(NAME-MCE) Reflections on the Future of NAME...Continuing the Discussion from the 2008 Town Hall Meeting

[Christine Clark]

Dear NAME Family,

I am writing to follow up on the Town Hall Meeting conversation begun  
at the 2008 NAME Conference.  In a way, I am writing to follow up on  
the myriad conversations that have taken place at every NAME  
Conference and every NAME Board Meeting since I joined NAME in 1993.

After the most recent Town Hall Meeting, I had a somewhat challenging  
follow up conversation with an outgoing board member--someone with  
whom I think I basically agree with about the politics of  
multicultural education--including how these politics are impacting  
the NAME board and related organizational health--but with whom I have  
always had a strained interpersonal relationship.  Sometimes, it is  
the tension part of dynamic tension that makes us act--and that is the  
case here.  I am compelled to write this because of the failure to  
communicate that occurred between me and this outgoing board member a  
few weeks ago.

When I joined the NAME board in 1996 (I think), there were some  
complex organizational dynamics at play--a tension between white women  
and black men about how work got done in NAME, as well as a tension  
between founders and other board members also about how work got done  
in NAME--there was some overlap between these tensions, but some  
differences in them as well.  Over my time on the board these tensions  
became less intense as the board became more diverse, as  
organizational decisions were made to ensure that diversity continued,  
and as founders became more visibly actively engaged.  As many of you  
know, I fought for things while I was on the board and, in so doing,  
left more than one board meeting in tears because of how those fights  
made me feel about NAME and about myself.  I had some work to do on me  
and NAME had some work to do without me--so after my term ended, I  
dedicated myself to supporting NAME in other ways.  No matter how  
frustrated I have been with NAME, I have stayed involved, and actively  
so.

Before I joined the NAME board, I understand that there were  
challenging board discussions that led up to sexual orientation  
finally being added to the organizational mission statement.  While I  
was on the board, but more since I left, I know that there have been  
some members of the organization who have gone so far as to consult  
civil rights attorneys to see if, through a loop hole in the by-laws,  
sexual orientation could be dropped from the NAME mission, and some  
members of the board who have suggested that the multicultural  
education of children has nothing to do with sexual orientation.  I  
have heard NAME board members and organizational members who are  
eloquent in expressing their profound critical consciousness about  
issues of race and racism, suddenly unable discuss issues of sexual  
orientation with the same justice-loving spirit because of what "their  
pastor" said.

I have also heard NAME members and board members suggest that NAME  
founders and, more generally, older people, perhaps especially older  
black people in NAME, do not "do" anything and, further, have "never"  
done anything of value or import to the field or to the organization.

While I feel despair when I hear these things being said, I know that  
my NAME friends, some of them my closest NAME friends, are some of the  
worst offenders on all fronts--my NAME friends are, in fact,  
homophobic, heterosexist, racist, and agist.  The truth is, I am too-- 
I would venture to assert that we all are.  What makes us different-- 
as NAME people--from the rest of the ists in the world, is that we  
came to multicultural education and to NAME because, ostensibly, we  
recognized the impact of isms on ourselves and others, that this  
impact was antithetical to justice, and that we could do something to  
stop this impact and facilitate justice--that we could move ourselves  
and others to resist and reject these isms and build anew through  
multicultural education.

I am acutely aware that while all issues of majority/minority  
differences and related prejudice, discrimination, and oppression  
share certain elements, they are also very different.  I understand  
that it may make movement with respect to sexual orientation more  
difficult for some if we draw comparisons between the experiences of  
prejudice and discrimination that people face on the basis of sexual  
orientation to those that people face on the basis of race.  To be  
sure there are comparisons to be drawn, but if in drawing those  
comparisons we alienate those who might otherwise become allies, we  
need to look for alternative arguments to bring folks along--yes, even  
inside NAME.  Isn't that what we do as multicultural educators?

I want to acknowledge that I have probably worked harder to build and  
maintain relationships with founders, older folks, older black folks,  
and others who struggle with the sexual orientation issue, more than I  
have with the younger, generally lighter skinned folks (at least those  
who have continued to attend NAME) who eschew the contributions of  
NAME elders and seem, to me, to dismiss the obvious link between race  
and age in assessing these contributions.  So, on the one hand, I have  
prioritized relationships on the basis of affinity for the race-based  
dimension of multicultural education, but within these relationships,  
I have pushed folks--sometimes pretty hard--around the sexual  
orientation issue.  On the other hand, I have not made the same effort  
to engage, in many cases other white people, on the basis of affinity  
for the sexual orientation-based dimension of multicultural education,  
and then, while engaged on this topic, push them--with equal fervor-- 
on issues of race, especially from a generational point of entry into  
debate.  I have work to do to honor my commitments to both race and  
sexual orientation in relationship to my NAME involvements.

