Event Recap: Liberating the Spirit

Featured Guest Opening Remarks: 


Beth Burgess, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

• Connections between Harriet Beecher Stowe's life and modern emancipation
• Stowe lived from 1811 until 1896. She had limited lifestyle options. She lived in the confines of women of her time. 
• As a Beecher she had a great upbringing 
• Her emancipation, or liberation of the spirit came through her writing.
• She used her writing to encourage others to create positive change. 
• We know that Abraham Lincoln checked out A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin during the time that he prepared the Emancipation Proclamation.
• She was inspired not only by what she lived through, she was inspired by slavery, anti-slavery movements, education, women's suffrage, the Reconstruction. 
• Gardening was a hobby of Stowe's. This was a lifelong hobby. She wrote that it was a "healing place for the soul". It brought her into a place of calm, to remove her from her career. 
• The international impact of what she did was vast. The women of Great Britain invited her after the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. She was like a "rock star" there. A 26 volume petition of half a million women's signatures lives at the Stowe Center and shows her life's work. 
• Stowe promoted Southern economic recovery and encouraged Northerners to go down to Florida as a rustic getaway. She lived there during the winter and promoted and encouraged educational development. 
• She painted and was inspired by what she wrote, where she travelled, what she thought of. 
• The gardens here show what she wrote about gardens. 
• Stowe had a spirit that could not be brought down and gave her causes some weight. 

Judy Dworin, Judy Dworin Performance Project

• The creative act is an act of affirmation of self, of one's place in the world. That is empowering and liberating.
• We say these expressions to ourselves and other people. That dialogue is powerful.
• An inmate at York Correctional Institution. "I am not a wasted life, I am talented...art has allowed me to transend these walls, with or without permission." 
• The act of creating allows us to push beyond boundaries, it offers us possibilities.
• Creativity is within all of us. 
• Ask my students to write about their own inner prison, it makes us look within. When we look at that we start a process of emancipation we didn't know we had to do. 
• There are pressures of achievement that hold us back. 
• Finding the beauty in the muck, that is what creativity allows. Digging down deep, something says "yes". 
• Art transforms us and hopefully it moves others.
• Meditations from a Garden Seat: My husband and I saw a button with a Stowe quote that "gardens are a place of healing for the soul" when we took a tour at the Stowe Center and then we saw all of her paintings. I worked with the women at York on gardens and this added to our work. 
• The garden is a place of meaning for both Stowe and the women of York. 
• It was a challenging connection to make. 
• Joan Hedrick (Pulitzer Prize winner biographer of Stowe) is the voice of Stowe in the performance. 
• *Comparison between Stowe's writing and the writing of women at York Correctional Institute*
• You might discover out of us weeds there are pretty little flowers inside. 
• The creative spirit lives within the walls of York and calls for us to reconsider justice. 
• "You may restrict my movement but my mind runs free."

Group Discussion: 
How do you get from a creative spark to something that you can put to action or bring out?

• Listen to the most urgent ideas, thats the one you need to listen to. Write about it, draw it, find the medium that allows you to express and communicate. Play is the feeding ground of creation. We learn so much as children from play. We forget about that as we grow older. 
• Refining it and working on it until it is where it needs to be is important. 

Is it important to have a quiet place to create? How do we shut things out? 

• The Stowe Center garden 
• Sometimes the more we try to get it, the further away it gets
• One of the hardest balances to find it carving out time with yourself.
• Carving out space whether physical or metaphorical and leaving that open no matter what. 
• We don't make enough appointments with ourselves. 
• Creating the space and then having the spontaneous energy is a difficult balance. 
• Our society does not value this time enough because it is not concrete enough, though innovation is critical. 
• It's a practice

How many women participated in Meditations, how did they come to be chosen.

• Each year 25-35 women. 
• 2/3 of the women continue and 1/3 are new. 
• The selection process is by application, they write in a writing sample and we select based on the staff and the application. There are 1,000 women at York and 32 women participate, but 500 women are in the audience.
• The work is honest, raw, and impactful. It is very hopeful. 
• The more time they are in the process, the deeper they go. 
• Some have started to write about their crimes now and that is probably one of the hardest places for them to go. 

Is there an outlet for women without you there?

