wiki.occupyboston.org - User contributions [en]

Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - December 3, 2011

2011-12-05T18:24:32Z

Jenwillsea: /* Participants */

== Participants ==

Susi, Maureen, Mick, Jen, Bhavin, Susan, Salma, Ester, Meck, Michelle, Clyde, Lisa, Cathy, Jade, Chris, Jude

Facilitators: Carl, Andrea

== Start Ups ==

Intro Question: Who are you and how do you identify?

Ways of Being

*Step up step back
*Both/and
*Don’t blame, shame, attack
*Room for disagreement - oops, ouch, what’s up with that
*Can use hand signals
*Use "I" statements speak for yourself
*Active listening - affirmative gestures body language towards speaker, no multitasking
*Progressive stack
*Give 30 seconds for people to think every 20 minutes
*Diversity of structuring meetings to allow for different learning and thinking styles
*No screens, laptops, smart phones

== Concentric Circles Exercise ==

1. What do you love about this moment?

2. What pushes your buttons?

3. What is something people don’t know about you?

4. What are you afraid of?

5. What do you dream of?

== Our Vision ==

Time is like dog years in like occupy. In occupy it’s enough to think out one year to think about the future. The idea for the next exercise is to answer this question in small groups: '''What is our vision of our work? In one year, what are we, the Anti-Oppression Freedom Working Group, proud of having successfully accomplished in Occupy Boston and beyond?'''

Three small groups worked on answering this question in three sentences or less → report outs:

GROUP 1:

#That we still exist as a movement and that our movement is sustainable with enough elasticity to keep us all sane, take care of personal lives model more sustainable life giving movement
#That we facilitated the building of relationships across racial, class, gender and other divides and kept the well being of the most marginalized 99% at the center of our efforts
#We furthered greater consciousness of systemic, interpersonal, internal and cultural barriers that keep us apart and built tools and practices for connecting and for empathizing with each other

GROUP 2:

Beloved Community

*Create a movement that is a welcoming space where people are inspired to understand their own power in community and share their gifts
*Learn values that reflect multigenerational community that lives close to mother earth in a sustainable way (hope this becomes a phrase we use)
*Anti oppression toolbox or resources that can move out of this group towards the movement

GROUP 3:

*We inspired a new culture of liberation, resistance, beloved community, safety, courage, accountability, compassion
*We created spaces for reflection, deep relationships, learning, transformation, sharing analyses, critical and creative thinking, fun

THEMES emerging about our vision:

*Relationships
*A concern with interpersonal relationships and compassion
*Concept of creating a new culture and of shared values have resonance and they´re very similar
*The word sustainable, which is important to me as a mother, fun means sustainable to me
*Compassion and empathy
*Reflection, learning, understanding your own power, learning
*Space
*Tools
*Culture
*Beloved community
*Inspire
*Life giving
*Gifts
*Create and build

== Wheel of Power and Privilege ==

All of us hold ways we are oppressed and ways we are privileged. Becoming more aware of those aspects of our identity and how we want to use and not use that knowledge in our work together. The more you’re on the inside, the more you’ll be protected from bumps. The more you’re on the outside of the wheel, the more you get hit with bumps.

Using the “wheel” visual, we paired up to talk about where we fall on the in or outside of the wheel:

*Where do you identify in or out of the wheel?
*What comes up for you?
*What surprises you?

Reflections on this Exercise

*Fluidity of a number of these categories
*Complexity in terms of how it changes depending where you are in terms of physical location, country
*I wasn’t surprised that I was privileged at all, but I didn’t feel that some of the categories were adequate. I’m a citizen, but I consider myself an immigrant. Sometimes you are depressed and feel physically and cognitively impaired and sometimes you don’t.
*There is another category that seems important, which is whether you grew up with or have access to a stable support system or not. Some of the pies might almost be larger to indicate how much the inners and outers conflict and contact each other all the time. Like with gender, I’m always dealing with men and I can’t get away from it. That doesn’t seem the same as English or non-English. With the OJ Simpson trial, everybody was so eager to talk about race but nobody was going to say anything about the gender problem. I concluded that this was because the media is selling to people in their homes, male female couples, and they don’t want to hear about it. They’re always intertwined and they never get addressed. People are phobic about addressing gender.
*There’s something about the outside of the wheel. Being in women’s or queer community whatever that means, I feel there’s something in that I wouldn’t get that feels powerful and wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, so sometimes I don’t know about inside outside.
*We were discussing how much privilege we have, how much we located ourselves on the inside of the wheel and the implications in building beloved community. It means that we have so much work to do in terms of consciousness around how that privilege is playing out and that we need to be constantly reflecting about that and creating space where we can discuss that, be called out on those privileges and not become defensive, but take it as an opportunity to be in process of decolonization of our beings.
*A lot of that is important to think about not only how we identify ourselves in our circle but also how people perceive us. We need to own that and use it in a productive way and not get defensive about it. It’s a learning opportunity.
*I think a lot about audience, who I’m talking to and what they’re prepared to hear. I was talking to a Russian Jewish person for an hour at OB. She said “I don’t like these people,” and by the end she was going to look up the Dream Act. She was wealthy. Knowing where you are on the wheel and where the other person actually is on the wheel and where they think they are. You cannot say to someone by the way, you’re here. That’s complicated, tricky, and fascinating. And where you appear to be on that to people. Whenever you’re having a conversation there are four points going on all at the same time.

== Checking our Ways of Being ==

We reviewed the ways of being and discussed how well we did with them at this meeting. An “oops, ouch” was brought up, we discussed it, and agreed that we have an opportunity, as we are building beloved community, to start speaking up in the moment when an oops, ouch happens rather than waiting until the end of our meeting to bring it up, or not bringing it up at all. We will work towards being more constructive by bringing up ouches in the moment.

