Event:2015/03/01 Challenging Dominant Culture

Loose meeting minutes, CDC, 03/01/2014. Taken by Dustin

Discuss the implication of recent proposals brought by the CDC to delegate meetings.

On the notion of the delegate meeting as a body which can or cannot hold space for conflict mediation:

We've surpassed the steps that we've created in order to mediate conflict, with the dream to bring people back. Our structure is failing.

That this also comes from the person who bans someone else. That the person requests someone to be banned and then they cannot engage with a mediation process.

Kevin expresses his desire to, as a person at the Omni, that he can deal with conflicts in a more direct way. That people could go to people at the omni and reach out in order to get conflict mediation as imagined by the SUDO structure.

Mary asks, what if the conflict can get solved in this way. That the process is broken and that we haven't figured out how to re-incorporate people.

That both people need to be willing to participate, and that both parties need to engage in the process. And that those who are unwilling are typically the ones from the inside of our system.

• Suggests that it become a more interpersonal focus.

Kevin suggest that CDC propose a proposal to require people who are in the Omni engage in the process.

Mary points out that the problem arrises in communication. That we don't ban people, that we ban behavior.

Also, that we could steward a space, and that we could have personal conversations with people. Kevin highlights that we should be moving from a place of trust, with a realization that it “is ridiculous” for him to ask people who don't have the privileges he does to openly trust everyone. Brought to the table that we create a list of people who are willing to mediate, and such a list starts with Mary, Kevin, and Liz.

Mary asks, is there a commitment by our community to seek conflict mediation upon meeting a conflict.

Kevin proposes that we go to delegates meeting and in report back propose that the omni takes a week or two to consider what values we want to maintain in dealign with conflict. If people want to take the restorative option that we propose a rule: If you promise to be committed to be part of the conflict mediation process no matter what side of the conflict you are on.

• Trust and good faith?
• Rules with defined consequences?

The goal of our process is to stop conflict.Do individuals have the highest priority, or does the community's health, take precedent?

Mary suggests that if something is highly punitive outside that it may be something that could evade mediation.

• And that “safety” is not something that you may be able to count on anywhere, and the Omni is part of that as it will be open to the public.
• That if you cannot engage, that you can still exist in community.

To that there are environmental factors

“Cast a wide net, find a common thread, let life flourish, don't panic just keep it organic.”

Report-back to bring to delegates meeting:

Kevin, Mary, Dustin: That the omni takes a week or two to consider what values we want to maintain in dealign with conflict in our space. That they bring it back to their collectives and other folks in the Omni for discussion. If people want to take a more restorative/transformative option (on a spectrum from transformative to punitive) than we propose a suggestion: That people promise to be committed to be part of the conflict mediation process no matter what side of the conflict they are on. We, of course, feel that discretion is key in that some cases of conflict will be so that most people will understand that mediation is neither possibly or potentially harmful (in the case of assault or something like that).

Kevin: The CDC is uncomfortable with being in the position of an Adjudicating body. Our mission statement is very broad, to identify systems of repression , define new structures to dismantle those systems so that we can be a porous and healthy community at large.

Mary: That the creation of rules in the space may differ from those in the outside, ours is different in the sense that we opt-in to these rules.

Matt: That we typically see people who are engaged in conflict are not equally taking the task to follow policy. That often the person who is calling the conflict are the ones who are most willing to engage in the process. It is often the person who is being accused is not willing.

Kevin: adds that the person is disregarding the subjectivity of the person who is accusing them.

Matt: As a working group, Challenging Dominant Cultures is ill-equipped and ill-prepared to act as an adjudication body. This has presented itself on many occasions lately. Folks privy to or acting in formal roles, such as conflict mediators, have had a range of experience, where sometimes folks bringing up a conflict become uninterested in continuing in the community's process, as well as often that folks whose behaviors are called into question have also been unwilling to be responsible for their actions and engage in the community's process.