"The Slave Ship - A Human History"

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“Picking Cotton: Our Story of Injustice & Redemption”

A shocking crime. A devastating miscarriage of justice. One man’s fight for truth. One woman’s struggle to recover. Two lives forever connected.

Date:	Thursday, March 4, 2010
Time:	Presented twice at 10am and 6pm
Location:	The Evergreen State College-Tacoma Campus
Street:	1210 6th Ave.
City/Town:	Tacoma, WA

Author's of the book "Picking Cotton" Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino visit Evergreen-Tacoma Campus. Discussion will revolve around the problem of mis-identification that leads to convictions of innocent people. This is an incredible story.

Synopsis:

Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA
test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed.

Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face-- and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives.

In their own words, Jennifer and Ronald unfold the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing power of forgiveness. -- St. Martin's Press

4th Annual "Redeeming the Prophetic Vision" Martin Luther King Jr.

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Conversation Recap for May 3, 2009

We welcomed two new participants on a sunny morning.

Sid shared the story. We discussed our involvement with the public schools, and were asked to consider: how will we look back and describe what we did, knowing what we do?

We were visited by Chris Van Vechten, who is considering a run at the Tacoma School Board next year. He described his experience in public schools, a difficult time that he was able to turn around (three cheers for arts programs in the schools). He graduated from University of Puget Sound. [For some family background, he referred us to a book about his grandfather, Remember Me To Harlem,” ed. by Emily Bernard, from Knopf.]

One particular issue he is interested in in what we define as more important or essential subjects in class. He is also interested in looking at developing a school that focuses on preparation for trades, perhaps on a model like SOTA or SAMI.

He has been campaigning for about a month. When he asks people what needs to be done in their schools today, he hears a variety of things—which means a ‘one size fits all’ approach to improvement is a bad idea. He believes that schools at present very poorly serve students. One broad concept: schools need to be better connected to real life.

We had a broad discussion of the purposes of public education. Some participants shared elements of an answer, and offered the advice that the words need to be said (describing the real outcomes of the present school system), and that plenty of people won’t like it.

One participant compared the Tacoma public utility board’s experience in the drought at the close of the last century. It was an opportunity to be influential on the board beyond the formal rules and procedures. The school board might be a place to think about this—the work of getting others to change the way they see their basic responsibilities and resources is long and hard.

In discussing the achievement gap, several participants’ questions and suggestions encouraged a more specific, experience-based account of what can be done to make a difference. One participant suggested that someone (how about one of us) assemble a list of what we know can be done right now about the achievement gap.

And there was a generous sharing of humorous observations.

The assembled participants offered some broad recommendations about focusing a campaign. The advice from this group has to include the idea that one person can make a big difference. Frame the campaign—this whole thing has to change, and it starts with me.

Keith have a presentation about food security—he used the term “food dictatorship,” by which he means the commercial control of plant genetics. Commercial organizations have been able to patent organisms since the landmark Supreme Court in 1980, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, a 5-4 decision.

He showed us a video on Youtube, Frankenfoods. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG8Y-_p8XSg.

This raises some very interesting questions about the ownership of life.

Keith focused on the idea that the justice issues of food security can be addressed by going down another path—dealing politically with distribution issues. The trend right now is to develop food via patented products, which require farmers to enter into feed production of a particular design—they have to earn or borrow a certain amount of money to buy the patented foods, the fertilizers they need, and so on. The model is that property rights extend to all facets of the food cycle, and that all is for sale.

Anyone interested in the rules that apply to use of the “organic” label on your food, see the agriculture department web page on the issue: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateA&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOPNationalOrganicProgramHome&acct=nop

A good example of an interest group that keeps track of these questions (such as the link between genetically modified organisms and organic food), and has a rich website, is http://www.organicconsumers.org/. Their argument about a moratorium on GMO’s is at http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/gefacts.pdf.

There are alternatives to the current model of developing and selling food. Those interested in this may want to check Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy, and Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Both are well-written, carefully argued, and available in paperback. Each include some practical answers to the question, What Can I Do About It? Several participants raised broad issues that, they said, would be good to connect with practical steps we can take.

One participant noted the seedsavers movement. See www.seedsavers.org.

People interested in the story of the Canadian farmer and Monsanto, you can read details at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser

A recommendation: Stolen Harvest, by Vandana Shiva, and Water Wars, by the same author, are very good on these topics in a more global setting. See also Monocultures Of The Mind.

• Steve & Kristi play at Rhapsody in Bloom, this coming Wednesday, the 6th.
• On the 9th, a StopLoss Event, Coffee Strong Coffee House. All day event.
• Thursday, June 11, is the night of that Little Theater public event involving some members of the Conversation, save the date.
• Conversation meets May 17, at rehearsal hall of Broadway Theater.

Conversation Recap for April 5, 2009

Today looks to be gorgeous outside, it is supposed to get up to 65f.

We started with a story from Candace. The question and answer period was largely about personal things we don’t share on the blog. As a group, the Conversation usually looks for ways to support its participants.

Today Candace gave us a presentation on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or EDS, a connective tissue disorder. In EDS the body can not make collagen and put it in the right place correctly. Collagen does a lot of things in the body—it helps make skin supple, it makes blood vessel walls flexible, it makes ligaments and muscles strong, it helps make the membranes on organs strong, and other things. Any and all of these can can affect EDS patients, in degrees ranging from annoying skin problems, to lots of pain, to knees and hips popping out of joint, to fatal organ failures. There is no simple test for EDS. Biopsies to analyze collagen, classification through symptoms, and genetic testing are all used to understand particular patients’ condition (there are eight specific genetic markers for EDS). Accordingly, EDS is underdiagnosed in the population (probably by a factor of ten or more), and if often wrongly diagnosed and treated. And, there isn’t much doctors can do beside “support” patients—orthotics in the shoes, pain relievers, and so on. There is no cure.

You can read more about EDS at the EDS foundation, at http://www.ednf.org/, or at the EDS Network Cares people, at http://www.ehlersdanlosnetwork.org/. They have a particularly detailed description of the variants of the disease at http://www.ehlersdanlosnetwork.org/typesofehlersdanlos.html.

One very difficult family issue with EDS is that the easy bruising is often, according to parents of EDS children, mistaken by school officials as signs of child abuse. So parents have to cope with the Child Protective Services calls, the investigations at school, and more. Similarly, when EDS children are seen by people in the emergency medical system, they are likely to trigger an investigation into child abuse. If children are taken during such investigations and placed into the foster care system, they are very unlikely to be place in households that are knowledgeable about dealing with EDS.

We also had a discussion about how to respond to the situation of a participant in need, and we don’t put that on the blog.

Conversation Recap for March 22, 2009

We welcomed Dexter back, and had lots of good food for breakfast.

Dexter told us about a recent meeting of the Washington Alliance of Black School Educators (see here), and of his research in Jamaica. Some funny stories there that best stay with the group.

This led to some observations on local history. It is rare that the stories of people get recorded, such as the accounts of the oldest people in communities who can fill in the details of what life was like—things that don’t get into the newspapers.

