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Even if you are not crossing a bridge toward someone, you are doing it in your mind every time you allow yourself to not be locked into certainty about someone else’s perspective. Instead, you’re open to the possibility that there is something [related to their perspective] that you’re missing. That question of “What am I missing?” is the most important one we’re not asking in these dangerously divided times. - Monica Guzman, author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times

NRN Network News

October 3, 2023

Introduction to the Next 6 Months:

RAPID RESPONSE

On Thursday, September 7th, the NRN met at the Needham Town Hall and began its next chapter of work in co-creating a rapid response protocol that will serve as a community aligned process for preventing and countering hate in Needham.

WELCOME YINFEI ZHANG

CHINESE FRIENDS OF NEEDHAM

We are pleased to announce that Yinfei Zhang has joined the NRN as the Chinese Friends of Needham (CFN) liaison! Chinese Friends of Needham is a local non-profit founded in 2010 to promote education of Chinese language, culture, and heritage through building a vibrant Chinese American community in and around Needham.

GROUP BIO: NEEDHAM HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE

Tina Bugos, the Chair of Needham’s Human Rights Committee (HRC) discussed the mission, values and activities of the committee.

The HRC is an advisory group that reports to the Select Board. It strives to reaffirm the worth and dignity of every human being by embracing and celebrating diversity. This is accomplished through education, community outreach, collaboration with various community entities, co-sponsoring community events aimed at equity such as the Annual Martin Luther King celebration, and responding when local incidents arise. The HRC is currently in the process of finalizing a discrimination complaint protocol with input from key stakeholders. Once the protocol receives final approval, it will be available on the Needham town website.

One of the biggest challenges the HRC faces is that the concept of “human rights’” is perceived differently by everyone. Other challenges include escalating town politics and the relatively small size of the committee (only 10 members including students). Applications are available on the Needham town website for those interested in serving on the HRC.

Tina thanked the NRN participants for their work promoting inclusion and belonging; particularly their work on the rapid response protocol which will synergize with the HCR’s efforts.

INTRODUCTION TO RAPID RESPONSE

The co-Directors opened by proposing a draft schedule for the next 6 months (please be in touch if you’d like to suggest changes).

September: Intro to Rapid Response

October: Understanding Needham’s Risks/Assets

November: Case Scenarios

December: Case Scenarios Cont'd, Discuss 1st Draft Community Event & Communications Protocols

January: Fine-tune 2nd Draft Community Event & Communications Protocols

February: Vote on Protocol & Communications Plan, Close out on 2022-24 (stay tuned for more info)

Next, they started the section by establishing some definitions. A hate or bias incident is any hostile expression that may be motivated by another person’s race, color, disability, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The act does not need to be a crime (i.e., name calling, racist/derogatory images or drawings imitating a disability or cultural norm/practice).

The Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act defines a hate or bias crime as a crime “motivated, in whole or in part, by hatred against a victim based on his or her race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin, or disability” (i.e., assault, injury, derogatory graffiti on someone else’s property or threatening to harm a person or property).

Hate/bias incidents and crimes have powerful impacts.

Considered “message incidents” when a message of threat is sent and causes fear based on the victim’s identity status.

Bias incidents/crimes have a unique psychological impact on victims and their communities. Victims can suffer serious and long-lasting traumatic stress that can be made worse by an inappropriate response.

Hate incidents, even those that may seem small or insignificant, can:

exacerbate tensions within a community
increase the potential for reprisals and escalating violence
decrease a sense of larger civic belonging and trust in other residents and local institutions
increase negative meta-perceptions

This means that a single hate incident in one part of the community can influence overall norm perceptions and a larger feeling of belonging (or lack of it) within certain groups or across the community overall. The NRN has talked a great deal about why belonging matters in Needham, and the NRN’s Belonging & Social Cohesion survey showed that residents with lower trust and belonging scores reported reduced satisfaction and engagement among other factors related to effective local democracy and community well-being.

So, what are the goals of rapid response? There are several:

Support affected communities
Mitigate further immediate harm
Reduce long-lasting harms
Set positive social norms

We effectively achieve these goals by communicating in ways that leverage what we know about social identity and group dynamics. Lastly, the NRN overviewed the four steps to effective rapid response:

Analyze the situation
Decide whether to respond
Determine the response
Always analyze messaging risk

Please see the NRN presentation slides for a more in-depth description of the rapid response goals and action steps.

