Tuesday, January 26, 2021

A Conversation with Cheree Thomas About Cultural Humility

Chéree Thomas 
is the co-owner and lead trainer for Insight Associates, LLC. She is also the Associate Director of the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. She is a graduate of the University of Toledo where she earned a Masters in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Diversity and Multicultural Studies, and a Bachelors in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Women and Disability. She has served as Executive Director, Program Manager and Senior Director of Programs for several non-profits.

Chéree provides consultation and training to non-profits that are working toward equity for their organizations. She provides training and organization assistance to nonprofits. Chéree is a facilitator and moderator on topics of diversity and inclusion, anti-racism, and intersectionality.

She authored a book, “See Me for Who I Am” that addresses sexual assault issues faced by African American women. Chéree served as board chair for the Society for History and Racial Equity SHARE) and was featured in an exhibit at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum called, “Voices for Social Justice.” She is a member of the Kalamazoo Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation team as a racial healing practitioner. Chéree is also a doula for Rootead, assuring equity in birth outcomes in the Kalamazoo Community.  

The following interview is focused on a presentation that Cheree gave in November 2020 as part of SHARE's Healing Racism Summit.

 

Towards the beginning of your Cultural Humility session, you mentioned that culture is fluid and changing. How does this basic idea contribute to cultural humility?

When you can recognize that culture is ever-changing, there is a greater chance that you can accept that there is absolutely no way you can know all there is about a person and their relationship to their culture. While there are elements of culture that may be shared, there are others that hold no meaning for members of that same culture. Acceptance of this will create space for you to receive another person’s truth as their truth, instead of trying to find someone else from that culture to validate your belief about their culture.

 

You mentioned that there’s a need for those in power to acknowledge what was done to marginalized groups, and to acknowledge that those in power may have benefitted from this system. Why is there reluctance to take this step?

I would say the reluctance stems from not wanting to go beyond that acknowledgment to action steps. A true acknowledgment would also mean that those harmed will need to be made whole. Systems could no longer operate in the way that they do today, as they are currently causing harm to some while creating advantages for others.

 

I appreciated that you made the point that pieces of information were deliberately withheld by those in power, in order to perpetuate bias. In your experience, how can this be corrected?

We need an overhaul of our education system. If we are going to learn about the Indigenous/1st Nation then we need to learn about them from their voice. A story about slavery is much different coming from those who were enslaved versus the slaveholders.

You went on to talk about the “myth of peaceful protest,” saying that all protest is messy, partly because creativity itself is messy. Especially this year, in light of the protests around the issue of social justice/Black Lives Matter, it seems like there’s a similarity between the distinction made between ‘peaceful’ (i.e. legitimate) and ‘unruly’ (i.e. illegitimate) protests and ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor. What do you think?

There is definitely a correlation. It is about who is holding the power and again, who is shaping the narrative. The protests that occurred in 2020 across the nation around social justice/Black Lives Matter was overwhelming people of color. Although the protestors were diverse, the image of groups of people of color throughout history has been seen as a negative.  There is an aversion to wanting to see the most disenfranchised and marginalized in our society speaking their truth. Too often we see an effort to quickly quiet them and move them out of sight. When the truth is contrary to what we have known as the truth, sure it is hard to digest, yet it is still the truth. Telling people of color to be quiet about their pain, or to express it in a way that is more palatable is not only harmful but an exercise of privilege.

 

You had some great thoughts during your presentation. I’d like to pick a few and then ask you to comment. Starting with: “Surround yourself with people who are interested in change.”

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who could not be moved? It is aggravating to say the least. If you desire to be a person who is working toward a just and equitable society, then in order for you to be supported in your movement and growth, those around you have to be interested as well. Change is inevitable. If those in your circle are not interested in change, it will stifle your growth and movement.

 

You also noted: “It’s not enough not to be a racist. You need to be anti-racist.” Can you explain why?

To claim not being racist is only a statement. It doesn’t require action on a person’s part. If you are anti-racist, you are actively engaged in not participating in and disavowing racist behaviors, but also uprooting racism in the systems you are a part of.

