02/04/2018
This is important. An incident took place at the Utopia School last weekend, which is addressed in the statement below. Please read and feel welcome to respond/reach out to us with any experiences or feedback. This post will be moderated by someone who was present at the time.
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A statement addressing Safer Spaces transgression at the Utopia School:
An incident took place at the Utopia School this past weekend which needs to be addressed both for its affects on anyone present, as well as for the shaping of the school moving forward and a clarification of the school's intentions.
On Saturday, January 27th, during a Q&A following the talk on the Albany Free School the conversation diverted to the subject of White Privilege and instances in which call-outs around White Privilege have caused rifts in communities. From there, the conversation turned towards white people sharing their experiences of being oppressed and/or their difficulties confronting their own white privilege. This conversation should have been interrupted and flagged as being problematic within the first few moments, but it continued for 10 minutes before finally being cut off by the class facilitator. It was never the intention to allow space for a conversation like this to take place at the school. However, it took place. This conversation, and other sentiments similar to it caused an unsafe environment at the school.
As the primary facilitator of the Utopia School, I deeply and wholeheartedly apologize for not intervening into this conversation sooner. The aim of the Utopia School is to create an open space for sharing our visions of Utopia, paths towards getting closer to those visions and future attempts to co-create that together. That mission is demolished the moment that it centers whiteness and white experience. I want to apologize to anyone affected by this experience, or anything similar at the school. Other organizers of the school and myself also want to make clear that not only do we wish to address this particular instance, but seek to get to the root of this issue and build a broader framework for accountability.
Some of us have suggested that for any potential future sessions/incarnations of the Utopia School we seek to appoint volunteers to each class specifically with the task of moderating and intervening immediately should a similar situation arise. Some of us have had the idea to also seek to provide resources to anyone in need of working through their relationship to privilege and if possible a separate space to have those conversations.
If anyone would like to contribute to what has been outlined above, to share experiences, or has suggestions/ideas for alternative ways to move forward, please be in touch. Some ongoing working groups will be coming out of the school which could be a positive forum for creating a safer environment in the future.
– Jaime Iglehart (Jaime Idea)
