Public Allies Cincinnati: Reflections on a Year of Service

Public Allies Cincinnati, a program of BRIDGES for a Just Community, just ended its annual recruitment of talented young adults with a passion for service for its 15th class of allies. Beginning this month, candidates will begin the intensive, three-part interview process that potentially ends in a term of service with program.

So, what exactly is Public Allies, you might ask? Well, as a Public Allies alumna, I can tell you that it is life changing. Public Allies takes a group of 30-40 young adults, who may or may not have a lot of experience with or knowledge of social justice issues and non-profit work, and transforms them into a dedicated community of change agents ready to live out Public Allies’ motto of Everyone Leads. Through a community apprenticeship with local non-profit organizations; extensive education and training designed to advance both professional and personal development; and team community service projects, Allies emerge from the 10-month program equipped with the skills necessary to strengthen communities, nonprofits and civic participation. What’s more, Allies leave the program having engaged in the personal work necessary to engage communities and individuals on various discourses regarding power and privilege and creating change. Allies engage in a vigorous, program that encourages them to challenge their assumptions and to build authentic communities dedicated to collaboration, continuous learning, diversity and inclusion, focus on assets and integrity – Public Allies’ core values.

In my experience, Public Allies equipped me with tools and skills that, even now, four years later, I still hold dear. I entered the Public Allies program as a timid, shy 23-year-old, struggling with a lack of self-confidence. Through my work at Beech Acres Parenting Center, a former partner organization, I was able to successfully manage, Mentoring and More, a school-based mentoring program for students identified as at-risk at Sayler Park Elementary School. Nestled along the banks of the Ohio River, Sayler Park is a low-income, Appalachian community on the outermost western perimeter of Cincinnati. As a young Black woman from a working-class neighborhood in the inner-city of Cincinnati, this small community seemed worlds away from my experience and I feared that I wouldn’t be welcome in this new environment. However, with the training I received around power and privilege, specifically issues of race and class, and with the skills that I brought to the program, I was able to forge close bonds with the faculty, staff, parents and students of Sayler Park and implement a successful program that partnered with local businesses to provide mentors to the students. I left that year with a sense of pride and accomplishment and with the confidence to pursue a career in non-profits, which is exactly what I did.

In addition, Public Allies helped me find and hone my voice. As a writer, my voice is perhaps the most important asset I possess and I was struggling to find and use it. With the help of a great program manager, and the support of a close class of Allies, I learned that what I had to say mattered and not only did it matter it was needed. With Public Allies central tenet – focus on assets – I realized that everyone’s unique skill set was integral to creating a better community, society, nation and world. It was on Marianne Williamson’s infamous words that I focused throughout my first year with the program and on which I centered my Presentation of Learning at the close of the year. Williams says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us … As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” The program was instrumental in both my professional and personal development reigniting in me my passion and determination to achieve the personal goals that I have set out to achieve.

So, that, in a nutshell is what the Public Allies program is all about. If you want to put your passion to work; if you want to discover how that potential within you can transform into something kinetic, into action; if want to change your life, change your community and change the world; or if you’re just curious, you should consider the Public Allies program. It’s worth it.

Written by: Rashida Manuel

Is Being Color-Blind A Symptom of Racism?

By Mildred C. Fallen

How many times have we heard someone say something like, “Oh, I don’t see color; I don’t care whether people are black, green, purple, white, orange?” The irony is that most people would care if they saw an orange or green person, but it’s this sort of cognitive dissonance that makes many of us defend our stance on racism, and it keeps us from acknowledging disparities—and that to me is symptomatic of racism.

At a recent BRIDGE Builders discussion held at BRIDGES for a Just Community’s office, the focal point was Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary’s book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, in which she boldly asserts that Americans are sick with racism because of cognitive dissonance that plagues us all. “The nature of this work,” Leary writes in her prologue, “is such that each group first must see to their own healing, because no group can do another’s work.” A few years ago, Leary did an interview with writer, Silva J. A. Talvi, and my favorite quote from it is when she says, “We have to recognize that remnants of racist oppression continue to impact people in this country.”

Some scholar sociologists such as John McWhorter, who is African-American, believe that blacks born after 1960 have less of a right to blame systemic racism’s inequalities for their shortcomings because of desegregation and opportunities that became more apparent to all people by way of affirmative action. I disagree with McWhorter, because the Civil Rights Movement did not mark the emancipation of humankind. Schools and communities may have been desegregated, but people still face challenges from systemic inequalities that make it possible for racism and classism to be legal and seem fair. In many cases, people of color are told to “Get over it” when they express cognizance of racism. But in order to heal your mind, body and spirit have to grieve and purge. It’s like bereavement after a loved one dies. Imagine if your supervisor told you that you couldn’t go to your spouse’s or child’s funeral and to “get over it.” It’s a human right to want to acknowledge and heal from a painful experience.

