TO SOLVE REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT PROBLEMS THOUSANDS OF HOURS WERE SPENT BY CITIZENS IN FOLLOW UP MEETINGS AFTER THE HUGE JULY, 2010 OPEN SPACE GATHERING HELD IN GREENSBORO, NC. WERE THEY A BIG FRIGGIN’ WASTE OF TIME? ...
5 DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY: 5 WAYS TO FIX RING
MANY NEWCOMERS to the Refugee and Immigrant Network of Guilford (RING) attending today’s February 28, 2013 meeting are not aware of its painful history and might
not have been aware of the large expectations generated by the July
2010 event, the reasons leading to the huge gathering, and why today's
meeting seemed all the more pathetic. It is worth recalling that the
dramatic collapse of Lutheran Family Services in 2009, a very sore spot even today, spurred everyone in the faith-based world to action.
At today’s meeting, no board members stood up and spoke passionately for its continued existence. Too many naively think CNNC or a brilliant and paid coordinator will do what the board and the refugee organizations themselves refuse to do — compromise, cooperate and agree to centralized direction. As Stephen Sills, the RING co-coordinator who left in December 2012 explained, the board simply refused to act. Suggestions today to buy more time are prayers for miracles. Superman will not come. The truth will not suddenly and painlessly appear. Omelets will not be made without breaking eggs. No one really thought hard about why refugee and immigrant representation remained stubbornly weak — the powerful implication has been that it is the gentle fault of the newcomers themselves. As it is presently constituted, RING is incapable of fixing itself. Key board members, judging by the persistent views stated in the meeting, are simply not the transformational voices of change and progress we need. It doesn't matter who is coordinator or overseeing RING. (Advice to CNNC: Save yourself the headache.) These folks sabotage progress and prevent change. They've been gumming up the works for three years.
As the meeting ended, Esther Idassi, RING’s remaining co-coordinator, announced her resignation. Tellingly, Esther is a ball of energy, a community organizer, and someone who believes in action.
Message to the RING Board: Lead, follow or get out of the way.
Sarah Ivory suggested refugee organizations withdraw to their old club, GRAC (Guilford Refugee Advisory Council). I agree. I agree. I agree.
In July 2010 and now,
Uncritical boosterism doesn’t help
Let’s put an end to happy talk. It’s nice, but the problems poor and working class people face (most refugee, immigrant and newcomer communities we work with are poor or working class) aren’t solved this way. Examples like this (click here) posted as recently as Feb 28, 2012 simply underscore RING’s inability to go beyond happy talk. It is wrong to entrust the lives of refugees and immigrants to an organization that is inept.
When First Presybyterian wants to solve a problem, they spend $11 million on it. They hire up architects, lawyers, and consultants. When Pius X decides they need more space, they level the whole block. When Moses Cone decides they need more space, they build the North Tower and a new Cancer Center. This town has plenty of money. Even during the Great Recession.
At RING and throughout the Guilford refugee and immigrant charity world, we have promoted a culture that happily calls big meetings, plans all kinds of ridiculous and unobtainable goals, burns up skilled volunteers’ time, counts on malleable university and college students and their community service and work study hours rather than engaging business and political leaders and other adults who know better, keeps elected officials ignorant and unaccountable, and does not address the fundamental problems that refugee and immigrant community and neighborhood leaders have voiced, or that are plain to see for all who choose to see.
1. Change the culture. The status quo represents failure and the current power structure does not work. RING needs talented, able, progressive and transformational voices at the table. Why must RING share the fate of Lutheran Family Services?
RING is not a passive or neutral “communications” network. It must be an active advocacy organization answerable to the local community. North Carolina’s leading refugee resettlement county should be, after so many decades of experience, the leader in the creation of a multicultural, diverse and socially just society, the leader in best practices, the state’s most progressive and successful model of community-building. It should not be known as the place that the national organization of Lutheran Family Services abandoned as a lost cause or the place that calls a rundown 700-square foot pre-school rental its “Welcome Center”.
We risk losing our best up and coming talent by perpetuating this dysfunction and disorder, passing on to and teaching young professionals entering fields related to refugee and immigrant communities (public health, social work, education, etc) and validating what they observe in Guilford and Greensboro as the norm, standard practice, or reflection of intellectual rigor and professional excellence. And we would be fools to believe that among refugee and immigrant communities there are not individuals who are fully aware of more intelligent, more enlightened, and more sensible practices being carried out elsewhere in the US by other communities that know how to honor and respect newcomers. We need the best and the smartest from the American side and our newcomer communities to come forward and solve problems. Let’s inspire and encourage them and get rid of the deadwood.
