ADR Publishes Article By CURB’s Lynne Winfield
An article entitled ‘Changing How We Talk About Racial Divide’ by CURB President Lynne Winfield has been published in the American Diversity Report [ADR], an internationally recognized multi-media platform.
The article on the ADR website said, “218 years of enslavement and 137 years of segregation have left Bermudians struggling with the legacies of intergenerational trauma and economic inequities across our society. A culture of silence and fear arose ensuring that past was suppressed and not talked about.
“People speak of the need to work together and the need for unity, however, the racial divide is widening, economic disparity between the races continues to grow, and social media is both educating and inflaming passions.
“With direct descendants of enslaved people and slaveowners still living on the island, and sharing in many cases the same last name, we needed to find a way to speak to the divide and bring light and truth to our understanding of that past.
“Since 2005 Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda [CURB] members have worked to sustain the conversations around racial justice issues and normalize the conversation on race. In January 2017 we launched the Bermuda Truth & Reconciliation Community Conversations [TRCC], believing there was a growing need to change the way we talked about race, justice and poverty, and confront our history of racial trauma and inequality.
“But we struggled with how to bring people together to talk about this past and its contemporary manifestations, whilst encourage them to stay in the room despite the challenging and at times raw conversation. We discovered restorative practices training and we quickly realized how it could be adapted to a T&R process, and moved to ensure all our facilitators were trained through the International Institute for Restorative Practices [www.iirp.edu].
“CURB recognized the real work towards conciliation must be a local one, for example larger ‘national’ events can be planned, but the best conversations occur with 10 – 20 people in a room building relationships forming a community through a lens of justice and equity.”
You can read the full story here on the ADR website.
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