Event:2023/10/19 Delegates

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Omni Delegates' Meeting - 19 October 2023 7pm-9pm

Meeting Details

Roles

  • Facilitator/s:
  • Stacktaker:
  • Timekeeper:
  • Notetaker/s: Paige, Patrik
  • Next meeting's facilitator(s):

Delegates

  • BOGSS:
  • CCL: Patrik
  • FNB: (Anka?)
  • GWS:
  • LL: John
  • SM:
  • SR: Eric
  • Quorum (2/3 of active groups): YES

intros

BRIEF INTROS MAY INCLUDE: name, pronouns, groups you're in, land you're on, if you're a delegate, unmet access needs, meeting roles you'd like to help with, discussion topics or proposals to add to agenda, announcements/updates/report-backs from your groups, safe space issues or updates PROMPT people to share contact info in the chat, so we can stay in touch

  • silver - have been working accountability process . past and curret bipoc conversation to empower them to be in the space.
  • natalie - sketchboard + events working group. want to bring in more revenue. Excited to participate.
- liberated lens. need to leave early
  • john - liberated lens and fundraising. Susan in fundraising has left rather rapidly. Excited about a film about a japanese community center
patrik - CCL, wants to work on coming up with a join statement, and have documented what spaces are for rent on the website. lots of doom and despair recently but also a lot of bright points. but lets focus on the bright points. yes there is the boycott, but with effort we can bring in new people.
  • philip - building working group and been renting the space. focus on bringing in people. i have a wide network in many trades. i.e. skylight. several ideas going forwards
  • yar - trying to be a background level volunteer. role as providing spare cognition and institutional memory when needed. want to show up rn because heavily involved in the events that led to current boycott. past 2 weeks have been hard but im alright. dont always know what best thing to do is. not sure what my role is.
  • paige - Building WG. Thinking about public stmnt and accountability. Conflict resolution - hard to get parties to participate. Harm on both sides. Think about where we need to apologize.
  • jacqi - formally myriad outreach project but ive stepped back. but i want to stick around to help with accountability. i was in meeting today with Peoples programs and silver. i dont think we should move forward too quickly. i know people want to look forward but lot to go through.
  • jake - looking forward to putting out a response. couple emails and google docs with drafts to explain to people that was going on. want to push for that to be done soon
  • eric - member of sudo room. acting as our delegate for this meeting. involved for 5 years/3 years intensively

Accepting Sketchboard as member collective

  • john - you've presented last time, anything you want to add
  • natalie - just that im not involved more with omni with the events working group
  • philip - who votes?
  • is quorum met? YES - only 4 active collectives, and we have 3 delegates (plus Anka for FNB, if necessary)
  • Jake: was proposal forwarded to Consensus list? (checking...)
  • Eric: haven't had enough time to discuss with Sudo members. Asks to postpone

In favor: LL/John, CCL/Patrik, Sudo/Eric

Public statement

  • Eric: small number of people were the problem at Omni - don't say "CLP" but "CLP members", or "CLP representatives"
  • John: really liked Helen's statement
  • Patrik to Yar: which parts of various statements have you liked?
    • Yar: needs to show humility, and acknowledge harms Omni has caused
  • Patrik: who should be our audience? People affected by CLP's boycott
    • Yar: People who care deeply about racism and zionism
  • Eric: consolidate everything in one place - google doc
    • Yar: Need to start with bullet points


BOGSS progress?

  • Yar: Everybody distracted with other things. Crickets...'
  • Jacqi: BOGSS started because people were experiencing harm, and felt they didn't have a voice. Really important to do this right, gather as much info from community as we can. Speaking to People's Programs was positive, but won't tolerate some of the things happening at Omni. We should be very welcoming to letting new people into Omni and welcoming new faces and perspectives into the space.
  • Yar - last time Vikram and I were voted to be the transition team to build a new BOGSS. We added Natalie. But we've been really busy.
  • Natalie - I think we can push off BOGSS because right now we are focusing on the statement. But I think the missions of these two projects are aligned. At the end of the day, this is part of our restorative justice and accountability process. Correct me if Im wrong, but the statement is really discussing our accountability process, and that will play in with how we structure BOGSS. Energy is a very precious resource and we need to be cautious about how we use it for this.
  • Yar - biggest first step for BOGSS is to identify people who are part of omni but not mobilized into conversations like this, and figure out what it would take for them to get into BOGSS. And it wasnt structured like that before.
  • -