Changing the stubborn culture that prevails is hard work. Let’s get started now.
2. Put the ‘I’ back into RING.
‘I’ stands for “immigrant”, which in Guilford County means a huge Hispanic community that is under-represented and under-served. And immigrants far outnumber refugees. For this reason having board seats guaranteed to refugee service providers was a gross mistake, a bribe to agencies that didn’t want to change, compromise or give up anything, a miscalculation that refugee agencies were indeed change agents instead of roadblocks to progress. In the meantime, few have been interested in tackling the nuclear hot issue of immigration and by implication, undocumented immigrants, poor working conditions, unlivable wages and social injustice.
Whatever anyone believes about immigration reform, demographics don’t lie. In coming decades, the Hispanic numbers will increase dramatically to nearly 30% of the total US population.
3. Build a structure that fits local refugee and immigrant needs, customs and cultures rather than American desires and power elites’ rules, preferences, prejudices and comfort zones.
Let’s level the playing field. The power disparities are obvious. Saying you have religion does not automatically mitigate class, race or ethnic differences. Guilford and Greensboro have a great habit of starting and stopping the conversation at religion’s door. But there are many ways of starting and keeping conversations going, then expanding them to the point where things get done. There are many tools in the community tool chest, but if we only haul out the faith and religion tool, we’re handicapping ourselves time and again. And when you have only one tool you tend to build the same kind of structure again and again. Examples of other tools? Check out www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns
4. Let refugee and immigrants determine project budgets and control money.
There are many models for this, from grassroots efforts to formal community-based participatory research (CBPR). Locally, Building Stronger Neighborhoods excels in entrusting and empowering everyday folk — including refugees and immigrants — to carry out complicated, enriching, people-centered projects.
Hey, for hundreds of years Southern history has shown (to anyone with an open mind) that black folk had their own ways, their own lives and their own communities built on strong voices and individuals willing to persist and endure in the face of long odds. Let’s respect our collective past and build on it. Those who bewail the lack of refugee and immigrant participation seem unable or unwilling to read and understand our own American, Southern, and Guilford history or to even hear the basso continuo of paternalism and racism no one would tolerate except when applied to refugees and immigrants.
5. Let a refugee- and immigrant-controlled RING choose to contract agencies like Church World Services, New Arrival Institute, etc — or not.
If agencies like these and others are held accountable to refugees and immigrants for the quality of their services, we can expect their performance to improve. Health, housing, police, social services, etc. all need direct feedback. American agencies need pressure to innovate, compromise, make new friends and force uncomfortable changes. Happy talk does not generate the necessary critical stance or appropriate language of accountability. Without pressure and feedback, all agencies have little incentive to change and this is what we observe today.
For example, refugee and immigrant communities abound with talented and skilled individuals. Often newcomers have educational degrees that far exceed the American twenty-somethings who are put in charge. Even newcomer farmers lacking reading and writing skills have more agricultural common sense and knowledge of the natural world than most recent grad suburbanites who are enlisted to help them. Newcomers cannot do everything by themselves, but they are skilled, competent and able partners in community building.
5 DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY: 5 WAYS TO FIX RING
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| Lord of RING |
After the July 2010 gathering, a huge amount of time and energy was spent by volunteer committees working on all kinds of efforts including a big Welcome Center. What become of this particular effort? 516 Simpson St, with its ratty carpet and used furniture. That is our Welcome Center, our RING headquarters, the sum of our Welcome Center efforts. This is how Guilford County, historically North Carolina’s number one county for refugee resettlement, treats refugees. Forget the rhetoric. Today, at the latest RING meeting, gone was all talk about making Greensboro a “welcoming place” for strangers, immigrants, refugees and newcomers. Gone or absent were many significant players who attended the Open Space gathering.A note about the meeting’s agenda. The stated matter was to decide the future of RING. Although the RING Board knew one of its co-coordinators was leaving in December 2012 it was unable to make preparations for his departure. And three months afterward, RING’s leadership is still not settled.
And honestly, given the fact that RING, dominated by the refugee service providers, had voted itself to be nothing more than a light network of information (= announcements), had voted to do away with a coordinator position, had all but given up any centralized control or advocacy role — why should we be surprised that officials and elected representatives did not show up at today’s meeting— to answer one voice of concern in the audience. Why in the world would any politician think that RING mattered, or was an organization with teeth?“RING: Lead, follow or get out of the way.”