We agreed to introduce a new hand signal for the ways of being in the future – time out – so that anyone can call a time out when there is an oops, ouch moment during the meetings and/or when it would be helpful to take a 30 second break. This will allow anyone in the group, not just the facilitators, to call for a 30 second break when it is needed.

== One Word Check Out ==

Learning • Beloved • Appreciative • Impressed • Mm • Grateful • Wow • Community • Continuing • Meh • Beloved • Hopeful • Real • Concerned

Thank you to our facilitators!

Now we have a bit of a north star to work from.

== Next Steps ==

Andrea and Carl will be the facilitators for the next TWO meetings so that we have more continuity in the planning and facilitation of our meetings.

Salma will look for a space for the next meeting.

Potential topics, questions, issues for next meetings:

*What are we moving into? Last time a lot of time was unpacking, debriefing the GA and it hadn´t been planned by facilitators. This meeting tonight was great. There’s so much here to build on. Are we proactive or reactive? I’m mindful that we have some kind of commitment possibly based on what happened at the Tuesday GA with white allies and people of color working group to come back to the occupy camp, to GA.
*I thought we were accountable to the people of color working group and the OB community to facilitate anti oppression work.

Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - December 3, 2011

2011-12-05T00:17:53Z

Jenwillsea:

== Participants ==

Susi, Maureen, Mick, Jen, Bhavin, Susan, Salma, Ester, Meck, Michelle, Clyde, Lisa, Cathy, Jade, Chris

Facilitators: Carl, Andrea

== Start Ups ==

Intro Question: Who are you and how do you identify?

Ways of Being

*Step up step back
*Both/and
*Don’t blame, shame, attack
*Room for disagreement - oops, ouch, what’s up with that
*Can use hand signals
*Use "I" statements speak for yourself
*Active listening - affirmative gestures body language towards speaker, no multitasking
*Progressive stack
*Give 30 seconds for people to think every 20 minutes
*Diversity of structuring meetings to allow for different learning and thinking styles
*No screens, laptops, smart phones

== Concentric Circles Exercise ==

1. What do you love about this moment?

2. What pushes your buttons?

3. What is something people don’t know about you?

4. What are you afraid of?

5. What do you dream of?

== Our Vision ==

Time is like dog years in like occupy. In occupy it’s enough to think out one year to think about the future. The idea for the next exercise is to answer this question in small groups: '''What is our vision of our work? In one year, what are we, the Anti-Oppression Freedom Working Group, proud of having successfully accomplished in Occupy Boston and beyond?'''

Three small groups worked on answering this question in three sentences or less → report outs:

GROUP 1:

#That we still exist as a movement and that our movement is sustainable with enough elasticity to keep us all sane, take care of personal lives model more sustainable life giving movement
#That we facilitated the building of relationships across racial, class, gender and other divides and kept the well being of the most marginalized 99% at the center of our efforts
#We furthered greater consciousness of systemic, interpersonal, internal and cultural barriers that keep us apart and built tools and practices for connecting and for empathizing with each other

GROUP 2:

Beloved Community

*Create a movement that is a welcoming space where people are inspired to understand their own power in community and share their gifts
*Learn values that reflect multigenerational community that lives close to mother earth in a sustainable way (hope this becomes a phrase we use)
*Anti oppression toolbox or resources that can move out of this group towards the movement

GROUP 3:

*We inspired a new culture of liberation, resistance, beloved community, safety, courage, accountability, compassion
*We created spaces for reflection, deep relationships, learning, transformation, sharing analyses, critical and creative thinking, fun

THEMES emerging about our vision:

*Relationships
*A concern with interpersonal relationships and compassion
*Concept of creating a new culture and of shared values have resonance and they´re very similar
*The word sustainable, which is important to me as a mother, fun means sustainable to me
*Compassion and empathy
*Reflection, learning, understanding your own power, learning
*Space
*Tools
*Culture
*Beloved community
*Inspire
*Life giving
*Gifts
*Create and build

== Wheel of Power and Privilege ==

All of us hold ways we are oppressed and ways we are privileged. Becoming more aware of those aspects of our identity and how we want to use and not use that knowledge in our work together. The more you’re on the inside, the more you’ll be protected from bumps. The more you’re on the outside of the wheel, the more you get hit with bumps.

Using the “wheel” visual, we paired up to talk about where we fall on the in or outside of the wheel:

*Where do you identify in or out of the wheel?
*What comes up for you?
*What surprises you?

Reflections on this Exercise

*Fluidity of a number of these categories
*Complexity in terms of how it changes depending where you are in terms of physical location, country
*I wasn’t surprised that I was privileged at all, but I didn’t feel that some of the categories were adequate. I’m a citizen, but I consider myself an immigrant. Sometimes you are depressed and feel physically and cognitively impaired and sometimes you don’t.
*There is another category that seems important, which is whether you grew up with or have access to a stable support system or not. Some of the pies might almost be larger to indicate how much the inners and outers conflict and contact each other all the time. Like with gender, I’m always dealing with men and I can’t get away from it. That doesn’t seem the same as English or non-English. With the OJ Simpson trial, everybody was so eager to talk about race but nobody was going to say anything about the gender problem. I concluded that this was because the media is selling to people in their homes, male female couples, and they don’t want to hear about it. They’re always intertwined and they never get addressed. People are phobic about addressing gender.
*There’s something about the outside of the wheel. Being in women’s or queer community whatever that means, I feel there’s something in that I wouldn’t get that feels powerful and wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, so sometimes I don’t know about inside outside.
*We were discussing how much privilege we have, how much we located ourselves on the inside of the wheel and the implications in building beloved community. It means that we have so much work to do in terms of consciousness around how that privilege is playing out and that we need to be constantly reflecting about that and creating space where we can discuss that, be called out on those privileges and not become defensive, but take it as an opportunity to be in process of decolonization of our beings.
*A lot of that is important to think about not only how we identify ourselves in our circle but also how people perceive us. We need to own that and use it in a productive way and not get defensive about it. It’s a learning opportunity.
*I think a lot about audience, who I’m talking to and what they’re prepared to hear. I was talking to a Russian Jewish person for an hour at OB. She said “I don’t like these people,” and by the end she was going to look up the Dream Act. She was wealthy. Knowing where you are on the wheel and where the other person actually is on the wheel and where they think they are. You cannot say to someone by the way, you’re here. That’s complicated, tricky, and fascinating. And where you appear to be on that to people. Whenever you’re having a conversation there are four points going on all at the same time.

