Page 367 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

“Everybody is allowed to have their opinion there, that’s for sure.” (P16MW)

“It was the only time where I have had transparent community type conversations with any

other people of color in this city. This was a time to hear people with their sore spots and

the things that have caused them pain.” (P03FAA)

“The main value was being able to hear some of the stories that were transparently relayed.

I felt that those personal things were valuable to me.” (P04FW)

“I remember telling Jessica, I think later that week or early the next week that the dialogue

gave me a little bit more understanding about different things that she has said to me over

the years that I didn’t understand before.” (P05MW)

“One of the reasons why I wanted to go was to express, to have a venue to talk about the

things that I face and I did that.” (P06FAA)

“My impression was that the purpose of the dialogues was to get us to talk; to get us to

share based on our own experiences and background. To get us to open up, so that

everybody participated, and nobody felt left out and that was accomplished.” (P10MTRM)

During the dialogues on race, the circle in which participants and facilitators gathered

became a space where emotions surfaced and tensions simmered as individuals shared accounts of

incidents and encounters that were racially motivated through impactful stories for all to hear. As

a grandmother told members of the group about how her granddaughter faced discrimination at

school and her frustration caused by an inability to elicit school administrators to assist her to

identify and punish the culprits there were expressions of empathy on the faces of participants

around the circle. Some of the expressions revealed hurt and others looked angry and puzzled

about what the grandmother described as a lack of responsive to harassment and bullying towards

348