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Cultural Differences and Conflict Scoring Guide
Due Date: End of Unit 5.
Percentage of Course Grade: 10%.
Criteria
Non-performance
Basic
Proficient
Distinguished
Compare how individuals from different cultures handle
conflict.
16%
Does not compare how individuals from different cultures
handle conflict.
Provides minimal information and details about how individuals
from different cultures handle conflict.
Compares how individuals from different cultures handle
conflict.
Analyzes how individuals from different cultures handle
conflict; identifies assumptions on which the analysis is based.
Observe various causes of conflicts that occur between people
due to institutional policy.
17%
Does not observe various causes of conflicts that occur between
people due to institutional policy.
Provides minimal information and details about observing
various causes of conflicts that occur between people due to
institutional policy.
Observes various causes of conflicts that occur between people
due to institutional policy.
Articulates various causes of conflicts that occur between
people due to institutional policy; impartially considers
conflicting evidence and perspectives.
Compare how individuals from different cultures experience

cross-cultural conflict.
17%
experience cross-cultural conflict.
from different cultures experience cross-cultural conflict.
Compares how individuals from different cultures experience
cross-cultural conflict.
Analyzes how individuals from different cultures experience
cross-cultural conflict; identifies assumptions on which the
analysis is based.
Describe a theoretical perspective of institutional conflict based
on cultural difference.
16%
Does not describe a theoretical perspective of institutional
conflict based on cultural difference.
Provides minimal information and details about describing a
theoretical perspective of institutional conflict based on cultural
difference.
Describes a theoretical perspective of institutional conflict
based on cultural difference.
Explains a theoretical perspective of institutional conflict based
on cultural difference; identifies assumptions on which the
explanation is based.
Compare how individuals from different cultures transform
conflict from a win-lose to a win-win situation.
17%
transform conflict from a win-lose to a win-win situation.
from different cultures transform conflict from a win-lose to a
win-win situation.
Compares how individuals from different cultures transform
conflict from a win-lose to a win-win situation.
Analyzes how individuals from different cultures transform
conflict from a win-lose to a win-win situation; identifies

assumptions on which the analysis is based.
Communicate effectively through writing.
17%
Does not communicate effectively through writing.
Ineffectively and inconsistently communicates through writing.
Communicates effectively through writing.
Communicates effectively through writing; writing reflects the
quality and fluency expected of a professional.
PrintCredits
Mobile in Black and White
Robert Gray
Whenever I say, "I am from Alabama", people seemed to want
to ask what it was like to hold that fire hose. If I ever had to
answer, I would tell them I was born the day that happened.
They seemed to want to ask what it was like to bomb that
church and kill those little girls. I was born that day as well. I
was born the day they marched across Edmund Pettus Bridge,
the day Wallace made a stand, the day Martin had his dream, the
day he saw the mountain top, and the day after that. I was born
innocent, free of all the bloodshed that day. But I was born into
blood I still am washing from my hands.
Jim Flowers
It is one thing for me to be racist but it is quite another thing
for the structure of our society to be racist.
Hattie Myles
I think that what we have done is buried so deep.
Bryan Stevenson
And I think it is important to recognize difference because
difference makes us who we are.
Hank Aaron
We still have long ways to go.
Rinky Sen
How can you have racism without racists?
Jeremiah Newell

A maze is going to require us to dig and whenever you dig,
there is going to be some work. There is going to be some pain.
Bryan Stevenson
I think that there are all kinds of presumptions that we make
about each other base on race. I think that there is still a very
tragic sense of who is better and who is not, that is heavily
influenced by race. I think we have a lot of doubts, a lot of
distrust, and a lot of fear that is organized primarily around
race. And until we deal with it, it would just grow.
Rinku Sen
Racist is still a huge predictor of how life is going to turn out
for somebody and it is not the only predictor that is true.
Economics is important, and your gender matters, and your
sexuality matters and where you are born, exactly matters. But
what color you are and what your racial identity is, really
matters a lot.
Bryan Stevenson
It still very hard to facilitate the kind of honest conversations
that I think are necessary when it comes to race. We do not like
talking about race and that is true today as it was 40 years ago,
as it was 80 years ago.
Ingie Givens
W.E.B. Du Bois said that the 20th century would deal with the
color line. Well, the 20th century, the 21st century, we have
never adequately dealt with the color line.
Terry Keleher
I think we have to be willing to look even more squarely in the
eye of racial inequality if we are ever to do away with it.
Sometimes, I will say that we have to illuminate racism in order
to eliminate racism.
Rinku Sen
Running away from the discussion is not actually going to make
the problem go away. If that were true, I would actually say, let
us not talk about it because that then we would not be on our
way to actually having equal opportunity and not wasting so
much of the potential that is living in communities of color but

not talking about it has not taken us to the place where it does
not matter.
Wayne Flynt
I think we can do a better job of discussing racism if we have --
of Alabama culture. I expect it as part of our educational system
because of, I know Alabamians do not like it. I know that they
would rather live in a different time in a different place. Many
Alabamians enjoy the 19th century so much that they like to
preserve it running to the 21st century.
Bryan Stevenson
Alabama is a state that still fiercely in too many quarters holds
on to an old south reputation. We do not like the identity of new
south, we like the identity of old south. And we do not want to
kind of back away from this legacy that is very painful and
difficult for communities of color and that representation I
think is problematic for many people of color. Whether we like
it or not, these images of the confederacy, these images of
resistance to integration are very powerful. If we do not deal
with the representation, we are not going to deal with what is
underneath that.
Michael Eric Dyson
When we look at the over incarceration of African-American
people, when we look at the fact that there are numerous rates
of homicide, when we look at the healthcare disparities, when
we look at the disparities between education for suburban white
kids and intercity black and brown kids, then we know that in
America despite the symbols of tremendous success, there is
also the resistance to the kind of social change that those
exceptional black people betoken. Even Barack Obama, the
most famous and most powerful person in the world is subject
to vicious forms of assault and resistance when you look at what
happens with the Tea Party and the Birthers and the like.
Bryan Stevenson
We have an African-American president, you do not have to be
a democrat or republican necessarily to think that is a good
thing or bad thing but it says something about the fact that the

state had the lowest percentage of white voters supporting this
African-American president than any of the state of the country.
Hank Aaron
We have a black president, sure. Ever black president in this
country, and we look at the situation we say, how far, how far
have we gone? How far have race relationships come in the last
few years? Where we have closed the gap in some areas and still
if you look at some things, we still have a long ways to go. We
still have a long way to go.
Karlos Finley
Oftentimes, I am in situations where race becomes on top of the
conversation between myself and a white individual or a group
of white people. They go by colors, you are different. You are
not like most black people that we know and maybe in the most
complementary of ways but it is offensive. It is offensive
because I am like a whole lot of black people.
Denise McAdory
In my opinion this town is kind of polarized. We give the
appearance that everything is fine but underneath, it is really
not.
David Alsobrook
I think our problem is we really have not admitted that we ever
had any racial difficulties in Mobile, and I think that is true
about African-Americans and whites.
Jeremiah Newell
It frankly was not until I graduated from high school and went
to college and then, worked in the professional arena that I
began to understand that race still plays an important role in
who gets listened to, and who gets jobs and what types of jobs
you may get, and in who considers you a valuable person to
make progression within an organization.
Hattie Myles
We have got a long way to go. I am not convinced that we have
come so far. I think that what we have done is buried so deep.
We have covered up a lot and I think that a lot of us live in a
state of pretense as to how things really are.

