In case you missed my first post in this series, I am raising a series of questions about power and privilege in social change work at the invitation of the Walk the Talk zine project. Today’s post is a bit long, and covers two questions:
How do I handle my privileges responsibly and avoid the “oppression Olympics?” Read More
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One of the coolest agendas we have designed, this one for our Black and Brown Break It Down convening.
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Fundamental –noun: a basic and necessary component of something, especially an underlying rule or principle
Last week, Gibran and I led the workshop, Fundamentals of Facilitation for Racial Justice Work. The workshop builds on IISC’s work over the years to apply the best of what we know about collaboration and group process to the specific work of advancing racial justice. We pushed ourselves to distinguish what was truly fundamental from all of many powerful concepts and skills we could have included. We settled on exploring three questions:
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My colleague Melinda and I are just coming off a powerful conversation with a process design team this morning about the importance of bringing structural analysis to the existing opportunities, or lack thereof, for children as these play out along the lines of race. Low and behold, we receive the following job announcement from the Kellogg Foundation, for a Program Officer for Racial Equity. Part of the description reads as follows, and stands powerfully on its own:
In recent years the foundation has sharpened its focus on improving conditions for vulnerable children, concentrating on three key factors of success and their intersections: education and learning; food, health and well-being; and family economic security. Given that a disproportionate number of vulnerable children in our society are children of color, as a consequence of both the legacy of this nation’s history of racial oppression and the structural racism that continues to permeate systems and institutions, both racial healing work and the dismantling of structural racism are key ingredients in any effort to, as the foundation’s mission statement reads, “propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.” Thus, the foundation has made a commitment to being an effective anti-racist organization and to working to achieve racial equity.
We’re standing. We’re applauding.
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Last Wednesday, March 23, my colleague Melinda and I had the privilege of hosting a beautiful dialogue among a select group of Boston’s Black and Latino leaders. Following is the invitation that we sent:
We have all heard the news – the United States will be a “majority minority country” before the turn of the century. The historical significance of this demographic shift cannot be overstated – Americans are already contending with this emergent reality. Black and Latino people have been living side by side for a long time, there are many ways in which ours is shared experience, our histories are profoundly intertwined. We recognize strong alliances and cultural intersections and we also recognize old and new tensions. Read More
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Photo by: Fzyaso
The following is a repost of a Huffington Post blog by Alicia Anstead, including reference to the work of IISC’s own Melinda Weekes.
Tonye Patano, a black actor in New York City, was so consumed last year by reading a script about minstrelsy, she was late for an audition. The story had rattled and repulsed her. But she couldn’t put it down. The day when she finally headed to the audition, she heard a group of young black teens on the street riffing in racially charged language.
“It was their way of relating to each other,” said Patano. “My response in my spirit was: ‘Young man, do you hear what you’re saying?’ But they were owning who they were, not caring about anyone’s judgment. Even if I don’t agree with it, they had made the language their own.”
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“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:
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A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post about the constructive engagement of conflict – called Stay! Stay! Stay! It was some thinking sparked by reading the beginning of Bernie Mayer‘s new book “Staying with Conflict“. I’ve been reading more of that book this week – and thinking as well about the work IISC is doing to become an anti-racist, anti-oppression, pro-liberation organization. (And yes, we do know that’s a mouthful!)
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This is the fourth in a series of postings about power and group facilitation processes, based on research from a few years ago. Today’s post is about how power is built into group narrative.
As I was doing research, I came across a batch of work about narrative theory by Sara Cobb and Janet Rifkin (cited below). Cobb and Rifkin researched how a narrative is constructed and what impact it has on the ultimate outcome of mediation sessions. They found that the first story told tends to be privileged and “colonize” later stories told.? By framing the discussion to come, this initial story tends to narrow and define the direction of the ensuing conversation. Later versions are generally tied to the initial story and thus are unable to be fully developed. And the outcome of mediation is generally tied to the initial story. Read More
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More about power and group processes. There have been a mountain of books written about the “bases of power” and the “types of power”. I’ve done some work to try to boil it down – and find thinking about this very useful in moving forward the conversation about how to address power issues in group processes.
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One of the first questions you might ask when thinking about looking at power dynamics in group facilitation is what IS power anyway? This seemingly simple question, of course, is not really all so simple after all. What do you think? How would you describe power?
When I first started trying to answer this question for myself, I found that I was overwhelmed with material -? literally hundreds and hundreds of books about what power is, where it comes from, how it operates, etc.? For many, a definition of power has to do with the ability to force something to do something they wouldn’t have done otherwise – a coercive definition of power.? Feminist psychologist Jean Baker Miller described power as “the capacity to produce a change.” Others (and in fact, our common terminology) talks about power as a “thing” that can be divided, shared, owned, and transferred. Read More
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A few years ago, I researched and wrote a masters’ thesis on addressing power dynamics in collaborative process design and facilitation.? I was doing the study based on great questions raised over the years by Cyndi Suarez (Co-Director of Northeast Action) – and with the belief that if power dynamics are not well understood and addressed, group process facilitators are likely to unknowingly reinforce the status quo – a scary thought for those of us working on social justice and social change!
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