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

Fri Nov 28 13:45:05 CST 2008

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Christine!

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 10:25 PM, Christine Clark <chriseclark at mac.com> wrote:
>
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
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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