Category Archives: Access

Guiding Questions for Improved Community Engagement

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Before Engagement

Before heading into a community or an experience — for an internship, volunteering, seeking employment, whatever, it’s a good idea to situate yourself in relationship to the new project. 

Feelings

Check in with yourself about how you are feeling– nervous, excited, timid, enthusiastic, apathetic… It’s okay to feel one or all of those feelings, and it’s also important to think about how the display of those feelings might be received by the community member(s) that you’ll be interacting with. 

  • What am I bringing to the community/experience? 
  • How may I be received by this community? How do I feel about that? 
  • What will be challenging? What will be easy? 

Skills

It’s also a good moment to take a skills inventory of yourself. What do you feel like you know how to do well? What could stand some improvement? What skills are you hoping to practice or develop with this opportunity.

  • What am I bringing to the community/experience? 
  • What relevant skills do I have? Is that enough? Where should I grow? 
  • What am I expecting to get out of this interaction? 
  • What am I expecting the community to get out of this interaction? 

Information

It’s important to understand the context of the community that you will be engaging with. Do you have the needed information to engage in a positive manner? Have you gathered information from trusted, accurate sources? 

  • What am I bringing to the community/experience? 
  • How have I educated myself about the community? 
  • What assumptions have I made? Are those fair? 
  • What expertise already exists in this community? 

Resources

Resources can cut across these 3 categories– Resources can be related to access to information, time, money, emotional labor, etc. Often when we do community engagement in the form of volunteering we forget about the resources that are required to accommodate us as volunteers. It’s incredibly important to consider how resources are used when we engage with the community.

  • What am I bringing to the community/experience? 
  • What is the balance between what I will bring to this community (skills, open-mindedness, readiness to work, etc.) and what I will take (time, energy, etc.) 
  • What is the community [giving/sacrificing/risking] by hosting/partnering with me? 

During Engagement

While you are within your community engagement, it’s important to consider how things seem to be going– both good and not-so-good. Remember, none of us are perfect. Often we get into the trap of thinking that there is no room for error. You will make mistakes, and then grow and learn from that practice. Reflecting and adjusting during your community engagement is a great way to improve your current and future experience. 

  • Am I effectively paying attention to direct and indirect communication? 
  • Am I engaging in effective, positive and/or productive interpersonal interactions? 
  • Am I using my skills in an appropriate, effective, and respectful way? 
  • Am I balancing my needs and other people’s needs?

After Engagement

Even if your most recent community engagement was a “one off” commitment, you will have another experience in your future. It’s important to reflect on how things went so that you can be more effective next time. 

  • How do I know if my interaction was a positive experience for the community? 
  • How did my expectations differ from what happened? 
  • What should I do to have a positive and productive experience next time? 

What skills or resources should I access to improve my effectiveness? 

Community Matters: Clare Terni

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Facebook is critically important for how I connect with people who are not in my immediate friend circle. I have a bunch of FB friends that I pay attention to because they are smart, have access to circles that I don’t, and post politically astute information. Clare is one of those friends. We’ve connected over our venn diagram of service work and academia, and apocalypse planning. Clare spoke about her knowledge of the opioid crisis, and harm reduction, specifically Narcan administration. 

Takeaways:

  • The opioid crisis hit in Appalachia and inner cities first, it was only when white suburbia started getting sick and dying did it really begin to be treated in the media and in politics. 
  • Clare had a special talking needle that talked the user how to administer. With insurance and prescription, it was free. Without, it was $4000– this is what disparities in access to health care and insurance means. 
  • There was a lot of talk about the comparative stigma around mental health, substance use disorder, and other health issues, like cancer. What are the things that you feel like you would have the support of employers, friends and family?

Community Matters: Raven Mack

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A handsome white guy with a blackberry bush beard in a customized Adidas tracksuit gestures and speaks to an audience of people in a restaurant setting.
Raven Mack speaking at Community Matters

I’ve been delayed in writing about Community Matters for this week because it’s been such a busy week, and frankly, I’m writing about my guy which has been . It’s been a busy week for the two of us– Tuesday was Community Matters, Wednesday was the first Haiku Slam of the year, Saturday we went to Leni Sorensen’s house for dinner, and Sunday we went to dinner to meet X of the Black Power Station in South Africa– a week full of the things we love most– ideas, community– new and old, the arts. 

Raven and I met in August of 2018. He signed up to be part of the community care response to the one year anniversary. Within minutes I recognized that he was smart and observant and “deputized” him to make decisions. After that weekend we started talking. I went to his September haiku slam and recognized that he had created an environment that felt akin to CLAW and BE, but in 17 syllable poetry battles. A year and a half later, we’ve increasingly become partners in plans– plans for the apocalypse, the arts, community, and some undiscovered empty building. 

