We gathered together and did a little prep with instructions on how to raise a virtual hand. The bell rang out at 7:30 with 33 in attendance for President Maureen Merrill‘s final meeting as the venerable leader of the Windsor Rotary Club.
Aliyah Collins gave us some inspiration through song. We will “rise up” became the melody we walked through the day with.
Visitors
Visitors included Bill Adams a trustee for the Windsor Unified School District. Town Council member Deb Fudge was on hand. Windsor Town Mayor Dominic Foppoli dropped in as well. Jason Black introduced his wife Megan.
Maureen tried to give an award for perfect attendance, but Larry Wasem wasn’t in the meeting.
We were introduced to our topic for the day, “Honest Talk about Race.” Lamar Collins and daughter Aliyah are our speakers.
Tom Hassur once again was recognized as the powerhouse member of the Club.
Dominic Foppoli gave us a thank you for our planned participation in the Healdsburg Active 20-30 Club’s “Kids Spree shopping program.
JB Leep shared that as a result of a speaker visit by earlier this year by vendor Simply Solar California, Steve Klick put some solar on his roof and JB donated a $500 referral fee from the solar company to the WRCF Endowment Fund in Steve and Mapi’s name. If you would like to do the same, ask JB to refer you to them. And if you up working with them, he will contribute his referral fee to a charitable contribution to Rotary in your name.
Maureen shared that she was called out to the front of her house last Saturday with a drive by debunking. Many were on hand and there were signs and thanks shared along with a special gift of a weekend at Stanford House in Mendocino, a Vegan friendly resort. She gave much praise to the friendly nature of our club and called out Mike Merrill for his support through the year.
End of year thanks went out to the collection of powerhouse Rotarians of the months. She also called out her board members for their dedication and leadership through the year.
Maureen recognized incoming president Bill Bolster with a presidential pin, and a Paul Harris Plus-Three pin for his donations to Rotary. According to Bill, “I trust Rotary International to do the right thing and that makes it easy to give them money.” He invited us all to give it a try.
Bill shared that he has a new manual for the various roles that people within the club provide. Get a look at the new Rotary Club of Windsor Manual by following the link: Windsor Rotary Manual
We found out that Maureen had a difficult time choosing only one Rotarian of the Year, but when she went through the list of support each had given to the Club, it became apparent that one stood out, and not just this year, for his entire time in Rotary. Ed Turner is the Rotarian of the Year. According to Ed, Rotary is the reason he is still in California. After his time with the New York Times he contemplated heading back East for a job, when a fellow Rotarian approached him and offered a position. Ed took that job with Larry Wasem and the Airport Business Center, and the rest is history. Special thanks to Ed!
Barbara McChesney offered to put together a bibliography of the reading material that can help us all understand the sensitivities and the subject of race in general.
Pres Maureen introduced Lamar and daughter Aliyah.
(I want to thank Susan Cole for her contribution to the newsletter. The following comments were written by her and I felt this was a great representation of our conversation with Lamar and Aliyah.)
An Essay on Race
In my professional life, I teach adults in the wine industry. At the end of each class I ask my students, what were their ah-ha’s about the class. What are they thinking about differently because of what we discussed? Or, what changes are they going to make based on this class? Today, I had so many ah-ha’s as a result of our open and honest discussion with Lamar Collins and his daughter, Aliyah that I had to record them in order to remember and contemplate them for myself.
Lamar is a great story teller and paints vivid and compelling pictures with his words. First ah-ha was the monopoly game of Black lives in America – a masterful analogy.
Picture ourselves sitting down to a monopoly board and trying to play the game as a Black person. Blacks were brought to America in the 1600’s as slaves and it was absolutely explicit that they were not invited to play the game. Jump to the 1800’s and slaves were given their freedom. But Jim Crow laws made it impossible for Blacks to acquire property on this monopoly board – segregation was codified by local laws and adhered to by custom. Then along came the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and Blacks could finally sit down at the monopoly board. But they couldn’t actually buy any real estate of value because all the properties were already owned by whites. The best a Black person has been able to do is to circle the board, collect his or her $200 and hope to not be put in jail. In the monopoly analogy it is simply not a fair game and never has been.
