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Representation in institutional leadership, featured artists, funding for projects and organizations, lack of accessibility, etc., have been long-standing issues in the arts community in Houston and beyond. Houston-based arts advocacy organization, Fresh Arts, hosted a month-long conversation series “Cultivating Equity in the Arts,” concluding the series with an important conversation addressing racism within the arts with special guests Cherry Steinwender from the Center for the Healing of Racism and Jean Sebastien from the Houston BIPOC Artist Accountability Coalition.

To view the recording of the Fresh Arts Houston interview of Executive Director Cherry Steinwender, please click here.

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As featured in Community Impact Newspaper

By Matt Dulin | 5:21 PM Jun 14, 2020 CDT | Updated 10:54 AM Jun 15, 2020 CDT

Over three decades ago, Cherry Steinwender and a collection of friends from diverse backgrounds sat around a kitchen table in Houston’s Third Ward and asked the questions: What is racism? How can it be healed?

That conversation continues today, and the organization that sprung from that effort, the Center for the Healing of Racism, today based out of Houston Community College’s central campus, conducts workshops across the country to galvanize even more conversations, whether they are around kitchen tables, board rooms or halls of education.

On June 20, the center will have a virtual ceremony to give out its 27th Annual Juneteenth Ally Award.

Community Impact Newspaper spoke with Steinwender to learn about her work with the center, which has become even more vital in recent weeks.

We started in 1989. It was started by a very multi-ethnic group … African, European, Japanese and Latino or Latinx. These are the people who started the work, though never in our minds did we think about a nonprofit and what it is today. We were friends, and we decided we wanted to take the journey and really look at racism, to take it apart piece by piece and be very transparent with each other in the process. This group would meet around the kitchen table at each other’s homes. Eventually we did more. We started a film series and started to get people to attend … and finally we recognized, we needed to form a nonprofit in order to meet the demand of people really wanting to talk about racism.

What does the group offer?

One of the commitments early on was to establish “Dialogue: Racism,” a 16-18 hour workshop series where we work with groups. … Then we created programs for a much younger audience, including high school and young children. We work with all people of all ages. We’ve been all over. We’ve been everywhere. We’ve conducted workshops in 45 states, Austria and Canada. With Zoom, we’re doing that even more. We have worked with faith-based groups, corporations, universities, any one. It’s a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to have that real dialogue. We have a set curriculum, the training manual for facilitators, and once you truly understand that curriculum, you will be able to understand any form of racism and the way that it is. We can pull out individual parts and do a standalone session for a couple of hours, but having the whole experience is where you truly see the impact.

What is your process?

We look at our racial conditioning. … The concept is to give them a broader understanding of what racism is. In order to do that, we dissect that word and the many ways that racism shows up. We look at unaware racism, unconscious bias and white privilege. We work as a team. There is always a person of color and a person of European decent. Our experience of racism has been totally different, and there are things a person of color can say that people will buy or not buy. We are very careful of who will say what at a workshop. It affects how the message will be understood.

How do you keep pace with events and new questions?

Racism is constantly changing. From what it looked like when we first started, it has shifted. … For example, in Texas we did not have a hate-crime bill when we started this. Then we had the modern-day lynching of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper. Today, we’re dealing with George Floyd and we’re talking about that. It changes, but then again, the same concepts are at work.

Right after President Obama was elected, everybody in news media said there’s no more racism, and that’s crazy to me. In Houston we elected Annise Parker to mayor, and just because we elected a lesbian, it doesn’t mean there’s no more homophobia. That would be ridiculous to think that.

How do you separate racist acts from being simplified as ‘bad cops’ or ‘bad people’?

This is important. People used to think it’s just individual acts of meanness. But it’s not just that, it’s a system, institutionalized racism. And we’re finally seeing more people recognize that. Merriam-Webster is changing its definition of racism to, “a system of advantage based on skin color,” and that is more like the word that we think of when we talk about racism. Now we’re naming it. Now we may be able to do something.

Out in the arena doing the workshops, you make that distinction. These systems were created long before we were in the world. But the bottom line is, every day of our lives, we are at an advantage or disadvantaged based on the color of our skin. For white people, you didn’t have anything to do with it, but you cannot deny the fact that you benefit from it. That’s what white privilege is, and that’s so hard for white people hear, and we have so much pushback.

How do you address that?

They say, “I worked hard, I studied hard. I earned this position that I have.” But I am not talking about working hard. I might say, “Wow, you did work really hard … but there is something you got that helped you and you had nothing to do with: white skin.”

