"The Move Forward" to foster meaningful dialogue on race begins
Jun. 17—SOUTHERN INDIANA — A two-day panel meant to foster meaningful dialogue on race, inclusion, diversity and equity in Southern Indiana kicked off Thursday, but those involved say it's a discussion that needs to carry on beyond this space.
"The Move Forward" is the latest installment in Common Conversations, a weekly virtual show hosted by Miguel Hampton, owner of F5 Enterprises, LLC. Panelists over the two days include members of the faith community, elected officials, activists and members of the local NAACP youth chapter.
"This specifically is about how we have conversations in our own communities with our own friends and our own families, in the hopes that good folks who are watching today take a different direction [as] we talk about this thing we're calling 'The Move Forward,'" Hampton said.
"When we talk about racism in Indiana, when we talk about racism in Kentucky, no one has gotten it right. Because we're talking about it and the reality is there are so many people that are afraid to talk about it and that limits our ability to move forward. And so we have to face it, we have to name the thing."
In the first segment Thursday, moderator Teah Williams-Hampton, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, facilitated conversation with community leaders Sue Wright, past governor of Rotary, and Ann Carruthers, president of Prevent Child Abuse Clark/Floyd.
Among the things they touched on during the roughly hourlong segment was the social construct of race itself.
"Race is a made-up construct and it goes back way before the U.S." Williams-Hampton said. "However it's been very effectively used here.
"When we break people down [into racial or ethnic categories], people are assigned value and meaning and I think that's important to talk about because how we engage each other sometimes — as much as we might not want it to be this way — is informed by some of those meanings and some of those values."
Wright, an extensive traveler, noted that in her visits to the more than 40 countries across the world, most residents identify themselves as residents of that country, "and it doesn't matter what race they are," she said. "And we here in the United States, we're still fighting that, over 400 years we're still fighting that.
"I should be able to say to anybody that walks up to me — I was born in America — 'I'm an American.' Period. Point blank. End of conversation."
The three also discussed defining racism — a person may know it when they see or experience it, but how is it quantified?
"We have to — in order to make progress — find a way to measure or define the behavior and equate that to the racism," Carruthers said. "Racism is a combination of things but it all is about the behavior; how are you treating people?
"All of us have had one experience or another by someone mistreating us because of our race and then we thought 'OK, that was racism,' but what behavior defined that?"
She added that when people talk about equity and equality, "I think there's another 'E' that we miss and that is called empathy," she said. "The ability to put yourself in their shoes, the ability to have an emotional connection with their experience...that other 'E' is so important because we can never get these paths of equality if people don't empathize with [others' experiences.]"
In the second panel, Hampton, talked with Angelique Johnson, Ph.D, and founder and CEO MEMStim and Visionarium.com, about equity in the business and the community at large.
Both are successful Black entrepreneurs, and talked about some of the hurdles they've faced in their endeavors.
"To me, access is equal opportunity and equal consideration," Johnson said. She alluded to a meme that shows a Black and White person in a race, except the Black person is weighted down, having an obvious disadvantage.
"Equity to me is the same starting line," she said, but "When the race goes, am I going to have the same shoes as you? Do I even have shoes?"