• It is organized and supervised. 
• There are other arts activities, but they could not just go paint in the art room, there is not any kind of freedom in that way. 

This makes me think about people that are living in shelters or a tent in Haiti. There is that garden that we all need to create. I hope that the women at York are encouraged that they are not the only ones that are imprisoned. 

• They get that 
• They also see a reality to prison, but none the less they see that internal sense. 

Play is not part of the expectation for adults. Things that I did when I was young come back now when I play with my child. How do we find our own time?

• Taking time for ourselves, even taking a walk and feeling present in that walk is important. 
• We are conditioned to try and make everything work
• Our lives are so busy. We try to make things happen, rather than letting things happen
• Finding likeminded people to work with is important. 
• Being inspired by others
• Sharing with others and interacting with others that are inspired by what you are doing. 
• Being inspired by those you work with feeds your own sense of where you're going.
• Self preservation is important: Taking time to do things for nothing but ourselves, living in that moment. Finding things we like to do with people that feed all of our interests. This makes us feel whole again and makes us feel positive. 

In visual arts, decorating the physical space that we are in with inspirational pieces can give us positive, self liberation. 

If you look at where Stowe would have placed her art in her house you see that she would have been inspired by that work. 

The colors of Stowe's garden were meant to create a feeling. Writing and gardening were a sense of calm for her. 

Poetry and writing are an outlet for people to get their thoughts out. 

How do you handle when some of the women say that they are not artistic? 

• Anyone who comes into the group knows that they are coming into art. 
• We work in narrative, song or dance. We also cross fertilize. Singers and invited to write, writers are invited to dance. Trying is important
• There is a community of support. Generally prison does not provide them with a community of support, but within the program there is a community of support that provides a safe place to take those risks. 
• Listening to what is possible and knowing how to open up.
• The fact that we are there listening is important. 
• In prison you are identified by your number or your last name, your voice is not important in many ways. 
• Some many of us think that our stories are unimportant, but when you dig in there are stories that are bigger than ourselves.

Do you collect data about the women or evaluated the healing afterwards?

• We try to keep in touch with the women who leave and if possible include them in the works. 
• It is not 100%. There are so many complexities. 
• It is hard when you get out of prison. There is a high rate of incarceration.

How ofter do you meet?

• We meet once a month and then more frequently leading up to the performance.
• It is a big commitment on their part.

Where is the lack of respect in prison coming from?

• There is a lot that can be positive, but the overall idea of prison is something that we need to think about.
• 95% of these people will leave and reenter the community. How do we want them to come back? 
• We have to think about what it means afterwards too. 
• There are a lot of irretrievable things that happen in prison.  
• It's the idea of what prison is supposed to be that we have to think about. 
• When you set up a system where they are known by a number or last name, that is making a statement. 
• Changing things and rehabilitating is difficult when there are budget cuts as well. 
• We are not going to change this in a day, but we need to think about what we provide to people in prison and what should be given to them before they reenter society. 
• Prison is an industry now. 
• It is not just the prison, it is also about what we are providing when people leave prison. 
• Reentry should start the day they arrive in prison. How do we assist in job finding? How do we support these people who reenter? 
• The number of years that people are asked to serve are different throughout the world. 
• There are so many changes that can be made and we need to look at it in a bigger way.

Being an educator, the way we are handling education now, using data to control rather than the human being. We have the same attitude towards children, this "out of sight, out of mind" when we send children to school. There are a lot of things that we don't want to look at, but these are human beings that we don't necessarily interact with. 

• One of the greatest things about art is that it is a life-changing experience. 
• Artists take risks to say things that people aren't saying. 
• Society does not celebrate artists that much right now. 
• We have been very fearful since 9/11 and we are trying to take too much control, art doesn't fit into that. 

Who is noticing what JDPP is doing and what the women at York are doing? Stowe changed systems, the change of JDPP is happening to individuals within a system. Is there anything that will change to systemic change?

• The Commissioner came to see the performance of the women. The Governor's wife came as well. They were all amazed. This kind of work could not spread to other prisons. 
• The fact that the arts are there indicates change. 
• Talking in situations like this, writing articles, and bringing performance work out gets ideas going
• It is beginning to be recognized. 
• It is very different from when we started.
• There are parameters that we agree with when we work with the women at York. One always walks a fine line. We have to agree with things that we wouldn't always agree with. 
• You can work within the prison to create change within or you can be outside making it public and vocal. You cannot do both.

