Convenings

Past Learning Exchange Reports:
Los Angeles, November 15–17, 2002

Diversity and Dialogue Session: Surveying the Landscape

John O’Neal (JO): Introduction to Story Circles. I’m going to describe how we do it, and the shape of the session, and then after my introduction, Michael has got some pieces that highlight the kind of theme that we felt fit the purposes of this session. He's going to do a little piece, I'm going to help him do a piece, then we will close with a piece, then I will describe the process, and then we'll do it.

Michael Rohd (MR): We’re going to hear three pieces from Passing Glances, part of my organization’s ADI Lab project. These are text pieces, but they were also performed. He describes the voices we’re hearing, and the race and gender of the speakers we’re asked to imagine.  They are:

• An interview with a white, middle-aged man in the suburbs.
• Two white women in the south end of Lima and a black politician.
• African American man in 30's who is the CEO of a corporation.

John O’Neal and Michael Rohd perform these 3 pieces.

JO: Describes story circles process: The idea that we already know what we need to know in order to do what we need to do. In arguments, we often end up, at the end of the argument, confirmed in our differences. But when we tell stories, we come to different places. In our groups, each person has about three minutes to tell stories. Identify a time-keeper, or at least divide time equitably. Rules:

• The group must sit in a circle
• You don’t have to tell a story if you don’t want to—you can pass
• You don’t have to like the story that someone else tells, but respect the right of every person to share a story and bring it back to the large group
• Hearing is more important than what you share—hearing is what makes it a story.
• Don’t think about it too much before you talk, trust that there will be a story there to tell.
• Tell as much as you feel comfortable sharing in the group you’re in.

Topic: Use whatever came to you from the stories from Lima as an initiating impulse. Emphasis should be largely on race, but also diversity in general. There is one minute at the end to compress stories, whether you summarize all of the stories, or just talk about one particular story—you have to figure out how to bring out what happened in your small circles back to the big circle in the most profitable way.

AA: Perhaps focus on what issues of diversity you are working with in your projects. This is a time for you to deal with who you are, who is in the room, how you deal with your projects, and what you are working with in your projects.

Group breakout. Over-arching themes appear:

• The first time they really encountered or experienced racism in their lives, and what it means to be different; or being conscious of racism, and how they continue to become conscious of different racisms in their lives and the world; and how people deal with different aspects of racism and assumptions.
• These stories seemed to be more about observing other people being or acting racist, and how it affected them as an "audience" member or witness; it seemed like less "direct" racism—not really directed towards them, but more “overheard.”
• They talked a lot about how different it is to grow up in one environment and to then learn about and live in other environments—inter-marriage, assimilation and multi-ethnic families; the messages we are fed in this country about celebrating cultures and diluting cultures.
• Discussion of a personal sense of liberation that we all must go through in order to do social or community work—themes of discomfort and association.
• Image, and separating one person from a group; boundaries, access, choice, multiplicity.

Reconvening in large group for small group presentations:

• All the stories seemed to come back to how we identify ourselves in race, how others identify us, and how religion and language, gender and sexuality, issues of generations perceiving themselves and their place in the United States—when we talk about who we are as a Latino, African American, etc., what identifying factor is that, and how do you act like that?  And who's to say that I am not black enough or Latino enough, etc. And this default "white" category—what is that??  The loss of identity in the US construct of whiteness.
• Common thread was this idea that there is a discourse around race and class and how one might obscure the other at different times; how assumptions can be made, and how we became more conscience of ourselves and of others. How our perceptions are constructed throughout our lives. Insiders/outsiders: even within our racial groups, there is racism and contradictions that we take inside of ourselves—Racial identity and all of this reflection on it over the years has helped to build political commitments and racial projects that all of us, in some way, are involved in; we are trying to negotiate our own identities through the work that we do.
• Political poem/rap using the words “don't reduce me.” Assumption is the lowest form of knowledge.
• Performance piece: they lined up from darkest to lightest.
• Performance about the age that they realized there was so much prejudice in the world, and their first encounters with racism
• They talked about race, diversity and how people interpret the same event in many different ways.  Everyone in the group participated in drawing their own section of a person to make up one whole human, but they did not look at the other parts of the body when drawing their part.
• They formed a circle with one person breaking out of the middle and telling his story; they all simulated their own lives in this "water fountain" metaphor. "Out of the streams of culture and race, we run together in our lives; is there only one fountain?"
• Spoken word piece: voices of people with mental illnesses. Whose voices count and who is affected by it?  They were all speaking out little bits of their stories. “Love is all there is, you gotta walk a mile in another man’s shoes.”
• Spoken word piece: "look at me/don't look at me.” They told little bits of their stories while saying the beginning quote over and over under the stories.
• They went outside and asked everyone to look through the windows at the—they popped out from below and looked in at us confused.
  Reactions to experience:

Elizabeth Gonzales (EG): I was amazed by how hard it was to tell a story, even when my job requires me to ask other people for their stories.

SK: It's a lesson in trust and overcoming your own fear—how do you balance this with wanting to have a theme in a story circle? How do you balance having a theme in a story circle with just speaking in the moment?

JO: The theme tends to emerge naturally, I have found. If you start with something too heavily focused, you tend to have people start to think too narrowly (with adults), and they begin to edit themselves. If you leave it open, the connection starts to emerge naturally and you can cite the large theme that the group is concerned about.

AL: Found that dealing with issues of exclusion, we came to theme of diversity.

Sandy Agustin (SA): We need to stop thinking “we” and “they,” and start thinking of “us.”