Tumwater City Council & School Board Joint Equity Meeting: Session 1

001hey sean hello how are you tonight well how are you doing not too bad good let's see if we can get our okay i think we've got our panelists set up right well i'm gonna disappear back off screen have a good night sounds good you too hmm foreign so shawn it looks like there's a number of folks from our side who are in this as not as panelists yeah but as attendees yeah and i'm i'm trying oddly i'm trying to promote them to panelists but it's just okay i got john up there joan let's see if i can get shown up here some some of them are it's been a little bit cranky with me trying to promote people up to panelists oh there's there's eileen there we go now we're starting to now they're

002starting it's starting to work before i couldn't seem to get people on the panel uh let's see oh starting yay hi melissa hey pete how are you i'm good so my understanding is you go first call your side to order and then i'll do my side and do the and the pledge yeah yeah so i'll call them in order and do the landing acknowledgement and then you'll call your side and do the flag salute okay and do you do you do roll call for your meetings like this uh no not normally okay we don't do roll call but what i but maybe what i'll do is um name name the board members in attendance that would be good okay hello matthew and eileen welcome okay i think i finally got everyone up on the panel

003i've i've shared that first video from the day one with so many people is it jay smooth is that his his name because it really spoke to me and it really captured a lot what people tell tell me about their fears about talking about race and it really helped them think about it in different ways sorry for preempting what we were going to talk about but i was just so excited hi ellen we have two eileens tonight that's going to be confusing that rarely happens hello i'll be eileen y and you spell it right we spelled the the right way too congrats thank you now john did you intend to bring our staff in uh as panelists no no just just a couple i think it's just uh ann and uh chief and myself okay

004okay so are we waiting on anyone else one two three four five six seven i've got everybody i i'm just looking for uh laurie i don't see her on here and we'll give we'll give her one more minute because she lives the farthest out yes we just we just finished uh a board meeting so we everyone i stayed at the district office i told everyone my husband's going to be watching the seahawks game and we have a small house and that would be distracting to me so i stay at the district office nothing to nothing oh thank you for the update i don't mind updates if other people want to provide those all right i don't i think we can get started and when when laura gets on then i can oh there he is

005like i said something and then she came awesome um thank you uh so i like to call this a school board meeting to order and like to say that we have uh scott killough laurie sale darby kaikenen and myself on the from the school board on this meeting and i'd like to acknowledge that the city of tomwater and the town water school district sits on the ancestral lands of nisqually squawks and island and chehalis people i thank these caretakers of the land who have lived on and continue to live on this land since time immemorial did you did you want me i know on there it talks about why it's important but did you want to do the flag salute first pete sorry i didn't we can we can do that and then come back

006to you that that would be for you please join me in the pledge of allegiance and i don't know if we're going to see a flag or not so we'll just uh we'll just say it i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you back to you melissa thank you um it was oh it was about two it was about two and a half years ago um when uh or maybe three years ago we started talking about land acknowledgements because uh aileen yoshina led a number of school board members through a training through the educational service district and uh and it's where i learned how much of our school district is

007uh how how many tribes or lands our school district was on and that i was surprised uh because i did not understand that we were part of the squad you know that we were on the land of foxen island and so uh we do this land acknowledgement um one to inform people that we are on the nisqually squats and island and shahelis people's uh ancestral lands and also to remind people that they still that they're it's not history they still live here and um and it's a reminder to me as a school board member that to continually reach out and and work with our tribes because they're they're an important part of our community very good are you turning it over to me now okay thanks thanks melissa appreciate that welcome everyone it's a as

008we all know here at joint uh city council time water city council and tumwater school board meeting this evening uh and uh kind of looking forward to this this is uh october 7th is today so i'll just name the counts all of our council is here of course i'm mayor pete comet we have uh leona doloff angela jefferson you can wave if you want uh joan cathy eileen sworth out michael althouser debbie sullivan and charlie schneider so welcome everyone i thought i'd start out just by making a few a few remarks i've been thinking a lot about tonight and as i've gone through the material and so bear with me as i i talk a little bit here so i i grew up in a small town in new hampshire uh there was one african-american

009family in our community so from my perspective race was something i really didn't think much about my primary exposure to people of color was through tv or movies we said and talked about things in a way that today would probably be considered racist not realizing it could hurt someone but we didn't think of herself as racist and i'm not sure how that came about it just was i guess you could say i was naive some would say that i was privileged although we didn't consider ourselves privileged in the traditional sense most of our families were just struggling to get by of course i know now that being white even if even if we weren't wealthy afforded me a life experience that a person of color does not have since then i've gone to two colleges

010lived in other parts of the country that were much more diverse than i experienced growing up we eventually landed here in tumwater a largely white community but with a growing diverse population the latest census has our population as about 27 percent non-white which is about twice what it was 20 years ago we've all heard about the death of many persons of color and their supporters at the hands of police and vigilantes in the subsequent demonstrations by people frustrated by the lack of progress in achieving racial equity fortunately we have a great police department and we have not been the focal point for those kinds of demonstrations so we have some time to reflect on this racial justice is something i feel i can no longer ignore and certainly something we can no longer ignore not

011as community leaders it's time for us to more fully understand the life experiences of others in our community that may be different from ours understand the injustices of the past and present and work to prevent them in the future tonight we've been given a gift an opportunity to see the world through a different set of eyes and experiences i hope we'll all make the most of that opportunity so that we can grow as individuals and in turn help our community grow thank you and do we want to do introductions next is that what's on the uh that's what's on the agenda but we've sort of covered that in general um i think we turn it over to eileen and matthew at this point hi everyone are you ready for this hi so i'm eileen yoshina

012i use she and her pronouns i'm one of the directors of equity in education at puget sound esd i'm you've met me before most of you have met me before um and i'm really happy to be back um as you probably know i live in your neighboring community i live in olympia and also on the land shared by the traditional lands of the um the swatson island people and on lands shared by the nisqually tribe as well and um so pleased to be here and just really appreciated the land acknowledgement you started with and um mr mayor really appreciated your your um opening and your um willingness to to model and be vulnerable about your own background and having these conversations so um thank you for having us and we're excited to dive in matthew

013you want to introduce yourself yeah sure hi there my name is matthew branson i use he she they pronouns um and i'm the director of family and community partnerships at puget sound esd um and within our equity department so get the privilege of uh co-training co-facilitating with with eileen in in many different places and spaces uh and i um i am currently on the um the unseated land of the duwamish um that are not a federally recognized tribe um that are still fighting for federal recognition um and they're in their lands that they they did not they did not you know um seed over to the government so um that struggle is still real even though they have a cultural center here in seattle uh which if you have not visited i would recommend it

014it's great um and they still are doing all kinds of things across the region uh one of those is uh is israel ran seattle which is a website you could sign up to to um to support the tribe um for being on the land so if you know just putting that out there just as a resource um because i think it's pretty awesome that they're doing that all right well without any further ado then we will jump in um i'm sure you have lots on your mind and lots of things that you want to talk about um i think one thing that we did want to say up front is matthew and i went through and and looked through at least days one through five of the racial equity challenge um there is a lot

015of content in there um and so our our um approach to doing this with you is that we're going to spend the first little bit of this time together just doing some general framing and doing some um collective work around how we want to have this conversation and sort of some skills in how to approach these topics and how to have these dialogues together about content that i'm sure some i'm sure i found i mean i found challenging um so um just wanted to talk about like that we're going to kind of create the container set the context together first um and then we'll set up a way to have some dialogue together about things that came up for you what that experience was like for you of doing the racial equity challenge um and

016then we'll move more into like um matthew and i are um pretty knowledgeable people and some of these the topics that they touched on in the racial equity challenge there are definitely folks who have you know real depth of knowledge around some of this content so we'll do our best if we can answer questions about the content itself and if not we definitely have places that we can refer you to or people that we can refer you to who would be considered you know the the more the the experts on some of the topics that have been introduced um and then we'll then we'll end with some um commitments and questions and um next steps so that's kind of what our plan is for this evening um and i hope that that sounds okay to