Growing up in the inner city in Cincinnati where different races rarely intermingled, racism was often acted out through suspicion. One time as a child, I was accused of stealing a purse that was actually the one I walked in the store wearing on my shoulder. I was embarrassed when the Asian woman behind the counter rushed toward me and tugged the cheap pleather strap from my arm because I felt like everyone watching thought I was guilty of theft. When the clerk unzipped the purse, what she found were some used tissues, a small wad of dollar bills and penny candy. Probably mad that she was wrong about what she assumed, she tossed my purse onto the counter, still open. I gathered my things and vowed I’d never set foot in that store again. For years, I thought that all Asian people were racist because of what happened to me in that store.

My steps toward dismantling that belief happened in college when I began meeting Asian people who were at least cordial, and some that were very friendly. Eventually, I became friends with an Asian-American woman who was very open about race, maybe because her boyfriend was African-American. When I shared my purse-snatching story, she didn’t placate me with well-meaning promises of “I don’t see color,” nor did she tell me to get over it. Instead, Anna listened and said she imagined how hurt I must’ve felt when it happened. Her willingness to hear me and accept my story felt like salve on my blistered perspective. I also began looking at ways I projected racism and began to imagine pain I may have caused someone else by being ignorant.

Here are some tips on having open dialogue on race: More listening than talking helps. Ask open-ended questions that don't lead with assumptions. And accept that one conversation won’t change everything—you may walk away frustrated, confused, enlightened, or you might leave with the desire to educate yourself on a culture other than your own. But we should never say we don’t see color because color-blindness doesn’t remedy racism. Color-blindness enables it.

If you would like to participate in challenging conversations on race and class, join us at the next BRIDGE Builders session at BRIDGES offices on May 17 at 6:00pm. For more information, visit: http://www.bridgesfjc.org/programs/bridgebuilders.html to view our flyer, or contact Shawn Jeffers at shawn.jeffers@bridgescincinnati.org.

Occupy ELI

Occupy ELI

Who could have known that a gathering in Zucotti Park in New York City would grow into a large –scale, international movement that might forever change the way we view democracy? The Occupy Movement started as a protest against unfair economic practices, but it has since grown to include a protest against the exclusionary practices that mark many sectors of American life. Whether you are in the 1 percent, the 99% percent, or somewhere in between, I think we can all agree that this movement is fascinating. It’s so powerful to see everyday people mobilize and organize around efforts that could radically change the way we engage in civic life.

The Occupy Movement hit close to home for me. No, I didn’t spend the night at Piatt Park in downtown Cincinnati. However, the principles behind the Occupy Movement did indeed ring a very familiar bell. The Occupy Movement reinforces the idea that each and every one of us has the ability to lead and to create meaningful change in our lives and the lives of our communities. In other words, everyone leads. The democratization of leadership is at the heart of the Public Allies leadership model and is the title of a provocative new book, Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up by Paul Schmitz.

In the book, Paul Schmitz outlines the principles of the Public Allies Leadership-Development Model and in doing so, reminds his readers of the significance and power of this particular AmeriCorps program. Public Allies differs from other AmeriCorps programs in some very important ways. Among the differences is the emphasis on youth, change and homegrown leadership. Public Allies makes an investment in young adults who have a passion for change. While many traditional leadership programs might overlook young adults, PA seeks out those young adults who are eager to commit themselves to a life-time of service. In doing so, they create a powerful pipeline of engaged grassroots leaders who will help change the communities in which they live. Indeed, it is the focus on homegrown leadership that makes Public Allis such an important community asset. More than 80 percent of Allies come from the communities they serve. If we believe that charity begins at home and that all politics is local, then these Allies really are the faces of change and activism in our community.

These principles will come alive during a two-day institute sponsored by Public Allies Cincinnati and BRIDGES for a Just Community. The Emerging Leaders Institute is conference designed to equip people with awareness, skills and opportunities to transform our region into a more equitable and just community. By creating a venue where diverse leaders share their skills, knowledge and passion with other practitioners and the community at large seek to advance local efforts to change our community’s narrative about leadership. The concept behind the Emerging Leaders Institute is simple, but it’s not easy. The idea of listening to diverse groups is simple enough. But actually engaging and learning from diverse groups requires us to let go of our assumptions and open ourselves up to thinking about leadership, change and activism in entirely different ways. But in all honesty, the path to lasting change isn’t supposed to be easy. If you are ready to embark upon a journey to occupy your passion and change your community, then join us for the inaugural session of the Emerging Leaders Institute. You can find more information at bridgescincinnati.org/eli.

Written by Dr. Michelle Watts

Why Do You March?

Why Do You March?
By Mildred C. Fallen

On Dr. Martin Luther King Day, my friend, whom I’ll call “Bishop,” called me around 8:30 wanting to know if I had the day off and what I was doing. I told him our Public Allies class was celebrating a day in service—“a day on, not off,” and was participating in the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition’s march from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Bishop groaned.