== Checking our Ways of Being ==

We reviewed the ways of being and discussed how well we did with them at this meeting. An “oops, ouch” was brought up, we discussed it, and agreed that we have an opportunity, as we are building beloved community, to start speaking up in the moment when an oops, ouch happens rather than waiting until the end of our meeting to bring it up, or not bringing it up at all. We will work towards being more constructive by bringing up ouches in the moment.

We agreed to introduce a new hand signal for the ways of being in the future – time out – so that anyone can call a time out when there is an oops, ouch moment during the meetings and/or when it would be helpful to take a 30 second break. This will allow anyone in the group, not just the facilitators, to call for a 30 second break when it is needed.

== One Word Check Out ==

Learning • Beloved • Appreciative • Impressed • Mm • Grateful • Wow • Community • Continuing • Meh • Beloved • Hopeful • Real • Concerned

Thank you to our facilitators!

Now we have a bit of a north star to work from.

== Next Steps ==

Andrea and Carl will be the facilitators for the next TWO meetings so that we have more continuity in the planning and facilitation of our meetings.

Salma will look for a space for the next meeting.

Potential topics, questions, issues for next meetings:

*What are we moving into? Last time a lot of time was unpacking, debriefing the GA and it hadn´t been planned by facilitators. This meeting tonight was great. There’s so much here to build on. Are we proactive or reactive? I’m mindful that we have some kind of commitment possibly based on what happened at the Tuesday GA with white allies and people of color working group to come back to the occupy camp, to GA.
*I thought we were accountable to the people of color working group and the OB community to facilitate anti oppression work.

Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - December 3, 2011

2011-12-05T00:16:57Z

Jenwillsea:

== Participants ==

Susi, Maureen, Mick, Jen, Bhavin, Susan, Salma, Ester, Meck, Michelle, Clyde, Lisa, Cathy, Jade, Chris

Facilitators: Carl, Andrea

== Start Ups ==

Intro Question: Who are you and how do you identify?

Ways of Being

*Step up step back
*Both/and
*Don’t blame, shame, attack
*Room for disagreement - oops, ouch, what’s up with that
*Can use hand signals
*Use "I" statements speak for yourself
*Active listening - affirmative gestures body language towards speaker, no multitasking
*Progressive stack
*Give 30 seconds for people to think every 20 minutes
*Diversity of structuring meetings to allow for different learning and thinking styles
*No screens, laptops, smart phones

== Concentric Circles Exercise ==

1. What do you love about this moment?

2. What pushes your buttons?

3. What is something people don’t know about you?

4. What are you afraid of?

5. What do you dream of?

== Our Vision ==

Time is like dog years in like occupy. In occupy it’s enough to think out one year to think about the future. The idea for the next exercise is to answer this question in small groups: '''What is our vision of our work? In one year, what are we, the Anti-Oppression Freedom Working Group, proud of having successfully accomplished in Occupy Boston and beyond?'''

Three small groups worked on answering this question in three sentences or less → report outs:

GROUP 1:

#That we still exist as a movement and that our movement is sustainable with enough elasticity to keep us all sane, take care of personal lives model more sustainable life giving movement
#That we facilitated the building of relationships across racial, class, gender and other divides and kept the well being of the most marginalized 99% at the center of our efforts
#We furthered greater consciousness of systemic, interpersonal, internal and cultural barriers that keep us apart and built tools and practices for connecting and for empathizing with each other

GROUP 2:

Beloved Community

*Create a movement that is a welcoming space where people are inspired to understand their own power in community and share their gifts
*Learn values that reflect multigenerational community that lives close to mother earth in a sustainable way (hope this becomes a phrase we use)
*Anti oppression toolbox or resources that can move out of this group towards the movement

GROUP 3:

*We inspired a new culture of liberation, resistance, beloved community, safety, courage, accountability, compassion
*We created spaces for reflection, deep relationships, learning, transformation, sharing analyses, critical and creative thinking, fun

THEMES emerging about our vision:

*Relationships
*A concern with interpersonal relationships and compassion
*Concept of creating a new culture and of shared values have resonance and they´re very similar
*The word sustainable, which is important to me as a mother, fun means sustainable to me
*Compassion and empathy
*Reflection, learning, understanding your own power, learning
*Space
*Tools
*Culture
*Beloved community
*Inspire
*Life giving
*Gifts
*Create and build

== Wheel of Power and Privilege ==

All of us hold ways we are oppressed and ways we are privileged. Becoming more aware of those aspects of our identity and how we want to use and not use that knowledge in our work together. The more you’re on the inside, the more you’ll be protected from bumps. The more you’re on the outside of the wheel, the more you get hit with bumps. Using the “wheel” visual, we paired up to talk about where we fall on the in or outside of the wheel:

*Where do you identify in or out of the wheel?
*What comes up for you?
*What surprises you?

