These are our people (#TheseAreOurPeople) & This Is Us(#ThisIsUs)

by Erin Dunlevy

I woke up this morning in a cabin in northern Minnesota, safely nestled on a lake less than a half day’s drive from the Canadian border.  The morning news was on and nearly all of the 21 members of my extended family, gathered for our yearly reunion, quieted to hear the details of the act of white nationalist terrorism that took place in Charlottesville the day before.  Some expressed outrage (this side of the family “would have voted for Obama for a third time”) but most remained silently disturbed, brows furrowed in an expression of pale despair as 45 read a statement condemning the violence that occurred “on all sides.”

As I looked around at the 4 generations gathered by the television (all white) and glanced back at the outraged white crowd on the screen, an understanding bubbled up to my consciousness. 

Those are our people.

In that crowd of violent white nationalists, I recognized the faces on the screen.  These men and women could be my cousins, aunts or uncles. If I were to walk among them in a public place without knowing who they are or what they believe, I would likely not feel unsafe.  And this is what brings me to my understanding of what we as white folks must begin to take on as our loved ones of color are increasingly threatened in a white supremacist state newly emboldened with direct support from the highest seat of our government.  We must be willing to acknowledge that white supremacy is a kind of belonging that does not by any means require white skin for inclusion, but that does grant automatic lifetime membership for those who look the part.  This is painful to admit.  And when I’m working with other white folks I usually find this to be one of the first hurdles; the “but not me…” intellectual rejection of the fact that white supremacy loves us and we will always have a home in its arms. 

What do anti-racist white folks do with this acceptance?  What do we do when we recognize and acknowledge that these are our people?

I struggle with the idea that I have the right answer for anything.  Part of the personal work of undoing my own white supremacy is moving away from the idea that I know what’s best for people and that I have all the answers. Additionally, the only thing I can truly say I have expertise on is my own failures in constructing my anti-racist identity.  But with that said, white silence is proof of white supremacy’s embrace and our comfort within it.  So in addition to the obvious, (i.e. participation in local activist events that pop up in the coming days- a nationwide list of actions can be found here) I can tell you what I’m thinking about and planning for, and how I hope to act my way out of despair’s paralysis.  

We need to reach out to our people, so that they will reach out to theirs.  I drove to town for cell service and called my dad right away.  We talked about what happened and I asked him how he was going to talk about it with my much younger sisters.  I told him I would call our family in North Carolina.   My southern uncle was police for nearly 30 years.  When white violence occurs, I reach out to him. Our relationship has grown and deepened as we construct an anti-racist family identity together. As Black and Brown bodies continue to be assaulted with impunity, I want to know that my tribe is talking about it, engaging and acting. 

We need to participate in experiences of Black and Brown truth-telling and express gratitude for Black and Brown truth.  The Truth Telling Project of Ferguson is planning to initiate a decade of truth telling and asking white allies to aid in processes of healing for people of color by engaging in formal and informal listening for liberation.   TTP has organized a truth telling event on August 17^th that I’ll be a part of.  Info about that event can be found here. We can engage with organizations like the Truth Telling Project and the Movement for Black Lives and organize truth telling and transformative and restorative justice events in our communities. We can bring members of our white tribes to these events with the understanding that we are there to be active(ist) listeners.

For those of us participating in local protests or organized action events, the Catalyst Project has just released a new pamphlet, "A Troublemakers' Guide: Principles for Racial Justice Activists in the Face of State Repression." This pamphlet gives practical information about how the state represses activist movements and offers solid guidelines for white activists around issues of non-compliance, which is urgent for those of us who work in schools where young people are increasingly at risk for arrest or deportation.

Finally, I am considering my long-term plans as an educator.  I need to be working in white spaces in which this deeply rooted historical racism is reproducing itself in schools and institutions.  How am I creating inroads toward working in school districts where young people have grown up around revered statues of Robert E. Lee?  How can I extend my reach as a white educator?

How do we as white people truly start to take responsibility for our people?