Was there resistance in starting?

• Everyone starts with a skeptical sense. 
• First there was no video, then there was video taping allowed. 
• There has been a lot of change that has occurred over time. 
• There is a balance.

How has the experience changed the women of your team that are going into the prison to work with the incarcerated women? 

• It has changed all of us. It has changed our perception of freedom and justice.
• Prisons are a microcosm for so many things
• When we started we had no idea of how it would affect me. One huge strand of what we do is working with the incarcerated or those impacted by incarceration.
• It is a processing time to travel to the prison and home from the prison. 
• The whole notion of freedom has become wider. 
• The first time I met someone my age it was the most impactful (statement from a JDPP staff member). Seeing them perform is amazing, they could have been my best friend. That was the moment, that is what changes you. 

The words of the women provide this liberation for all of us. The arts have a wonderful power and they make us realize that we are just as capable of making a bad decision, but that the seeds of transformation are spreading. There are bright opportunities to make this type of change.

• A lot of the change we are making isn't measurable by data. 
• There are a lot of great people doing great things that cannot be measured that way. 
• Beware of the gloom and doom picture. There is more than meets the eyes.

Change comes one person at a time. 

The discipline that comes with the performance. The rest of the day for the women at York is regimented with no choice. With this outlet they have choices. Through discipline they are able to make work that is good and make that work better. This has been liberating for them. 

We can be skeptical of art, but there is a lot of risk and there was a lot of work that came. 

The value of showing up and practicing our craft is important. 

There is some real healing that is happening here. Art, music and movement are very healing. If we could do that with younger people that might be a outlet away from the pipeline to incarceration. 

Cutting off the arts are cutting off a lifeline. 

Have you considered mentoring people that would like to work with other groups such as immigrants or young people?

JDPP has a mentoring program with young people who have parents who are incarcerated. 

JDPP would like to teach other teaching artists. Training people that want to do this type of work is in our plans. 

Art is a courageous thing, it is exposing, especially if it is an emotional place. When you go there, how do you handle that emotion?

• In the last year a counselor from mental health follows up with the women. 
• A group every other week with the women helps them get to the emotions that come up that have never been tapped before. 
• All of the teachers that go in know that the arts are therapeutic, but we are not therapists. The counselor allows them some follow up. 

Inspiration to Action:

• Go see Meditation from a Garden Seat
• The use of self expression to inspire action through writing and art. 
• Creativity is empowering and liberating. 
• Art transforms us
• Take time to yourself, be present
• Feed your spirit
• Find likeminded people to work with
• Challenge cultural assumptions
• contribute to efforts of systemic change
• support a culture of creativity and innovation
• Challenge your own notion of freedom. 

Confront Prejudice: Build Community

Workshop Facilitated by Dr. William A. Howe

What makes us distrust differences and separate “Us” from “Them”?  Fear of what we don’t understand? Deep-rooted biases?

Dr. William A. Howe is the program manager for culturally responsive education, multicultural education, bullying & harassment, gender equity and civil rights at the Connecticut State Department of Education.  He is the founder of the New England Conference on Multicultural Education (NECME) and Past President of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME).

Dr. Howe has been an educator for more than 35 years and has given more than 400 workshops, lectures and keynotes on diversity, multicultural education and organizational development. He is a regular presenter at state and national conferences and has appeared on both radio and television to discuss diversity issues.

Opening Q & A with the Audience
How many of you remember the day JFK was assassinated?
When did the Vietnam War end?
How many of you were born after the Vietnam War?

Often we don’t know our history. If we don’t know our history of where we came from we repeat our mistakes. There are so many opportunities for us to learn our history and this is why we can’t underestimate the importance of keeping places like the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center open.

Racism can be very subtle. We have to be watching for it.

