Imagine you are stuck in traffic. By the side of a road is a billboard that changes it’s message every five minutes. You glance over at it and read this:
“Some claim. One race in Canada should not have to work for a living. That this race should receive millions in funding without accountability. That the elite of this race should be allowed to defraud their regular people. How can anyone support this? How can anyone slam Conservatives for not supporting this like the NDP/Liberals?”
How would you feel? Would it make you angry? Would it make you happy? Would you wonder how a message like that – containing three of five common racist assertions against First Nations peoples, got put up on a billboard for thousands to see?
The billboard is by the side of a road, and the person who has written that has done nothing to warrent the eyeballs that are staring at it. They didn’t pay for the space, they haven’t had their comment fact checked for accuracy. They haven’t even signed their name. It appears that no one even cares if it is hate speech.
And then what if a headline on the billboard declared “Join the Conversation!” and had an ad attached to it? Would you feel like there was a conversation to be had? Would you wonder who was profiting?
This is exactly what comments sections on newspaper web site are.
The above is an actual comment from an anonymous poster that has been allowed to stand in an article about how the Conservative government refuses to make legislative changes to Bill C-45, which is what the Idle No More movement has been protesting.
As a practitioner of real conversation, it drives me crazy that the Globe and Mail among other outlets invites us to “Join the Conversation.” What happens on newspaper websites is not a conversation. It is shrill hit and run racism, unsubstantiated opinion, outright lies and conjecture. It is often targeted personally (the comments against Teresa Spence and Shawn Atleo in recent weeks have been shocking) and it cheapens the idea of conversation and free speech and poisons the environment of public service for those who wish to enter it.
The fact that newspaper comments sections are moderated matters not at all. I don’t believe newspapers are doing society any favours by allowing this kind of discourse to happen.
I am not advocating for a restriction on free speech. What bothers me about this is that anonymous posters are using the reputation of newspaper to get views on their comments. These posters have done nothing to warrant thousands of people reading their vitriol. So why do newspapers cultivate market share, and then allow this stuff to stand? Money? The longer you linger on a page – and outrage is a cheap thrill – the better the bottom line. Pandering to the basest forms of rhetoric works for papers. No matter how much newspapers disclaim the opinions in their comments sections, the fact is that by providing thousands of readers per comment the are enabling hate speech and giving it a wider audience than it would get on its own.
But this stuff absolutely destroys the calibre of public discourse. Those of us that are part of Idle No More or who have been advocates for progressive solutions to First Nations issues spend all of our time addressing myths and not creating substantial proposals for change. And when we do table substantial proposals for change, we are met with contempt by mainstream society and policy makers, who often repeat the lines that are propagated in comments sections.
So here’s what needs to happen. Let free speech thrive in it’s own free market of ideas. Newspapers should close down their comments sections and invite people to join the conversation by creating their own blogs where they can publish their opinions as much as they like. If the opinions have merit, they will get a following. People can invite comments on their own posts. If newspapers want to actually foster conversation, they should convene large World Cafes where human beings can meet each other face to face and share their opinions without hiding behind anonymous pseudonyms.
in the absence of that, newspapers surely must see that they are complicit in the falling standards of civic discourse. Has it come to this, that the only stream of revenue for newspapers is link baiting and outrage? Responsible journalists write the articles and anonymous Canadians provide the juicy violation of media laws that bring in the page views and therefore the revenue. I wonder if anyone has the steel to change this.
I have a confession. I advise people never to read the comments on newspaper websites. But I do read them. I can’t take my eyes off them. They are a train wreck of logic and hate and contemptuous entitlement.
Lately however, especially the comments on stories about First Nations, they seem entirely predictable. In fact they seem almost too predictable. Every article on the Globe and Mail website for example contains hundreds of comments, a huge majority of which repeat some basic themes:
- Nothing should change until First Nations are accountable for their money
- First Nations get a free ride
- The chiefs are corrupt and bad fiscal managers.
- Treaty rights are a joke: there should be one law for all
- The sooner Aboriginals merge with the rest of us the better.
So let me address these in brief, one by one.
First Nations are accountable. In fact the Auditor-General of Canada said that First Nations are TOO accountable. Too much is spent reporting on funds and not enough time is spent actually using them. But just because you can’t be bothered to look up the financial statements from publicly funded governments does not mean they are not accountable.
First Nations do not get a free ride. All governments receive tax dollars for services. First Nations are no different. And on top of that, First Nations are eligible for special programs and services because of the nature of the treaty relationship and the entrenchment of Aboriginal and treaty rights in the Constitution. But this is not a free ride. This is the result of agreements that asked First Nations to trade away rights to land FOREVER in exchange for some farm tools a few dollars, some new clothes, a reserve owned by the Queen and a school. That isn’t exactly a free ride. If someone invited you to a similar deal, would you take it?
