Navigating Systemic Change

Facilitated by Pete Nelson

FACILITATOR BIOGRAPHY

Pete Nelson, co-founder of Adirondack Diversity Initiative, leads ADI’s community policing program. An activist and teacher since the 1970’s, his diversity and social justice work includes tenants’ rights and inner-city housing in Chicago and equity in education in Madison, Wisconsin. A math teacher and member of the Diversity Task Force at North Country Community College, Pete is co-founder and Board Chair of Adirondack Wilderness Advocates.

SET THE TONE

Pete Nelson began with a round of introductions, asking participants to share their names and reasons for attending. Pete took care to acknowledge his privilege in the space as a White male facilitator. In describing his involvement with diversity work, he shared his personal and professional background including moments of outrage and activism in his life and his career. He told the group that he is currently involved in police reform in Franklin County.

ACTIVITY

Pete handed out a questionnaire with six scenarios. The following questions guided the group through the scenarios: Does this scenario show an instance of or evidence of racism? Why or why not? If it does, and if you were involved in some way, what might you do to effect change?

Six scenarios:
1) A young White teenager is hired by a landlord to do yard work at a duplex in an upper-middle class neighborhood at the edge of a large city. This particular street has a number of duplexes. One day the landlord comes up to her and says, “Do me a favor: let me know if you see any Black people moving onto this street.”

2) Your friend and colleague, an older Black man, is cutting his grass in front of his house, which is situated on a busy street in a largely White suburban neighborhood. He tells you that every couple of months someone will drive by and ask him if he can work on their yard when he’s done with this one.

3) You are at a community hearing to consider creating a charter school intended to achieve a higher ratio of Black students graduating and going to college. During the meeting you learn that the rate at which young Black men graduate in your well-to-do and progressive community, a little over 50%, is the same rate at which young Black men in your community are incarcerated.

4) Your work takes you from a middle-class largely Black neighborhood in a major city to a middle-class largely White suburb of the same city. Statistics show that life expectancy in the White suburb is fifteen years higher than the Black neighborhood.

5) You work at a college that has a policy of over-enrollment in order to maximize revenue. For a typical class with an enrollment cap of 25, the college will accept up to 30 students knowing that typically 4 or 5 of them will drop the course in the first three weeks.

6) You are driving at night with your friend, a Black woman. A White police officer stops the car for having a broken taillight. The officer is unable to see the driver before making the stop. The officer follows the same protocol he uses for all traffic stops: he asks for license and registration, asks your friend if she knows why she was stopped, and issues a ticket. The officer behaves in a professional manner. Your friend insists she was profiled.

The group read and quietly considered. Pete brought the group back together and reopened the conversation, ushering participants through the six scenarios. He allowed time for each person to share personal anecdotes. Pete moved around the circle informally, interacting with each participant who raised their hand. The audience was extremely engaged, emotions and perspectives were shared, and a palpable buzz filled the barn.

Pete wrapped up by sharing his gratitude and his strong belief that conversations like these are important and useful. “One voice sparks change – activism happens in ripples,” he said. “Institutional change comes with conversations and authentic human connection.” He closed by emphasizing patience, encouragement, and involvement.

LESSONS AND DISCUSSION POINTS

Below are the major lessons that emerged collectively as Pete Nelson facilitated. Credit for these ideas belongs to all participants who were engaged and vocal:

• Historically-held western ideas of who belongs in “the wilderness” are derived from a racist narrative of exclusion rather than preservation of natural spaces.
• Interpersonal and institutional racism overlap, co-occur, and reinforce each other.
• The far-reaching effects of institutional racism come, in part, from the repetition of individual biases. “The system” is a sum total of individual acts. Ex: redlining and assumptions about land ownership in communities.
• Labels can lead to exclusion and underperformance. Data in psychology and education studies clearly demonstrate the Pygmalion and Golem effects that directly impact performance in primary schooling, higher education, and business settings. In this instance, the danger of educators ascribing labels such as “lazy” and “difficult” when Black kids are in trouble; assuming they have personal and/or behavioral issues versus assuming that troubled White youth are plagued by environmental conditions beyond their control. The misattribution of personal failure or character issues to Black children by educators consistently leads to what is known as the school to prison pipeline where similarly biased judges overwhelmingly sentence Black youth to jail, negatively impacting their future potential, enriching the lucrative prison industrial complex, and ultimately supporting the loophole written into the Thirteenth Amendment.
• It is critical that predominantly White progressive communities heighten their awareness of the gaps between anti-racist ideology and practice.
• A racist business model for college enrollment banks on setting up Black students to fail. An example: admit Black athletes, underfund them, expect that they are academically unprepared and will drop out (structural racism) and burden them with the debt of college loans while retaining and profiting from the government funding received for the same kids who no longer attend. How do we ensure that Black students are supported, and drop out is prevented?
• Higher maternal mortality rates exist among Black women.
• At one particular school in Lake Placid, North Country School, Black students have shared that they do not feel safe due to White expectations and racist norms that stifle free, natural, individual, and culturally-rooted expression.
• Over-qualification is required for Black people to be considered for a “seat at the table” vs. under-qualification for Whites, who often rely on family ties for access. Example: legacy admissions.
• Enrollment success/failure is a structural process. Is it more equitable to do away with the SAT and other “standardized” tests which have been shown to include bias?
• In profiling students, who decides who is admitted and who isn’t?
• Racist policing contributes to structural racism and generational trauma.
• Traffic tickets are a method to assert control, dominance, and instill fear in targeted people.
• • Perception is reality; if your friend feels like she was profiled by a police officer, to her understanding, she most certainly was. Empathy can be offered for her personal experience of that interaction.
• Police reform can include practical, facilitated discussions amongst officers about the roles equity and justice play in policing. An example: Dr. Lorenzo Boyd’s program.
• Institutions and non-profits need self-exams to test for racist policies and practices. Publicly available results and recourse could help to correct the structural biases and retrain staff to increase awareness and accountability.
• Knowing history engenders empathy and connection between Black and White people, helping White folks to avoid scrutinizing or putting a critical outsider lens on Black perspectives.
• Social benefits should benefit ALL – the redistribution of wealth, the creation of networks for social support, and the move away from a competitive social mindset.
• White allyship is open-hearted listening that goes beyond asking, “what do you need?” It recognizes historical context, understands cultural paradigms, and reacts with empathy and compassion.
• We can feel true empathy by becoming vulnerable ourselves as a way to effect change.
• True equity is seeing difference, honoring it, giving it space, and supporting it.
• Conversation plays a critical role in addressing structural racism and facilitating change. One voice can spark and facilitate community-building. One conversation can spark behavioral change, encourage practices that make people feel safe, open hearts, change minds, and change protocols.
• To overcome ill will and increase our capacity for friendliness, we may sacrifice comfort, thoughts, feelings, attitudes and stretch our old way of relating to the world. Heightened, emotional points can be shared calmly, reflected upon, and processed, including hesitation, anger, and fear. This opens space for new ideas to emerge.
• It is critical to connect history to present conditions. There is power in one person, one voice, and one vote.

READING LIST

Overview of institutional, systemic and structural racism
A discussion of racism and the problem with traditional ideas of wilderness