The stories also led to a brief overview of Rastafarian communities in Jamaica. Rastafarians were, in the early days, among the few who would question royalty, investigate blackness, and attempt to construct an appropriate life. They started several communes in the area Dexter visited, and they lived on the beach, fished, did their carpentry, read and talked about Scripture, and lived as men of peace in the town he grew up in. If people want to learn more they can look up Leonard Howell, whose biography is entitled “The First Rasta.” So far no one has published anything about the commune is his particular town. One of the reasons it was not noted much in print was the peaceful lifestyle that fit right in, were not raided by the police, and did not directly confront the authorities (for example, no back-to-Africa doctrine, no veneration of Haile Selassie, no extensive use of ganja, and so on).

Today’s central topic is to look at the experiences of several participants, Growing Up in Which America. (The concept of which America does not refer to North/Central/South Americas, but to the ways the color line divides the United States.)

One participant related how during the first grade (approximately), a woman she was staying with attempted to instruct her in racist ideas. She brought up some of the vocabulary with her mother, who explained that some people were racist. When school busing started in her school district, the white kids continued to go to the local school and the black kids went somewhere else. Another time she was being teased on the playground for being white, and when she got home her mother explained the historical background that helped her see how these attitudes came about. Her mother purposefully tried to organize her social life so that she would have more black friends.

Another participant described the topic today as looking at growing up here that is different from people who are exposed to multiple languages, cultures, and so on. In the USA there is an ideal that isn’t how a lot of people actually live.

Growing up in the USA, one will be exposed to lots of names that mark one as not the ideal. He shared some of the names that mark people, your reporter won’t put them here. Suffice to say we have a well-developed vocabulary for sorting people with respect to the ideal—they all mean “lesser,” in some way.

These names mark us, and the experience of growing up around this constant sorting marks us. What interests him now is constructing a community that is more caring, and more just.

Another participant started by describing a class she is teaching in which she has students write about and discuss their encounters with the color line. That will be more fully developed in a subsequent meeting of the Conversation.

In her own life, she remembers some incidents that happened before she had a vocabulary to process color as a defining feature. On one drive through a poorer neighborhood, and asking about the dilapidated houses. Her parents said that these people don’t take care of their property. She asked why not. There was a long pause, and he said it was because the people who owned the houses do not live there, and it is they who don’t take care of them. She had the sense her dad was doing something

In another memory, an African American woman who came to do housework was referred to by her first name. Weird, her parents referred to all other adults by first and last names. When asked, her mother said, yes she does have a last name, and gave it. She had a sense to not pursue this any further.

In still another memory, a prominent person in the neighborhood, called The Colonel, came over and said something that was somehow portentious. She thought it might be that the river was flooding. When asked, her parents said, no, the concern was that a “Negro” family might be moving into the neighborhood. When asked why that was a problem, her dad said they don’t take care of their property. Oh, she responded, like the (name of family) down the street. That family, of course, was white. Her dad went quiet at that point.

What seems to unify the stories—These are all examples of where people know the myth that they are projecting, and when asked to account for it in careful terms, show they are aware of the contradictions.

An interesting discussion followed these reports of early memories. Many of the accounts were of their own early memories.

One participant told a story of how we cherish the things we now believe. We seem to believe that what is absurd must not be true.

One participant noted it would be nice to have some clear analysis of how white people become split growing up with the self-deception.
As one participant noted, there are quite a few pieces on that…. we should assemble a bibliography.

One participant noted a Native American concept called “acculture.” One has to learn to be mainstream. It is a normal topic. “Say what you want, but we are still prisoners of war.” A good novel: “The Indians Won,” by Martin Cruz Smith, 1981.

One participant noted that kids quickly learn things in a culture of hate. Kids pick up who is hated, and use this knowledge to construct a self. This makes the family something strange—it puts kids on notice that there are dangers here, and that they to can be hated.

One participant noted that he came to North America at the age of 15, and he found that he could walk where he wanted to and do what he wanted to do. It was some time later that he realized the house was subdivided, and that the people there were living differently from others. On the whole he grew up without hearing a lot of disparaging remarks. There was plenty of discrimination in Canada, but the stark divisions described by those of us who grew up in the US were not part of his life. Interesting border. One participant suspected there is, indeed, a big dose of such divisions in Canada, although they may be more obviously mapped in the Native/immigrant line, or the French/English line. In the discussion, it came out there are real differences among the regions in Canada.

Several people noted the “schizophrenic” qualities of the ways race and racism get expressed, as noted above in the stories about myths and absurdities.

One participant shared a couple of stories from childhood. He thought the city he grew up in was a black city. He would see white people downtown, and here and there, but there was a clear association between poverty and being black. And, of course, there where white people on TV. A white teacher at school was nice.

One participant noted The Wire. Most people here have never seen it. Those of us who have said the acting, the writing, the whole thing, is perhaps the best thing we have every seen on television. See the website here.

One participant described The Wire as unfortunately focused on the blacks-as-drug-users. As a kid he did not experience much in the way of white racism, he got all he needed from TV. The depictions of black people are generally pathological. Another participant suggested that the show does get at the complexities—the complicity of the many institutions that contribute to the decay of US cities.

Why was The Sopranos such a huge cultural event, and The Wire was not? That is perhaps something we can do in conjunction with Evergreen.

One participant related discussions about growing up in Tacoma. An early exposure to logic can make a big difference in a life. Parents play a huge role in encouraging kids to make sense of things we see AND things we feel.

One participant suggested that moving towards something else, to be building that more just, more caring society, should be on our minds.

Conversation Recap for March 1, 2009

We welcomed two new participants today, and welcomed back some folks we had not seen in a while.

Today we heard a part of Sid’s story.

Part of the story focused on teaching about the current wars, and

Thursday at 10am, at Pierce College’s Puyallup campus, James Yee will speak and show a slide show. He was a captain in the Army, a muslim chaplain who was arrested and harshly treated in response to his criticisms of our handling of prisoners. He was actually charged with sedition and spying. Charges against him were eventually dropped

Cara Bilodeau, Pierce County’s organizer for Stand For Children, visited today. You can check the Tacoma website of Stand For Children.

We talked about education and children’s issues. Some examples of things we are concerned about: Tacoma’s loss of 1,000 students per year, the achievement gap, high dropout rates, the quality of education students are acquiring—and a fairly widespread perception it is declining, unacceptably so. This is connected to accountability standards. Several mentioned concern with the the focus on testing and its effects on what happens in classrooms. Upside down priorities—an emphasis in Tacoma public schools on “the house,” the physical facilities, and too little on what does on in the rooms with students. Not all students are placed on the path to college, and selection criteria are worth a close look. Pressures on budgets seem to lead to fewer programs in art, music, and physical education.

We discussed the March 10 school bond election, and we have an interesting example of one path to accountability. We read in the News Tribune that “The Tacoma Chapter of the NAACP and the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance each voted this week to oppose the measure on the mail-only March 10 ballot.”

Yet this model of accountability is not the same as looking carefully at the purpose for which we run a public education system, and how well we fulfill this purpose.

We approached this from several ways, and came to a single answer: we need to have candidates who will willingly share information about the priorities in education, will be responsive to these education needs, and who will actually lead to fulfill these priorities. This Fall two School Board members’ terms are over. There are opportunities to find a couple of new leaders. Stand For Children will be actively involved in this, and they invite us to be active around this upcoming election.