Reflections on this Exercise

*Fluidity of a number of these categories
*Complexity in terms of how it changes depending where you are in terms of physical location, country
*I wasn’t surprised that I was privileged at all, but I didn’t feel that some of the categories were adequate. I’m a citizen, but I consider myself an immigrant. Sometimes you are depressed and feel physically and cognitively impaired and sometimes you don’t.
*There is another category that seems important, which is whether you grew up with or have access to a stable support system or not. Some of the pies might almost be larger to indicate how much the inners and outers conflict and contact each other all the time. Like with gender, I’m always dealing with men and I can’t get away from it. That doesn’t seem the same as English or non-English. With the OJ Simpson trial, everybody was so eager to talk about race but nobody was going to say anything about the gender problem. I concluded that this was because the media is selling to people in their homes, male female couples, and they don’t want to hear about it. They’re always intertwined and they never get addressed. People are phobic about addressing gender.
*There’s something about the outside of the wheel. Being in women’s or queer community whatever that means, I feel there’s something in that I wouldn’t get that feels powerful and wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, so sometimes I don’t know about inside outside.
*We were discussing how much privilege we have, how much we located ourselves on the inside of the wheel and the implications in building beloved community. It means that we have so much work to do in terms of consciousness around how that privilege is playing out and that we need to be constantly reflecting about that and creating space where we can discuss that, be called out on those privileges and not become defensive, but take it as an opportunity to be in process of decolonization of our beings.
*A lot of that is important to think about not only how we identify ourselves in our circle but also how people perceive us. We need to own that and use it in a productive way and not get defensive about it. It’s a learning opportunity.
*I think a lot about audience, who I’m talking to and what they’re prepared to hear. I was talking to a Russian Jewish person for an hour at OB. She said “I don’t like these people,” and by the end she was going to look up the Dream Act. She was wealthy. Knowing where you are on the wheel and where the other person actually is on the wheel and where they think they are. You cannot say to someone by the way, you’re here. That’s complicated, tricky, and fascinating. And where you appear to be on that to people. Whenever you’re having a conversation there are four points going on all at the same time.

== Checking our Ways of Being ==

We reviewed the ways of being and discussed how well we did with them at this meeting. An “oops, ouch” was brought up, we discussed it, and agreed that we have an opportunity, as we are building beloved community, to start speaking up in the moment when an oops, ouch happens rather than waiting until the end of our meeting to bring it up, or not bringing it up at all. We will work towards being more constructive by bringing up ouches in the moment.

We agreed to introduce a new hand signal for the ways of being in the future – time out – so that anyone can call a time out when there is an oops, ouch moment during the meetings and/or when it would be helpful to take a 30 second break. This will allow anyone in the group, not just the facilitators, to call for a 30 second break when it is needed.

== One Word Check Out ==

Learning • Beloved • Appreciative • Impressed • Mm • Grateful • Wow • Community • Continuing • Meh • Beloved • Hopeful • Real • Concerned

Thank you to our facilitators!

Now we have a bit of a north star to work from.

== Next Steps ==

Andrea and Carl will be the facilitators for the next TWO meetings so that we have more continuity in the planning and facilitation of our meetings.

Salma will look for a space for the next meeting.

Potential topics, questions, issues for next meetings:

*What are we moving into? Last time a lot of time was unpacking, debriefing the GA and it hadn´t been planned by facilitators. This meeting tonight was great. There’s so much here to build on. Are we proactive or reactive? I’m mindful that we have some kind of commitment possibly based on what happened at the Tuesday GA with white allies and people of color working group to come back to the occupy camp, to GA.
*I thought we were accountable to the people of color working group and the OB community to facilitate anti oppression work.

Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - December 3, 2011

2011-12-05T00:15:29Z

Jenwillsea:

== Participants ==

Susi, Maureen, Mick, Jen, Bhavin, Susan, Salma, Ester, Meck, Michelle, Clyde, Lisa, Cathy, Jade, Chris

Facilitators: Carl, Andrea

== Start Ups ==

Intro Question: Who are you and how do you identify?

Ways of Being

*Step up step back
*Both/and
*Don’t blame, shame, attack
*Room for disagreement - oops, ouch, what’s up with that
*Can use hand signals
*Use "I" statements speak for yourself
*Active listening - affirmative gestures body language towards speaker, no multitasking
*Progressive stack
*Give 30 seconds for people to think every 20 minutes
*Diversity of structuring meetings to allow for different learning and thinking styles
*No screens, laptops, smart phones

== Concentric Circles Exercise ==

1. What do you love about this moment?

2. What pushes your buttons?

3. What is something people don’t know about you?

4. What are you afraid of?

5. What do you dream of?

== Our Vision ==

Time is like dog years in like occupy. In occupy it’s enough to think out one year to think about the future. The idea for the next exercise is to answer this question in small groups: '''What is our vision of our work? In one year, what are we, the Anti-Oppression Freedom Working Group, proud of having successfully accomplished in Occupy Boston and beyond?'''

