[ Applause ]
-Gosh, it is really nice to be here today and see a full house.
I'm really appreciative of the partnership with MOHAI.
As Rachel said, yeah, close to 40 years
and, you know, I've always said they put a ring on it, right?
So we are happy to share the repository space with them
in Georgetown, and you can talk to us a little bit later, too,
about how to get an appointment,
make an appointment and come down
and jump into the rabbit hole with us
on a really beautiful treasure collection.
But I am happy to welcome you to this program
where we're going to listen and talk
and respect all the diversity that I see in this room today
and to address the harm that we see
and face in our local communities.
Okay, I'm reading a little bit from a script
because the other evening I went way off script.
I see Ryan laughing in the room. He was at that event.
So I think I told my whole life story
and then got to the point of my keynote.
So I won't do that today.
So, why Confronting Hate Together?
Confronting hate because it's been
and is as relevant today as it was yesterday,
last week, last month, and for decades, right?
And together because we're in unity,
we're locking arms and all of this is out of respect,
empathy and understanding
that is really difficult for us to ignore,
particularly now and hard to look away, right?
So we don't want to deny any of that,
and it is our superpower to be coming together in community.
Loving our new logo, our logo in unity.
The Black Heritage Society is here with partners at MOHAI
and where MOHAI embraces the legacies
of all Washington people,
Washington State through the mission that they uphold,
and we are here with our community partners
at the Wing Luke Museum
and the Washington State Jewish Historical Society.
We stand in solidarity
and we have since Lisa Kranseler brought this idea to us.
Not that we weren't standing in unity and solidarity
prior to that,
but she really began to rally for us to come together
and to work on this initiative
that is in the spirit of our humanity
that confronts the bias and bullying and intolerance
and hate that harms and hurts us.
So the partners will share why they are compelled to combat,
challenge and engage with call to action
through a citywide campaign.
Our guests today too are Laurie Lynch -- hi, Laurie --
Education Director at No Place For Hate.
It's an initiative for and by school-age youth
who are taking the initiative,
talking out loud and supporting one another
to address bias and bullying that affects their emotional,
mental, and physical well-being.
Ari Kent is the training and facilitation specialist
at the national organization Right To Be.
I don't know, some of you may have known them as Hollaback
about three years ago.
Yeah, they're a great organization who support
and help navigate the call to action
with bystander intervention and strategies.
Ari is currently living in Atlanta,
so he prepared a really beautiful message for us.
Great video and we'll share that too in just a few minutes.
Our partnership comes from within our communities
who have historically united in our purpose to fight
against inequities and harm by showing up and sounding out.
You may recognize some of the people
in these really wonderful photos
that are from the MOHAI collection,
their digital collection,
but I think these really show a rally and march
that is something that
has happened historically here in Seattle.
Then this is another set of slides.
I love these too,
and this is all about what we are talking about today.
It's nothing new, right?
The rallying and building a united presence
and pushing back against threats that attack our civil rights.
They dehumanize, vandalize, and cause physical harm.
It is public demonstration and media attention
that are the call to action.
In the African American community,
the call to action is rooted in our culture,
collective interaction that originated
in sub-Saharan Africa, the call and response, right?
I know we have all heard of call and response,
the action that requires a response.
So today, the call is action.
The response is now. Action now. Action now.
Thank you.
I have the honor of introducing our partners today.
Please see the thank-you's that are along the side of this
before I move on.
The thank-you's that are here today,
because we had a number of people
that came together to help put this program together.
I hope that in all of this,
we'll find time to appreciate the interns
and the writers and other folks,
the graphic artists that are working with us
on this year-long campaign,
because it's been a lot of work and effort,
and a lot of it
has been passionate work and volunteer effort.
So we want to thank everyone there.
But it is my honor to be able to introduce the partners today.
And first up is Mimi Rosen and Nance Adler,
board members at the Washington State Jewish Historical Society.
-My name is Mimi Rosen and I am the board president
of the Washington State Jewish Historical Society,
and I'm so honored to be here today.
Since we are the Washington State Jewish Historical Society,
I thought I would take a minute to tell you a little bit
about what we do and of course our history.
Our mission is to preserve
and present the history of Jewish life in Washington State.
One of our main goals is to build bridges with communities
by sharing our stories of our collective histories.
Our roots date back to 1968
when the Seattle Jewish Archives Project began
under the umbrella
of the Women's Division of the Jewish Federation.
Well over a year ago, our executive director,
who Stephanie mentioned, Lisa Kranseler,
came to our board
and said that she wanted to do an exhibit on confronting hate
and the power of community.
She was inspired by the New York Historical Society exhibit.
