Misc Feedback for Facilitators

[tooladder]

Oct 27, 2011 10:20:14 GMT -5 Emma said:

Ben - can't really. But I think Dylan's point is helped more by putting people on stack who have not spoken yet, rather than the same people who spoke 4 times already in that very meeting. That's one part of progressive stack.

(And honestly I think the lgbt question distracts from the more important point of women & poc needing to have the floor more. We also can't visually identify Jews, athiests, neighborhood residents, union members, or any number of other minorities or groups of people. But yet there is no question in anyone's mind that white males - and often the same few - are dominating the "mike" and that *can* and *must* be addressed.)

This is very racist in and of itself. These people are the ones that have stepped up with donations of time, equipment, money and food. Yes some of them happen to be white so what? We have at least two women that have had lead roles G.A.s a person of Columbian decent heading a W.G. The brains of our financial facilitator is of some minority decent, we have reps from the Albany chapter of the Black Panthers here, I could probably go on for a while. We can not afford to have affirmative action and put people who lack the charisma and or experience to lead a meeting in charge and have the meeting go on for 4-5 hours. If your upset about your ethnic group not having a voice, try joining a work group, or even starting a new one! I think what the real issue we are seeing here is not that "WASP" (isn't that a hate word?!?!?) are dominating the @occupy_wallstreet movement as it is a pre-occupy_albany formed clicque of friends and organizations had communally decided to step up to the plate. Unfortunately a lot of members of these organizations out to help others are predominantly white. I won't speculate as to why, but I surly don't think this makes them bad people or even racist. I think it is racist to point it out and try to get them to step down because of a race issue.

[benbrucato]

Did I seriously just read that? Can someone please CNTL+Z that?

[Caroline]

To my mind, the larger issue isn't the race or sex of who is speaking at the GAs, but the fact that a few people (not facilitators or WG leaders) are speaking three to four times within one GA. This can discourage others from speaking and can lead to people leaving the GA early. I am not sure how to solve this, but would ask people who are speaking very often at GAs to ask themselves if some of their questions/concerns could wait until after the GA.

Thank you.

[mikerancourt]

Oct 27, 2011 11:22:30 GMT -5 tooladder said:

Oct 27, 2011 10:20:14 GMT -5 Emma said:

Ben - can't really. But I think Dylan's point is helped more by putting people on stack who have not spoken yet, rather than the same people who spoke 4 times already in that very meeting. That's one part of progressive stack.

(And honestly I think the lgbt question distracts from the more important point of women & poc needing to have the floor more. We also can't visually identify Jews, athiests, neighborhood residents, union members, or any number of other minorities or groups of people. But yet there is no question in anyone's mind that white males - and often the same few - are dominating the "mike" and that *can* and *must* be addressed.)

This is very racist in and of itself. These people are the ones that have stepped up with donations of time, equipment, money and food. Yes some of them happen to be white so what? We have at least two women that have had lead roles G.A.s a person of Columbian decent heading a W.G. The brains of our financial facilitator is of some minority decent, we have reps from the Albany chapter of the Black Panthers here, I could probably go on for a while. We can not afford to have affirmative action and put people who lack the charisma and or experience to lead a meeting in charge and have the meeting go on for 4-5 hours. If your upset about your ethnic group not having a voice, try joining a work group, or even starting a new one! I think what the real issue we are seeing here is not that "WASP" (isn't that a hate word?!?!?) are dominating the @occupy_wallstreet movement as it is a pre-occupy_albany formed clicque of friends and organizations had communally decided to step up to the plate. Unfortunately a lot of members of these organizations out to help others are predominantly white. I won't speculate as to why, but I surly don't think this makes them bad people or even racist. I think it is racist to point it out and try to get them to step down because of a race issue.

It's been ten twenty minutes since I began this response. I'm trying really hard to be understanding and constructive with it.