Tuesday, Raven talked about his vision of how writing and the arts can be a path to healing. Here’s some takeaways from his talk:

  • Thrive vs Survive. Raven talked about how difficult it is to simply survive, and that participating in the arts can push someone over into being able to thrive. 
  • When he was a painter he’d have a stack of 3”x5” cards in his pocket in order to quickly write haiku without getting fussed at for slacking off. Make art in the corners of your life.
  • I’ll be honest– so much of what Raven was talking about wasn’t new to me– repackaged into the format for the evening, but I was so proud to have some of my best friends witness what a brilliant, creative thinker my partner is. 
A white woman smirks lovingly at a gesturing and speaking man
Raven and Dolly at Community Matters

Wednesday night was Raven’s haiku slam. The 3 top finishers were all under 22. The energy was amazing. The room was full of laughter, righteous anger, and wordplay. Having back to back Community Matters and Haiku Slam, made me so proud of how we support each other to foster the community that we desire and need.

Photos by Kristen Finn

DART: Identifying Resources and Relationships

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As homework in preparation for class two of DART, participants made lists of all of their resources (ranging from skills to property, assets, finances) that they have access to, and all of the relationships with Black people they have. These lists were for private reflection and to prime them to think about their own place in the world. Because thinking about race is difficult for many white people, we don’t. It’s easier to maintain plausible deniability about white supremacy if we don’t investigate what structures our lives. The maintenance of  white supremacy is not “other white people”, it is us, unless we activate to restructure our own lives to disrupt this status quo. 

So much of what we see as anti-racist work is geared toward white people. Calling in and calling out white people can be helpful, but without accompanying work supporting Black People, Black Work, and Black Excellence, it is merely white people interacting with white people, maintaining a segregated society that is centered on whiteness. 

The homework of listing resources and relationships was in preparation for individual work on creating a plan to support Black people. Let me be clear. This is not in preparation for “doing onto Black people”. This is in preparation for deepening relationships with Black people so that there is a pathway for you, as a white person, to share available resources with Black people. This naturally occurs in your existing relationships. When you research grants, you forward to people who may want to apply. When a job opens at your work, you share the application with people you know are a good fit. When you think of two people who are doing complementary work, you introduce them via email. When you are in relationship with only white people, you are doing these small daily tasks only for white people. When you know more information about Black people, when you know what their needs, wants, and aspirations are, you can opt them into your daily life. I say opt in, because I always ask for consent. “Please let me know if you don’t want to get these grants.” “I understand if you are too busy to meet someone new. Feel free to say no.” “This seems like something that would be a fit. If it’s not, please feel free to ignore it.” 

While you know that you are intentionally focusing on supporting Black people, you don’t need to announce it. And it’s not random acts. It’s observing, and listening to what Black people say they want, and being responsive. It’s offering, not forcing.

This work would not be possible without Toni Barskile and all of the other Black Thinkers who have led the way.

Hey, Unnamed Annoying Person!!

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I’m like a dog with a bone when I get irritated; I cannot stop mentally wrestling with all the words I want to throw at someone. I often want to have long ranty diatribes at people who say dumb stuff around me. But I don’t think it’s helpful or effective to do it, cuz they’ve already shown me they aren’t ready to listen. I’ve found flipping the script is cathartic for me. I think about how I’d like their behavior to change. It reminds me of my values, and how I hope to act myself. It completes the loop, and makes it so I can turn off the irritation faucet. So, unnamed annoyance, this is my request to you:

  • Show appreciation, gratitude, and admiration for someone doing work that you are not doing. 
  • Avoid suggesting additional work that you are not going to do. 
  • Ask opinions about proposed work, rather than make suggestions of future work. 
  • Value expertise that is unfamiliar to you. 
  • Understand and respect that community exists prior to your arrival. 
  • Recognize that your privileged identity or associations have context and history; if you feel that is unfair or unrepresentative, dismantle by demonstrating growth and change in your actions.  
  • Assume less. 
  • Communicate with respect. 
  • Check for mutual understanding. 
  • Listen to feedback.
  • Respect boundaries and requests.
  • Understand it’s not others’ job or responsibility to create or disrupt your experiences, particularly if you don’t share a mutual community.
  • Reject hierarchical thinking that includes notions of charity or help. 
  • Realize that you exist in communities of mutual aid and support.
  • Have clarity about the lack of correlation between formal education and intelligence and wisdom.

Community Matters: Marissa Turner-Harris

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Donor Diapers on Facebook

Marissa blew me away last night. 