Scotty Kirkland
As far as the social structure, the segregated societies in Mobile
there has been quite a lot of change but I think, you do not have
to look any further than the two weeks prior to Lynch to realize
it. There are still needs to be quite a lot more change in the two
segregated Mardi Gras.
April Dupree Taylor
There was a professor here, who is no longer here, but he was a
member of a Mardi Gras Association. And I was the only
African-American in the department at the time, and I remember
sitting in a faculty meeting with all the other faculty, and they
were all talking about this ball they were attending the end of
the upcoming weekend. And I was sitting there thinking no one
has invited me to this ball. And so the females went around the
room talking about their gowns and the guys talked about the
alcohol, and they named the professor who had invited them.
And this professor and I happened to be really close, we were
friends.
After the meeting, I came to his office and I said, "Look," I was
the only African-American but that did not occur to me I was
also the only single faculty person. So I knocked on the door
and I said, "Did you think I could not get a date for the ball? I
am just really offended and hurt that I was not invited to your
ball. I can find a date." And he looked at me and I think it hurt
him to tell me this as much as it hurt me to hear it. He looked at
me and said, "April you cannot come to my ball." I said,
"Why?" And he said, "Because you are black." Just out of
nowhere these tears just came.
Ricardo Woods
You are looking at the history of Mardi Gras and the social
separation that permeates Mobile society. In a lot of ways, there
are people who, I think, some subscribed to what I call the
Mardi Gras mentality. There is a lot of fan fare and the façade
of having a good time as long as things stay separate. I wonder
why that exists. I mean, I seriously wonder why if you work
with folks side by side, if you share a city, if you share a state,

why you do not interact as much during this time of the year.
Kern Jackson
Where do you stand particularly for the last float? Where are
you that last night of Mardi Gras? Where are you standing when
you see that coming with the old time flambé lighting up the
confederate paleo and how do you interpret that when you see
it? Is it an interpretation of, "Oh man, darn I hate the carnival to
be over, the fun is being chased out of the city or is it
something more like, well this is a representation of old time
racial terrorism and I think in Mardi Gras that instant, that one
parade, it puts everybody on point for the next 364 days. This is
how we are going to live. We witnessed it, we have ritualized it,
and we are going forth.
Ricardo Woods
And I think both sides of the racial lines were equally as guilty
when it comes to Mardi Gras, equally as guilty. Because you
have folks who are white, who do not necessarily mind being
separate and plenty of folks who are black and do not mind
being separated.
April Dupree Taylor
But yeah, that was my first encounter with the reality, the
divide, the racial divide in Mobile and it hurt.
Rhina Guillen-Gomez
I feel connected with Dr. King, "I have a dream", that is when I
am here. I want to be somebody for my family, for my children,
and for their family too. For my community, I can join the
American culture. I can integrate with them but what is my
identity? I am Hispanic and nothing is going to change that. It
is who I am.
Aimee Nguyen Var
In many ways, we should change black into black, Asian,
Hispanic versus white. And it is a matter of what are the
disparities that the black community sees in their everyday
lives. I think that the Asian population, Hispanic population, the
South Asian population, will see the same types of tensions the
same types of disparities as we you are dealing with the

majority culture in the city and just trying to acculturate to their
environment. They are going to suffer the same types of issues
in education and in business, and just their interaction with
people in their community.
Michael Eric Dyson
Another thing that we can do of course is to educate ourselves
better about the different kinds of people that we produce in this
nation. Everybody is not the same. They are not cut from a
cookie cutter, so to speak. They are not made from the same
dough but diversity is not deficiency. There are people who live
in a nation where diversity ought to be acknowledge as
something that is powerful, uplifting, edifying, beautiful and
desirable, not difference as deficiency that those who happen to
have a different last name or those who are immigrants or those
who are African-American and the like, are somehow seen as
inferior because they are different.
Wayne Flynt
47% of the children under five in the United States are children
of color. 43% of the children under 20 are children of color, so
you kind of get an idea where we are headed. Some time around
2050 or thereabouts that the current demographic trajectory, we
are going to be a nation of color. If we cannot make a nation of
color work, there will be no modern America.
John Powell
We are rushing towards a place where there is no racial
majority. I think that is good but also, know for a lot of
Americans is anxiety producing. So what does that mean where
the Chinese economy will be on parity if not larger than the
U.S. economy? What does it mean when you look at the top ten
economies in the world and six of them are in countries where
white people are not in the majority? I think what it means is
actually profoundly important and I do not think we begin to
grapple with that. So it is not just the diversity that is
happening inside United States but it is diversity that is
happening in terms of the world particularly the world
leadership.

Wayne Flynt
If you wanted to be competing with China for the leadership of
the world at the end of 21st century, you cannot neglect
children of color and poor children. If you decide that you had
rather not live in a multi-cultural world, and if you are going to
spend every waking moment contriving to either disfranchise,
minimize or marginalize African-Americans and drive all the
Hispanics back to where they came fro, if that is the agenda of
the 21st century and that is what you spend all of your energy
and all of your intellectual capacity and all of your political
power to accomplish, where you are going to end with is
something that looks like Bangladesh.
John Powell
I do not think we are preparing people with this new world that
is getting smaller and smaller and we have not built cultural,
social institutions, we have not built a narrative that allows us
to live in a world next to someone who not only -- it is not
necessarily white, they are not necessarily Christian, they not
necessarily speak English but I think that is a challenge. I think
that is a profound challenge.
Sonia Sanchez
One of the things we are attempting to answer in the 20th
century is what does it mean to be human not what does it mean
to be black or white or Latino or brown or Asian or gay or
lesbian. All of that came within the context of a book. If you are
all of that, what is it being funny to be human?
Rhina Guillen-Gomez
Just get to know us, give us a chance because as a human as I
said, I am not less than an American because I am from
Nicaragua or because I am from Mexico and a human being. I
feel the way that you feel, I cry the way that you cry, I laugh
the way that you laugh, and I love the way that you love.
Elyzabeth Wilder
"Growing up in the south I was well into my teens before I
realize what humanity is. Do not get me wrong, I knew the
textbook definition I understood what they were talking about

when they talked about it on the news but to me that was just
what air felt like. Air was supposed to confront you when you
walk outside. It was supposed to engulf you in smothering,
draining, stifling, warmth like a womb but without nurture or
comfort. It was something invisible, unnoticed, hanging over
you, heavy like a sheet down from an anxious restless night so
native to the environment, so pervasive in our structures, so
natural. It was almost like racism."
John Powell
When you think about race in this country, we are primarily
inclined to think about black people, maybe blacks and Latinos,
even though Latinos is not specifically a race, maybe blacks,
Latinos, and even Native Americans or Asians, we generally do
not think of whites. Whites see themselves at a conscious level
largely as not being concerned of our race. They see themselves
being concerned about individuality, about person
responsibility, maybe about religion, not about race.
Peggy McIntosh
I think race relations are in quite bad trouble in the United
States and part of the problem is that people who were born
white, as I was, are likely to talk about race without putting
ourselves and our own racial experience as whites into the
picture.
John Powell
I would say in an unconscious level and frankly, even at a
symbolic level, whites are just as obsessed if not more obsessed
about race as anybody else that even the concept of
individuality that whites organize around is profoundly racial, it
is profoundly racial.
Ingie Givens
One of the ways that I have found helpful in kind of working
through all of this is to recognize that I am raised that white is a
race, white is not the norm. We are actually part of what is a
social construction and should be treated in that way.
John Powell
Most people who study this say race is a social construction. It

