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Were their other types of technical assistance, e.g. consultants, referrals to other communities, written materials?
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Angel
Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
We can provide the money to get you trained -- that is, the
transportation per diem, to the training site, as long as you're willing to provide the fees for
training your team." He said that was fine. So then we paid for their way and the Department of
Corrections paid for their training. I was also there at the training. I participated as a
correctional officer and also provided some of the input that George couldn't provide in terms of
CRS's interests.
| Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I can think of another case in which there was huge mistrust and even hostility between the
parties. Some of the issues were complicated enough that it would require, or certainly benefit
from, some outside expertise. So in that case, what we did was have each of the parties
recommend a consultant who could provide expertise, and then we picked a third person within
that field of expertise. So we had those three consultants or experts meet, and come up with some
proposed approaches to dealing with the issues in contention. They did that successfully, and
then they were able to sell those ideas to the parties, because they had credibility. So that enabled
us to get them to agree to some approaches, and that would have been very difficult had we
brought in only one consultant. If we'd had only one "expert," both parties would have said, "Is
that consultant on their side, or is she on our side?" So having a panel of three worked very well
in that particular instance. It was expensive for CRS, because CRS doesn't have those kinds of
resources. But we did it in that particular case, and they did ultimately reach an agreement. So
that's another approach to get past an impasse.
Question:
And those three consultants met by themselves?
Answer:
Initially. And then they served as resources to the mediation process, until the overall plan
or outline was agreed to. And then when it came to finalizing you know, crossing the "t"s and
dotting the "i"s that we did ourselves, just myself and the parties.
Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Did you ever try to leverage resources, such as using other organizations, to continue some
of the work you've done in these communities?
Answer:
Not really. However, if there are local resources or leaders, we try to help give them some
skills and abilities on how to follow up on their agreement. I don't do community organizing
training, per se, but we do explore options and alternatives with the parties and identify other
resources they can use. But if there isn't already something there, even getting a Vista volunteer
would take time and resources that you just don't usually have.
I think once there's been some basic agreement, and the communication is there, then you get a
change in the relationship between the two parties. There are certainly communities where that
was built-onto, and better relationships developed throughout the community, but it doesn't
happen in as many communities as we would like especially those of us who have a community
organizing background prior to being mediators.
I know there have been times that I've gone into a community and sort of wished, "Gee, could I
take off my mediator hat for a year and just do some community organizing here, and then come
back as a mediator again?" That's because it's much easier to arrange for mediation if there's an
organized community and institution, than if there is just a frustrated community with no
organizational structure. They can't deal with the institution, and it becomes very easy for the
institution to either divide and conquer or just ignore the situation, because the community isn't
cohesive enough to really be able to make a difference. Of course, I'm sure that part of the
community's frustration in many cases is that they think, "You're from the Justice Department.
Why can't you make it better? Why can't you go and tell them what they must do? Why can't
you make a difference?" And then when I say, "Well, my job is to try to help you to make that
difference," I think they sometimes see that as a cop-out. They think, "If we could do it by
ourselves, we wouldn't need you. But we can't, so what are you going to do?"
I know that there have been communities which have been frustrated because I have come and
nothing's changed. But the reason nothing changed is because there isn't even a core
organizational structure to work with. It doesn't need to be hundreds of people, it doesn't even
need to be a dozen, but there does need to be a community core that picks this up as an issue and
stays with it and works with it. I know it's a lot of work, and it's slow and tedious, but the only
way I can really make a difference is if they have that. I explain that, and then I work with that
group to help them deal with the institution.
That's one of the things we are trying to do now. We're trying to help communities form human
relations commissions. Right now that's still at a very grassroots level. John Dulles who is the
regional director for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for this region and I have worked
cooperatively on a number of cases, particularly in Indian country. But unless there's some
support from the tribal structure or the tribal government, it's very difficult to get that off the
ground. Even though I personally think that in some ways it would be more effective if it were an
even more grassroots initiative, there isn't enough of a grassroots core there willing to do the
work, so here we are talking community organizing. "What are the entities that you would want
to be a part of that?" I ask. We've conducted workshops on how to establish a core team how to
decide who should be included .
