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Peace,

Shakti Butler and the World Trust team

Peace,

Shakti Butler
Executive Director, World Trust
Director, Cracking the Codes Film Project
___________________________________________________________
Contact Rhummanee Hang at 510/632-5156 or email her for information about bringing Shakti Butler and a World Trust seminar to your organization or campus.

The first in the three-part series Cracking the Codes, this film is designed to illuminate the systems that perpetuate structural racial inequity.

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From the director of “The Way Home: Women Talk About Race in America” and “Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible” comes a new film and learning program that asks America to talk about the causes and consequences of systemic inequity. With moving stories from racial justice leaders including Amer Ahmed, Michael Benitez, Barbie-Daniel DeCarlo, Joy DeGruy, Ericka Huggins, Humaira Jackson, Yuko Kodama, Peggy McIntosh, Rinku Sen, Tillman Smith and Tim Wise.

“This project is designed to deepen and shift the framing of racial disparities in this country, “ said Shakti Butler, PhD, director of the film and executive director of World Trust Educational Services. “The current conversation is not only shallow, but actually harmful.  We continue to primarily focus on individuals, when institutional and structural inequities are the bigger problem. We live in a time when we cannot afford to squander our national treasure — the minds and hearts of people.”

“Like our previous projects, The Way Home and Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, this new project fills a gap in racial equity training and education.  Organizations are seeking tools that will provide their students, staff and communities with a deeper understanding of systemic inequity that will drive cultural change and be expressed in policies, services and other forms of democratic action,” says Butler, “The three part project Cracking the Codes will inspire accountability and a passion for racial justice in many thousands of students, teachers, faith-based organizations and leaders in our country.”

Future films in the series will explore Movement Building  and Consciousness, Communication, Justice and Healing.

Amikaeyla

Acclaimed vocalist and musician Amikaeyla Gaston is hosting ImproviSoul, an afternoon of food, wine, music, film, poetry & prose benefiting World Trust starting at 3:00 pm on Sunday, July 24th at Avonova in Oakland’s Temescal District.  “We are excited and honored to have Ami offer this event for us,” says Shakti Butler, filmmaker and Executive Director of World Trust, “Her music has touched my soul and her pure voice embodies the beauty and longing of the human spirit.”

Proclaimed as one of the “purest contemporary voices…” by National Public Radio, powerhouse Amikaeyla Proudfoot Gaston embraces the best of many types of music. Her sultry sound, as described by MTV, is “like listening to a velvet waterfall”, and her soulful, roots jazz flavor captures the listener with dynamic passion & enchanting sincerity. She was named Washington D.C.’s best Female Composer in 2006, 2008 and again in 2011 for excellence in original composition, and has performed, recorded with, and traveled the world touring with award winning artists such as Take 6, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Baba Olatunji, Mickey Hart, Pete Seeger, Gil Scott Heron, Wyclef, Howard Levy of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Eugene Friesen & Glen Velez of the Paul Winter Consort, Esperanza Spalding, and Shiela E.

Amikaeyla was moved to offer this benefit event after viewing Dr. Butler’s films this spring. “Dr. Shakti Butler’s work is more than inspirational.  It is a calling for us all to speak to our higher selves and transform our preconceived notions of antiquated racial constructs and step into a new age of being in healthy alignment with ourselves, each other, and the world,” Ami says, “And, ImproviSOUL events are all about the muse of the moment –  enjoying an intimate interaction dialogue between on-stage and off-stage music lovers. An important component of Dr. Butler’s work is healing through dialogue.  I feel a strong resonance between this event and the intention of her work.”

More about Amikaeyla and her music: www.amikaeyla.com

Avonova is located at 417 Avon Street in Oakland. Tickets are $15 at the door.

World Trust Educational Services of Oakland, CA is developing a new film/dialogue project, “Cracking the Codes: Race and Relationships in the 21^st Century” that is designed to illuminate self-perpetuating systems of racial inequity and move individuals from inspiration to action in ways that support change.

Major funding for the project comes from a $200,000 grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Mich.

“This project is designed to deepen and shift the framing of racial disparities in this country, “ said Shakti Butler, PhD, director of the film and executive director of World Trust Educational Services. “The current conversation is not only shallow, but actually harmful.  We continue to primarily focus on individuals, when institutional and structural inequities are the bigger problem. We live in a time when we cannot afford to squander our national treasure — the minds and hearts of people.”

“Like our previous projects, The Way Home and Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, this new project fills a gap in racial equity training and education.  Organizations are seeking tools that will provide their students, staff and communities with a deeper understanding of systemic inequity that will drive cultural change and be expressed in policies, services and other forms of democratic action,” says Butler, “Cracking the Codes: Race & Relationships in the 21st Century will inspire accountability and a passion for racial justice in many thousands of students, teachers, faith-based organizations and leaders in our country.”

The film itself features a critical mass of moving personal stories from leaders in the racial justice movement such as anti-racism activist Tim Wise, spoken word artist Ise Lyfe and scholar Joy Leary.  Stories are intertwined with theater, dance and other art forms to link the personal impact of racism to larger, institutional manifestations in health, education and the judicial system. Like all films developed by World Trust, Cracking the Codes will be supported by a post-screening conversation guide designed to elicit dialogue that moves viewers from the emotional impact of the film to transformative learning and engagement.

