership with Lincoln High School or with a classroom there, working with students, teachers, families

Develop a ten-year plan for the Conversation

Increase the Conversation’s education about racism

Prepare a capital campaign

Grow average attendance to 50 by October 2008

Read a text together that speaks to our work and sustains our direction perhaps inviting the community at large to join us

Our Long term focus:

Establish a fully developed program of activities to serve our entire community

Increase regular attendance from 25-30 to 70-75

Increase our multi-cultural diversity

Adapt our schedule to balance whole group meetings with smaller action group meetings

History

Program

Leadership

Membership

Financing

Recap for October 28, 2007

In announcements the education group described recent developments—the question of whether the School Board will go forward with a Superintendent Search is still in the air; links are developing with other Tacoma; and Members are invited to stay tuned into the education group and come to meetings—all are welcome. A reminder: the Education group keeps track of many of its efforts at a website, HERE

This morning we heard BJ’s story. Members mentioned their appreciation of her story telling talents.

We discussed components of identity—groups label individuals in ways that places them as Other, as above and below. Members appreciate examples of drawing strength from the experience. This is no small feat. The entire western philosophical tradition can be seen as a search for autonomy—but some people subjected to the ridicule of their communities figure it out. One example—valuing connections with other women, while at the same time wanting all of them to be independent. And, Conversation members were rapt at an example of a young kid coming up with real wisdom during a difficult exchange.

We are reminded that none of us are perfect—it is good when we do the best we can, and when we can’t do something, we link up with someone who can. As kids we often get told things that are understood to mean we are somehow short of a standard implied in the statement. This is part of life, and we grownups should be aware of how we talk to kids.

Someone asked about Baha’i during our discussions. The Wikipedia entry informs us that it was founded “by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia,” and that “(a)ccording to Bahá'í teachings, religious history has unfolded through a series of God's messengers who brought teachings suited for the capacity of the people at their time, and whose fundamental purpose is the same. Bahá'u'lláh is regarded as the most recent, but not final, in a line of messengers.” See more HERE.

One member appreciated the broad coverage of today’s discussion. We can get at racism, we also want to talk about homophobia, sexism, and other forms of objectification—speaking up against dehumanization is valuable.

A nationally organized antiwar rally occurred yesterday, in Seattle (from Judson park on 1st hill down to Occidental park, just South of downtown). Some Conversation members attended. A few thousand people showed up, and one feature was putting the war on trial. And, the mass media did virtually no coverage.

One member expressed disappointment that more young people are not involved in antiwar efforts. One connection here is that military recruiting is focused more on the urban inner city poor—anyone see the Army commercial about going into the military as how to be the man in the house?

Another member expressed concern that for many young folks, they are in such difficult situations that going to war appears as a reasonable alternative. Several made comments on this on related concerns, and what emerged was a picture of frustration at having too few opportunities to make a difference. And, us being a grassroots group, there were several exchanges on local groups doing things—United for Peace of Pierce County [see their vigil list HERE], Women In Black [the Tacoma group meets 2nd & 4th Wednesdays each month, 5:15-6:15 PM. in front of the federal courthouse (the old Union train station); the Gig Harbor group meets Every Friday, 5:00-6:00 PM, at the corner of Olympic and Fosdick (Safeway corner)] and others are there, people. You can give it an hour a week, if this matters.

One theme we kept coming back to has to do with why we keep coming to The Conversation. We don’t want to lay down and feel like no one can do anything. Pretty much everyone here is involved in something, and wants to keep involved, doing something. More than one shared stories of how years ago their main orientation was anger, and an impulse to destruction reaction to the things we talk about. This is a room full of hopeful people, and a hope that motivates us to action. And one thing we get from coming here is support for action.

One member said: “I know justice is hard work. It does not come just because you want it. Doing the hard work it is sometimes hard to see the change…. It is important to remind ourselves when that happens…. And it is not large numbers that make right, right… I can make this change, and I have the power to influence others to do right and be right. And you really must take courage from the successes that occur….”

One member said: “All of us are going to encounter fear. You must not let it overtake you.”

New Orleans Monologues is in two weeks (the 9th), at the University of Puget Sound. For the matinee at 2 on Saturday the 10th, about 35 kids need rides from Lincoln high schools to the play. Some kind of ride sharing, church buses, university vans, something can be done…..

Recap for October 21, 2007

A bit rainy, and barely fifty, we assembled at Evergreen in Tacoma.

This morning we heard Bernadette’s story.

Several strands of conversation looked at the construction of self in a land divided by color. One member said, “I wish kids didn’t have to explain themselves” for why they bring to schools their own sets of skills,” it would be good if they were each treated equally.

One focus of these discussions was about the toxicity of the color line in schools—for lots of kids, they are the only person of color in a room. It is vitally important that schools have enough teachers of color, for example. There are several dimensions to this toxicity—young kids who are constructing an identity in the midst of this, for example. We might construct little zones of comfort, but several Members believe the education system here is fundamentally flawed. Doing one program—such as supporting one classroom in one school, for example (see below)—does not distract Conversation members from continuing to work on the systemic problems—the biggest of which might be that we have a system that produces the loss of about three in ten of our kids.

One piece of an answer is to encourage kids to be teachers, to tell them it is the best job in the world. That might not be true every day, but looking at a larger picture, more teachers of color are needed, and have to be encouraged and nurtured.

A related issue came up. How do people in school administration and teachers see, understand the lower test scores among students of color? The members in the room bring a lot of experience in schools. Perceptions differ, to put it delicately. Answers often focus on poverty. There are remediation classes (a claim: research shows remediation does not improve test scores, but mandated remediation programs are the way we deal with it—and, students placed in them are taken out of classes such as music and art.), there are after school programs. But there is a strong consensus among teachers that the basics of classroom organization need to be remade. We know that school should begin at 9, given the physical being of those we call students, but it starts at 7:30 because the buses require it.

One important piece of parent involvement—at some schools, a good proportion of parents do not speak English, and perhaps don’t read much. Schools tend to be unwelcoming places for parents—finding the office, waiting, getting the passes, and so on. There are barriers.

One recurring strand of conversation was to compare the experience of students and teachers from a privileged background. Most privileged folks, as we have gone over many times in the Conversation, do not see it. One story illustrated how teachers can inadvertently accentuate the privilege: the teacher in a theater class asked the students to each announce what their parents did.

Teachers confronting the toxicity face burnout, and operate under these conditions for years. One method of coping is to find other kinds of activities to plug into the week.

How do you get kids to figure out what is valuable to them? This is a perennial struggle. There are lots of vehicles for getting kids to this. Some love sports, and stay in school so they can keep it up. Some are charged by art and theater, and put up with the rest of the classes as a way to be there.


The meta-conversation continues from last week.

We have heard a message from our teachers (which is the line of work most represented among those present), and the examples keep reiterating the same issues.

Perhaps it is time for The Conversation to adopt a classroom, or a school. The education people in the room are encouraged to come up with a design for how that might work. Might we be the ones that would organize things for the parents (some kind of orientation, for example). There are other ideas…. How about the educators here coming up with a plan, within a couple of weeks, that we can talk about? Perhaps the Conversation can sponsor however many students might come from Lincoln.

