People of Color Caucus Statement on Diversity[1]

 

“When social structures, business structures and individuals act in ways that prohibit others from gaining access to opportunities due to these biases, the community suffers.”[2]

 

People of color and allies at the NASCO conference have informally started a People of Color Caucus to address the issue of racism within the co-op movement that also exists within the structure of the NASCO institute.  People of Color found themselves in poor numbers in attendance and entirely not represented as Board members, workshop facilitators and staff members.  As a group, aside from discussing the problem in all of its facets, have come up with recommendations for the Board. These recommendations were, in part, arrived at in response to the weak Diversity Action Plan of 1998 as well as extended conversations with particular members of NASCO Board and Staff.  We will be following up with the progress of these recommendations through e-mail and correspondence with the NASCO board of directors.  Any responses to this letter should be addressed via e-mail at nascopoc@egroups.com .  Our recommendations are as follows:

 

·        Travel and registration scholarships specifically delegated for people of color

We understand that some amount of money is put aside for travel scholarships and we believe it is important that we make it a priority to bring and outreach to underrepresented groups. Though the co-op prides itself on the principle of open membership, when the cost of travel and conference registration is out of many people’s income bracket, it becomes highly exclusive. If issues of representation and access are crucial to building a cooperative movement we must facilitate these things economically.

·        Workshop presenters should be aware of and receptive to issues of racial diversity. Issues of diversity should be interwoven into the workshops

In many workshops, we found presenters to be unprepared and ignorant of issues affecting communities of color.  In order to build a more expansive movement it is imperative that we understand the intersections of race, class, and social status and be prepared to work through and against our respective places of privilege.

·        Greater focus on co-ops that serve people of color in low-income, urban, and rural areas

We are aware that many other co-ops exist that we have not pulled in to our organizing and though we cannot reach everyone, we must think of ways to make connections between student housing, cooperative apartments, and intentional communities populated in part or in whole by people of color.

·        Outreach to non-student co-ops and those historically un/under –represented at NASCO

Many people of color co-ops are not student co-ops. If we are going to make connections and diversify our cooperative spaces it is necessary to move out of our current area of focus, while student co-ops make up a large part of our membership they are often transient and may not represent the most devoted co-opers.

·        Keynote speaker addressing issues of diversity

We recognize that there are progressive and politically active people of color within the

Co-op movement and it is important that we emphasize their voices. Often hearing from those who you have previously marginalized may make you uncomfortable, but is important in developing policy and structure that is open and democratic.

 

 

·        Funding for creation of diversity congress.

In large part, what maintains racial and economic disparity is unequal access to resources. We must begin to facilitate a decentralization of knowledge and resources in order to deal with the inequalities within our spaces. It is important to develop caucuses that share their discussions and resolutions with board members and other caucuses in order for the institute to best represent and address the issues of the NASCO membership.  We propose the idea of a congress of caucuses focused specifically on diversity issues. The caucuses, which can be either pre-planned or formed out of a new need, will meet early in the conference to discuss their issues and develop concrete resolutions to present to the diversity congress. At the diversity congress the resolutions of different caucuses can be even more specifically defined and formulated into a larger plan for increased diversity of caucuses that report out to the general meeting and to the board of directors in order to democratize the conference atmosphere and the institution.

 

·        Increased communication between NASCO and member co-ops and between different member co-ops prior and during the planning of the institute conference.

During the course of our conversation something which plagued us and limited the amount of critical work we could do was our ignorance of NASCO’s purpose and structure. We feel that NASCO needs to do a better job communicating with and educating member co-ops on the functions and possibilities of NASCO and other national co-operative organizations. Here are some questions that we felt needed answering in order to aid in our discussion of changes that could be made within the structure of both NASCO and member co-ops.

 

 

What does the Diversity Committee do?

We have read and discussed the Diversity Action Plan devised by the NASCO Diversity Committee, however we were unable to find anyone who would claim responsibility for the document, much less answer questions about it. We are interested to know more about this committee, who can be on it, what purpose does it serve, and what kind of power does it have.

 

 

What are the avenues for evoking change within the NASCO structure?

Over and over during this weekend the theme of democracy has been emphasized. We are interested to know what sort of democracy NASCO is and what are the procedures for making policy suggestions or proposing new ideas.

 

We hope you will take our concerns seriously; we are aware that the lack of diversity in the co-operative movement is not a new problem but the pre-condition for the establishment and maintenance of white power within these organizations. Many times during the conference white people have said --in response to these issues-- that they will not take up the issue of racism and racial diversity because it doesn’t affect them. However it could be argued that racism is what constitutes you as white; you are not white because of biology, but rather because of structured relations of domination and alienation. If the board is truly concerned with diversity within the member co-ops and the co-operative movements we must move out of our comfort zones and begin to really tackle the ideologies and institutions which structure the segregation in our homes and governing boards.

 

Sincerely,

 

The People of Color Caucus Forming Committee

nascopoc@egroups.com