I’ve known Marissa since she was a 14 year old 9th grader. We immediately became very close because of our shared sense of humor and absurdity. Marissa is very intelligent and funny, and has taught me so much with her ability to cut through nonsense with her own wit and nonsense. 

Last night, Marissa delivered an activity that was the most interactive one yet. The group was divided into 4 tables, and each table was given a different set of money and bills. Marissa gave instructions as to how to divvy the money up– money was tight as it was, but add in diapers, and childcare, and the occasional emergency, and each table was in deficit quickly. Everyone was engaged with their tablemates. The energy was great. Later I asked Marissa if she had presented this exercise before and she said no. Her natural presentation skills made it seem like she’d done it a thousand times. 

This exercise led to Marissa describing Donor Diapers and its mission to provide diapering supplies to families in need. Providing the context for the need including informing the room about the lack of social service support for diaper supplices, the health consequences of insufficient diapers, and the financial realities of diapering. 

Major take-aways:

  • Diapers are expensive. $90/month on diapers seemed like just a beginning number. That’s a $1000/year, and you can have more than one child in diapers at once. 
  • I had never even considered the health consequences of penis circumcisions in babies. If a penis is circumcised, then it becomes irritated, more prone to bacteria, and therefore needs more regular diaper changes. 
  • $500 donated to Donor Diapers would outfit 5 babies for an entire month in diapers. $500 to some other nonprofits in town might be a drop in their budgetary bucket.

DART: White Vulnerability

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Here’s a true thing that feels absurdly difficult to talk about. White people do not have enough authentic relationships with enough Black People. We know it’s true. Why is it so hard to say? An authentic relationship with a Black Person is just like an authentic relationship. It’s all of the things. It’s not just getting a meal together. It’s the joyful things, right? It’s the love and laughter and giggling and relaxing. It’s also the anger, and the reconciling, and the sorrow, and pettiness, and hurt feelings. This is the hard stuff about relationships. With an interracial relationship you add in the intersection of race, and power dynamics, and privileges. White people are uncomfortable even thinking about our relationship to racism, prejudice, privilege, and power; we don’t want to do the internal work to hold ourselves accountable, and so we don’t do the external work to have a genuine relationship with a Black person and so we don’t even try. And worse, we talk about our Black Friend, and how she said it was okay to be racist. 

My advice to white people, particularly white women, is NOT to suddenly intrude onto Black people and think that they want you as their white ally friend. They probably don’t. You’re probably not going to be a good friend, yet. I don’t remember when this popped into my head, but recently I thought, “White people sure need to work on being likeable.” Likeable is NOT being nice; it’s being present and authentic in a relationship. White people need to trust Black people enough to be their best authentic selves. I think unexamined fears and anxiety cause well-intentioned white people to display a range of unpleasant emotions and actions when interacting with Black people.

There are so many different kinds of relationships– as many kinds as there facets of our personalities. Some white people in Charlottesville seem to think that the only way to have a relationship with a Black person is over racial justice activism or talking about race. It seems so elementary to say, but Black people have fully formed lives. To expect a Black person to talk about racism with an unknown white person is a traumatic act. To reduce a Black person to only their racial identity is a traumatic act. I can’t give you a list of what Black people like to talk about, because Black people are not a monolith. But I can tell you this, from my lived experience, Black people like the full range of dumb, boring, pop cultural, esoteric, oddly specific things that you do. Again, it seems basic, but if you’re trying to develop relationships with people, probably avoid saying stuff like “I wouldn’t have thought you’d like that…”, or “Huh, how’d you’d find out about that?” I do think discomfort and anxiety leads to saying dumb things. I feel like there are people who are saying “But I don’t do that…” If you aren’t, who are these white people saying dumb stuff? I’ll tell you, sometimes it’s me. 

There’s a balance in moving through the world. I try really hard to not say hurtful or ignorant words, but I also accept that I sometimes do. White people hate to be vulnerable or wrong– that’s a part of white supremacy/fragility. If breaking down white supremacy involves me looking dumb for the cause, I’m good. White supremacy manifests itself in personal relationships in white people having to dominate and make the decisions or always sounding right or in authority. They pick the restaurant– the kids come to play at the white household– They head the committee– White people still hold the power. Developing an authentic relationship requires being vulnerable. White people becoming vulnerable is devastating to white supremacy.  Anti-racist vulnerability does not look like dumping all your feelings onto a Black person. Anti-racist vulnerability means asking for support or help, asking for accountability, ceding control, apologizing, asking permission. Anti-racist vulnerability looks like respect and trust. 