017you all right great um we were like how are we gonna cover all of this this is a lot of stuff so um i think it'll be a great discussion i'm looking forward to talking with all of you about it so um i'm gonna share with you my screen [Music] all right um i did want to can you see my powerpoint i am never sure what screen i'm sharing i don't know why you see my power quite okay good um so i wanted to just kind of share it as a resource um oh i don't know why nathan said there it is okay um it just magically appeared like that um just share as a resource the image you're looking at is from a website called amplifier.org and the artist's name is going to appear

018in a second i think i put it on there for you um that it's a it's a resource for um free downloadable art on um on a range of variety of many topics so just wanted to um share that as well um this one was about um i can't remember the exact name but the artist is celeste byers and it was uh oh the theme was we are home um and i chose this to put here because i think that's what we're talking about like this is your community and how do you how do you create a community that feels like home to to everyone who lives here right and i think that's the that's the conversation that we're trying to have that's one of the reasons why we're doing this um is what does

019that mean to be home and who feels welcome and who feels at home when they come to tumwater when they go to school and tell water when they live in the tum water community okay so just wanted to share that um as our start we already did a beautiful land acknowledgement i know that we've talked with you about this in the past so i'm not going to spend a long time on doing this but um just wanted to thank you for taking that time to do that land acknowledgement um you know we it's we we still go to a lot of places where that's not a practice that people have and to me it does make a real difference um and kind of setting the tone and i loved how melissa explained why they're doing

020it and her own reflections and learning um on why it's an important practice to be in so i really i really appreciate that okay and if you have more questions i know that that was one of the topics um in the racial equity challenge was there was quite a bit on colonization and indigenous land and indigenous issues impacting indigenous communities so definitely you have some resources there um and we also have in the tomato community your own local resources so matthew mentioned the duwamish tribal museum and of course um nisqually and fox and island both have resources squawks and has a beautiful museum so if you haven't been there it's a wonderful place to visit to learn more about this fox and island tribe as well okay okay so we just wanted to start with

021the question that was posed to you in the racial equity challenge itself what is this and why are we doing it so we thought i'm going to stop sharing my screen so we can see each other we thought it would be good for us to just all go around and say why are you doing this like what came up for you why did you think this would be a good thing to commit to so um hopefully um you'll take a minute to think about that um and if there's anybody that feels like they'd want to kick us off with that i would love to hear from any volunteers who'd be willing to talk about why they think they why you think you wanted to do this i can start okay i saw melissa and then

022we'll go to angela how about that okay uh i've i've and i think you guys have heard me say i believe that tom water is a place that we can have these conversations and that we we as elected officials should model those if if we're if we're going to um these conversations need to happen so people learn what it is like that what that first um youtube video talked about is they don't and and even what what the mayor talked about he didn't he doesn't know and that's okay and how do we get comfortable saying i didn't know thank you for letting me know and and now we have a stronger bond because because you're brave enough to tell me something and and i want us to model those conversations because these things are going

023on you know between our our children and they're much more open to hearing when they say something wrong and they're like oh okay and then they don't say it again and so how do we how do we as adults model it for other adults it's totally fine we have i have plenty of blind spots one of mine is on on ability i don't think about not being able to walk i don't think about having pain when i move and um and i totally get reminded of that blind spot when i say hey let's go for a walk you know to someone who wants to talk about a topic and and that can lead someone into an uncomfortable position and i don't ever want them to feel that way and so these it's okay to have

024blind spots because we grew up the way we did i grew up in tum water and have plenty of blind spots about my race and because just because uh i i didn't learn about it growing up in tumwater and i don't i i'm here because i don't want kids to feel they have to be someone different in order to fit in that's how i felt growing up here i had to be different than who i actually was so i could fit in and no one would know that i was different so you know i want us to create that space it's okay to be different it's okay to talk about this stuff because and we can all learn from each other and we don't have a canceled culture we don't have anything like that we

025just talk about these things because it matters to our neighbors thank you so much for starting us melissa um i'm reminding myself to look at the prompt question i had because i thought that might be helpful i'm so happy that melissa felt ready to jump in and and um prepared to answer and for um others of us who might need a little prompt in how we're thinking about it we did have a prompt about what's a hope that you have and a concern that you have about doing this racial equity work and i think melissa covered both of those so i appreciate that um so if the rest you want to think about your response in those terms what's a hope and a concern um and then angela i'm wondering if you feel ready to

026share what's on your mind i'm ready i'm ready um i'm ready to be here because i am a leader and what we are doing is leadership by example because talking about race and equity is hard and you know it makes some people feel bad some people actually call this critical race theory they don't want to talk about it they don't want to for the for kids to feel bad about what our ancestors did some call it left-leaning ideologies some call it being indoctrinated by the left i call it we're learning right we're learning about our neighbors we're learning about our friends we're learning about what made this nation great and this is a great nation i'm proud to be an american right i was born in belize but i love this country i'm embraced by

027term water i want to be here i want to give back i want to provide information on how it is to be an immigrant how it is to be marginalized how it is to be a black woman in society and so i want everyone to see from looking at us that it's safe to talk about this we're gonna be okay and it's gonna be cathartic to a lot of us that's all i have to say thank you that was beautiful i so appreciate that to me that i really felt that as a really beautiful message of hope like this is the hope of having these hard conversations i really appreciate that all right anyone else feel willing ready to share a hope and a concern debbie so um one of the things that i have

028noticed even more i thought we were like further down the road of understanding and acceptance in this and then i have just noticed in the last few years we have become so polarized that it is more difficult i think at this point in time to even talk about it which even i feel makes it more important to talk about it um and i'm sometimes surprised so i'm i'm originally from montana so the prejudiced against native american there is unbelievable and so i thought when i moved away from montana i was going to be away from prejudice i'm going to be moving to washington where there's much more acceptance and boy was i sadly disappointed that it's everywhere and it's not just in one place so because you can't run from it and move away from

029it we all need to talk about it and learn and move forward and right now i think it's just difficult for some people to even listen and it's very combative when you even bring the topic up so hopefully we can get past this very volatile period of time and be able to have better conversations thank you so much i appreciate that okay lori let me unmute okay i think i can everybody hear me okay awesome um before i start i just want to say thank you for this whole forum and this whole meeting um i think it's really important that we're together and i hope going forward these become really productive and uh information that we gather here we go forward and argue in our prospective capacities and do the best we can with it

030um without the risk of signing redundant because i agree with a lot of what melissa said i agree with what angela said i agree with what debbie said um but for me when i break it right down to hope and concern my hope is as angela so eloquently said that my presence is a biracial i identify as biracial leader on the tomwater school board enables that safe conversation and a willingness for other um members of our society that maybe look more like me um will come forward and want to be a part of the process in time water i have yet to see anybody come to any of our school board meetings um that isn't white to be quite honest so um that would be very nice to see more engagement in the community so

031my hope for for myself and for our community is to see uh more engagement from the bipart community um my concern is already kind of been put out there but my greatest concern is that in having these conversations we isolate groups of people it is very difficult to talk about i've lived in ohio virginia washington state and as debbie said there's been no escaping prejudice of racism none i felt it from both sides of the community as a biracial woman you know there's the white situation with the racist and there's also the black situation with the racist so i walk a line that very few people do um but i really truly do hope that going forward in our community we are able to embrace everybody who wants to have this discussion everybody it's very

032easy to put out the words but we have to do the hard work and figure out what is what is it that we're trying to accomplish and how are we going to do that because lip service is wonderful but the hard work is is needed and in this panel everybody's here that wants to do the work but how do we reach the family that has their preconceived notions that as was already stated don't know what they don't know as the mayor said so that's i think the challenge going forward thank you so much laurie i really appreciate that i'm hearing a strong theme so far i'm hearing underneath the words this the ongoing hope that by having this conversation even when it may be difficult i think you know a couple of us acknowledge that

033it it's not an easy conversation to have right but when we engage in it when we lean in with that with that courage um the hope is that we create a better community right we create that community where we all belong like i just keep going back to our initial um uh art illustration like what does it mean for this to be home to all these different people right so um i i'm hearing that as a theme from all of you that's what we're here to do ultimately is to create a community that feels like home for everyone the desire is not to leave anyone out the desires to bring us all in okay i saw another hand eileen well thank you um when we were starting this we we've been receiving so dr karen

