Community Share and Oppression Discussion

The USFT convergence weekend began with all participants sitting together to discuss that values had drawn them to fair trade, and why they thought that it was important to dedicate themselves to the cause. Some of the ideas that people put forward:
•    Partnership
•    Equitable relationships
•    Increasing personal awareness
•    Anti-oppression
•    Cooperative movement, encouraging participative democracy
•    Connection and awareness of where things come from
•    An alternative to current economic paradigm
•    Framework on how to live ones life
•    Labour rights
•    Allows for rules to change on how trade should be defined
•    Bargaining increases empowerment of producers.

They then went on to discuss what they felt were the key distinguishing features that made fair trade fair: They highlighted 5 primary ways:
1-Cooperatives
Who is at the table, who is not; who has power, and who does not?
2-Relationships
Who do you know, how do social networks tie in?
3-Access to markets
Who has access, information, resources, and systems?
4-Transparency
Who makes decision. For whom are they made. Who is involved, using what information?
5-Democracy
Who makes decisions. Who is heard, who isn’t?

These same features come up again when placing the lens on our  own culture, and in the institutional oppression that people here face.  Students were asked what they thought and felt when thinking about institutional oppression, and this is some of what they came up with:
•    Ingrained in how we live
•    Institution covers up the oppression gives the impression that all is fine
•    Taking advantage of fair trade
•    Whats right for them as opposed to how its set up for them
•    On a global scale, funnel it down to ourselves
•    Applies the value questions to ourselves.

Along a similar vein, we were asked what we though power was, and what it means in our culture.
•    Ability to choose freely
•    Access to resources and information
•    Decision that affects other people
•    Set the terms of conversation
•    Who you know and who knows you
•    Money
•    Passion
•    Ability to control institutions
•    Ability to circumvent the rules, and ability to make them

Closely tied to power, privilege is a concept that we are not often asked to wrestle with. USFT sees it as an issue that we must face if were are to truly lower the bars of power.
•    Status that allows use of power
•    Education
•    Not being aware of struggles
•    Money, capital
•    Being male
•    Time
•    Passion
•    Location (north vs south)
•    Unearned social power, invisible
•    Headache you don’t know you don’t have
•    Ability to make choices about lifestyle, to be at the table

Following this communal discussion, we broke out into smaller regional breakouts to discuss the following questions.

1-Where do we see these structures of oppression, and how do we recreate them?
2-How can we challenge these structures?

In my NorthEast Regional Breakout, we discussed how each of us self identified, from anything including our cultural, religious, political, gender, racial, or otherwise perceived background.  We discuss how each of these come with its sets of perceptions and stereotypes, challenges, and gifts.  We covered something that we are proud of concerning our identity, as well as its common misconceptions, and tried to find ways to reconcile the two. 

In taking note of our own chosen self identity, we could be analyze and become aware of the ways and instances we might have felt party or subject to forms of oppression.  We tried to find ways to limit these instances, by first taking note of them, and by not jumping to conclusions, remaining inclusive in decision making,  and by always remaining open. In this way, we found ways that we might decrease oppression in our everyday  lives:
•    organizational transparency
•    don’t assume that everyone is in the loop (ex use of acronyms)
•    gender
•    how to incorporate anti oppression
•    think what community means, who is left out
•    explaining jargon
•    who is setting the agenda
•    everyone should be in the loop, not top down.
•    Accept that don’t know everything
•    Don’t assume that what I believe is right and applies to everyone
•    Ask questions before giving suggestions

Afterwards, all the groups came together to discuss what they had found.