Three small groups worked on answering this question in three sentences or less → report outs:

GROUP 1:

#That we still exist as a movement and that our movement is sustainable with enough elasticity to keep us all sane, take care of personal lives model more sustainable life giving movement
#That we facilitated the building of relationships across racial, class, gender and other divides and kept the well being of the most marginalized 99% at the center of our efforts
#We furthered greater consciousness of systemic, interpersonal, internal and cultural barriers that keep us apart and built tools and practices for connecting and for empathizing with each other

GROUP 2:

Beloved Community

*Create a movement that is a welcoming space where people are inspired to understand their own power in community and share their gifts
*Learn values that reflect multigenerational community that lives close to mother earth in a sustainable way (hope this becomes a phrase we use)
*Anti oppression toolbox or resources that can move out of this group towards the movement

GROUP 3:

*We inspired a new culture of liberation, resistance, beloved community, safety, courage, accountability, compassion
*We created spaces for reflection, deep relationships, learning, transformation, sharing analyses, critical and creative thinking, fun

THEMES emerging about our vision:

*Relationships
*A concern with interpersonal relationships and compassion
*Concept of creating a new culture and of shared values have resonance and they´re very similar
*The word sustainable, which is important to me as a mother, fun means sustainable to me
*Compassion and empathy
*Reflection, learning, understanding your own power, learning
*Space
*Tools
*Culture
*Beloved community
*Inspire
*Life giving
*Gifts
*Create and build

== Wheel of Power and Privilege ==

All of us hold ways we are oppressed and ways we are privileged. Becoming more aware of those aspects of our identity and how we want to use and not use that knowledge in our work together. The more you’re on the inside, the more you’ll be protected from bumps. The more you’re on the outside of the wheel, the more you get hit with bumps. Using the “wheel” visual, we paired up to talk about where we fall on the in or outside of the wheel:

*Where do you identify in or out of the wheel?
*What comes up for you?
*What surprises you?

Reflections on this Exercise

*Fluidity of a number of these categories
*Complexity in terms of how it changes depending where you are in terms of physical location, country
*I wasn’t surprised that I was privileged at all, but I didn’t feel that some of the categories were adequate. I’m a citizen, but I consider myself an immigrant. Sometimes you are depressed and feel physically and cognitively impaired and sometimes you don’t.
*There is another category that seems important, which is whether you grew up with or have access to a stable support system or not. Some of the pies might almost be larger to indicate how much the inners and outers conflict and contact each other all the time. Like with gender, I’m always dealing with men and I can’t get away from it. That doesn’t seem the same as English or non-English. With the OJ Simpson trial, everybody was so eager to talk about race but nobody was going to say anything about the gender problem. I concluded that this was because the media is selling to people in their homes, male female couples, and they don’t want to hear about it. They’re always intertwined and they never get addressed. People are phobic about addressing gender.
*There’s something about the outside of the wheel. Being in women’s or queer community whatever that means, I feel there’s something in that I wouldn’t get that feels powerful and wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, so sometimes I don’t know about inside outside.
*We were discussing how much privilege we have, how much we located ourselves on the inside of the wheel and the implications in building beloved community. It means that we have so much work to do in terms of consciousness around how that privilege is playing out and that we need to be constantly reflecting about that and creating space where we can discuss that, be called out on those privileges and not become defensive, but take it as an opportunity to be in process of decolonization of our beings.
*A lot of that is important to think about not only how we identify ourselves in our circle but also how people perceive us. We need to own that and use it in a productive way and not get defensive about it. It’s a learning opportunity.
*I think a lot about audience, who I’m talking to and what they’re prepared to hear. I was talking to a Russian Jewish person for an hour at OB. She said “I don’t like these people,” and by the end she was going to look up the Dream Act. She was wealthy. Knowing where you are on the wheel and where the other person actually is on the wheel and where they think they are. You cannot say to someone by the way, you’re here. That’s complicated, tricky, and fascinating. And where you appear to be on that to people. Whenever you’re having a conversation there are four points going on all at the same time.

== Checking our Ways of Being ==

We reviewed the ways of being and discussed how well we did with them at this meeting. An “oops, ouch” was brought up, we discussed it, and agreed that we have an opportunity, as we are building beloved community, to start speaking up in the moment when an oops, ouch happens rather than waiting until the end of our meeting to bring it up, or not bringing it up at all. We will work towards being more constructive by bringing up ouches in the moment.

We agreed to introduce a new hand signal for the ways of being in the future – time out – so that anyone can call a time out when there is an oops, ouch moment during the meetings and/or when it would be helpful to take a 30 second break. This will allow anyone in the group, not just the facilitators, to call for a 30 second break when it is needed.

== One Word Check Out ==

Learning • Beloved • Appreciative • Impressed • Mm • Grateful • Wow • Community • Continuing • Meh • Beloved • Hopeful • Real • Concerned

Thank you to our facilitators!

Now we have a bit of a north star to work from.

== Next Steps ==

Andrea and Carl will be the facilitators for the next TWO meetings so that we have more continuity in the planning and facilitation of our meetings.

Salma will look for a space for the next meeting.

Potential topics, questions, issues for next meetings:

*What are we moving into? Last time a lot of time was unpacking, debriefing the GA and it hadn´t been planned by facilitators. This meeting tonight was great. There’s so much here to build on. Are we proactive or reactive? I’m mindful that we have some kind of commitment possibly based on what happened at the Tuesday GA with white allies and people of color working group to come back to the occupy camp, to GA.
*I thought we were accountable to the people of color working group and the OB community to facilitate anti oppression work.

WG/Anti-Oppression

2011-12-05T00:00:40Z

Jenwillsea: /* Meetings */

'''''ATTN Working Groups: Please update your pages with mailing list and other contact info.'''''
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A group to discuss what we can do about dominant-culture-privilege and its effects on dynamics at Occupy Boston, having grown out of an outreach meeting about such things, in a largely-though-not-exclusively racial context.