034johnson is now the head of the equity yes and so and for the state of washington and so she sends us daily um quotes and different things and so i there's one that before we started this that i it's now i just i save it because it was so it meant so much to me and so the quote is we have to look and ensure that we're paying attention to what we're doing so that we don't reflexively institute processes and procedures that exclude people without thought and that's from associate justice um sona marier and so i mean that just popped up and i just i thought about that because we here we are leaders and and without that you know you don't want to exclude uh people and and through our you know i mean

035we can you know without even being aware of it and so um and so that's what i'm hoping for this and and also being on the new fire regionalization program uh the group that we have um we have a council member from olympia and i just felt it she was talking about making sure that we had um you know the racial equity and asking these hard questions and so i realized yes that that needs to be part of our conversation and that it's just it's ingrained in us rather than an afterthought and so so that's my hope is that that we have this lens and that it's natural and that we just we that we do it moving forward and uh and just i don't know if that i have a concern but that's my

036hope so thank you thank you well michael and then leader thanks uh i was sort of thinking about this sort of in the context of the allegories from the fifth day when they're talking about the conveyor belt and one of the reflective questions from that is where do you think you are in your own journey of understanding race and racial justice and you know i had never sort of thought of this sort of process in terms of steps but it sort of lays that out in three sort of steps if i was being truly honest i think i would say that one of my biggest hardships is probably around the second phase of the conveyor belt which discusses um giving voice and asking questions about inequities about all sorts of things things that you might

037not see and in this policy makers when we are looking at policies i think i personally have a lot of blind spots in looking at something that might be a zoning change or something that might seem benign on its face and it might seem that way because my blind spots are preventing me from asking the right questions and engaging all of the communities that might be affected by those decisions um so i in terms of my my hope i i hope a few things i hope that um you know that uh someone mentioned jay smooth earlier i hope this becomes more of a practice and not just something that we engage in periodically and sort of check the box and move forward but that the next time we have a public works committee and we're

038talking about a re-zone or talking about something that we ask the right questions and engage the right communities so that we can actually make the decisions that are properly informed and that we ingrain the practices into everything we do because if we don't it seems like um we'll never achieve you know kind of the vision that we i think jointly share and have so i guess that's also my concern at the same time is that if we sort of check the box then we my concern would be that i mean that's the easy thing to do right the easy thing to do is to have the meeting and then sign off zoom and you know watch the fourth quarter of the seahawks game and just forget that any of this ever happened so i i

039hope that we hold ourselves accountable i hope that we take what we learn and we embody it in our work moving forward to be anti-racist allies and bodies working to enact policy that helps make tum water and the parts of the school district that aren't in tom water the the a great place to to grow up and to live all right thank you michael yeah that the allegories that she had in that video were really i thought really interesting and really good to kind of um peel back and have a way to not only as a tool for us to kind of understand what our work is especially as white people but but to use that as tools with other folks um i've heard those i've heard some of those before and i some of

040those i i hadn't so that was kind of cool thanks for sharing that um who wants to go next hello lyanna just checking thank you hi everyone um so what everyone has shared i feel like there's threads right and all those threads are connected and it kind of goes to one of my hopes is redefining what inclusion and belonging looks like in tom water and that that looks like discussing all types of infrastructure right whether physical but really i am passionate about that social infrastructure of our community um that would best serve and sustain and protect all of our community members so having those deep discussions of what is service and what those services look like for our community it stems back to you know i'm in my family home in town water that my

041parents moved to when i was 18 months old right and i have moved away but there has been something pulling me back to this space into this land and it took me to be proactive in learning the histories of this land and the other stories that i never heard and there's something special about this space and i want everyone to have that opportunity whatever that looks like to them to have that ability to be their happiest self right people say their best self but their happiest selves right so you get to define that and i really feel like tom water could be that and my concern is that this is another meeting and we don't take actionable items right to hold ourselves accountable on what that looks like um and to be transparent and honest

042and vulnerable this is being recorded a lot of people are interested in this and i we have our hats on as a local elected but i really hope that we can all be vulnerable and share because then that sets an example for everyone else and that keeps us taking steps ahead thank you great thank you so much for sharing that and i think what i hear when when i hear your concern is um when i hear like it's just another meeting i hear just the status quo right is that we get stuck in that status quo and we stay there and that's the easiest thing to do like that is that conveyor belt like we don't have to do anything to to do that which feels you know it's difficult but like the the video

043that michael was talking about like you have to actively turn around and walk against that thing um you know to to to do that um so thank you for bringing that into the space i know we talk about that a lot in terms of um making this work um um effective it's it's getting out at that efficiency in another meeting and go go go go go but slowing down and getting deeper with it thank you um who's next i can start calling on folks i'm not i'm not against that well i'll speak up this is pete you've already heard my story so i don't need to add a lot but i do want to say when this whole thing came about you know with some of the demonstrations uh here um over a year ago

044it seems like um i started reaching out to persons of color in our community uh as angela knows and just having conversations to to see what's it like for them to live in tum water and you know i feel very safe in some water driving around or walking or going to a park or anything like that and i want everyone to feel safe you know whether it's a different race sexual orientation uh religion whatever it is that uh sets us apart uh but you know at the same time uh makes us stronger as a community and so that's really uh one of my hopes is that we can we we figure out ways to help make our community feel safe for everyone of course the concern you have is this will lead to making us

045more divisive you know that they'll be uh certain people that are that'll read this the wrong way and and i hope that's not the case i i hope we can figure out a way to connect with everyone in our community and and uh ultimately bring them into the conversation i won't be here to complete this conversation because i'll be leaving office at the end of the year as as you know but i hope to get out what i can between now and then uh so um but thank you i think this is a great opportunity for all of us we really need to to think deeply about what this means to us and and how we can how we can provide leadership to the community on this issue great thank you so much mayor um

046i see darby has hand up yes uh so i'll share um sort of building off of what lyanna and and pete mentioned around my hope for this work is that someday anyone who moves into the tumwater community um feels feels welcome and i say someone meaning anyone that didn't that didn't grow up here um that is not that's not the culture right now uh that i i'm a transplant as a military family um and i've seen lots of lots of impacts of that culture that it is not the most welcoming to well i can't really describe much more than that um it's not the most welcoming to people who are not from here um and that is even deeper than issues of race religion gender all of those things it's just around it's just around

047that initial perspective so my hope is that we would eventually get uh to that point one day the challenge or concern that i have about that is because it is such a deeply prideful you know part of the community um a lot you know there's a lot of people that that have uh have grown up here and their parents have grown up here and they're you know everybody is very very proud of that so trying to understand well how how do we get beyond the concept that it's not it's not taking anything away um to be to be welcoming and open and accepting of everybody that wants to come and live in this great community so i do see that this is work that is going to take a very very long time and will

048have lots of difficult conversations and probably lots of setbacks with any forward progress that's made all right thank you so much derby just want to follow up on i have to tell another little story sorry when when i was growing up in new hampshire i remember in second grade this family from new york came in moved into our town their dad got a job there and uh 18 years later when when uh when i was in college i was talking to my mom and she goes uh oh you know those folks from new york they just moved out of town and they you know and that i think just provides a you know i always thought well that's just the new england perspective right but i guess not so uh so that is something that

049you don't really think about but folks that have grown up here really have a different perspective than than folks moving in so anyway just like say that yeah i think about that that history for our family um our family lineage um in tom water goes back to 1850. um so when we talk about that history and embedded in um the region and there was there were there was one who did a lot of um work with the tribes um and so just that that double-edged piece right of like what was the harm that my family lineage caused in the region um in in doing those things even though it was well intentioned you know it was it was negotiating um between the tribes of what they were receiving from the gutter and from the government

050for their you know on the reservations and um it's you know it's well intentioned but it's not what i heard you say darby was to to get out of the either or good bad thinking that binary thinking that um that's that's that to me is the polarization it's not and and that's and that's a lot of how we are taught to kind of think and be and and that that gets in our way um that that inability to hold multiple perspectives and multiple life stories and ways of seeing and being in the world um in in a space um and and if we can't do that we all lose we all lose out um okay i'm gonna stop talking about that because i feel like i'm just i'm going off an edge but thank you