is a practice that we actually put into place through social
norms and practices. It is not a biological marker. That is very
different. Some people take that message and to me it means
that race is not real, it is not biologically grounded then it is not
real. That is not what that message means, it means it maybe a
scientific or biological fiction, it is social reality. And so we
need to think about what are we doing, what are the practices,
what are the norms, what are the institutions doing, it is not just
distributing benefits and burdens based on race it is also
distributing identity based on race.
Jake Adam York
Some people think that racism is simply a matter of personal
hatred of one person for another with a color boundary between
but I think the real racism, the one that needs to be talked about
more is the one in which all of your values that you have taken
in through your life. Those values themselves are -- they are
looking at that boundary and they are policing it and they are
reinforcing it. It is always going to be a company by denial
because what people do not realize is not a matter of personal
volition alone, it is also a matter of living in a world that
enables you to deny it and also have the privileges of being on
one side of that line and not the other.
Judith Smits
One of the persons at the table did not felt we should not be
talking about race and her point was race is not an issue, so let
us stop talking about it. As if by talking about it, we make it
worse or make it an issue that it should not be and I said to her
you are part of the dominant culture and it would not be an
issue for you.
Peggy McIntosh
Well, one black woman said to me, "Peggy, what does it feel too
much about race?" Your gift is that you would think about race
and cannot you get more rights to think about race. And she was
talking about the way I had in a very kind of flat footed way,
listed 46 ways in which I have under earned advantage by
contrast with my African-American friends. I was hearing their

stories with this empathetic feeling, how terrible for them. I was
never feeling how exempt for me, how exempt for me to be able
to assume the police are my friends. Once I was that above this
hypothetical line of justice, they are pushed down by not being
able to depend on the police but I am pushed up by having their
exclusive attention to my needs and my wellbeing as they see it
and that changed everything.
Stephen Black
I think it is helpful when we are thinking through how racism
manifests itself and we have failings and race relations, what to
do about them. I think it is helpful not just to consider that in
terms of individual relationships in a way each of us
individually treat someone else. Because there are structural
barriers that find themselves disproportionably based in black
communities that need addressing at a structural level, at a
justice level.
Shakti Butler
Structural racism I think is the one that is hardest for people to
comprehend because it consists of a network of relationships
that may or may not be visible to us. So like if I said to you
wherever you are sitting right now, look around you and tell
yourself what is the structure of the room that you are in, and
really when you think about it, what is the structure of the room
that your are in is what is most hidden. It is in the foundation, it
is in the walls, behind the walls. It is in the roof, it is the
connections between your building and the next building. These
structural relationships are what allow the building to stand and
yet they are not necessarily available to us with the naked eye.
And I think one of the reasons that inequity is so hard to
actually hold on to is because we cannot really see it.
John Powell
I do not use the term racism often. I have a friend who says
racism is a conversation ending strategy. You say we are racism
and the conversation shifts. You see it stops completely or the
discussion becomes is he or is he not a racist. Racism snaps us
back to what is in this person's conscious mind and it causes us

to ignore systems, structures, relationships, consequences and
the unconscious so we can distract it by the wrong thing. And
there are small group of people who are racists and they should
be called on it as --. But that group will continue to shrink. It
does not mean that these racialized processes will continue to
shrink. So we need to move beyond, is he or she a racist and
take responsibility for racialized outcomes and racialized
structures even if there is no one intending that effect.
Lance Hill
There is another form of racism that is where structures and
institutions carry on policies that have racially discriminatory
outcome and these institutions are run by people that do not
have any prejudices. In effect, the way that these policies affect
African-Americans is just as harmful as if the policies were
intentional but that they do not have intent. And so we need to
understand how these structures work, institutions and
traditions, and policies that allow for bad things to happen
carried out like good people.
Terry Keleher
When you start looking at school systems and police
departments, and health delivery services and you see such
disparities in terms of how people get treated then, that is where
the systemic level of racism begins to reveal itself. Just about
every major key indicator of quality of life in this country is
very racially skewed. And beginning from the very beginning
with infant mortality all the way to life expectancy, you see
huge racial disparities and everything in between from home
ownership, from educational attainment, healthcare access, all
of those things are very racially skewed. That is not happening
by chance, there is some systemic inequalities that are going on
in the system that have to be examined.
Anthony Outler
Just like a tree, that the root is bad or you continue to clip away
at the branches and the leaves, trying to make it pretty but the
tree is still sick and until you dig deeper into the roots and in
this country, because the roots of this country is built upon

inequities, built upon racism and built upon oppressing certain
groups, the system had risen and grown out of this particular
root, this soil. And so until we begin to dig deep and when we
dig deep, I mean it is going to require us to dig and whenever
you dig, there is going to be some work, there is going to be
some pain.
Jim Flowers
We western moderns, we Americans who are very much self-
interested, we are highly individualistic. I think that when we
talk about sin, we think that means "my sin", the little naughty
things that I do is, all about me. The work for sin in the gospel
of John is Hamartia, which best translated in the coin of Greek
means "collective brokenness", that is quite a different matter.
Sin that finds its way insidiously into the social structure of our
world into the fabric of our society often unnoticed. It is one
thing for me to be racist but it is quite another thing for the
structure of our society to be racist.
John Powell
We all live in structures. We do not call it that. We do not call
it opportunity structures. We do not call it systems we say our
little neighborhood. In a real market you say, you only care
about three things when you buy a house, location, location,
location. What they are saying is that when you a buy a house,
you buy a neighborhood, you buy a school district, you buy a
grocery stores, you buy a park you buy police services, you buy
fire services, you buy a structure, and that structure can be
arranged so that your life chances and your life itself is in a
positive projection.
Jam Love
Whether or not you are going to go to prison or whether or not
you are going to get a meaningful job, whether you are going to
college or not, can just about be predicted by what it is going to
be you come from. And those communities that are poor and
often communities of color have by and large part been left
behind by our society.
Tim Wise

The idea that we systemic injustice is something we can get our
head around does not necessarily mean we going to get our
heart around that, and our body bodies around that and really
challenge it, until we see the impact that is having on each of
us. So if I say for instance that racism at the institutional level
is resulting in less housing opportunity or predatory lending for
people of color, unless I can also connect that to the individual
impact the stories, the human cost of that type of institutional
racism, most people will not really see it.
Nashira Baril
When I think about health outcomes and the fact that in this
country, more people of color are sick and dying younger than
our white counterparts, that actually does not have really to do
with race as a biological construct. Because is not, it is a social
construct. It has to do with the system of racism, and how
racism shapes what we call the social determinants of health,
these social factors, the social environmental, political, physical
factors that influence our lives and ultimately influence our
health.
Allen Perkins
Of these people that are Black versus those people that are
White, even though genetically, if you take and you break them
down, we genetically look very, very similar if not exactly the
same, that you are much more likely to die earlier, you much
more likely to have an illness if you are Black than if you are
White. And there is a lot of belief that that may actually be the
result of stress brought on by societal pressure such as racism.
Nashira Baril
And so when I think about racism in residential segregation and
how that shapes where people live, and how where people live
shapes people's access to food, to good jobs, to quality
education, to safety places to exercise, all of those things have a
big impact on our health.
Joan Reede
There are remnants of systems that have left us unequal. There
are social determinants that place people in unequal positions.