But more importantly,
she wanted to do this collectively
with other organizations
and expand the exhibit to include our stories.
She began discussions with the Black Heritage Society
of Washington State and the Wing Luke Museum.
And a little over a year later, here we are today.
And how timely of a topic for an exhibit,
when acts of anti-Semitism,
anti-Asian hate, and anti-Black racial violence
not only continue to plague our communities and our nation,
but are sadly on the rise.
Education of the dangers
of all these anti-sentiments is critical.
And I believe, just as critical,
is collectively connecting and uniting with other communities
in fighting for a world with no hate.
We can only do this together.
As the past has taught us, together we are stronger.
I want to take a quick moment to recognize
our executive director, Lisa Kranseler,
and our communications and exhibit curator,
Kayla Boland, both of who could not be here today,
as well as our editor, Jeff Schwager.
And we have two amazing interns
that are helping all three organizations,
Shania Black and Leah Sauter.
Leah's here today, but I don't believe Shania could make it.
And I want to recognize our partners as well,
the Black Heritage Society and the Wing Luke Museum.
I have hope for our future when our communities unite,
and we teach our collective community about the strength
and the possibility of no hate.
An example of someone
who is really doing this work is Nance Adler.
Nance, she's affectionately referred to in my household
as Hamorah Nance.
She is a current board member
of the Washington State Jewish Historical Society,
and she's a teacher at JDS, hence the word Hamorah,
which means teacher in Hebrew.
She has made it her life mission to teach kids to be upstanders.
I've asked her to take a moment
to share some of her reflections,
and she's also working
on the Washington State Jewish Historical Society's
portion of our exhibit for the big collective event,
which is occurring on May 21st.
Hamorah Nance?
-The American Jewish Committee's
Confronting Hate Program worked between 1938 and 1952
to combat prejudice and bigotry.
Their first goal was to counter anti-Semitism,
but they expanded their programming
to include anti-Japanese sentiment
in the wake of World War II
and the incarceration of the Japanese Americans
on the West Coast,
and the ongoing racism toward the Black community.
When the Washington State Jewish Historical Society considered
bringing this exhibit to Seattle,
we thought about the other communities
that face the same restrictions and biases as our own.
In Seattle, the practice of redlining,
restricting who could live in an area,
meant that our communities, Jews, Blacks, and Asians,
often lived in the same areas
because we couldn't live in others.
The practice of writing exclusive language
into the covenants of neighborhoods
became most pronounced during the same time period
that the confronting hate work of the AJC took place.
Broadmoor had the earliest restrictive language in 1927,
and the Lake Washington Garden neighborhood used
language echoing Nazi terminology,
no non-Aryans may live in this community, even in 1946.
The shared experience of being excluded from social clubs,
neighborhoods, swimming pools,
and other venues means
that our three communities know the importance
of confronting hatred whenever and wherever we find it,
and our collaboration is an outgrowth
of this shared history.
The AJC knew that education was needed,
as well as working ways to introduce those unfamiliar
with these three communities to them.
They used a variety of media,
including comic books, radio shows,
broadcasting Jewish religious services from Europe,
and a touring group of three young women
from these communities.
They worked with trade unions,
famous Americans like Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra,
created radio shows,
and national contests for young people
that taught that America was for all who lived here.
Education is still the key to confronting
and combating the ignorance that breeds bias and hatred.
One way to introduce young people to the lives of others
is through stories.
Stories are universal,
and they allow us to find commonalities
and connect to the shared humanity of other groups.
Stories are also a powerful way
to teach history in a way that humanizes facts and numbers
and engages students in the lessons of the past.
Washington State Jewish Historical Society
has been collecting oral histories for decades,
and these stories help to preserve the lives of Jews
here in Washington State.
In my classroom,
history is taught as a tool
to make the future better than the past was or the present is.
My students do not memorize dates and names,
but rather think critically about the events
and the actions of those who lived through them.
The darkest period of history have the most
to teach us about how to respond to situations of prejudice,
bigotry, violence, and oppression.
When we look at those categories, these situations,
we usually talk about three categories, perpetrators,
victims, and bystanders.
We talk about innocent bystanders in these situations,
those who witnessed the events and did nothing,
nothing to harm, but also nothing to help.
One of the lessons of the Holocaust
is that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander.
Choosing not to act is a choice,
one that most often supports the oppressors.
So what if we have a fourth category,
another term to use for those
who don't just witness persecution
but take action to stop it?
An upstander is someone
who takes action in a situation of oppression or persecution.
I teach two units on the Holocaust in my classroom,
one focusing on 1933 to 38 in Germany,
and the other teaching about Jewish resistance
and rescue by non-Jews.