And this thought: “Racism is not an other-person issue, only for people who are affected by it. Racism is harmful to everyone.” In your experience, what readily comes to mind when discussing this topic?

The notion that racism is an issue for those who are experiencing racism to heal from and those who are perpetuating racism to end it. Not only is it not true, it gives an out to those who are not experiencing racism and to those who don’t see themselves as racist to not move into action. We all are impacted by racism. And there is a greater responsibility on those who benefit from racism to end it. 

Towards the end of your session, you mentioned a few tips for becoming more culturally humble, like looking within your own community for groups that are engaging marginalized people/groups; recognizing that people are multi-dimensional,a and be willing to be vulnerable. Would you like to expand a bit on any of these?

In many of our communities, there are opportunities to engage with people/cultures other than our own. Efforts to understand another’s perspective or way of life through direct connection can shift perspective for the goods. It allows you to see and know more than what any type of media can give you. It allows you to see the uniqueness of all of us. Being vulnerable in this regard means sharing in a way in which you had never shared before. Being willing to be the “minority” in a space to learn.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

We have an opportunity in 2021 to work toward equity in a way that we hadn’t before. It is clear that this country is divided. We have to decide, and we can, that hate is no longer accepted in workplaces, in schools, in public gatherings. We have to not just say that Black Lives Matter, we have to create a society that demonstrates this. In 2021 we need to begin overhauling and dismantling systems of oppression. Without excuses.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

WRITING STRAIGHT WITH CROOKED LINES by Jim Forest: A Review

Jim Forest/Credit: Orthodoxy in Dialogue
In his book WRITING STRAIGHT WITH CROOKED LINES A Memoir, Jim Forest winces at being described as a peace activist. Despite having been exactly that for most of his adult life.

“The problem is that I’m not by nature an activist. Perhaps there is something of Thomas Merton’s monastic temperament in me. I feel uncomfortable in crowds – masses of people drawn together by a common objective generate powerful currents and undertows that often scare me. I’m not an automatic participant – discernment is needed. When it comes to taking part in protests and demonstrations, I have to convince myself that this specific act of protest or witness really is worth taking part in and then push myself by brute force out the door while wishing my conscience would leave me alone.”

But yet, the fact is, Forest has had a remarkable life, most of it being directly involved in the peace movement. With formative roots deepened by being the Managing Editor of the Catholic Worker, under Dorothy Day’s (co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement) tutelage, when he was in his early 20s.

This connection eventually got him involved in helping to form the Catholic Peace Fellowship and working with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, and brought Dan and Phil Berrigan, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Henri Nouwen, and Al Hassler into Forest’s life.

As Forest points out, being the son of left-leaning parents (both of his parents were members of the Communist Party) definitely influenced his DNA.

Forest has written several books, including a biography of Thomas Merton and books on the Russian Orthodox Church (he himself converted to the Orthodox Church from Roman Catholic.) He had proven his journalistic skills several times over before reaching the age of 30. Including serving as the press agent for five Vietnam War protestors who burned their draft cards in Union Square in November of 1965.

A few years later, Forest served in the same capacity for the Catonsville Nine Defense Committee. The group of nine had gathered to break into the Catonsville Draft Board headquarters. The participants included Dan and Phil Berrigan.

During this time, Forest worked for both the Catholic Peace Fellowship and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. And he became part of the Milwaukee 14, who broke into the adjoining offices of nine draft board in Milwaukee, stealing draft records and burning them.


“My knees shook every step of the way. The nine doors were opened, the many burlap sacks we had brought with us were filled to bursting with 1-A files – 10,000 of them, it was estimated during the trial – and dragged out to the park across the street. Napalm, made ourselves, according to a recipe found in the US Army Special Forces Handbook, was poured on the files and a match struck. The fourteen of us lined up on one side of the bonfire and prayed the Our Father and sang ‘We Shall Overcome.’”

There was a lot of traveling involved in Forest’s work. He candidly records that such prolonged absences eventually tore at the fabric of three marriages, ending in divorce.