One Conversation member emphasized an important feature of education—getting parents involved. As volunteers, we can find out what parents need, and have a way to intervene in schools to make them more welcoming places for what parents need.

Another Member emphasized getting the kids involved at the leadership level—such as raising their voices before the school board.

A group of high school students were able to read The Students Are Watching, by Theodore Sizer. A blurb on the book says “Sizers point out that the students are often seen as the school's "clients," as its powerless peopleAthough the authors believe that is a costly, patronizing pretense. Instead, the Sizers call for adults to put stock in the suggestions of children, since they watch and listen to adults all the time and have learned more than we realize.”

A suggestion, immediately endorsed: One way to think about the way we refer to the relationship with a school or classroom—instead of calling it adoption, let’s call it a partnership.

When inviting parents—have food available, arrange carpools, let folks know they can dress however they want, have their kids in the plays…. there are lots of things to do to get students to come.

We talked about the Tacoma schools group. See the web page, at http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/tacoma_schools_policy.htm. Note the addition of a linked page, at http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/hgse.htm, which is about the Nov. 1-3 workshop at Harvard, to be visited by a contingent from Tacoma Schools, including a member of The Conversation. Members are asked to familiarize themselves with the material as a way of supporting these inquiries into

We discussed the lists we constructed last week, and talked about where to go with it from there.

One Group’s Ideas:
• We can assemble a list of books, a list of films, which support the study of our systems of value (such as Edwin Nichol’s work on axiology) that will constitute a foundation for Conversation topics. This can help reduce the invisible barriers of understanding.
• We can support a classroom or a school. There are different dimensions of this—supporting the teacher, finding ways to support the families. A couple of people asked about the PTA’s, or PTSA’s, whether they are active and viable. One Member recalled that in high school they had a way to identify for each student a Next Step after graduation—which implies early intervention, a group of parents taking care, talking to students and parents, getting conversations going about options, and the PTA was probably involved in this. One topic we discussed at some length: the burdens on low income families should never be underestimated—time demands, barriers mentioned earlier in today’s discussions, for examples—and it means the schools and support organizations need to find ways to welcome and encourage participation of parents.
• Schools should have tutors and teaching assistants in the classrooms of our schools. Many of us in this room have the skills to do that. Some of us remember going to school with teaching assistants in the classroom. We can advocate for this in our schools.
• These conversations led to a deeper consideration of systems of values, of learning tutoring skills.

Another Group’s report:
• We should continue as we are—in the process of getting there, we are on the right Track in the Conversation, esp. in the group dynamics of how we reach those goals (such as influencing the system, closing the achievement gap).
• Inviting people to supporting events, such as the discussions today about getting students to the New Orleans Monologues, November 9.
• The music events, such as So Just, and encouraging members of the Conversation to get out and do the things that use their talents—some can preach, some play music, and all of us can ‘walk the walk’ of Conversation topics in the situations we find ourselves in. We should note that a Conversation member reported hearing from a couple of people who no longer come to our gathering because they did not feel welcome here—because of gender identity issues. We were encouraged to consider this, and consider that we have some unfinished business here. Another member said that she feels welcomed here.

Another Group’s report:
• We need to be doing more street action. We can come up with a list of volunteer and service opportunities for Conversation members.
• A Conversation t-shirt is one way to let others know about us, noting that perhaps we should discuss the wisdom of growing in size.
• We should consider getting involved with schools earlier than high schools.

Another Group’s report: (to be emailed and included later)

Another Group’s report:
• We want to orient new people, have our history and vision, etc., put into a handy document, maybe a trifold, that we can keep ready for handouts. We should have a plan of introduction, to have a self-conscious welcome for new people. Part of it was the inclusion of a list of readings and other texts.
• Offer the Tacoma community at large an opportunity to read a book, perhaps something by M.L. King Jr. Someone mentioned Where Do We Go From Here. (A speech of that topic was given by Dr. King on August 16, 1967, and you can read it at http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/speeches/Where_do_we_go_from_here.html.)

Discussion of the group lists: There are some common charges in the lists, and some implications for how we get involved in activities that arise out of Conversation discussions. People find us in different ways, with different expectations, identities, resources, and commitments. The common expectation here is that people come to the Conversation, listen earnestly, and over time come to identify the places where they wish to make a difference.

There was some discussion of the report of a couple of people not coming because they felt unwelcome. We are sort of on the side that wants to include everybody, and if some don’t show up because they don’t like being near certain people, well, that is a cost of trying to be inclusive.

Some Announcements:

A Member distributed an advisory ballot for the upcoming election. Call any regularly attending member for its suggestions.

Peace Community Center, Nov. 8, 6:30 am, is having a breakfast and you are encouraged to contact colleen.

Friday Nov. 2, 9-3:30. 923 S. 8th st, Catherine’s Place, a workshop on “Bullies, Manipulators, and other relationship.

Saturday, Oct. 27, noon at 23rd and Jackson in Seattle, there is a peace march. Tacomans can meet at the Tacoma Dome bus station at 9:30, and a caravan from there at 10 am.

This Friday, 7 pm, David Price is going to be at King’s Books talking about the topic of his recent book: how anthropologists and other experts are being used in war efforts.

Sun. Nov. 11, 1-4, a Sunday Salon fund raiser for United For Peace of Pierce County. See Kristi Nebel.

We should develop the three key areas already in existence. Decide on what we wish to do about funding? Look for ways to collaborate with other organizations and interest groups in our community. Decide on whether we wish to grow our numbers?

Recap for October 14, 2007

(Note: at the end of today’s notes is a charge for next week’s discussions)

We began a little late today, and welcomed four new first-time members. A standing round of applause for yesterday’s So Just festival. “Everybody held it down, and everything came together.” We gave thanks to our So Just organizing team and participants.

Today we heard Stephen’s story.

One of the topics we discussed was the book, Deep Like the Rivers, by Thomas L. Webber, about education for the enslaved in the American South. You can read a review of it here. (This link is a bit cumbersome as users must have an affiliation with a participating library to access it easily, but the review said Webber argued that “by creating and controlling their own educational instruments the slave quarter community was able to reject most of white teaching and to pass to their children a set of unique cultural themes.”)

We also discussed some dimensions of privilege. Many kids will notice things that seem fair or not fair, and usually the frame of reference for fairness is, fair or unfair for us. Experience in educational justice and social justice issues, actually doing the work of it, enables us to broaden that base for asking about what is fair and unfair. Many of the people at the Conversation share a hope in the power of one person acting.

As noted last week, we are going to talk today about meta-talk, talk about our own processes and goals. Yesterday, at So Just, is an example of some talk that was going on becoming a real thing. Conversation members were encouraged to revel in the moment and appreciate what can happen when we see words transformed into a social event, and to see them transformed into something that was not there before.

Sometimes words take a while to come around to create something. We were reminded of the 1896 Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Court gave legal cover to a system of segregation. Justice Harlan said, “I dissent,” and predicted the decision would haunt the nation. And more recently chief justice of the Court, Rehnquist, wrote when he was a law clerk in 1952, "Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." (see this discussed here. Rehnquist’s memo presaged today’s Court, which has effectively moved back to that stage, even more so than when this article was written.)