Chiefs are not any more corrupt that anyone else. People are people . When people commit crimes they go to jail and do the time for it. Many, many, federal, provincial and municipal politicians are criminally corrupt as well. There is no greater number of Aboriginal politicians in jail for corruption. Also, there is no federal or provincial government that is not in debt. Having said that, in December 2011, only 12 out of 633 First Nations were in the equivalent of bankruptcy protection. This means that, according to the federal government’s own policies, and based on overly onerous reporting requirements, 98.2% of First Nations are run fine.
In Canada there is one law for all. That law is the Constitution. It protects treaty rights and Aboriginal rights. It also protects free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly and so on. It also allows for laws to be made that are different for different groups of people in order to ameliorate conditions that lead groups of people to have social disadvantages. Anyone who argues that First Nations are not currently disadvantaged in Canadian society has simply not done the research.
Aboriginal people have merged with Canada. And the mechanism for doing so was treaties. And where treaties don’t exist, outstanding issues of Aboriginal rights and title still exist and Canadians and First Nations are compelled to figure this question out. The problem for assimilationists is that they don’t like the terms of this merger. Well it’s too late for that. When the ancestors of settlers arrived in this country they inherited the treaty benefits accorded to all Canadians, which allowed them to own land, start businesses, reap the resources, poison the waters, and profit profit profit. Obviously settlers aren’t giving their benefits back, and clearly First Nations aren’t getting exclusive title over the land back. We are merged. And this is Canada. And it benefits settlers enormously.
The comments I am seeing online have a strange hollow ring to them. They parrot these objections ad infinitum and you see these lines everywhere. No one is really thinking about what they are saying, just reacting. Perhaps in some cases there are coordinated communications strategies to keep repeating these lines over and over until they seem true. But they aren’t true. You might have opinions, you might have a view of the world and how you want it to work, you might have an agenda, but it’s probably not what is really going on.
Straw man arguing has risen to the level of hollow social contempt. It seems funny now. But where it seems real, try a few of these alternate views on and see if you can have an actual conversation.
This afternoon, Toke Moeller and I are hosting a little session on Art of Hosting basics at a gathering for emerging indigenous leaders. We decided this afternoon to bring real design challenges into the room and we improvised this simple, simple design checklist. In some ways this is the simplest form of the chaordic stepping stones. Here’s how it works.
In my experience good participatory meetings result from good design and preparation. In this diagram the meeting itself is the last thing we design. First we design the bookends: Purpose on the one hand and harvest/action on the other hand. Once we know that, then we can develop an invitation and finally choose processes that bridge the two sides. The meeting itself therefore become the vehicle by which a group of people reach a harvest and wise action ground in a purpose and a deep need.
Purpose
What is the big purpose that we are trying to fulfill?
A meeting that has too small a purpose has no life in it. It just seems to be a mundane thing done for it’s own sake. To design creatively, keep purpose at the centre and ensure that everything you do is aligned with that.
Harvest
What do you want to harvest?
– in our hands ( tangible)?
– in our hearts ( intangible)?
Not every meeting needs to have a report and an action plan, but every meeting does have a harvest. This question is the strategic conversation that helps us focus our time together. We need to think about the shape of the harvest we can hold in our hands (reports, photos, videos, sculptures…) and those we hold in our hearts (togetherness, team spirit, clarity, passion…).
Wise action
How will we make action happen?
– who will help us tune in to the reality of the situation?
How will you keep people together?
It is easy to make a list of to do’s at the end of a meeting and feel like something has been accomplished, but that is a naive approach to change. If action is required get really clear about who needs to be involved to make it happen. Think about who enables action or who can stop it and what resources are required. And if the resources aren’t available or accessible, then make a different action plan.
Also, never forget to make a plan for how people will stay together. If sustainability is important, then strong relationships are important. Building a process that doesn’t enhance relationships does not contribute to sustainability.
Invitation –
What is the inspiring question that will bring people together?
How will we invite people so they know they are needed?
Good participatory gatherings depend on the quality of the invitation. A lazy invitation attracts confused participants. A clear and powerful invitation accompanied by a powerful personal invitation gets participants who are ready and eager for the work. Invitation is a lot of work. It SHOULD be a lot of work. A good invitation process makes the meeting easy.
Meeting
What will you do to make the meeting creative and powerful?
Once we know all of this we can choose a meeting process that helps move from purpose to wise action. We can use pre-existing processes like Open Space or World Cafe or design new ones particular to our needs. Today we are using the group pattern language card deck to inspire creative thinking about meeting design.
