This Is Civity

Acts of dehumanization and humiliation are tools of war and submission. But, the flip side – the impact of offering dignity and acknowledging humanity, is less well studied. Claudia Cohen has coined the phrase everyday dignity to describe small acts that can restore our humanity. Cohen is adjunct faculty at the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia Teachers College, and a founding member of the Summit Interfaith Council Anti-racism Committee and Anti-Racism Community Collaborative in Westfield/Scotch Plains, NJ.

Stuart Chittenden is a lawyer by training, but he began to see the power of empathetic conversation on relationships and even his own outlook on life. He now focuses on building relationships helping people tell their stories and truly hear the stories of others as founder of Squishtalks.

Photo Credit Andrew Marinkovich

This is Civity Radio talks with Kate Chance and Ameena Jandali with the Islamic Networks Group (ING). ING works around the country on education geared toward cultural literacy and mutual respect, as well as efforts to counter incidents of bigotry through building relationships and engaging communities. ING has also created the Know Your Neighbor Campaign, of which Civity is a partner.

Photo Courtesy ING

Andrew Hanauer, director of One America, discusses the work of his organization in the face of significant polarization among people in the U.S. and the importance of having people work together to help find common ground to heal growing divisions in American society.

Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch joins This is Civity Radio to discuss how a Civity Brush on BART profoundly impacted him and people around him, eventually ending up on the social media page of KTVU’s Frank Somerville, who dedicates his feed to impactful storytelling. Baldwin now encourages people to set aside their instinct to persuade, and instead listen, hear, and seek understanding across divides.

Jacob Hess is director of the Utah chapter of The Village Square and one of the collaborators of The All Sides Dictionary, which has been (and is being) written by over 30 volunteer mediators and educators who span the socio-political spectrum — from religious to atheist, far left to far right, and everything in between. Rather than trying to avoid bias or presume neutrality, the dictionary helps us map a range of perspectives, meanings and feelings associated with words in the American political vocabulary, helping us understand the issues and each other better.

Paul VanDeCarr is Managing Director and Co-Founder of Working Narratives. He has spent much of his career using storytelling to build relationships, make connections, build understanding, and communicate ideas. Paul recently started a podcast called Who Are You in which he reaches across some sort of divide to find commonality with someone who may otherwise be considered “other.”

Vivek Patil is head of outreach for the Arlington County Democratic Committee in Virginia. Vivek uses a relationship-based – or Civity-based – approach to building community. This is in contrast to how political parties generally reach out to community members. His hope is that he can bridge divides and help people on opposite sides of the political spectrum see commonality in each other and then work together to solve the pressing issues facing their communities.

Marty Swaim, co-founder of Challenging Racism, discusses the importance of sharing stories and listening, even when it can be scary, uncomfortable, or frustrating. It is the only way to build understanding and bridge divides so we can solve community problems, such as institutional racism.

Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) SF, joins This is Civity to discuss the work of his community civil rights organization. CAA works to ensure that Chinese Americans and the broader Asian and Pacific American community are treated fairly and have access to government and civic leaders and services, so they can fully participate in the civic life of their community and society. This work is truly Civity-oriented.