051mayor thank you darby um who wants to go next who hasn't gone yet scott joan charlie charlie you're up thank you i appreciate that so i'm here to learn and listen and it's my hope to be a better person and understand the issues and how we as a society and me as a person address the barriers of discrimination and racism i want to talk about one story which was dear and dear to me and one of my best friends ever passed away last saturday and jim was a was an african-american guy he was about seven years old younger older than me i called him dad because he taught me how to fish i knew him for 25 years and we used to i used to talk about the good old days okay growing up okay

052you know my childhood and this and that and jim would talk about his days what was interesting about jim's old good old days and my good old days is joyce jim was born in the south north carolina and i realized from the very beginning when i talked to jim that both of us had different childhoods he had to face discrimination the army could drink out of a water fountain except for covered people and i realized then that something was tragically wrong and from that point and from learning it through him and we've had many conversations many times i i got a better grasp of some of the things he went through and i understood a few things more and i'm here to learn even more and how i can better myself as a person and

053advance the causes so when the future generations when they talk about the good old days whether what you're a person of color or white that they were the good old days and that's what i hope we get out of this conversation in the next five to six months thank you thank you charlie that the reflective work that we that we all can do that's that is that is the most leverage that we have for change is our work with ourselves um and so and that knowing and understanding and and being able to um dig into you know how we've been shaped and socialized um in this country and and we've all got work to do around that so thank you for just recognizing that and saying that um appreciate that if i may just add

054something real quickly um and i don't know how many uh panelists here are aware of of this but um the work that needs to be done is so deep rooted i mean it's not even just i'm just going to speak frankly it's not even just whites understanding blacks or you know pick a group understand each other it's within our own groups it's very deep seated it's hard to talk about these things even being who i am without feeling extremely vulnerable and awkward um and i you know i'm pretty much not ever at a loss for words to be quite honest um so it's it's so it's so important to me and i think to all of us here that we really are talking about these things in a way that's not only specific to our

055to our own experiences but to the experiences that you have that are shared with your friends that are not like you and that's why i'm really happy to hear what charlie just had to say because that's so important uh most of my friends are white not because i don't want black friends but they didn't it was hard to find them it was hard to seek that out without sounding like hi i'm lori would you be my friend because we both have brown skin you know it's there's there's so many nuances to this and and i applaud this work and i am 100 all in on it i just i hope and pray that we are being our most authentic selves when when we're having these conversations and really bringing what we have to bear in

056our life experience to the table thank you corey i just wanted to just thank you for that and to appreciate you modeling um that kind of vulnerability and you you modeling that kind of authenticity too i also identify as a multi-ethnic multi-racial person so you know it i understand it's complex like you're you're your um identity and mind your experiences and mine are probably similar and different um because we're different people and um i appreciate you bringing that forward um and to also name that i loved everything that you just said that we all have work to do so white people have one kind of work to do people of color and multi-ethnic multiracial people have another kind of work to do right we're all impacted we're all impacted really differently and we're all impacted

057really uniquely so um so absolutely we all do have have our own work to do for a lot of when i work with people of color i there's a lot of work that we need to do about healing ourselves right and healing the what you just kind of gave voice to i think is like healing those parts of ourselves that have have wrestled with this having internalized a lot of pain have witnessed a lot of the pain of our ancestors have um you know witnessed our own pain and held on to it for a long time that loneliness that isolation that we felt in communities where we didn't have other people that looked like us and and just having that opportunity to talk about that and share that with one another in a loving way

058and loving to ourselves as well as loving to each other i'm what i'm hearing as a strong theme is is a lot of compassion and a lot of love in this community so far and i'm really hoping that that's what others will take from this as they listen like there is no antagonism in this conversation there might be some hard issues that come up and most certainly wrestle with some things but i'm only hearing a desire for healing and reconciliation and repair um charlie i love the story that you shared i love the idea of like like we we we can't do anything about the past but we can we can do things right now so that the the kids growing up right now can look back on today and say the good old days

059were really the good old days i love that that reminds me of um um i had a i just read a proverb a hawaiian proverb i grew up in hawaii like melissa and um a hawaiian proverb that i just read that says um if you want to if you plan for a year you plant kalo which is taro you want to plan for 10 years you plant koa which is a tree if you want to plan for a hundred years you teach your children so um what you just shared reminded me of that it's like what we're doing right now is is planning for the next hundred years so the children right now can look back and say um it was the good old days for all of us so i so appreciate the last

060couple comments i heard all right who have we not heard from joan or scott from me um uh i um i'm not exactly sure what to say or where to begin um because i i grew up in california and i spent my early years in southern california and then i moved to a small town called lone time in the foot of the sierras where my friends were indigenous people who were on a reservation just about two blocks from my house and then there was a fair number of latino people there and this is a small town so it's not like you're you're grouped um you know that the well the indigenous people lived on the reservation and the rest of us lived in different places around the city but we were small so we were

061all kind of in this together so that that was that was real impactful for me also i i grew up in a school system that was mixed and so i've i've never been in a really all-white situation and i think that that really impacted me my my father was from the south north carolina and he saw ugly things and so growing up i listened to both my mothers and my father's stories and my our family thing was we we can't perpetuate the ugly things of the past so it was like um just kind of some laws and rules in in our family that were that spoke to inclusivity and you didn't talk about people as other and uh that was that was impactful for me and then i came to to this town of tumwater

062olympia as um the campus minister of the evergreen state college and um that was that brought a lot of different baggage you know a woman minister uh driving a sports car from california and uh really people people were ugly and said said not kind things and kind of side things and so forth and then um of course i was with all these strange students who went to evergreen and uh i i wanted them to i wanted to get them out and to see the way kind of the world was that i i learned and i was taught and so we volunteered we set up things and we volunteered and i remember walking down the street in olympia where we had parked and we were headed to then what was known as bread and roses to

063um to help feed the hungry and the homeless and the poor and um i remember someone saying that that's that woman minister from evergreen with all of those really hippy strange you know kids that i'm kind of afraid of and that was an attitude and maybe it still is in olympia about evergreen now i i know it's not just because this isn't exactly a black and white thing but it is the thing whether you're black or white or whatever is to is to recognize yourself in the midst of a community that nobody is less than you nobody is better than you and it was really important and over the years that i was there i spent a lot of time being invited to speak in different churches and i never once went to one of

064the churches without an entourage of my students even those who didn't particularly like to go to church but they wanted to know what story i was going to tell because it could have been about them and so um it was an amazing thing to and i'm saying this to say it was an amazing thing to watch people change when they saw and heard they saw the students they heard stories they listened to their voices and um over a long period of time i was there seven eight years um we would get feedback from churches and from different groups could you come back did you come back and bring some of those students and tell some of those stories because we used to think they were whatever and somehow that fits with what we're trying to

065talk about here um i think talking about our own stories in relationship to how we've changed or we've grown or where we've been you know with some of us have mentioned living you know in different parts of the country and moving here what what we bring and how we communicate it and there's nothing louder than how we treat people and how we how we use language um and and i i honestly don't know if um [Music] as we're talking about this how we see ourselves or as a group of leaders doing that i'm hoping somewhere in the conversations we get you know kind of specific about um because all of my experiences with people different than i am black brown indigenous people is because i was part of a community with them now i don't

066know how we see ourselves creating that kind of a community but that that's kind of my my hope that um we we do our i used to tell students that you know um i don't i don't do my work as a minister from you know on some corner church or you come to me but um i do it from among from among all of you and that's what i hope we can do is take what we what we want to have happen and be among the people um doing it and i honestly have hope for that that i i don't know i don't know in this situation or this community or our leadership positions how how are some tangible ways we can do it and i hope that that's something we talk about as we

067as we move along uh in this and i've not only talked long enough but i'm aware of the fact that that all of these stories of my past and you know teaching school in east l.a and all kinds of things just come rushing back and um i think that they're i think that they're meaningful and um i want to i want to relive the best of them in in this process and um and be open to learning what's next you know how can we probably do better how can we do more so that's kind of where i'm coming from yep how can we do better well maybe i should have some of my old my past evergreen students who still call me on the phone or or email me or text me or something to

068ask a question or to just say you know how are you or i remember those songs we sang or some crazy crazy thing like that and that was that's also part of my olympia history born and raised in olympia and a graduate uh graduate of the googie ducks so um i know that i know that i know that the evergreen stigma very well it's great thanks for sharing your story yeah um scott last but not least okay so those who know me best know that i hate going last uh my heart is pounding right now so um i'd really like a glass of wine but i learned a long time ago time place in manner and now is not the time or the place to be having a glass of wine so i guess i'm