Messaging Strategies to consider:

The table below offers some of the advice that should attend the crafting of messages and events (Step #4).

Over the next months, the NRN will make their way through these steps to consider potential community responses to 4 different types of hate/bias scenarios. Our goal will be to identify a protocol for planning community response events, as well as a template for communications in response to these different types of hate/bias incidents (or crimes).

SMALL & LARGE GROUP DISCUSSION

In three groups, NRN participants discussed the following questions regarding Rapid Response:

Q1: What from today’s presentation stood out to you?

Q2: In what ways have you experienced hate incidents or a specific hate incident in Needham? What happened? How did you feel? What values were in conflict, if any?

Q3: In what ways have you experienced community responses, or a specific community response, to hate incidents in Needham? What happened? How did you feel? What values were in conflict, if any? Was the response effective? If so, what do you think made it so? If it felt ineffective, why do you think it was?

Response themes from the reflection in small groups included:

In noting the difference between acts of hate and hate crimes, we should keep in mind the power of language and choose our words and categories carefully.

The name “rapid response” could connote a response that is too fast. It’s important to be responsive, but FIRST to gather facts, and to consider the experience and needs of the victims. Might we consider a different name for this protocol?

One slogan reflecting a group effort to name our biases and respond to hate is “We can do better.” Recognizing we will all make mistakes.

In the process of being mindful of the experiences of wronged parties, we also need to be aware of our own biases.

Awareness and learning about others’ lived experiences can keep us attuned to the ripples of an act of hate (for instance, racist graffiti in a school may offend certain students, but could also hurt those who are responsible for cleaning it up, administrators navigating the response, families, etc.).

Part of our rapid response process should include an analysis of the impact of privilege and power and how it can play out in community response.

Aggressive blow-ups and polarization are being modeled in our national landscape, thus emphasizing the importance of our work at a local level to counter this approach.

WHAT WE ARE READING/WATCHING/LISTENING TO:

Read: Design Principles for Belonging: A Resource Guide by the Othering and Belonging Institute. Belonging is powerful because it works as an aspirational north star that helps us declare the kind of world and communities we want to live in—vibrant and interconnected healthy ones in which everyone holds the agency, responsibility, and power to co-create the structures that serve the good of the whole. Belonging is an antidote to othering—the denial of a person or group’s humanity based on their identity, and the process of generating structural inequality found at every level of society. This guide emphasizes the role that structures play in either building or prohibiting belonging. Here are the design principles, at a glance: The root of the problem is othering, Everyone belongs, Prioritize structural change, Recognize and address power dynamics, Foster agency and inclusive co-creation, Embrace mutual responsibility, Celebrate and value diversity, Recognize that identities are multifaceted and dynamic, Prioritize and value relationships, Harness the power of interconnection

Read: I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times by author Monica Guzman. We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions. Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we're not using: our own built-in curiosity. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.

Read: In “Which Comes First, the Equity or the Pluralism?” Kristin Campbell, the CEO of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE), writes about whether work to advance pluralism and social cohesion is antithetical to efforts to pursue racial equity and justice. She argues that we need both, and often at the same time.

Read: In Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World, Scott Shegoika asks, “Did you know that curiosity is your superpower? Though we often think of being curious as a personality trait, it’s actually the foundation of our capacity for connection, growth, and healing. His book, available now for pre-order, explores how to practice deep curiosity through a four-phase "DIVE" model—Detach, Intend, Value, Embrace—so you can build the courage to be transformed by the people, places, and experiences you encounter.

Read: “To Heal Our Divided Country Drive 50 Miles in Any Direction Then Schmooze,” by political scientist Justin Guest. Guest writes, “Today, nearly all Americans reside in neighborhoods that are segregated by race, or political party, and we reinforce this isolation thanks to internet algorithms that feed us what we want to read. In particular, political party — now a more meaningful source of division than race or religion for many people — is reflected by the concentration of progressives’ in blue urban centers and conservatives in the red hinterland. So, driving out of or into the nearest major metropolitan area will place you into contact with people different from you, and our research has found that this is where progress is made.”

Onward!

The NRN Co-Directors

___________________

NRN MONTHLY MEETING

The next NRN meeting will take place on Thursday, October 5th at 6:30pm at Needham Town Hall, Powers Hall, 1471 Highland Avenue, Needham

Needham Resilience Network | info@nrnma.org |