BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 6: BUILDING MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE AS PERSONAL AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
BY MARK HICKS
© Copyright 2012 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 11:45:11 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
. . . For all the significant identities that constitute each of us, there is a personal essence that defines who we are, a singular soul that is hidden deep within beyond the layers of identity that protect it. When we make initial contact with each other, we only see the outside of that soul at first. But only through sustained communication and authentic relationships can we begin to penetrate the layers of social identity to view and enjoy the singular soul within. — Julio Noboa, contemporary educator and author, member of the Latino/Latina Unitarian Universalist Networking Association
This workshop introduces the concept of "multicultural competence." Participants will consider the kinds of knowledge and skills that individuals, communities, and groups must learn and practice in order to build healthy, accountable relationships with communities of color and other racially and ethnically marginalized groups.
The workshop also presents stories from Unitarian Universalism that offer models for multicultural competence as personal practice. In particular, it presents an incident that happened at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas in 2005 as a teachable moment for transforming our Unitarian Universalist communities. Because the event generated feelings of pain and loss, participants with first-hand knowledge or direct experience may harbor feelings of anxiety, hurt, or anger. Encourage participants to use the tools and knowledge they are gaining in these workshops to identify lessons they can draw from their experiences to help move Unitarian Universalism and their own communities toward Beloved Community [Note: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned a Beloved Community of love and justice, where the races would be reconciled and the deep and terrible wounds of racism would finally be healed.]
Before leading this workshop, review the accessibility guidelines in the program Introduction under Integrating All Participants.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 25 |
Activity 1: Multicultural Competence | 20 |
Activity 2: Multicultural Competence in Action | 30 |
Activity 3: The Fort Worth Incident | 40 |
Closing | 5 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Consider the definition of "multicultural competence" and the characteristics of a person with strong cultural competence. Consider your own life experiences, recalling times when you gained important knowledge about people whose race, ethnicity, generation, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, or some other aspect of their culture is different from yours. How has learning to navigate across cultural differences enriched your life? In your current situation, how do you apply what you have learned?
WORKSHOP PLAN
OPENING (25 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Light the chalice and share these words from Rev. Fred Small, Senior Minister of First Parish Cambridge (Massachusetts) Unitarian Universalist:
Let's stop wishing for Beloved Community and start dreaming it, planning it, seeing it, living it, until we wake up one astonishing blessed morning to find the dream come true.
Invite the reflection groups which met as part of Workshop 5, Activity 3, to post and read aloud their newsprint lists of things they want others to know. Pause for a few moments after each list to allow participants time to reflect. Ask them to simply take in what has been written and refrain from offering comments or questions.
Read the story "Russell" aloud. Ask participants to consider their own "human heart" and how it is changing and growing. Invite each person, in turn, to check in. Say, in these words or your own:
I invite you to share one insight or understanding that you have gained about race, identity, and privilege. To make sure everyone has a turn to speak, I'm going to ask you to limit your speaking to one minute. I will pass the watch to help you keep track of your speaking time.
Note: If you do not have newsprint lists from the small groups to share, allow each participant two minutes to share a thought or insight about their own heart in response to the story.
ACTIVITY 1: MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute the handout and invite participants to read it along with you. Read the definition aloud, but do not spend a great deal of time discussing it. Move quickly to the characteristics of a person who displays multicultural competence. Read the characteristics one at a time, inviting clarification questions after each. For each characteristic, provide an example from your experience or invite participants to volunteer an example from theirs.
Close the discussion by inviting participants to consider this question:
ACTIVITY 2: MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE IN ACTION (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain that participants will hear two stories written by and about young adult Unitarian Universalists reflecting on antiracism, anti-oppression, and multiculturalism as spiritual and personal practices. Distribute both stories. Read each story aloud or ask a volunteer to do so. Invite participants to offer brief comments or reflections after each.
Say:
Although these two young adult Unitarian Universalists have different racial identities, there are similarities in how they express their commitment to their faith. What similarities do you hear in the two stories? What differences?
Allow about five minutes for discussion.