069just gonna have to work through this uh so i'll tell you a story so uh very close friends of mine work at awsp the association of washington school principles and i was stating to one of them or asking a question about how can tum water be more diversified when it comes to our building administration and they said scott i just attended a conference and that topic had come up just in general around the state and a person had expressed interest in a job that was opening in tumwater and the response was you don't want to go work in the great white south you either stop in pierce county or keep on driving and that was a gut punch for me and so my hope is that that stereotype becomes an old story and in the

070practices that we want to move forward with becomes our new story that makes a new stereotype for tom water that we are a welcoming and loving community and we are open to anyone and everyone who would like to work here great thank you so much yeah do you want to respond to that no i so appreciate that i love that yeah um did we get everyone was what i was going to ask anybody loves coming to play against see nods no you're gonna get called on i myself did not keep track so you're gonna have to get called out if you didn't go or if you would like to go at this point i believe everyone has gone okay great thank you okay so um you know you probably are thinking to yourself that took

071a long time um maybe some of you are thinking that um and what i think matthew and i have learned over time is that this is probably one of the most important hours that you'll have spent together if you're going to do this work well right and so um what we're hearing from all of you i was just writing down some themes as you were talking and um so i just wanted to kind of share reflect back to you some of the themes that i heard as you were talking and again i think we've already kind of paused to to share these out and what i what what kept coming up over and over is making things better right making this the community a strong sense of love for this community right um a strong

072sense of commitment to this community a strong desire to say we want everyone to feel welcome here um an acknowledgement that there could be that there's a perception about this community that it's not welcoming to people of color um and a desire to to really confront that to really wrestle with that to say um what's the reality behind that so that we can change it right an acknowledgement that that's a real that's a real thing and how can we how can we put it out there and talk about it so that we can deal with it um and so and so that we can make it a better place for our kids for our grandkids for all the other people that we would love to welcome here and love to have move here and love

073to be our neighbors and love to have people call home so um i just wanted to reflect that back to you and then you know some of the concerns um that i heard again there were some themes there like there was a theme about worry that nothing would change that this would just be another thing that we do um and that nothing would happen and that it would take a long time and that it would be really hard right um and i would say those are all things that are real it will take a long time and it will likely be hard um and also nothing will change unless we change it right so there's something that we say sometimes at puget sound esd like that moment where you're sitting stuck in in traffic on

074i-5 right right by the tacoma dome or right by jblm where you're like where did all these people come from who are all these people and you realize i am these people right we are the traffic we are the traffic so unless we we we are the system we are the community nothing will change unless we change it we are the ones to change it particularly this group right here right you are the leaders in the community you took on this role because you wanted to be part of that change and so all of the change that's going to happen is going to start right here and it's going to start with your leadership and your engagement um and i think that you've already done a lot of the work i heard joan saying like

075what one i hope that some action comes out of this this is action like i haven't we haven't seen this happen in too many other communities where the school board and the city councils meeting together to talk about um racial equity and race relations in the community there is not that many communities that are doing this so this is action right here so i want to just acknowledge that it can't be the only action you take right like if this is the only conversation you have i guarantee nothing will happen and it is it is something to celebrate and something to acknowledge and something to to really um be proud of so i just wanted to kind of reflect those things back to you before we move on okay okay so for the next part

076of what we were going to talk about um we if you've worked with us before then you've seen these as well um are you seeing the agreements up here much on the right screen yes you see a powerpoint slide okay good um and um again you know some of you have heard these before and we're gonna go over them what did you call it matthew a robust review um because as we move into harder conversations and and engage in some of the the pretty deep topics that came out in the 21 day racial equity challenge um these are the skills that we're going to really need you to practice if we're going to make this a productive conversation that moves us forward and that takes care of all of us right we want to create

077a space in which we all feel cared for and which we all feel that we're learning and i've heard people say we want to learn together we want to grow together so we're going to create that space together in which we can learn and grow right i think people worry about having these conversations because we've all experienced conversations that have been harmful and toxic and that left us walking away feeling pain um and i can't guarantee that won't happen i wish i could um and i can say that we can all work together to commit to creating an environment in which we care about one another and to say that we're going to do our best to lean in and create a space and that is centered on our learning and our growth and are

078growing closer right with that intention and um these are strategies that can help us do that so with that we're going to go over these um sort of quickly the robust review so um matthew do you want to start sure so the first one i'm staying engaged um there's a few different ways to think about this um it's not just about you know uh keeping our heart and mind in the work um although that's important um but one is kind of uh that reflective engagement for ourselves like what's coming up for us and why um and where is that coming up i'm not one of the ways that we tend to kind of um engage in this work is is more is more intellectually um is is kind of keeping it in our heads and

079we know that this is this is full body work this is um this is all parts of ourselves and require all parts of ourselves so um so what does that look like for you what does that feel like for you how is that showing up in your body um is there something that's coming up why is that coming up um so there's these levels of engagement within ourself and doing that self-reflective work and then there's the engagement over time um so when i heard the mayor say you know this is this is you know i'll be stepping out um like i hope that you know like engaging in the resources now and then later and then keeping that ball rolling you know because this is work that that we talk about our kids and we

080talk about you know the 100 year plan um we we are we're this is generational work um so we are planting those seeds we are attending those gardens we are working on ourself we are passing on what we learn um so there's that level engagement as well okay um i'm going to talk about the next one which is experience discomfort if you're like me when you read through some of the when you experience some of the learning and the in the first five days you likely experience some discomfort right there are things that challenge the way we were taught to see the world there are things that challenge what we were taught in schools maybe that we were taught by our parents right um the things that we taught we we want to believe about

081ourselves that we live in a um for example we want to believe we live in a community that loves and accepts everyone right and um and we have heard in this conversation tonight that's not true for everyone we want to believe we live in a country and with that and where there really is liberty and justice for all and if you listen to the voices of people of color in this country or lgbt people in this country or people with disabilities in this country we know that's not true for all right so those things challenge how we see ourselves and and that challenge is uncomfortable so to know that we're if we don't want to go back you know the concern i heard a lot of you say was let this not be let us

082not just be the one day we have this conversation and then we go back to normal if that's going to be true then we're going to have to experience discomfort i think you know one somebody said i don't remember who but it'd be real easy to end this conversation and go turn on the seahawks and have that be our night right um and that won't change anything so you're welcome to watch the seahawks after this conversation i'm not saying don't do that but um but to say that we're going to have to lean into those growing edges and really commit to saying i'm going to be different tomorrow that i am today and that is going to create some discomfort so to know that that discomfort means that we're doing the work great the next

083one is speak the truth we know that all truths are valid and all truths are also partial that nobody holds the one whole truth um and that we need to hear what's going on for people if we're going to be able to move forward together as a collective um one of the things that i'd like to to think about this one specifically to white people is is where does our truth come from how is our truth been shaped and socialized where racism is is the bedrock and the foundation and baked into our history of this country um how does that show up in us um the other one is uh that there's kind of two sides of this coin around perfectionism is wanting to do the work the right way is wanting to say and

084do the right thing say it the right way um so we don't do harm um so we're making sure and using the right words which is all great um but if that stops us from speaking if if that stops us from from speaking our truth um that's one of the things that's known as white silence right if if we're not able to speak into the space and do that that does not help the conversation it keeps the it keeps that status quo in place the other one is the an acronym that i love called weight which stands why am i talking which um can also be true when when somebody wants to um you know take up all the space so that's another acronym that also is a great thing to think about when we're

085having conversations so thinking about our truth thinking about where that where that comes from and that we need to hear from everybody and to kind of notice see and notice like who's who's talking when we're holding spaces in different places who's getting the airtime and why and being cognizant of that okay the next one is to expect and accept non-closure this is going to be hard for a lot of us who are doers and who like to get things done um you all work in leaders you're in a leadership role here you are here to get things done um and i think it's already been named multiple times that the work that we're talking about is generational work right if we're going to do what we talked about to create to create the good old