==Proposals==

== Meetings ==
*December 3, 2011: 5:30 pm, Community Change. [[Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - December 3, 2011]]
*November 26, 2011: 5:30pm, Encuentro5. [[Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - November 26, 2011]]
*November 12, 2011: 5pm, Encuentro5. [[Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - November 12, 2011]]
*November 5, 2011: 5pm, Encuentro5. [[Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - November 5, 2011]]
*October 30, 2011: Met at Community Change. [[Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - October 30, 2011]].
*October 23, 2011: Met at Community Church Boston. [[Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - October 23, 2011]].
*October 13, 2011: The first anti-oppression working group meeting was held Thursday, October 13, at 6 PM.
*October 9, 2011: The Outreach committee met with Cynthia Peters to discuss issues that arise while trying to engage with the community at large. Ideas from this meeting generated a new anti-oppression working group. Notes from the meeting can be found here: [[Anti-Oppression Minutes CP Teach-in]].

==Workshops==
* October 16, 2011: Anti-Oppression Workshop held during 7pm GA.
** Agenda: [[Anti-Oppression Workshop Agenda - October 16, 2011]] 
** Notes: [[Anti-Oppression Workshop Notes - October 16, 2011]] 
** Participant comments: [[Anti-Oppression Workshop Participant Feedback - October 16, 2011]]

==Contact==
Google Group: [http://groups.google.com/group/check_your_privilege_ob check_your_privilege_ob]

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link to law enforcement de-escalation tips: [[Safety - Law Enforcement]]
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''Based on: [http://occupyboston.wikispaces.com/Anti-Oppression Anti-Oppression at wikispaces]''

Anti-Oppression Meeting Minutes - December 3, 2011

2011-12-04T23:59:07Z

Jenwillsea: Created page with "Anti Oppression Working Group December 3, 2011 Facilitators: Carl, Andrea Participants: Susi, Maureen, Mick, Jen, Bhavin, Susan, Salma, Ester, Meck, Michelle, Clyde, Lisa, Cathy ..."

Anti Oppression Working Group
December 3, 2011
Facilitators: Carl, Andrea
Participants: Susi, Maureen, Mick, Jen, Bhavin, Susan, Salma, Ester, Meck, Michelle, Clyde, Lisa, Cathy
Intro Question: Who are you and how do you identify?
Ways of Being
• Step up step back
• Both-and try to hold two ideas in your head at the same time
• Don’t blame, shame, attack
• Room for disagreement ‘ oops, ouch, what’s up with that
• Can use hand signals
• Use I statements speak for yourself
• Active listening affirmative gestures body language towards speaker, no multitasking
• Progressive stack
• Give 30 seconds for people to think every 20 minutes
• Diversity of structuring meetings to allow for diff. learning and thinking styles
• No screens, laptops, smart phones
Concentric Circles
1. What do you love about this moment?
2. What pushes your buttons?
3. What is something people don’t know about you?
4. What are you afraid of?
5. What do you dream of?
Our Vision
Time is like dog years in like occupy. In occupy it’s enough to think out one year to think about the future. The idea for the next exercise is to answer this question in small groups:
What is our vision of our work? In one year, what are we, the Anti-Oppression Freedom Working Group, proud of having successfully accomplished in Occupy Boston and beyond?
Three small groups worked on answering this question in three sentences or less → report outs:
GROUP 1:
1. That we still exist as a movement and that our movement is sustainable with enough elasticity to keep us all sane, take care of personal lives model more sustainable life giving movement
2. That we facilitated the building of relationships across racial, class, gender and other divides and kept the well being of the most marginalized 99% at the center of our efforts
3. We furthered greater consciousness of systemic, interpersonal, internal and cultural barriers that keep us apart and built tools and practices for connecting and for empathizing with each other
GROUP 2:
Beloved Community
• Create a movement that is a welcoming space where people are inspired to understand their own power in community and share their gifts
• Learn values that reflect multigenerational community that lives close to mother earth in a sustainable way (hope this becomes a phrase we use)
• Anti oppression toolbox or resources that can move out of this group towards the movement
GROUP 3:
• We inspired a new culture of liberation, resistance, beloved community, safety, courage, accountability, compassion
• We created spaces for reflection, deep relationships, learning, transformation, sharing analyses, critical and creative thinking, fun
THEMES FROM REPORT OUTS:
• Relationships
• A concern with interpersonal relationships and compassion
• Concept of creating a new culture and of shared values have resonance and they´re very similar
• The word sustainable, which is important to me as a mother, fun means sustainable to me
• Compassion and empathy
• Reflection, learning, understanding your own power, learning
• Space
• Tools
• Culture
• Beloved community
• Inspire
• Life giving
• Gifts
• Create and build
Wheel of Power and Privilege
All of us hold ways we are oppressed and ways we are privileged. Becoming more aware of those aspects of our identity and how we want to use and not use that knowledge in our work together. The more you’re on the inside, the more you’ll be protected from bumps. The more you’re on the outside of the wheel, the more you get hit with bumps.
Using the “wheel” visual, we paired up to talk about where we fall on the in or outside of the wheel:
• Where do you identify in or out of the wheel?
• What comes up for you?
• What surprises you?
• Fluidity of a number of these categories
REFLECTIONS from the Exercise:
• Complexity in terms of how it changes depending where you are in terms of physical location, country
• I wasn’t surprised that I was privileged at all, but I didn’t feel that some of the categories were adequate. I’m a citizen, but I consider myself an immigrant. Sometimes you are depressed and feel physically and cognitively impaired and sometimes you don’t.
• There is another category that seems important, which is whether you grew up with or have access to a stable support system or not. Some of the pies might almost be larger to indicate how much the inners and outers conflict and contact each other all the time. Like with gender, I’m always dealing with men and I can’t get away from it. That doesn’t seem the same as English or non-English. With the OJ Simpson trial, everybody was so eager to talk about race but nobody was going to say anything about the gender problem. I concluded that this was because the media is selling to people in their homes, male female couples, and they don’t want to hear about it. They’re always intertwined and they never get addressed. People are phobic about addressing gender.
• There’s something about the outside of the wheel. Being in women’s or queer community whatever that means, I feel there’s something in that I wouldn’t get that feels powerful and wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, so sometimes I don’t know about inside outside.
• We were discussing how much privilege we have, how much we located ourselves on the inside of the wheel and the implications in building beloved community. It means that we have so much work to do in terms of consciousness around how that privilege is playing out and that we need to be constantly reflecting about that and creating space where we can discuss that, be called out on those privileges and not become defensive, but take it as an opportunity to be in process of decolonization of our beings.
• A lot of that is important to think about not only how we identify ourselves in our circle but also how people perceive us. We need to own that and use it in a productive way and not get defensive about it. It’s a learning opportunity.
• I think a lot about audience, who I’m talking to and what they’re prepared to hear. I was talking to a Russian Jewish person for an hour at OB. She said “I don’t like these people,” and by the end she was going to look up the Dream Act. She was wealthy. Knowing where you are on the wheel and where the other person actually is on the wheel and where they think they are. You cannot say to someone by the way, you’re here. That’s complicated, tricky, and fascinating. And where you appear to be on that to people. Whenever you’re having a conversation there are four points going on all at the same time.
Checking our Ways of Being
We reviewed the ways of being and discussed how well we did with them at this meeting.
An “oops, ouch” was brought up, we discussed it, and agreed that we have an opportunity, as we are building beloved community, to start speaking up in the moment when an oops, ouch happens rather than waiting until the end of our meeting to bring it up, or not bringing it up at all. We will work towards being more constructive by bringing up ouches in the moment.
We agreed to introduce a new hand signal for the ways of being in the future – time out – so that anyone can call a time out when there is an oops, ouch moment during the meetings and/or when it would be helpful to take a 30 second break. This will allow anyone in the group, not just the facilitators, to call for a 30 second break when it is needed.
One Word Check Out
• Learning
• Beloved
• Appreciative
• Impressed
• Mm
• Grateful
• Wow
• Community
• Continuing
• Meh
• Beloved
• Hopeful
• Real
• Concerned
Thank you to our facilitators!
Now we have a bit of a north star to work from.
Next Steps
Andrea and Carl will be the facilitators for the next TWO meetings so that we have more continuity in the planning and facilitation of our meetings.
Salma will look for a space for the next meeting.
Potential topics for next meetings:
• What are we moving into? Last time a lot of time was unpacking, debriefing the GA and it hadn´t been planned by facilitators. This meeting tonight was great. There’s so much here to build on. Are we proactive or reactive? I’m mindful that we have some kind of commitment possibly based on what happened at the Tuesday GA with white allies and people of color working group to come back to the occupy camp, to GA.
• I thought we were accountable to the people of color working group and the OB community to facilitate anti oppression work.