I can only speak for myself, but I don’t think my anti-racism work is legitimate if I do not have deep authentic relationships with Black people. I don’t know that I trust myself enough to know what institutions need to be smashed without someone to yell, “Hey, Dolly, not that one!!” If I don’t have mutually trusting relationships with Black people, then there is no accountability for my anti-racist work.

This work would not be possible without Toni Barskile.

Being White While White People Are Doing White People Things

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Toni and I are starting our Anti Racism class tomorrow. Race and equity are never far from my brainwaves, so it’s hard to tell if I am more activated or not, but it’s nice to have a focus. I’m excited, but nervous, because I’m so much more prone to anxiety and exhaustion than I used to be. I’m hoping that I’ll continue to feel better as the days lengthen, but I’ve taken to staying at home on Wednesdays with no appointments because I’m so tired by Community Matters on Tuesday nights. I take all sorts of lessons from this– how lucky I am to be able to structure my time like this, how other people are afforded this kind of self-care, and that this is the world I want for all people. It does worry me to take on another high emotional labor event, but we shall see.

All this sets the backdrop for the fact that I have more time on Wednesdays for social media and general catching up on my computer time. Facebook pulled me into a thread about JLo and Shakira and sexuality. The conversation took its predictable twists and turns. And then we went into the land of white fragility. I know in the abstract that it exists, but I don’t encounter it much in the wild. This friend of my FB friend doubled and tripled down on how people were calling her racist, and that her feelings were hurt. Because I’m me, I had looked at her profile page– her profile picture was a picture of her and maybe her daughter wearing large pink sunhats at what was certainly the woman’s march. Her picture, her non-intersectional view of feminism and sexuality, and her fragility all was almost a caricature of white feminism.

In no order here are some takeaways and thoughts I have about this:

  • I feel conflicted about my balance between calling in and calling out. It hard to tell who is worthy of engaging with. Who, if held to account, and engaged with, will become activated to become anti-racist? I have seen people transform towards equity and justice. It’s long and hard work, but to get more white people activated to be anti-racist in their personal and professional lives is worth it. At a certain point tho, I wanted to say today, are you fucking kidding me?, particularly when this woman started pulling the “people are being intolerant to me” card.
  • I was reflecting on how there might be power in engaging with people at a social distance– friends of friends, rather than people in your immediate social or professional circle, but then I was blown away by my (relatively new to me) FB friend calmly and collectedly reading her own FB friend on internet protocol and social justice acceptable practices. It was a visible reminder and modeling on how to do the things.
  • This work is hard. It is hard emotionally and intellectually. And it’s not harder than what Black and Brown Women and Men have to do to survive in our culture everyday.
  • For me, practicing anti-racism looks like values the well-being of Black and Brown people in my life over the social constructs and constraints of the White dominant society.

Community Matters: Schedule

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For more information about how we got here: click here.

For information about each presenter, click on the link of their project. For my reflections on their presentation, click on their name.

Community Matters: Lisa Woolfork

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Black Women Stitch, Stitch Please

People sitting at tables. The people are a variety of races and ages. Most are women. They are all engaged in small group conversations.
Students and community members ordering food before Lisa Woolfork presents.

Lisa Woolfork presented at last night’s second “Community Matters”. I’ve known Lisa since the summer of 2017 when we were doing preparation and response to the white supremacist Unite the Right rallies. I’ve heard the origin stories of Black Women Stitch and Stitch Please before; each time I hear Lisa talk about it, she brings more layers and understanding to why this is such an important project for Black women and femmes.

Lisa is an amazing seamstress– she’s been sewing and quilting for over 20 years. As part her work she’d pay to go to retreats where she’d often be the only Black woman in attendance. Last night she talked about it took some traumatic events to make her realize that she didn’t want to be part of those circles anymore. Lisa talked about fear, risk, and regret that she didn’t act sooner. Some of my major take-aways from last night were:

  • It’s not the responsibility of Black people to educate White people about their microaggressions. Lisa disappeared from the White sewing community that she had been part of for 20 years and almost no one followed up with her to check in about her absence. It’s not on Lisa to get them to understand why she is no longer there. Lisa wants to create her own productive, supportive community.
  • It is unusual and special in Charlottesville for a Black person to be able to share their story and perspective to a mixed race crowd and for their perspective to be honored without question or gaslighting. I hope that we can grow these moments.
  • By Lisa sharing her full perspective– full of examples of strength and self-doubt, a space was created for younger Black women to share their own struggles and doubts, and to get validation from other community members of what they are achieving.
  • Lisa’s story is inspiring other Black women in attendance to create and further their own projects.