It was later in life, when Forest was older and wiser, that he discovered his soulmate. He was working in Denmark for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and renewed a friendship with Nancy Flier during visits home in the United States. They have been happily married for 37 years.

At the very end of WRITING STRAIGHT WITH CROOKED LINES, Forest sums up his life, offering a few powerful life lessons. This is one of them: “If I cannot find the face of Jesus in the faces of those who are my enemies, if I cannot find him in the unbeautiful, if I cannot find him in those who have the ‘wrong ideas,’ if I cannot find him in the poor and the defeated, how will I find him in the bread and wine or in the life after death? If I do not reach out in this world to those with whom he has identified himself, why do I imagine that I will want to be with him and them forever in heaven? Why would I want to be, for all eternity, in the company of those whom I avoided every day of my life?”

P.S. I had the privilege of interviewing Jim Forest in July of 2019. You can find that interview here.

Monday, January 18, 2021

A Conversation With Denise Evans on Implicit Bias

Denise Evans
Denise Evans 
is a trained facilitator, public health educator and Truth Racial Healing Transformation Racial Healing Circles practitioner. She has specialized training in health equity and social justice, cultural intelligence,  and unconscious/implicit bias. 

For the past 20 years, she has worked diligently to join community organizers, faith-based organizations and public health professionals together to disrupt systems of oppression and build a more equitable future for those living in our nation’s most vulnerable communities. 

She holds graduate degrees from the Southern California School of Ministry and Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.  She has been recognized for her accomplishments as co-author in the Maternal and Child Health Journal, received the Woman of Influence Award from Cornerstone University, the Community Leadership Award from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and was recognized by the Kent County Health Department for her passionate and tireless work to eliminate health inequities and the corresponding racialized outcomes that plague our nation. She officially launched Consult Me, LLC and provides training, education, and ecumenical support in the areas of equity, justice, bias, and microaggressions with the ability to incorporate a theological lens for communities of faith.  


You recently gave a presentation at the Healing Racism Summit, held in mid-November 2020, through the SHARE (Society for History and Racial Equity) organization. 
The main focus of your presentation was on implicit bias. Could you give us a working definition of what it is?

Implicit Biases are the “attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.” They are the unconscious assumptions that we have about others that can skew our understanding and unintentionally affect our behavior and judgment.

 

You also mentioned that implicit biases have a tendency to increase during stressful times. And that because of this relationship, there can be a huge difference between the intent of our actions, and the result. Could this be contributing to increased societal polarization that we’re experiencing in our world today?

What a great question! The research shows us that our biases are more likely to show up when we are in cognitive overload; when we are tired, overly stressed, or under pressure. I believe strongly that we are in the midst of a perfect storm. Between the highly publicized, increased amount of police violence against unarmed Black men and women, the over-policing of BIPOC communities, the increase of ICE in communities of color, COVID 19, the stress of isolation during this pandemic, high infant mortality and maternal morbidity rates, the loss of housing and jobs during this economic downturn – and the recent events at the capitol building in Lansing, and at the US capitol in D.C.

We are all suffering from multiple traumas and secondary traumas. We are all under tremendous levels of stress and as such we are more likely to see implicit biases show up.

 

Do you think that the reality of implicit bias, combined with the Covid-19 pandemic had any influence on the worldwide demonstrations in support of Black Lives Matter, especially after the death of George Floyd earlier this year?

I believe strongly that since a large number of Americans and other global citizens were at home glued to our televisions and other news outlets for information about the COVID 19 pandemic, we were better postured to slow our thinking down and truly see and hear some of the cries of BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) communities differently. We have witnessed murders previously in living color, but I believe that something different happened this time as we were isolated in our homes. Concerns about our loved ones and friends seemed to open our hearts, and touch our minds, and emotions differently. 