Both of these units are taught through the stories of those
who lived through these times.
The unit in seventh grade on the rise of Nazism
in Germany in the 1930s
is taught with the stated goal
to show what the world looks like when it falls apart
and for them to recognize those signs and know they need to act.
The unit in eighth grade on rescue and resistance
is taught with the goal to inspire my students to know
that an individual absolutely can make a difference.
Both are part of the work I do towards creating young people
who will be upstanders.
Telling the stories of those who face depression and hatred
teaches our young people
that our world needs to do better in treatment of minority
and marginalized communities.
My students not only learn about the Holocaust,
they learn about the Japanese incarceration
during World War II -- this is a picture of us
at the Bainbridge Island Memorial --
as well as the Armenian and Rwandan genocides.
My seventh graders participated
in a semester-long simulation discussing the legacy of racism
in the Confederacy
while debating what should happen
to the Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
It was taken down in January,
if you don't know the answer to that question.
The Washington State Jewish Historical Society is proud
to be partnering to be part of Confronting Hate together.
It is the role of a historical society
to record the stories of what is happening now
so that we can continue to use our experiences
to both teach future community members from our missteps
and to inspire them with our moments
when we step up and move the world closer to justice.
We are proud and honored
to be partnering with the Black Heritage Society
and the Wing Luke Museum to do this work. Thank you.
-Our next partner, and one of the best partners for BHS,
is at the Wing Luke Museum,
and I'm really happy to introduce Cassie Chinn,
who is the Deputy Executive Director.
Cassie.
-First, thank you to the Museum of History and Industry
for hosting us.
Thanks, too, to Stephanie,
the Black Heritage Society of Washington State,
for serving as the lead for this program,
and so good to be here
with the Washington State Jewish Historical Society as well.
I definitely want to give thanks
to the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.
I see the director, Jennifer Chow,
is here, their lead sponsor for our projects.
[ Applause ]
And we also have members of our Wing Luke Museum team,
Ellen Ferguson, who is our board co-chair,
our staff members, Ethelyn, Char,
I think, Ren, and then Steffi are here as well.
And thank you to,
and we've mentioned a number of other project members
on our core team.
We also have our lead writers, Jackie Peterson, Nan Sadler,
who you just heard from, and LeiLani Nishime,
so lots of good people coming together for this project.
It was about a year ago that Stephanie,
Lisa, and I met to talk about what
our three organizations might do together.
As history-based organizations,
and knowing the interconnections of our three communities
historically in Seattle, Central District, and South End,
what project could we work on
to further our relationships and connections?
What need could we meet, and impact could we have?
I suppose not shy of ambition, perhaps less about courage,
maybe a little about naivete,
we thought, let's confront hate together.
Although we started meeting much earlier,
the example that I'll share today helps paint a picture of
why we as the Wing Luke Museum have joined in this project.
The need to confront hate is strong as ever.
The aspiration to be able to do that together is hope.
First for some context.
The Wing Luke Museum is located, as we know,
in Seattle's Chinatown International District,
which rose up in the early 1900s
and is actually the city's third Chinatown,
after the community had been pushed out
from the previous two locations due to anti-Asian sentiments
and public works projects.
We're looking at a historic image of the museum's
current site, the East Kong Yick Building,
which was built in around 1910,
when 170 Chinese American pioneers pooled their money
to form the Kong Yick Investment Company
to build the new Chinatown,
with the East and the West buildings forming the core,
and "Kong Yick" meaning for public benefit.
In the area of exclusion,
they created a place of belonging
for their street-level import-export stores,
residential spaces in the hotel rooms above,
and places for their community organizations.
Between the two East and West Kong Yick Buildings
was an alleyway.
They named it Canton Alley,
referencing the major city Canton
in Guangdong Province in Southern China,
where most Chinese immigrants came from during this time.
Along Canton Alley, they would put six family apartments,
where the second generation would grow up,
a place of belonging for mothers and children to gather and play.
On the left, you see a historic photo of Canton Alley,
and on the right,
you see a photo from one of our annual Canton Alley parties,
just a small indication of
how the Chinatown International District remains a place
of belonging today.
Imagine then, the ripple effects throughout community,
when an individual came with a sledgehammer
through Canton Alley
at the East Kong Yick Building in the Chinatown
International District this past fall on September 14th,
spewing anti-Chinese sentiments.
Hate manifested itself in a violent, destructive way.
What would our response be?
Following the hate crime, we centered three responses.
One, we lifted up the Chinese American Legacy Artwork Project,
a community-led initiative to create a permanent
and public artwork educating about Seattle's
1886 anti-Chinese riots,
which had forcibly removed all of Chinese American community
from Seattle,
showing the deep legacy of anti-Asian,
anti-immigrant sentiments with connections to today.
