1. Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties,
Moritz College of Law
October 17, 2010  San Rafael, CA

2. “We are all androgynous, not only because we are all
born of a woman impregnated by the seed of a man
but because each of us, helplessly and forever,
contains the other -- male in female, female in male,
white in black and black in white. We are a part of
each other. Many of my countrymen appear to find
this fact exceedingly inconvenient and even unfair,
and so, very often, do I. But none of us can do
anything about it.
-- James Baldwin

3. Global Inter- & Intra- Connectedness
 Our world today is complex and interconnected
 Global labor market
 Global credit market
 Global climate change
 The World Wide Web

4. Important Issues
Climate
change Poverty
Migration Diversity
These can be both challenges and opportunities.

5. Being in Relationship
 A proper relationship is one that acknowledges our
relationship to everything.
 There are these two young fish swimming along and
they happen to meet an older fish swimming the
other way, who nods at them and says "Morning,
boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim
on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks
over at the other and goes "What is water?”
 David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College commencement
speech. May 21, 2005

6. Intra- & Inter- Connected
 We are in relationships not only with each other but
also with ourselves and with processes, called things.
 We need to find a balance of the individual and the
collective.
 Individual and community should not compete.

7. Interconnectedness
 We need to be continually aware of our interconnectedness.
 Consider how humans connect and organize:
 Families
What does this connectedness mean
 Tribes Ethically?
 Communities
 Nations
Morally?
 The world, etc. Socially?
Culturally?

8. Uneven Connections
 We often underestimate our connectedness.
 Recognizing relationships is not enough. Our
relations can be distorted by structure and power
imbalances.
 Our relatedness is uneven and mediated through:
Space Structures Languages Cultures

9. Our Unconscience
 Even our unconscience is social.
 People raised in different areas have different
unconsciences.

10. In the Eye of the Beholder
Industrialized societies: Line A is shorter
Small-scale Societies: A & B appear the same
Jones, Dan. (2010). “A WEIRD View of Human Nature Skews Psychologists’ Studies.” Science 328(5986): 1627.

11. Where is this family sitting?
Your response is indicative of your cultural orientation.

12. The Dancing Girl Illusion
http://www.moillusions.com/2007/06/spinning-sihouette-optical-illusion.html

13. The Dancing Girl Illusion
 How did you see her?
 Can you change how you look at her?
 She doesn’t change directions.

14. Linkages
 We need to focus not only on the things, but also the
relationship between the things.
 “What is food?”
 Everything. One person’s waste can be food for
another.
 Relationships are complicated.

15. Systems Thinking

16. Systems view
 A systems theory model changes our analysis of
responsibility and response to harms.
 Ex: Climate change:
 Caused by cumulative and mutual actions of
many actors and structures
 Need for collective/structural action
 No need to show intent before responding

17. “Low Synergy” Societies
 Individuals advance at the expense of others
 Zero-sum equation
 Low synergy societies exacerbate inequalities by
limiting opportunities.

18. “High Synergy” Societies
 Individual good is linked to community advancement
through institutional arrangements.
 People are encouraged to uplift the community.
 High synergy societies promote equality.

19. Envisioning a “High Synergy” Society
 We are related – not isolated.
 Racial and spatial segregation (religious, otherness) can
impede our ability to see ourselves as a interdependent.
 Diversity can be a great strength if we use it to forge
relationships.
 OR, it can lead to fragmented spaces and meaning.

20. Dancing in a Dynamic World
 We live in a dynamic world
where relationships,
cultures, and structures are
always in process.
 Differences are both
related and dynamic.

21. Moving Towards High Synergy
Change the way we think about ourselves
Change the way we think about our communities
Changes in institutional arrangements

22. Dancing
The way we relate to each other matters.
The way we relate to systems matters.
The way we relate to matter matters.

23. www.race-talk.org
KirwanInstitute
on:

24. “We need to look at the individual in
terms of many different relationships
to him/herself, many things in
relationship to his/her community and to the
larger community, not just in isolation. If we take
this approach seriously, it affects how we see the
world, how we experience ourselves, how we do
our work, and helps move us to a truly inclusive
paradigm.” ~ john a. powell