If we really want to create a new normal, we shouldn’t settle any longer for boring meetings. If the processes we are using aren’t serving us, or helping us crack the deepest questions that confound us, then we should stop using them and start being more creative and powerful.
This little tool has the feeling of a portable, quick and dirty design checklist, that allows core teams and process designers to get working pretty quickly. Use it and let me know what you learn.
This week I was hosting at a moderately sized conference in Victoria BC with 100 regional public sector union members. The purpose of the gathering was to increase the number of active members and to inspire members to engage and improve local communities. These union members all work in the public service and so they have a close ear to the ground on the issues facing communities from homelessness to addictions to environmental degradation to service levels in health and education. Many of them took public service jobs in the first place because they are caring and committed people, intent on making a better world, especially for the most vulnerable.
This is the fourth year we have done this conference, and the structure has remained pretty much the same over the past four years. The first evening there is a keynote from the union president (who then stays and participates through the whole two days) and a special speaker, in this case a well-known progressive lawyer who is currently running for office in a local federal by-election. That is usually followed by a plenary panel, which this year featured some provincial politicians from the labour movement and the current legislature and a journalist.
Day two begins with morning workshops on community organizing. in the afternoon we begin with a World Cafe. This year we took the Cafe through the following flow:
- Two rounds on the question of “What does all of this inspiration mean for my own community activism?”
- One round on the question “what do I still need to learn to deepen my activism?” The harvest from that round was a post it note from each participant outlining some of their learning needs, which union staff will use to help support the members with resources and materials.
- Following that round I invited participants to reflect on an area of focus for their activism, such as homelessness, environment, youth engagement and so on. Participants wrote their focus on the blank side of their name tags and then milled around the room and found others who shared those areas of focus. We ended up with about 12 groups composed of people from across the region who didn’t know each other and who were interested in working in the same issue area.
- Using this network we next invited the participants to consider the question “What are some of the key strategic actions we can take in this sector?” The harvest from this was simply to inspire and connect each other in preparation for the next day’s work.
That was the end of our days work. A quick poll of the room showed that perhaps 20 people had some ideas for action that were considering.
This morning was devoted to a ProAction Cafe. We had 21 tables in the room and I opened up the marketplace. It took about 20 minutes for 21 hosts to come forward and for everyone to get settled. From there we followed a standard ProAction Cafe format. During the reflection period, when participants are given a break and hosts are able to take a breath and make sense of all the advice we heard, three people all working on engagement strategies got together to compare notes. This helped them a lot before the fourth round as they were able to point to work the others were doing. The action networks were already taking shape!
We finished in just under 2.5 hours. In previous years we ran Open Space meetings on the last morning, but this year the shift in format gave a more concrete set of actions and surfaced more leadership in the room. With a quarter of the room engaged as hosts, we topped the average 20% of the room from previous years using Open Space. ProAction Cafe, used at the end of a conference to generate and develop concrete actions is so far the best process in my practice for getting good ideas out of the room with passion, precision and participation.
Heard a great story today.
I’m at a conference of union activists who are working to build their activist muscles up and do work in communities. One of the presenters here is Jason Sidener, who I’ve enjoyed spending a couple of hours with. Jason is the Member Mobilization Coordinator for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). he is abased in Madison, Wisconsin and played a key organizing role in the upheavals there in 2011 when public sector unions successfully stood up to Governer Scott Walker’s anti union agenda.
Jason told a story today about some of the work he did long before that high profile action. He was brought up on a farm, a conservative rural young man who was raised Republican and came from a Republican family. He changed as he grew up, and when he started working for the union he discovered that in the AFSCME about a third of the members are Republicans. They like their guns, they are social conservatives and they don’t trust outsiders.
Jason noticed that at union meetings and conventions, these conservatives, who nevertheless were supporters of fair wages and benefits for public sector workers, often found themselves silenced, ostracized and marginalized. The temptation is to argue with conservative union members and try to convince them that their politics are wrong. But Jason took another approach. He saw that the split between conservative and progressive members was dangerous to the unity of the union, so he set about creating a Conservative caucus within the union, where Conservative members could have a safe place to discuss their ideas.
Although counter intuitive, this initiative paid dividends when Republican Scott Walker tried to pass his radical legislation last year. Many of the members of the Conservative caucus started coming to Jason saying “take me off that list.” They were realizing that the guy they had elected was no friend of theirs after all. They appreciated the Conservative caucus but saw that in this case, the bigger movement was more important.
I was struck by Jason’s unfettered approach to this work. His confidence in the right thing to do, his commitment to inclusion and his presence of mind to care for the bigger movement is inspiring.