I don’t know what the answer is but as a white anti-racist this needs to be my line of inquiry as I move forward.  Every good teacher knows a line of inquiry drives deep exploration of a given topic, and a good line of inquiry is divergent- it leads to multiple, expanding answers.  I reached out to some family today and learned about extended family in Alabama.  I’m thinking I’ll start there.  I can’t say how it will go but it’s a start. Because when I was a young teacher, thinking I was the shit for some reason or another somebody wise told me;

“You think you got this.  You don’t got this.”

For my work as an anti-racist this may have been the best advice I’ve ever gotten.  The minute I think I’ve done it, that I’ve made my contribution, that the work is complete, I’m nestled back into White supremacy’s embrace, tucked in for the night, choosing safety over life.  Not this time.  These are my people and I need to be accountable for them.

This article was originally published on https://creadnyc.org

Erin Dunlevy is the Founder and Director at Restorative Practice NYC, a Restorative Justice Trainer and Equity Coach with over 15 years of professional experience in NYC public schools.  Erin works to develop strategic solutions around issues of critical consciousness and anti-racism in schools. Particular areas of focus include developing a restorative model for critical consciousness, anti-bias strategies and examining the impact of race, power, and privilege in schools and professional settings. Her work has also focused on developing and implementing strategies for addressing equity issues within classrooms, specifically as an advocate for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Native Language Arts Education and restorative circles in core content classes. Currently Erin works for the NYC Restorative Justice Pilot Initiative and the NYPD Warning Card Pilot Initiative and and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Truth Telling Project of Ferguson.

Three Years Since Michael Brown, Calling for a Decade of truth Telling, Listening and Action

Three years ago, founder of the American branch of Peace Education and two time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Betty Reardon told me, “We need a decade of truth and reconciliation to deal with racism  because we are all complicit or impacted by racism. It’s in the air that we breath.”  While I believe a Truth and Reconciliation process is needed to heal the racial divide and redress past harms, we have learned from experiences that truth and reconciliation, with reparative justice does not address structural conditions.

On August 9th, three years ago, I joined the protests because St. Louis (Ferguson is part of St. Louis) was my home. My parents, siblings, nephews, cousins and grandparents are in the St.Louis/Ferguson area.  At the time, my work in peace education, nonviolence, anti-war activism and restorative justice did not prepare me to witness the strength of the American empire on streets that I had been harassed by police on decades before.  While not quite prepared, I wasn’t surprised that police and other authorities in the region seemed to value property and the flow of business more than the lives of outraged citizens expressing their right to dissent.  The continuous flow of news about police violence against Black people reinforces the care for property, not people.  The videos showing the police officers slamming the black student onto the floor from her desk, first shows the officer carefully taking the computer away so that it was safe before he brutalized her.

What White Americans must face is, that there is a huge gulf that has yet to be traversed for Black folk to become human in this society.

It’s not new that the constitution held Black folk as ⅗ of a human. We were property.  This, as Derrick Bell founder of critical race theory describes in And We Are Not Saved, was lowliest of state, where one was property from birth to death without hope of any kind of autonomy.  The inability to make basic life choices around marriage, childbirth and family was not allowed for the black slave. The introduction of the Black slave class provided the elite landowning class a buffer from poor Whites who inevitably faced economic hardship in light of an already unjust labor system.

In such a state, where race determined humanity, whiteness was prized, and prosperity derived from the oppression of others was justified through legal codes and pseudo science.

Today police and prisons reinforce the sense that White America has difficulty seeing Blacks as human.  Michelle Alexander compares slave catchers to police and private prisons have historic links to slavery. The profiting from the ‘use’  of black and nonwhite bodies continues throughout the U.S.

When I lived and taught in college towns in Pennsylvania, I saw how one of the primary economic drivers throughout the state are federal, state and private prisons. Many communities and thousands of businesses around the U.S. are deeply dependent on prisons for their survival.

Sadly there is little change to report from three years when Michael Brown Jr. was murdered and the protests began. The power resides in White supremacist institutions and the individuals that support the same order. Yet there is hope.

There is a new sense of consciousness, where people are woke, and acting independently to secure their basic needs. Also history teaches us that no groups are a monolith. The fugitive slave laws required white persons to assist in return slaves or be subject to heavy fines and or jail. Yet there was deep resistance; as there is resistance to the violent deportations of our Latina\Latino\LatinX  brothers and sisters.

