(NAME-MCE) Future of NAME

[Teja Arboleda]

What is in a NAME, right? I agree with Christine whole-heartedly.
Unfortunately, I was not able to make the conference this year, but have
been a member for many years - since 2003 (I think). I believe that
Christine's point about sexual orientation shouldn't even be an issue. I
teach a Race & Ethnic Relations course in which 3 out of my 16 students are
gay/lesbian, and one of my students is trans-gendered. Multi-CULTURAL
education implies that cultures are complex, personal, important and the
target of attack on all counts. It is our job as educators, leaders and
students of life, to open our minds as well as our hearts, no matter what or
personal limitations may be. That's what makes this organization such an
important living collective of smart and engaged humans. If we had a problem
with out-of the 'ordinary' identity because of religion, upbringing or
denial, then Obama, as a mixed-race American would still be considered
illegal - an untouchable. When we open the windows in the middle of winter,
we do so for fresh air. A little bit of discomfort is good for the nation.
That's how we grow. True human freedom is not without politics, and politics
is not without scrutiny. VP Chaney was clear on this matter by keeping his
lesbian daughter in the shadows. Personally, I like the sunshine.


on 11/28/08 1:00 PM, name-mce-request at nameorg.org at
name-mce-request at nameorg.org wrote:

> Send Name-mce mailing list submissions to
> name-mce at nameorg.org
> 
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> name-mce-request at nameorg.org
> 
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> name-mce-owner at nameorg.org
> 
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Name-mce digest..."
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1.  Reflections on the Future of NAME...Continuing the
>       Discussion from the 2008 Town Hall Meeting (Christine Clark)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:25:59 -0800
> From: Christine Clark <chriseclark at mac.com>
> Subject: (NAME-MCE) Reflections on the Future of NAME...Continuing the
> Discussion from the 2008 Town Hall Meeting
> To: NAME-MCE - National Association for Multicultural Education Email
> Discussion Group <name-mce at nameorg.org>
> Message-ID: <A119DF57-B64F-48C8-8C20-7BD81A122538 at mac.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; format=flowed;
> delsp=yes
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> This is a mailing of the National Association for Multicultural Education -
> (NAME) Listserv. The materials included reflect diverse perspectives of NAME
> Listserv participants and do not necessarily reflect a position of the
> National Association for Multicultural Education. If you would like to
> subscribe (or unsubscribe) to this listserv go to
> http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org. You can read
> all past postings in the archives at
> http://mail.nameorg.org/pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/
> 
> 
> Name-mce mailing list
> Name-mce at nameorg.org
> http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org
> 
> 
> End of Name-mce Digest, Vol 973, Issue 1
> ****************************************


--
There is no box.
 
Teja Arboleda, M.Ed.
Entertaining Diversity, Inc.
PO Box 126, Dedham, MA 02027
(781) 329-7040

Member: National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME)
Member: National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE)
Member: Filmmakers Collaborative