The artwork is designed by artist Stuart Wong.
It would be cited right on Alaskan Way
between Main and Washington Streets,
across from Pier 48, the same dock where
the Chinese were forced onto a steamship out of the city.
This sculpture includes six figures,
three from those wanting to force the Chinese out,
facing off with three Chinese Americans.
Rather than showing the Chinese as victims fleeing,
it shows them as abstracted figures
with equal stature and weight,
yet with the scales of justice
not quite tipping in their favor.
We also called for people to come home
to the Chinatown International District.
Come experience all of the amazing goodness
that we have to offer,
from our legacy restaurants with good eats
to new places like Uncle Bob's Place
right across from the museum.
And finally,
we centered the Confronting Hate Together project,
knowing that this instance of hate was not isolated,
whether within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian,
Pacific Islander community or within
other marginalized communities subject to such attacks.
That said, though,
across all three initiatives that we centered,
we wanted to do it from a position of strength,
joy, and collectiveness,
carrying forward lessons and experiences
from the past to the present day.
And this is especially manifested in the spirit
of our Red Lining Heritage Trail,
which we had partnered with
the Black Heritage Society of Washington State
and a number of other organizations previously,
and you see a group on the right on that trail.
The trail is formed of 80 locations from Pioneer Square
to the Chinatown International District to First Hill
to the Central District,
and it was a message less about what was done to us
and more about how our community responded
and built community together.
Right now, temporary murals
cover the broken windows in Canton Alley
as we get things in line for our storefront repair.
The murals were created by artists Sammy and Shay,
and I wanted to close this sharing with their offer
of wisdom as we continue to learn about what does it mean
to confront hate together.
They say, the pheasant brings a lullaby lesson.
Be safe out there.
Keep creating genuine expressions of yourselves
and the environments you find yourself in.
Stand up for yourselves over and over again and be true.
The pheasant is a reminder that life is sacred
and how that is the driving force for liberation.
Here in Canton Alley,
the pheasant comes as protector with strength and liberation.
Its wings are made of many feathers,
echoing that individuals are part of the collective
and with that comes strength.
The vibrant, colorful dreamscape gives inspiration and hope,
caring into the dreams of the night.
The artists also point out the importance of place
within Canton Alley in this case amidst the hate crime.
They say there is beauty that comes
from healing the oppression and not looking away.
We're more than the ways we are hurt.
There is an active choice in how we respond as community,
people who care for one another and our present histories.
At the Wing Luke Museum,
we create our exhibitions hand-in-hand
with community members.
The process of coming together, learning from one another,
growing together and building community has been equally
if not more valuable than what ends up on display.
And I've been reminded that while the experience
of this program, the upcoming pop-up exhibit,
that's all important and impactful,
the process of coming together itself to develop this project
and to learn what it means
and what it feels like to confront hate together
with all of its challenges is just as, if not more valuable.
So I hope we'll be able to continue to learn and grow,
to welcome and invite and continue this journey together
as we face this ambitious,
maybe a little naive,
but hopefully with a dose of courage
as we come together on this journey together.
Thank you. -Wow. Thank you, Cassie.
So just after the words from the partners,
Cassie, Mimi and Nance,
I'm reminded of our communities
and how we have this intersection of space and place
where we shared the boundaries
within the international district and central districts
and are really proud that we're all here
in the same room together today.
But this message is a citywide message,
and thank you for bringing that home, Cassie.
It is a citywide message,
and all communities are facing the harm
that we talk about today.
One of the organizations,
again, that has been working for a number of years
is Right To Be,
as they support and encourage people to stand up
and take action, respond to this call to action, the action now.
And the different ways that people can find their way
and their space and their comfort level
for how they want to stand up, there are a number of ways.
And so we want to share what Ari Kent has to say about that.
-Hi, everyone. My name is Ari Kent,
and I'm a training and facilitation specialist
here at Right To Be.
And we are so honored to have been invited
by the Black Heritage Society
to be involved in today's event on confronting hate.
Now, I myself have had to face and endure through hate,
racism, and discrimination throughout most of my life,
just as many of you have also experienced and endured.
But it took years for me to realize
how much these acts of hate had chipped away at my confidence,
my sense of safety, and also my right to freedom.
But I did discover that healing and freedom is possible.
And I'm so grateful to be a part of an organization
that is dedicated to helping others rediscover
their natural right to be who and what they are.
Here at Right To Be,
our mission is to empower everyone to build a world
that is free of harassment and filled with humanity.
And we do this by offering free public trainings
on various topics like bystander intervention,
how to respond to harassment, conflict de-escalation,
and resilience, as well as many other topics.