Where’s the passion?A note about why RING would vote to make itself useless. If you go back to 2010 when the RING bylaws were put together, every organization insisted it did not want to be held accountable to any other. Every organization wanted to keep its independence —mind you, this was in the depths of the Great Recession — and did not want to give up anything even if it meant for the greater good, even betterment of the refugee and immigrant communities they said they served. From the start, the refugee agencies were against RING. So no surprise, they did little to promote it but just enough to provide the illusion of unity and concerted effort. Belonging to RING for these naysayers is handy when it comes to applying for grants or talking to foundations. Does any of this have anything to do with refugee and immigrant representation on the board? Or the welfare of refugees and immigrants? Of course not.
At today’s meeting, no board members stood up and spoke passionately for its continued existence. Too many naively think CNNC or a brilliant and paid coordinator will do what the board and the refugee organizations themselves refuse to do — compromise, cooperate and agree to centralized direction. As Stephen Sills, the RING co-coordinator who left in December 2012 explained, the board simply refused to act. Suggestions today to buy more time are prayers for miracles. Superman will not come. The truth will not suddenly and painlessly appear. Omelets will not be made without breaking eggs. No one really thought hard about why refugee and immigrant representation remained stubbornly weak — the powerful implication has been that it is the gentle fault of the newcomers themselves. As it is presently constituted, RING is incapable of fixing itself. Key board members, judging by the persistent views stated in the meeting, are simply not the transformational voices of change and progress we need. It doesn't matter who is coordinator or overseeing RING. (Advice to CNNC: Save yourself the headache.) These folks sabotage progress and prevent change. They've been gumming up the works for three years.
As the meeting ended, Esther Idassi, RING’s remaining co-coordinator, announced her resignation. Tellingly, Esther is a ball of energy, a community organizer, and someone who believes in action.
Message to the RING Board: Lead, follow or get out of the way.
Sarah Ivory suggested refugee organizations withdraw to their old club, GRAC (Guilford Refugee Advisory Council). I agree. I agree. I agree.
In July 2010 and now,
• Funeral costs continue to be a depressing, devastating problem for families. Instead of passing the hat each time tragedy strikes, how about if RING led the discussion. Com’on, we all saw the recent memo from ASC, and we all know of past emails that repeated the same sad stories.The difference between then and now? In July 2010 we talked about these topics.
• Immigrant documentation issues remain challenging and urgent. RING is dominated by refugee issues because few want to go near the nuclear reactor hot issues of undocumented immigrants. So what about the ‘I’ in RING? Immigrants far outnumber refugees in Guilford.
• Housing problems abound. Ever see the crappy housing refugees live in? Shouldn’t RING be out there, battling on behalf of clients, advocating as a strong and united voice?
• The same transportation issues then are being brought up in meeting after meeting today.
Uncritical boosterism doesn’t help
Let’s put an end to happy talk. It’s nice, but the problems poor and working class people face (most refugee, immigrant and newcomer communities we work with are poor or working class) aren’t solved this way. Examples like this (click here) posted as recently as Feb 28, 2012 simply underscore RING’s inability to go beyond happy talk. It is wrong to entrust the lives of refugees and immigrants to an organization that is inept.
When First Presybyterian wants to solve a problem, they spend $11 million on it. They hire up architects, lawyers, and consultants. When Pius X decides they need more space, they level the whole block. When Moses Cone decides they need more space, they build the North Tower and a new Cancer Center. This town has plenty of money. Even during the Great Recession.
At RING and throughout the Guilford refugee and immigrant charity world, we have promoted a culture that happily calls big meetings, plans all kinds of ridiculous and unobtainable goals, burns up skilled volunteers’ time, counts on malleable university and college students and their community service and work study hours rather than engaging business and political leaders and other adults who know better, keeps elected officials ignorant and unaccountable, and does not address the fundamental problems that refugee and immigrant community and neighborhood leaders have voiced, or that are plain to see for all who choose to see.
___________________________________________________
5 Ways to Fix RING
RING is not a passive or neutral “communications” network. It must be an active advocacy organization answerable to the local community. North Carolina’s leading refugee resettlement county should be, after so many decades of experience, the leader in the creation of a multicultural, diverse and socially just society, the leader in best practices, the state’s most progressive and successful model of community-building. It should not be known as the place that the national organization of Lutheran Family Services abandoned as a lost cause or the place that calls a rundown 700-square foot pre-school rental its “Welcome Center”.