Time for a history lesson: 

• Columbus did not discover America. How do you discover a country that had 10 to 100 million people living there? How do we explain this to a young child? Here’s a scenario: What if someone walked into your house during dinner, put a flag in the middle of your dining room and claimed it for their own? What would you do? How do you explain that?  
• Up to 11-12 million people were captured in Africa, brought to the United States and enslaved. One out of 8 did not make it. 
• During the Civil War, many African Americans signed up to fight for the Union. Many were killed in battle, sent to the front lines to blanket the white soldiers. 
• During the era of Reconstruction there was the promise of 40 acres and a mule. The object was to “make things right”. 
• During the 19th and 20th century, women fought and died to obtain equality in this country. We didn’t “give” women the right to vote, they fought for it. 
• Era of Jim Crow. Young people today have not experienced what many in this country today have. Some signs showing segregation can still be seen in the South although not enforced, they are just there. These laws were not just targeting African Americans; they targeted Hispanics and Mexicans too.
• The Great Migration was the largest movement of people in history. 
• 1924 Indian Citizenship Act grants Native Americans citizenship, interesting that Native Americans were here before those who created this law, granting them citizenship. 
• During the Great Depression, African Americans (often first fired, never hired) were some who suffered the most. 
• During World War II, African American soldiers liberated many of the concentration camps. Following the war, President Truman desegregates the troops
• Also during World War II, this country experienced Japanese-American internment, said to be for “safety”. Even orphanages were gathered for camps.
• Brown vs. Board of Ed, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Sit-ins, the Little Rock Nine. The faces in the famous photo of the Little Rock Nine are similar to those we can even see today. 
• We finally have the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 
• Assassination of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. 
• The Stonewall Riots took place when cops went too far at a gay bar in Greenwich Village and riots break out. This is one of the beginnings of the Gay Rights Movement. Stonewall Speakers are here in CT.
• This year is the 40th anniversary of Title IX. There was a day when girls could only be cheerleaders, when only male teachers got tenure. 
• Lau vs. Nichols: laws on Chinese American education. 
• Death of Vincent Chen in 1982, at the height of Japanese imports. He was out for his bachelor party in Detroit. Autoworkers started harassing him about being Japanese (even though he was Chinese). He did not fight back. The autoworkers beat him to death. Two men never spent a day in jail; they were fined $3,780. This was the beginning of the Asian civil rights. 
• We jump to the Inauguration of President Barack Obama and we are hearing people say that we live in a “post racial society”. 
• The first act that President Obama signed was the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Prior to this you could only be convicted of a hate crime if you were trying to prevent someone from using a public accommodation. Now you can be convicted for more reasons. 
• What does the future hold for us? We have to teach each other and our children. We have to keep those images you saw in the exhibit  THEM: Images of Separation alive. 

Activity 1: 
Who wrote the Preamble to the US Constitution?
All white, wealthy, men, of a certain age, many slave owners, politicians, lawyers, and Protestant. Who wasn’t in that room? Women, non-whites, young people…

Part 1:
Along the wall, a scale of 1-100% was created. Participants grouped themselves along the wall to show how far they think the United States has come in holding true to the Preamble.
A majority believed that we have come 50% of the way; though some chose 75% and even 0%.
Your prospective is your prospective. It is important to think about where our views come from.

• Why 0%? When you use “we the people” you should be representing “Everyone” when you look at immigration, education, economy; there is no “we the people”. 
• Why 25%? How can we be past 25% when the 1% hold so much power. We are all indentured and slaves to a system that makes us afraid of each other. It is designed that way. 
• Why 50%? During Civil Rights Movement it was 75%. Since then we have fallen back. Thinking about Muslim friends, drones, lack of transparency. During the Civil Rights Movement, we thought there would be equal rights for all. Poverty is so prominent in this area, we haven’t gotten there. We are only as successful as our brothers and sisters. We have so much technology and we use it for Angry Birds. In Egypt, they used technology for a revolution.
• Why 75%? I looked at this as a process. I think that there are more people today that are included in making the choices. If we don’t think we are moving forward then where are we going? We have not made all the progress we should have. Since 1964, I think that only Aunt Jemima was on TV, now we have a black President. We have made a lot of progress, be honest. 

I grew up as a Southerner reciting the Preamble. The 60s presented a hopeful time. What it feels like to go from a period of hopefulness to a time when we don’t trust our neighbors. We send an e-mail and don’t know who might be able to read it. We have our Simon Legrees here, just with different names, that are stifling the promises of liberty. There is a sense of loss.

