SHARE to host virtual Summit on Racism in November

The Society for History and Racial Equity (SHARE), with the support of Kalamazoo Valley Community College and its Kalamazoo Valley Museum, the Kalamazoo Public Library, Kalamazoo Community Foundation and others, will present a virtual Summit on Racism Nov. 12 – 14. Registration for the virtual Summit, which will be accessed through Zoom, opens on Oct. 1. See the SHARE website at www.sharekazoo.org and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum website at www.kalamazoomuseum.org for more information.

SHARE was established to nurture respect, to foster racial healing, and to promote the appreciation and study of the African American heritage and its contributions to Southwest Michigan history.

“At Kalamazoo Valley Community College, we consider the rich diversity of our students, faculty and staff to be an asset,” said college President L. Marshall Washington, Ph.D. “Decades of research have shown that diversity, nurtured in a welcoming and respectful environment, encourages critical thinking, reduces harmful stereotypes, and strengthens the ability to communicate, work and play across lines of identity and difference.

For 16 years, Kalamazoo’s Summit on Racism has offered a unique and important venue to bring the community together for open dialogue regarding race and to create solutions to eradicate racism. This year’s summit occurs at a moment in our history that is particularly significant, not because the issues have changed, but because the events of 2020 have caused more people to become actively engaged. “The college and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum have collaborated with SHARE in the past and we believe that our sponsorship of the Summit this year will help demonstrate our commitment to creating an environment, both on campus and off, where all students can learn and achieve their full potential,” said Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Kalamazoo Valley, Trice Batson.

Donna Odom, the executive director of SHARE, stated, “In these challenging times, as we face a pandemic that impacts people of color more than any other group, an economic collapse, and the acknowledgement of the endemic racism that exists in America, we hope to provide not only an opportunity for learning and exchanging ideas, but ideas and inspiration for personal and community change and transformation.”

Participants of the Summit are from wide backgrounds, and the sessions will also foster general cultural competence among and between groups. The goals are to replace white privilege with multiculturalism as the dominant paradigm and eliminate Institutional Racism by changing systems that perpetrate racism, Odom explained.

In addition to the conversations and keynote speakers featured, there will also be several video shorts, produced by local Kalamazoo-area residents, premiering during the Summit. Community members will attend a series of webinars in September and October in order to self-produce personal stories on a variety of subjects related to race and healing.

Mary Ann McNair from StoryCenter will lead the pre-Summit webinars and said, “Every person’s voice, every person’s lived experience, is part of the fabric of the community, the nation, and the world. Too many voices have systematically been shut down or excluded for hundreds of years, and digital storytelling is one way to bring them to the forefront. Each story is a snapshot of an era in our history and is a record of where we have been as a culture. When we pay attention to the ‘small’ stories, we see larger patterns, and we find the motivation to effect change—not only in ourselves, but even in public policy.” A grant from the Kalamazoo Valley Community College Foundation supports the partnership with StoryCenter. StoryCenter founded and pioneered the Digital Storytelling methodology of participatory media creation and has since taught hundreds of workshops around the world.

After the videos are streamed at the Summit, some will be used by the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, SHARE and Kalamazoo Public Library as teaching tools in future programming, online content and exhibits.

For more information and a complete schedule of the two-day Summit on Racism, visit www.sharekazoo.org.

To register, go to Summit on Racism.