Distribute Handout 2. Invite participants to make notes on the handout about multicultural competence as demonstrated by the story's authors. Allow another five minutes for participants to complete their handouts.
Ask participants to turn to another person and share their observations.
ACTIVITY 3: THE FORT WORTH INCIDENT (40 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 3. Invite participants to read the first two sections, stopping at the Recommendations. Ask participants if they have any prior knowledge of the incident described. Invite any comments and feedback on the story.
Ask:
Encourage participants to use Handout 2 as a lens to help examine the issues and to observe how multicultural competence—and the lack of it—is reflected in the way the situations developed in Fort Worth. Record key points of the discussion on newsprint. Allow about 20 minutes for this discussion.
Note that the Special Review Commission report includes a number of learnings and recommendations for moving forward. Invite participants to read that section of the handout.
Ask:
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Taking It Home. Invite participants to do the suggested activities before the next meeting.
Offer Leader Resource 1 as a closing, and extinguish the chalice.
Including All Participants
Prepare a large-print version of Taking It Home for participants who may be visually impaired.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Take a few moments right after the workshop to check in with each other. Ask yourselves:
TAKING IT HOME
. . . For all the significant identities that constitute each of us, there is a personal essence that defines who we are, a singular soul that is hidden deep within beyond the layers of identity that protect it. When we make initial contact with each other, we only see the outside of that soul at first. But only through sustained communication and authentic relationships can we begin to penetrate the layers of social identity to view and enjoy the singular soul within. — Julio Noboa, contemporary educator and author, member of the Latino/Latina Unitarian Universalist Networking Association
What are you curious about? What practical things can you do to develop your personal cultural awareness of groups or people who are unlike you? Make a plan and then journal about your intentions, or find a trusted conversation partner to help you be accountable, over time.
BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT: WORKSHOP 6:
STORY: FRAGMENTS AND FRONT PORCHES
By Elizabeth Buffington Nguyen, Ministerial Intern, First Parish Cambridge (Massachusetts) Unitarian Universalist.
When I was 24, my father gave me a new name. I was learning Vietnamese in graduate school. The professor required all students who only had an English name to ask their parents to give them a Vietnamese name. My father chose Hien, meaning "gentle."
As a teenager I had yearned to have a Vietnamese name—all of my cousins had one. To me, not having a Vietnamese name was just another way that I was not whole, not authentically Asian, not Vietnamese enough, not worthy of my own family. I was, in theologian Rita Nakashima Brock's words, restless in my longing to belong. Years later, when my father named me as Hien, I didn't feel the simple relief of belonging that I had so craved. Instead I found something more sacred, something expansive, fierce, complex and true: I was born Elizabeth and I am also Hien; I am white and of color, American and Vietnamese.
Anti-oppression and antiracism work for me has always begun with my own identity. It has been the work to excavate my mind from the silt of internalized racism and the oppression of dominant culture. It has also begun with my own spirit, embracing both my yearning for wholeness and my love of this fragmented, multiple identity. In my Unitarian Universalist community faith I find companions, theology, and rituals that honor the fragments of my identities, my halves, my multi, my hyphenation, my two names.
This work is not just about courageously loving myself—it is also about courageously loving my Unitarian Universalist kin as we try to live the Beloved Community of Dr. King's dream. It is about talking with white people about racism, about supporting people of color, Latino and Latina, and multiracial within Unitarian Universalism, about "isms" and power and answering the call of love. It is about having hard conversations with ministers who understand race very differently than I do, creating worship that is multicultural and alive, that resists tokenism and essentializing. It is about shifting resources and facilitating workshops, about sharing experiences of racism and asking questions, about embracing conflict with song and prayer. It is about encountering my own limits, as an ally and an antiracist person of faith. About messing up, and failing, and about asking for forgiveness and beginning again in love.
And it is about celebration—about moments of connection across great difference. Buddhist writer Jack Kornfield writes that in meditation:
Instead of clinging to an inflated, superhuman view of perfection, we learn to allow ourselves the space of kindness. There is a beauty in the ordinary. We invite the heart to sit on the front porch and experience from a place of rest the inevitable comings and goings of emotions and events, the struggles and successes of the world.