And we have dozens of other training topics
which can be customized to fit the needs
of your workplace and organizations.
We also do some community organizing and partnerships.
And we have a special program called the Right
To Be Youth Program
where we're focused on addressing bullying and
harassment among young people.
Now it's through this work
that we're empowering the next generation to live consciously,
both with compassion and understanding,
while taking a stand against disrespect and harassment.
And so for those of you who are serving
middle school and high school age youth,
we invite you to join our list by going to righttobe.org/youth.
And there you can learn more about our Youth Program.
Now we've trained over 2 million people worldwide
in our methodology to recognize, intervene,
and heal from harassment and violence.
And so you see, we share a common goal here.
And we're totally committed to ending hate and harassment
in all of its forms.
But I also think it's important that we acknowledge
that confronting hate isn't always easy.
It's not always straightforward either.
On one hand, this requires
that we fully show up for others as well as ourselves.
And on the other hand,
we also face the risk of harm to our physical,
mental, and emotional well-being.
And so Right To Be is here
to share a valuable tool called Bystander Intervention
to show you how to safely intervene
when you witness hate or harassment taking place.
-The 5 D's of bystander intervention.
This time, distract.
Draw attention away from the person harassing.
Casually engage the person being harassed.
Distract.
-Hey you!
Why don't you take that thing off your head?
-But I can't take it off.
-What do you mean you can't take it off?
-Well, you see, I believe...
-You're hiding something from security?
-What should I do?
-[ Screams ]
♪♪
-Pause and evaluate the situation.
-You're hiding something from security?
-Indirectly, create a distraction
to try to draw attention away from the person harassing.
-Hey, did you finish the bio worksheet?
Took me all night.
I'm so stressed about the test tomorrow.
-Oh yeah, I totally did.
Number seven was a real doozy.
-Distract. Draw attention away from the person harassing.
Engage person being harassed casually.
Distract.
The 5 D's of bystander intervention.
Delegate. Ask a person close by for help.
Give specific requests. Delegate.
-Whoa, whoa, whoa.
You should go straight to the salad.
-What I eat is none of your business.
-Diet soda would be good for her too.
-What should I do?
♪♪
-Pause and evaluate the situation.
-Diet soda would be good for her too.
-Activate others to assist you.
Ask a person close by for help.
-That woman in the back is being very disrespectful.
Can you let the person in front go before me?
-You got it. -Thank you very much.
-Delegate. Ask a person close by for help.
Give specific requests. Delegate.
The 5 D's of bystander intervention.
Document. Make sure someone is helping first.
Keep your distance. Record date, time, and place.
Ask person being harassed what to do with the documentation.
Document. -You two are disgusting.
-What do you mean? -Get out of my sight.
-What should I do?
♪♪
Not in my town.
This Tuesday at high noon, I'm taking you down.
♪♪
-From a safe distance, record the date, time, and place.
Ask the person being harassed what to do with
the documentation.
-Are you all right? I documented what happened.
Can I give you the video? -Document.
Make sure someone is helping first.
Keep your distance. Record date, time, and place.
Ask the person being harassed what to do with
the documentation.
Document.
The 5 D's of bystander intervention.
Delay. Check in after the incident is over.
Offer to help. Share resources. Delay.
-Okay, everyone.
I decided we should move forward.
I'd like to get your suggestions by tomorrow.
Let's take five for coffee.
-Listen, sweetie.
Being bossy isn't exactly attractive.
-What should I do?
♪♪
-Pause and evaluate the situation.
Check in. Offer to help. Share resources.
-That was completely inappropriate.
I'm sorry he said that to you.
I know of a non-profit hotline for this.
Can I help you look for the phone number?
-Delay. Check in after the incident is over.
Offer to help. Share resources. Delay.
The 5 D's of bystander intervention.
Let's focus on direct. Safety first.
Speak firmly and clearly. Avoid arguing.
Direct.
-Hey, buddy. Go back to where you came from.
-I'm from here.
Where are you from? -Oh, I'm from here.
Where are you from? -I'm from Michigan.
-No. Where are you really from?
-What should I do?
♪♪
-Pause and rethink what was said.
-Where are you really from?
-See what others are doing.
Are your biases affecting how you see the situation?
Is there a chance of physical altercation?
-What kind of question is that?
He said he was from Michigan.
Now leave him alone.
You okay?
-Direct.
Safety first. Speak firmly and clearly.
Avoid arguing. Direct.
♪♪
-So just to give you a quick recap on our 5 D methodology
for bystander intervention,
there's distract, delegate, document, delay, and direct.
