Diversity and Accessibility Working Group

Minutes of Meeting #7 - Sunday, August 29, 2004, 7:30 p.m.

Present:   Cortez Rainey, Chair; Sarah Littlefeather; Hamish Maclaren; Aba McHardy; Pearl Ubungen; and Martine Remondin.

Cortez introduced Pearl Ubungen as the newest member of the group and stated that the purpose of the meeting was to consider ideas for promoting greater diversity and accessibility in the Shambhala community.

Martine began by talking about the difficulty she has in keeping up with discussion that occurs in English, and said that she was in agreement with much of what Veronica had to say in her email regarding the need to acknowledge that the United States is not the reference point; that North American culture and language is just one of many in the world. 

In that email, which was read later in the meeting by Sarah, Veronica notes that the question in the Center Director Survey that lists "African-American" as a choice is an example of North American bias.  She writes that in her country there are no "black people" or "African-Americans" in the vernacular of its culture—just "Latin Americans," and their ethnic diversity isn’t even mentioned as a choice in the questionnaire.  She suggests that the questionnaire have an open question that allows respondents to list their race/ethnicity. 

In addition, Veronica suggests that greater attention be given to the many Shambhala Centers spreading all over the world, but not with the United States or North American language and culture being the main reference point for that "diversity."   Finally, she suggests that the international staff recognize that the world is bigger than the United States, that it is not the only reference point, and staff should start doing things such as using the months of year, instead of seasons, when sending out information to the whole sangha.

Hamish, Sarah and Aba mentioned many ideas for promoting diversity and accessibility in the Shambhala community, some of which are:

Pearl noted that she recently met with President Reoch and a Naropa University official who expressed an interest in hosting a summit at the university on the topic of diversity for the Shambhala leadership.  She suggested that the Working Group might want to consider that idea as it brainstorms recommendations.

Sarah read Veronica's as well as Dan Hessey's email.  In addition to providing recommendations, Dan's email included comments suggesting that we talk about diversity and accessibility in a way that encourages people to dialogue and work collaboratively with us on these issues.  In response to his comments, there was heated discussion about whether by the using words such as "racism" in our discussions, we are essentially "blaming" individuals for the diversity challenges the community faces.  Also debated was whether directly challenging widely held views about "whiteness" or "disability" and other diversity issues is a tactful way of encouraging sangha members to look critically at how we personally relate to these issues or whether that approach impedes our efforts to dialogue and work collaboratively with the individuals.   

Cortez noted that the intensity of this discussion indicates that these issues touch people very personally and discussion of them within the various Centers will require skilled facilitation.

It was decided that the list of ideas submitted by Working Group members for this meeting would be consolidated; one list with the recommendations for promoting diversity (to be compiled by Pearl) and another list of recommendations for promoting accessibility (to be compiled by Hamish).  We will discuss one of the lists at our next meeting.

There being no further issues to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 9:45 p.m.  The next meeting will be held Sunday, September 12th, 7:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time.

Updated 2004/09/14