We discussed the state’s Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance, whose final report you can read here. It was just published in January, 2009, and recommends several reforms in state education policy. One of the more controversial elements is a tougher path to teacher tenure, which would take longer and be more tightly focused on performance of students.

Their proposed new definition of basic education is:

Students must have the opportunity to learn the skills to:

(i) Read with comprehension, write effectively, and communicate successfully in a variety of ways and settings and with a variety of audiences;
(ii) Know and apply the core concepts and principles of mathematics; social, physical, and life sciences; civics and history, including different cultures and participation in representative government; geography; arts; and health and fitness;
(iii) Think analytically, logically, and creatively, and to integrate different experiences and knowledge to form reasoned judgments and solve problems; and
(iv) Understand the importance of work and finance and how performance, effort, and decisions directly affect future career and educational opportunities.

The Full Funding Coalition, (check them out here) made up of the Washington Education Association, the school superintendents’ association, and other professional organizations, published their own report, which you can see here.

The Full Funding Coalition has so far been successful in deflecting the Task Force recommendations. It does not hurt their cause that the estimates of the cost of funding Task Force recommendations are probably about 68% increase in the State funding for basic education—an extra one and a half billion dollars in a year when the state legislature is trying to find eight billion dollars to cut. Their approach is largely to identify possible sources of new funding for education.

At several points we went back to that idea of clarifying the purpose of basic education. Neither the Task Force nor the Full Funding Coalition address the issue squarely. For example, Conversation members might recall the HB2722 advisory committee, and its focus on a plan to address the achievement gap, made some different recommendations about how to handle education. You can read their final report, issued in December 2008, here.

Conversation participants are urged to contact their legislators this week, as the Washington Legislature is deciding over the next week or two what is to be done this year about education.

AND, we celebrated the birthday of our own TacomaLaurie. Happy Birthday, from all of us.

Conversation Recap for February 22, 2009

We welcomed a new participant today. This prompted a brief reprise of Conversation ideas and dreams, such as the need for the News Tribune to have a social justice column. (It doesn’t have one now.)

Today we heard Keith (S.) story. The Mexico chapter was the focus of the last time he was up, and today Alaska figured large.

One fascinating topic that emerged was the little-known consequences of WWII on the native peoples of the Aleutian islands. People interested in this may check out this site. That association helped publish a book on the topic (Kirtland, John C. and David F. Coffin, Jr. The Relocation and Internment of the Aleuts during World War II, Volumes I-IX. Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Anchorage, Alaska. 1981 and Kirtland, John C. A Case in Law and Equity for Compensation. Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Anchorage. 1981.). Also see this site. Strangely enough, the one dead link your notetaker found on that website was the one describing the Attu taken to Japan and made to work in mines.

Charhys led a discussion of domestic violence. Last week we looked at the topic in the home, and today’s focus was on domestic violence among and against teens. Violence is about power and control, and the point is to dominate the victim. Put-downs can qualify, for the persistent criticism works toward the same end.

For those wishing to recall some of the facts she went over, not recorded here, similar information and resources can be found here. Lots of information is available in .pdf form at this page.

We took a quiz that highlighted some facts about teens in relationships, with reference to violence.

As a note, we were given chocolates as a reward for getting quiz questions correct. We didn’t have to give them back if we got one wrong.

Charhys conducted a study of the relation between domestic violence in the home and in relationships, and getting involved in gangs. She found a strong relationship. It was typical for young women involved in gangs to report demands from men that signify a strong set of expectations—about women needing to be domestic, to serve men, to pay money. The also reported a strong set of expectations on the part of the men in their lives to be ‘ladylike’—to not use certain language, to not get too high, to be faithful, to never flirt, and so on. The young women also generally recognized that the attitudes were closely connected to males valuing their status.

Her study also found that young people, especially the women, do not have role models of good relationships and yet live under pervasive expectations to be in a relationship.

We discussed the availability of good data on the details of domestic violence. For those interested, a good starting point for data about domestic violence is the American Bar Associations Commission on Domestic Violence, here. More data on teens is available at this site. The DOJ report from 2006 on domestic violence of all types is here.

Another topic that emerged from the discussion, from participants with experience counseling young people, was that people have very little information about sex and relationships.

Of course, that is the focus of Charhys’ work at YWCA. Young folks simply need more information about relationships, about violence, about sex, and what they can do to respond to situations.

Several participants shared shared accounts of their own experiences, and people they have known, who have been in dangerous relationships.

Hey, PBS’s NOW ran a segment on their last show about sexual harassment and violence in the workplace. See it on their website.

Conversation Recap for February 15, 2009

Today we started with an effort to construct a phone tree, so that we can notify the group. This was an attempt to fine tune the notification process that was tested on the occasion of the cancelled budget meeting at Evergreen last Tuesday evening.

Instead of a story, we tried a device of having everyone write a note to someone else in the Conversation.

Charhys and Mona led a discussion of domestic violence. They brought poster displays as well as handouts. They work in YWCA programs that offer a number of services to victims of domestic violence. Legal advocates help victims navigate the shoals of the system, whether with hospitals, the courts, and so on.

If you know someone who is a victim of domestic violence, give them the phone number of the YWCA Pierce County: 253-272-4181. (more contact info below)

Charhys works on prevention among teens, and focuses in part on talking to teens about qualities of relationships.
The following appears on the YWCA website about domestic violence:

Domestic violence is abusive behavior that can be physical, sexual, psychological or economic. It is intended to establish and maintain control over another person. It affects people of every race, religion, and economic class. Over 80% of victims of domestic violence are women and 80% of perpetrators are men.

Domestic violence is a crime in the state of Washington. Under the Revised Code of Washington (RCW 26.50.010), domestic violence is defined as: a) physical harm, bodily injury, assault or the infliction of fear of imminent physical harm, bodily injury or assault between family or household members; b) sexual assault of one family or household member by another; or c) stalking as defined in RCW 9A.46.110 of one family or household member by another family or household member. (Further definitions and descriptions can be found in RCW 26.50.010 and RCW 10.99.020.)

Research indicates that half of all women in the United States will experience some form of violence from their partners during their lives, and that more than one-third are battered repeatedly. In 85% of assaults, the crimes are committed by men against women and for that reason it is an area of major interest to the YWCA. While physical indicators are signs of abuse, it can also be less noticeable and much more insidious. Abuse can be any attempt to control, manipulate or demean someone using physical, psychological, sexual, or economic tactics.
15-25% of pregnant women are battered.
80-85% of all documented reports of adult domestic violence are women abused by their male partners.
10-12% of documented adult domestic violence is the physical abuse of men by their female partners
20-39% of documented cases of domestic violence are reported within the gay/bisexual/lesbian/transgender community (accounting for about 3-8% of the total number of documented cases of domestic violence).
50-70% of men who abuse their female partners also physically abuse their children.
Of all female victims of homicide in the U.S., 30% are killed by husbands or boyfriends, a total of almost 1,500 women each year.
28% of teen relationships involve violence.

A detailed discussion of behaviors, responses and resources for help are available at here.