You mentioned George Floyd in particular but there are so many others whose names we may have forgotten. But let us remember our own daughter, sister, friend - Brianna Taylor, originally from our area, murdered in her own home in Louisville, Kentucky. We have a plethora of examples of heinous social and societal ills in abundance that confirmed for our late adopters that the white supremacist culture has taken a toll on us all and turned our lives upside down. I believe that given all the variables, we were more empathetic to the suffering of families and we were, as a collective, reminiscent of the 1960’s peaceful protests, we were finally ready to stand together and speak out against the injustices that we could no longer deny. We had previously been distracted by the reality of our busy lives and the pandemic caused us to sit still in the grief and pain of others long enough to weigh the evidence differently and with an open heart. We gave it more of our attention and I believe and pray that it has forever changed many of us for the better.

 

You mentioned that biases, conscious and unconscious, are linked to perceptions. it would seem that during a time of severe stress, like we’re experiencing now, individuals would be less inclined to recognize biases. What does your experience say about this connection?

I think that it is the opposite. We have had perceptions that included a lot of blaming the individual for their “current state” and did not leave room for us to take into account that there are societal factors and systems of oppression that have been in play for centuries. We have had to wrestle with realizations like our Navaho brothers and sisters living on reservations where one in three southwestern Navajo citizens do not have indoor plumbing – thus being unable to frequently wash their hands during a pandemic. And lest we forget, many of our West Michigan traditional indigenous stewards, the Anishinaabek, the Council of the Three Fires which include the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Bodewadomi, also known as Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi Tribes suffering from some of the same lack of needed resources. This is due to a long-standing systemic marginalization of peoples that happen in many communities of color and poorer communities across our nation.

 


How about the issue of micro-aggressions (insults, devaluing messages, etc.) leading to inequities? I wonder to what extent micro-aggressions have driven politics/life in general lately?

Implicit biases often show up in the form of microaggressions - the subtle, semi-conscious, devaluing messages that we send to others that can lead to imbalances or inequities in our relationships with others. Although I cannot speak definitively about this year’s political climate definitively, I can say that the last four years have unleashed a different spirit and tenor. It has been a particularly venomous spewing of hate-mongering that I believe emanated from the implicit biases and struggles. If I were to make an educated guess based on available data, I would say that much of our social and societal behaviors are learned and originate from the exposures we have had throughout our life course. These thoughts are pervasive and go unchallenged in our unconscious thoughts – and are further supported when we do as studies show most of us do – we hear one tidbit of information that seems to agree with our previously held ideas and then allow confirmation bias to take over. With that in mind, our learned stereotypes, biases, and prejudices that reside deep in our unconscious brains operate automatically, unconsciously, and of course without our permission. Keep in mind that implicit bias is NOT the same as conscious discrimination and oppression – which would be a whole-other-interview.

 

In your presentation, you mentioned several ways to help counteract implicit bias. Such as: acknowledging them, recognizing them and checking our assumptions that come from implicit bias, understanding our culture, and actively committing to not stereotype. Did you want to speak about any of these solutions?

The most important thing to do in times of stress to reduce our biases is to slow our thinking down. Give our brains a chance to move from the heightened state of fight or flight in the reptilian brain to thinking more slowly and rationally in the conscious brain.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

If you haven’t had a chance to take a few Implicit Association Tests (IAT), challenge yourself to do so. IATs can be found on the Project Implicit website. Also, if given the opportunity to learn more about implicit biases please take advantage of those opportunities. Get a few books from reputable authors on the subject and begin to learn about populations in your community that have been historically marginalized because of their group status. We need to create identity safe environments where people are safe bringing their whole selves to work and play where they live.

If you’d like more information on how to connect with Denise Evans and Consult Me, LLC please reach out to: info@consultmellc.com for more information.

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow/timesofisrael.com/AP
Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow’s DANCING IN GOD’S EARTHQUAKE: The Coming Transformation of Religion was written before Covid-19 hit the world. But he included a Note to the Reader which contains some observations on the pandemic which includes harboring a world-view that paves the way for a movement of social justice to help rectify inequalities.


Then, starting with the Garden of Eden, Waskow tackles a history of various other plagues/dilemmas that the earth has faced and the significance of them.
Speaking of Eden, he makes the point, “…[O]ur traditions have cited the Eden story as if this subjugation were a command to be obeyed, not a consequence to be transcended: a dismal consequence to be transcended by correcting our mistake in our choice of how to grow up.”