I love this image for thinking not just about meditation, but also for talking about race across difference.
When I am in conversation with someone who I think is very different from me, I try to let go of perfection and find that space of kindness. I invite my heart out onto the front porch.
BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT: WORKSHOP 6:
STORY: RUSSELL
By Rev. Jose Ballester, UUA Board Liaison, Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee.
Russell was an amateur geologist, paleontologist, and professional teacher. He took his young charges on an overnight field trip. While sitting around the campfire, he brought out a bag, took out five rocks, and held up a round, grapefruit-size rock. "This rock," he began explaining, "looks ordinary on the outside. But inside there is hidden beauty."
He opened the two halves of the rock to reveal all the purple crystals inside. He then picked up another rock of equal size and opened it to reveal a fossil inside. "This is the fossil of a trilobite," Russell explained. "It was a sea creature that lived millions of years ago. All that remains is this impression of him. Minerals seeped into the mud that held his body, and this is all that remains."
Next, he picked up something that looked like a small, wooden object and said, "This branch is another fossil that looks like wood, but it really is a rock. And as we know, wood burns, but not rocks."
Russell threw the rock that looked like a branch into the fire; it did nothing. He then took out a flat, palm-sized rock and said, "Now watch closely." He threw the flat rock into the fire, and it soon began burning. "That rock is called 'oil shale' and has been used for fuel for hundreds of years."
He then began our lesson in earnest. "People can be as complex as these rocks. Too often all you see is a dull, rough exterior and never suspect there is beauty inside in the form of a crystal or a fossil. Sometimes people look like something else and behave in unexpected ways. And here is the true lesson from the rocks."
He picked up a round, black stone from a water-filled container.
"I found this stone earlier today in the stream. As you can see, the water has rounded the rock, and the minerals have turned it black." He then hit the stone with a hammer and it broke in two. "You can also see that the outside is still wet, and the water has made it round and dark, but the inside is still dry and gray. A human heart—like a stone—can be shaped by outside forces, but its inside remains unchanged. Over time, this stone will be further reduced, perhaps becoming a grain of sand that will find its way into an oyster and become a pearl. You never know what a human heart will become over time, so never lose hope in its potential."
BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT: WORKSHOP 6:
STORY: SEEK JUSTICE, LOVE KINDNESS, WALK HUMBLY
By Ellen Zemlin, a White Unitarian Universalist.
For me, there's never really been a question about whether my Unitarian Universalism and my commitment to antiracism, anti-oppression, and multiculturalism are related. My introduction to justice work came sitting in a circle on the floor at youth conferences, in late-night conversations with fellow YRUUers [Young Religious Unitarian Universalists], and at Sunday School. Concepts like "collective liberation" and "inherent worth and dignity" have always walked hand in hand. The political isn't just personal—it's spiritual.
I was brought up UU and knew the Seven Principles from an early age. But it wasn't until antiracism became a large part of my life that I began to realize what the Principles really meant, and how radical a belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person really is. Through this, my antiracist and anti-oppressive practice and my spiritual practice became more and more tightly intertwined. I began organizing church workshops and conferences focused on social justice. I served on denominational committees about cultural misappropriation and cross-cultural engagement. I built strong and lasting relationships with other UUs based on our common commitments. Most importantly, though, I kept on learning and growing as a person of faith and as an activist.
Through this fusion of religious community and consciousness-raising group, I learned about privilege and power, about marginality and oppression, and about the institutions and structures within our society that are built on and enable the perpetuation of these realities. But I learned more than that. I learned about radically inclusive and intentionally anti-oppressive spaces. I learned how to make mistakes—and how to be forgiven. I learned that the relationships we form with others in pursuit of liberation are the building blocks for a more just world. I learned that standing in solidarity with others is often more powerful than having others stand in solidarity with you.