And oftentimes when people hear of bystander intervention,
they assume that the direct approach is the only option.
But as we've seen, the direct is only one of the 5 D's,
and the other methods are more indirect forms of intervening
that can be equally as effective.
Now we want to advise you to always put your safety first
and trust your gut.
If you don't feel safe intervening,
see if you can use one of the indirect forms
of intervention instead.
At the very heart of bystander intervention,
it's really the foundation of it all,
is for all of us to internalize that we all
play a role in creating safe public spaces for each other.
And I was recently leading a training
when somebody asked a very good question on this.
They said, well, as a person of color,
how can I be sure that my intervening
won't work against me,
especially if law enforcement is called to the scene?
And this is a good question because we recognize
that in our community, for people of color,
members of the immigrant community,
or members of the queer community,
we all have different experiences
with law enforcement.
And so if the person who is a target of hate or harassment
is a member of one of these communities,
it's important to get their consent first
before involving law enforcement.
And if you yourself who is intervening
is a member of these communities,
then be sure to document the incident in full,
along with using one of the other methods
of bystander intervention.
Now, as I mentioned earlier,
we also offer training in conflict de-escalation,
which is another crucial skill
to have alongside with bystander intervention.
And so we hope that these tools
will serve you well on your journey,
keeping you and others safe while confronting hate.
Now, on behalf of everyone here at Right To Be,
thanks again to the Black Heritage Society
for inviting us to share.
And we really appreciate all of the meaningful work that you do.
And thanks to all of you for participating today
and for your courage and your dedication
to making your communities and country
a safer place to be.
We wish you a very insightful event a day ahead,
and all the best.
Thank you. -Thank you, Ari.
I think we all understand that we can find a way
in our own comfort, with our own comfort level,
on how to address a situation that is really awkward
showing up in spaces.
And I know that we all have probably been in that situation.
I know I have.
And, you know, I thought too about dunking somebody.
But also understanding that and respecting the person
who is being harmed in the process.
So I hope these are really great takeaways for you.
And then following up with Right To Be,
if you feel like that's something that you'd like to do.
They're very open and actually have some representation,
not in Atlanta, but closer in Seattle.
So please reach out.
And this is really great. I'm excited about this.
This introduction is to Laurie Lynch, who I reached out to.
Gosh, took me a while to get to you, Laurie,
but I'm so happy that I did.
And Laurie is the, I want to say, the education director.
Yes, education director for No Place For Hate.
Really wonderful program
that I just happened on this program for youth.
And I'm happy that she's decided to come
and talk to us today about particularly the bias
and bullying that young people face.
So thank you, Laurie.
-I am Laurie Lynch.
I use they and she, her pronouns.
And I'm the education director
for the Pacific Northwest Anti-Defamation League,
specifically working with our K
through 12 schools throughout the Pacific Northwest,
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska.
And I'm going to talk to you about No Place For Hate
and really how you can take this back to schools.
One of the things we run into when dealing with schools is,
another program, another initiative, another thing?
And they get really overwhelmed by adding another thing.
So I like to talk about No Place For Hate as an umbrella
that oftentimes will fit in the school
in terms of what they're already doing to prevent bullying
and hate from happening in their hallways.
So what is No Place For Hate?
No Place For Hate is a student-led initiative.
And I really like to start with that,
that we know that when adults are talking to students,
we can make an impact,
but really when students are talking to their peers,
the impact is so much greater.
And so we, with this initiative,
really want the students to take the lead here,
to be able to change their culture, right?
To go from a culture that maybe people don't feel safe to,
a space where there are a set of values
that the students are agreeing
upon and they're navigating their daily lives,
holding each other accountable.
So this is basically a school climate initiative.
And I'm going to kind of go through the steps on
how No Place For Hate is instituted in a school.
So if you're a parent or an educator and you're like,
I want to do this, I want to bring this to my school,
you have an idea of how it is implemented.
So the first step is register, right?
We register yearly for our No Place For Hate schools.
And what we ask a school to do once they register
is to form a student committee.
And some schools will form
that through their student government.
Some schools will form that through, they'll open it up
and say, whoever wants to be on a No Place For Hate
committee, you can join.
And so we have some No Place For Hate committees
that have 10 students, and in other schools,
we have them that have 50 or 60 students on their committees.
So it's really about what is going to work for the school.
So step one, form a committee.
Step two is we ask the students,
and this is the part that I think gets a little tricky
in schools, is that we really do want the students
to lead the charge, right?
That the adults in the room
are just there to support and make happen.
But really, the students get to come up with the ideas.
The students get to move things forward
because they will come up with ideas
that are way better than what I will come up with, right?
So the first thing they do is introduce our pledge.