So that if I do not have access to quality food, if I do not have
access to transportation, if I do not have access to a job, if I do
not have access to an education, I am not going to be as healthy.
So it is not just the Healthcare Delivery System it is the society
in which we live that place out in terms of this health
inequities. Our institutions need to care about it.
John Powell
Blacks, certain low income Blacks and oftentimes, even all
Whites but certainly, Latinos, oftentimes live in opportunity
structure that retards their life chances, the retards to
development of the brain that retards to health. And when we
think about it in that way, the norm where you live, I can tell
how long you will live, I can tell if likely to graduate from high
school, I can tell if you likely to be shot, does not seem fair.
None of that says I know anything about you personally. All I
am saying is I can look at the structure that you live in and start
telling you about your life.
Shakti Butler
The world is the world to us as it is to fish swimming in water.
It is just a natural part of the environment, but we can look at
the disparities that exist and say, when we see that there are
disparities in health, in education, in the penal system, and any
kind of large social issue, then we say something is going on
and unless you are willing to say, "Oh there is something wrong
with those people, all of those people," then you have to begin
to ask yourself, why is this happening?
Joe Johnson
I am convince that if take a chow from the bottom, when he is a
home one week, just one week brand new baby boy, brand new
baby girl lives in a bottom, take him out of that environment
and put him in Spring Hill, just put him in a houses near
Dolphin Street and let him grow up there. They are going to the
best of the daycares, the best of elementary schools, the best of
middle schools, they will graduate from the best high schools,
will score a 33 on the ACT and then will be allowed to go any
school they want to, and the yet the child still Black. All you

did was, you just made the play and feel equal.
Michael Eric Dyson
The reality is, is that still to this day, despite some
intermingling of the racist at some places and spaces, and
churches that mostly America worships separately.
Hank Aaron
I think our problem starts on a Sunday. We had divided so much
of ourselves on Sunday morning in Churches.
Michael Eric Dyson
African-American people by and large in African-American
churches, and White brothers and sisters by and large in White
churches, and so on and so forth, Latinos, Asians and the like.
There are some smatterings of integrated worship, but by and
large, these churches are the product of the society that has
worshipped at the altar of racial inferiority and racial
superiority.
Jim Flowers
I think the challenge for the Modern Church not just the
Episcopal Church, and even for African-American churches
because their kids are not going either, as we got to find a way
to worship with an integrity that is inclusive.
Judith Smits
One of my problems is that we cannot talk politics in Church,
and anything that has anything to do with real life involves
politics, and race relations is one of those things. You are just
not going to hear in the homily something about race relations
and what we should be doing about them.
Michael Eric Dyson
Ideally, those Churches can challenge notions of the distribution
of wealth or privileges according to race or long class lines and
yet so often, they reinforce it. Religious people who happened
to be of a particular race do not necessarily challenge the
prevailing social ethics that attend their particular race or tribe.
For instance, you could be a person who is a beneficiary of
White privilege and not challenge that even based upon your
religious beliefs, your religious beliefs only reinforce a sense of

privilege, a sense of, if you will, standing that has been blessed
by God and that seems natural to you as opposed to challenge in
that in a very fundamental way.
Judith Smits
I just have the sense that the church could provide a remedy, but
the will has to be there, and I just do not see that it is.
Jam Love
The Black church can be and at its best is an absolutely vital
institution in African-American communities, and it is a place
of healing, and wholeness, and celebration of who you are.
Jim Flowers
Their services are very emotional and very preaching-oriented.
We preach but I would give anything to get it on me in or two
every now and then. In fact, I had loved to preach in an African-
American church because I have done that once at an
ecumenical service and there is nothing like being affirmed
from the congregation that you are saying something that means
something. Our group every now and then there is a nod or like
that but that is about the most you can expect.
Natasha Trethewey
"Before the war, they were happy," he said, quoting our text
book. "This was senior year, history class. The slaves were
clothed, fed and better off under a master's care. I watched the
words blur on the pages, no one raised a hand, disagreed, not
even me. It was late. We still had reconstruction to cover before
the test and luckily, three hours of watching, gone with the
wind." "History," the teacher said, "of the old south, a true
account of how things were back then. On screen, a slave stood
big as life, big mouth, bucked eyes, our text books greening
proof, a lie my teacher guarded. Silent, so did I."
Bryan Stevenson
I grew up in a rural community, a poor rural community. I think
one of the formative experiences on my perspective on racism.
And I grew up in a community that was obviously all Black and
we had to start our education in the colored school. I could not
go to the public school when I was -- when it was time for me

education. My mom used to drive us by the public school every
morning to the colored school and I had this mother who would
always enter any question you ask her, it did not matter whether
she knew the answer or not. But I said, "Mom, what is that big
star up in the sky?" She would say, "Well, that is the big bright
star in the sky." If I said, "What is that?? She gave me some
kind of explanation. And the only question I ever remembered
asking her, that she never answered was what the word public
meant.
Scott Winn
The face of the racist in the United States of America is a
working class white men or poor white men. I think we need
definitely hold white folks of all class backgrounds accountable
for what they are saying, what they are doing, the harm they are
doing. But what is really hurting the present communities of
color, is the policy being passed by wealthy white folks in
Washington D.C. and the places of government. And so we
really have to understand that while prejudice is a problem
policy and policies which are leading the racial inequity are
actually the target of our work.
Bryan Stevenson
And that structural racism is a very much a function of
structures that we have created like the State Constitution of
1901, like the lack of equality and equity in education
financing.
Wayne Flynt
We have never asked ourselves, is the property tax provision of
the 1901 Constitution any less racist, is the motivation any less
clearly racist than the attempt to disfranchise blacks. And my
answer is in the historian and the answer of the vast majority of
Alabama's historians who have looked at these issues. No, the
very same issue, the same Constitution that gave us the poll tax,
that gave us the literary test, that gave us the apartheid, also
gave us the present tax system.
Jim Flowers
We have the lowest property taxes in the country. So we talked

about love in our children, but we do not, because we are not
spending money on our children, and we are not spending
equitably. So again, that is structural. I mean that is structural
Jeremiah Newell
Educating our young people is the single most expensive thing
we do, but it is also the most important we do.
Lance Hill
We do not fund the education like we do bridges. If we want to
build a bridge across the bay, you go out and you find out, well,
it cost 300 million and then you go to legislature, you get the
money. That is not way schools works. We just say, "Here is
$7,000 to educate the children." That is all we are going to give
you. It is not based on what actually is necessary. If we funded
bridges the way that we funded schools, the bridges would go
halfway across the bay and then the cars will drop off into the
water.
Wayne Flynt
By the 1990s, 3% -- between 2% and 3% of all revenue spent by
the State of Alabama for every single function of state of
operation came from property taxes, the rest came from sales
taxes. Well, sales taxes are really interesting. There is a funding
mechanism for publics schools, because the maid who clean my
office when I was at Harvard University, who made less than in
$20,000 a year. That is exactly the same amount of a gallon of
milk for her children as I paid for a gallon of milk for my
children and yet her income was a small fraction of what mine
was.
And so what we did is to create one of the most inequitable
systems of taxation in the United States, where were I begin my
research, 13 % of the income of a poor person Black or White or
Native American or Latino, 13 % of her income was spent on
state and local taxes and 2% of my income was spent on state
and local taxes. In Alabama, whites will own property and land
loved that system, because the running of government in
Alabama is basically transferred from those who own property
to those who do not own property.