He shared a document laying out the vision of the Conversation. Part of the document recounted the history of the Conversation. In a grand bit of irony, a church that was an early home to the group, which was reading King’s Why We Can’t Wait, pretty much went through the same processes King described among the church leaders of Montgomery. The church spokespeople were uncomfortable with the discussion of race, and, were squarely on the side of the Conversation. If a group talks about race once, they are easily labeled as “just about race.” And being so-labeled, a group is marginalized. And, several people in the church came to the pastor and said they wanted to get rid of that group. (People who don’t have a copy of Why We Can’t Wait and wish to read a copy of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” can read it online here.)

Discussions of fairness are easily dismissed because they are construed as discussions of race.

The stories were told to affirm that the Conversation has collected its share of bruises, and that we should look around at it now—the group has endured these and keeps its commitment to keep going, and will as long as it continues to find a good answer to the question—are we relevant? And, many of us ask others to come around with us Sunday mornings—it is worth doing, and worth sharing.

“Come with all you bring, and you flavor what we become.”

One point raised: At the Conversations we call ourselves residents of the area, not just citizens—because the status of citizenship is, historically, constricted for many people, and still is. (Conversations members might be interested in Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals.)

At the Conversation, “when you are spouting trivialities and think they are profound, your friends will wake you up.” Supporting each other is a big part of what we do. And sometimes we will have sharp disagreement in our conversations, and bruised egos. But the model we follow has to be a willingness to hang on and continue to engage.

A few things going on here: The education focus group is active. The first annual So Just happened yesterday. Redeeming the Vision will be this coming January 20, 2008, at Urban Grace. We continue to be interested in schools, in individual teachers. We have a number of things developing, such as a possible forum on the relationship between Jewish and Black community groups interested in social justice.
We opened the topic, “Who would you say we are?”
• A group of people that get together to talk about relevant things that are happening, and we are able to talk about all the isms that do not go over well at other groups. One member shared an example of getting censored at another group for doing this.
• A place to gain strategies and courage so that we can bring up justice at other places. We are a think tank, in a way. We generate ideas, and we generate groups that act. We can be seen as evolving toward a strategy and action group, in addition to talking about them.
• This is a support system, a place to explore the things that are uncomfortable, but it is a comfortable place to be uncomfortable.
• There are many in the room have been educators, and have worked with community groups. And the Conversation is a presence more people want to know about.
• Conversation and action are part of a dynamic that feed each other.
• We are a community, people coming together to be a community.
• We are a group of people who have found a safe place to engage in intense dialog about cultural content that we need to address. It is difficult to even talk about the dominant assumptions, and to integrate the conversations into the way we live.

We broke up, every two tables no more than 5 people, with the charge to answer the question: What can we become?

Report from One group
• The question of becoming—hey, wait, it is a dynamic and open thing. It is a good thing to become what we are, this open thing where people can come in, become a part of this, help with the projects and come up with new ones.
• It would be good if we were able to pull together key phrases from different faith traditions that address the themes we address and maybe push us in some direction.
• The Conversation can be a place where people from just about any tradition, and teachers from them, the kids and parents, can come into this group and get sustenance, from burnout to being rekindled. We have a lot to offer in this direction.
• This group started reading a book, and it would be good to do that again. Study something that is going to speak to the work we are doing. This is not a call to do only that, but it is something I value. And we should remember that group that started off by reading a book kept it together, and the community reading of the book built a shared understanding that is very valuable. We could schedule that for a period of time, some designated meetings.
• We reiterated the value of the personal stories, and noted several dimensions of their value.

Another group report:
• talk is action, and we need other action to spread the message about justice
• we like the intimate interaction, and we need to share that with public officials
• a place to find some common ground
• to work with the youth piece of it, be a safe environment where we can develop this and come up with actions
• We don’t want to spread everyone too thin with additional actions.

Another Group
• want to be strong, a place of transformation
• to be able to tell the difference between the truth and the lies
• to change our stories
• close gaps, find community together
• a place to encourage and empower people
• to keep fear from having power over us
• encourage others to attend, educate each other, and be a place where we can take refuge from the loneliness
• a social change agent

Another Group
• We should be a spawning ground for members
• We can be a group that learns across difference, a learning about African American history, learning how different cultures can help us figure out the world
• We want to continue to be a place where we are not afraid to discuss white privilege.
• Churches usually have a common text, and the common text here seems to be the collection of individual stories, and we must continue this. We become footnotes in each others stories, make them all richer.

Another Group
• We don’t do away with the wisdom texts, and incorporate them into what we do.
• We should be more of who we are, a safe space, a think tank, and a role model.
• We can become more present in the community, in elections, at the school board
• We can prepare ourselves more for hostile conversations.
• Be resilient under stress
• A place to find our voice.

Another Group--Intergenerational focus
• be a verb, not a noun.
• Be a community resource for folks interested in racial justice.
• sponsor the 2008 youth summit
• allow development and opportunity for each person to lead
• become more intergenerational, more diverse, explore more formats for encouraging youth participation, maybe one later in the day, try the storytelling there.

Another Group—characteristics of The Conversation
• revolutionary
• think tank
• affinity group—a small group of activists who work together on direct action, are nonhierarchical and work among trusted friends, a community organization that is decentralized, having a shared concern, a flexible ideology
• culturally competent

Responses to what we heard.
• “I am not an agent.” Be careful about identifying people who disagree as ‘agent.’
• It is good to support everyone—one noted that the support for women is not always strong in our institutions, for example.
• We appear to largely agree on what we are about, with a lot of new ideas.
• Good thing to connect to the younger people, too.
• We each enter The Conversation at different stages of the group, at different stages of our lives.

In preparation for next week’s Conversation:
Each of you, please post one programmatic idea to the blog. The question to address: What are some of the activities you want us to engage in.

Recap for October 7, 2007

One Conversation member is starting an amputee support group, and will be telling us more about it at the project develops—which appears to be imminent. She told us about a chance meeting with a person who has resources and a desire to do exactly that. Big round of applause at the story.

Another member read a draft letter addressed to the chair of the Tacoma School Board. The letter emphasized the need for a superintendent search that emphasized the right skills and experience at meeting the District goals to real ALL students, to involve the public in the process. We discussed the perceptions of people attending the last Board meeting, and several reported an unease at the lack of critical Board questions about important issues raised. Someone raised the possibility that the Board is moving slowly toward a search process, and that a safe option would be to retain the current acting superintendent. Remember a previous acting superintendent was invited in to pour oil upon the waters, and stayed for most of a decade. We discussed the importance of being active on this.

Conversation members are reminded that the schools group has published a website that keeps track of some of their conversations, at www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/tacoma_schools_policy.htm.

It might be a good idea, said one Conversation member, to have the Conversation devote a session to keeping us all informed of the various projects members are working on. Projects that have a community impact may need to consciously build political coalitions—with unions, with community groups, and so on—and to self-consciously build a public information campaign to get the word out and put pressure on the institutions that need to change. At later points in the Conversation others referred to this as a model worth emphasizing—perhaps we should devote a session to it—perhaps next week.