We have elementary school pledges,
and then we also have middle and high school pledges.
And this pledge is just introduce it to the whole school
that our set of values
that we are going to abide by as a school community.
An example of a really clever way
that a school recently introduced this down
in Portland,
the students created a TikTok video
and put it out through their school social media
of introducing the pledge.
And it was a way that they could be
really accessible to their peers.
And I just thought that that was just right on point of them
being able to speak a language
that I can't quite speak because I don't understand the TikTok.
Step three, so this goes to that point around,
you know, we're looking for sustainable change, right?
Post-ish, I say ish, pandemic,
right, coming back to school in person, things are challenging.
Our social emotional learning for all of us is,
you know, maybe not where it would be
if the pandemic hadn't happened.
And we're seeing that, right?
Our middle schoolers, you know,
social emotionally might be more at a fourth grade level, right?
And it's not to their fault.
It's just that they didn't have to interact
with other students, right?
So we don't want the activity part to be overwhelming, right?
So what we ask schools to do in their first year,
we ask the committee to come up with one inclusive activity
in the first year, just one.
So you introduce the pledge, you do one activity,
and then you're designated a No Place For Hate school.
And we'll send you a banner at the end of the year.
And it's really fun.
Year two, we ask for two activities.
Year three, we ask for three.
And all the years after that, we ask for three.
And it's every year they're renewing the charge, right?
So every year they introduce a pledge again,
every year they do the activities
and then they get another banner.
And so we really want these activities to be
about inclusion, belonging.
We want these to be something
where all the students are engaged and involved.
We have a list of activities that are already approved
that we encourage in the first couple of years
going through those.
But we also just, you know, again,
want the students to think about what are the things
that are happening in your school?
Not necessarily what are the things
that are happening in the world,
what is happening in your school
so that you can deal right there, right at home,
what are the things that we need to deal with?
Some schools right now, cyber bullying is a big thing.
So let's deal with that.
Some schools, you know, it's anti-trans, right,
things that are happening.
So it's really about like, what are the things
that are happening right now in your school?
And let's look at how we can have a conversation
and have dialogue about how to create safer spaces.
And then we ask folks to document,
what did you do, how did it work?
And to kind of reflect on the success
of the program that they did.
And once they submit that,
then that's what our fancy banners look like.
We send them out to the schools.
We try to show up to as many schools
as we can to present them to the schools
so that they can hang it.
And again, have this kind of reminder
that we're here to create safer spaces for everyone.
And you can go to noplaceforhate.org.
That is the student-led initiative.
And if you're interested in having this come
to your students' school or your neighborhood school
or just schools that maybe you have a connection with,
you can always reach out to me at llynch@adl.org.
And that's it. Thank you. -We have a little bit of time.
Why am I looking like -- I never wear a watch.
I'm like, let me see what time it is.
Wait, I haven't worn a watch since 1970.
So we have a little time.
-My question is,
I appreciate that you're creating pop-up events
that people go to, but have you thought about
taking those pop-ups directly
to the different neighborhoods that are impacted by hate?
-Yeah, as you know, that's the plan, right?
Again, we've been meeting just about a year.
And as the funding comes rolling in,
thank you, Department of Neighborhoods and 4Culture
and all these wonderful agencies that are supporting us.
And so we are building out that idea,
how this pop-up will travel.
We're looking at something easy with retractables.
So it's easy to move and to be in spaces
where there's relatively high traffic,
but the panels remain safe.
So I think to speak to what Cassie said is
libraries seem to be like a good space.
I think we even talked about King Street Station.
So we're open to ideas.
So if you have ideas, please throw them at us.
Let us know.
-So I'm currently a student,
and I'm on the east side of Seattle in the suburbs.
And from my understanding,
a lot of these organizations
help out within the Seattle city area.
And I was wondering what strategies you have to try
and get this message out to the east side.
Because at least I know in my experience,
a lot of the hate that we're seeing
is not well covered within those schools themselves.
You may have an assembly where you hear someone talk,
but they're not interactive, they're not direct.
And I think, especially at the smaller schools over there,
there's just nothing there at all.
And I was curious what kind of partnerships
you'd be interested in,
if any, and then also strategies that you have.
-You know, this is the kind of energy
that we're hoping for is that together,
our three organizations are just saying, you know,
hey, everybody out there,
if you want to talk about this,
we can find ways
to make it really comfortable to talk about it.
Stand up, be bystanders -- or not be bystanders -- upstanders.
And so I love your idea of, you know, heading across the bridge,
you know, at four o'clock.
But yes, so the pop-up definitely,
but also the podcasting that we're doing.
Maybe there's something kind of interesting
we could do around that.
