photo by partie traumatic

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.  Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This often quoted comment by Dr. King forms the foundation of Adam Kahane’s new book,  Love and Power: A theory and practice of social change. Melinda Weekes and I attended a recent book talk by Adam, attracted to the topic because, at IISC we’ve been thinking through and practicing the connections among power, love, networks and collaboration for years now.  Much of what Adam shared resonates with our thinking. The book builds on the thinking of theologian Paul Tillich.   His definitions are worth taking a closer look:

• “Power: the drive of everything living to realize itself with increasing intensity and extensity.”  The focus is on development, growth, and self-determination.

• “Love: the drive towards the unity of the separated.” The focus here implies an underlying unity that has been lost or broken.

Adam argues, and we agree, that joining love and power holds a key to powerful social transformation.  And, he reminds us, as Dr. King did, of that both love and power have positive/generative dimensions, and negative/degenerative dimensions.

Where have you seen loveless exercises of power at in social change work?  Where have you seen powerless expressions of love?  And, most intriguingly, where have you see a powerful combination of power and love in their most positive, generative manifestations, help to change the world?

Facilitating discussions and dialogues about race can be tough. Lack of information and knowledge, different lived experiences, unspoken assumptions, varying definitions of key concepts and differing interpretations of problems and solutions are just a few of the things that can get in the way of groups communicating authentically and building solid agreements. I’ve found that attention to three dimensions of preparing for such conversations can make all the difference between productive engagement and destructive experiences that take years to repair.

One dimension relates to process: planning the who, what, where, when, and how of discussions. We find that some people who approach these conversations with a solid foundation on the content of the conversation—race, race equity, dynamics of oppression, and the like—can face challenges when they don’t focus sufficiently on the process. Asking the following kinds of questions are essential to setting up for success: What are the intended outcomes of the conversation—from the point of view of the conveners and the participants? What role am I playing: Presenter? Trainer? Facilitator? Coach? All of the above? How can I strike a balance between communicating information, persuading people about my analysis, and engaging participants in discussion that leads them to their own conclusions and agreements? How do I design a process that moves a group systematically to a common understanding and a shared vision of what’s possible? And, how can discussions about such potentially volatile issues be authentic, safe (note, I said safe, not necessarily comfortable), and productive? In my experience, the disciplines of facilitation and group dynamics offer useful strategies for intervening to help a group get “unstuck” and get a derailed conversation back on track.

A second dimension is preparing for the content of the conversation: What’s the history, analysis, key concepts, and information that people need to engage in order to achieve their intended results? We find that some people who approach race-related conversations with a solid foundation in more general facilitation and collaboration skills—process expertise, if you will—can face a very different set of challenges. Asking the following kinds of questions can help to prepare for the content of race equity conversations: How can I help participants understand the context of any given conversation and what that implies about what’s “on the table”? How much do I need to know about the context and the content, even if I’m not being asked to provide expertise on the content? How can I anticipate and prepare to deal with hot button issues or places where a group will get stuck? How might my own knowledge and beliefs about race and racial equity, and my own identity, either help or hinder the work?

The third element of preparation is about we can use ourselves as instruments. Regardless of our role in a given discussion and regardless of whether we are more experienced around process or content, the way we show up as people matters. If we are peaceful or angry, anxious or focused, open or judgmental, that will have an impact on the groups with which we work. We’ve found that a variety of strategies for staying centered, dealing with strong emotions, exploring our own identities and worldviews are essential to enabling facilitators of discussions about race and racial equity to meet people where they are and guide them to where they want to go together.

How are you preparing yourself for conversations about race?

To the people who say (as I heard recently on the news) “I want government out of my life and out of my pocket!”, I say, see how far you get without roads, bridges, schools, water, sewer, fire and police forces, courts, public transit, public parks, libraries, and the like.  To those who say (as I also heard recently) “I was raised that if you see something that needs to be done you just do it. No whining. No waiting for government. You just do it.” I have a few questions. Does that include paving a pothole? Educating a neighbor with special needs? Making books available to children and adults doing research? Building an extension to a road or transit system? Ensuring that the air and waterways are not polluted? Providing shelter, health care and other safety net supports for people in need? Making sure that everyone does their part to avert a climate disaster? You get my point. As a tax payer, I’m getting a pretty good deal for what I pay. It would take more than 80 years of paying our property taxes to exceed just the cost of educating three sons in private schools!

This is not to say that I’m a misty-eyed enthusiast for all things governmental. I’m well acquainted with the glaring excesses and failings of our government, like the Tuskegee experiments (where black men were denied syphilis treatment in the name of science); coup and assassination attempts on foreign leaders;  surveillance, harassment and murder of domestic political activists; systematic investment in exclusionary white suburbs and the creation of a white middle class; and more recently, “systematically misrepresenting the threat” posed by Iraq’s weapons programs to justify a preemptive war.  I could go on, but I won’t. I just think that the alternative to bad government is not less government, but accountable government. I think it’s time to re-take and re-tell the story about what government is about and what it can do at its best. My biggest question is what will it take for the voting public to get fired up about that?!