A great deal of material is found at the website of the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. From that website you can get to a recent 100-page publication, Now That We Know, that examines many topics, such as disparities in violence across the color line in Washington State. We discussed this particular point at several points—efforts to emphasize such disparities perhaps are unwise outside of a discussion of how to allocate program resources, because it quickly turns to (if it didn’t start out as) a way of disparaging ‘those people’ (which ever group one is referring to) as somehow inherently more violent, thus diminishing the significance of violence against particular people, and deflecting attention from our systems of dealing with domestic violence.

Mona reminded us that President Obama said we have an empathy deficit—and in the case of domestic violence it is part of a generalized effort to hide domestic violence. Efforts to characterize one group or another as more violent is of a piece with claiming domestic violence is someone else’s problem.

The WA state effort hopes to influence the legislature to fill in some of the gaps in the system, of which there are many.

One item our discussion leaders mentioned was the Adverse Childhood Experience Study, which looks at the consequences of living in a violent household. See it here.

Conversation Recap for February 7, 2009

This morning twenty-two of us began with check-in, and a discussion of progress on the Conversation barter system.

Today we heard Dalton’s story, written in the form of a letter to his children, on the occasion of attending a funeral.

The ensuing discussion went into the different senses of community we see in different places. The sense of community in a place where we grew up, where people tend to stay forever, is palpable. A funeral seems to gather the markers of community.

We also discussed writing letters—something done less often in this electronic age.

We heard a musical interlude, to songs from Steve and Kristi.

Tom, Eve and Keith led a discussion of ‘why we honor people,’ an topic that grew out of the Tacoma Civil Rights Honor Roll. Keith opened with several ideas—we tend to honor warriors. One point of the Civil Rights Honor Roll is that there are many people among us who do the work for years—as a society we tend to honor them less often. Eve and Tom expanded on the idea of the apparently ordinary people among us who do the less-noticed work of justice.
One participant recounted a story of attempting to teach kids who were not supposed to succeed—and a small bit of publicity about the successes drew naysayers. There are institutional forces that react to publicly honoring people. This raised a question: how does the audience of the people being honored feel connected to them? Nationalism is a powerful force that is instantly conjured by political leaders, and can use it to build support for policies. It is not difficult to connect this to honoring soldiers. And yet that dialog can not always be easily controlled—we were reminded of how public perceptions of the war in Vietnam changed.
Several people told stories on the general theme of organizations or people within them attracting attention, attracting honors as resume building, while the workers are ignored. With some of the examples the details were left out, yet it was a theme that many around the table indicated they recognized. We did not delve deeply into this.

We briefly discussed the example of Ben Carson, the surgeon who was the subject of a TV movie broadcast last night. Among the points raised—he was raised by a single mom in a poor city. How often do we hear attacks on single moms, yet here is an example of someone who was always a star—in his high school, college, early medical career, and so on to his current world fame. We seldom hear praises for the single moms of people like this.

One participant asked whether we have the vocabulary to do the honoring we are talking about, particularly with respect to recognizing people of color. The negative images are ubiquitous and powerful.

Another participant suggested that when it comes to justice work, we honor people and then the dialog moves on. People forget what we honored. It is not like we have the continued institutional focus of a national government or armed forces that commands attention of the media. Recognizing the folks who struggle is in part saying we step into the struggle with them—and that can include a comparison with the more comfortable parts of our lives and the forces that enable injustice to persist. This can be a difficult thing to do.

Another participant noted that many of the people we honor as a nation are not clearly connected with the youth he works with. The people we honor are put before us as role models—and yet plenty of kids do not see the connection. He offered that famous people we honor—the examples were George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.—had their personal failings. Honoring people in their complexity might be helpful to showing how they actually do connect to ordinary people, such as a 16 year-old in Tacoma.

A leader of the discussion acknowledged one motivation for today’s discussion is a desire to examine the criteria used by the Conversation to come up with the honorees at the annual MLK Day celebration. Among the issues raised were the following. By focusing on people who have been at civil rights work for a decade or more means that the honorees are going to be of a certain age. Some work that we regard as important may not be classified as “civil rights.” Some in the room draw meaningful distinctions between civil rights and social justice, although as the discussion showed there isn’t a consensus on this point. It is possible we wish to do another kind of honoring, perhaps even at SoJust, if the work we are honoring is close to the focus of that annual festival. One participant noted the timeline of the nomination and recognition process, and connected it to the possibility of drawing ongoing attention to the kinds of things we find important. Another participant said the city’s political leaders used to do more recognition of upcoming leaders, and that is worth doing. The City of Destiny awards go in that direction. One idea is that it is possible to make distinctions among types of civil rights work.

We might want to note that historians and other scholars of civil rights use definitions that emphasize the quest for justice and equality. Distinctions are commonly made among discrimination, historical periods, particular public policies that promote or threaten justice.
One participant noted the national project for honoring the civilian dead in Iraq, at iraqimemorial.org.

Note This Announcement. The Lincoln Center first year students have the highest GPA of any school in Tacoma. WOW. This is a big deal, folks. This is being presented to the Tacoma School Board meeting this coming Thursday. The meeting begins at 6, and such recognitions are usually the first item on the agenda. (NOTE: The actual presentation of the news will come at the Study Session which begins at 5PM. Conversation members and others are encouraged to attend).

Tuesday the 10th, 6 pm, we need people to show up at Evergreen-Tacoma. The powers that be at the Evergreen State College are coming to talk about budget cuts throughout the college and how those might impact the Tacoma Campus. They need to hear how we value the place. Please come if you can. Bring others who share the sentiment.

Conversation Recap for January 25, 2009

We began with a check-in. We welcomed a new participant.

Today we heard Tina’s story.

In the discussion we touched on the Courage and Renewal workshops, and the ways they encourage people to connect their self-understandings with their vocations, and their avocations. Phrases used in the workshop contain short-hand references to stories and ideas shared there. The use of a new vocabulary to make sense of one’s life can allow a person to quickly combine several ideas, to emphasize connections between the different pieces of a life.

Another theme that emerged was the shifts in diversity that often accompany transitions in life, such as moving to another state because of a job or education. For example, going from Foss High School to an all-white small-town Southwest atmosphere can be a shock. It also has consequences for what happens to our kids.

We started a discussion of the MLK event.

As a prelude, we listened to the new Seal cover of the song, “A change is gonna come,” title track on his new CD.

And, we watched the January 24 weekly youtube talk by President Obama (see it here). It is a short overview of the policies he intends to pursue during his term. In it he mentioned a website his people have put together.

We discussed some ideas referred to in the talk. People have a lot of hopes about what can be done. One clear point emerged—there is a lot of work to be done, and much of the work has to happen in states and in local communities. High presidential approval ratings do not by themselves produce policy changes. Comments that emphasized the hopes also mentioned the work to be done.

One person noted his limited comments on the health care system, and said that it seems like he is organizing to do something larger. People might be interested in an excellent article on the topic in The New Yorker.

Several participants noted the importance of making opportunities, of a new type, for younger people. For example, some plans for shifting us to different energy sources include creation of many new jobs—who will be trained for them, who will fill them?

We then entered the MLK discussion. One participant reported comments from the Maiselle Bridges family. This was very important to them, and to us.

Several participants noted surprise at the size of the Sons of Thunder group—there was a miscommunication there, and several people here expected five to show up. Another person commented that sometimes choir directors ask members to participate and guess at how many will be able to and that may be where the confusion was--they all came! Several commented on how much we enjoyed their set.

