Staff Liaison: Mark Law, MS
(1) Guide the organization through learning experiences to better understand institutional racism and how it manifests in the world around us;
(2) Identify barriers within and beyond the CityMatCH organization and create a safe environment to discuss the issue of racism openly and honestly; and
(3) Identify undoing racism strategy and training opportunities to benefit CityMatCH membership.
How is the experience of racism akin to the proper care and feeding of flowers?
An allegory can help to explain the impacts of racism in our society. "A gardener has two flower boxes, one which she knows to contain rich, fertile soil and the other which she knows to contain poor, rocky soil. She has seed for the same kind of flower, except some of the seed will produce pink blossoms and some of the seed will produce red blossoms. The gardener prefers red over pink, so she puts the red seed in the rich, fertile soil and the pink seed in the poor, rocky soil. Three weeks later, the red flowers look strong and healthy while the pink flowers look scrawny and scraggly. When fall comes, those flowers go to seed. The next year the same thing happens, and then those flowers go to seed. Year after year, the rains water, the sun shines, and the same thing happens. Finally, ten years later..."