We have some brochures on how to form human relations commissions and I've developed that
into a workbook too. But, we can't do that for the community. They have to do that for
themselves. For example, there was one community that formed a small group that just started
documenting every case of police abuse. It was a "who, what, when, where, why" kind of thing.
They developed a chronicle of what was there. So when they then went to the city council or
county commissioner, they had some documentation of what was going on, and not just
anecdotal evidence. So we try to encourage at least starting with that piece. But it's difficult to
make that happen if they don't see some immediate results. So that's an ongoing struggle.
| Angel
Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
We registered it with the federal people you send written materials to and that kind of
stuff, so that's registered there. It was a well-written report, I have to say that. We paid for it, we
got it published, and we used the Latino brain power and they did a good job on it. So anyway,
that's technical assistance. If all I provided was stirring the mud, and providing the money for
the report and publishing it, that's technical assistance in my eyes. The brain power was theirs.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Did you offer any other type of technical assistance?
Answer:
Sure. A lot of times. We had training that went all the way into hostage negotiations, how
to diffuse
riots as you ran into the height of them, things like that.
Question:
What about training the minorities, or giving technical assistance to the minorities?
Answer:
Lots of times.
Question:
What form would it take?
Answer:
Sometimes it took place in the area of role playing, sometimes it took form in group
interaction,
lectures, things of that sort. It depends on what they wanted. Like the NAACP might
want some training on how to resolve some internal conflicts that they may have within the
office.
Sometimes, a big one would be the Martin Luther King parade for the city of Denver. For
twenty-five
years, I was the trainer as far as the marches and demonstrations in town. The march for King's
birthday,
that was always my responsibility in this office here. I did that for twenty-five years.
Question:
And what kind of training were you doing?
Answer:
Marching. In other words, march order. How to march correctly, how to provide security
during the
course of a march, how to be able to diffuse potential riots.
Question:
So wouldn't this training be for the police rather than the marchers?
Answer:
No. This was training for the marchers. I would use the police auditorium down here and
I'd have
somewhere in the neighborhood of about a hundred people come in, or maybe two hundred, or
maybe a
thousand come in and we'd use their auditorium and I'd speak to them and tell them, "Well, this
is the way
this should be done." Sometimes I would bring in an expert from one of my other offices, like
for example
Henry Mitchell might come in and get things started. We had to train the captains, the march
leaders and
the march captains. We color-coded a lot of things as to who was responsible for what.
| Bob Ensley
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Yes, with the sheriff. He realized that training for his officers is
extremely important. So he started instituting a whole new training program for the Sheriff's
Department and the Board of Education, to get them to realize that the responsibility of recruiting
minority teachers wasn't mine, or the blacks'; it was their job. Not to put that burden or that
requirement on us, or by saying, "You find them, we'll hire them." No, you're the Board of
Education and you have the money and you can find qualified black teachers. To the white
bankers, for instance, I would say, "There you have X number of dollars coming in on deposit
from the school system or the health department, and all these tax monies coming in and you
don't have any black tellers or anything else. You need to start having some black tellers." I
went to the merchants and told them that they needed to start having black employees in the
supermarket. Not in a
demanding way, just showing them how unfair it was for them to continue to have all these
positions available and no minorities working in these positions. The first thing they say is,
"Well, we don't have any that're qualified." Well, how many whites do you have that were not
qualified
but they were trained? So a lot of good things have happened in Washington and Wolford
county.
Edward Howden
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
What if you saw a situation where you thought that the minority
group would probably do better in litigation than they would through mediation? Would you tell
them that?
Answer:
I don't recall that that happened, but I think I would have asked them to consider that pretty
seriously. I'd suggest "you might do a lot better that way." At the same time, I made the point
that, put very simply, people had nothing to lose if they gave mediation a try. "If it isn't going to
take too much of your time and energy, and it isn't going to take any of your money, why not
give it a try?" That would be our more customary pitch. But if there were some compelling
reason otherwise, I don't think we'd get in the way of litigation.
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