One member observed “this school board is weak, and we should not let it rebuild things on the same shaky foundation,” suggesting there is a real danger that Board members should be pushed in the direction of action. We heard another report from someone in the study session before the last Board meeting who said it was apparent the Board considered the current acting superintendent as here for the long haul. Oh, oh. It appears there are plenty of reasons to be concerned that the Board will back off from its search for a new superintendent.

We also discussed the tone and content of a letter passed around to the Board. Several Conversation members expressed a desire to sign a stronger letter, and the group that composed the letter reported on their discussions of the issue.

One observation, coming off the self-described state of the school board group connected to the Conversation as a group of people who care about schools, or words to that effect: the Board should be aware that something is up, should be concerned with power emerging in the community, and should from time to time be shocked out of its complacency. For example, the actions that contributed to the departure of the previous superintendent were one phase, and many of the people who took part in that let others know they are in for the long haul. Key people involved in that are currently working on school board issues. It was recommended that we allow ourselves to be comfortable with the occasional chaos that might come from a demonstration, and also keep up the work of political organization.

One Conversation member talked to us about disproportionate minority confinement (DMC)—“a condition that exists when a racial/ethnic group representation in confinement exceeds the representation in the general population.” [At times our conversation also used DMC to refer to disproportionate minority contact, since the issue is wider than confinement.] For example, African-Americans age 10-17 yrs old make up 11% of Pierce County residents of similar age, but they are 30-35% of those in detention, and they stay in jail longer than others. All children should be treated equally in the juvenile justice system, disparities in detention is in part the result of processes that are widely considered to be neutral—and so the group described in this talk is working to draw attention to policies that produce DMC. The group understands the need to generate accurate and reliable data, and the need to get people involved who can be effective in affecting decisions in institutions (prosecutors, judges, police, mental health officials, school officials, counselors, and so on).

African Americans in high school get expelled from the Tacoma schools at three times the rate of whites, suspended at two and a half times the rate of whites, and for junior high school the disproportionate rages are two and a half times the expulsion rate, and over twice the suspension rate. In the juvenile justice system in Pierce County sees African Americans get rearrested at three times the rate as for whites.

This is obviously a call for looking at DMC. We heard the ways the group works on these problems. One thing they worked on was alternatives to detention—so found and came up with ideas that police, prosecutors and courts could buy into. They were able to get the state legislature to fund some projects, mostly for the kids who need help and are not accused of crimes against others.

Conversation members might be interested in an article in today’s New York Times, Week in Review section, on this very issue. The article describes the problem, asks when DMC becomes a constitutional issue—but unfortunately is not very critical. It suggests, at the end, that many of the actions that lead to DMC are “unintentional,” by which the article means the officials are not aware of how their actions produce DMC. The article also places the discussion in the context of the present federal court system—where judges increasingly do not recognize racial segregation, even segregation by law, as being a constitutional problem.

Conversation members talked about some of the details of policies that contribute to DMC, such as the need for telephones in the home for certain alternatives to detention to be applied, another example of how many rules treat poor people differently. (Newer technology for at-home monitoring alternative to detention relies on cell phone technology, which has kept lots of kids out of detention. This requires that governments spend money on such technologies.) We heard many examples of the way programs unintentionally lead to DMC. Each program needs to be tested, tested, tested, pay attention to outcomes, and assemble the evidence & bring it to the attention of the group that can do something about it (recall the mention above of the committee that involved prosecutors, judges, police, mental health officials, school officials, counselors). One member emphasized that the agencies that are represented at such inclusive tables may not themselves have paid much attention to disproportionate representation. One example was glaring. Best-practices inventories emphasize the importance and different outcomes that emerge from all-white vs. relatively diverse organizations. Cultural competency is not automatic.

One member observed that a group of assembled policymakers, administrators that are responsible for state programs dealing with juvenile justice, are overwhelmingly white. Other members of the Conversation shared that this is common.

We heard several examples of how the laws have become more punitive, and the default presumption on kids that don’t go to school, or kids that are mentally ill and disruptive, is to lock them up as irresponsible—yet this strongly contributes to DMC. One institutional feature we heard about was the October surge in expulsions—so the school district gets budget credit for the kid, but then the kid is expelled, and state money does not follow the kid to help finance needed services. And such kids fall far behind in the accumulation of credits, in preparation for the WASL, and the increased likelihood that such kids will run into the police. One member described working with such kids, and made the point that there are almost no services for them right now. The other side of the laws becoming more punitive is that money for services is drying up—for example, there is a dire need for a full-time halfway house for school-aged kids on the street, but the barriers to funding, licensing, and getting a site for such a facility are so high. IT IS DISCOURAGING. There sure is a lot of work to do. Several members present described the discouraging experiences they have had. No easy answers, but one member encouraged them to ‘set their face like flint’ and be present, and speak up, at these institutions where policies are made. Members were encouraged to join the group,

One member described the school system as being designed to cull out 30% of the students. It is designed this way, it produces this outcome. The leader of this discussion is part of an organization works precisely with those 30%. Several members emphasized that this is unacceptable, and that we need to hear that from the School Board.


What is it that we need? What if the Governor of the State of Washington was here. What would you tell her? Ideas from various members
• the people assembled at the table have to have experience that enables them to connect to the kids, to understand the situation that produced the situation kids find themselves in.
• Bring parents in
• Equity
• restorative justice involves kids and parents
• full time counselors, nursing, full time safe place for kids and parents also open evenings
• legislation to support small schools
• timing of schools ---adolescents not awake til 9:00
• no kicking kids out for no reason
• deinstitutionalize the racism in the schools, we kick out 30% and feed them into the prison system.
• I think we need fabulous breakfast served, so many kids need it.
• We need two adults in each classroom.
• Make things smaller, stop having 6 periods where teachers have 150 kids they deal with, have more block times…. make 6th grade elementary again.
• Accountability—teachers, administrators, schools are allowed to continue worst practices. And coupled with that we need a support system to help those who change those outcomes.
• Several people mentioned the importance of having parents and families involved in the ways we address this.
• One person asked, Who is making money off of the poor?

There is a list of things people want. OK, how do we get there?
• Parents need to be involved, but we organize the world of work to make that difficult for some people—especially those who have low income jobs and often more than one job. This is a tough one—at least, the agencies that officials DO have control over can change and make flexible hours possible.
• More money needs to be spent on serious job training programs, to give more folks chances to earn the incomes that are associated with more political participation.
• Make it easier to vote—reinstate the vote of people who have been in jailed, and make registration easier or automatic (half of the people who did not vote, but could have, in the last two presidential elections had moved in the previous 18 months).
• Individuals can examine their values, there is so much to do, we can each clarify our values and decide what piece we can take on to be spiritually, emotionally, and physically healthy—and show up ready to work on the piece you have chosen as important.
• We could give parents some kind of tax break for involvement in after-school programs, and perhaps a voucher system for supporting after-school programs.
• Every classroom can have an adult assistant, and make sure there sufficiently diverse people there.
• It is possible to have the adult assistants be decently paid, select many from the students who are precisely the people who have not succeeded, have them in a work-study as part of a college program. Get them on the road to a degree while they can be helping in the classrooms.
• small class sizes, and have teacher pay linked to results in this regard.
• Foreign languages taught from the first grade.
• Teach citizenship and civic education, and problem-solving/negotiation skills.
• No school should have more students than it was designed to have.
• Teachers need to have cultural diversity classes.