There is distrust. There is a system. When I was growing up I used the term “Jap” rather than Japanese. There are laws that are made; things change; times change; people change. The Constitution sets a path that will ensure certain ideas. It has more to do with the input of everyone.

The Constitution was created by people who were imperfect. When the Constitution was written it was based on other documents. The right to life, liberty and personal property was in the original draft. The problem is that the system we are in perpetuates itself. This is why we are here now. The system keeps us from understanding.

Part 2:
Where would male, African American, Hartford High School students put themselves along the same scale?
There was a huge shift of people who moved to the lower percentage.
Why? Bullying happens, not enough money, being followed in stores, negative propaganda.

Part 3:
This is a big election year; imagine you are a member of Congress. Where would members of Congress stand along this same scale?
There was a large 75% ratio.
Those closest to 100% said thought that Congress thinks life is pretty good.
If they do wrong they are not necessarily accountable.
Those in the middle of the scale said that members of Congress know who controls the funds and who puts them in office. There are a lot of people that represent us that are as frustrated as people in this room. They could not imagine a Congressman would say we have come 100% of the way. They can’t get done what they want to as well. What we need to understand is that we do have the power to control Congress. WE are the government.

Perspectives can change when you live in someone else’s shoes for a while.

Part of our problem is that we don’t listen to each other; we talk over each other. Dr. Howe stated that he is so thankful to the Stowe Center for opening everyone up to these types of discussions. A quote lead the group into a discussion and activity: “This is how great changes begin, when people begin talking to each other about their experiences, hopes, and fears.” – by Margaret Wheatley in Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future.

Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. Most adults listen actively for 17 seconds. 75% of the words that we hear are ignored.
Active listening is used to help someone else formulate his or her thoughts. We might follow up with a question when we are listening to someone.
In Constructivist listening, one person talks and the other listens without thinking about what they are going to say next.

Activity 2: 
Find a partner that you don’t know, someone who is your opposite, someone that you don’t know. One talks first while the other listens. When you listen do not think about your own stories, do not interrupt. Scenarios of intolerance were presented to the group. Each partner would respond to the prompt at the end of the scenario.

It was a very active group, with great conversation. A few pairs had difficulty not engaging in active listening, nodding their heads, agreeing with their partner, or even replying. Others made direct eye contact and stood or sat still. After 60 seconds the talker and the listener switched roles.

Afterwards, many stated that they had the same views or similar views, but all saw the value in giving the other person a chance to share their point of view without the fear or thought that someone else would take over the conversation, whether their views were the same or different.

Dr. Howe’s closing message came from his wife. His wife, a psychotherapist shared with him that most patients are afflicted with negative people in their lives. Her advice, and his alike, get rid of those friends, they are not your friends. Life is tough, it is too easy to dwell in the negative. We can only make change if we think positively. 10 people will talk to you tomorrow, 9 will be positive, 1 of them will be negative and you will lose sleep over what that one person said. Surround yourself with positivity.

Event Recap: THEM-Images and Attitudes that Separate Us

Salons at Stowe
THEM: Images and Attitudes that Separate Us


Featured Guest Opening Remarks and Reaction to the exhibit THEM: Images of Separation

Tokuji Okamoto (Our Piece of the Pie):
THEM: Images of Separation is a powerful exhibit. Before I came tonight I was unsure of what I would be seeing. I have been reading a lot about racism in America and about how people have a backward idea of how people perceive others of darker skin. Racism justifies slavery in this country. It is institutional. Slavery was created by very powerful people and racism allowed them to profit. The legacy still continues.
The media wants to tell us that acts like we see in the exhibit are individual acts and that we live in a post-racial society, but this can’t be further from the truth.
The exhibit makes me think of Trayvon Martin or Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, and Oscar Grant. The examples go on and on. Malcolm X Grassroots Movement just put out a report stating that 110 people were killed outside the rule of law. This is something bigger than individual acts. It stems from institutional racism.
Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow talks about how the US imprisons more people in the world.
1 out of every 8 people in prison on the planet is African American. That is 12% of the prison population of the whole world and African Americans make up only .6% of the world population.