One student, to his credit, spoke of Dr. King’s opposition to discrimination and linked that to what he saw as injustice in our present day health care system. No one should be discriminated against – and everyone has a right to access health care. Right on! This young man got the point. But, sadly, he’s the only young person I heard today who spoke of justice or attempted to connect Dr. King’s legacy to current day justice issues. I heard several other middle and high school students say things like, “No one wanted to resist Jim Crow until Dr. King gave them inspiration,” or “He opened the doors for hope and then people walked through.”

Not quite. Not to diminsh Dr. King’s legacy, but he was not the sole source of inspiration or resistance for black people, who had a firmly established tradition for resistance generations. And, even during the movement, there was considerable inspiration and resistance from the ground up, to which the visible leaders like Dr. King, had to catch up.

One student compared a beloved teacher to Dr. King based apparently on the teacher’s willingness to give of himself for the benefit of his students. Nothing wrong with giving selflessly for the benefit of individual students, but that’s not even close to the meaning of Dr. King.

I know it’s hard to tell the story of a group or a movement, rather than an individual. Seems we’ve done a terrible job of it with the Civil Rights Movement. As the movement generation ages, it seems more and more urgent that the story be told and re-told as the story of a generation (really several generations moving together and working in creative tension with one another). Let’s keep the history of MOVEMENT in the story of the Civil Rights Movement!

Systems Thinking and Race (Read the article!)

Two seconds of someone else’s carelessness has changed my life and my body forever. Ever since, I’ve been trying to displace the vision of myself as workhorse, resisting the reality of more fragile and limited images. There’s some good news in the bad news—some residue on the sides of the empty part of my glass. I’ve had to reconsider how much I can do, how much I want to do, and how much of that activity really matters. Not that I’ve figured it out, but that I’ve payed more and more attention to asking the right questions. I’ve been trying to follow Rilke’s advice: “Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

I think it’s the same in organizational and community life. Our glasses are both half full and half empty. We can rejoice in the half fullness; struggle with the half emptiness; all the time striving to perceive the residue on the edges of the empty part. And we live into the questions of meaning. What should we do? What must we do? What must leave aside? Does the empty or the full part of the glass deserve more attention right now? I’m still living my way into my own answers. Meanwhile, I can say with certainty, I’m glad that at least I have a glass!

Listen to this summary of an Applied Research Center report on the issues of race, recession, and recovery.

To read more, go to: http://www.arc.org/content/view/726/136/

In the past two years, I’ve begun to take women’s work – organizing among and on behalf of women – more seriously. Why? Because I’ve begun to see a unique source of power I had missed before. I’ve worked with incredible African American and Sudanese women in the Sisterhood for Peace who working toward peace for the whole of Sudan. I’ve wept as I watched documentaries about the horrors facing women in Darfur and as I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, set in late 1980s Afghanistan. I’ve learned with great pride about Liberian organizer, Leymah Gbowee, who catalyzed the Women in Peacebuilding Network—a movement of women who were sick and tired of losing sons, brothers, and husbands to a 14 year civil war—and whose actions led to the war’s end.

I have met Kenyan activist, professor, parliamentarian, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai who founded the Greenbelt Movement – a women’s movement which was launched to call a repressive government to account, to protect the environment, and to build peace. I’m reminded of the mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina who held vigil and insisted their government answer for the lives of their loved ones. I’ve come to understand the unique role women play in building peace. A Darfuri woman put it simply. “The men [who are engaged in the conflict] are our brothers, husbands and sons. If we cannot influence them to seek peace, who can?!”

Che Guevera once said “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” It seems to me that there is no greater love than a woman for her children and family to set the wheels of a peace-producing revolution in motion. Where have you seen this love in action? What stories can you share?

Even so, I recognize certain things that are very American about me. Take my general stance that most things can be changed; that with enough energy, resources, brainpower, commitment “it can be done.” I recognize that point of view as a privilege that not everyone can partake.

I recognize the privilege of holding that little blue passport in the context of international travel. And, I know I have the privilege of freedom from scrutiny and discrimination in civic and economic processes like registering to vote or applying for a job, loan, or college.

But, there’s an even more basic privilege that I rarely consider. I carry shame and grief at the realization that I have done precious little to leverage or neutralize it. My American lifestyle and the privileges I enjoy are a direct function of genocide. On one level I’ve always known this. There were people here before the European settlers arrived. The Mashpee Wampanoag’s even helped some of them survive and learn to live here. And their repayment? Near obliteration and more than 350 years before the U.S. government would deign to recognize them as an official tribe. The unmitigated gall!

I’m ashamed of my smug progressive stance. Of course Native peoples have been oppressed and I call Columbus Day a Day of Mourning. Yet, I know so little of the history and I’ve been so unengaged in the struggle for justice for Native peoples. I’m only getting outraged in a very visceral way as I ingest spoonfuls of history. (Thanks PBS for “We Shall Remain“!) And, just as I’ve been told white people sometimes feel when they first really confront the reality of their privilege, I’m unsure what to do with the outrage and how to live inside the reality that every day my life is made possible by what has been taken from other people. It’s one thing to understand it in the abstract—to know that we’d need four planets for the entire world population to live the way we do. It’s another to know I that literally grew up on land in Massachusetts that was taken by force from people who initially acted in compassion and good faith. And that was repeated “from sea to shining sea.” And, now we’re back to the two-ness. The people who did that were not my people. And, yet, what they did accrues to my benefit daily.