Now, what you willing to do?
• work with a group that has picked one of these issues.
• Go to the league of Women Voters, and the ACLU, to help pay the debt of released felons.
• Work through my music to advocate, and also through a community group that does this.
• I’m going to make the group I’m part of more powerful, figure out what it is we can do to be more effective.

This simple exercise suggests we need to push our thinking on this—before you get to the roadblocks, there are commitments you can make.

The Conversation wants to support these commitments to action. They are important. We also want to celebrate the life of the mind, too, and not let action discourage us from taking hard looks at the world. We need to nourish ourselves, and feed whatever it is that keeps us engaged.

Dexter said “We need the activist arm to be pushing us, but I would like an activist arm that is not a blunt instrument, an activist arm that is not easily dismissed.” Alton McDonald has done some work—he is a non-attorney who shows up to be a voice for African Americans arrested for various things. He found a place for himself, he takes action. Good example for us. Let us not buy into the all-too-common duality between theory and practice. It is not one or the other, we need to have a balance between our Conversation and our actions.

We heard from So Just, they got some publicity, they are calling in the pledges, and if there are others who can contribute or want their business cards put into the paid advertisement, now is the time. They could really use $500. They are applying for Grant funding next year. Most important, bring people, show up yourself. It is important to have 100 people here Saturday, at 11. Be there.

Redeeming the Vision this year will be Saturday, January 20, 2008, at Urban Grace, probably at 2 pm.. Tuesday, Oct. 9, and every two weeks thereafter, 6pm @ UPS, is the planning committee schedule. All are invited to be part of the planning group.

Emails will remind you of the upcoming fundraiser for United for Peace of Pierce County.
We are planning a February forum, perhaps at Kings Books, on the possibilities for partnerships in the civil rights communities. That program is in the process of being planned, stay tuned for more.

Pierce College Nov. 29 will have Michael Eric Dyson speaking. Call the Student programs office at Pierce, charge will be $15.

Recap for September 30, 2007

Both notetakers were absent this week. A permanent hole in our archives. :(

Recap for September 23, 2007

Today we want to talk about immigration. We might hear from Mona, Dalton, and Dexter as a way to introduce the topic. [That was the plan, anyway. At 11:30, we were still talking about the Planning Summit issues. It turned out to be important.]

Two first-time members were with us today, one of whom chairs the Pierce County’s Disproportionate Minority Confinement Committee. Also, Elly Claus-McGahan, candidate in the upcoming Tacoma School Board election, was with us. We went around the room to have people briefly describe themselves, and we mostly focused on what we bring to and get from the Conversation.

October 4, the Broadway Center will have a display and discussion Community dialog with the African Heritage Community. The doors open at 6, program from 6:30-8:30, free admission. Warning: A Nationally Recognized Star will be there.

Dexter told us about the recent Race & Pedagogy Planning Summit. The events went well, and the room was full. He assured us that continuing efforts the organization will keep the high standards, and keep a strong connection to local talent. The keynote presentation by Letecia Nieto, for example, was first rate. We heard from NCORE, from the U. Mich. National Institute on Diversity, and from the College Success Foundation, and from a program at U. of Oregon. The working groups, comprised of about 45-50 overall, and about 35 attending all planning sessions, produced reports and discussed them. He noted that 2012 lights up a room whenever they are part of the group.

Saturday, he said (agreeing murmurs around the room), was “a head turner.” The first question raised at the plenary session was asked by an invited guest: the community partners have observed this work going on, and they asked what the University would do to support these efforts. The question was asked in a different way, then—has the University been supportive of the main people who were behind it? And they were rather straightforward. The message was that the University had not been supportive. So that issue is on the table. The University president attended the session, and he responded to the discussion.

Think carefully about the penalties of success for anyone doing racial justice work. Think about Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. Some of the talk on campus is that the University is somehow devoting too many resources on the RPC, or that it has somehow hijacked the agenda of the University. This seems to uncomfortably fit into a pattern of Whites interpreting such work as Blacks somehow imposing themselves on a community. So it seems like the document to emerge from the Planning Summit (coming soon) has some pointed issues to address. Some of this has to do with how RPC fits into the University’s Civic Scholar Initiative program, which is the administrative rubric that contains RPC. One possibility is that RPC is bigger than the CSI umbrella. And some of it might have to do with the ways that teachers and administrators engage racism.

Several comments around the room emphasized the importance of the work of RPC. Institutional change is needed, and real change will come from engaging the community AND from inside organizations. The critical issue raised at Saturday was how faculty and administrator allies at the University will cultivate the conversation and encourage meaningful change. “The work of antiracism, and dismantling white supremacy, will be advanced significantly when there are more people who in an earlier era were called race traitors.” We need race traitors on all sides of the race issue. White people need to challenge white people about race. It is a real issue that someone like Dexter gets labeled as an agitator. The work has to be shared widely. The metaphor of the Old Guard seems to be useful to understanding the dynamics, and offers a constructive challenge. People support things like RPC, but the willingness to do something about it is very uneven. A University president, for example, is faced by a range of people, some of whom do not at all support RPC. So, supporters will have to make themselves heard in a president’s office, because the Old Guard will surely make themselves heard. There were a couple of recognitions of Grace’s contributions to RPC at the planning summit, and this was the first time her central role has been acknowledged.

It was also observed that among the college campuses in Tacoma, these dynamics are there, at all of them. So this is a challenge for, for example, the teachers of teachers. This is a problem, the production of teachers who are not skilled at or tuned into the need to do the work of serving the least well served of our students.

The picture we are painting of education and race is actually an old one. One member advised us to look at the book, Deep like the rivers : education in the slave quarter community, 1831-1865, Thomas L. Webber, Norton, 1978. And, check the “Portland Baseline Essay Series” online, at http://www.pps.k12.or.us/depts-c/mc-me/essays.php.

The discussion moved to patterns of racism in different parts of the country. In our part, people talk about equality (you can be among us), but the acceptance of nonwhites into leadership roles, or in full recognition of their professional work, is not there. The discussion had several threads. The work of justice is everywhere, folks.

One suggestion: maybe we can have a White Privilege conference here. We discussed several pieces of white privilege, and the group here is supportive of the idea.

As one person pointed out, racism is a white people’s problem. And it is not all privilege. One focus on the problem of white privilege is to look at what it does to everyone.

One of the things we try to do through the Conversation is to support and empower people to work in their spheres. People involved in the peace movement in our county, for example, need to tell their story and to let us know what is going on. One idea that came up this morning is perhaps a way to provide such support: Examine the disconnect between progressive groups that are predominantly white, and those that are not.

