The Observation Deck

To step back, what can be accomplished by a dialogue, and what's it for?

Shawn, Bill, and others seem to assume a dialogue on race leads to "excuses and explanations for poor performance"---things they are not ready to accept.

Justine and others correctly point to the limits of dialogue. Certainly no dialogue can make a person a good parent or enforce good parenting. (I suspect good parenting is at the root of so many behavior problems. Until we pass a law requiring people to be good parents [impossible and unenforceable, of course], we will be stuck dealing with the effects of bad parenting.)

The ideas behind a dialogue are that it:

• --invites people sitting out to participate; on the theory that...
  --community problems are easier to solve when more people are engaged in working towards a solution.

...and that it:

• --helps me learn helpful clues towards a solution; on the theory that...
  --I don't start the dialogue knowing everything.

This last point is crucial. If there are things for me to learn, "explanations" can be helpful (though all may not be valid, so we still must assess each).

However, if Shawn is correct in equating "explanations" with "excuses"--

No excuses, No explanations, just solutions. Reasoning is a wonderful skill until we use it to justify shortcomings. When I express concern about open forums and community discussions on topics like this, that is what I fear. Endorsing that it's okay to do poorly and encouraging complacency.

...then it would follow that dialogue is counterproductive.

So I pose twin questions to the participants in this dialogue:

• 
  1. Is an explanation an excuse?
  2. Do we all start the dialogue knowing everything?

Ryan,

In my view higher education is important for everybody--women, men, all categories--even beyond any economic impact it may have. Education can often open minds and enrich experience of life. When it's gettable, it can be a good thing--so I'm skeptical of arguments that undermine its value.

In addition, I agree with Justine that even narrowing education by looking at it only through an economic lense, it's a huge positive for women to have higher education. It's unrealistic nostalgia to count on a "leave it to Beaver" economic model for women (count on a man to provide financing for a family through a single income)--and is it even desirable?

Finally, many families find they need two incomes to keep up with cost-of-living inflation, double-digit hikes in health care, etc.

Tom,
Point of clarification. I don't limit this issue to race at all. The example used seemed to point to the difference in results from those that had a different background and overcame adversity. I think that excuses and explanations are a very American characteristic these days, not a racial one. Discussions to delve into these "issues" only gives them further credibility. I think of the Bob Newhart skit when he was a therapist who just kept replying "stop it". Maybe more should take that approach.

Tom,
I can tell you that the more I learn the less I know and I am looking for solutions. I can't speak that much on racism and what is going on in the schools, but as far as the human race, there are more questions for me now than answers. In a country where we have so much available, why are so many lost? Honestly drugs and alcohol seem to play a big part. That and no delayed gratification. The causes are so numerous and the solutions not so simple. I used to really be able to put away the judgment hat and look at the "why's" of people's behavior. But living in a city with the most phenomenal social services I have seen in a city (certainly not Cleveland, as they lag way behind other major cities in this area) but in Lakewood, where there are open doors for parents and children from birth up for support or whatever you need, to a teen pregnancy support group (free) to the most incredible pre-school open to all but free to low income five days a week, to free and open teen counseling regardless of insurance, to library programs that are phenomenal and free, etc. etc. etc.

You can lead a horse to water, but how do you make them drink? The most important education in my opinion is to include several classes on preventing pregnancy. I believe it should be in all schools at an early age. Does anyone know the number of students pregnant in LH now? I heard it is high! Parenting is not the game some think it is. These little creatures need every single thing we have to give, and then some more. They didn't ask to be brought into the world and I am really tired of the selfish choices I see around me.

I was a single parent at 23 so I am not trying to preach. But I had choices. As a single parent I qualified for grants and loans and scholarships and went back to school and gave up every aspect of my social life to do it. It wasn't even hard, because that child made it worth it. I also made damn sure I didn't bring any more children into the world as a single parent. It would not have been fair to them. There are choices, and in this city we offer some of the best help, so my question is, how do we get more to take it, prevent more pregnancies to teenager girls and to young mothers on welfare who already have children, and still help to take care of the ones that are here? Those are my questions and I am running out of energy and answers. I will do anything to step up and help with solutions and the people in the above mentioned city programs are the most dedicated workers to all races. So I apologize again if I am missing the race issue, I am concerned with the entire human race and right here in this city.

All,

I have really enjoyed and appreciated the depth of this thread on a very difficult subject. I am a former Lakewood resident who now resides in University Heights. Our community is struggling through the same type of discussions now as well.

I apologize in advance if this information was shared before as I am still rereading some of the earlier posts, but I thought it might be worth sharing again and I wanted to let the residents of Lakewood know that people outside the area visit this site and appreciate what your community is doing.

john powell, who leads the Kirwin Institute, www.kirwininstitute.org will be in Cleveland on June 20th to share the results of his northeast Ohio research effort on race, economics and regionalism. His presentation will include 50 policy recommendations.

http://www.advancenortheastohio.org/node/95

Minority Achievement Parent Alliance www.mapalliance.net is another organization that is making an effort to improve our community as well.