Morris Dees
I think race relations in Alabama are light years ahead of what
they were in the days of American civil rights movement. That
said though, there are still some serious issues. I think that the
allocation resources, the lack of property taxes not that this is a
direct reflection of the failure to provide education for African-
American students.
Stephen Black
When you are much more likely if you're happened to be born
black to be in the community where the schools are under
serving your needs, where healthcare access is limited, those are
structural injustice issues that deserve the attention of all us.
And in fact, you do not need to be guilty to be responsible for
the solution, and I think that is a helpful way to think of it,
because it does not require you to attribute guilt or poor
motives to being white person in the community that maybe
benefiting from services where African-Americans in their
community are.
Jeremiah Newell
There is a big difference in terms of course offerings, quality of
instruction, quality of facility, food for these students where
you look at one part of the county from the part of the county or
inner city to suburban. And so, what we tend to see then, is a
connection to the dropout rate, to the achievement rate, to the
number of students who are going off to college or being able to
truly contribute to the workforce was almost cyclical.
Stephen Black
I think continued inequities in the educational offerings to
families, in particular in black communities, is the single
biggest determining factor in limiting our potential to continue
to improve race relations, not just because disproportionately,
African-American children find themselves in malfunction and
under resource school, but I think even more important than that
the majority of Americans namely white Americans, I think do
not honestly believe that all children can learn at a high level.
Carmen Harris

There is this equation of a school with a high Black population
with being "bad school" and people again do not want to
support schools for their children not going. I do not mean there
biological children.
Wayne Flynt
Alabama is no longer supporting public education because their
view is they are not our children, which means they are not
White kids, they are Black kids and Hispanic kids and so, we do
not care what happens to do them. And if you look at the long
term future the state, it is kind of frightening to think what is
going to happen. If we continue to defund or underfund public
schools and we do it largely because of race, because the
percentage of kids were African-American and Hispanic is
continually going up until finally the tipping point comes
around 2017.
And as you decide that it does not make any difference, whether
kids of color have a good education, whether they graduate from
high school, where they go to college. You are steadily
narrowing the skill gap for the labor force and all of a sudden,
you are competing with Korea, your competing with Japan, your
competing with Sweden even with Finland, your competing with
India and the reason we are not going to be competitive is
because white Alabamians do not really care, because it is not
our children.
Karlos Finley
When we want talked about education and segregation, when the
Black children were busted and forced to go to the White
schools, the White with means simply pluck their children out
of the public school system, and created a private school
system. In essence, segregating all over again, this time not
only by race but by means, the "have" and the "have not's".
Frye Gaillard
I think in the long term, it will be very bad for this community
if education becomes the province of the privileged few. I wish
more people with means would send there their kids to public
schools, I think it would be good for their kids, and good for the

public schools because we know they have more support. But
failing that, I want to make sure that people understand that it is
an all very interest whether your kids go to public schools or
not to make sure that they have the resources that they need so
that we lay the ground work for a interracial, multi-cultural
future where everybody has a chance to be a contributing
members of this community. I mean nothing else makes any
sense to make.
Jerry Rosiek
If I expect a certain level of education for my child, then we
should expect that for every child in the country and we should
invest to achieve it. Because when we achieve it, when we
actually have schools that are wealthy enough to support all
students at a certain level, will be excited to take our children
to that space. We do not get that on cheap. We do not get it free
and we do not get it by constantly defunding our schools
system. We are going to have to pay for it. You are paying for it
anyway if you are going to a private school, so why would you
not pay for it in terms of a public policy. How much is it worth
to you to just avoid doing the work of dealing with the issues of
racial disparity and our assumptions about racial inferiority in
schools.
Jeremiah Newell
What I think is of non-negotiable and something that we have to
continue to remind ourselves about in Mobile is that regardless
of what, whether you are in private school or in public school,
the majority of young people in our community come from
public school and they are being educated in public schools, the
vast majority of young people. So it is to our benefit to ensure
that the quality of the instruction, the proper funding is being
maintained in our district, so that most of our students who are
graduating being able to be prepared for the future and being
able to give back economically to our community.
Alex "Huggy Bear" Lofton
Though it bothers me when I hear the people fix their mouth and
say, they tried to use the word "Bama" in a derogatory way.

When they say Bama, they say well it epitomized being Black
and from the south and I will be that. But let me explain to you
what being a Bama really about. You see Alabama was known
as the "Heart of Dixie" because that is where Black folks always
had their heart. I am from Mobile, down here by the bay, and
this was the --. And from -- slavery, we carried too much of this
water, they would be disrespected by the very people who
supplied the fuels of our motors. What he was drinking from the
well of freedom, provided by our great grandmothers and
fathers, knowing the whole time, it was a Bama that made life
better for them, their sons and their daughters. So, if you are
not on the Alabama in the south, you are really blocking what
was your own blessings, pave game, how are you going to get
quick history lessons.
Now, if you were the Black in this country no matter where you
are from, in some degree, you always had to ask. Who in -- was
king, Alabama was the castle, photo land -- plus a whole bunch
of slaves, so they made a square amount of money of their
triangle tree.
Now 1876, ended what they call Post-Civil War Reconstruction,
last to the Union troops left the South and the KKK were on the
path of destruction, and that sparked the first migration, the
exodus. Black sailed and toward the Mason Dixie Line. Could
not take the way they were being treated in the South so they
left everything they have ever loved --. But the irony of the
situation is most of them going to know of when treated too
much better, disenfranchised, segregated, under paid. Now, they
got to deal with their cold, cold weather.
So eventually over time in the South, which in pretty much have
left, which is the strongest, most oppressed hardest working
people on this planet searching for knowledge and work for
their self and they would not let us go to the colleges. So we
started our own ways as busy youths -- of our struggle with the
Negro spirits and created this new music called blues. Those
Bama's like W.C. Handy, they gave it to world to use. They
never understood the pain of our struggle until we made them

sing and dance in our shoes, being down in New Orleans some
more Bama types created jazz. And people had never heard none
like it before and spread it around the world real fast and had so
much power, so much energy that anybody could feel it. Those
scary Negros that run north, let the record company steal it.
Meanwhile Dana Montgomery, it was Bama's that had enough.
So they stepped out, good foot and the whole city style riding a
bus, because some Bama's over Selma and Birmingham started
to doing some similar things and they were lead by our Bama
preacher -- we called him Dr. Martin Luther King and it was
him and the whole bunch other Bama's like Medgar Evers, they
fought and die for all our Civil Rights endeavors. It was Bama's
has suffered the most, they have changed his world, the little
regna and then four little girls.
From Dred Scott to the Montgomery bus boycott, we undated to
those Bama's for all we got, who told us to struggle, who made
us yearn to be free if it one from some Bama's, what will black
folks really be? And awesomely, you are going to believe,
which you want to believe, but when it come to music, art
cultures, sports whatever recognize what we did not achieved. If
you all believe a word I am saying, you can check every one of
my facts, -- go on and ask your grand mama where she learned
to cook like that.
So in closing, I am on state Alabama to be with you.
Hardworking country sweat, crusty feet, and dirty cubes, born
and breed in this red dirt clay and there was the blood of my
ancestors that made it that way. So do you get some rose woods,
some coal fax or some -- experiments, you need to start using
that word Bama like a term of endearment. The survival is
determined by the strength of your genes or you keep beside
jazz. I am a role model who reads as Bama.
Lance Hill
There is such thing as structural racism, but I am of the opinion
that we are not so far away from the old fashion racism. One of
the arguments about the new theories of unconscious racism is
that, it does not affect us on our day-to-day lives. That it is only

on periods where we have political chaos or economic turmoil
that this old deeply embedded negative evaluations begun to
surface like low grade fever, and I think, I actually take on the
character policy.
Wayne Flynt
You know Obama, you have about the same number of Blacks
and Whites who are poor which is always kind of striking into
an audience to hear, because most White people in Alabama just
assume poverty as an issue of Hispanics and African-Americans
it does not affect them. Not true.
Stephen Black
One of the biggest challenges facing the improvement of race
relations is the continuing sense of the vast majority of White
Americans and White Alabamians that the majority of people in
poverty are African-American. That has never been true. There
is a slight disproportionate increase in poverty in the Black
community and there has been since the time of slavery, but in
terms of who is poor and why they are poor, it is always the
majority White poverty problem. Even in Alabama, the majority
of people in poverty are poor, rural and white. That people who
receive a welfare it has never been a majority black program
although most white people think it is. That is a starting point
for race relations does terrible damage to people being
thoughtful about engaging a new relationships, when people are
just dead wrong on the facts.
Wayne Flynt
You never swear that you are African-American, Hispanic or
White, if you are in poor family, the chances that your kids
going to graduate from high school are significantly lower? The
chance that kid is going to college is significantly lower. The
chance that your kid is going to graduate from college is
significantly lower. The chance that your child will be
unemployed during the significant portion of his or her life is
significantly higher, likelihood that daughters is going to be
pregnant and unmarried in her teenage year is significantly
higher and I might say I hurt for White poor kids is as well as

