Tag: equality
Being Woke = Being a Teacher
As more people champion movements like Black Lives Matter or the Women’s March on Washington, many have started to realize that being ‘woke’ — the idea of being aware of social problems — may also be alienating others within their own movement.
“I often think when we become involved in social justice work, we begin to operate as if we’ve always been this knowledgeable on multiple topics and identities and forget something woke us up. Nobody was actually born woke, ” Brittany Packnett, co-founder of Campaign Zero, a police reform initiative, and vice president of national community alliances for Teach for America, tells NationSwell. “There was someone there to teach me and use language to invite me in instead of making me feel ostracized.”
Language has always complicated the progressive movement, garnering attention in recent years as a handful of leaders were denounced for not using the right terms or for not being sensitive enough to minority groups.
In March, author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was singled out for not being inclusive when discussing trans women. She defended her words, telling The Guardian, “This is fundamentally about language orthodoxy. There’s a part of me that resists this sort of thing because I don’t think it’s helpful to insist that unless you want to use the exact language I want you to use, I will not listen to what you’re saying.”
So how do you become more inclusive with your words? Packnett, a 2017 Nationswell Summit on Solutions panel speaker, says to keep it simple and use the same language as those who are trying to “wake up” to social issues — even when you’re frustrated.
“I understand when people don’t have that amount of patience,” Packnett says. “But when that happens, we have to tag other people in who are emotionally able to be more forgiving, to be more patient and to open up the language to call people in, instead of calling people out.”
In October, Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March, told a room full of activists at a conference about inspiring social change at the Brooklyn Museum that progressives can be too “intellectual.”
“Sometimes I’m sitting in spaces and people are trying to explain to me ‘hetero-patriarchy’ — and I get it and keep having those conversations — but I always say if my Palestinian immigrant mother in [Brooklyn] doesn’t know what you’re talking about, then we got a problem,” she says. “We have to remember we’re organizing people with people who have high school diplomas, who may have sixth grade literacy levels. If we’re not reaching most lay people… then we’re not doing a good job.”
What’s Next in the Fight for Gender Equality?
Two months after women rallied for equality on seven continents, Carla Goldstein is bringing the ideals celebrated that day to female leaders. As chief external affairs officer for the Omega Institute and cofounder of the Omega Women’s Leadership Center in Rhinebeck, N.Y., she’s helping scores of women reclaim a more authentic self. NationSwell spoke with her about how women can take charge in the direction of the world.
What goes on at the Omega Women’s Leadership Center, which you co-founded?
Our main focus is on helping women, as they gain more power, to use their leadership to transform the way that power is actually used. One of the consequences of gender inequality is that pretty much all of the power systems were designed without our input, participation or needs in mind. Power operates through dominance, when what we really need are human beings who are interdependent. We need models of cooperation, not conquest. The fundamental question for us is: How do we bring women’s needs, voices and perspectives into the systems that govern how we all live together?
The Center has a three-pronged approach to rethinking power: personally, relationally and globally. How do you alter the current structures?
One of the fall-outs of gender inequality and this culture of hyper-masculinity that values results and reasoning is that we’re cut off from multiple human intelligences: that of the body, intuition, relationships. Women particularly have a challenge of living in a constant state of adaptation. That can render an inauthenticity: We’re saying the thing that’s going to let us keep our jobs; we’re doing the thing that fits in. It can be challenging to bring our own values to the table with the kind of fierceness that’s called for. Our curriculum follows four Vs: values, voice, vision and voyage. At the personal level, what we’re teaching is a process to clarify their values and identify when their voice aligns with them. Similarly, vision is so often predetermined by others (like their families or their companies), so we help women bring in their own authentic, unique visions of what their life should be like and the world should look like.
Where would you speculate your drive for social justice comes from?
Now that I have children, I see they carry this inherent shock when they learn that the world operates on the dominance model. When I was a kid in the Sixties, I had parents that explained to me, “Well, yeah, it works this way, but it’s wrong. And we can change it.” A lot of kids don’t have that message. When it comes to dominance, we either learn that it’s just the way it is and to get up as high on the ladder as you can, or that it’s wrong and to do what we can to change course.