World Trust is also developing a web-based curriculum of learning modules that Cracking the Codes participants will be able to work with over time after the initial film/dialogue experience.   “People often ask us, ‘Where do we go from here? How can we effect change in our organization, or in our community?’  By providing a deeper understanding of the system, developing skills in communication and healing, and teaching the fundamentals of democratic movement building, this curriculum will prepare change makers to act,” said Dr. Butler.

“It is our hope that this transformative learning program will help move the conversation about race, acknowledge the systemic inequities, and begin to change these systems that all too often, hold children back from reaching their full potential,” said Dr. Gail C. Christopher, Vice President, Program Strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The Cracking the Codes: Race & Relationships in the 21st Century film/dialogue project — DVD, conversation guide and website — will be available to educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, faith-based groups and communities in 2012.

World Trust Educational Services is a nonprofit organization formed in 1987 to eliminate racial injustice through transformational education.  Its documentary films are designed for dialogue and engage thousands of new people in racial justice each year.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, established in 1930, supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southern Africa.

For further information on the foundation, please visit www.WKKF.org.

Shakti Butler uses framing, film and dialogue to support organizations’ efforts to create equity.

NatureBridge recently offered a staff seminar with Dr. Butler to help catalyze their efforts to engage youth of color in our national parks.  “Dr. Butler has a way of educating her audience that is powerful, engaging, and even enchanting. She asks people to think critically but to forgive and to confront confidently. She encourages shifts in paradigms without judgment, rather with intellectual and emotional awareness,” said Anne Burnett, Director of Programs, “We learned that building social justice within our industry requires critical and consistent analysis of a system rather than isolated cogs in the wheel of diversity initiatives. A very powerful experience with my colleagues.”

Learn more about bringing Shakti Butler to your organization, school or conference.

Gerald Denman, Executive Director of Diversity Affairs, uses the World Trust film "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible" in his efforts to create a culturally responsive school district in Washington State.

Gerald Denman, Executive Director of the Office of Diversity Affairs in a school district located in Washington State, incorporates the film Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible within a multi-year, district-wide program that is creating a culturally responsive learning community.  “This film is the right tool for us. Watching this documentary and discussing it has helped a district of about 1300 teachers move forward in their journey to cultural competency,” said Mr. Denman, a former principal and classroom teacher.

Denman featured the film in a workshop for all principals in the district.  All principals in turn received a copy of the film and the guidance to then offer the workshop to their entire staff. Ongoing exercises with clips from the film are also planned. In that way, the entire district is on the same page. “It is no small task to get an entire educational community engaged – to ask deeper questions about our perceptions, about the equity of our system and what barriers we present to kids.  We realized we needed to reach both the head and the heart, and this film helps us to do that.

“I believe you have to tell your own story in order to take the journey to cultural competence,” says Denman. “Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible is designed to support dialogue. The workshop around this film gets the staff engaged in conversation. They share stories of things they saw, or how they grew up.

“The majority of our faculty and staff are white. It is HUGE that the film features white people exclusively. To have whites hearing other whites telling their stories about how they were raised, how they felt about people of color – it gives them ownership of the issue. Every experience shared in this film resonates as true, but you’ve never heard it spoken aloud. There is validity, credibility — precisely because it is not coming from me, Gerald, a person of color.

“In using Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible we can see and hear stories of others in their own struggle.  They are on the same journey we are on, and it makes it okay that we are ‘not there yet.’  It helps people move past guilt or blame and get on with the journey.  Becoming culturally competent is really a continual journey we are all on.”

Five years into the district’s multi-faceted program, Mr. Denman can point to successes like lower rates of disciplinary action against students of color and a significantly higher percentage of students of color in college-track AP classes.  With these wins the district is beginning to close the opportunity gap – and the whole district is involved in making it happen.

Background

In 2000 a group of families sued the school district for discrimination and racial harassment of their children. An out-of-court settlement mandated that the district establish a Diversity Affairs Office and funded efforts to provide an equitable, culturally responsive education for all students. Key elements of the plan include:

• The Office of Diversity Affairs. Denman reports directly to the superintendent and has access to all principals and staff. “This access and flexibility to do what is needed in the district is key,” he says.
• Faculty and Staff Development. Denman has tapped numerous resources for training including the film Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible. Ongoing training and support of ALL staff from principals to janitors is integral to the plan.
• Clear goals and expectations defining a culturally responsive classroom. Administrators and teachers are held accountable for progress.
• Effective Data Reporting System. The District spent considerable funds to establish a system that reports data by building, by ethnicity, by gender to see trends and eliminate them if they are negative. For example, who gets sent to the principal’s office?  “If kids are not in class, they are not learning. If there is a building where a disproportionate percentage of kids of color are going to the office, then we can ask ourselves deeper questions about why that is happening and what do about it,” says Denman. “Until teachers see the data that reveal bias, they just can’t believe it exists. Now we can measure our progress and see the road ahead.” Reporting also includes tardiness, unexcused absences, tracking into special education, GPAs, and graduation rates, among other factors.
• The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program prepares more students of color for college eligibility.
• Other important components include curriculum development, recruitment of faculty of color and community outreach.