discussion about BOGSS history

  • BOGSS originally had 2 members from CCL as well - Jessica and Sahib. But they left town almost at the same time, and we didn't catch the fact that removed both our BOGSS representatives. Meanwhile, the delegates had already agreed that personal conflicts should not be hashed out during delegates meeting. And since we now had a group dedicated to dealing with racial conflicts, we assumed that those conflicts were being dealt with.
  • jacqi - everybody at omni has to hold ourselves accountable that we just ignored these problems brought up. We didnt continuously check in with those who were harmed. I know some of us did... but thats not an excuse. I think its really important that we center the fact that there is an overarching issue at omni. i am sensing some dismissal, i want to be sure people are taking this seriously
  • phil - if ppl are saying they dont feel welcome in this space, sounds like there is a pattern. we need to understand the history and ideas of establishing a system. i have some concerns as someone who does consulting. finite number of ppl active, but not enough time/labor/energy to handle whats involved. how do we get stuff done in meetings if we are only doing this conflict resolution. im never trying to take energy from this but my focus and expertise is in working on building work
  • vikram - "in chat" I would also love the transitional part of transitional to be a shorter period of time rather than longer. I would prefer to hand things off to a full functioning committee sooner rather than later
  • natalie - i work that way too, i like action items and i think doable before the year ends. I have more time in the next 2 weeks. But I would like to fully devote myself to 1. create guideline, 2. vote as delegates 3. and have check in every so many months. again imo goes a long hand and hand with statement
  • jake - joe sent an email about resolving conflict. I tried to talk to the two at the time, but I thought bogss was taking care of it. i didnt know bogss was gaslighting this person out of the space. i want people to know that omni tries.
  • natalie - if youre not getting paid, how much attention are you going to go forwards it? i think its apparent is work distribution is not equal. bogss will need allies.
  • patrik - what do you suggest is good way to help bogss? I get hesitant to offer help
  • natalie - listening first, cultivating a resource. bringing in support i.e. therapist philip talked about
  • philip - i can imaging bogss being effective for 6 months or least because it will depend on who be here as more people come in, and until we fund. when coming up with timelines, we will be hindered. dont want to set up bogss or accountability processes up for failure because we are expecting too much.
  • natalie
  • vikram - ask for someone to replace me, though i can help with administrative
  • jake - direct response to accusations that have been coming from jacqi, that I feel are echoes from the CLP conflict. very emotional for me. my conflict with CLP and specifically Rafiq goes back to 2022. I was the number one name in doxxing. my legal name put in there. these accusations seem like CLP accusations -- baseless. I am eager to be accountable when i make mistakes. Put a lot of time and effort into looking back at what ive done. i dont think if appropriate if not giving me a chance to see what they are
  • jacqi - none of my greviances have to do with CLP. I do not support them, but I do not support the actions omni has taken. my greviances are well documented. despite accusations and conflict, jake is continually allowed in our meetings. We have these safe space policies, and jake has broken many of them. confused that this is so confusing. I need to know the right place and time to present this information.
  • patrik - we should stick to original principles, that these should not be hashed out in delegates meetings. could go back to mediation steward, they are not mediator, but make sure the mediation process is going through. then that person will report back to the delegate meeting.
  • phil - i hope accountability and or bogss because filter for all complaints. immense task of collecting historical and recent information and handling what the process is. reason im here is building represents a massive opportunity for healing, place to counteract political and economic forces against us. requires people from immediately responding in meetings
  • yar - i honestly know if its appropriate for me to weigh in given jake and my conflict. personally, after i mobilized my energy into thinking i was doing the right thing for CLP. i dont trust myself in weighing pros and cons of banning someone. this has been a problem in the past with people calling for bans. Easier for me to removing person from power. But this person was demanding a ban. this is a hard thing for me.
  • natalie - this makes sense to be checking your bias and being aware of. thats really healthy.
  • Paige: can we get the conflict steward process started? Don't need BOGSS for this.
  • jake - hard for me to be accused of these things with no basis. I definitely want to talk about it. in the meantime, when i literally dont know when accusation is about, i would like for the person to stop publicly slandering me.
  • Patrik: Not appropriate for Jake to call out Jacqi at public delegates meeting; also not appropriate for Jacqi to call out Jake at delegates meeting. Can we ID a conflict steward so this can be taken offline and we can make some progress?
  • Philip volunteers to act as conflict steward
  • vikram - i really am not equipped to handle with this type of dialogue here. i was opted in by default. this is my plea here - someone else step up and i dont think i am the right person for this job. transitional committee is just here to set it up and i can help there but please other people consider stepping up to replace me