I also want to mention that I do not believe that the sexual  
orientation/race schism in NAME or generally is as clear cut as the  
preceding paragraphs may make it sound.  For purposes of discussion  
here I am sure I have oversimplified it, though not intentionally so.   
So, if you have depth to add to the conversation here, by all means  
add it.  In writing this I am mindful that no matter how hard I try to  
be comprehensive in my analysis, I will inevitably miss important  
points, so please, help me by raising them in reciprocal dialogue.

As alluded to above, many people--and many of them people of color-- 
have come to NAME with high expectations and end up walking away in  
frustration either because of the homophobia and heterosexism OR  
because of the attention to sexual orientation.  We only scratched the  
surface of this at the Town Hall Meeting, but we need to dig into it  
much more deeply because if NAME does not successful deal with the  
meaningful integration of this issue into our organizational practice,  
we will fail as a multicultural organization.

While it is true we may fail for other reasons more related to our  
failure to grow from an idealistic grassroots childhood into a  
sophisticated non-profit adulthood (another conversation altogether),  
part of our waning attendance is because we have not figured out how  
to DO what we as multicultural educators SAY--we talk our walk very  
well at least in compartmentalized ways, but we have yet to truly walk  
our talk--we have the theory down pretty well, but not the practice.   
I can talk about race and racism at the most sophisticated levels, yet  
I do not, as alluded to above, exert myself to the extent that I could  
to engage other white folks at NAME in the examination of these issues  
as they impact our organizational dynamics.  Too, while my very best  
friend in the world is gay, I do not exert myself to the extent that I  
could to engage those most hostile to his presence, many of them  
people of color in leadership roles in NAME, in the effort to make  
NAME a more affirming place for him to be--yet I implore him to attend  
the conference every year.  So even those of us who have come to NAME  
and have stayed with it in spite of its challenges find ways to  
retreat within NAME to affirming sub-groups--while some of this is  
natural and positive, some of it occurs as an act of avoidance.

This avoidance grows when we look at those who have come to NAME but  
not stayed.  Many folks get to NAME and forget that multicultural  
organizational development work is extraordinarily hard work--they  
come to NAME with a sense of idealism and forget that NAME is working  
to chart a challenging new course in trying to walk its talk--folks  
come and expect to find utopia and when they don't they retreat to  
other organizations entirely--organizations that represent the  
identity that they want the most affirmation for when that identity is  
not represented in NAME as they imagined it would be--when they find  
they have to fight for that identity in NAME too.

Some of us who have come and stayed, as well as some of those who have  
come and left, fight/have fought only to make NAME but another  
organization that affirms only that one identity.

We all seem to forget--at least from time to time--that the fight in  
NAME--while it has all the elements of the fight outside of NAME--is  
also different because we all come to NAME, at least in theory,  
because we want the fight outside NAME to be different--we come to  
NAME for rejuvenation and forget that we also have to practice our  
work with each other (walk our talk) if we are going to become more  
successful (more skilled) in pushing the outside envelop forward.   
There is no real role model for what NAME is seeking to accomplish--we  
are developing the model as we walk it together as unchoreographed as  
that walking is at times--so we have to come to NAME understanding  
these complexities and open to only moments of rejuvenation  
interspersed with hours of continued challenge and struggle.  If we do  
not learn it in NAME, we can not practice it elsewhere.

I must be drawing to a close because I start this sentence without any  
idea of where to take this conversation next, nor how to bring it to a  
logical conclusion.  So I will end, perhaps tangentially, by  
mentioning the day today--Thanks Giving Day--a day riddled with racist  
history, and yet a day today that I appreciate because it reminds me  
to be grateful for what I have--to be attentive to my ongoing Freirian  
struggle to become more fully human.  I am today, as I have been for  
15 years, grateful to NAME--it is NAME that calls me to remember the  
racist history of this day and that also reminds me to be thankful for  
my tremendous good fortune--much of which has come to me through the  
work of multicultural education.

With thankful multicultural spirit,

Christine (aka Christie and Chris)
———
Christine Clark, Ed.D.
chriseclark at mac.com
702.896.1527 Telephone
702.896.4529 Facsimile
702.985.6979 Cellular

"What are the standards that we have?  If we're concerned about  
unarmed truth--understanding this condition of truth is allowing  
suffering to speak--and unconditional love--understanding justice is  
what love looks like in public--then the question is, what suffering  
voices do we hear...and what kinds of concerns about justice are made  
manifest...?

                                                                                                                                                 —Cornell 
  West