086days that our children are going to experience we have to expect that it's going to take that long it took us and you know was mentioned already it's very deeply rooted in our history it's very deeply rooted within ourselves um and so do unearthing all of those things is going to take some time and then doing the work that it need that we need to do to create the conditions for repair and for reconciliation in this community is also going to take some time right so to know that um there's a sense of urgency and we're balancing that with our sense of legacy we're planting those seeds for a hundred years from now we're teaching our kids who are our future are we're teaching our future ancestors right now right we we are ancestors of

087someone and our children are ancestors of someone and those are the people that we're thinking about as we do this work together so to know that when we have that sense of urgency that we can show up tomorrow differently than we did today it's like there are things i can change about myself today that i will commit to not doing again tomorrow right when you have that sense of urgency those are the things you can control right now um and to know that it's some of this work will take a long time laura you got your hand up uh yes i just have a question and um maybe it's uh maybe it's further along um so if i'm jumping the gun i apologize um but i do want to kind of ask and touch on

088um the whole economic piece of racial inequity and how that applies to our society because when we're having this conversation about all of these different agreements and practices you know uh the economy the economics of our country played a massive part in in the in the divisiveness and racial um disparity that we have today and i would also just challenge everybody to think about what real what real privilege means you know economic class is privileged you know you can be a billionaire and be black and you avoid a lot of the racial issues that you know maybe even a poor white person would have so i think when we talk about all of this we need to challenge ourselves and really think about what privilege really is um is it you know privileged i think

089as we go forward in our society we'll take on a whole new um definition it won't just be about white privilege it'll be about economic it'll be about who's got what who has what as as we all know the the difference between the the one percent and the rest of us has gotten and the disparities gotten huge the gulf is just growing and growing and i i think as we continue these discussions the the very definition of privilege in relation to and relative to our economy and how that looks will be an important piece of even of having all of this discussion as well as moving forward and making any kind of progress at all as we as we keep as we keep attempting to do thank you laurie you bringing that up oh i'm

090getting an echo let's see is everyone muted if you're not okay thank you um yeah and i think that was one of the topics of one of the days right i don't remember which day it was was it day three or day four it was about sort of that relationship between capitalism racism your economic status all of that stuff right absolutely there is there is an interconnectedness between race and and capitalism and economic privilege or lack thereof and we can we'll get it we'll see how much we can get into around that that might be one of those places where we make some recommendations about some future learning um but i will just say quickly as a response to think of it as a both and and not an either or one of the things

091we're going to not want to do in this conversation is to say it's worse to be poor than it is to be black or to be a person of color right it's not about we don't want to create oppression olympics we want to understand how it's both right um in this country some of the learning that i think you've been asked to engage in talks about the history of this country capitalism is deeply um is deeply implicated in how we created a caste system in this country that's based both on your race and on your ability to progress economically right so um so while yes it's possible to become a financially wealthy um person of color and you might experience that level of privilege in that way you might still not experience racial privilege right

092you can be you know a billionaire black person and still be treated um still have somebody treat you disparagingly because of your race so um so that's one that's one example of how that manifests the other thing is that we're gonna we're gonna look systemically at how these things play out it is possible to become a wealthy black person statistically it's less possible right so if you look at the overall situation of how people of color are doing say in our schools how we're doing who's living in poverty and who's not there's a lot of disproportionality within all of those systems that tell us that there's something wrong with our systems that's not allowing people of color to progress or to achieve at the same rate as their white counterparts so um those are things

093that we we can and get into um and definitely can offer some more resources for people to think about and and to dive more deeply into for next time as well so just kind of to say like it's complex and it's a both and it's not an either or okay um let's see matthew were you going to talk about intended impact sure okay the last practice um is intention impact um and this one we like to say that you know this this work is uh centered on our relationships um which is one of the reasons why um i really love charlie or story because our relationships drive the work we can't do this work without having relationships with each other and building trust and a lot of times we like to say that this this

094work moves forward at the speed of trust so being able to you know be cognizant of our intent but also on our impact what happens what do we do when we say or do something that lands in a hard way with somebody else um we have to be able to to own that we have to be able to name that um and we have to so so we're not putting that on somebody else we're not putting that burden on somebody else and we're not making it about ourselves um one of the ways that this shows up for for white people a lot of the times is that we that uh that we like to be we want to be absolved of any wrongdoing because we didn't mean it that way um or we take it

095that it landed on somebody else um as as as us being a bad person so then we get defensive when somebody says hey when you said this thing um it made me feel a certain way or it it it it did this thing um and so we tend to we tend to react with that um as a defensiveness of like well i didn't mean it that way and then we start talking about why we all didn't mean it that way and then we talk about um you know i i'm a good white person because dot dot dot dot right we go down the road and we make it all about ourselves um and i say that just because um i've i've seen this happen a million times i've done it myself more than once um

096so it's it's something that's really hard not to do and because it's so ingrained in how we've been shaped and socialized as white people and it doesn't help the conversation it hinders the conversation from moving forward so um just just highlighting that as an example of um we can have the best intent in the world and we can still perpetuate um um racism in our in our spaces in our places and spaces and our relationships and our work and our institutions um so thinking about that as a reflective moment of how we do that how we own our impact and how we uh stay in relation with with people um along the journey is is really important that's a huge practice in terms of how we move our work forward okay all right so those

097are those are the practices um we've said this before these are not just things that we agreed to but these are the we're gonna actually need to practice these things so in having this conversation about race and racism um i'm hoping we'll be bringing these all in with us as we jump into these topics that you encountered um in this in this these first five days okay um so where we'd like to start with this is actually we did we kind of covered day one where it's like why are we doing this um and this is this was i think this was the day two thing i don't remember exactly the order but um one of the things we like to tell people is you know a lot of times when we say we want

098to talk about race and racism we're here we come into it and we say like tell me everything i need to know about this group of people this group of people this group of people right it's always about like i want to learn about them and what we are here to say is that the most important person that you're going to learn about in doing this work is yourself right that is that's where you've got to start you've got to start by looking in the mirror at yourself um and knowing what you're bringing to the conversation and you're bringing bringing to the table so i am wondering um and this is not an intention of calling anyone out there was a lot of content in there um so if you didn't get to it all

099it is not at all meant to like you know call anyone out i am wondering if a lot of you were able to access the part of the challenge that was about the identity development did you take a look at those identity development um pieces the stages of identity development do you all know what i'm talking about does that make sense i see some i don't see i don't know if i see a lot of recognition lighting up on people's faces okay um can i answer the question yes sure so it was that day two's lessons i believe it was day two yeah so i was having uh difficulty accessing those links and stuff so um i was going to i could went back a couple of times to try to find it but that

100was the only day or lengths that i was not able to watch the video or get to the materials it just kept saying it wasn't available okay okay gotcha um okay let's see i'm gonna do a quick huddle with matthew my co-facilitator matthew matthew should i should i put the link in and let people look at it real quick and take a couple minutes to look i'm almost thinking says it since it's 7 30 um and and our slide um seven ha is really packed okay so let's go to the next one yeah i think we could spend the rest of our time actually on slide seven all right let's do that okay what i'm gonna encourage you to do is i will share the link to that um and for the next time to

101go ahead and take a look at she has a whole bunch of different identities so it'll be like if you're white here's how racial identity tends to develop for white people if you're black here's how racial identity tends to develop for black people if you're multi-ethnic if you're asian so there's a number of different categories i'd like for you to take take some time to actually look at that and find yourself in it um and we'll bring that back in next time and i'm you're i'm i'm thinking you're likely to have a lot of reflection about where you see yourself in that journey by looking at that slide so i'll make sure i pull that out and drop it in the chat before we leave today okay um matthew do you feel like talking about

102slide seven i'm sure oh wait i'm not on the right thing here hold on wrong presentation wrong window matthew and i've been to a lot of places lately okay shoot now i close i close the window okay hold on i know i know hold on hold on okay here it is okay okay so these i feel like are some great questions that span all the days one through five um and i would i would i think okay i'm just going to go i don't know i'm here eileen you tell me if you want to go a different direction um i would like you to think about each of these questions and which one um which one kind of feels the most juicy to you which one feels like that like uh is the one that