Results

In addition to a quantifiable reduction in discipline rates and an increase in the number of students of color who are college bound, there is more district-wide ownership of the goals of the program and more trust.

“There has been a big shift.  There is no more eye rolling. It is not about the lawsuit anymore; it is about doing the right thing for all kids. There is ownership,” says Denman.  “All of these kids are our kids.  All means all. I see it in the principals’ eyes.”

“There is an analogy I give everyone about ‘home game versus away game.’ You remember home games, right? There was a pep assembly, the band played, parents turned out to watch. But the away games – parents couldn’t come because the game was too far, you were booed on the field. For some of our students, every school day feels like an away game to them. If we are putting up barriers, we are making it an away game. The challenge our administrators are taking on is to make sure that when those kids get off the bus, it is a home game for them everyday.

“With demographics changing across the nation, districts must embrace culturally responsive education. I don’t see enough focus on this. When we talk about improving our educational system, this should be the tip of the spear.”

See a trailer for Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible here.

Contact Gerald Denman via email:  cougars2 “at” comcast.net

Peace,

Shakti Butler and the team at World Trust

In this video Shakti Butler, Executive Director of World Trust, shares an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr ‘s final presidential address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August 16, 1967.  Dr. King calls on us to examine the economic systems underlying our society as a whole.  In this speech, Dr. King also states that he has decided to “stick with love” saying, “… “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems… I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. I have seen too much hate and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. And the beautiful thing is that we are moving against wrong when we do it. “

The film also contains footage shot for World Trust’s current project Cracking the Codes: Race & Relationships in the 21st Century. This clip is a story from educator and former Black Panther Ericka Huggins. She shares how she learned that social justice movements are about all people of color who are oppressed down by the current economics of power.

Please click the Donate button below to contribute online, or you may send a check to our address.

No amount is too small; no amount is too large. Your tax-deductible donation of any size will help World Trust complete Cracking the Codes and continue our vital work of building a more equitable, compassionate and peaceful world. Please consider making a gift in one of the following amounts today:

$25            $50            $100          $350*

* For gifts of $350 and above, you are entitled to a World Trust DVD of your choice.

This year we completed the filming of interviews for our most important film/dialogue project yet, Cracking the Codes: Race & Relationships in the 21st Century. Our first release since the acclaimed Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, this project will be World Trust’s main vehicle for shaping the framework for racial discourse in the U.S. for the next three years.
It is entirely through the support of individuals that we are able to create compelling new work like Cracking the Codes.  Your donation will help us stay on track to complete the film in 2011!

Cracking the Codes: Race & Relationships in the 21st Century is designed shift the framing of race in this country through dialogue and deep learning and build the will for sustainable change. Through the use of story and dialogue, this transformative learning project will illuminate the structural aspects of racism and inspire empathy, accountability and a passion for racial justice in thousands of students and leaders in our country. It will address three major components that contribute towards the building and support of equity movements:  1) understanding the complexities of systemic and racial inequity; 2) consciousness, communication and healing and 3) effecting change through movement building.

A note from Shakti Butler, Director of Cracking the Codes
This past year I have had the honor of interviewing and learning from so many amazing people.  I continue to be moved by the integrity, persistence, dedication and powerful work that is being done all over the country.  World Trust, and the Cracking the Codes project,  is part of a national effort that is growing.  And it will, without a doubt, reach a tipping point that releases mighty opportunities that uplift the nation. This inspires me, personally, to pursue learning and growing, creating vision and action on behalf of equity and justice.  Thank you for your support.

Anti-racism activist Tim Wise with Shakti Butler

Shakti Butler’s workshop, “Exploring the Connections through Film & Dialogue: Linking Interpersonal and Institutional Racism,” drew a standing room-only crowd at the Facing Race Conference, held this year in Chicago on September 24-25th.   Surrounded by enlivening workshops by change makers, including journalists, community organizers, educators and activists, her World Trust workshop found itself in good company. For some, Dr. Butler’s workshop was a unique complement to the many insightful policy and research presentations.   In the words of one participant, “It was so wonderful for someone to demonstrate the connection of our souls to the work…and feed my soul as well as my mind.”

With film and dialogue, Dr. Butler teaches in a deep and profound way, enabling movement beyond the usual “paralysis” around race to address structural discrimination in a transformative manner.  “At World Trust we work to combine personal, political and spiritual growth to achieve equity and justice. Offering a film/dialogue workshop at Facing Race felt right,” said Dr. Butler, “It was extraordinary to be part of a broad vision and movement that aligns so many voices and organizations.   We, at World Trust, commit to continue our efforts towards eliminating racial inequality.  Thank you Applied Research Center for this conference!”

For more about World Trust film and dialogue workshops with Dr. Butler, click here.

Dr. Butler with World Trust staff Soo Na Pak and Lisa Abbott