Letter from Jasmine Stammes
November 4th, 2018
Dear SHIFT Board of Directors,
I have long known that trauma makes family out of strangers, and of family trauma makes something hard to name. And the experience of ELP has made family on the back of trauma I am still navigating weeks later.
The truth is bringing a cohort like ours was always a difficult and dangerous business. We are truly what is left after the fire that is life. We are the hot embers of survival. When I entered ELP I was deeply sold by the dream. I believed in a group of strangers building solidarity in order to reform and redefine an outdoor industry that has so long excluded us. The shock of realizing that I was thrown into a group where some of the white participants couldn’t even understand the basic tenants of racism and equity, deeply stung and cannot be understated.
My goal for ELP was never to explain my existence. To steel myself against the refrain of participants who believed my identity derailed their experience. My goal was never to re-live my traumas and that of others. But this is what my experience consisted of.
A few days into the program I suffered a debilitating panic attack after a particularly difficult conversation with Christian and a few of my cohort family. Upon his admission that he had never done any meaningful DEI work, it dawned on me that I had put trust in someone who did not even have the capacity to handle my existence and reality.
What he referred to as an experiment was our life.
On the last night as I stood amidst some of the most brilliant people I have ever met. All I could think was how much SHIFT and ELP did not deserve one ounce of the beauty, vulnerability, honesty and sheer genius that was this cohort.
As difficult as this is for me to write, I write knowing that future black, brown and POC brilliance does not need to suffer through even an ounce of our experience in the name of someone’s social experiment.
I write this letter in solidarity with other letters asking for the resignation of Christian Beckwith from the SHIFT and Emerging Leadership Program.
Thank You,
Jasmine Stammes
2018 Emerging Leader