I once read that whiteness is a social construct characterized by the privilege of never having to understand what it's like to lack privilege. The same can be true for maleness, heterosexuality, christianity, and plenty of other things that are harder to encapsulate in a simple noun in parallel enumeration.
I don't feel too risky here in assuming that Tooladder is a white male. White males tend to be the ones who see "affirmative action" as racist because they are the ones who, in many cases, have never had to understand what it's like to be anything other than culturally dominant.
There was a time in my life when I began figuring that out, but that time will never be finished. It is a constant process of counting my privilege every day, then learning how to take a back seat, or at least not expect the front seat just because everyone else is used to people like me taking it.
Progressive stack is one way we attempt to make sure this is a safe space for people who aren't normally given space to speak. If a meeting is dominated, as many are, by white men speaking with the confidence that white so often speak with, there develops a character of interaction which is palpable to some and not to others, a momentum which marks the space as one where privilege is enjoyed rather than interrogated, and that enjoyment is always at the expense of those who can never hold it.
So, I will concede that this is a new concept to a lot of people, and it can be healthy to question processes, but it is far more important to attempt to understand how power functions at the heart of this.
I actually spent a few months doing participant observation with the local Tea Party activists in 2009, and they could point to one African American man as proof that they weren't racist. They loved it when he got up to speak about 2nd Amendment rights and liberty, etc... I think that's because they thought his presence let them off the hook. There were plenty of people in that group who expressed outwardly racist things to me personally and within earshot, but they were pretty sure that being friends with this one person made them not racist. What I am describing here is a token. It is very important that we be aware how we create a space where traditionally dominant voices are willing to refrain from hopping in that front seat, and refrain from placing a black panther in the passenger seat so that we can get in the carpool lane.
I thought a metaphor might help me say this without sounding too harsh.
Maybe in the end I haven't presented a compelling enough argument, but I think it will ultimately work best to take this slowly. Privilege is rarely confronted over night.

[anthony]

I am a white man who has gone to several GA meetings. What I notice when I go to these meetings is, there are an awful lot of male dominance across the board. Most of these men are white. Not only do these men (white) dominant with their loud voices they cut off female facilitators when they take a small pause or try to articulate what they are trying to say, by the male finishing her sentence for her.
Just take a look back at this thread for example. A woman says something against men and what happens? The men fight back and try and silence the woman, and this is just a small example. It is happening all over these message boards, it is very clear to see. This is what happens in the world we live now.
If we are trying to truly change the world, lets start by allowing woman and people of color to have more to say than we do. By intentionally choosing woman or people of color to speak before/over men(white) will empower this movement. I generally prefer the wisdom of a woman, rather than from a loud dominant male.
I am sorry to rant about this but lets back off "guys" and let the woman's voices be heard louder than ours...

Anthony

[dylan]

I was at the meeting last night and I caught myself making passive-aggressive comments towards someone who was jumping stack. I think this is a symptom that we as a group (me included) have been taking too passive a stance towards some of the more serious offenders. I would like for our stance to be more assertive.

I do not think that continuing to tweak the consensus process is going to reach everyone. There are people who have been explained the rules many times and are choosing to ignore them.

Changing the rules is not going to help with people who are willfully ignoring the rules. Consensus is great but it is not something that will solve all of our problems and it doesn't replace conversation and relationship building.

People who are consistently ignoring the process need to be brought aside outside of meeting time for some face-to-face conversation about how their actions are affecting the group. I would be happy to do this with some support from people about how to best go about this.

[rebecca]

I appreciate and second Mike's response to tooladder.

Dylan, I agree that we should be more assertively managing the folks who are speaking too much. Talking constructively outside of GA with those who do this repeatedly might be a fine approach. We can talk more about that if you want. Other things we are working on, that won't entirely solve the problem but might help:
- Remembering to say out loud at the beginning of the meeting something like "Please remember that if you're speaking more than once it means someone else may not get a chance to speak. After your first turn speaking, please hold back and wait to see if someone else raises the concern you want to voice before asking to be on stack again."
- Making sure inexperienced stack takers are reminded how progressive stack works.
- Posting signs describing the jobs of various roles in the meeting (including stack taker and meeting participant) that would reinforce this again. Although our most recent location for general assembly is not so conducive to signs.