In a Divided America, What’s the First Step in Erasing Prevalent Stereotypes?
In a recent experiment, elementary-school age girls and boys were told a story featuring a “really, really smart” gender-neutral protagonist. Then, they were handed four pictures — two men and two women — and asked to pick out the character from the story. By age 6, girls were significantly less likely to pick the pictures of their own gender, the study concluded. NationSwell Council member Amanda Mortimer is trying change the narrative. As the director of production at The Representation Project, she’s pointing out the stereotypes in our culture and teaching young people to overcome them.
Has there been a time when you’ve been affected by [stereotype] images from pop culture?
I grew up in the 1980s playing with Barbie dolls and watching Disney movies—experiences that taught me the ideal woman must have unnaturally long legs, a tiny waist and large breasts. It might not have been possible, but that was the ideal. As a teenager, when I leveled out at 5’3”, I had to reconcile cultural notions of beauty with realistic ones and, at the same time, learn to celebrate and embrace all of the other skills and traits that make girls great.
What inspired you to change the narrative?
In addition to limiting the gender narratives I absorbed as a kid, I was also part of the generation of girls who was told they could be anything and do anything they wanted. Together, these two narratives create a lot of tension: You can be President of the United States, but you should look like a swimsuit model. I didn’t realize how much these stories were hurting me and other women until I saw the documentary Miss Representation by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. It wasn’t that the documentary revealed compromising images of women I had never seen before, but it connected the dots for me in a powerful way between the limited ways girls and women are pictured and the limited ways women are represented in positions of power and influence.
Last November, our country bared its divisions by race, class and geography. Do you think there is still time to repair our ideas of one another?
The short answer is yes. Years before working in news and documentaries, I worked on political campaigns. Elections always teach us something, and this past presidential election gave us all a lot to think about. The truth is, we are experiencing one of the most extreme periods of economic and social inequality in our nation’s history; people are experiencing vastly different circumstances and opportunities in America today. Sometimes, the fear of economic insecurity can be manipulated and turned into a fear of others. But I believe we are all a lot more similar than we are different and that we actually all want the same things for our children and our parents. In order to move forward, we’re going to have to focus on our common humanity more and on our differences less. That said, I’m not sweeping centuries of structural racism and inequality under the rug. We still have major work to do to acknowledge, reconcile and make reparations for our history of racism and oppression in America.
In your mind, what’s been the most successful way The Representation Project has done that?
Our work is all about awakening minds and raising consciousness about stereotypes that are so pervasive in our lives we sometimes don’t even recognize them. Once you are aware, you can be educated about the costs and consequences of these messages, and then you can start to change attitudes, behavior and, ultimately, culture. We believe that media is both the message and the messenger, so we do a lot of work through media, especially film. We’re working on a third documentary now that will expand the conversation about how our values shape our culture, with a deeper look at how inequality is experienced in America in terms of race, class and gender.
How do you train the next generation of children not to be swayed by what they’re seeing?
Last summer [The Representation Project] held our first annual Global Youth Leadership Summit and brought together an incredible group of youth from all walks of life. The program of experts and celebrities taught these kids how to recognize limiting stereotypes in their media, explained why they are damaging and then taught them how to have conversations about those limiting narratives in their own communities.
Homepage photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.
For This Century-Old Civil Rights Nonprofit, the Real Work Is Just Beginning
The New York Urban League (NYUL) was founded in 1919, at the start of the Great Migration, to connect blacks who left the agricultural South with jobs in the industrial North. At the time, descendants of slaves poured into a metropolis where they had to fight against housing discrimination and boycott stores where black job applications weren’t accepted. Nearly a century later, Arva Rice, a NationSwell Council member and president of the New York Urban League, is continuing to fight for equality within New York City’s education system and job opportunities. NationSwell spoke to her recently about the ongoing fight for civil rights, as the nation’s first black president leaves office.