Examine the possibilities, for example, if the white faculty on a university campus were to put on a white privilege conference. That would be a different dynamic than one organized by the faculty of color who usually put on such things. When white people become the ones who extend the invitation to examine racism and white privilege, the level of honesty goes up, the dynamic has shifted. That would be a pretty good day.

RPC might be well served to have a backup plan, in the event that UPS does not offer sufficient support—the advice from one member, and from others, is to not let the limitations of a particular university shape the design of what can be important work.

PLEASE ATTEND THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING, THIS THURSDAY AT 6:00.

The Seattle Friends of the Library annual

Rhapsody in Bloom hosts Steve and Kristi Nebel this Tuesday, 7:30-9:30. You are invited to come hear their set. See the list of events they are involved in at www.geocities.com/steveandkristinebel

Conversation Recap for September 16, 2007

Intros: A couple of new people today.

No story today

The Education Group presented case studies and we broke up into 2 groups where we read the cases and discussed the following questions:

What more does this parent/guardian need to know and be able to do?

How the “system” works
Allies who can help with knowledge and support
The system needs to be held accountable
Third party allies to put pressure on the issue and highlight the illegality of the situation
System has their legal department and teachers have their union but parents and student have no structure

How can the Conversation or its members be allies to parents/ of student in TPS?

Begin to collect the stories and tell them and advocate for systemic change
Question—how would that be structured?
We would have to create a structure, collect the stories in a way that protects the identity of the tellers, we would have to provide some method of demonstrating the “truth”
Question—are schools immune to CPS? Parents are held accountable when children are abused—why not school personnel?

Even without stories, could try to raise awareness in schools, like offer to facilitate assemblies & other group activities—like Leticia Nieto, posters a la crimethinc.org
Also help with teacher training/in-services
Pierce County Sexual Assault Center BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse) accompany children to court. Maybe we could do something similar—be a crowd
Somehow institute listening partnerships between students
A good way to start—approach the school dist. “we have all these stories, obviously you have a problem and we can help with it." If not accepted, take stronger action

There used to be a PELT and a Family Involvement Center try to reconstitute? Offer as another part of the solution so the system knows why to value that effort.

How to let people know we are collecting stories?

Tina is on PTA and sends out newsletter
Get contact info for all PTA’s
“Safety Box” for students to put stories in

How do we deal with credibility—both students and parents feel safe in sharing and some way to triangulate the story so that we can verify the truth of the story?

There are people within the Conversation that do this kind of thing for a living who can help with the structure of story collecting so that they are properly vetted

Themes drawn from both cases:

Parental level of knowledge/education
Living situation instability
Intelligence, capability, resiliency

What can we do as the Conversation to act as allies?

Invite youth to come and express themselves creatively, musically, artistically or in writing. Invite the media

One member has attended 4 youth forums, videos made, stories told media would not come out. But there’s money out there to be applied for.

Another member suggested that at So’Just youth get the chance to tell their story/rap their story.

All agreed that it’s critically important that we take part in creating place and space for the empowered activity of youth to occur.

It was a very good discussion today. Need to ask ourselves how we move awareness into action.

Announcements:

Facilitators Training - Act Against Violence
$25 donation RSVP Catherine’s Place Sept 27-28 9am-3:30 and 9am-1pm
Dr. Dorothy Anderson, President of the Tacoma Urban League
Call 572-3547 for more information

PC AIDS Foundation has made 96k from its last AIDS Walk!

Parker Palmer event next Sunday, Eve can take 4 people in her car and will leave from the Conversation. Eve will be emailing those who signed up to confirm participation.

So’Just, Report: We are now getting organizations to have booths. Goal for funding is $3,000, we have $1,850 and need to get to $2,000 by tomorrow to proceed.

We have an offer of free solar power to power the equipment for sound by SolaRichard

School Board Action Committee Report: Already begun having an impact as school board members have mentioned a need for a structure for greater dialogue between school board and community. The organization is developing.

Next meeting is Thursday 20th @ 6PM at Colleen and Steve’s

Suggestion that each upcoming week’s topic be included on the blog

4022 N. 27th St. 6pm on Tues. Sept. 25th
Debate 21st @ King’s Books Debate on whether to get out of Iraq or not.

Steve & Kristi Nebel will play:

22nd 8pm @ Matrix Coffee House in Chehalis (Cool place--I went to college with the owner)

5th 7-9pm @ Rhapsody in Bloom

UFPPC’s fundraiser Salon Society 2nd Sunday Series—need a facilitator for a discussion on the works of Kurt Vonnegut

Wed. through Sat. Weekly Anti-War Vigils organized by UFPPC

Weds. 5-6pm @ Federal Courthouse on Pac Ave.
Thurs. noon-1pm @ Farmer’s Market on 9th & Broadway
Fri. 5-6pm @ Johnny’s Seafood on Ruston Way
Sat. 12:30-1:30pm @ 38th & Steele in front of Border’s Books

UFPPC meets at 1st Congregational on 1st and 3rd Thursdays @ 6:30 and 7pm respectively

Lyceum Lecture Series on Tuesdays @ Evergreen-Tacoma 10-11:30am and 6-7:30pm

Notable Speakers:

October 16
Mike Colson, Retired Navy Chaplain, Iraq war veteran - Topic: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

October 23
Maxine Hayes, Washington State Health Officer - Topic: Public Health

October 30
Suheir Hammad, poet and playwright, born in Amman, Jordan - Ms. Hammad is an internationally recognized author and performer

November 13
Fred Bonner, Seattle Municipal Court Judge - Topic: Youth Diversion Program

For other speakers see Events & Activities Calendar on Campus

Steve and Kristi with their friend Joe Debenedictis

Hello:
I know that some of you have heard us play on a Sunday morning at the Conversation. Here is a video for those of you who haven't heard us. Here we are at the Mocha Moo Coffeehouse as the featured act for the night with our good friend, Joe Debenedictis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qNCYd_R8Go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzUApuOyZg8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SoZ-USXTs

We continue to attend the Conversation, and quite enjoy the topics, and the people. It is something that I would have done long ago had it been available. We are looking forward to playing at SoJust. It may be our last performance with Joe, as he fell in love and is going east to Ohio a few days after we play. I hope you'll all be able to be there to hear 2012, Kusikia, Bolero, Patrick, and Steve and Kristi Nebel with Joe Debenedictis. Steve Nebel

PS:
If you'd like to see us in concert sooner than Oct. 13th, we'll be @ The Matrix Coffeehouse, 434 NW Prindle St., Chehalis, WA, Saturday, September 22, @ 8pm - The Matrix has food, a great PA, and a comfortable setting for us all. - Phone (360)740-0492. All ages. $6 admission.
We'll be @ Rhapsody in Bloom & Café Latte Coffeehouse, 3709 6th Ave., Tacoma, WA On Tuesday, September 25th 7:30-9:30pm.

Conversation Recap for September 9, 2007

Today we heard Dorothy’s story. The questions ranged over fascinating topics—the need to pass on stories to younger generations, the difficulties in tracking down the stories we did not hear, the important historical events

Diane Powers joined us today, to talk about hunger. Diane helped to organize the Hunger Walk last year, over 1,500 walkers, and they raised almost a quarter million dollars. This year’s Hunger Walk has a website for you to check, and that allows you to donate. See www.pchungerwalk.org. Diane is the Deputy Director of Associated Ministries. You can see the things they do at www.associatedministries.org.