103you kind of really want to answer but don't really want to answer if that makes sense um like what is the learning that you had what is one thing that really stuck out i'm hoping maybe that is that is a learning that that you felt really challenged on um and then how do you see that uh you know as an opportunity to move forward with this work um so so we do that you know that were that that were that we're rolling along um but what is something that really stuck out to you or challenged you um in in days one through five and we love to hear from folks about what that what that was and i'm i'm almost wondering if people maybe want to take like two minutes to do this as a

104self-reflection we'll kind and then we can come back after that okay does that sound good okay um so if you want to turn your cat well i don't know can you do that in the public meeting if you want to just take two minutes whatever your rules are around public meetings um to answer these questions for yourself and then in two minutes we'll we'll bring it back to the group um and ask for a couple of on we probably won't get to everyone i feel like we're gonna ask one or two of you and we'll probably have a lot to talk about at that point okay so we'll give you two minutes to kind of self reflect on these couple of questions okay hoping you had time um to do at least a little reflection

105on those and um matthew put them in the chat too so that you can continue to reference them is anybody feeling like they want to share what came up scott so this time i'll go first uh day two so i love this so i just have a couple quotes here so let me hold it up so i can actually face you all uh so the statement as political priorities change in america definitions of race also changed so the two case studies in those americans who are of mexican birth or mexican ancestry in 1929 they were considered white after the census in 1930 they were considered non-white so the political move to limit immigration and then amazingly in 1942 they were redeemed white because of the war effort we needed more able bodies amazing so their

106race changed in 12 years back and forth and then eileen i've heard you go through this before with the um the states that surround tennessee you know virginia north and south carolina georgia that you can literally travel in a circle and based on that legislative language on what it means to be black you can change race each state you travel to because one state it's one quarter your next state is 1 16. the next day it's one drop and so it just is a matter of the political group that's in power at that time deeming who is and who isn't so i love those case studies it's just very thought-provoking yeah how many of the rest of you did that resonate for just understanding that race i mean you've probably heard it before race is

107a social construct right and this is such a clear example of that it's exactly what scott said depends on who's in power at the time and what was the benefit to white people um to have certain people be counted as people of color or not right so another example that we sometimes talk about is um with african-american people it benefited white people to say there were more black people because they wanted that they wanted that exploited labor class that slave labor right they wanted the the they wanted to benefit from the exploitation of of black bodies at that time right um for native american people it was more important to get land and so it benefited white people to say there were fewer native people so it became harder to get classified as a native

108american than it was to be classified in a lot of cases as a black person so it's it's dependent on the political will of white people in power at the time who was defining race so it's that question of who gets to decide who is what race when we ask ourselves that question it's always white people and it's usually white men right so thank you i appreciate you bringing that up there were many case studies about that okay any other thoughts or questions or comments on that on that piece anyone clarification [Music] okay there's a film that we sometimes show some of you have seen it it's called race the power of an illusion and it's on pbs um i'm pretty sure the local public library's got it but it's a great it's a three-part

109series you can watch it on vimeo for five bucks um and it's like a three-part series and it really gives lots of it gives a really comprehensive good look at the creation of racial categories the creation the creation of race as our understanding of race um as a social construct particularly in the united states all right how about another person then is there anyone else willing to share something that wanting to share something that was learning for you this is pete i just i i agree with scott i thought all those things were quite interesting uh uh probably the most interesting part of that that i read about the other thing that struck me was i think it was one of the tribal members was talking about um about uh native american is not it's

110not a matter of you know how much native american blood you have in you it's it's how you it's the culture behind it uh how you practice it and i i thought about in my own way because on one side of my family my my mom's parents family was polish and we practiced you know the food she made the events we went to they're all there on my dad's side of the family they're all ukrainian and we never did anything because his grandparents were dead by the time i grew up so or his parents were anyway so so i very much identify with the polish side of me but not the not the ukrainian side of me and uh sort of came home to me when i was out uh actually helping with stuff the

111bus there was a guy there with me when we were talking he goes come out he goes where's that from i said ukraine and then he started talking to me in ukrainian he goes yeah i grew up in ukraine and i realized yeah you know i identify with that but i'm not really i'm not embedded in the culture and and so i think i think labels are are uh artificial and and i think we need to to remember that and and that reflects on of course some of these government programs as well so anyway i just thought i'd share that that's a great reflection and i appreciate that that's that um you offered a really interesting parallel reflection to the reflections of the native folks who were speaking right so um i would i would

112say um this is where i think it would be a benefit to have somebody who's an expert so somebody from the local native community come in and talk more about how this is meaningful to them right so i will just speak from my own experience as someone who facilitates conversations on race and identity for people of color in general in the united states we hold on to our identities and much differently than white people do right um so for example i always say that i'm japanese american i always say i'm a hyphenated american right it's it's important to me to have that part of my identity known and seen right um i'm also irish american and just like you pete i did not grow up i mean my my mom grew up in an irish

113catholic community so for her that's very real and she loves being irish american and that's really meaningful for her for me it's like not so much right i grew up in hawaii um where it's like you know it's like the saint patrick's day it's like it's not a meaningful celebration of irish identity um and so to me like those are two stories of race in america in my life right japanese americans came to this country um could not assimilate into a white majority could not because of language because of culture because of the history of world war ii for multiple reasons would not ever be allowed to assimilate into into this you know what what we have called in the past the american melting pot right people of color were not allowed to assimilate white

114americans could the irish side of my family could the irish folks in america were considered ethnic americans at one time right you've seen those you've likely seen those historical posters like um no irish no japanese no chinese people can come in here right no irish need apply all those things over over the course of like two generations irish people were assimilating irish people went to school where getting professional jobs or going to college were assimilating to the point where you know you were it just became to become white in america means to become american right so there's a way in which our sense of being american is aligned with whiteness and um and a way in which people of color can't access that that ability to assimilate in that way right and so um if

115you think about why it's meaningful for people to hold on to the an ethnic identity and under what circumstances we hold on to ethnic identity um and what you lose when you don't hold on to an ethnic identity that's also something to consider as well right um so what does it mean to be an irish american what does it mean to be a ukrainian-american what have you lost by not knowing those languages what have you lost by not knowing german or celtic or swedish or all of those other ethnic identities right um i remember telling this story to my dad i was teaching at south puget sound community college and one of the things we would do is have everyone go around and describe yourself as an ethnic american a lot of my white students

116were like i don't know i i don't know what i am or i'm just normal they would say or i'm just an american right um and we were trying to we were trying to debunk that we were trying to say like um being american does not mean being white right it's like we all have we all came here unless you're a native american person we all came here under some circumstances and that means something um and i told i was telling my dad this story and my dad is japanese and he said you mean to tell me those those hallie kids don't know what they are and i said that's true for a lot of people and he's like that is so sad like he felt really sad for my white students like he said

117they don't know what they don't know where they come from you have to help them it's like okay i'm trying dad i'm working on it so um so just to be thinking about like what what is it that you've lost that maybe you don't even know you've lost when you don't have that connection to an ethnic culture or an ethnic identity right so i you know this whole question of identity i think is really fascinating um and just things to think about and reflect on anybody else what comes up for you as we're talking about those those questions of identity yes charlie and then i would like to add something to that so so my dad was jewish and my mom was born catholic okay but my mom changed to judaism and yet a lot

118of people in the jewish community didn't accept us because our mother wasn't jewish and a lot of jewish people believe if your mom wasn't jewish even though your dad was that you were not you so so that was something we struggle with for many many years so i just wanted to bring that up too so it doesn't have to do necessarily with ethnic stuff but it can do with religious stuff as well thank you charlie appreciate that yeah absolutely and then laurie go ahead um yeah i just agree with what charlie just said there um it can be obviously extended out to religion um lgbtq community um children of parents who are both women both men i mean all that fits in and i will just say from my own personal experience you know i

119am half german my mother is 100 german on that whole side of my family um if you don't know growing up for me you know everything was potatoes and schnitzel and um it was just it was an inundation of german heritage um my father was black my parents separated when i was a very young girl so i never had the experience of growing up with the black side of my life which is unfortunate and sad my mom and subsequent white stepfather tried to do the best they could um but my point about this is that i i do believe a lot of these uh issues they're they're culturally driven i believe we are all products of our environment whether or not we want to admit that or not i grew up in an all-white community

