Page 303 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

Sharing Local History

Before and after viewing the starter videos participants attending the Albany NY CC

dialogues on implicit bias the attendees were anxious to convene at their breakout tables to discuss

personal impacts of discrimination from historical to recent which gave local perspectives to the

need for more discussion and action.

“The discussion focused more on the history of race, rather than solving problems.”

(P10MTRM)

“We still have bias happening from those historical events.” (P05MW)

“We need help them understand the history of race … it seems like as generations pass

there is less interest and less concern about how it affects their life.” (P10MTRM)

“More young people should be here, but they are not because we are discussing race. The

majority of young people here in the room are White and race isn’t something that they

want to talk about because they ain’t covered that in high school history.” (P06FAA)

Conditions

Meeting face-to-face. The primary dimension of the face-to-face deliberative dialogue

gatherings, as experienced by participants, was connectedness. Connectedness is described as a

feeling experienced individually and shared with others in attendance. Unlike the recent trend the

opportunity to witness the experiences of others in a way not achieved in similar processes using

the Internet or other forms of electronic connectivity as a platform for civic engagement and

dialogue. Another participant expressed feelings about the connectedness shared by members of

the dialogue group this way: “I felt a sense of community there. I felt, I knew everybody but it was

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