Jasmine Stammes’ response to SHIFT’s April 12 letter and apology

My response to the SHIFT 4/12 Letter from Board and Apology letter from Christian Beckwith

In October 2018 myself and other young leaders of various background attended the SHIFT 2018 Emerging Leaders Program and SHIFT conference. A program that billed itself as a safe space to have conversations about equity in the outdoor/environmental world. However, over the span of days, myself and other participants of color experienced incredibly traumatic and negative experiences that seriously impacted our mental health and sense of wellbeing. The months since have resulted in a series of actions. The following letter is written in response to a recent letter from the board. Here is their recent response https://shiftjh.org/a-letter-from-our-board/ . My personal response follows.

I was one of two black women in the SHIFT 2018 cohort. My experience was profoundly negative in ways I only began to understand after I returned home. In the Executive Director’s apology letter released on April 12th he mentions/cites quite obviously my traumatic response to his actions. In an earlier upload of the document, comments were left, and it clearly references that he is speaking about an African American woman.

“When I said this, a woman at the table — brilliant, passionate, good — gasped, and then began to tremble. Then she began to cry. She had put her faith, wellbeing and a week of her life into the hands of someone who knew almost nothing about what it was like to grow up as a person of color in America, where microaggressions are the norm and where the current political climate has made it clear that the system that has dominated the country since its inception was intent on retaining power on behalf of the people who run it. People, in her eyes, like me…….. I cannot undo the impact my ignorance has had on her. My remorse for causing her harm is profound. She is committed to making the world a more equitable, just place, and I hurt her. I will carry that injustice with me forever.”

Yes, I trembled but really, I had a full-on panic attack. Can I let you in on a secret: this was my first. I felt my breath shorten and my heart squeeze. In panic, I ran to the bathroom and sat down in shock. All I remember is a driving need to call my husband to anchor me. Was the panic attack brought on by a single conversation and action? Of course not. It was the culmination of days- day (I can’t even separate the days and actions of that time period) and it all came slamming into me in a perfect shit storm. That week was one thing after another, the incidents happened at such a frequency it became impossible to keep up. There was continuous mis-gendering, there was inequitable emotional labor placed on People of color (POCs) in the group, there were off hand comments about the ways in which conversations around race impeded and derailed things, there was the tailing of POCs by police that one time, there was the song about slaves by white men in Karaoke on a night out, there was so much I could continue to name, but I am not here to validate my experience through the re-naming of the violence. SHIFT was a toxic and negative experience and that is my truth. The danger of bringing POCs to a town that is 94% white and layering their experience with further programmatic shortfalls is no light matter.

I’ve lived through and seen a lot. It is a fact not a badge. I have forgiven people in my life who have done much worse things and have long learned that to withhold forgiveness is to torment one’s own self. I hope that the Executive Director continues to own his impact and continues to tread carefully in the world’s he is better suited as student than leader.

My actions since I have left that experience are not driven by bitterness or anger, rather it is rooted in a collective responsibility for ensuring the safety of People of Color (POCs) entering what was and remains to me a toxic experience. A few days ago I asked a dean of color how to deal with feeling like sometimes I was leading POCs to the slaughter, when I recommended institutions I knew had a long long way to go. It was a violent image but I was referencing institutions that had shredded my sense of well being and thrown many people I loved into all manners of mental unwellness(SHIFT is not the first nor will it be the last). His advice to me was to tell POCs exactly the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I am committed to being transparent so here is my extended truth. For the last few months, I’ve actively avoided talking and thinking about SHIFT. The experience hurt me deep and left me in a tail spin of emotions. I returned to my beautiful home needing all kinds of healing from my people. And I am so blessed that I received it both at home and remotely from friends I indeed made at SHIFT. When we decided to write letters of our experience to the board, it wasn’t one I made lightly. I didn’t want to talk about it, I wanted to stuff it down and keep moving. But healing work is painful, so I wrote and I trusted.

It took weeks to receive a response. We sent our initial letter November 6th 2018 and only received a response on December 21st 2018. A few days before Christmas while I was on my way to the Netherlands to be with my family. The letter we sent asked for the resignation of the Executive Director, 17 of us signed it, I also sent an individual letter detailing my experience. The response which came more than a month later, carefully written, acknowledged our hurts, announced that others had written in defense of the Executive Director, and announced a set of changes they were choosing to do instead. No attempt was made on their side or our side to engage more.

When the most vulnerable of a community, in gender, sexual identity, race and experience tell you their truth and your response is what theirs was, there isn’t much to say back. While it has been stated that me and the cohort of folks who wrote the letters asking for change didn’t respond back. I in no way think our silence was an acceptance and I am confused as to why it would be seen that way. I do a lot of community engagement work and one thing I know is that once trust is broken a lot needs to be done to repair it. One email isn’t that. And after someone has gone through a traumatic experience it most definitely isn’t enough. I know enough about trauma. I’ve survived civil wars and sexual violence.

I avoided anything SHIFT related because it stressed me out and made me anxious.

Over the last few months I have actively refused to apply to fellowships that seem even remotely like SHIFT because I am frightened that I would miscalculate a situation so badly again. This year I have decided to only attend conferences that are led and held by POCs because I felt so acutely enraged by my experience. Furthermore, I have thrown myself deeply into building friendships and community with other POCs in the outside/environmental world. I have also uplifted and aided the work of POCs doing brilliant work in the outdoors.

I am not interested in fighting with community I need to be in solidarity with. I am not interested in centering whiteness and creating rifts in our small community of POCs exceling in the outdoors/environmental world.

But I am deeply committed to my truth. And while I am the daughter of a diplomat, I am also the child of truth speakers.

My problem with SHIFT was never about representation. I met the most amazing group of people through SHIFT.

My problem with SHIFT was institutional.

Have the things that made SHIFT problematic gone away? I will leave us to have our difference of opinion.

I hope to God SHIFT is different. I hope to God no black woman and no person of color enters that space and gets hurt ever again.

And if indeed none is hurt ever again in that space I know for certain it is because of the relentless acts of myself and others, who have at least ensured 2018 SHIFT will never happen again.

Jasmine Stammes

Here are all the letters,

Check out the letters we wrote to the board here https://medium.com/wont-take-shift-anymore

Here is their first response https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r2e-TLSK_tF2knUU2IhlKkC_PjrzM4fxeclYLOqZXrM/edit

Here is their recent response https://shiftjh.org/a-letter-from-our-board/

Here is the letter from their Executive director https://shiftjh.org/an-apology-from-our-executive-director/