Conversations about Race

I’ve been following the conversation about funding of the South Orange Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race via the pages of Patch with concern. While the stated conversation is about funding, my fear is that it is about so much more, least of which is a misunderstanding of the work of intentional integration.

I do know something about this work.  I was the first Executive Director of the South Orange Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race, and served in that position over the course of a 10-year period.  I am also the former Executive Director of Fund for an OPEN Society, an organization that worked for decades across the country with communities and organizations seeking to capture and sustain that elusive condition in America known as integration.

A few years ago, the South Orange Civic Organization asked me to speak at their annual Martin Luther King Beloved Community Awards event about the current state of integration in our country.  (The Coalition has posted those remarks on their website at www.twotowns.org/BHWSOCOaddress.pdf) In these remarks, I allude to the backsliding in efforts in some communities that we view as early pioneers and models for developing whole communities.  While on staff at OPEN we undertook an in-depth study of what worked in communities wishing to remain integrated, and what didn’t.  Those studies were published in a journal, INTEGRAL - The Journal of Fund for an OPEN Society, in 2009.  What we found, in several instances, was that efforts which had been, by different measures, considered successful became undone when a community determined the work completed and no longer in need of support.  This determination was not so much a statement as it was the closing of the office that oversaw the intentional integration efforts or community defunding of the project. 

These actions, in these cases, were not taken against the work, but rather because the community thought the work was finished, or that it could sustain itself.  But what we know about racial integration in our country is that there are forces and factors working against it – systemically and profoundly deep – that will turn back even the most successful and seemingly sustainable work, unless continual attention and effort is given to it. 

Funding of an intentional integration effort is not as much about the amount of funding, though that certainly is important, as about the statement that is made by providing the funding.  The statement? That the work of creating and sustaining a “whole” community, one that values racial integration in its housing, educational and civic structures is important to this community, and makes that statement in the way that we often express our values in our systems, through our dollars. 

The work does take dollars – community gatherings, difficult discussions, outreach to new and prospective neighbors, ordinance and real estate oversight. It does take dollars.

The work of intentional integration is political, because issues of race are intensely political in our country. But it need not, and should not, be partisan or Political.  What we have begun to create here – what we celebrate here – is something rare and beautiful in this country.  Is it easy?  Oh no – recent community exchanges remind us that this isn’t easy, and requires constant work. 

As I said in my address in 2010,

"The journey to integration … is far from over; it is risky and requires courage. … It means creative programs in the public and private sectors for opening doors to people who have been deprived of opportunity and who continue to be deprived for reasons of racial identity and the enduring history of racial issues. The journey to integration must be a journey of healing. And healing comes only through conscious effort, outreach, willingness to be vulnerable, desire to reconcile, and sometimes putting ourselves in situations of profound discomfort."

It is my hope we can work through our discomfort and continue our work, intentionally, effectively, in developing and sustaining our ‘whole community.’  And that both of our towns continue to put our money where our hearts are.

Barbara Heisler

Maplewood NJ