Occupy Boston Summit

2011-11-19T23:16:59Z

Jenwillsea:

'''''Watch this space for updated information'''''Attending?  Please let us know so we can plan better by sending RSVP to: [mailto:obsummit@gmail.com obsummit@gmail.com]
 __TOC__

== OBSUmmit Notes ==
upload notes here

==Summit Flyer==
[http://wiki.occupyboston.org/images/a/a3/Occupy_Boston_Summit_flyer.pdf Download the flyer and spread the word!]
[[File:Occupy Boston Summit flyer.jpg|frame|none|Occupy Boston Summit, Nov 19, 2011, 2pm-6pm, Josiah Quincy Elementary School, 885 Washington St, Chinatown]]

==Working Draft Agenda==
'''Occupy Boston World Café Summit'''

Saturday, 19 November 2011, 2:00pm-6:00pm
Quincy Elementary School cafeteria, 885 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts

''Note: Other community members, including families with children, will be present in the school during our event. Please be respectful at all times!''

;Purpose
:The purpose of the summit is to have a community-wide discussion of the challenges and opportunities we face. It is a chance bring together camp residents, working group members, and anyone else who identifies as part of Occupy Boston to share ideas about how to make this movement strong and sustainable. It is an opportunity to harvest the collective wisdom of our OB community and to think creatively about our future.

;Event Hosting team
:Bhavin Patel, Susan Barney, Alex Ingram, Nicole Sullivan, George Lee, Mariama White-Hammond, Maureen White, Angela Giudice, Katie Gradowski, Bil Lewis, Greg Murphy, Susie Husted, Ester Serra Luque, Allison Nevitt,

;Facilitation team
:Andrea Nagel, Melinda Weekes, Cynthia Parker, Jen Willsea, Deborah Gillburg

===What are we talking about?===
*Using a process called World Café, we invite you to a dialogue about these very important questions:
*What is the story of this movement?
*What are the values that we want to live by?
*What do we need now?
*How do we take this to the next level?

[[Summit_Notes]]

==The World Café Process==

The World Café a flexible facilitated process that is aimed at creating collaborative dialogue, sharing mutual knowledge and discovering new opportunities for action. The approach enables dynamic conversations to catalyze a group’s collective intelligence around the questions and issues that matter most to the people in the room. The conversations are held in small groups, around café-style tables, and upon the completion of one conversation round, people move to new table to spread what they are learning. In between the successive rounds of discussion, the large group ‘harvests’ the patterns that arise and the ideas, questions and themes that start to link and connect. The broadness of the questions allows participants to generate the content of the discussion. Folks can voice what's on their hearts and minds throughout the conversations. Please bring your reflections about what has happened with Occupy Boston this week and over the past two months!