For the Future, it is a good idea to have performance acts submit a stage diagram with details of their setup, including microphone placement etc. It is also a sign of the importance of rehearsals—many people were not informed of what was going on at which rehearsal activity. Some participants discussed the wisdom of clearly designating some of these responsibilities. If we don’t do that, then when things come up they just get piled on the one or two people that are handling organization details.

Accolades to Steve Philbrook, the sound man, who adapted.

There was apparently little cooperation among the local mainstream media, although there was a notification in one of the Seattle papers in their list of MLK events, and one participant talked to a couple of people who came from Seattle just for the event. The News Tribune ran a January 19 story, a day late, about MLK celebrations in the areas. There was a story in the News Tribune, as well as one of their photo slideshows available online. See the photos here. To see the TNT story, go here. There was some speculation that the story of the little boy who was killed at the monster truck event might have preempted an earlier commitment to run a story prior to the MLK event.

We also discussed several issues connected to the public face of the event—is it religious news, is it entertainment news, is it part of the arts—How should we promote it? We have limited control over the TNT’s placement.

The estimate of attendance: something like 250 to 275, although some felt there must have been more.

Many participants mentioned the high quality of the signers’ work.

A couple of the honorees asked if they could say something, and asked our Host for the microphone. Though there had been no requirement to do so, Eve chose to allow them to speak.

We discussed the tables in the basement. There wasn’t much attendance. One suggestion: have them upstairs in the anteroom at people exit.

Other very positive accolades were shared over the introduction for Dexter, done by Callista; by Steve & Kristi’s set; by Eve’s work as host; for the co-chairs of the planning effort, Callista and Mona; for Rosalind’s dramatic piece that was part of the program.


There was some discussion of what the event actually is. It is entertainment, in several senses. It is ritual. It is church. It is part of what the Conversation does. One participant used the metaphor of a full meal being served to the community. Another way to see it is by examining the many facets of the Civil Rights Movement—some of it was pulpit, some of it was SNCC, some of it was Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, etc. It wasn’t one thing, beyond the unifying core of social justice.

Perhaps the news media needs a regular section on social justice.

If the church was packed, the dynamic for many things would be different. How to do that? One way to think about it—what are our communities, and how can we each link them to the MLK event next year? Perhaps we all have opportunities to do this. Another idea is to assign sections to members of the Conversation—have each sign up for finding 20 audience members, something like that. One participant asked people to come, and about 80% of the invited folks showed up.

MLK Redeeming the Vision 2009

Photobucket Album

Conversation Recap for December 7, 2008

Nineteen of us gathered this morning under clouds, with the sweet, spicy aroma of several dishes laid out on the table.

We listened to of Dexter’s KXOT commentary from August, on the pending election of Obama. You can hear it HERE.

In the ensuing discussion we heard many echoes of the themes in Dexter’s talk. The consensus is that the talk very usefully framed the mix of symbolic and material outcomes possible from this election. There are many sides to what is going on.

One participant noted some commentary from Naomi Klein, which you can get a sense of at the following:
• Democracy Now!
• The Nation
• AlterNet

One participant noted that the left in the US needs to be much better at supporting people. Take a look at this, for instance. Are you kidding? Why take it in that direction?

Another vital policy question is his policies about the war in Afghanistan. This might be a sign of the way his advisors constitute such significant choices. The machine that is in place might constrain his choices, and it is very possible that very bad outcomes are down the road.

We continued last week’s discussions with a presentation, entitled “Racism 201.” Last week an earlier attempt to discuss it took an unplanned turn, and we never did get back to the original topic. As he read last week from the concluding chapter of his book, Dexter suggested that none of us are untouched by what happened regarding race in the United States. Shortly afterwards the conversation took some turns that Dexter felt were especially critical of him, and it hurt.

Terms of engagement of the discussion. (from a list last week, based on a Conversation document from a couple of years ago)
1. Remember none of us is excluded
2. we are all both teachers and learners
3. manifest mutual respect and caring for each other
4. work hard to create a safe and liberated space
5. develop a thoroughgoing analysis of racism
6. embrace difference
7. racism is a difficult emotionally laden subject.

In the exchanges last week, the discussion was framed as one person marginalizing or minimizing the statements of someone else, and from therethe discussion never got back to the original topic. This week he offers a new list for Strategies of Engagement.
1. Assume best intentions
2. listen carefully and with curiosity, not with certainty
3. listen to understand not just to respond
4. own your works and your feelings by using “I statements”
5. engage, be courageous, explore your own discomfort
6. empathize, be courteous, allow others to explore their own discomfort
7. engage intellectually and emotionally
8. commit to talking through issues even if after session conversations are needed

One participant noted that there are some responsibilities shouldered by all of us. If someone says something that strikes us as somehow not right, or not following the terms of engagement about what we can say and what is left for others to say (say, about how we ourselves feel, and how we think others feel), we all have an obligation to seek clarification. Don’t let something sit there. Feel an obligation to request clarification. One participant suggested her obligation (and by extension, an obligation shared by all) to respond honestly and sincerely to things heard at the Conversation.

Other participants noted the same thing—that they noticed a need to clarify a topic, but balked at doing so. Several people expressed similar concerns, and described the particular issues that led them to hesitate. Remember folks, letting things ride is not an option.

One participant noted that we, like Dexter, play several roles here—sometimes we are listeners, sometimes we are speakers, sometimes we have a role in facilitating, and more.

We looked at some of the Conversation documents, available on the website. If you are reading this from the blog, check the links on the left, “Conversation History and Structure.” Some tentative suggestions were made about the content of some of those documents, yet most who spoke on the topic believe the current distribution of roles works well for us.

One participant noted that this extended discussion of process illuminates some of the approaches to our roles that we bring to discussions of racism—how active are we, how many of the terms of engagement we skillfully follow.

One participant shared that the conversation last week did not produce feelings of conflict or discomfort—on the contrary, his memory was that the conversation got into some interesting and illuminating territory from several points of view.

One participant noted that we each have a piece to contribute to a discussion of race, we each have experiences with it. And, we wish to try to understand these many perspectives.

A new slide in the Racism 201 presentation made these points: America is often depicted as Eden. And, it has two original sins…. the near extermination of the native population, and the importation of slaves from Africa.

Conversation Recap for November 9, 2008

We met at Evergreen and checked in.

We went around the circle with stories about where we were when he heard about the election outcome. Participants found a wide range of things to appreciate about the Obama victory. This is a time to remember for participants of the Conversation.

Several participants reported having friends from beyond our borders who offered congratulations and more—the whole world seems to be ecstatic about the election outcome.

We also discussed some expectations about political outcomes in the Congress, whose final makeup is not yet known—a couple of recounts are underway.

One participant observed that our joy for the election outcome needs to be tempered by a practical awareness of what happens after elections. A political machine exists, and the people who voted are not directly involved in exercising influence. Officials in the government, including appointees, and interest groups are the ones who are there day in and day out. The election is just a start. We were reminded that the post civil-war hope of overturning slavery, seriously reconstructing the country, quickly was swamped by the conservative counter-movement. Is a new reconstruction possible?