We haven't discussed this, but I think it could also be fine to say that if you haven't gotten to speak over the course of multiple meetings, it's fair to let the stack taker know that and have it taken into account as part of progressive stack.

But you're right, none of this will entirely alleviate the need for the facilitation team to sometimes confront people who are dominating the floor. All of us who are taking on these roles should be preparing ourselves and reminding ourselves not to shy away from that part of the job.

[Emma]

We need a volunteer(s) to talk to the persistent "offenders" (I hate the law enforcement flavor of that word but can't come up with a synonym that doesn't have the same problem - which probably just means I should go the f- to sleep). I do not nominate me, for a variety of reasons. Dylan, if you're volunteering, go for it! And I suggest taking it easy the first go-round. If someone doesn't respond well to you at first, they might still get the message. And if they don't we can try again with a different person (maybe a woman, maybe someone older, etc) approaching them again.

[benbrucato]

I have a situation I was in last night that I could share that perhaps could provide a scenario to discuss this around. I don't know that I handled this in the best way, but I'll offer it up as a specific series of occurrences to discuss this around, rather than what has been rather abstract and not very specific. I'm willing to take any criticism on how it was handled.

I was prompted by others to make a proposal last night for the DA WG. I also had something to announce during "other business." On the second item, I asked the stack taker to have everyone else go before me, hoping that someone else would be addressing the issue of Occupy Oakland and their general strike. When no one else did, I talked about it at the end of the meeting.

I bring up this scenario as an example of how someone might want to consider approaching addressing the GA if they show up knowing that they have two things they might need to talk about. If you are showing up knowing you have more than one thing to address, try to find someone else in your WG who can make the report or proposal instead of you, particularly someone who hasn't spoken at the GA before.

[markm]

www.starhawk.org/activism/trainer-resources/tools-whiteguys.html

Maybe this will help the discussion

Tools for White Guys who are Working for Social Change
(and other people socialized in a society based on domination)
1. Practice noticing who's in the room at meetings - how many men, how many women, how many white people, how many people of color, is it majority heterosexual, are there out queers, what are people's class backgrounds. Don't assume to know people, but also work at being more aware.

2a. Count how many times you speak and keep track of how long you speak.
2b. Count how many times other people speak and keep track of how long they speak.

3. Be conscious of how often you are actively listening to what other people are saying as opposed to just waiting your turn and/or thinking about what you'll say next.

4. Practice going to meetings focused on listening and learning; go to some meetings and do not speak at all.

5a. Count how many times you put ideas out to the group.
5b. Count how many times you support other people's ideas for the group.

6. Practice supporting people by asking them to expand on ideas and get more in-depth, before you decide to support the idea or not.

7a. Think about whose work and contribution to the group gets recognized.
7b. Practice recognizing more people for the work they do and try to do it more often.

8. Practice asking more people what they think about meetings, ideas, actions, strategy and vision. White guys tend to talk amongst themselves and develop strong bonds that manifest in organizing. This creates an internal organizing culture that is alienating for most people. Developing respect and solidarity across race, class, gender and sexuality is complex and difficult, but absolutely critical - and liberating.

9. Be aware of how often you ask people to do something as opposed to asking other people "what needs to be done".

10. Think about and struggle with the saying, "you will be needed in the movement when you realize that you are not needed in the movement".

11. Struggle with and work with the model of group leadership that says that the responsibility of leaders is to help develop more leaders, and think about what this means to you.

12. Remember that social change is a process, and that our individual transformation and individual liberation is intimately interconnected with social transformation and social liberation. Life is profoundly complex and there are many contradictions. Remember that the path we travel is guided by love, dignity and respect - even when it is bumpy and difficult to navigate.

13. This list is not limited to white guys, nor is it intended to reduce all white guys into one category. This list is intended to disrupt patterns of domination which hurt our movement and hurt each other. White guys have a lot of work to do, but it is the kind of work that makes life worth living.

14. Day-to-day patterns of domination are the glue that maintain systems of domination. The struggle against capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, heterosexism and the state, is also the struggle towards collective liberation.

15. No one is free until all of us are free.

[hz]

Thumbs up!