for poor Black kids.
Kimberly Pettway
I have students who are reading the stats that African-
Americans or Hispanic Americans are disproportionately
representing among, but we skip over the fact that the majority
of are. I do not need you to tell them that there are a
disproportionate number of Black people or there is
disproportionate number of Hispanic people because you take
the attention off the fact that the majority of the people are not
Black and Hispanic. And so I have to wonder historically, why
did we do that? What motivates that?
Stephen Black
It really is a fascinating problem with a lot of different causes
and I do not attribute poor motives to most of those causes. In
other words, there is a great book called "Why Americans Hate
Welfare" and there is a chapter specifically about race and
media and there is a 30-year study that has been done about
main line weekly magazines, News Week, Time, U.S. News, and
World Report, that looks at every article in the last 30 years
about poverty and speak about whether it is about an African-
American family or White, and what the picture is. And the
majority of them are about African-American families even
though the majority people in poverty are White.
And when you just divide the articles based on those stories
about people pulling themselves up out of poverty, positive
stories about poverty, has compared to negative stories. The
majority of the stories that are positive have pictures of White
families and the majority of stories that are negative have
pictures of Black families. I do not think they purposefully sent
their photographers into Black communities to portray poverty
negatively. I think part of that is a demographic shift to where
most poverty communities in the Black community are in urban
areas and most White poverty is rural. So when there are
pictures and film footage we see in the news and in the media
everyday of poverty, it is usually near big buildings. It is near
where news papers are. It is near where television stations are

and that happens to be urban and the images come back Black.
Frye Gaillard
If you have a community with a lot poverty and pockets of poor
education, there is often danger and crime and things like that,
that are violence that are associated with those communities.
Most people in those communities are not that way. Even in the
poorest community, most people are good people. But the fact is
that there is a greater danger of crime and violence in those
kinds of communities. That is in nobody's interest, not the
people in those immediate neighborhoods not the rest of us who
want to live in a city where we feel safe and comfortable.
Bryan Stevenson
In 1972 there were 200,000 people in jails and prisons, today
there are 2.3 million. Alabama's prison population has increased
from the 1970s from about 4,000 until over 30,000 today. A lot
of the strategies that have gone into that increase have been
directed at communities of color. They have been
disproportionately applied in communities of color. So today in
America and in Alabama, one out of three Black men between
the ages of 18 and 30 is in jail, in prison, on probation or
parole. That was never true in the 1950s or 1960s or 1970s.
Today, 35%of he African-American male population in the State
has permanently lost the right to vote and actually if we do not
do something soon about fell in disenfranchisement. We are
going to be looking at a level of disenfranchisement among
African-American men that rivals the level of
disenfranchisement at the time of the Voting Rights Act in the
1960s, and the difference is as if there is this indifference, the
silence about that.
Karlos Finley
The lack of involvement, the lack of opportunity within the
Circuit Court, the State Courts, the Criminal Justice System, I
think is a direct effect affect as to why the jails have make up
that they have.
Marcela Ludgood
And until we get to a point where we say, our systems have to

reflect our communities that we get intentional about that we
are willing to sit in a room or in a board room or where we are
unless all of these communities are represented here then
whatever decisions we make it by how we move our city
forward are of law, because we lack in a particular perspective.
Bryan Stevenson
But we have been so bombarded with images of the criminal
being the young African-American male, that when an African-
American male is arrested, there is a presumption that he is
guilty. And unlike someone who maybe does not look like a
criminal, he is going to actually have to prove his innocence.
Whereas the person who quote, "does not look like a criminal"
will be afforded what the law says everyone should be afforded,
which is the presumption of innocence. That is going to greatly
increase the likelihood of a wrongful conviction.
Ravi Howard
There can be a perception that any Black male walking the
street is not part of the population of law abiding citizens. So
sometimes, I feel like I have to prove that I am not a criminal
before I can kind of, go about my business.
Carmen Harris
Even though a lot of it is unspoken, if you are an African-
American especially you learn to be watchful and sometimes out
of that watchfulness you see things that are disappointing that
let you know that veil is still there. I have a PHD, but
sometimes when I go out my door that veil is still there for me.
Bryan Stevenson
Illegal drugs use among African-American and communities like
Mobile is the same as it is, and why coming like this? There is
no disparate kind of use, illegal use, but African-Americans in
Mobile are six times more likely to go to jail or prison for
simple possession of marijuana or cocaine and then their white
counterpart in that community. And what that does is it creates
this continuing legacy about race mattering.
Lance Hill
Whites convicted to the same crimes as African-Americans with

the same socioeconomic background do not get sentenced in the
same way. They are almost now the famous or it should be
famous analysis of the crack law, how we ever separate laws for
cocaine when it is put in the form of rock cocaine then
powdered cocaine and the only explanation is that powdered
cocaine is what White people use and rock cocaine is what
Black people use.
Bryan Stevenson
We have a selective enforcement of laws has the beginning
problems. So for example, again, drug possession is a perfect
example, the data tells us that people who are guilty of
possession of say marijuana, are just as likely to be Black or
White that is if the community is 20 % African-American, then
20 % of the people illegally in possession of marijuana will be
African-American, and 80 % will be a white, but the arrest
pattern to them going to be different we will set up road blocks
in minority communities and we will search for drugs, we will
go unto public housing projects that are disproportionately
black and we will search for drugs. We will see young men of
color in places where we think they do not belong and we will
search for drugs. And then we will prosecute those folks very
aggressively.
We do not search for drugs at South Alabama. We do not do
raids at Alabama. We do not do raids in the dorms at the
University of Alabama. We do not do raids in places where
people feel protected. We do not go into affluent White
communities instead of road blocks and search for drugs. We
could find drugs in those communities just like we can in poor
communities. And as a result, what we see is the arrest rate is
much higher from people of color.
Stephen Black
I think unfortunately, I think that criminal justice system is a
place where we continue to find serious racial disparities. In
sentencing, I think it is unquestionable than in terms of certain
punishments related to different drug offenses and more
strenuously applied in minority communities. That is not to say

the need to let people off for drug offenses because of their
color but it really is something worth considering more
seriously how we are addressing crime, where we are addressing
it, and what we are doing about it.
Bryan Stevenson
We have discretion. We can actually send you to drug court. We
can send you to jail or prison. And there we see huge disparities
based on race. And then we have discretion what kind of
sentence we impose. We can put you on probation or we can
give you a five-year or ten-year sentence. Again, we see huge
disparities and so way it seems to suggest the likely outcome on
something really basic like simple drug possession. And that
plays throughout the criminal justice system in a variety of
context.
Morris Dees
There are so many steps in the criminal justice system where
people have discretion. Police have set discretion on the street
as to who to arrest. Prosecutors have discretion as to whether
they go for death penalty or murder. Jurists have discretion and
finally, the judges in Alabama almost a complete arbitrary
power just over ruling what the jury does.
Bryan Stevenson
And all of those decision makers are disproportionately White.
We do not have adequate representation among African-
Americans in any of those communities: law enforcement,
prosecutors, trial judges, appellate judges. African-Americans
cannot win a statewide office in the state, because race is still a
limiting factor. We have nine judges on the Alabama Supreme
Court, five judges on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, five
judges on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, all of them
are White, and a state that is 27% African-American. There is
only one African-American district attorney in the entire State
of Alabama. We have less than 4% of the trial judges are
African-American and yet we have a criminal justice system
where 65% of the people being sent to prison are Black. With
these kinds of images, these kinds of visuals, create I think, a