You know, we're still discussing
how we're going to handle the interviews and excerpts
of community voices.
So thank you for saying that.
-Hello, Stephanie. I just want to say I'm the director
of the Department of Neighborhoods.
And I just want to say that it is an honor
to be able to support this event.
And it is an honor to be able to be in community.
That is the joy of the work.
So when this gentleman talked about,
how do we bring it to the neighborhoods,
something that I would love to commit to within my authority
is to work with other department heads
to figure out then how do we bring it
to the community centers that are in every neighborhood.
-Oh, yes. -That was Christian's idea.
And then also, this is our staff here.
They'll introduce themselves in a moment.
But these are the people on the ground
doing the work with community.
I just get to the honor of funding.
So with that, libraries, yes, community centers.
So just throughout, and we're across the city, right?
So we would be able to reach and then figuring out
how to partner across the bridge.
-Oh, thank you.
I love the idea of community centers.
I love community centers, you know,
because it attracts a huge generation of people, right?
And that's what we would really want to do.
I just wanted to ask,
what is the hope of this platform for our young people?
I think it's really important to always center them,
the youth of the revolutionaries.
It's wonderful to have all of us in here,
but without their voices to be heard,
and I think someone over there mentioned that,
I don't see any real possibility of change.
So my question to you and to your partners is,
what is the hope for this platform for our kids?
-Sometimes organizations and historical
and cultural organizations like mine,
really struggle to bring young people in
and be able to pass the baton,
if you will, to the next generation to keep the societies
and cultural organizations alive.
But in this particular case with this challenge
and this combating hate and the bigotry and bullying
is something that's really up front in their faces every day.
They look at the challenges
in their neighborhoods and their communities
and it's real stuff like what Laurie was talking about.
And so I'm going to try to find ways I know through BHS,
and then we'll encourage it in our committee meetings
to find the strategies to be able to find more time
and engage with young people.
I really appreciate the comments of moving outside of Seattle
to the east side and beyond.
So while we're talking about this as a Seattle,
King County community, neighborhood engagement,
this could go statewide.
I mean, we have a message that can go far, far beyond that.
And Marie, you're absolutely right.
What are we going to do? It's our call to action, right?
And to be able to do that.
So schools and community centers, libraries,
all of it is our call and our response.
So I don't know, Cassie or Nance,
do you want to say anything about that?
-So I was just going to say,
I think one of the things that's really powerful
when I talked about how my students just don't learn
Jewish history,
they learn the history of Japanese Americans
who were incarcerated.
They learn the history of other genocides that have happened.
We've done lots of stuff dealing with racism
in the United States as well.
And for my students,
seeing the overlap of their history between these groups
really riles them up.
I think their indignation at what happened
to the Japanese Americans
is stronger than their indignation of what happened
to their own people.
Like when I show them a government newsreel
from the Japanese incarceration,
they're like pounding their desks.
They're so angry.
So I think really sharing our shared histories
and making young people aware of that
will bring them together to work as a combined force
to confront hatred and bigotry.
When we realize that really we have a lot in common,
not just our shared humanity,
but also the biases that we face,
like we'll want to work together.
And instead of seeking to divide those communities,
really seeking to find unity
and a combined power in our young people.
And it's what gives me hope every day is the young people.
What I do makes me feel hopeful for the future.
And like, how do we continue to build that in our young people,
that sense of shared oppression and prejudice
and how do we want to fight back against it?
Because it all comes from ignorance.
And how do we fight that?
[ Applause ]
-I'll just add two things.
I also want, hopefully we'll elevate stories of
how our communities in the past
have come together to like work in coalition with one another.
And what are those examples?
I think in addition to just the erasure
and not teaching about our individual communities,
also not being able to really see
how our communities did build community together historically
and continue to do that.
So that's definitely a hope.
But I want to be able to learn and be inspired from the youth.
So the two artists' works that I shared on,
Sammy and Shay, right?
Their wisdom, they were in our youth high school program.
They joined on as our education guides at the Wing Luke Museum
and are young artists themselves.
So that's the spirit.
Because I think there's lots of wisdom
that we can gather from the youth and all of their insights
into what a good world could be.
-You've been talking about all these partnerships.
I just wanted to know if you had
any future plans or collaborations
with any of the indigenous communities here in Seattle.
I know I'm in a few of them.
I wanted to know if that was like a possibility.
-One of the things I'm really excited about someone --
I don't know, can I make this announcement
about Marie coming and joining us?
Possibly Kaday who has worked many hours
with Waterfront Seattle and that whole effort
who will bring a lot of energy and that sort of partnership,
I hope and understanding around that to our committee.
And it's a definite, yeah, for sure.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]