One observation shared by several people, was that this is a time to help articulate a progressive vision. We can help with that right now. Staying engaged might mean keeping in contact with elected officials. It might mean taking opportunities to speak, write and publish political visions that reduce the influence of the right wing dominated talk radio, along with its influence over the mainstream media.

Another topic that arose: to what extent is this an inherently conservative country? It is something we hear repeated. Yet ask for clarifications on what that means.


We continue today with a discussion of liberation theology (LT). We were guided by Dexter’s powerpoint presentation. For people looking for summaries of liberation theology, check these summaries: www.landreform.org/boff2.htm (an emphasis on development of the ideas, and its historical stages); www.con-spiration.de/texte/english/2006/liberation-e.html (an emphasis on how liberation theology did not bring about the institutional and social changes initially pursued, but that the movement still is evolving and has much to offer). For an academic treatment of liberation theology applied to the special case of Africa and decolonization, see Dibinga Wa Said, “An African Theory of Decolonization,” at www.jstor.org/stable/1509100?seq=1. As a note, you may be interested in the obituary of Hugo Assmann, in March of this year, in the Times of London, at www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3531857.ece.

Theologically, LT includes the idea that God needs to be seen as more than transcendent. The divine mysteries are clarified when we can see the suffering of others, in particular the plight of the poor. The evangelical quest, in LT, is not just to proclaim the good news, but to actually change the world. God becomes less mysterious if we see it moving us to live better, liberated from oppression and injustice. When peace comes, that is good news.

We were invited to consider the work of evangelism, worldwide and in our personal lives. There are opportunities to point out ideas about peace, and justice.

LT is partly grounded in the Old Testament, in the story of the liberation of Israel. It is also grounded in the New Testament, in Jesus as a liberator. The news to the poor is not merely salvation after death, but freedom from poverty and from oppression due to race, sex and class. The worldly examples of the message are many, such as Luke 1:51-3.

The LT construction of faith, hope and love speaks to the work people do here on earth, as well—fidelity to history, confidence about the future here on earth, and opting for doing something about poverty. The ‘end times’ vision of Christianity that is popular these days is precisely the opposite interpretation as LT—a giving up on this world, and for some actually promoting a last battle, starting in the Middle East, with an eye toward hastening the end of this world.

We grouped to discuss three questions: implications of LT for our (referring to the United States, not just us personally) religious practices, how LT affects our concept of God, and how it affects our work for social justice.

We heard of some experiences from Central America in the 1980s, when death squads targeted priests and teachers as a tactic directly aimed at LT and what it offered to the poor. And historically it turned out that parallel structures were required to carry the movement, because if it is just in the church its opponents have clear targets.

We heard some observations on the divisions among Christian churches with regard to the message offered on engagement in the world.

One report on the period from the mid-1970s Central America suggested that the movement during the time toward governments more on the left was part of that, and that the construction of it officially offered by our government, and generally supported in the media, was that this was evil communism.

One participant suggested that this is a version of a larger issue. For all of us, we can ask ourselves what is our relationship to people in poverty. It is not just something that people with a strong religious faith have to work with.

What does it mean to have a revolution without violence that targets poverty? LT asks people to fundamentally change many things. It asks for major changes in institutional priorities, in government policies.

One suggested we have a serious discussion of redistributing the wealth. One participant observed that we have trouble discussing this publicly because, in practice, we currently do redistribute wealth—through the tax code, through subsidies and legal support of various economic activities, we redistribute wealth upwards.

We heard a couple of observations about the quality of political arguments in the United States. The venom of talk radio (one person reported hearing a claim that Obama will be a “dictatorial socialist”) is repeated by people on the street. A participant told a story of seeing a couple of them at a Veterans for Peace march the other day.

One participant told an interesting story of how the state of Arkansas restored its usury laws and thereby kicked the check cashing businesses out.

The arguments for the plight of the poor seem to lose in this country, at least for the last 28 years. We can perhaps do something about this, and keep the pressure on.

It is possible that something like 85% of Washingtonians eligible to vote did so in this last election, which makes it the closest thing we have seen to an election expressing the genuine will of the people. Well, a continuation of these levels of engagement will make us look back at this election as genuinely transformative.

Involving at-risk youth in gardening: Thurs, 9 am

Conversation Recap for October 19, 2008

The day after the Achievement Gap Summit, we check in, and straggle in, but we are here. About 17 of us assembled.

Today we heard Colleen’s story.

In it we heard of several people who were bright and yet poorly served by schools. There is a clear pattern in schools of defining learning rather narrowly, and responding rather poorly to kids who learn outside of those bounds. One way to think of it: the schools seem designed to serve middle class white little girls, and not much else.

In the discussion we heard more stories of kids who were smart but didn’t fit into the schools. As part of these stories, a common thing to emerge is that parents find ways to blame themselves when their children have difficulties. Another theme: MANY of us have similar stories in our families. One part of it seems to be the categories used to classify kids—what constitutes adequate learning, what constitutes “behind” something like “grade level,” what constitutes adequate measurement of the standards, and so on.

One message that emerged: The kids have a much better chance of finding a path to success if they have parents who are highly skilled advocates. That seems to be a gigantic source of inequality. The kids who are not well-served by schools and who don’t have highly skilled parents face huge barriers.

The conversation in this group may have to add one more dimension. Note how the Achievement Gap Summit was built on the premise that there needs to be an incubator of ideas for people in schools, and connected to schools, so that people can take something useful back to their schools—go out from the incubator and produce change. This group turns out to have a wide range of skills and experience, and can come up with some original ideas. We should develop a team to get some funding to connect some of the people in this group, and to do this work. We can easily name three of us that have the right mix of knowledge and experience to work on the issues we care about—such as the achievement gap.

We turn to a related topic: What several of us are working on.

Dexter told us about HB2722. Years ago, a number of people—like Thelma Jackson, the Tacoma Black Collective—started to advocate in many forums for changing education to better serve African American children. At some point the strategy shifted to getting a law passed so that designated resources could produce an agenda. That resulted in HB2722, which in particular, it has the state recognize specifically the unmet needs of African American students.

The committee Dexter is part of is empowered to meet and set goals to promote change, suggest needed policies, programs and strategies for the state and local schools to consider, and to suggest benchmarks for achieving the goals.

Two committee meetings are left: Thursday, Nov. 20, from 10 until 2 or perhaps 4 (somewhere in Renton); and Thursday, Dec. 11, from 10-4 (somewhere in Olympia). A town hall meeting will be November 20, 6:30-8:30.

For more, CLICK HERE.

Tom told us about the Black Collective, which has been engaged with the school district for years. Things have gotten to the point where the Black Collective can no longer assume the School Board is going to act in good faith. Instead they have expressed to the Board a set of expectations about what constitutes progress, and set a condition on it: if progress has been made, they will support the Board’s future requests for voter approval of levies and bond issues; no progress, they will encourage members and allies to not support those requests for money. Several allied organizations have said they will also send this message to the School Board.

Tom also told us about the Tacoma 360 initiative. Remember GetSmartTacoma? They had several rounds of planning and discussion, and it sounded like a commitment to take action—but no money and commitment to specific steps to implement those ideas. Also, remember about a year ago when Tacoma Schools sent a team to a conference at Harvard, charged to come back and be a catalyst for change? The Harvard study group met for a few months, but support from the Tacoma administration evaporated…. just after Superintendent Jarvis was chosen as the Superintendent (previously he had held “interim” status).