''Via http://www.theworldcafe.com/method.html :''
<blockquote>
Drawing on seven integrated design principles, the World Café methodology is a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting large group dialogue. 

World Café can be modified to meet a wide variety of needs. Specifics of context, numbers, purpose, location, and other circumstances are factored into each event's unique invitation, design, and question choice, but the following five components comprise the basic model: 

1) Setting: Create a "special" environment, most often modelled after a café, i.e. small round tables covered with a checkered tablecloth, butcher block paper, colored pens, a vase of flowers, and optional "talking stick" item. There should be four chairs at each table. 

2) Welcome and Introduction: The host begins with a warm welcome and an introduction to the World Café process, setting the context and putting participants at ease. 

3) Small Group Rounds: The process begins with the first of three or more twenty minute rounds of conversation for the small group seated around a table. At the end of the twenty minutes, each member of the group moves to a different new table. They may or may not choose to leave one person as the "table host" for the next round, who welcomes the next group and briefly fills them in on what happened in the previous round. 

4) Questions: each round is prefaced with a question designed for the specific context and desired purpose of the session. The same questions can be used for more than one round, or they can be built upon each other to focus the conversation or guide its direction. 

5) Harvest: After the small groups (and/or in between rounds, as desired) individuals are invited to share insights or other results from their conversations with the rest of the large group. These results are reflected visually in a variety of ways, most often using graphic recorders in the front of the room.
</blockquote>

http://www.theworldcafecommunity.org/video/world-cafe-guidelines

http://www.theworldcafe.com/overview.html

'''Process Guidelines:'''
*Focus on what matters
*Be curious - Listen to really understand
*Step up, step back
*Speak and listen with heart and mind
*Use and link ideas of others
*Make ideas visible - play, scribble, draw on the table covers
*Have FUN!

'''How To Improve Communication:'''
*Be Curious and Open to Learning:Listen to and be open to hearing all points of view. Maintain a attitude of exploration and learning.
Balance Advocacy and Inquiry: Seek to learn and understand as much as you might want to persuade. Conversations are as much about listening as it is about talking.
*Show Respect and Suspend Judgment: Setting judgments aside will enable you to learn from others and contribute to others experiencing being respected and appreciated.
*Seek Alignment rather than Agreement:Alignmentis shared intention, whereas agreement is having a shared belief or opinion.
*Be Purposeful and to the Point:Notice if what you are conveying is or is not “on purpose” to the question at hand. Notice if you are making the same point more than once. Do your best to make your point quickly with honesty and depth.
*Own and Guide the Conversation or Process: Take responsibility for the quality of your participation and the quality of the work conversations by noticing what’s happening and actively support getting yourself and others back “on purpose” when needed.
*Be Excellent to Each other:Share what’s important to you. Speak authentically; from your personal and heart felt experience. Be considerate to others who are doing the same.

==Call for Occupy Boston Summit==
Date: '''November 8, 2011''' 
Subject: '''Call for an Occupy Boston Summit Nov.19'''

'''Hello Occupiers,'''

There have been many conversations in various working groups recently about the challenges facing our Occupy Boston community, especially as winter approaches. There seems to be a general feeling that we are at a critical moment, a moment when we need to ask ourselves some key questions about how to make the Boston branch of the Occupy movement sustainable, so that we can continue to have space to address the widening inequality in our society.

In light of this, many of us have been discussing the idea of gathering our community for an "Occupy Boston Summit" to address some of these key questions about where we are headed. It would not be a GA or a decision making session, but rather a community-wide discussion of the challenges and opportunities we face. It is a chance bring together camp residents, working group members, and anyone else who identifies as part of Occupy Boston to share ideas about how to make this movement strong and sustainable.

This idea has been discussed over the past few days by many people active with Occupy Boston: Mariama White-Hammond, Susie Husted, Alex Ingram, Nicole Sullivan, Noah McKenna, Katie Gradowski, Chris Williams, Carl Williams, Bhavin Patel, Angela Giudice, Allison Nevitt, Greg Murphy, and others in Facilitation and Anti-Oppression. All together, these folks are active with a cross-section of the working groups: Outreach, Media, Women's Caucus, Anti-Oppression, People of Color, Queer/Trans Caucus, Media, Facilitation, Ideas, Direct Action, Community Organizations, Social, Financial Accountability, and Legal. There is broad support for convening a summit as a "meeting of the minds" to harvest the collective wisdom of our OB community and to think creatively about our future.

I have connected with some skilled facilitators from the Interaction Institute for Social Change who are trained in some innovative techniques for helping large groups address challenges and opportunities in a strategic way. They have volunteered to facilitate a summit on Saturday, November 19, from 2-6pm. A couple of us are looking for an indoor space close to Dewey Square that we could use for this gathering.

As I am one of the many people helping to get this ball rolling, please feel free to be in contact with me about it. Any contributions to make this a positive event for our community are welcome. A flyer including the location is coming soon. Please spread the word!

In solidarty 
'''Maureen White'''

''Posted to numerous Occupy Boston Lists, including:'' 
*Outreach WG
*Media WG
*Transparency WG
*Ideas WG
*IT WG
*Community Organizations/Movement Building
*Anti-Oppression WG

==Directions==
Occupy Boston Summit

Saturday, November 19, 2011 
2pm - 6pm

Josiah Quincy Elementary School 
885 Washington Street in Chinatown

15 minute walk from Dewey Square, 
or 11 minute walk from Downtown Crossing Red Line stop, 
or Orange Line to Tufts Med. Ctr.