My husband is Austrian, he is as white as you can be, blue-eyed and blond hair. He can tell you without thinking, “I drive through the cities of this country with a green card, but my white is American,” which is saying, his whiteness is accepted completely everywhere, without question. He sees it so clearly.

The other reason I know white privilege exists is because growing up, I had friends who you might say were white-looking colored people, when they got older, they decided to move to other parts of this country where they knew they could pass for white, so they could tap into that privilege. It was a clear advantage and still is.

How do you address the fear that comes with talking about race?

We always we want to create a safe space. Martin Luther King Jr. said, men hate each other and fear each other because they don’t know each other. In order to do anything about racism, you have to break the walls of separation. You must have a safe, respectful atmosphere. The other thing, we never have in 31 years—never—attacked anyone and called them a racist. There’s no way you can use “healing racism” in your name and then retraumatize white people by calling them racists. … But we have to be honest, and we have to have these difficult conversations. The fact is, they have been conditioned to think this way.

How do you keep the faith after all these years?

What I can say is, I believe in hope. I believe people can change if given the right information. I believe that. I’ve seen it happen too many times. For me, I live for one more workshop. I’ve seen that change in so many people, and you hear them tell you over and over, they say you changed their life.

There are other signs of hope too. We are finally calling it what it is. A lot of people were sick and tired of these companies saying they care about “cultural diversity” which is nice but it’s a fluffy name, and now they’re using the word “racism” in the political arena. Everyday citizens, faith-based communities are all speaking out and they’re naming it. If you can’t name it, you can’t do anything about it.

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Examples of anti-Asian bias in Texas range from attempted murder to stereotyping and hate speech. On March 14, a Burmese father and his young sons (ages 2 and 6) were attacked and stabbed in a Midland Sam’s Club by an assailant who said he targeted the family because he thought they were Chinese and infecting people with coronavirus. In early March, while standing in line at an early voting site in Irving, a Vietnamese-American veteran of three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan coughed after taking a sip of water and began to choke. The woman ahead of him chastised him for being sick and told him, “All you Asian people are spreading that coronavirus.” Here in Houston, on April 8, a woman pushing a shopping cart through a Kroger parking lot on Buffalo Speedway began screaming at an Asian-American couple to “Get out of our country! Get out of the United States, you ugly [expletive]!” The couple, owners of a restaurant in the same strip mall, was shocked, terrified and humiliated. And, indeed, they were in their own country.

The rise in anti-Asian rhetoric and violence related to COVID-19 is tacitly fueled by elected officials at the highest levels who refer to the virus as the “Chinese virus” or blame China and Chinese people for being “the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the swine flu, and now the coronavirus.” Never mind that MERS is an acronym for Middle East respiratory syndrome and the swine flu began in North America.

As the pandemic threatens the wellbeing of virtually everyone on the planet, this is a good time to remember that we’re all in this together. People of good conscience can help their Asian and Asian-American neighbors by becoming allies to them.

The first step is recognizing that we are all members of the human race, a category that is vastly bigger than any one racial, ethnic, language, religious or other sub-group. Indeed, we are far more alike than we are different. The second step is to try a few of these suggestions when the opportunity arises or when you feel moved to seek out the opportunity yourself:

Say something when someone is being targeted or demeaned for their race or ethnicity. This takes courage, tact and quick assessment. Obviously, you don’t want to endanger the targeted person, yourself or anyone else. A recent online workshop jointly organized by Hollaback!, a nonprofit that works to end harassment, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) offered a number of actions that could be used by bystanders when they observe harassment. They include:

• Causing a small distraction, such as dropping your purse, your phone or a handful of change or asking for directions. Just something to distract the harasser and break the tension.

• Enlisting the help of someone nearby, such as the person sitting next to you or someone in a position of authority (a bus driver, salesperson, etc.). Although it’s best not to call 911 or a law enforcement officer without asking the victim’s permission first.

• Whenever possible, if someone else has stepped in to help, try to capture a video of the situation (you can pretend you’re checking your emails). When the situation calms down, ask the person being harassed if they would like a copy of the video.

• When the situation is under control, check in with the person who was being harassed, “I’m sorry that happened to you. Would you like me to sit with you, or can I help you with anything?”

Reach out to Asian and Asian-American friends, neighbors and co-workers to express your support for them. Tell them you’ve read about racist acts and comments related to the coronavirus. Ask if they’ve been targeted and let them know you support them.

Educate yourself about the Asian and Asian-American experience in the United States, especially about the history of anti-Asian discrimination. The Chinese were the first major wave of Asian immigrants to come to Texas in the mid to late 1800s, leaving the U.S. west coast following the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Emancipation had also left southern landowners and businesses without a source of cheap labor, and the Chinese were reputed to be industrious and docile. In Texas, as was the case throughout the United States, they and subsequent Asian immigrants were shunned and mistrusted for their appearance, language, culture and all manner of suspicions about them.

