My life is a minefield of worries from large to small that strike in no particular order. Why is my mail late today? Will there be a dryer open after I do my wash? How can we disrupt the cycle of poverty for so many people? How can racism continue to exist at this point in history? When will American fall like Rome did? I've always had a handle on percolating the small worries; sociology uncovered a whole new, huge realm of macro-worries that now also plague me.
One of these in a trend in non-profits called "collective impact," a term that I feel shackled by mostly because, on paper, it looks so promising but one step into the reality of it, things get thorny quickly. I've written about it extensively in one case and I think about it almost constantly professionally. Recently, I've begun to seriously consider the fact that I have been sucked in unwittingly to the shiny trappings of a really impossibly implemented idea. Here's why:
Collective impact refers to an approach to solving particular, usually social, problems that most often create or undergird social inequality of some kind. I'm most familiar with this approach in schools where, in the Midwest, you encounter the typical but tragic reality that students who are black, Latino, and those who are lower income (usually the blacks and latinos) regularly post lower scores on standardized achievement tests. In a collective impact model, stakeholders with similar interests that come from a variety of industries (in this particular case, usually it's schools, parents, after-school programs, and philanthropic organizations) to collectively solve this problem by agreeing to transparent data sharing and analysis, program and service integration, and an overwhelming, back-breaking amount of meetings. Generally.
When I first starting hearing and seeing this, I felt like this was a new answer to an age-old problem that was costing us all severe consequences. No one can or should tolerate this kind of systematic caste system of education, even if we don't understand it or intend it. Collective impact seemed to be (and still does in many ways) a real kind of re-organizing: of the way we do business, of the way we think about the problem, of the expression of our anger and intolerance for these kinds of outcomes time and again.
It might still be that but that (as one might notice) is mostly lip-service. The implementation of this model requires an enormous overhaul in how white people think about and try to do something about our own complicity in the state of school and other social service interventions today. In order for this to actually work, those with traditional privilege and, thus, power have to re-configure their relationship to it. This means: they have to make peace with giving it up.
I am all for this. It's high time. BUT, my frustration with the model comes in that it underplays this cultural shift. This is a *tremendous* shift for white people who have lived the ideology that if you work hard and put in your time, you will advance, and you will prosper. Most white people (most), can function within most of our social systems. That is the paths toward achievement and success are fairly clear, well-defined, and walked by others. Even the most well-intentioned, most socially evolved white people struggle with truly believing that the same is not true for other racial groups. They can see that something is not working for poor and minority kids and families but the suggestion of the same system in which they found relative comfort being a thorny jungle that can be, at times, impossible to navigate does not resonate. They can intellectually see it; they are not willing to concede it at the most basic level. At the end of every day, people who have achieved a lot want to believe that they struggled to do so and overcame the obstacles and that that game is the same for everybody stepping up to play. Conceding that the system favors them undermines their own accomplishment.
This is the point that you find yourself at a table with a lot of well-intentioned, very smart people who are mostly white trying to fumble through re-thinking poverty...often without the voice of the very people for whom they have appointed themselves advocates. When it's really listening that's required, they want to make logic models and theories of action.
And identify metrics. That's the topic of the second essay in this series.
I've begun to see social life as a series of dialogues. Some have two parties, some have seventeen, it just depends on what it is on the table for discussion. But each dialogue should have a leading voice that frames the scenario and facilitates the discussion. For the most part, it's time for relatively wealthy, successful, white people, no matter how caring or well-intentioned, to stop trying to lead the discussion of the intersection of racism and poverty. The driving voice there has to be one of experience first and not just one of observation. And every white person around that table should resign themselves to listen first. And trust the narrative that comes forth; trust it as real and true. And wait for an invitation to join the discussion in the terms that emerge. If white people continue to pat themselves on the back for nobly engaging in a race discussion that they never really would've before, they appropriate the discussion itself and negate the point of it.
White people: it's time to listen. And come to terms with how little you know about the life you'll hear about.
