C06 Session: Flipping the Script

Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building

Friday, August 4, 2:15pm - 3:45pm

Track:  Cultural Competency

Presenters

Maggie Potapchuk, MP Associates, Inc; Sally Leiderman, Center for Assessment and Policy Development

Description

 

This session is specifically for grantmakers, capacity-builders and technical assistance providers with a basic knowledge of white privilege who would like to explore ways to build the sector's capacities to work in effective multi-racial partnerships for social justice goals.  The session will focus on how to avoid unexamined white privilege and racism in our work, using examples related to the theories of change, evaluations and partnerships we develop. This workshop is based on the monograph, Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building, in which each of these areas is examined with recommendations for next steps – at the individual and system or institutional levels.  We will provide an overview of the monograph sharing the questions it raises about our work in communities.  Most of the workshop will be spent in an interactive discussion among participants, focusing on the extent to which the themes raised in the monograph resonate in their work, and the group's experience and ideas about how to address white privilege in our community building work.

Background

Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building monograph was commissioned by a national foundation. The monograph was published in early December, 2005 and is available on the web in PDF version. The monograph is in three sections.  The first section describes some key concepts: white privilege, racism, internalized racism and community building.  The second section offers some ideas about how to see privilege and racism more clearly in our work, along with ideas and lessons about how to address them constructively. The third section provides recommendations for next steps as individual practitioners and for institutions with which we work.

This monograph is based on a review of relevant literature, experiences of the authors in community building and related work, and a number of interviews with foundation staff and others working in communities.  We also draw from the ideas and experiences that many individuals in many communities shared with us over the years.  One of the contributing authors, Barbara Major, points out that people often take the intellectual property of communities for their own purposes, often without acknowledgement and almost always without reimbursement.  So we want to try to acknowledge our debt to others.

The monograph is based on the following premises:

• White privilege and racism exist – though race is a socially constructed idea, its consequences are real and the privileges it helps maintain are real.
• Privilege and racism are built into the structures and institutions of the United States (and other societies).  The policies and practices of structures and institutions that support white privilege are so embedded at this point that no one any longer has to decide to create inequity so long as we do not decide collectively to eliminate it.
• White privilege and racism manifest themselves at many levels in our society, including institutional, cultural, interpersonal and individual.  One of the premises of the monograph is that it is often difficult for white people to observe institutional privilege and racism.  (It is easier for white people to "see" individual level racism, though not necessarily individual level privilege).

We discuss white privilege in the context of community building.  These days the terms "comprehensive community building" and "place-based strategies" refer to approaches to improve the quality of life and well-being of people in a particular neighborhood or other geographically defined area, often through partnerships among residents, the nonprofit sector, funders and others. These efforts are often comprehensive in multiple ways.  They may be comprehensive in terms of the strategies being used – community organizing, resident leadership, system reform, increased civic engagement, and community planning.  They are also often comprehensive in terms of the outcomes sought – improved child well-being; increased family income and assets; community economic development; etc.

About the Presenters

Maggie Potapchuk, MP Associates, Inc.

Maggie Potapchuk is president of MP Associates. In the past 18 years, she has designed and facilitated diversity and anti-racism training programs, provided technical assistance on change projects, created awareness and dialogue programs, and developed tools to build the capacity of organizations and communities to address racism and privilege issues. She was Senior Program Associate with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies' Network of Alliances Bridging Race and Ethnicity, a national effort to provide support to 185 community-based race relations and racial-justice organizations. Her publications include "Cultivating Interdependence: A Guide for Race Relations and Racial Justice Organizations," "Holding up the Mirror: Working Interdependently for Just and Inclusive Communities" and "Steps Toward an Inclusive Community," which includes the "Inclusive Community Assessment Tool." She was co-author for the National League of Cities' "The Selma, Alabama Initiative: Community Assessment Report." Maggie was technical assistance manager for the Initiative to Strengthen Neighborhood Intergroup Assets (DC/VA) to support long-term residents and new immigrants to work together on neighborhood issues. From 1995-99, Ms. Potapchuk was Director of the Dismantling Racism Program at the National Conference for Community and Justice–St. Louis Region. The program received national recognition for the CommUnity-St. Louis project and Dismantling Racism Institute. She is one of the four authors of the monograph on which this session is based.

Sally Leiderman, Center for Assessment and Policy Development

Sally Leiderman is president of the Center for Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD), an eighteen year old non-profit research and policy organization. CAPD works nationally to support communities, institutions and foundations working to improve outcomes for children, families, and neighborhoods, in the areas of education, family and child well-being, adolescent pregnancy and prevention, anti-racism work, leadership, and civic engagement. Ms. Leiderman provides policy and evaluation support to several foundations and communities involved in comprehensive community building efforts and leadership development. Her relevant publications include "Looking Back: A History of the Project Change Anti-racism Initiative;" "A Community Builder's Toolkit: 15 Tools for Creating Healthy," "Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities," with the Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Program; "Training for Racial Equity and Inclusion: A Guide to Selected Programs," with the Alliance for Conflict Transformation, the Aspen Institute and Project Change, "Engaging Communities and Campuses," a monograph describing issues of equity in community/college partnerships. With Maggie Potapchuk, she developed, www.evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org, a website that communities can use to self-evaluate their progress toward anti-racism and inclusion goals. With Matthew Leiderman, she also developed syntheses of antiracism and race-related materials of the Casey Foundation to make the information directly useful to foundation staff and communities.  She is one of the four authors of the monograph on which this session is based.