Kasey Greer, Executive Director of Heights Community Congress, www.heightscongress.org has also been leading discussions on race, class and diversity. Her most recent small group session was last evening.

The following was pulled from Kasey's email blast about the event that attracted 20 people of all races and backgrounds.

"Join us and take advantage of the opportunity to engage in small group discussions with your fellow community members about topics that are sometimes difficult to confront, but essential in the effort to move towards increased understanding of each other and finding common ground. Challenge yourself to participate in a frank, honest and Intentional Conversation about race, class and diversity issues in your community."

I am sharing this information with hopes that we can find ways to bring more people into these conversations. It's not just an East side or West side issue and it is one that needs a tremendous amount of effort and energy to address.

Awareness and acknowledgment that an issue exists is the most important step as it serves as the foundation for which learning, understanding and ultimately action can be built upon.

Thanks again for contributing and I will be sharing this thread with my peers on the east side.

Thanks Kevin. I'll check out the links. I appreciate your input and the knowledge that there are people out there working and engaging this issue.

more to come...

At squareONE learning, Stephen Calhoun cites this thread and posts under “Folk Anthropologyâ€Â￾ several good points about the civic and energetic engagement practice that informs much of the LO and the Lakewood Visionary Alignment.

Calhoun notes:

“The Visionary Alignment is about marshalling citizen-centric inquisitive resources for the sake of developing community understanding. When I was a part of the project close to its inception in 2005, I suggested that if a community implemented enough informal anthropological capability, its energetics would be transformed and, over time, the deep processes of relationship between and among residents, institutions would also change. A second supposition is: this would also alter the ecology of the city’s socio-cultural and economic and political economies......

Finally Calhoun cites this very thread:

“This long discussion is extremely important and worth close attention. It is possible that Lakewood is among the very few communities in the US with the chutzpah and commitment and devotion to proceed to dialog openly and with a certain genius about some of the most difficult issues post-industrial suburbs are faced with today.â€Â￾

For more: http://squareone-learning.com/blog/

By way of recent practice, I want to share an incident, one consistent with the approach we developed early on with Dr. Calhoun, one that seems particularly relevant to issues on this thread.

After the Global Warming Debate, I was sitting outside Madison Branch Library with Jim O’Bryan, Dan Slife and David Lay, when the young lad who been trespassing two weeks ago in an instance of schoolyard folk anthropology, investigative reporting and citizen surveillance, walked past on his way to the library.

I knew his name and called him by name to say hello.

I introduced Dan Slife and mentioned that the LO wanted to do a story on him and his friends who hang in Birdtown. He asked me if "you were there in the park," because he thought I looked different in the LO hoodie and Yankee cap than in my customary library suit and tie.

I said, “Of course, who else could it be.â€Â￾

I asked him “What can we do to help keep you on the right path.â€Â￾

I said was worried about him trespassing at night, because a robbery had taken place on Halsted and I didn’t want his to be a suspect.

He said he was a suspect, and that the police had already talked to him.

I said that Lakewood is a good neighborhood and he’s in a good place. I said I wanted to help him to make the most of his life chances in Lakewood.

Jim O’Bryan inquired if he would be interested in delivering the Lakewood Observer in Birdtown for a little bit of spending money.

Jim gave him his card and said to call him if he was interested.

The LO media platform for folk anthropology, neighborhood spirit intervention, story capture and transgression control remains a useful tool for raising the sense of belonging, friendship and, I would hope, community order.

We will see what happens.

I am encouraging Dan Slife and Nadal Eadah to join me in Birdtown this summer as we hang in Birdtown, talk, get to know the kids, document good deeds and stories for the LO and insist on the neighborhood norms that make Lakewood a good place.

Sean, you are welcome as as well.

Civic journalists, folk anthropologists, teachers, librarians....

The more the merrier.

In fact the model of folk anthropology and civic investigative journalism could be applied to a measure of moral pressure to any disorderly street.

We worked with law enforcement to bust Brother Petty. There's no telling what happens when people start talking and listening carefully to one another.

Kenneth Warren

Kenneth Warren wrote: I am encouraging Dan Slife and Nadal Eadah to join me in Birdtown this summer as we hang in Birdtown, talk, get to know the kids, document good deeds and stories for the LO and insist on the neighborhood norms that make Lakewood a good place.

I would also like to join you, both with my camera lens and my own eyes.

David:

Excellent.

After we talked about the conditions in your apartment building, I think we need to do some folk anthropology and civic investigation with the partee homies disrupting your sleep and follow-up with the landlord.

Kenneth Warren

Kenneth Warren wrote: After we talked about the conditions in your apartment building, I think we need to do some folk anthropology and civic investigation with the partee homies disrupting your sleep and follow-up with the landlord.

Good idea. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experiencing this, either.