120i was the only person of color from third grade until the day i graduated from high school i'm sure you can imagine what that must have been like for me growing up in ohio in the 80s it was not always easy but it was it was not um i would never let it defeat me either so i i the thing that i kind of want to express to everybody about all this is this um even if you grow up a certain way and you are not even privy to the culture that you have which i can hear other people have said that they're not really aware of the other side of them like mayor pete said he didn't know his ukraine side that doesn't mean that people aren't going to still put on you the

121stereotypes and labels that they have because you are that person that makes sense like i i have to carry um the horrible stereotypes that are put upon the black brains you know i have to deal with being um a person of color a woman let's not forget that um when i walk into the room as opposed to my husband who's white and he's not looked at or expected to jump through the same hoops that i have to jump through because i'm a woman and i'm a woman of color i i think this is the conversation that you know i really want to talk about and hear about you know practically how people handle these things whether you're a white woman because you know women are also put in that box whether they're white or not

122i mean i i just hope that we're training the lens equally on on all people here because everybody has their own story and just because you are a white woman white man doesn't mean that you haven't experienced your own hardships too and i just want to make sure that you know we are talking about everyone here you know it's in and and my other thing i just want to share about being i guess it goes back to circling back to concern um as a person of color and we're trying to get more bypass community you know clearly it is a little uncomfortable as a person of color to constantly be talking about people of color um i don't know if that's understood or not but that that's a challenge for me it's not that i'm

123not used to talking about these things i'm just usually the person that is leading the way and showing white people that i'm safe does that make sense i'm a safe black person i talk white i have a job i've been a nice house i don't want to play golf i'm safe right so that's why i think part of the conversation that i really want to hear i want to hear this i want to get into this and and really hear how we're going to address these things and speak authentically about these challenges we can talk all we want about practices and and all the different little steps we're going to take but until we completely or honest about what we're doing who we are and how our own experiences apply to this it's going to

124be i think you know not as productive as we would we would hope and i know that everybody's hope here is to have very meaningful conversations about how we are perceived as leaders in this community and how we want to go forward and show that we are compassionate caring dare i say loving leaders here and we want the best for everybody income water i'm done thank you for that i think that gloria i think that really speaks to that last question is what is our learning opportunity and commitment moving forward right um is thinking about how do we again how do we not get stuck in the binary thinking how do we hold all of these multiple perspectives and identities and and life experiences um in this space and and not forget about that um

125as we move forward so i appreciate you bringing that in and i think what i what i um i know we've got like 10 minutes left um i would love to kind of um cook on that last question a little bit more is um is is what do you think about that what is your learning opportunity and commitment moving forward thinking about the time that we have between this session and our next session um because that that time in between is is is is the work time is the is you know keeping it on the front burner and keep stirring that pot and doing the reflection and doing the learning um and doing the and doing the talking with each other too that we don't just go back in isolation right um that we foster

126those relationships and that trust and and keep having the conversations that's my little nugget for that that is an opportunity to move forward in the next month but i just want i want to leave that to you to think about like what does that what what what might that look like for you if you have any thoughts and reflections on that wait matthew is that you want us to answer that now or you want us to talk about that yeah we can answer the answer now or no yes yes um we'll send thank you matthew the one thing i was thinking about is um like this stuff acknowledging that we're together right and that stems from the things that tom water does a lot of things behind the scenes right and that communication and that

127circling back so one thing i know that i've talked a lot with joan cassie and elaine's elaine swarthout eileen it's been a long day and michael althouser and debbie sullivan is um us being proactive and what does that look like instead of expecting people to come to us so one thing that i'm holding myself accountable is circling back and connecting and building trust and relationship with staff at other non-profits with the black leaders in action and solidarity for thurston county checking in every few months what's going well what can i do better what's getting dropped what can i advocate for or you know and listening and learning so that's one thing i'm doing and then learning and unlearning and learning and that circles back to one of what i stood out is my biases it's

128that garden video of things that i don't even know to think about but something comes and i go oh snap like what where where is that coming from right so that's one thing is learning on learning and learning and then us being proactive and building those relationships and not expecting people to come to us and expecting to be safe and comfortable and to use their voice until we have a foundation of trust respect honesty and transparency so that's what i pledge to do i love it right anybody else angela i see a hand um listen to what laurie said um about being the the safe um black person i feel that i've never experienced that because i've been in the military so i was always out front and always leading so when i became the

129first black council member for the city of tomwater right i feel that i need to set an example right i need to set an example for people to see me for who i am and i'm outgoing um and i'm used to leadership there's people from the community you know uh african-american people parents that are coming to me with issues and it's almost like like natural and almost like a magnetic and that's a good thing because i feel like come talk to me i'm open and then i'm going to share it with you know the rest of my my council members and with the rest of the community but it's a challenge and it's a tough job and i'm up for it so that's what i plan to do just to be a good representative you

130know for and and to let people of color know that i'm here you know come talk to me i love that thank you i just wanted to um to really appreciate what you shared and to appreciate what laurie shared and to also just take this moment to remind all of us that this is a great example of though we might share some aspects of identity where laurie has shared that she's half black and angela identifies as also with the black community and we can have different experiences right so um just a reminder to all of us that there is not like sometimes i would work with students at the community college and they for as an example i'd have someone say well i was adopted so i'm not i don't really understand the asian experience

131right and i'd say to them that is an asian experience there is no the asian experience there are many asian experiences right and so to remind us that there's diversity within all of our communities this is one thing i just wanted to highlight from this conversation and the other piece that i wanted to highlight as well was just to just to be mindful that for a lot of black and indigenous and people of color in our communities they're they're doing an extra amount of work right so i'm hearing angela say like i have all these families coming to talk to me and i'm up for it and i want to do that and it's a lot of work and if you're like a lot of other folks that i know that's very personal work and

132that's work that it's hard to leave at work right it's work you take home with you in your heart and it's and it's emotional and it it often resonates with things you've experienced yourself and so to be just to be for all of us to be mindful that for black and indigenous people of color when we're talking about these things and lori said this as well right like this this is this is more than just this is more than just work right this is personal this is life this is an an experience that i live through every day and then also be engaged with it as a public servant is another thing on top of that right and that's that's a common experience for a lot of our people of color in the communities especially

133when you're in leadership roles or public servant roles or teachers or doing any of that kind of work so just something to be mindful of there as well and to be appreciative so thank you both for sharing that so vulnerably and so beautifully i just wanted to say that uh how much i appreciate angela and uh having her on our council and now that i know that you are quote up for it i am going to send some other people who want to talk to me i'm going to send them to you that's great and also to be mindful that she's already doing a lot right so maybe checking in with her to say like how can i help knowing that you've got a lot going on how can i also be helpful with this

134right what can i do to to lighten the load for you and to share the look i'm actually just teasing her i would i would not i would not necessarily do that but i might check with her to see if the person would be better off talking to her or learn more or get a different perspective yeah well i think that cross-pollination among all of us that are different is also important absolutely so it is it's all about those relationships it's knowing that you can go to angela and say i have this person i'd love to send them to you i also want to check on you know your capacity and your ability to to have that conversation with another person right just to be mindful all right speaking of being mindful um mindful of

135the time um that it's one minute to eight o'clock and i just wanna um i guess just share for me and just how grateful i am for this opportunity and to have you all here and to have you practicing the practices and leaning in and really you know i in speaking from your heart you know speaking from your truth and your experience in the world and i think um this is just such a great opportunity um with you all in a space um to be in this journey um and and i just i just want to be i'm grateful and appreciative of you all um showing up you know showing up to do this work and leaning in i just wanted to say it thank you and i'm really looking forward to this journey yeah

136i appreciate you all too um thank you all so much for your vulnerability and your courage um a practice that we we talked about but we didn't really do much more than talking about it but we'll mention it to you is you might set up a an accountability system with one another like maybe have a check-in buddy say maybe pick somebody in this group that you wouldn't mind checking in with in a couple weeks just to say like hey how's it going on this racial equity journey um do you want to get together and chat about any of these things that um that are coming up um do some more learning together um that might be a good practice for it for all of you to support one another in this ongoing journey all right

137with that thank you all so appreciate this very thoughtful conversation um and we're looking forward to next time so thank you good night everybody good night thank you