Truth. Racial Healing. Transformation.
For some, the nation’s deep need for action behind those words may be a recent revelation.
For teams supported by the
Kalamazoo Community Foundation (KZCF), that work will have been ongoing for two years this fall.
Inspired by truth and reconciliation processes that have taken place around the world, Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation is an initiative that addresses issues ranging from cultural injustices to more tangible changes in institutions and policies.
It is intended to root out the “deeply embedded belief in a hierarchy of human value that sustains racism, to recognize the history and continued trauma resulting from that belief, and to create policy solutions that will sustain healing and structural change.”
Kalamazoo is one of 14 sites hosting this work and more than 150 individuals and organizations have been engaged locally, according to the KZCF website.
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Sholanna Lewis, Director-Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation
In 2017, KZCF received $865,000 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a portion of which was to establish an endowment fund for the ongoing
TRHT work for social justice and to fund transformational changes in the community in the areas of narrative change, racial healing, separation, law, and the economy.
They set about bringing together those who were already doing such work and moving forward in areas where they found work needed to be done. Throughout, building relationships and trust has been an ongoing strategy, says Sholanna Lewis, Director of the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation project hosted by the Kalamazoo Community Foundation.
Particularly relevant to the conversations taking place in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer and demands for police reforms nationally and locally is the work TRHT has done in close cooperation with the Police Academy at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
Three times TRHT has partnered with the program to offer cadets and community members healing circles and anti-racist education as part of a week-long diversity, education, and inclusion series put together by Victor Ledbetter, Director of Law Enforcement Training at KVCC.
“We plan to continue to do that as a part of their curriculum in the future,” Lewis says. “We've had a huge community response to that. Unfortunately, currently, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety does not send their cadets to KVCC. In recent years, they stopped. And so we're hoping that they will start to send them again. But we do work with cadets that are going to other police agencies” across Kalamazoo County.
The Law Design team is exploring what further work needs to be done considering the call for large scale change that is taking place.
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“Given this moment of mass demonstrations and large scale change I think it’s really important to say that our Law Design team along with the rest of our partners are exploring what is the work we should be taking on and what support roles should we be playing?” Lewis says.
Of particular concern are suspicious fires that have burned in Kalamazoo’s Northside and Edison neighborhoods.
“We're very concerned about the fires that have happened in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods. And they feel very targeted,” Lewis says. “They feel very scary, quite frankly.
“Really, these are questions that we grapple with and want to have discussions with the community about -- what are the ways that we can rethink the way we operate as a community to make sure everybody's safe and make sure that we are understanding how our values are at play — so we understand who are we protecting and why?”
She goes on to say that “there's the sentiment that the property and lives of people on the Northside and Edison were not being protected. And so this is where we want to really step in. The idea of the hierarchy of human value that sustains racism is the underpinning of the TRHT framework, and really our work is understanding how those priorities and hierarchies are playing out in our community on a day-to-day basis, and what we can do to correct that, large and small.
“So we're definitely in the space of exploring, supporting community members who want to take leadership and want to investigate and call out and propose changes right now. It's definitely an important moment for us to lean into the body of work and make sure that we're connecting to different community members around this.”
When asked if the fires could have been set to instigate a response from the Black community, Lewis indicates it should be investigated.
“If you look throughout history at civil rights movements and you look at the resistance to the civil rights movement, that's where you see White nationalists and White hate groups forming and committing acts of domestic terror against the Black and Brown communities. It's happened over and over throughout our history: the burning of churches, the bombing of churches, the burning of crosses, all these things, they're pretty consistent, historically.
“We don't have any evidence for or against that, but I think it definitely needs to be investigated thoroughly to see if those were hate crimes, and what that could mean for who we are as a community and who we think we are versus the reality.”
Beyond these areas of concern, TRHT has a large body of other work. It is proposing policy change at the city level with a housing equity ordinance. Vice Mayor Patrese Griffin, ISAAC, and other organizations have worked to develop the ordinance, for which the city is currently seeking citizen input as part of its standard procedure.
A local history project also is nearly ready to be presented to the community. Known as the Historical and Cultural Landscape Project it will gather information and stories around local history, racism, and resistance. It is intended to become a community resource for teachers, trainers, and even artists who want to shift the narrative about the history of Kalamazoo. The timeline for rolling out the project was delayed by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, but Lewis anticipates it should be within the next month.
Truth Talks, conversations that deal with the issues of race primarily broadcast on Facebook and one on Public Media Network, are ongoing. “It's just been really a great way to kind of shape the conversation and have a forum for people to tell their story and talk about issues facing the community,” she says.
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A TRHT healing circle with the Law Enforcement Training students at KVCC, work seen as particulaly relevant as national calls to end police brutality continue.
Regarding the protests that have been taking place in downtown Kalamazoo, Lewis says it behooves community leaders to act in a bold and swift manner to make the changes necessary so the healing process can begin.