very legitimate perception that race matters.
Kimberly Pettway
When we look at other crimes by a dominant culture, it is not a
matter of race, it is just a crime. But when you look at crime by
Black people or Hispanic people, it is a Hispanic crime or it is a
Black crime. There are structural races are out there that exist
that continues to perpetuate the level of violence. There is the
educational system out there that is not welcoming of young
black men.
Nirmala Erevelles
My little good tells me that though there are kids in her class
who are labeled the kids. She knows who they are. And those
kids pull on those labels throughout the system and directly
train them to be the outliers, the outcasts, and therefore people
are in prison. So we really have is really effective school to
present pipeline. And it seems that nobody cares about it.
Marcela Ludgood
If you go, for example, to Strickland, you will find
overwhelmingly the children who come before the Court and
Strickland the ones who are detained are largely African-
American. But there as you know, there is no African-American
on that bench at all in any kind of decision maker rule in the
lives of their children until they get to a probation officer.
Michael Williams
When you send a young male or young female to the Mobile
County Youth Center, they are going to get educated and it is
not the kind of education that we want to give them. They are
going to go in and connect with someone who knows how to sell
drugs, who knows how to make drugs, who knows how to steal
cars, and they get that education, and they come back out on the
streets so then, we compounded our problem.
Kimberly Pettway
And then the next thing we know, we see this child on the news
and he has killed his peer. And we say, "Wow! That is black on
black crime." It is poor on poor crime. It is what it is. And so, if
we are going to ever address at first, we need to realize that it is

not limited to race.
Nirmala Erevelles
That is why we are afraid of poor black people in some of the
areas of the city. It is only because we have actually constructed
the population, we have devalued them. We have labeled them
as such. And then we then have to face the monster that we have
created.
Denise McAdory
The forefathers the ancestors knew that the ticket to freedom
was an education, and they are slowly being in the fad, they
have been taken away from us. And until we can open up their
minds and their ears and get their parents to understand that
education is the key, we are going to lose our whole generation
of children. And that bothers me. That bothers me.
Luke Coley
Children grow up expecting to be something, more to the point,
expecting not to be something. And seeing only certain doors
open to them and certain avenues of life. And the more we
consciously show every child in Mobile County, you have every
avenue in life open to you. The more that will tear down that
structural racism. And we have to do it intentionally.
Denise McAdory
So this is what we have to do with these children is tell them
that they are going to go and if we tell them, the opportunity
will be made available. And if they could get that opportunity
then, crime will decrease because I am tired of seeing black
faces on the news killing people, committing all of these
crimes. What if they have an opportunity? I am tired of black
kids being felonies. I am tired of it. And the only way to get out
of this is to obtain an education because the country now is
building more prisons. They objective is a lack you have. My
objective is to free your mind.
Tommy Bice
The one way to move a family or a group of people out of
poverty is for them to get an education, specifically to get a
college education. When you look at the amount of money and

resources that are poured into some of our social programs, they
really do not change the generational poverty of that family
group. But if you get one person educated out of that group, it
seems like different future than the group that is currently left
then that starts to change that discussion.
Pamela Adams
It costs us a lot to have someone in jail, which is a lot of times
where a dropout is in jail. It costs a lot for us to support people
on welfare, in the welfare system. And that is where a lot of our
dropouts end up. So all of the things that we do in the school,
whether you feel the same way about what a school should do
for that child or not, you should know that we can either pay
now and do what we need to make sure those children get what
they need or we pay later and we pay for something that, God
forbid, no one would ever want for someone.
Stephen Black
I think it has been unfortunate and a mistake to put the
conversation about racial disparities in terms of what is owed to
one race. In other words, it is almost the tone of a charitable
requirement for the black community. Black people do not need
charity. Their children need good schools the way any child
needs a school. Their children do not need handouts. They need
medical attention from prenatal care forward. And when you
frame it that way, the white people or black people, republicans
or democrats, you get large majorities agreeing at that.
Wayne Flynt
I would like rather empower people to take care of themselves,
than have folks do something for them that keep them dependent
and subservient. And so charity is good, justice is better.
Lance Hill
If we are sitting in a city in which we know that children are
being not prepared for college but prepared for prison then,
what allows me to wake up in the morning and go through my
life and do nothing about that? Because if it were my own
children, I would not leave the breakfast table until we get this
settled. And if it was my nephews and cousins, well, I would

not get off the phone until we get this settled. So what explains
my ability to go through life knowing that a child who is six
years old not responsible for the conditions they were born into
should be prepared for prison and not prepared for college. And
I think the answer is that we do not think they are like us. We
do not think they deserve what we deserve.
Karlos Finley
It starts with someone not educating themselves, someone not
putting forth the effort to explain to a child that it is your
education that is the most important thing. It starts with
someone saying, "They are not my children. It is not my job to
educate them." My children go to school every day. I make sure
of it. They are our children. They are all our children. And until
we start looking at it like that, until all of us adults start
looking at it from that perspective, we are going to continue to
get exactly what we have got and it may even get worse.
Sue Walker
Nobody wants to die on the way caught between ghosts of
whiteness in the real water. None of us wanted to leave our
bones on the way to salvation three planets to the left a century
of light years ago.
Natasha Trethewey
"Our spices are separate and particular but our skins sing in
complementary keys. At a quarter to eight mean time, we were
telling the same stories over and over and over. Broken down
gods survive in the crevasses and mudpots of every beleaguered
city where it is obvious there are too many bodies to cart to the
ovens or gallows and our uses have become more important than
our silence."
Sue Walker
"After the fall, too many empty cases of blood to bury or burn,
there will be no body left to listen, and our labor has become
more important than our silence."
Natasha Trethewey
"Our labor has become more important than our silence."
Hank Aaron

When I look at how I started my career many years ago in
Mobile, Alabama with eight siblings, all of us crawling on top
of each other. Looking up at the roof of my house with holes in
it, did not know what had happened. My father took that home
and built it out of his hand with his hands. And today, that
house stands in the center of Mobile right there at the Ballpark.
It makes me proud just to see the fact that we are closely
gapped in some ways, but we still have a long ways to go,
because there are still people who think that, you know, that we
are second class citizen.
John Powell
We have a number of people, white, black, Latino who really
want to see something different. We cannot work this out
simply at the individual level. We have new science. We have
new understanding, and we have a need. We are in this middle
period. And we will go back and forth. Some people want to go
back to the '50s and some people want to go forward. And so
what I would say is that we need to engage. And we need to
engage in a large vision, in a large conversation, a large
dialogue, but also, really understanding instructions, which is
hard for United States because we are so inclined to see
everything in terms of individual agency. There is a huge
challenge before us but there is an incredible opportunity.
Bryan Stevenson
I think it would be just be willing to listen to what many people
of color are saying and thinking about these issues. I think there
tends to be, "Oh you are black. You got that black talk thing
going. I am not even going to pay attention to that." And we
immediately shut down. It is like black people talking about
race, do not even listen. And you know, I think I would just
encourage people to just, for a moment, confess(ph) a thought
experiment to appreciate some of what is being said, to
appreciate why it is being said, to think about what is
motivating that. And be willing to just consider that there may
be some need for progress, for reform, for discussion, for
dialogue. We have gotten so reactionary on this issue that I do