Sometimes people worry that the growing emphasis on antiracism, anti-oppression, and multiculturalism within our faith is beginning to eclipse the more traditionally religious aspects of it. On the contrary, I see this as a shift toward more radical and revolutionary forms of spiritual sustenance. Even though I don't attend church regularly, I find spiritual fulfillment in working together with UUs and other people of faith to build a better world. I've stayed UU because I feel called to work for a more just society, and because I feel that my denomination is doing important work toward that.
While preparing for volunteer service after college, I kept encountering a verse from the Old Testament: What does the Lord require of you but to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8) The theist language isn't particularly meaningful for me, but the sentiment is. What does my commitment to building radical, just, and beloved community require of me but to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly? At this point, only these things and nothing more.
BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT: WORKSHOP 6:
HANDOUT 1: MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE
The definition is originally from Donald B. Pope-Davis, A. L. Reynolds, J. G. Dings, and T. M. Ottavi, in "Multicultural Competencies of Doctoral Interns at University Counseling Centers: An Exploratory Investigation," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol. 25, pages 466—470 (1994). Modifications for the UUA were made by Paula Cole Jones to include multicultural competence in institutional change. The definition was further modified by the UUA Journey to Wholeness Transformation Committee on March 14, 2008, and published in Appendix A of the report Snapshots on the Journey: Assessing Cultural Competence in Ministerial Formation.
DEFINITION
"Cultural competence" is an appreciation of and sensitivity to the history, current needs, strengths, and resources of communities and individuals who historically have been underserved and underrepresented in our Association. Specifically, this entails:
A person who displays multicultural competence:
BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT: WORKSHOP 6:
HANDOUT 2: MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE WORKSHEET
Competency | Evidence |
can listen and behave without imposing their own values and assumptions on others | |
carries an attitude of respect when approaching people of different cultures, which entails engagement in a process of self-reflection and self-critique | |
has the ability to move beyond their own biases | |
can maintain a communication style that is not based on being argumentative and competitive; can reach shared outcomes without manipulating or wearing down others with compelling evidence | |
is curious about the other person and seeks solutions that work across shared interests |
|
is comfortable asking questions when uncertain or unclear about the assumptions of an individual or group | |
intentionally seeks to see, hear, and understand the cultural "other" | |
BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT: WORKSHOP 6:
HANDOUT 3: THE FORT WORTH INCIDENT
Introduction
Shortly after the 2005 General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas, a Special Review Commission was appointed by the UUA Board and Administration to investigate "reports of distressing incidents regarding UU youth of color." In March 2006 the commission submitted a 17-page report, which opens as follows:
During the Closing Ceremony of 2005 General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas, three youth entered the balcony area, moving about restlessly. Meeting an usher, who smiled and handed one a program, the youth threw it on the floor, walked on to another usher, asked for a program, threw it down, walked on to another usher, and did so again. To some persons—particularly adults—the youth appeared to be behaving with provocative disrespect. The youth understood their behavior differently. They were doing street theater, acting out the experience of how they had felt treated as youth, specifically as UU youth of color, at times accepted, even welcomed, and at other times thrown away like pieces of paper. "It was an act of protest, skillfully put together and humbly done, but it was a mean message; it was an evil thing to do to the ushers," one of them told us. Their enactment was a revelation of days, indeed years, of raw pain and distress, and a call to awareness that had precious little chance of being understood by most of those who would see it.
The report included a timeline of events, reconstructed from more than 80 interviews. The UU World story about the report stated:
. . . the timeline reports "miscommunications and misunderstandings" at a Leadership Development Conference in Dallas for youth of color the week preceding the General Assembly; a failure to reserve hotels for youth near the convention center; incidents in which GA participants mistook UU youth of color for hotel staff and others in which hotel staff ignored the needs of youth of color; a conflicted GA workshop on transracial adoption; harassment by Fort Worth police; and a confrontation between three youth of color and a white UU minister at the assembly's Closing Ceremony, leading to cancellation of an intergenerational dance scheduled later that night.
The report concluded with "The Elevator Story," which the Commission describes as a metaphor for the common understanding they reached as they did their work:
Each of us brings into every situation a personal body of experience that affects the nature of our interactions.
