Workgroup Notes: ATD and Social Justice

How Can We Strengthen The Social Justice Theme of the Symposium?

Brook Jordan and Margaret Love

Creating an experiential exercise for participants to face subjugation and subordination.

• Draw upon such people as Sharif Abdullah and others for exercise suggestions.

• Possible ideas could include: Examining world inequality by having people draw card’s which would place them in a region or country in the world. According to each region or country at lunch people would be served a certain amount of food depending on the poverty level. After the exercise is over, an open dialogue could be set up so that people could talk about their experience at eating at the table with the tablecloth and abundance of food or on the ground with a bowl of rice. It is important to choose issues that are woven throughout all three areas we are examining.

Examine the history of Colonialism. This could include how systems of injustice/inequality came to be? Tell the story of oppression and the stories of people who took a stand for social justice.

Incorporate the Matrix of domination/interlocking systems.

• Gender, sexual orientation, race, class, citizenship.

• Could include a few statistics such as 1 out of every 3 women world wide are sexually assaulted/abused.

• Could draw from the Hunger project for statistics as well as David Korten’s material on racism and how that ties into economic and political control.

Should there be more stories then statistics to get a strong message across? We need statistics to back up our stories but how many and which ones make a real impact?

We can strengthen the social justice theme by showing clearer links between the three areas of environmental sustainability, spiritual fulfillment and social justice.

• Could add Paul Hawken's quote about environmentalists getting on the social justice bus because in fact there is only one bus.

• Facilitators could bring in examples of local issues to get a stronger message across to their surrounding communities.

How radical are we willing to go? How much discomfort are we willing to create?

How do we shift power and privilege from being more and more concentrated in the hands of so few to many?

Should there be an advanced symposium for people who are ready and willing to delve deeper into questions concerning environmental sustainability, spiritual fulfillment and social justice?

Create a stronger emphasis on unexamined assumptions.

• White supremacy, which is a concept of whiteness, created by the white, elite.

• ‘I deserve it’=Entitlement

Emerging the dream portion needs examples such as the writing of the new constitution in Ecuador or the Hunger Project.

Adopt to our audiences but don’t treat the audience as homogenous. Always remember to incorporate/account for the diversity in the audience.

Do our homework and get educated about all three areas of inquiry.

Set up a better book list on line.