On Sunday, October 26th, the Brooklyn Humanist Community was privileged to have our first guest speaker, Deborah Howard. Deborah gave a presentation based on her book, The Quilt of Humanity: A Metaphor for Healing and Reparation. In her book, Deborah compares humans to woven cloth, and all of humanity to a vast quilt of interconnections. The "threads" that make up each individual's personality, experiences, background and social status are all woven into a pattern that is unique to every human being. Even if two people have all the same "threads," they will manifest in a different pattern in each person.
When racism enters the picture, at the personal, cultural and systemic levels, the threads in some people's cloths are yanked and ripped out of place, leaving gaps and diminishing their opportunities. Even those in the dominant race are damaged by the privileges they receive unasked for and undeserved. This sense of privilege, albeit unconscious, cuts many of us off from experiencing the reality felt by the oppressed races. Thus, the quilt is discolored as if by a stain from spray paint.
Deborah brought up the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, the concept of repairing the world's imperfections. This was a concept I was familiar with, the idea that the creation was incomplete and imperfect, and that we humans -- all of us -- need to work toward perfecting and completing the creation, the world we have inherited. It's everyone's job, therefore, to work at repairing the quilt of humanity from the damage caused by racism.
After reading an excerpt from her book, Deborah asked us to find a person we didn't know very well and have a brief conversation about the five "threads" about ourselves we think are most important to us and also perhaps are important to others when they view us for the first time. The conversation became lively and some of us had a little trouble settling back into the group discussion mode! We reported on our experiences and everyone seemed to have gained a new insight.
Some of us shared stories about incidents from our lives. One woman, the child of an interracial marriage, shared a dream she had where she was with a number of classmates who were about to receive their grades. She reported that the blonde, blue-eyed girl in her dream would receive an A, the others would receive B's, and she, as a biracial woman, would receive a D. The symbolism was all too obvious. Another young man reported being taken aback and speechless when a woman at his college told him she was Muslim.
Then we talked about the simple things we can do to combat racism. Even if it is uncomfortable we need to speak out. I mentioned the story of a high school friend whose parents wanted her to experience a multi-racial school, so they sent her to a mostly African-American junior high school in another district. That school was underserved and the students were not performing as well academically as they could have. Specialized schools like Bronx Science had a "Discovery" program at that time to find bright students in these schools and bring them into the high school even though their test scores were a bit lower than the cutoff. So when teachers wanted to disparage African-American kids, they would talk about "those Discovery kids." Susan would always stand up and make a point of saying that she was a "Discovery kid," which would stop the teachers in their tracks.
We talked about reparations as a way of healing and repairing the quilt. Deborah pointed out that affirmative action hasn't worked. It sets up an expectation that a person of color isn't as qualified, and this gets played out in ways that damage self-esteem and whole careers.
Programs can be devised, however, to make a start at leveling the playing field on the systemic level. On the cultural level, I mentioned that the young generation (Generation Y) is much more likely to have friends across racial lines than the Baby Boomers had at their age or even now. So I see progress in the cultural arena. And, we can continue looking into ourselves and seeing where racist thinking has been ingrained in us -- again, something we didn't ask for and didn't want -- and work at eradicating it. Doing those "simple things" when a situation comes up can help.
It was an honor to have Deborah come and speak with us. She is a person well versed in law, diversity, and facilitating positive transformative change in organizations, leaders and teams. Her program was down to earth and evoked many thoughts and feelings we may not frequently explore. For more information about Deborah Howard and her work, see her website at Guiding Change .
This was a wonderful program. We had an excellent turnout, and you could feel the positive energy crackling. Many thanks to Deborah!
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