The latest way to refer to ‘hunger’ in official circles as ‘food insecurity.” Among the difficulties presented to poorer families is the relative cheapness of poor nutrition. And hunger makes everything worse—harder to get to work and work, The US 12.4 million or so children in ‘food insecure’ households, by official count. 43% of families with children with one parent working have a need for food aid. And there are 140,000+ people in Pierce county who seek some kind of food help, and half are under nineteen. A big piece of this is the lack of affordable housing. Some families have to pay three-fourths or more of their income toward housing, leaving little for food.

Summer months are a difficult time to get food aid—people who commonly give to food banks during winter and holidays do so less often in Summer.
The first Sunday in October, the 7th, is this year’s Pierce County Hunger Walk. Half of the money you donate goes to the emergency food network in Pierce County, and half of your donation can be targeted—if you want to send it to Nativity House, for example, you can check that.

One difficulty with distribution is that not everyone knows the location of food banks. Some church basements have food at certain times of day, a food bank location has recently moved, and so on. There is a list of available food banks. Please check them online, at www.fishfoodbanks.org. Perhaps it is a good idea to look up where the ones are around where each of us live.

One member mentioned that his visit to a food bank. He emphasized the importance of giving money, and not just your food up in the cupboards. Fresh produce and other perishables, and a balanced diet require choices among those putting together the cart full of things to take home. Making choices like this possible at a food bank are a big part of building a way to provide the aid with dignity.

One Member reminded the group that SoJust is scheduled for October 19, and the festival will include an opportunity to donate food and coats.

One member focused on the connection between affordable housing and hunger. The price of housing is going up up up, and the dynamics of the construction industry produce housing that can not be afforded by the average household income in the County (about $56,000 right now). Affordable housing is driving the dynamics of hunger for a large number of families in Pierce County. It is difficult to get a grip on the hunger if we don’t also act on the housing side of the equation.

The Pierce County Asset Building Coalition works to encourage families to build assets—helping folks understand how money works, how banking works, how to do taxes (lots of eligible people do not file for the Earned Income Credit, for example). Financial literacy is important here. There is a lot of money that has been unclaimed—for instance, the unclaimed EIC. By one count there was $6.5 million available to families in Pierce County that could come in.

Another member described the storefront loan operations that take large chunks of the money of poor families. Some are payday loan operations. Some are the places that will prepare your taxes and offer to loan the money, for fees and high interest, due them from the IRS. Some banks practice predatory operations, using the information they get on people who are working with the storefront operations.

People find themselves in these situations for complicated reasons. Someone late with the rent has to pay $50 the first day, $75 if it is two days late, and so on. And the fine has to be paid first if one brings the rent in two days late. So the storefront finance companies can look like the best option on a particular day here.

“The whole system is against being poor.” Nice statement from a member. One member expressed frustration at the ‘give a man a fish, you feed him today; teach him to fish, and ou feed him for all his days’ stories. There aren’t the fish out there. We have families who have tough times getting jobs, the economy is full of opportunities to go after the money that comes to poorer families. We have soldiers serving in the war whose families are on public assistance or even homeless.

This is a tough dialog in the USA. The underlying understanding of dessert insists that we examine individual virtue prior to making sense of obligation to our fellow citizens. So if someone has financial difficulty, the tendency in the public discussion is to look for examples of bad choices that, done differently, might have made for better outcomes. And, we hear the leap made from there that the need we see around us is less a demand on our own resources. This dynamic does not encourage constructive dialog. Remember the outlines of the place of the individual in capitalism were written in the 17th century, perhaps best laid out systematically by John Locke. Locke also understood that the “workman digging my turf” mattered little, could not voluntarily move from one parish to another, could not vote, and lacked political rights we now take together. The prevailing ideology was an explanation for why it is OK to not care about those people. But this is the 21st century. It is difficult to find a compelling explanation for why we should not care, today, about poor people.

Dexter introduced the topic of conspiracy theories and the creation of wealth. The creation of wealth has an attendant outcome, and that is the creation of poverty. Recall the story today, that giving out turkeys to homeless people does not make a lot of sense. Dexter suggested that giving out turkeys is about ‘the camera.’ Giving out turkeys on thanksgiving is a good news story about making us one great national family. And then if the story includes the tale of someone selling those donated turkeys, the public response is clear—the real problem is labeled as the pathologies in ‘those people’ and so we have less of an obligation to them. And, the businesses supporting the donations get a free pass on creating wealth, and suggest it is OK since they are not to blame for the underlying pathologies that allegedly afflict the poor. A big piece of this is what is legal. With the example of the ongoing discussions on reforming the air traffic control system. The airline and related companies want others to pay for it—the most recent accusation is that the owners of private jets and planes do not have to pay their share of the system, and that they should. In a big way, the fight is about how the rules determine our mutual obligations,

“If you are part of the system of the creation of wealth, I have learned to say, I have no problem with you.” But, with two other shoes to drop: His challenge to us, is that we ought not to operate on whether our behavior is legal, but we should instead ask if it is just. This group should be part of the discussion about what is just, and he also wants to challenge us when we retreat into our own private spaces, to ask ourselves how we will deal with this. At the Community Partners meeting, for example, we have food left over. How about letting some others in to eat what is left. He is told by the University that it has to be eaten by the group for whom they provide it. It gets right at risk; they have rules about liability.

The framework of laws enfranchises these questionable standards of justice. That which is legal is the bottom line. But we need to figure out these examples, and challenge them. The new bottom line must be, is it just.

On announcements:

Diane told us about the Broadway Coalition for the Performing Arts. On Thursday October 4, she is inviting people to the new Pantages Theater Lobby, 9th & Broadway. The event is from 6:30-8:30 pm, and it will be a chance to look at and give some feedback about the Arts and you, how it can connect to the community.

August 14th, Dr. Antoine Johnson was racially profiled in DuPont. He was driving, was pulled over, was never told why he was stopped. He is going to go to the Dupont City Council, this Tuesday, September the 11th at 7:00, and invites everyone to come to the meeting to support his call for justice. At the DuPont exit, turn West, 318 Barksdale Rd. One member of the Conversation observed she had been pulled over four times, and had never connected it with profiling. The tales of being stopped elicited a murmur through the crowd. They didn’t seem like things just everyone would be pulled over for.

A SoJust organizer passed out a flyer for the event. October Fall Festival, October 13, from 11-3. Right here at Evergreen. People can please do postering in their neighborhood. The event is free, and the group needs another almost $2,000 to put it on. So supporters are encouraged to donate $100. The need is now, so event parameters can be organized. So we need to get up to $2,000 by Monday the 17th.

This coming Tuesday the 12th, the group keeping track of School Board meetings will be meeting at 6. Please consider attending school board meetings.

