General Notes : Oct. 20th - General reflections of Aorta workshops
LLK: Iceberg metaphor (Uprooting White Supremacy handout- could ask to see w/request to llk or piper, can not be shared publicly) : how does white supremacy manifest within our organizations.
Items that are shared from workshop was not “new” or “basic” knowledge for those who have participated in this call/working group. However, the workshop operationalized to undo systems that may perpetuate or strengthen white supremacy or racism in work culture.
How do we materialize claims- where terms like inclusivity have sentiment and meaning within an organization.
LLK: interesting provocation, even after materializing these claims, there has to be work that continuously seeks to confront and undo oppressive logic within work - at Resonate, it is also useful to think about how this works within this context, there is an acknowledgement of the limits, yet new work systems/relations could be/should be better. In particular, there are questions of uneven labor when it comes to do doing this work of diversifying the work culture and centering marginalized needs (as per our manifesto).
D: Curious about cross dialogue between participating organizations during the call?
P: yes there was social sharing, zoom chat, there was allotted space for exchange and reflection between groups. Gave insight to how other organizations are working through these questions. In particular around decision making proved to be useful for Resonate. Also proper channels for moving communication, feedback.
LLK: Around the organization of the presentation: Introduce an issue w/ information and anecdote, moments are held for personal experience and time for reflection. The chat on the call also acted as an interactive space. The chat space and reflection also acts as a way to think about how to make these conversations dynamic so the same responses to these challenges are thoroughly interrogated.
H: Similar to the TWC (Tech Workers Collective): affirming space, great dynamic interaction as part of a workshop. Reminded him to the Kielest meeting too- moments of reflection- “when did we feel supported in learning and growth”. Folks were split into breakout rooms where they could exchange at scale. And these items were shared on a google doc. Many ideas were generated within such a short amount of time. Feels as though this is a great way to run a workshop. Appreciated how it was collaborative, interactive and student centered.
D: How do we center marginalize voices instead of those who believe to be trained or educated on how to counter white-supremacist culture?
LLK: Proper identification of problems as presented by AORTA document proves to be effective to resolve some of the challenges at Resonate.
D and LLK: discussion on terms around in how we think about terms to speak to marginalized communities: how to do we make sure we are identifying the communities that we are committed to making sure are participating at Resonate.
H: speaking to the geographical stretch of participation: folks from outside the US participating in these workshops do act as an intervention.
LLK: the diagnosis is better now than a year ago, but there has to be steps taken to evolve from this.
p: following the doc, pay and benefits- there have been attempts to understand pay, and labor, and combating this type of transparency.
LLK: as per following the AORTA doc, there are many items that Resonate needs to actually chart (pay benefits) and resist tokenization in the name of diversity. The clearest way to identify how this becomes a problem as per the AORTA document is the inability to fully compensate for the type of labor they would need to do at Resonate. There should be concern to really making sure that Resonate can provide real equitable compensation for everyone, but especially marginalized folks.
D: acknowledges these limits and sees it as a hinderance to recruiting new participants and members
llk: Resonate has a complicated relationship to scale- small organization that has set out to remedy huge issues. There is an inherent contradiction in how approach the desired ‘fixes’ within music and capitalism, but small issues (that are related to these big issues) are overlooked.
llk: as per the AORTA doc, questions the role and purpose of entities of Resonate- board etc, and if they are a space of limiting potential of Resonate.
d: there should be a global diversity reflected in all structures at Resonate to counter white supremacist culture.
llk: there needs to be more spaces for critique around structures- as they are historically organized and what they could be to best match the desires of participants and the manifesto: speaks again to a continuous consciousness around need for change and anti-racist, anti-oppressive capitalist culture within an organization.