public statement

  • natalie - read through everyones drafts. lot of truths to everyones drafts.
  • philip - narrative of silencing voices, not true, small group of people
  • john - liked Helens statement. got to the core.
  • yar - what is the statement addressing? is it just addressing what happened to cLP? or is it addressing everything that went into CLP's document? IF so it has to address to the harms Omni has caused. If we are going do that, we are going to need to agree with what happened?
  • natalie - centralized experience : marginalized ppl having a hard time. needs to be seen heard and understood. and thats not happening to the people who are representing us.
  • silver - lot of dishonesty. PP said they are welcome to mediation between me and CLP. compassion in my heart - clp pissed at all the name calling, and how they were removed. i just want our statement to be out there. im probably going to come out with my own instagram story. meeting tomorrow with jake yar and sarah, topic is delegates just say yes to whatever yar jake sarah and silver say. so there is a power dynamic. for us to be antiracist we have to understand that we embody racism.
  • patrik - we should be clear who the audience is for this. statement should not be to CLP, it should be to those who may be swayed by their argument
  • philip - there should be some form for people in the community to put their complaints. we should have a doc that has bullet points, and then we decide on those bullet points
  • yar - We need to name who we talking about with "being swayed" - they are people who care deeply about racism and zionism. So we need to be on the same page here at Omni.
  • natalie - what does solidarity and accountability actually mean for this space?
  • patrik - proposal, take all statements we have drafted so far, and people can vote on which paragraph we like
  • silver - where do we really stand on this
  • yar - before the docs, we need to agree on who the audience is, what the message is
  • silver - we should go around and give a story and see if that feels good.
  • silver - couple months ago TANC had applied, building a relationship with us. Initially there was a pushback. member from CLP thought TANC would take over the building. large tanc vote 50 vote to join omni, 6 people voted no. all 6 people from tanc. they want chiapas support room, but tried to tell them about the den. csc decided to leave, Silver checked in. So TANC was offered it, Silver called out for offering that room but weird bc Silver is on good terms with csc. delegates meeting, bogss and clp blocked TANC because primarily white. Then Silver told about they were against for large DSA involvement. Silver told that to TANC and they gave info. CLP told Silver if you get blessing from PYM then ok. Then meeting with PYM, then TANC withdrew and ppl pulled out of omni. Secret meeting. Silver wanted to just suspend CLP. Then there was all this heaviness of calling CLP stalinist and iranian regime supporters. Then they put out a statement the hour that gaza / israel war. whats going out in the world is really fucked up. i served PYM the other day and idk that either of us recognized each other but funny and humanizing. but also CLP has been really harmful. last thing - good thing if ppl stepped down but still gave institutional information to those coming in.
  • yar - yea what does that look like
  • peoples programs talk
  • yar - first proposal was for them to get 50% of the vote? yes we definitely should have a relationship though
  • jake - sorry for interrupting silver. i was worried about our time for addressing this statement. i have been responding to a lot of emails. we also have been signed up for a lot of spam. sarah has been talking about someone booked an event and wanted a response, and we didnt have one ready. just a few paragraphs. one of the things we can include is we are taking so long to respond because we have no leadership, all volunteers.
  • yar - step 1 we hear each other, 2 then we write a statement. has to go in that order
  • patrik - i have a doc with a lot of stuff
  • natalie - clear that ppl arent on the same page, so we shouldnt agree on some paragraph atm. lets set up another meeting. then we do the bullet points.
  • yar - i think a week or two is too long. I think we could overcome major barriers in a couple hours. we could do tomorrow night
  • decided saturday at 1pm virtual
  • phil - anyone follow up with patricia?
  • silver - yes i am friends
  • yar - maybe i got to do what silver did, i owe it to omni to stand up for what i did
  • yar - i can give a bullet point now. 1. omni has problem with white supremacy, as a byproduct of having a lot of white people. 2. that is reason we added clp. 3. turned out that clp that was actually making that problem worse. when its toxic, marginalized ppl are the first ppl to call it out as being toxic. 3. i was completely honest with what my thought process was when i openly said i needed them to leave. 4. not saying omni is without issue now
  • patrik - when i hear white supremacy i think kkk and lynchings.
  • vikram - with this public statement. we directly have opened our doors to them, that is powerful (?). I want to remind everyone we have a threat of losing the building. we will not have to worry about anything of omni if we dont get our shit together. i'll make this point once - its so fucking weird that you are comfortable with segregation. i dont think the idea of any institution being exclusively bipoc. it feels like its denying a significant part of this commitee. the word white supremacy - ive experienced that, ive feared for my life in my own childhood home. some random person was called the cop on me under the shade of a tree that i planted. i dont know what the hell you are all talking about when you throw around the word white supremacy. if theres something that rises up to that level of conflict, use the term. BIPOC is a bullshit term - who does that include? me cuz im poc. here and in new york i have privilege. i would never talk about that level of discrimination here though, so i dont feel comfortable with the term. this is why i want to get off bogss. because i grew up in the south. if you step on the wrong person lawn, someone might shoot you. so please be specific.
  • silver - i hear what youre saying but we are speaking to the bay area
  • vikram - yea thats why i am clear i dont want to be in bogss. I dont want to speak to this language.
  • silver - i was in this year long mediation with this person. there was a confusion of him thinking i was calling him white supremacy. but i didnt think that, i thought he embodided that. we shouldnt be afraid of these words.
  • vikram - i truly respect that, please step up to bogss
  • patrik - do you think people in the bay area can distinguish between that
  • natalie - yes, but we do have to be very specific in the language. can still use terms as long as we are clear what we mean by these words. thats why this saturday we will devote a lot of our time to that discussion. some people are going to be touched and some are. we are trying to speak to the people who we want to rent to. i am speaking to someone who has lived with white supremacy
  • silver - also lets think about our continuing our education on these terms
  • paige - we need to also think about our accountability and make clear we have plans towards mediation. CLP's boycott is to listen to black/brown voices and make roads for them to leadership. We agree with that right?
  • jake - we need to make sure that people that are disempowered know omni is there for them


End of Meeting

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