On Sept. 11 “The Power of Nightmares” will be shown WA State Historical Museum, at 7.
Sept. 25, Steve and Christy will be playing at Rhapsody in Bloom on 6th Avenue, at 7pm.
Christy’s Salon Society is meeting the 14th of October, at the home near here. It will be a discussion of Kurt Vonnegut. A jazz group will perform, suggested donation will be $15. See Christy for details.

Wed. the 12th Evergreen is having an Open House, 4-7, geared at people who might be thinking about restarting, and finishing, their bachelor’s degree. Know someone? Encourage people to bring unofficial copies of transcripts and an income tax return, and they can get a one-stop package of information about what all it takes to get college done.

Christine encouraged Members to look up what is happening with the Education bill now making its way through Congress, and wrote their Senators to tell them what you want to see in an education bill.

Dexter announced the public event at the Thursday the 13th public event at the Race & Pedagogy Planning Summit. It will be at 7-9p.m., Schneebeck Auditorium (the music building). Tickets are free, but call 879-3100 to arrange for them. A good speaker is part of the program, and you will also see a short video with highlights from the Race & Pedagogy Conference from last year.

Conversation Recap for September 2, 2007

We began this sunny morning Locked Out of the Evergreen building. The Lavolds graciously rescued us by opening their home. Lucky for all of us, they have collected chairs over the years. The temperature was a little over 65f, a slight breeze, the sun poked through light low clouds, a perfect morning for a stroll. The assembled party heartily thanked them. Later in the morning several people agreed that getting locked out was a blessing.

The food was moved here with us, ‘Rosalind’s potato collards surprise,’ which people raved about. Your recorder heard the following: “You should try this,” “mmm this is good,” “I love the spices,” “Oh, that is good,” “want me to get some more?”, “our food is always special.”

Julia passed around an article by Dave Grossman, author of Learning to Kill, in the Summer issue of Greater Good. The article described the widespread reluctance of people to kill others, and the ways we purposely desensitize people to make killing happen. You can see an article about Grossman’s topic: Dan Baum, “The Price Of Valor: We train our soldiers to kill for us. Afterward, they’re on their own,” The New Yorker, Issue of 2004-07-12.

The biggest pow-wow in the area is happening now, near Chief Leschi School, near Puyallup off of River Road, down Pioneer way, past the nursery and turn.

We had two new members this morning, and it made sense to have each person say a couple of sentences about themselves. This was an interesting process, it seems like the norms of the two rooms (Evergreen and here) are quite different. People relax more in a home.

Today we heard Amy’s story. Man, oh, man, a standing ovation. Several people said, You Must Publish This.

Some of the discussion was about connecting with students left behind, as the story included an account of a classroom where the difficult students were put together. The kids knew this was a dumping ground. A central idea here, which the assembled group emphasized in discussion, was that we must refuse to call these kids Bad. Getting to know each student is a big piece of it. There is a story about the dedication needed on the part of teachers. Leaders in education need to know this, and remember it. In the discussion or Lincoln high school, we were all encouraged to go on a tour of the renovated building.

Dexter read a piece called “Education,” focusing on what we expect from teachers—in institutions that mark enduring inequalities, where we see “the valuing of trivialities in a land of value.” Teachers, in spite of all the ways we ask them to do a lot without sending along enough resources, are a sign of our hope. This was directed at Amy’s story.

Following her invitation to visit her classroom at Lincoln, we went around the room and made commitments to visit Amy’s class. One thing going on, described by Cherlyn, was a grant she was able to get to fund a mentor program. Really, folks, she means it. You can do something to help or support what she’s doing. There are opportunities to be mentors, to talk to the class(es), to ask the class to tell you about something. Contact information on that Mentor program: call Kurt Miller, Director of Education Initiatives, at 253-272-0771, ext. 18.

One thing that came up was the “Knowledge is Power” schools, or KIP schools. Look them up. It is possible that Tacoma is a good place for such a school.

Dexter started telling us about the American Leadership Forum (more in coming weeks) where he just spent a week. Weird, us being so busy all of the time, but if we step off the world for a week, it actually keeps on spinning. He also described the upcoming Race & Pedagogy planning summit, just a couple of weeks away, and the speakers and participants who will be there. You can help this initiative by supporting R&P: Help fill the auditorium, for the large evening event (Thursday the 13th), and at the end of the next two days the gathering will produce a document that brings together the ideas that came up at the planning sessions. The Thursday evening large gathering is a message to the University on how much the community supports R&P. Information on how to get the tickets will go out to Conversation members in an email, soon. Students are welcome, so if you know some, clue them in.

Friday, Sept. 7, 2-4, is the next R&P community partners meeting. You can come to this—and, the food is always good, consider yourself invited.

Next, Dexter showed us a slide show of the hurricane that just hit Jamaica. The public account of the hurricane, issued by the government and followed by the media, focuses on the damage to Kingston. But the official report that “we were spared” does not pay attention to places like Dexter’s home town, on the coast, Old Harbour Bay. The pictures showed devastation and poverty. The people who have left, such as Dexter, are all over the world, but have organized to do some relief and development work. The town grows poverty, so the need is great. In a town where pretty much everyone is poor, it is the poorest that are hit the hardest. For example, structures that were not made of bricks and blocks were blown and washed away, particularly down on the salt flats. There are a few thousand people with nowhere to go, whose need for space and a way to make a living draw them to this place, and who can not afford solid materials. One large need is to have a well-built electrical power system. The fishing boats of the town were damaged a great deal and the storm pushed boats through houses.

This was the worst storm the people there had ever seen. One told him this made Ivan look like play.

Dexter asked for support for the group he is a part of, The Yard Project. Last time, after an earlier Hurricane (Ivan), his group raised $125,000 to build the houses he showed us in some of the slides. Some sorting out of the process is still going on, so be prepared to receive an email announcing the details of what and how to give. You can send the email to people you know, and magnify the support.

Some of the ensuing discussion touched on the role of government, and the self-help work that goes on in communities. The dominant public philosophy deemphasizes the importance and legitimacy of government. Government does provide many things for some people—ironically, the elites who trumpet the ‘government is the problem’ message are served best—and the poor do not get the same level of support. We discussed several facets of this. Some of them had to do with the intersections public philosophy and the color line in America. The notion that government is this Other thing, that delivers benefits to particular groups, is not particularly helpful (except, perhaps, as a way to contest elections). Every single business in the country gets subsidies of some kind. And there are thousands of governmental units, it is not one thing—nation, states, counties, school districts, and so on. And there are possibilities to do something positive in the here and now. Conversation members know that the recent Superintendent of Tacoma public schools was dismissed, in large part, because of the efforts of citizens including some members of the Conversation. You can do something.

With the opening lockout, and the extraordinary story, and the look at the hurricane damage, today’s Conversation lasted further into the day. It was 12:30 when Dexter started to wrap things up. It is important to support people who are doing things for change, and let others know you are doing something about justice, fairness, and caring for human life.

Reminder: Wednesday, 6pm, at the Philbrooks, the group that meets to work on change in the Tacoma School Board, will be talking again. The upcoming election is an opportunity to get changes moving.

Also, the So’Just Planning Committee will meet Tuesday, 6:30pm at Noah’s house. 414 S. Division Lane. Go here to see the So’Just mssion.