We risk losing our best up and coming talent by perpetuating this dysfunction and disorder, passing on to and teaching young professionals entering fields related to refugee and immigrant communities (public health, social work, education, etc) and validating what they observe in Guilford and Greensboro as the norm, standard practice, or reflection of intellectual rigor and professional excellence. And we would be fools to believe that among refugee and immigrant communities there are not individuals who are fully aware of more intelligent, more enlightened, and more sensible practices being carried out elsewhere in the US by other communities that know how to honor and respect newcomers. We need the best and the smartest from the American side and our newcomer communities to come forward and solve problems. Let’s inspire and encourage them and get rid of the deadwood.
Changing the stubborn culture that prevails is hard work. Let’s get started now.
2. Put the ‘I’ back into RING.
‘I’ stands for “immigrant”, which in Guilford County means a huge Hispanic community that is under-represented and under-served. And immigrants far outnumber refugees. For this reason having board seats guaranteed to refugee service providers was a gross mistake, a bribe to agencies that didn’t want to change, compromise or give up anything, a miscalculation that refugee agencies were indeed change agents instead of roadblocks to progress. In the meantime, few have been interested in tackling the nuclear hot issue of immigration and by implication, undocumented immigrants, poor working conditions, unlivable wages and social injustice.
Whatever anyone believes about immigration reform, demographics don’t lie. In coming decades, the Hispanic numbers will increase dramatically to nearly 30% of the total US population.
3. Build a structure that fits local refugee and immigrant needs, customs and cultures rather than American desires and power elites’ rules, preferences, prejudices and comfort zones.
Let’s level the playing field. The power disparities are obvious. Saying you have religion does not automatically mitigate class, race or ethnic differences. Guilford and Greensboro have a great habit of starting and stopping the conversation at religion’s door. But there are many ways of starting and keeping conversations going, then expanding them to the point where things get done. There are many tools in the community tool chest, but if we only haul out the faith and religion tool, we’re handicapping ourselves time and again. And when you have only one tool you tend to build the same kind of structure again and again. Examples of other tools? Check out www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns
4. Let refugee and immigrants determine project budgets and control money.
There are many models for this, from grassroots efforts to formal community-based participatory research (CBPR). Locally, Building Stronger Neighborhoods excels in entrusting and empowering everyday folk — including refugees and immigrants — to carry out complicated, enriching, people-centered projects.
Hey, for hundreds of years Southern history has shown (to anyone with an open mind) that black folk had their own ways, their own lives and their own communities built on strong voices and individuals willing to persist and endure in the face of long odds. Let’s respect our collective past and build on it. Those who bewail the lack of refugee and immigrant participation seem unable or unwilling to read and understand our own American, Southern, and Guilford history or to even hear the basso continuo of paternalism and racism no one would tolerate except when applied to refugees and immigrants.
5. Let a refugee- and immigrant-controlled RING choose to contract agencies like Church World Services, New Arrival Institute, etc — or not.
If agencies like these and others are held accountable to refugees and immigrants for the quality of their services, we can expect their performance to improve. Health, housing, police, social services, etc. all need direct feedback. American agencies need pressure to innovate, compromise, make new friends and force uncomfortable changes. Happy talk does not generate the necessary critical stance or appropriate language of accountability. Without pressure and feedback, all agencies have little incentive to change and this is what we observe today.
For example, refugee and immigrant communities abound with talented and skilled individuals. Often newcomers have educational degrees that far exceed the American twenty-somethings who are put in charge. Even newcomer farmers lacking reading and writing skills have more agricultural common sense and knowledge of the natural world than most recent grad suburbanites who are enlisted to help them. Newcomers cannot do everything by themselves, but they are skilled, competent and able partners in community building.
Council of Cultures is not a model, but soccer is
Sarah Ivory, besides floating the idea of refugee service providers hightailing it back to GRAC (Guilford Refugee Advisory Council), suggested that refugees and immigrants could apartheid themselves in the Council of Cultures. Created at FaithAction, C of C rapidly generated the Triad International Soccer League (TISL), which then gathered momentum because it reflected real community needs and interests. Refugees and immigrants ran the show and created a virtually independent organization. C of C withered while soccer grew. Rather than build on this effort of refugee and immigrant independence, more time and energy was spent pondering why C of C was not attracting community interest. Conclusion: Whether it's RING or Council of Cultures, if board participation is just about talk then refugee and immigrant members leave.
