October 15, 2010
To:
Arli Klassen—MCC Executive Director
Herman Bontrager—MCC Board Chairperson
Ann Graber Hershberger—MCC US Chairperson
Don Peters—MCC Canada Exectuive Director
Neil Janzen—MCC Canada Chairperson
cc:
Ron Byler—MCC US Transitional Executive Director
Rick Derksen—MCC Antiracism Coordinator
Dear MCC chairs and executive directors,
In response to our concern about an intensifying pattern of people of color leaving MCC on bad terms, our group published an open letter calling for MCC constituents who were concerned about patterns of institutional racism in MCC to withhold 50 percent of their normal giving unless actions were taken to address the situation. One of the actions that we were calling for is increased accountability to communities of color.
At a follow up meeting with you in December 2009, you reported the following efforts to make MCC accountable to communities of color (From Arli Klassen’s report December 8, 2009):
1. The US Anti-Racism Reference Group was to have its first meeting before the end of March 2010.
2. MCC Bi-national is working on increasing the number of country programs with local advisory committees. MCC US is working on increasing the number of program reference groups for MCCs in the US. For the beginning of the fiscal year in April 2010, both MCC bi-national and MCC US will have concrete measurable targets to achieve during the 2010/2011 fiscal year in ensuring functioning advisory/reference committees, and can be held accountable for meeting those targets.
3. MCC Bi-national has a delegate body that meets once a year, composed of representatives from all the supporting denominations (MCC US does not have a comparable delegate body). MC USA appoints 6 delegates to the Bi-national delegate body. MCC Bi-national will ask MC USA to ensure that 1-2 of their delegates are people selected by the affinity groups of color within MC USA, and accountable back to both MC USA and those affinity groups of color. Both MCC US and MCC BN already have policy regarding a minimum number of people of color on their respective governance bodies.
As part of the discussion at the December meeting, we also heard you asking “What are you (constituents) asking us (MCC executives) to do in order to be more accountable?” We have spent a great deal of time working on the enclosed document. The document is our attempt to respond to your request clarifying what we mean by being accountable to communities of color. It has been a valuable process for us as a group and we hope it will be a valuable resource for you as well.
We would like to suggest that as you read the enclosed document, you consider recent decisions or actions by MCC in which you were involved. By using your experiences as case studies, you will be able to consider the principles of accountability as applied to practical, “real-life” experiences. We have found the cycle of action and reflection to be an essential practice in becoming clearer on what it means to be accountable. Below, we also offer suggestions of some recent MCC actions/decisions we are aware of that could be used in this way as one reads through the accountability principles. How did MCC do in making itself accountable to communities of color in these specific situations? What successes can MCC build on? What mistakes can MCC learn from for the future?
Possible recent case studies for MCC’s accountability to US/Canadian communities of color:
1. New wine/New wineskins process, including composition of decision-making bodies as well as decision-making processes
2. The selection of Sudan and creation of the Sudan: Coming Home campaign as an ongoing commitment for MCC resources and fundraising
3. Recent changes in MCC’s Civil Disobedience policy, changes that came about at least partly in response to the decision of MCC Central States to support one of its workers who was facing the possibility of being involved in actions of civil disobedience
4. Recent changes made by MCC regarding its salary structure
We hope this document answers some of your questions about what we meant in our call to MCC to strengthen its structural accountability to communities of color.
We continue to have concerns about the future direction of MCC and its commitment to becoming an antiracist institution. Each of us brought a sense of caring for MCC and longing for it to be the best that it could be to our writing of the open letter and our efforts since it was published. We had hoped that this call from constituents might spur MCC to strengthen its commitment to antiracism and to take positive actions that would result in us ending our call to withhold funds with celebration. We are saddened that we haven’t seen evidence of that sort of response. However, from this point on, we no longer plan to work at organizing MCC constituents to call the institution to strengthen its commitment to antiracism. We plan to close the petition that we have posted on the web and to communicate to the persons who signed it and to the Damascus Road network what we are communicating with you here.
We have made this decision because we would like instead to focus our energies on supporting new anti-racist initiatives emerging within the Anabaptist community that have encouraged and energized us. We all have limited time and must make choices regarding where we believe our involvement is mostly likely to bear fruit. We are also confident that MCC has many internal resources that can be of great assistance to you in shepherding MCC on its antiracism journey, including processing the ideas in this document.
Toward that end, we are copying Rick Derksen, MCC’s antiracism coordinator, so he will also have a copy of the accountability document that we have developed. As a next step, we encourage you to involve and utilize current antiracism leaders within MCC, such as Rick, in discussing these principles of antiracist accountability, applying them to the whole of MCC, and ultimately building greater institutional accountability to Canadian and US communities of color.
We wish for you wisdom and courage in the work that you do.
In Peace and Hope,
Tim Barr, Calenthia Dowdy, Brenda Zook Friesen, Karissa Ortman Loewen, Conrad Moore, Yvonne Platts, Tobin Miller Shearer, Regina Shands Stoltzfus
The Anti-Racism Constituent Action Group
Accountability Final Version
White Supremacy Culture
