People from all over the Valley gathered at the Phoenix Center for the Arts on Third and Moreland streets Monday to conduct a “Conversation on Race.”
Led by speaker Calvin Terrell, founder and leader of the consulting organization Social Centric Institute, the discussion revolved around the concept of racism and prejudice in everyday life.
Throughout the two-hour long discussion, people of many races and ethnic and cultural backgrounds commented on their personal experiences with racial bias and slowly deconstructed the origins of their own prejudices.
The small room was filled with people who viewed this event as an opportunity to talk about a subject that is often taboo in public discourse.
As attendee Jessica Rajko of Scottsdale said, “I was just really interested to see how a conversation on race would be engaged, and what people had to say about it.”
The woman behind the idea was Julia Fournier, the owner of The Hive art gallery on 16th Street. For her, the story of this conversation begins with a particular car ride through the desert on July 19.
Instead of the usual talk radio and news, President Barack Obama’s speech on race following the decision in the Trayvon Martin case emanated from her speakers.
The trial had surrounded Fournier for months. While she said the legal system worked appropriately, the idea that a man could approach an unarmed teenager based on a racial prejudice scared her. She said she thought of her Hispanic teenage sons, who could be seen as threatening in the same way that George Zimmerman thought of Martin.
But out of the controversial not-guilty verdict, Fournier said she found inspiration. She decided to answer President Obama’s call to convene a conversation on race.
Fournier said she immediately knew that the discussion needed to be sheltered from politics. Instead, she said, “This conversation should take place in churches or in schools or in neighborhoods.”
She reached out to her peers in the art community to help organize the event. Gallery owners Jorge Torres of Palabra Hair Art Collective and Cole Reed of GreenHaus, along with Phoenix Center for the Arts director Joseph Benesh were among those that expressed an interest right away.
However, there was one final piece that needed to be added in order for the event to be successful: a facilitator. To address this issue, Fournier reached out to Terrell, a family friend.
Terrell spent the past 22 years traveling around the United States educating youth and workplaces about social justice and prejudice. The issue of race comes up in his work frequently, especially in schools.
His experiences taught him race relations in the U.S. are in a precarious position.
“We have an illusion of inclusion,” Terrell said. “It’s kind of like a crayon color box. There’s all these multiple colors but there’s really not diversity of thought.”
So when Fournier approached him with the idea of holding an open, honest discussion about race, Terrell said he jumped at the opportunity. Fournier said he knew he was the perfect person to facilitate the discussion.
“He’s just one of those dynamic people that has such an ease at making people feel comfortable,” Fournier said.
None of the event planners knew what to expect.
“I’m really expecting something very organic to happen,” Terrell said before the conversation.
The organizers emphasized the openness of the event.
“We have to prepared for the possibility that maybe not everybody is interested in (race),” Benesh said. “We have to be open-minded to the possibility that the conversation might go in a completely different direction.”
That openness proved to be vital in the discussion. At the beginning, there was a very obvious tension in the room as people were nervous about what they could and could not say.
“People were out of their comfort zones,” Fournier said.
However, Terrell managed to alleviate the anxiety through the use of some active icebreakers. These included an activity in which all the audience members were asked to high-five strangers around the room. Fournier said that these activities helped the audience become more comfortable with each other.
Finally, when it came time for discussion, Terrell made sure that the audience was placed into small groups with people they didn’t know.
The result was an open and honest discussion about the prejudices that each audience member carries with them throughout every day. Rajko said that the open discussion format facilitated the free exchange of ideas and beliefs.
Fournier, Benesh and Terrell all believe that in order for this event to be the start of successful movement, action must come of it.
That action may be a letter, a march, a performance or something completely different. But this idea has the potential to increase awareness of the racial prejudices that some Phoenix residents don’t even know they have, Fournier said.
Eventually, Terrell said he hopes these actions can help destroy the system of racism and prejudice that he believes permeates our entire society.
Benesh said he is confident action will come. But as Torres said at the end of the discussion, the event symbolized “us jumping off the sidewalk.”
The next step is figuring out how this conversation fits within the greater context of Phoenix, Benesh said.
The next conversation on October 14th will seek to do just that.
Contact the reporter at aphilip3@asu.edu