Tacoma 360 is an effort to draw together the School Board, the city, Metro Park, and others to commit to an action agenda—the main device being the appointment of a person who will have the job of bringing those plans to an action level.

Eve told us about the “Meaningful High School Diploma Initiative,” which you can read about HERE. The state legislature asked the State Board of Education to develop a better set of graduation requirements, and Eve is one of the people involved in this. They have drafted a new credit framework called “Core 24.” This is from the website:
CORE 24 is based on the following principles:

• Equip everyone: Prepare ALL students for life after high school—in gainful employment, an apprenticeship or postsecondary education. Expect more: Align requirements to meet the increased expectations of the 21st century workforce.

• Provide flexibility: Allow students to customize their education, creating relevance to their interests.

• Give focus: Encourage students to align course work to achieve their future career goals.

• Plan ahead: Emphasize the High School and Beyond Plan to offer students personalized guidance to prepare them for work, postsecondary education, or both.

• Start early: Prepare students to enter high school and create opportunities to meet high school graduation requirements in middle school.

The central idea, then, is that we need multiple pathways to graduation, and no matter what path in life a graduating senior has chosen, they are prepared to do it successfully. This is a proposal to make that happen, now before the Washington State Board of Education.

Colleen described the activities of the education group. We attend Board Meetings, get involved in discussions of issues before the Board, and on alternative Thursdays meet to discuss strategies and tactics. Recently we chose to ask the Board for demographic detail of programs, by school building, in programs like AP, IB, and various special ed programs. Several years ago the Federal Way schools put together these data for their district. In one of those odd concatenations of events, the person who put together the data for the Federal Way schools now works for the Tacoma schools, and knows how to do it.

We suspect that AP and IB programs dramatically underrepresent African American children, and that special ed programs dramatically overrepresent them.

As a side note: The HB2722 group is strongly suggesting the publication of such data.

We broke into small groups to consider action items related to these initiatives.

One group came up with the following:

Run a candidate for school board, be thoughtful about how the education group links with the Conversation and with other groups (the Ed Group should be a leader of where the Conversation should go), perhaps focus the Conversation on education issues for several months or until a goal is achieved; develop an approach to identify particular children and help them succeed; perhaps develop a model of what a good school looks like, by constructing it; and maybe take over one or all of the schools that are within a year of failing the AYP standards; perhaps develop an affiliation with the school district (precedents include the Tacoma Urban League Academy and the Tacoma School of the Arts.

Another group came up with the following:

The data that we are uncovering needs to be seen by a lot of people; something like a Town Hall, for students, for parents, to discuss this type of thing, and we could make recordings of them to encourage growth of such initiatives; in every school there should be some kind of person that has links to student families; each of us could think about the communities we are connected with, and find ways to connect them with our efforts.

In summary, Dexter suggested we need a way to take this conversation forward, distill the ideas and come back to the larger group. We will look at draft of such a thing next week.

Conversation Recap forSeptember 28, 2008

Today we checked in, and noted that next week is our potluck (once each month we will do that, on the first meeting of the month).

Today we heard Dalton’s story.

Several agreed that chats between fathers and sons were scarce during the 1950s and 1960s.

We also talked about the politics of our times, in particular electoral politics. The presidential election commands our attention—and we want to look at what we think about leadership, what we know (and want to know) about our political institutions and practices.

We started with burning questions.

1. The electoral college, and its relevance today. An 18th century method of counting votes, originally a way to count votes for President.

2. What ideas about leadership did the authors of the Constitution have in mind, and what are some significant shifts since then?

3. What is the safest way to vote today, to make sure my vote gets counted?

4. Can we split our ticket in a national election? (Can you vote for who ever you want?)

5. Representative democracy (which the authors of the Constitution called “republican” government) does not seem, in our system, to represent the majority of the people. What are ways to get more people’s voices heard?

6. What are the advantages of having a two-party system? Why do we have it?

7. Is there a way we can keep the next election from being manipulated, or, as some in the room put it, stolen?

We discussed some of these, and ways that they overlap. We will go back to these questions.

Conversation Recap for September 21, 2008

We opened with a check-in, sixteen of us assembling at the start time, and a half dozen more shortly thereafter.

Today we heard Sid’s story, part two. In the ensuing discussion participants turned to the topic of code words in today’s USA. Several noted examples of things they have heard lately, in conversations, in media coverage of the election, and in the advertisements of candidates for office. For example, the McCain campaign featured a speech by him where he said the election was between a party that put country first and a party that put Obama first. The implication of less than full patriotism invites the listener to fill in for themselves the meaning of the other position. We noted several examples of people latching on to any old reason, any will do, to justify to themselves a refusal to vote for an African American. Very few people now feel comfortable saying it directly. It is all code words now. A more explicit ad was the one that featured Obama and Fannie Mae chair Tom Raines, with scrolls of “financial fraud” and other bad things running across the screen…. so we see these two black men followed by a white woman who sounds a bit intimidated. Come on, now—how many of the public know who Raines is? Why was it Raines instead of any other leader of the other organizations involved in the financial scandal, all of whom are white? This is a rather deliberate juxtaposition of black and white. One can use code words to make the point. And that is being done.

One participant offered a way to cope. If you or someone you know is not registered to vote, help them do so, help them get to the polls or to fill in their ballot.

We welcomed the return of Rosalind, who is back from her half-year stay in Texas. Participants said warm things—we notice he many contributions of people more easily, perhaps, when we stare at the empty space they filled. The expressions of appreciation ended with Patti LaBelle’s you are my friend (it’s on her “The Best of Patti LaBelle” cd).

This week the topic is leadership, in general and right here in the Conversation. Next week we are going to continue the discussion of leadership in an electoral context, so stay tuned.

For example, people noted the contributions made by Rosalind, and the connections we find regularly. Bringing people together is the product of work.

One way to think about leadership here is to compare understandings of the role of facilitator. One can see a facilitator as a neutral consultant who comes into an organization to bring them to a new place. In the Conversation, our facilitator is an insider, who is anything but neutral.

One participant noted the idea of neutrality, and suggested it is largely a myth that masks positions on issues.

What is leadership, who are leaders, what do they do? Dexter offered this definition to begin with: Having a vision which includes goals, connecting the reality we are in, and figuring out how to get to those goals. So essential tasks will include identifying and managing the steps needed to get to those goals.

Many participants in the Conversation do that, or elements of it, all the kind. And here we assemble, week after week, and people have stepped into many leadership roles in The Conversation.

One book Dexter relied upon for the analysis of leadership is by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge. (They have written several books on this and related concepts.) They list many qualities of leaders, and here is a list of some of the big ones: Honesty, forward looking, competence, inspiration, intelligence. That honesty is a big one—it speaks to a relationship that requires a certain quality that is internal, something that has to do with a person’s character. This gets us on grounds that are hard to judge. Something a little different from character is from the Greek ethos. It occurs when the group, for instance, recognizes a person as honest. It is a connection between group and leader. The members of the group recognize the leader is not there to exploit them, that he or she is guided by the best interests of the group members.