In this political moment, peoples whose immigration status, religion, sacred land and sacred bodies, that are most at risk should and must lead this struggle supported by our White Allies.

So in the coming year, I believe we need a decade of Truth Telling, Listening and Action. The purpose of this decade is to provide a framework for political education overlapping with the UN decade for the people of African Descent and encouraging action that responds to the Truth being told. We would see our  stories told in communities across the US to create our own narrative, connecting the past to our present conditions.

The stories told in the decade of Truth-Telling connects historical trauma to our current experiences, as reminders and reasons to demand reparative justice as a first step in truth and reconciliation.

1.  After the civil war, while public education was set up- mostly with the efforts of freed slaves and aid societies- the U.S. never paid its debt for slavery, apologized publically, or held widespread events or public education to counter the hatred of Blacks by even those who fought against the confederacy. Some of the only people paid for the ending of slavery were former slaveholders, who (almost 1,000 slave owners) were compensated $300 for not fighting against the Union.

2.In 1917 East St. Louis saw over 7,000 Black people fled and over 200 and possibly 500, unhindered by authorities, murdered by angry gangs of Whites because northern factories recruited Southern Blacks, blamed for the low wages and joblessness of White workers.

3. In 1918 237 black sharecroppers were lynched in Arkansas for seeking better working conditions. Thousands of other lynchings spread terror throughout the black south with little intervention from law enforcement

4. The U.S. government sabotaged and infiltrated Black empowerment movements since the 1910’s.

5. It was U.S. government policy to take over relocate communities and business without fair compensation in  programs like urban renewal

6. Many black families could not build wealth because they were excluded from U.S. government sponsored wealth building programs like the GI bill and Federal Mortgage programs. They were redlined in when attempting to get housing and now gentrified out of their historic communities.

7. In Black communities in Michigan, democracy has been subverted by the emergency management system that has led to Flint water crisis, education, housing, health and water crisis’ in Detroit.

8. Thousands of Black folk have been killed by police and very few (if any) officers have been held responsible.

In these and so many other cases, the U.S. has never listened, accepted responsibility, made policies or provided broad education to counteract simmering feelings of hatred and racism after flashpoints in history. This is a history schooling can no longer ignore. Broad public education must be undertaken to insure future generations to fully understand this society.

In the Ferguson-St.Louis community, we started our own process we described as Truth-Telling, to make sure we had a record of what people experienced. We consciously focused on internal healing and reconciliation, so that forgiveness would not be expected without repairing the deep harm that has traumatized generations.

The Decade of Truth Telling, Listening, Healing and Action - would center voices of color, from marginalized communities to have their truth acted on in ways that actually repair harm, by supporting Black folk in ways that actually build capacity in our neighborhoods. For instance, in Black communities, where the majority of teachers, nonprofit support organizations, police and social workers are White, there is little culturally relevant support for youth and families.  Our communities are taught to look elsewhere for leadership and basic support.

In a society where money is valued reparations is a reasonable expectation for a society that has benefited from the use of black bodies since our arrival in the western hemisphere.  Reparations or reparative justice includes more than money.  Georgetown provides some examples.  But others include but are not limited to: proportionate employment in black and white communities and institutions; percentage or fee paid by middle and high income persons or their parents-when moving into gentrified communities like Detroit, Washington, D.C., Harlem, Los Angeles etc.; Black State Colleges and Black and P.O.C. should be paid reparations for failure to fund equitably.

While this day symbolizes the spark of a new kind of protest, let us remember Michael Brown Jr. and the many other people killed by police, as a call for rejuvenated struggle. While we do this work, let us listen to each other, to awaken more folk to the struggle, build political power around our narratives and to support and heal together.

We ask that you join us for our webinar on August 17th where we will share the stories from Ferguson and beyond in our online learning platform “It's Time to Listen”. You can begin the listening and learning now.

Originally published by https://creadnyc.org

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@davidragland1, @TruthTellersUSA and @WeStayWoke2k