At first, Bishop seemed to feel sorry for me that I didn’t “get to stay home,” and told me how cold it was that morning when he left to go work. Then, with sarcasm, he told me some of his co-workers, who are a generation older than us, march every year. “I don’t get that,” he said. Why are people still marching?”

We laughed at his cynical observation after he described how he is judged for not participating in the march with his co-workers,like he’s a discredit to Dr. King’s legacy and his race. For me, it was funny, largely, because I know Bishop well enough to know that he was really asking, “What does marching do, in terms of service in 2012? And how does it help people after MLK day? I can bet that if Bishop asked his middle-aged African-American co-workers who attend the marches faithfully with their civic organizations why they march, and with the same sarcasm, to them, he might’ve sounded ungrateful for the legacy King’s work imparted on America.

But for Bishop’s and my generation, the generation born a decade after the Civil Rights Movement, this legacy came to us skewed, by talking heads tip-toeing the subject of Black History, and textbooks that summarized the Civil Rights Movement—which lasted two decades—into one or two dry paragraphs. By the time Bishop and I were born, the Black Power Movement looked more like Soul Train dancers; and grassroots leadership was becoming an ambiguous notion as corporate America and government became more involved than “the people.” By the 1970s, Americans were more divided by social and economic factions than ever before since slavery. In retrospect, the word “community” must’ve sounded like a misnomer to most people, who were turning inward and concentrating on self-preservation, or “getting ahead.”

In the mid to late 70s, racism wasn’t being denied access to institutions or service, but it was the fine print in government sanctioned regulations that still made us economically disparaged as a community. Growing up, I heard some of my neighborhood’s elders blame integration for the fall of the black community. I can’t say I don’t understand now, what they meant, because as an adult thinking about what integration implies, it’s like the happy ending in a Disney film because it assumes what everyone wants to see after witnessing “moments” of peril. Elders who felt this way lived through the pages in history our textbooks couldn’t contextualize, remembering a time when they were happy living in their microcosmic neighborhood, now watching in silent fear while the assets of living in a black community depleted, as drug dealers and gangs slowly pushed away the family-owned businesses that provided services and goods to them.

Urban sprawl that helped connect the city to the suburbs also made people spend time in their own neighborhoods less and less, and spending time outside of the neighborhood helped you learn what other neighborhoods offered, but sadly, it made many people I grew up around see their own neighborhoods as deficit based. Rightfully so, people wanted to move to where they felt they could have better opportunities, but that didn’t change the plight of the people who had no choice but to stay where they were. Madison Avenue and television marketed the image of an upper middle class that wasn’t reflective in many homes, and for some people, the bootstrap ideology was bunk. Over the sitcom’s laugh track, you could almost hear this overwhelming cry from poor people of all races: “Where is my piece of the pie? I’ve worked hard my whole life?”

Bishop and I come from similar life experiences and relate to each other so well that when he asked the question, “Why do people still march,” I knew he wasn’t being ungrateful to King’s legacy. As children, going beyond the grumblings of our elders who wished things were different, we always dreamed and planned how we would make a difference. Maybe to Bishop, marching on MLK Day in the 21st century placates people’s need to feel like we’re making a difference by remembering the one person we like to think of as the face of the Civil Rights Movement.

This MLK Day, I did march. Maybe on the surface to someone else, it just looked symbolic. But I wasn’t just marching out of compliance to my organization. I marched with reverence and consciousness for the men and women of all ages and races who marched before me so that I can have the things I have today, which are choices. When I think of service, I want to continue reflecting on how the work I do will serve someone else in a way that reminds him or her that no matter what skin we’re in, someone fought—and still fights-- for everyone’s right to choose where they spend their money, where they can live, worship, work and socialize. I march thinking of those mighty fighters who go unmentioned beside Dr. King.

And maybe next MLK Day, Bishop will march with me.

BRIDGES collaborates with The Ensemble Theatre in February

It's Passover, 1865. The Civil War has just ended and the annual celebration of freedom from bondage is being observed in Jewish homes across the country. Caleb DeLeon, a Jewish Confederate soldier, returns wounded from the battlefield to find his family home in ruins, abandoned by everyone except Simon and John, two former slaves, who were raised as Jews in the DeLeon home. As the three men wait for the family's return, they wrestle with their shared past as master and slave, uncovering a tangle of long-buried family secrets as well as new ones...ties that bind them together and that, ultimately, might cost each man his freedom. Please note, this production contains strong adult language and themes and may not be suitable for all audiences.

Tickets range in price from $36 - $42. For more information or to purchase tickets, visitwww.cincyetc.com, call (513) 421-3555 or stop by the Ensemble Theater Box Office.

On Sunday, January 29 at 2 p.m., and Sunday, February 5, at 2 p.m., BRIDGES will participate on the panel discussion, "Talk Back" to discuss with the audience their perspectives and insights from the production. Please join us during one of these performances, or support the performance when your calendar permits.

Thank you for advancing a Just community through the arts!