For Waskow, “the real sin of Eden was subjugation of the Earth.” Along with a toxic masculinity that sought to tag all human sex as sin.

He uses the Old Testament story of how a group of men living in Sodom sought to rape two foreigners who had been given shelter by Lot. Most sermons that touch on this tale focus solely on the sex of it. But Waskow views it differently. “The two foreigners turned out to be ‘angels,’ meaning they were messengers from God. The message they carried was clearly a warning, a crystallization, of God’s love of welcoming strangers and God’s disgust at hatred of foreigners. It took an obsession with sex and fear of sex among some Christian thinkers to turn the Bible’s meaning upside down.”

In regards to the whole issue of dominating the earth, Waskow writes that “Indeed, the most profound and cogent religious response to ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill up the earth, and subdue it’ may well be, ‘Done! Now what?’ In other words, the entire epoch in which the human race strove to expand its power over the planet may now be over, and the need for another aspect of Torah may have become central. Discovering what that new religious vision is, and beginning to embody it, is what it means to dance in God’s earthquake.”

Given the epidemic of deep divisiveness and nativism running rampant across the earth at the moment, Waskow suggests that organized religion offers two options when addressing differences in view. “One is shock and anger to shout out: ‘You are wrong!’ And what is even worse, you are lying!”

The other approach is humility. “’How wonder filled, our world! The One is Infinite! And so there are many paths to life to celebrate that Unity… May we also together learn to celebrate the Radiance that glows in many colors. If we listen, we can learn to embody in one body our inward hearts and outward eyes.’”

So Waskow invites us to expand our notion of God. “We, the heirs of modern science, know with more precision than our farmer/shepherd forebears that we humans, we animals, need to breathe in the oxygen that the trees and grasses breathe out. All around our green-blue Earth, the Breath of Life, YHWH, is Echad – One.


“[W]hen we talk about what it means to give up ‘Lord’ and ‘King’ in favor of ‘Interbreathing Spirit,’ something else important happens.

“People begin to get past their anger at the ‘Angry God,’ the ‘Angry King Who Punishes.’ They begin to see the Breath as an interweaving of Act and Consequence, Karma. Enslave human beings and Earth is plagued and plagues you – because the Breath links everybody.”

Waskow isn’t asking the reader to dismiss the idea of a being bigger than ourselves; rather he suggests an even more intimate take on The Eternal One. “The metaphor that God is the Interbreathing of all life is far more truthful than the metaphor that God is King and Lord. It brings together spiritual truth and scientific fact. It has only been about 250 years since human beings discovered that the great exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen between plants and animals is what keeps our planet alive. Yet this scientific fact echoes the ancient sense that we are all interwoven, interbreathing.”

Specific to Judaism and Christianity, Waskow proposes that “Diverse and connected, Judaism and Christianity are unique, and should listen far more closely to each other’s wisdoms.” Moving from this point he suggests that, “as congregants of any culture gather in a circle to call each other into community, what if they – we – were to pause to look from face to face around the communal circle, pausing at each face to say to ourselves, ‘This is the Face of God. And this, so different, is the Face of God. And this, and this… Not despite the differences between these faces, but because they are so different”?

“This is an ecological, not a hierarchical, way of thinking about God and Humanity and Earth,” says Waskow, “In ecological thought, the distinctions between species are crucial – and so is the way they fit together to make one changing whole, an ecosystem.”

He quotes the Qu’ran to reinforce this point: “O humankind! We created you from a single [pair] of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may profoundly understand each other [not that ye may despise each other].” (Qu’ran 49:13, modified Yusaf Ali Translation)

Towards the end of DANCING IN GOD’S EARTHQUAKE, Waskow focuses on the social justice implications of this broader type of religious view. “So for the new society in Canaan, defining itself as the runaway slaves who had fled an Egypt that enslaved them and enserfed the ethnic Egyptians, the question became, do we want a society of unchecked acquisition, enormous economic inequality, and concentrated economic power? Or do we want one that undergirds a constant return to near-equality among all residents?... Should we instead try to create an economy that lives a rhythm of growth and restful pause, growth and restful pause – a pulsating economy, not one committed to unceasing growth? They [the Biblical ancestors of the Jewish nation] chose the second future.”