Rabbi Donna Berman (Charter Oak Cultural Center):
Someone told me a theory about the origins of racism and prejudice that might be shocking. It was a psychotherapist who said that if we are hated by our parents, we will experience hate in our bodies and project it out to others. It is very difficult for people to see whether they are hated by their parents. Hatred is always psychotic.
I was frightened by the THEM exhibit.
Hatred is the projection of what we dislike or are fearful about in ourselves. An action step is that we need to own our shadow sides. If we don’t have compassion for ourselves, we can’t have compassion for others.
One of the bases for prejudice is scapegoating. It’s easy to pass blame and very often we as individuals scapegoat and sometimes it is even the government and the rhetoric that is used that pulls us in.
When you look around so many of the images in the exhibit were created after 2000.
Post 9/11 we have seen more of these issues.
You shall not oppress the stranger, for you are strangers in the land of Egypt is stated 36 times in the Torah, the most sacred of Jewish text.
There is also the concept of Destructive and Constructive Entitlement. If you have pain, you can cause harm to others and feel justified, or you can decide not to do that.
The Charter Oak Cultural Center (COCC) provides a safe place to share ideas through art, dance, and more. The arts are a wonderful vehicle for bringing people together. They aren’t threatening.
Five years ago, COCC created a replica exhibit of the Anne Frank secret annex. There was a white wall with a timeline that led to a bookcase. Many people would walk, follow the timeline and think that this was the end of the exhibit. They didn’t realize that the bookcase opened, and isn’t that the point. When they opened the door they all gasped and said “there’s a whole world in there”. Prejudice, the unwillingness to open the door and see the beautiful world that’s inside.

Dr. Salome Raheim (UConn School of Social Work):
We all come with a different history based on age, socio-economic status, gender, race, etc. We all experience the exhibit differently and we all experience the world differently.
I identify in a certain ways and my experiences impact how I see the world and how the world sees me, it impacts the opportunities that I have. Those are the lenses that I speak through.
The exhibit was powerful. My heart still hurts. If I was unmoved that would be a problem. There are many pieces in the exhibit that are very personal to me.
Here is a way to approach this: Acknowledge, Accept, Act.
Acknowledge that words and images have power. We often think that they don’t have power. We think of the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones…” Words and images perpetuate ideas about people and these ideas can be fatal. Short of killing people they can put people in places that constrain their lives. Words have power to shape our reality. Social institutions can reproduce some of those ideas. If we acknowledge this we can impact what we allow in our presence.
We need to Accept our individual power to take leadership and make change. On the individual level, if we learn more about how words and images have an impact, that positions us to make a difference. If we accept that we can make a difference then we can make choices. Choices of what we buy, the conversations that we participate in, etc. We have to be teachable and we have to learn more. It is important that we listen to the stories of others, how people are impacted and take it from their perspective. Saying “I don’t understand” is a declaration that will keep you there. “How can I understand?” opens the door for conversation and change.
No one is exempt from Us vs. Them thinking. I saw myself in those images in the exhibit, and this doesn’t mean that I haven’t had my own stereotypes.
Act, if we acknowledge and accept, we can make choices and act. Acting includes identifying our sphere of influence, which is ongoing. Who do I have influence with, who is watching me, who is emulating me, whose behavior might I influence. Beyond the individual level, we can join with other people and have a broad sphere.
The point is not to leave the exhibit or this discussion and say “ain’t it awful,” it is saying lets commit to act and make a difference.

Reverend Michael C. Williams:
When I get together with people and have these conversations about race and racism it usually comes down to “doesn’t it feel like racism has gotten worse since Barack Obama was elected President?” The issue of race is more of an issue today than it has been in a long time. “Did Affirmative Action really work and did immigration really benefit us?” These are deep and painful conversations when we look at our society. We face inequities in an era of integration.
In the exhibit I was immediately hit with thoughts. Images have power, what gives those images its power? There is a serious and more dramatic attempt to maintain a sense of white supremacy in this country. It is an all out war to assure that that is not disrupted. Any disruption destroys a paradigm that has created an empire where a small percentage of people benefit.
A three legged stool holds white supremacy up:
1. Theology of this country (European Western Christianity) There is not anger when images that are false are presented to us. The person portrayed as Jesus did not look like the image that is presented to us. There is no outcry to say stop that or portray him as the historical description would. We are receiving comfort in the system that allows this.
2. Economic system (capitalism). In order for it to work people have to perform in the classes they are assigned to. There is a meaning, not just a salary, behind “middle class folks” and the same is true for all classes.
3. Political: We have allowed ourselves to be polarized in political parties. We allow the two-party system to control our thoughts and behaviors. An example is that blacks can’t be Republicans or else they are sellouts.
Until we get serious about making change, the images in this exhibit will continue. One of the most powerful statements is Dr. King’s quote: “We're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny” We have created a delusion that we have escaped, but we are still in it, we are still connected.