One participant told us about a book by Drew Westen, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.” He was interviewed on Bill Moyers, which you can visit at http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/436/index.html. His analysis goes to a widespread preference or emotional engagement by candidates rather than the details of policy proposals.

Dexter noted three skills needed by leaders: The ability to develop oneself, the ability to deploy one’s own strengths and weaknesses, the ability to facilitate or develop the abilities of other.

The elements noted in the previous two paragraphs serve as tensions in our politics. One of the qualities commonly noted about the President of the United States, for example, is that he is not a man given to self-doubt, not someone who revisits past decisions to examine whether things are going well. By the qualities noted in the Kouzes and Posner approach, this is trouble. How much trouble? Consider the following:

Leadership practices, a list of the top nine:
1. Learning all the time
2. Listening (and, attentive listening is not something that occurs naturally for most of us)
3. Discipline (in part, understanding what one can and can not do because of the responsibilities of leadership)
4. Reflection
5. Compassion
6. Action
7. Take account of time, manage it well
8. Persistence
9. Attitude—understand what attitude communicates to people.

One participant noted our efforts to understand the political choices of our fellow citizens. Personal experience, and he is a person that listens, leads him to conclude that a very large number of people, maybe 2/3, are ready to take the step and recognize the need for large scale changes. Our fears that racism will produce a 10 or 20 point advantage to McCain may not be right. We might not understand the common sense of others very well.

We will see.

One participant noted that in the list of leadership skills, several items are comparatively passive, being a member of a group, being with people.

Some Conversation members attended a Courage and Renewal workshop yesterday. One reported on a discussion of the ways love and power interconnect. This echoed the earlier observations about ethos, the other-regardingness that comes from the connections among people. By the way, this workshop was brought to Tacoma by the actions of one of our participants.

One participant noted that the Conversation can move from valuing these qualities of leadership to learning how to deploy them—some of it might be each of us focusing on what elements we want to develop. Some of it might be in the programming decisions we make.

One participant described different levels of leadership—influence within organizations can come from people who are not titular heads of anything. Others can understand the intensity of commitment or other qualities among other members of their group, and willingly confer leadership authority on those people.

One participant described a new word, multicentricism—it means, many centers moving, all in a single direction. Acting on a challenge from a leader, she coined it to refer to the many backgrounds, circles in which we travel, knowledge and skills, cultural endowments, and so on, that can be drawn together in the pursuit of a task. Take a look at it from the other side—we have picked up from our cultural endowments many forms of weaponry, and our diversity can be a toolbox of ways to not get along with each other. Several Conversation members regularly work in their jobs finding ways to work with others and develop the toolbox of cooperation.
Two participants had a letter published in the News Tribune this week. It spoke to issues we discussed today.

One participant noted that the qualities exercised in one political campaign now is really at odds with the qualities needed to govern. The campaign is earnestly developing a distortion, an image that is patently at odds with the truth.

One participant noted that he holds on to “church” because it is one of the best working models of community groups that regularly meet and identify people who can express qualities of leadership. Following that, people around let a person know they are in a position to provide some leadership. In church, you learn if you can sing.

Announcements
SoJust needs folks, Saturday Oct 4, to assist with the program—at the kids’ zone, greeters and program handlers, a presence in the various rooms in use (such as being at a table where folks are writing letters to elected officials), food patrol, and cleanup (Setup starts at 10, the event starts at 2, cleanup starts at 6 pm).

Seattle Bioneers are having a gathering Oct. 17-19, see it at http://www.nweec.org/seattlebioneers/.

Sept. 26, at Kings’ Books, 7pm, Mazda Majidi will speak on the situation in the Persian/Arabian Gulf.

Time to register for the Achievement Gap summit II, Oct 18.

Conversation Recap for September 14, 2008

Check ins. People are transitioning back into school, some into new employment, others are dealing with serious family health issues.

Intros of new people.

We heard Stephen P’s Story.

Discussion revolved around growing up in isolated privilege and coming to awareness of injustice and social inequality and the gifts that come with that awareness.

Dexter led us in a discussion around how we are progressing as a group. His summary of where we’ve come included the notions that
1. We are an intentional group
2. We are en engaged group

We are committed to this engagement in the sense that we embrace the challenge of embracing the challenge of staying together. When one of us “makes a mistake” and others call us on it, do we return the next week, gather ourselves and return the following week or lick our wounds and disappear?

Full engagement in each others lives is how we will move forward as well as finding the balance between spirituality and social justice. He reminded us that we are the only group of this kind anywhere in this community-not with this level of open membership.

Someone said that as one who is less comfortable with pursuing spirituality, they have personally benefitted from the discussions of Buddism and meditation.

Others cautioned that spirituality and religion can cause problems within an organization because everyone has a different idea about who/what God is.

Several said that religion and spirituality should not be used synonymously and that social justice work is spiritual work and fulfills that space for them.

One person mentioned trying to meet at 1pm on Sundays for awhile to see if that works better for folks who are attending church.

Others talked about how this group fulfills their spiritual needs.

One person talked about the consumptive appetites of so many religious traditions and not being willing to give all that one is to that tradition. But so many of us DO seek connectedness with other people and as this group grows and sustains itself, not having that consumptive appetite grow as well.

Another talked about how the diversity of spiritual traditions in our group means that we can all access wisdom and support from each other without it becoming something that we push on one another. We are spiritual and we are also free in that we accept each other’s spiritual diversity.

Friday night was offered as an option as well, being the end of the week. Another thought that there are people who would enjoy coming but not necessarily every week. Maybe the Sunday at 1 could be once a month, and those who are more committed could come every Sunday.

One person said that they get satisfaction form the group as it is, though some small changes could make the facilitation of discussions even better.

Another point made was that while religion and spirituality should not be heavily emphasized, we should not ever make any subject taboo as long as we keep our commitment to respectful discussion.

One person suggested that we each talk with those we know who have not been coming to get a feel for why. It may not always be about church conflicts.

Another point was about how people often are religious hypocrites-actions speak louder than words. Sometimes we have excuses for not coming that we just need to get over. Those of us that are here are those of us that will be here.

Dexter wrapped up by saying that there is no desire necessarily to make a campaign to “get anybody back” it’s more about sitting with an individual to make sure that we didn’t do anything as a group that felt like an injustice to them. We do operate as adults and people vote with their feet all the time.

The academic perspective that he brings is that we do need to hear “the other side” even if we do not agree so he will not be a member of the group that says it will only talk with democrats.

Another comment was about not needing to go out and recruit those with very different views, but welcoming and respecting those who come to us with differing viewpoints should be our goal.

Announcements:

SoJust has met it’s fundraising goal of $3,500. Lineup is ready, posters done. Anyone with suggestions for community organizations to table at SoJust, let Sonja or another SoJust committee member know.

MLK committee decided to go ahead again and partner with Associated Ministries as fiscal agent. Still need to identify honorees.

Elizabeth Wesley Youth Merit Incentive Awards Celebration
1PM on Sat. Sept. 20th at Clover Park Technical College Sharon McGavick Center

Achievement Gap Summit II on Oct. 18th at UPS

Tacoma Civil Rights Project exhibit is on display at the Washington History Museum until Dec. 7th