And, in our day, Waskow proposes that a path of non-violence would help to accomplish this goal. “In our day, if we adopted training in the philosophy and practice of nonviolence as necessary to civic competence, as we claim to do with learning to take part in elections, could nonviolent resistance to violence become more successful?

“In some of the most successful uses of civil resistance, it has flowed from deep roots of a spiritual element. It almost always requires spiritual depth to assert that one’s political opponent, even a deeply noxious one, still partakes of a sacredness so profound as to prevent the use of violence.”

It is at this point in DANCING IN GOD’S EARTHQUAKE that Waskow brings us back to the Garden of Eden.

“The story of Eden is a tale of children growing into rebellious adolescence and then into an adulthood of drudgery and hierarchy. The Bible asks us, God asks us, Reality asks us, can we grow up some more?

"Can there be a Garden for grown-ups? Can we learn from the mistakes we have made? Can we then dance our way into a Garden that notices our earlier missteps and heals them?”

Thursday, January 7, 2021

A Tribute to Buddy, the Cat

Abbott (rt) and Buddy (lft)
Yesterday was my cat Buddy's last day on this earth.

In his 16.9 years of life, he proved to be a sweet soul, exceptionally empathetic, kind, cuddly and loving.

In fact, I learned about Buddy's empathetic nature fairly early on. 

It was less than a month after Buddy and Abbott, his brother, came to share our home, that Abbott got the better of me. Abbott is the alpha-male and, from what I could tell, he was bothering Buddy a lot - to the point of Buddy hissing at him.

At one point, I had had enough. As Abbott lit into Buddy, I picked up Abbott by the scruff of the neck, (like a mom cat would do with her kittens), and walked him over to the living room couch, commencing to deliver a loud lecture. To the tune of: "Abbott, quit doing that! Buddy is your brother!"

I didn't get much farther than that when Buddy ran into the living room and deposited himself firmly in-between his brother and me, meowing for me to knock it off. He looked up at me when he was doing this, totally melting my anger and impressing me at the same time. 

Buddy at the front window
On more than one occasion, Buddy proved to be an avatar of gentleness.

There were uncountable times when I would be relaxing on the couch, watching a film, and Buddy would walk up, and look at me. I beaconed him to come sit up, but he would wait until I moved just a little to give him room. So that he could eventually fall asleep with his head resting on my lap.

Not to mention the hundreds of times he loved to let me pick him up, staring at me, while he put his front paws across my neck in a hug that only he could give. He learned to do an on-the-floor version of this hug, reaching up to me as I bent down.

The thing of it is, being an indoor cat, Buddy was always around. Usually using the living room walkway as his focal point, or sitting underneath the coffee table. He wanted to be where the action was.

When I was still working, one of the highlights of the day was returning home in the late afternoon, seeing Buddy perched on the living room couch, looking out the window in anticipation. When he saw my car turn into the driveway, he would do a full-body press against the window, stretching out to his full height. 

And when Buddy heard me open the side door, he ran into the dining room to greet me. When I think back over the past sixteen years I was privileged to be his dad, I can't remember many times when he wasn't there to welcome me home.

One of those times was when he spent about 12 days away getting radioactive iodine treatment that took care of a tumor on his thyroid. I will never forget the ultra-loud purrs he gave as I opened the door to his travel crate to let him back into his home. He walked around for a good long time, from room to room, loudly announcing that he was back and he was happy.

He was a semi-longhair. Black and white splotches like a Holstein cow. But probably the best single description I could give of Buddy came from the Kalamazoo Animal Rescue foster parent who had taken care of Buddy and Abbott before I adopted them. She told me, "he's like stroking velvet that purrs." And she was absolutely right.

Rest in Peace, Buddy. Your sweetness lingers on!

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Pinocchio: Art Credit, Disney If ever there were a time for a national "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire" award, it's now. And certai...