Articles

Inter-Racial Group Begins BOLD Anti-Racism Journey Together

By John Baker Brown Jr.
Faith And The City e.Letter
Volume 3 Issue 4
April 19, 2004

Two dozen metro Atlantans--black, white, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim--traveled to the North Georgia mountains during the last week of March as part of a BOLD Program anti-racism retreat, the beginning of a journey toward greater understanding of themselves and one another. Secluded at the Lodge at Amicalola Falls State Park, participants examined issues such as privilege and oppression, inequity and justice, interpersonal relations, emotional literacy, and how such realities individually and collectively influence our living together in community.

Most participants arrived individually or in pairs. However, during the next four days and three nights, they worked together and learned together, openly sharing personal feelings, joys, and pains in the first of several gatherings in the 80-hour BOLD experience.

BOLD--an acronym for Building Opportunities for Leadership and long-term Dialogue--is an 80-hour anti-racism training program developed and conducted under the auspices of the CommUnity Institute at Faith And The City. The Institute, directed by Jan Swanson, is an outgrowth of the ongoing Congregational Exchange Program. Established in 1999, the Exchange has partnered more than 150 congregations with one another across racial lines and, more recently, across faith lines. Although BOLD is philosophically an extension of that work, the new initiative engages participants from government, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit corporations, as well as an interfaith range of congregations. The March retreat involved the second BOLD class; the inaugural BOLD class was initiated last fall.

"BOLD's purpose is to strengthen the effectiveness of people and organizations committed to addressing the systemic issues of injustice and inequity in our society," explained Swanson. "These persistent issues underlay inter-group tensions and negatively impact the quality of life in the diverse communities of Atlanta and throughout our nation."

What makes BOLD different from anti-racism training that has been available for decades in public and private sector workplaces, nonprofit organizations, and faith communities? First, according to organizers and participants, the level of intensity is higher than with most anti-racism initiatives, with a principal goal being "to free people to express themselves authentically."

"We constantly challenge people to challenge themselves and others on issues of oppression and privilege, injustice and inequity," explained Deborah Nicholson, founding chair of the CommUnity Institute and principal of the human relations consulting firm, People to People Enterprises. "We also challenge people to consider who has privilege, who is oppressed, and how each of us contributes to systemic racism."

The BOLD experience challenges participants in a number of ways, encouraging valuable insights and emotional honesty. For example, one small group exercise considered how racism is manifested at four levels--personal, interpersonal, institution, and cultural. A white participant offered an example of personal and interpersonal racism and accepted his own culpability. One evening at home, he had answered the phone when a male classmate called for his teenage daughter. But, the father never delivered the message--despite his wife's vehement objections--because the caller was Hispanic.

Another BOLD technique for challenging participants by provoking thoughtful self-examination and productive dialogue with others is the "fishbowl" exercise. Participants are divided into two groups--one with white participants and the other with people of color. Each group takes a turn sitting in a circle in the middle of the room--in the fishbowl--with the facilitators joining them. Members of the other group sit outside the fishbowl as observers. The group in the fishbowl answers a range of written questions about race relations, prepared individually and in advance by all participants, and responds to probing queries from the facilitators. Do you feel superior, as a white person? Do you feel inferior, as a black person? Do Jews enjoy white privilege or suffer racist oppression, or both? What do people of color want? What are white people willing to give up?

Although humor and mutual respect among participants helped to ease anxiety levels, the tension in the fishbowl was very real for both groups--as was the learning experience. For example, during the fishbowl debriefing with both groups participating, one African American participant acknowledged that he was extremely uncomfortable responding to the question of black feelings of inferiority.

"There are some things that we [black folks] should not discuss in front of white folks," he admitted to the larger group. Laughing, he chided the black facilitator for pressing him to respond to the question in front of a racially mixed group. The facilitator, also African American, explained that he had intentionally forced the issue because it had to do with emotional literacy.

In fact, emotional literacy is another distinguishing aspect of the BOLD experience. Emotional literacy is the ability to "read" and understand one's emotions in interaction with others and respond to such emotions in an intentional and appropriate manner. The objective here is to examine how the widespread absence of emotional literacy in our society facilitates superior/inferior relationships among groups on the basis of gender, age, religion, education, wealth, and other criteria but especially race.

After an intense 40 hours of large and small group activity, as well as additional time for personal solitude and one-on-one relationship building, the BOLD participants departed from the mountains with a deeper appreciation for many of the issues that divide our society along racial lines. They took with them increased insight into the pervasive and persistent nature of racial oppression and some fresh ideas on how they can work individually within their respective organizations and together in the community to help dismantle it.

Most important, BOLD participants built bridges across racial lines to nurture ongoing friendships--and they established common ground for continued communication and collective action. The group plans to gather again in April for the next leg of their BOLD journey together.

BOLD Program Developers and Facilitators:

Gerry Conroy, Coordinator, Awaken Network
Joe Lewis, President, J.D. Lewis and Associates
Wekesa Madzimoyo, Co-Director, AYA Educational Institute
Deborah Nicholson, Principal, People to People Enterprises
Nibs Stroupe, Co-Pastor, Oakhurst Presbyterian Church
Deborah Williams, Principal, Leadership Edge Management Consultants Inc.

For more information on the BOLD Program, contact Ken Brant, Faith And The City, at 404-523-5554, ext. 226.

John Baker Brown Jr., communications director for Faith And The City, was a participant in the BOLD Program retreat in March.