New York Urban League is approaching its centennial. What issues are you anticipating will be core to the league’s next century?
One challenge for us is how the conversation about race has changed over time. When I meet with others, I talk about the importance of this particular time in history. The fact that when I first came to the Urban League in April 2009, President Obama had just been elected and we were hearing, “You all have a president. That’s the ultimate level of equality.” Unfortunately, in the last seven years, we have also had Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray and all things in between, like the intentional voter-suppression laws and attacks on the Voting Rights Act. The work we do is more critical than ever. There’s a generation that cares about racial equity, but we need to engage them in different ways. Maybe they want to march and be involved in grassroots movements, some want to be engaged in policy discussions and some want to become part of the establishment themselves and run for office. All of those ways are correct and right, and we have to figure out how to support that going forward.
Besides equal access to education and employment, the NYUL’s mission statement references working toward a “living environment that fosters mutual respect.” What does that mean to you?
Envisioning a world of mutual respect means that folks can not only tolerate but appreciate difference. I’m fascinated by how we define diversity and inclusion. Diversity is inviting people to a party, where inclusion is getting everyone to dance. I think that distinction is important, because to get everyone dancing, you have to think deliberately. You need to think about what is going to include people across generations, and most importantly, you need to be intentional in order to create environments that bring others to the fore. You have to be thoughtful, because it’s not going to happen by accident.
The racial biases pointed out by Black Lives Matter and the rising economic inequality in American cities were both on the minds of many voters last year. In what ways does New York reflect and buck the trends of what we expect from cities?
New York is often leading the way. We’re the ones who were really pushing for higher wages, with the Fight for 15 campaign. We’re also second place for technology and innovation. That’s why the New York Urban League is focusing some of our work on STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], giving young people the opportunity to not only play with technology but also be creators. There are some folks that say, “Oh, people of color aren’t interested in tech, because it’s not cool enough.” And I push back on that. This is not about being cool; this is about being accessible. Without having somebody who you know, any experience, any interaction with someone who works at Facebook, Google, Twitter, how can they know that’s something they can do? We’re helping to break through that, and then provide skills. The fact is that people of color will be passed over if, once again, they are not included in intentional ways. The reason why I feel privileged to lead a historic black organization is because you’re constantly focused on making sure that there really is equality. Until the day we feel like there truly is real parity, we’re not finished.
What have you learned about leadership during your time at NYUL?
I have learned that leadership is about doing things that make your stomach hurt. And that just because your stomach hurts doesn’t mean that you’re unusual. If you are doing it right and pushing yourself and the people that you manage and your stakeholders and your donors, there are going to be times when it’s uncomfortable. It’s a growth pattern. The other thing I’ve learned is that the only people who don’t make mistakes are the ones who aren’t doing anything. So I need to forgive myself for those times I made mistakes, figure out what I learned, dust myself off and go on to the next thing.
What are you most proud of having accomplished so far?
We have a program called Empowerment Days for our young people, which is basically Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work days. We take 200 girls and 150 boys on the first and last Friday of March, respectively. They’re able to go and meet people at places like O, The Oprah Magazine, black enterprises, the Yankees, Google and Microsoft. Basically, they spend the day with people who may look like them or have similar backgrounds and experiences, and find out how they got into those careers. And one of the reasons I’m so proud of that is because we have a level of access, as an organization that has a 97-year history of impact on communities. So I can call people and get my calls returned at a level that I wasn’t able to in any other position in my career. Every time we do an Empowerment Day, the young people are excited about a senior vice president or a receptionist that they met. That’s fantastic, because we would not be able to do that, if it were not for the relationships that the Urban League has within the city.
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Upstanders: The Mosque Across the Street
When an Islamic center purchased a plot of land opposite a church in Memphis, Tenn., the local Muslim community expected hostility. Pastor Steve Stone had something else in mind.
Upstanders is a collection of short stories celebrating ordinary people doing extraordinary things to create positive change in their communities produced by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran. These stories of humanity remind us that we all have the power to make a difference.