Why isn’t it ok to say, “All Lives Matter”, in response to “Black Lives Matter”? Because this is the experience of Black people in America: Black lives are on fire. Picture this. You’re a Black person and your house is on fire, the fire is spreading fast in your neighborhood, so you call the fire department. They arrive with fire trucks and equipment and start spraying down the house of the white family next to you instead of putting out the fire at your house. Your house is burned to the ground while the house next door is saved. That’s the experience of Black people in America. Sure, it’s easy to say all lives matter, but that has simply never been true for Black people and when you say it, you reject or at least fail to understand the experience of Black people in this country. Or, to change words slightly from the famous book, “1984”, “all lives matter, but some lives matter more than others.”
To those who say that they sympathize with the protest movement, but do not support those who loot and damage property – that’s illegal and just plain wrong. Here’s a different way of thinking about it:
Lamar Colllins: “Looting is the vocabulary of the unheard.” The Hampton Institute: “You can’t commodify every single aspect of living and then not understand looting as a legitimate form of protest. Looting is the ultimate strike against a system that deems mass-produced objects to be far more precious than life itself. It is humanity demanding to be recognized.”
And maybe the most significant ah-ha of this morning’s meeting was repeated by Lamar several times. He asked us to really stop and think about this: When has there ever needed to be a law passed saying that white people had rights?” It was the 1960’s – not that long ago! – That civil rights laws were finally passed which gave Blacks equal rights under the law. So, when white people say, “why are Black people so mad all the time?” the answer lies in the systemic treatment of Blacks at the hands of police as well as every other institution in our country which both demeans Black people and forbids them an equal opportunity to succeed in every aspect of American life.
What can we do about this? Recognize that we all have prejudice. All humans have bias and assumptions which are the foundation of our beliefs. There is a difference between prejudice and racism. Racism is codified – not just by laws – but by actions. We need to educate, empower, and inform ourselves. Get uncomfortable. Have open discussions. Reach out to people who don’t look like ourselves and listen. Really listen. And invite. It was one of the most gratifying and proud moments of our meeting today when Lamar said that when he joined our Rotary Club he wondered where he would sit. And when he walked in to that first meeting the guys at one table said, “Come here, sit with us.” Maybe that’s a small start.
Martin Luther King said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.” Lamar said that he was born in the 1970’s, so he didn’t see or participate in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. But many of us did. I marched, spoke, and demonstrated for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But remember, just because the act was law, it didn’t go smoothly in accomplishing equal rights. There were years of demonstrations, burning of buildings, fights and death associated with implementing those laws. Today, I despair that I can actually watch on video a Black man being murdered by a policeman. What that video doesn’t show is how many Black men have had a knee on their neck and didn’t die. What will it take for us to finally change? To finally see more of that staircase that Martin Luther King talked about? Have we arrived at the tipping point? As Renee Hyde asked, “how do we keep the momentum and not just tire of the whole effort?” If we ask the right questions, I believe the answers will present themselves.
To President Maureen, my profound thanks and admiration for generating this discussion. Without it we cannot hope to be agents of change. To the local politicians who attended today’s meeting, heartfelt thanks for listening and not talking. That, too, must guide our way forward. As will Aliyah’s hope that we will all love and understand one another.
(To see more resources to help understand race, please go to this link: https://windsorrotary.co/diversity-resources/ )
President Maureen brought her year to a close asking for a note of hope from Lamar and Aliyah. Lamar asked that the Black community look to their fathers and that the fathers be engaged. This is critical to change. We are encouraged to reach out and talk to people of color to stop the segregation that comes with misunderstanding.
A surprise visit by Past President Sandie Krutz gave President Maureen her Past President pin.
When it comes to monuments, Lamar believes everyone has past and if we go down the path of tearing down historical monuments, all will come down. When it comes to the confederate flag, he has no problem asking for that to be removed. Aliyah backed her dad’s opinion about the flag and offered a similar understanding of the monument removal.
Lamar suggested that what is needed is a focus on economic opportunity versus the focus being directed to the destruction of monuments of the past.
