“Dismantling a social structure, even reducing it to rubble, does not obliterate its effects. Nor do diversity policies. Direct institutional discrimination produces predictable effects – a variety of social defects, deficits, disabilities and disadvantages that can be manipulated indirectly to conserve and preserve historic oppression. This indirect connection between past and continuing discrimination is easily established by selecting a variable other than race that remains casually and institutionally linked to racism.”
Jones, William R. “Toward a New Paradigm for Uncovering Neo-Racism.” Soul Work; Anti-racist Theologies in Dialogue. ed. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones. Boston: Skinner House, 2003. p.157.
Dr. William R. Jones passed way on Friday, July 13, 2012.
I first met Bill Jones in the early1990‘s when he was conducting training for the UUA’s Racial and Cultural Diversity Task Force. He presented oppression as something complex and insidious, easily disguised and self-perpetuating.
At that time, I was a couple of years out of college. In addition to my volunteer work with the UUA, I was consulting with many Fortune 500 companies, custom designing and implementing training programs to make management practices more inclusive and supportive of historically marginalized groups.
Dr. Jones’ teachings were both sobering and frustrating.
I feared that, while my work might make the workplace more tolerable for some, it was likely to have little or no institutional impact. I sought out Dr. Jones after the training in hopes that he would sooth my mini crisis of career and faith.
But, Bill Jones was not one to ease concerns or sooth nerves. He did point out, however, that there might be more value in what I could LEARN doing consulting, than what I could teach.
From that day forward, even though my business card said “Principal Consultant”, my mindset said “Student”. I set out to learn everything I could about oppression and how it operated in some of the most powerful corporate institutions in the country.
Eight years later, I was appointed by the UUA Board to fill the At-Large Trustee vacancy created when Dr. Jones left prior to the end of his term.
I was subsequently elected by the General Assembly delegates, and served two full terms as an At-Large Trustee. However, I never lost the sense that I was in some way still sitting in Bill Jones’ “seat” on the Board. Using what I had learned about oppression in institutions, I asked tough questions and pressed the Board to continue on its journey to provide counter oppressive leadership and stewardship. As Chair of the Board’s Anti-racism Anti-oppression Multiculturalism Assessment and Monitoring Team, I developed process observation tools and systems theory training for the Board. And, I never forgot that my most valuable role, even as a leader, was as “student”.
William R. Jones was born in the summer of 1933 in Louisville, Kentucky. General Assembly 2013 will be held in Louisville, Kentucky. Eighty years after his birth, we will hear the name of Reverend Dr. William R. Jones read at the Service of the Living Tradition in the city where he was born.
Rest in peace, Dr. Jones.
November 21, 2012 at 10:33 AM
Thank you Tamara for your blog about what we learn from others when we are teaching. It made me think of a Junior High class at our First Unitarian Church of San Jose Life-Span Development and an anti-racism weekend workshop I attended in about 1970 at my very progressive high school.
Many of the activities the students and teachers at my high school engaged in during the anti-racism weekend have stayed with me into my adult life. The most memorable was the Orange Bows, in which some students wore orange bows. They were the special. Those without orange bows were shunned by the Orange Bows. If an Orange Bow walked by a person without a bow, the Orange Bow was to pick lint off their shirt or turn their backs to ignore the non-orange bow. After 15-20 minutes of the two groups behaving this way toward each other, we stopped to discuss the experience. What struck me most about the activity, was that even though we were play acting, when the exercise was over, those without orange bows did not immediately come and join the Orange Bow group. In fact, the non-orange bows stayed together as a group even as the weekend progressed. The students and teachers compared the reaction of the non-orange bows being “let” back into the orange bow group and to how those who have been ignored and left out of a group don’t just readily join because of one or two invitations.
In one of our First Unitarian Church in San Jose Life Span Development classes, the Junior High students acted out a similar situation in which one group was given a full snack, another water and a few crackers, and another no food or water. When it was time to come back together, the group with only water continued to socialize alone. They did not jump at the chance to join the “wealthy” group which had many choices of food and drink. Even when the group with no food was offered popcorn, they did not accept the food. As you described above, people need to work very hard — they need to do more than issue an invitation to be inclusive and welcoming.
This approach to learning as a student is one I, a member of the First Unitarian Church of San Jose, take from you. You are a strong leader, and you have positive and inspiring ways to lead our congregation. Whether you are leading congregational meetings, expanding RE to become the Life Span Development Group, convening and leading parent discussion groups, sharing your wisdom and strength at the pulpit, and conversing during coffee hour, I have always learned from you. I appreciate knowing that you are also a student in each of these and the countless other leadership roles you serve in our congregation and in the UU community. Thank you for running for UUA Moderator for 2013. We fully support you. We are honored.