not think we even ever get to the point of dialogue. It is just
sort of people shouting and screaming and moving away.
Tim Wise
We have got to get better at having a conversation with other
white folks challenging them to be who they can be. Most of us
have never been asked to confront the contradiction between our
ideal self and our real self. The idea that we want to be anti-
racist or non-racist, and yet we rarely ever challenge with the
truth of where we stand on that spectrum relative to what we
aspired to. And so being honest and being upfront and calling it
out on ourselves and others is one way that we hold ourselves
accountable to the larger struggle. And that is what I think has
been missing for many, many years among white frankly,
progressive activist. This is not right wing folks. These are
folks who are fairly liberal and progressive who still are not
always connecting those dots.
Wayne Flynt
The reason we need a conversation on race, the reason we need
teachers in Alabama public schools to talk about race, the
reason we need churches to have conversations about race, is
because if you got a problem, there are two ways you can
handle the problem. The dangerous way that never resolves a
problem, never moves us forward and just leaves all the scar
tissue and all the pain behind is just to pretend it does not exist.
Or you confront it head on and deal with it and resolve it, and
move on.
April Dupree Taylor
There are people who want a better society, a better America, a
better Mobile. And for those people, I think we do owe it to
them to start some discussion about how we can bring people
closer together.
Jake Adam York
Well Levinas says that a lot of our problems happen because we
treat people as things. We want to know in very concrete terms
what somebody else is. Not who they are, but what they are. Are
you a bank teller? Okay, that tells me everything I need to know

about you, and then I do not have to think about the rest of your
life, and I could treat you like a bank teller. Or if you get my
order wrong at the fast food restaurant, I can yell at you to the
drive-thru window because you are just a part of the restaurant.
You are an apparatus. But when we look Levinas says into the
face of the other person, if we really look into and allow
ourselves to say, "You are a person" we can never put them into
the shape of the thing and treat them as a thing ever again. We
have to respect their humanity.
Joan Reede
The fact that I am an African-American woman exists in us in
the room whether or not we speak about it. And you are
responding to me whether or not we speak about it. It is the
elephant that is in the room. So put it on the table. Let us
understand or have an opportunity to understand and have a
dialogue of what that means to me and what that means to you.
And just like gender can be on the table, race can be on the
table, sexual orientation can be on the table. If in medicine, if
in academy we are to advance, we have to create a space where
people can be whoever they are. They can bring whoever they
are into the room and be able to prosper and be able to offer the
potential that they have to make a difference. And part of that
potential that I have comes from my background and my
perspectives and how I see the world in my experiences. And
part of that experience is being an African-American woman. If
you ask me to take that part away, it is like asking me to cut off
an arm. It is who I am.
Wayne Flynt
There are actually a lot of personal experiences, shaped my
view of race. The single most important one was reading the
Bible. It was not my family, it was not my high school, it was
not going to college, it was not some significant professor, it
was not some significant preacher, it was reading the Bible and
trying to make sense out of how you could describe the ground
at the foot of the cross as being somehow different for whites
than for blacks. My reading of the Bible is very simple.

Everybody was of the exact same worth in the kingdom of God.
Michael Eric Dyson
If we look at the fact that you can talk about difference without
deficiency, diversity is a strength. You know, when we look at
the universe, diversity is a strength. When we look at the human
species, diversity is a strength. So now we got to acknowledge
the fact that diversity is a strength and not a deficiency. So
those who are different have to be acknowledged as not
different because they are deficient but different because their
diversity brings something positive to the table. When you bring
different elements to the table, that is not an undermining of the
quality of that experience, it is a contribution to it. So I think
when we have those ideals and that those are beliefs then, I
think America can be made a stronger and better country.
Michael Williams
I think that change is difficult for a lot of people. When you are
grown up a certain way and you used to having things that way,
a lot of people are not willing to change. What I found over the
years that you would be surprised that if you offer a helping
hand to someone, you would be surprised of the results that you
give. So if we work together as a community, and we work
together as a city, I think that that we can make race relations
so much better in this city.
Jim Flowers
It is the highest honor in the world to be chosen as we people,
our faith, are chosen and by people of faith, I might not even
going to talk about denominations, I am talking about anybody
who has the desire to act on their conscience whether they are
"religious person or not". Those are who I call people of faith.
And I think there is no greater honor than to be called to and act
that faith in the world. I mean to work for the greater good, I
think it brings joy, I think it brings health, I think it makes us
who we are, I think it is, you know, we talk about in this culture
finding ourselves, I think that is finding ourselves to live into
our true vocation, which is to be people who challenge call out
that which is not right and call out what is needed and what the

good is.
Karlos Finley
My expectations are that as a group of people we are going to
continue to strive to enlighten ourselves and to throw away
those comfort zones, and go and venture out and experience all
that this place has to offer. This is a beautiful, beautiful
community. It has so very much to offer.
Rinku Sen
From my own life, I have been able to see many, many
communities that when they were willing to look explicitly at
the question of race, when they were willing to look at all of
their systems and really think through, how can this system help
bring people together, how can this system do the same. And
not just help people come together in their own minds but help
people come together in life like be living in the same
neighborhoods, be working in the same workplaces, be going to
the same schools that that is a project that will have many,
many rewards.
Jim Flowers
In our burial rite in the church, we say, "Blessed are the dead
we die in the Lord" and I might reword that, "Blessed those who
die with the conscience because they rest from their laborers."
And resting from one's labor that means resting from bearing
God's life to the world, enabling our brothers and sisters to
stand with dignity in our present systems, in our school
systems, in our healthcare systems. And then one day, we rest.
But in the meantime, we work.
Natasha Trethewey
"I was born innocent, free of all the bloodshed that day. But I
was born into blood I still am washing from my hands." That
last stanza is it, is it not? That when you are born into history,
you cannot help the inheritance of the past only the future, only
what you do with that inheritance, which begins, I think, in
reckoning with it.
Female Speaker
I say come, wrap your feet around justice. I say come, wrap

your tongues around truth. I say come, wrap your hands with
deeds and prayer, you brown ones, you yellow ones, you black
ones, you gay ones, you white ones, you lesbian ones, come,
come, come, come into this battlefield called life. Called life,
called life, called life, called life. I am going to stay on the
battlefield. I am going to stay on the battlefield. I am going to
stay on the battlefield till I die. I am going to stay on the
battlefield. I am going to stay on the battlefield. I am going to
stay on the battlefield till I die. Come, come, come, come, come
to this battlefield called life, called life, called life.
If we stay on this battlefield called life, you know, we would
not to have to ask that question in a couple of years, what the
status of race in America? You know, what is a race, race, race?
You mean race, oh you mean race as being, yeah, I am black, I
am African-American. And then there are fights and then your
peers and there are Asians. And yeah, this is not great. And, you
know, when you look at the world with different eyes, you
know, we are looking instead our children, our children. We are
all out there to save our children. Looking at the world turning
it into something new because they are on the battlefield called
life, something we have all got this day on a battlefield called
life, life, life, life, life --
Video Source
· Robert Gray, Spectral Grey Productions
Credits
Subject Matter Expert:
Hollace Teuber
Interactive Design:
Kate Bendzick
Instructional Design:
Elise Braden
Project Management:
Sue Cracraft
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Gender Differences and Conflict Chart
Learner name
_____________________________________________________
______
Learner
Interviewee
Describe how your culture affects how you handle conflict.
Describe your experience with conflict with someone from a
culture different than your own.
Explain how you can transform conflict from a win/lose
situation to a win/win situation.

PrintCultural Differences and Conflict Scoring GuideDue Date .docx

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