Group Conversation:
Audience Comment: It was mentioned that racism has gotten worse, but it also feels like the prejudice is more on a level of economic class.

Michael Williams’ response: There is an inability for black people and white people to talk about race in a different way, because of what has happened politically. There is an attitude that black people should stop whining since there is a black president. To have a conversation about race during the Obama administration is often viewed as more difficult than ever. The class conversations are there in this economy, but there is a belief that this President is only out to support black folks and that he is pandering to the stereotypical. The inability to have a serious conversation causes some serious acting out and can be destructive.

Audience Comment: The younger generation uses social networks and it doesn’t necessarily turn into a these difficult conversations about race. Who is having these difficult conversations, who is thinking so negatively? 

Michael Williams’ response: My children’s description of racism is different than the generation before them, but its impact is the same. This conversation is had in faith communities many times among baby boomers. They begin to realize all of the micro inequities that they faced, like why wasn’t I invited out to lunch, why didn’t I get an invitation to a certain meeting? Many didn’t say anything because of fear of losing their jobs. In the corporate world, upper management and executive leadership is a lot less diverse. In counseling people facing layoffs in the corporate sphere, there is a fear and expectation to conform to the dominant culture is more and more pronounced. There is not a lot of liberty in the workplace. You have to check yourself.

Audience Comment: Look at what happened with the boy scouts this week. It is about respect for others.

Salome Raheim’s response: Civility is critical. Taking on more respectful attitudes would be an advancement. However, civility can be a veneer for politeness. In order for us to move past what separates us we need to get to a level of truth-telling. We have to acknowledge that the “-isms” exists, learn more, understand ourselves, and hopefully get to a time when there is a word that goes beyond civility and reflects an understanding of others. A level of acceptance and appreciation. Without institutional change the attitudes and behaviors will perpetuate. If everyone was civil then it would be safe for me to go into certain environments.

Donna Berman’s response: You can be civil and be honest. But what about political correctness.

Audience Comment: Working for the state and Affirmative Action work, racism in the workplace exists. A manager won’t say anything that will send you to file a complaint. You might come out of an interview thinking you were treated equally, but you were not. Sometimes individuals who could do something are so afraid of retaliation and isolation. You have to take risks and take necessary actions to create change.

Audience Comment: Empathy. That’s what goes beyond being civil. What we fear is what we don’t understand. We all can be as open minded as we imagine we are. I was recently in a discussion about the importance of humanities. Humanities teach us what we don’t understand. We don’t talk about these issues. It needs to go beyond the words. We need to be willing to listen to someone we don’t agree with or someone we don’t have anything in common with and that is hard to do.

Michael Williams: A good majority of Americans get their information about others from the media. What we think about each other isn’t what we want to think, it’s about what we are told to think.

Salome Raheim: It starts in school. The educational process perpetuates these thoughts. Textbooks tell a certain story. Education sets up perspectives, who’s in the foreground, who’s in the background. It doesn’t help us think critically. People are presented and events are presented to students in one-dimensional ways. Sometimes it takes until grad school for someone to tell you to think critically. In order to get to empathy and compassion we need to develop the ability to question what is presented to us. We can create a new world only if we question and are open to taking it in and not demonizing.

Audience Comment: Trinity College had a democracy series of films in the Fall. One was The Wave. It was a Them and Us theme. The psychology of the human being that leads us where we are. We want to deal with these things, but it is so difficult. The Wave was about a group of students, and a teacher that started a Them and Us movement and the students ran with it. The students who wanted to do the right thing were overpowered. This is what we see in our world today.