Here is the elevator story from the Final Report of the Special Review Commission (at www.uua.org/documents/src/060322_finalreport.pdf), followed by the Commission's recommendations.
The Elevator Story: A Metaphor
In this true story, a woman of African descent recalls riding in a crowded elevator with several emotionally exhausted youth and young adults of color on the final night of General Assembly. Two of the youth had just been involved in a near-altercation with a white female minister outside of the Closing Ceremony. The elevator stopped, and as the doors opened, the woman heard a white woman yelling at the youth of color in the elevator, "If you people really want to be antiracist, you will get off the elevator now and allow this poor man to get on." The woman of African descent peered outside the doors and observed that the man in question was an older, black hotel employee with a food cart. When she looked at him, she read shame and embarrassment on his face. Meanwhile, the white woman had boarded the elevator. The woman of African descent remembers a flood of emotion. "In his eyes," she says, "I saw me." And she wondered, "What was I doing with rude, insensitive white people so far removed from his world, my roots?" This episode reminded her of many of the negative, race-based encounters she'd experienced within the UU community over the past 15 years. She questioned why she was a part of this faith community, but "I stayed on that elevator. I stood my ground. . . . I belonged on that elevator, too." Soon after she learned that the white woman was a UU minister, which increased her discomfort.
The white UU minister recounts the same event. She had heard only that the dance had been canceled due to incidents of racism and the youth community feeling "broken." Leaving the ballroom, she came upon an older, black hotel employee waiting at the elevator doors with a food service cart. An elevator arrived and a dozen YRUU youth hurried past him to fill it. This happened twice as she watched. The man told her that he'd been waiting for some time as this scenario repeated itself. The third time the elevator arrived and youth rushed to enter, she interrupted to ask if they would step out and let the man in. She recalls that the youth "were screaming at me that their world was broken."
She told them that if they were concerned about racism, they would care about this man. She reminded them that everyone at GA was privileged and urged them to look after the hotel staff. After boarding the elevator, she and the youth continued to dialogue until an adult woman of color said to her, "You need to stop now and go with your white community and talk about this."
This incident left her shaken. She was accustomed to speaking out for the underdog, she said. Although she too had attended the Closing Ceremony, "I had no clue what had happened with the youth or what I had gotten into." She described this incident as "one of the more unpleasant experiences in my entire life."
The story of the elevator demonstrates the vastly different lenses through which two women viewed the same event. While race played a factor, so had encounters immediately preceding this one and all the experiences associated with being an adult, a parent, a woman, a person of color, a white person, a person of authority, and so on. The Commission views the elevator story as a metaphor for many of the stories we were privy to during this investigation. It is our conclusion that a vital part of the effort to become a more whole and loving community involves listening to and sharing our honest perspectives—not to determine who is "right" and who is "wrong" but to identify where we have attempted to communicate with one another and simply failed. The good news is that we are reaching out and striving to connect. Let us be kind to each other and try again—and again, and again. Ours is a continuing story.
Recommendations for Our Future as a Community of Faith
So, what have we learned?
The meta-solution to all of these issues, clearly, is to live our UU Principles fully in relationship with each other. Toward that end, we would re-envision GA as a prime venue to practice our Principles and call forth and commit GA delegates and participants of all ages to undertake this charge conscientiously. We offer these recommendations with that vision foremost in mind.
The Special Review Commission recommends the following:
BUILDING THE WORLD WE DREAM ABOUT: WORKSHOP 6:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE JOURNEY
By Pat Schneider, from Another River: New and Selected Poems (Amherst Writers and Artists Press, 2005). Used with permission.
The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.
Don't grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysm, ordinary days.
It is easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment. Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter. Listen for it
as if it were the first clear tone
in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.
And, if all that fails,
wash your own dishes. Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.
FIND OUT MORE
The UUA Multicultural Growth & Witness staff group offers resources, curricula, trainings, and tools to help Unitarian Universalist congregations and leaders engage in the work of antiracism, antioppression, and multiculturalism. Visit www.uua.org/multicultural (at www.uua.org/multicultural) or email multicultural@uua.org (at mailto:multicultural@uua.org) to learn more.