“I think it's easy for leaders to call on a body of work like TRHT to say, ‘Hey, we need healing.’ Instead of, ‘We need to change so that we can heal.’ Folks think that we can have one conversation and then the issue will go away. I think the conversation is where we can start to share understanding, and find a way forward. But changes have to happen for our communities to truly heal. There are folks who are uncomfortable with that, folks who want to go back to the status quo, back the way things were. I just don't think that's going to be possible right away.”
Small, cosmetic changes are not going to satisfy those who have been protesting for days. People are demanding collective and wholesale change right now. She sees an ongoing and building sentiment that “our systems are not in place to benefit the majority of us, let alone Black people.” And a growing understanding that the solutions that help Black people will help everyone. “So I think it is important to recognize that folks are going to -- on some level, folks are going to continue to do this protesting, marching, making demands, and whatever they feel is the right action to take, until they feel that justice is fulfilled.”
And after the marches?
“Folks have to determine what they need and want to do themselves. It's a hard thing to tell communities what it means or what they should do in order to advance or express themselves and gain visibility and advance the conversation. So I want to just put that out there. But I do think that having specific asks and a vision for what you want to see changed, that’s where we want to continue to support folks because we have the ability to analyze, look at policies, look at models, and disseminate information.
“We can be a resource in that way. And we can be used by whoever wants to bring about change, whether they're marching or not. There are obviously so many ways that people fight for change. Marching is just one way. And so that might look like where you spend your money. That might look like mentoring, it might look like doing research. There are so many ways.”
June 5, Statement by Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Kalamazoo
Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Kalamazoo: A call to action for the Kalamazoo Community
Recent demonstrations occurring throughout Kalamazoo as well as nationally and internationally tell us that our communities are angry and fed up. We are tired of witnessing the death of Black people at the hands of the police. We are tired of property and profit being valued over human life. We are tired of systems that continue to do harm. These issues are in no way new, however, the level of frustration is again rising and is evident in the joining together of people of all different walks of life, at times with little to no prior relationships or interactions, to take to the streets. Thousands of people in our community, from many different backgrounds, have started demonstrating, sacrificing their bodies, and speaking out in ways we frankly have not seen in recent history.
This moment of change has been building for generations and will be a unifying force for generations to come. This is a defining moment of transformation in our society and culture. Institutions must be accountable and begin the work of healing and change amongst its residents. However, we have a long way to go to bridge this divide. The recent use of excessive force on the youth of our community deepens the already open wounds of distrust in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. The subsequent curfew put in place attempts to limit the community’s voice and ability to peacefully assemble and protest, which prevents the collective grieving of the loss of Black lives at the hands of police.
These actions along with the militarization of policing locally only serve to further compound the trauma and community/police conflict. As National Guard and local police closed down streets to protect businesses and contain protesters, neighborhoods where Black residents reside were attacked and homes owned mostly by Black residents burned down. White nationalists roamed the streets making threats, while the harmful narrative persists that the communities of color as well as organizers are responsible for their own devastation. Centering shared humanity means that we must question how we as decision-makers value the lives and livelihood of people of color vs law enforcement, whose fear and desire for security is centered, whose narrative is represented in the media and whether our views and decisions value profit and property over lives.
Given these actions as well as the threat of hate crimes and domestic terror targeted disproportionally at people of color and Black people in particular, we ask our local officials to take these immediate action steps:
? Suspension of any excessive force used against peaceful protesters including the use of rubber bullets, riot gear, pepper spray, and physical contact.
? Require the use of properly working and activated body cameras by all law enforcement agencies interacting with the community.
? Ensure that all youth have a parent or legal guardian present when being detained, interrogated, and/or arrested by law enforcement.
? Exemption to any future curfew laws for legal observers, people experiencing homelessness, and people seeking medical attention (similar to the exemption that covers the press).
? Have an independent investigation done by an outside agency following any complaint related to law enforcement and community interactions during demonstrations.
? Have an independent investigation of the links between the recent acts of violence, vandalism and arson to known and emerging white nationalists/supremacists, hate groups, alt-right, etc. and any potential connections to institutional and systems.
? Begin the process of learning about the history of people of color's cultural empowerment and resistance to racism in Kalamazoo.
While these actions are not comprehensive and will not solve the problem long term, we believe these are immediate ways to show good faith in our community and take a step forward in stopping the harm that has been done. We cannot heal as a community if this type of harm continues to happen. We as the TRHT partnership and the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, are willing to support in the following ways, and encourage others to do so as well:
? Donating to the bail fund for individuals who have engaged in protests in Kalamazoo through Michigan Liberation https://secure.actblue.com/donate/blackmamasbailout.
? Supporting the recovery of those impacted by the fires on North Street and Stockbridge Avenue.
? Partnering with municipalities and organizations to do racial healing, anti-racism, and additional systemic change work.
? Over the coming days and weeks, explore new ways to advance transformation in the legal system along with our partners in the community.