Audience Comment:  Think about the title of this Salon, “Images and attitudes that separate us.” How will we get past this if we continue to be so separated? There is a continued segregation in our society, especially in schools. The racism that this country has broadened and has gotten a lot deeper. There have to be racist roots in the hatred towards Obama. There is more of that coming out because white America anticipates and feels they are overwhelmed. A majority of the country will eventually be non-white. Also, the majority in this country and the bystanders are as passive as they’ve ever been. When we look at bullying, it is the enablers and the passive bystanders that let it grow and continue.

Donna Berman: Hatred is psychotic. The arbitrariness of racism and social construction of it all is to manipulate people and plot us against each other. There is the story about Malaga island. This was a real island, off the coast of Maine, where freed slaves were brought after the Civil War. They had nothing and they created something. In 1912, Maine decided that tourism was rising so they went to the island, exhumed the buried, took everyone who lived there and dumped them on the mainland. Recently, the Governor of Maine was going to the island to make an apology, but they didn’t invite the descendants. This fall is the 100th anniversary of their removal from the island. There was a meeting in Maine, the white and black descendants were separated in the room, but then someone said, we are all from the same exact family. It was all intermarriage. This shows that it is all about perception.

Michael Williams: The phenomena of segregation today, the model today usually looks like this: 9 white people and 1 white person. That is integration, not segregation. You never see a TV show with 9 black people and one white person. There is a push to the younger generation that says, if you want to integrate you have to lose a lot of what you have. You could lose your history, your culture, and change who you were in order to be accepted and assimilated into a larger culture. Young people have tried this and realized it doesn’t work, so they are creating there own. From 15 to 30 years old, it is not that big of a deal, the challenge of race is more complicated after 30.

Audience Comment: About words and images having power, I think of the comments about the girls basketball team from a couple years ago. Black parents, especially black mothers have had to make sure that our kids feel good about themselves. We spend time and money on this. You want them to know that they are OK no matter who you are. A teacher at my daughter’s child development center said to me once that I didn’t comb my daughter’s hair when she came in with an afro. I went to my car and sobbed. It is a journey, it is a tough, rigorous journey. We want our kids to feel empowered and know that they are something special. When we are 50 we can say these things with confidence, we have earned that in our journey. We are trying to overcome these images and attitudes.
My daughter never experienced being called a derogatory word until going to North Carolina. It sent shock waves. You don’t go to work and give 100%, you go to work and give 120%. There’s good in all people. You need to work to make change. We can make a difference by being honest.

Audience Comment: My school is an International Baccalaureate school in a predominantly African American neighborhood. There are less than 10 black students in my grade. In our school we learn a lot about other cultures and how we interact and what can be done. Our program is segregated from others in the school. We are being exposed to more people and more ideas. The program is meant to foster understanding globally. If we don’t have the ability to stress education, we cannot change the structure after school.

Audience Comment: My personal experience living in South Carolina is that I only faced racism within my own racial group of African Americans.  When given the opportunity people will oppress. If you have a group of conscious people and you are dealing with this hatred, the question is how do we act?

Audience Comment: Many of us might live in homogenous communities. We should include our children in situations where they grow up and have experiences with people that are different than they are. If you start when they are little it is their world.

Salome Raheim: Racism is craziness, but it is not caused by a human defect. It is created by a structure that is in place that makes people crazy. The answer is to work for more just and equitable structures. Environments and structures can bring out the worst in us or the best in us. We need to work for social justice.

Donna Berman: This might sound naïve, but the answer is love. Hatred needs to be met with love.

Tokuji Okamoto: A lot discussion is about what we can do within our own selves. We need to consider what we can do collectively. Words and images can have power, but we forget how much power we can have ourselves. Youth can transform, we can transform. There are huge institutional problems and it takes more than an individual to create this large scale change. Completely starting anew is the way we need to create real change. We need to get past the taboos. Our power is in the streets. Any gains we have gotten in recent movements started from organization of people and then the politicians follow.

Please leave your thoughts and comments here!

And join us on Tuesday, August 21st for Confront Prejudice-Build Community
An enlightening workshop by Dr. William Howe where you will view how you question "others".
More information here: Harriet Beecher Stowe Center