Examine your own biases with respect to Asian people and cultures. Don’t be ashamed to admit to yourself that you have biases. We all have them. You can’t grow up in a racist society without them.

Take action, no matter how small, to counter racism in any way you can.

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Reprinted from Houstonia magazine

RECENTLY, we heard about a doctor in Tomball who, like many of his ilk, has a waiting room in his office. In that waiting room, just as in the waiting rooms of many, many physicians in our area, you can often find an issue of Houstonia. And if you can’t find one, there’s a good chance that someone has slipped it into a purse or pocket, this being the sort of magazine whose qualities have often enough seduced upstanding, law-abiding citizens into lives of crime.

Still, the remarkable thing about the disappearance of our June issue from Dr. Tomball’s waiting room is not that it was snatched improperly, but that Dr. Tomball himself was behind the improper snatching. This he did, by all accounts, not for the usual reason, i.e., to selfishly reserve its literary glories for himself. Nor was he motivated by a desire to protect his patients from said glories, an impulse we see on occasion, however rarely.

No, Dr. Tomball’s action was apparently provoked by something he saw on the very first page of our June issue, in an advertisement by the Ashton Martini Group, a residential real estate agency. The ad, you may recall, featured a family of five Houstonians—a husband and wife, and the couple’s three children—relaxing in the living room of their home. To the lion’s share of our readership, one imagines, such a tableau must have looked almost aggressively typical. Perhaps they observed that the husband is black, the wife is white, and the couple’s three adorable children biracial, but that’s all it was for most, an observation.

Not so Dr. Tomball, who on May 26 sent an email to the Ashton Martini Group registering his disapproval. The note, which I have seen, carries the subject “Disgusting Ad,” and explains: “Your ad in the June Houstonia magazine is DISGUSTING! I will not put this magazine in my reception area! If you care to discuss this,” the note concluded, “I am available.”

As it happens, we did care to discuss this with Dr. Tomball, who oddly was not available when we attempted to make contact.

Exactly one week later, we heard from a second man, this time a resident of the Memorial area, who called to say that although he usually likes Houstonia, he “just can’t go for racial mixing.” The caller—identifying himself only as Fred—voiced his concern that children might see the ad and “get it into their heads that this is okay.” To ensure that that did not happen, the man informed us that he’d taken our June issue straight from the mailbox to the trash can, although he declined our invitation to cancel his subscription altogether. He counts himself among this magazine’s fans, he told us.

Well, we are not fans of him. Indeed, if Memorial Fred ever finds the courage to call and give us his full name, we will remove him from our subscription rolls immediately. I’m not sure if Dr. Tomball is a fan of this publication or not. I do know that if so, he will have to go get it himself, as we will no longer be sending copies to his office. Houstonia’s championing of diversity does not extend to bigots, and while we are by definition dedicated to discovering the best things about this city, we’ll never ignore the worst. On the contrary, our magazine’s mission is to maintain standards of quality always and everywhere, in burgers, in bike trails and in readers, Dr. Tomball included.

And if he cares to discuss this, I am available.

Scott Vogel

Editor-in-Chief

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Race relations the topic of discussion in Midtown panel

Posted: Aug 18, 2015 10:10 PM CDT

With the recent spate of incidents across the nation that have ended in death, advocates say there is one factor people should not ignore – race.

On Tuesday night, the Center for the Healing of Racism in midtown held a panel called “Is It in Our Best Interests to Forgive?

“I think that forgiveness is very important, especially in this day and age. I think people have to kind of take a real good look at themselves and find out if that’s something they really want to do,” Oretta Cade, one of the panelists.

These advocates  believe improving race relations starts with being open.

“We are really here to have a safe place where people can explore their true feelings in a community of like-minded people so that they don’t have the aloneness that grieving…can generate inside of you,” said Eileen Hanks, the Director of PR for the Center for the Healing of Racism.

For Jimmy, who volunteers at the center, the issue is as relevant now as it was decades ago.

“I actually left Houston in 1989 because of racism. I was not able to spread my wings here as a young African-American male,” said Jimmy C. Mitchell, a volunteer with the Center for Healing of Racism.

Mitchell found unity in the army where he spent five years. Now, he’s back in Houston, hoping to make it a better place.

“They call Houston the most diverse city in the country. Well, it may very well be the most diverse city in the country but guess what else today? It’s also the most segregated city in the country, and we have to have dialogues like this so everybody’s mindset is reset,” said Mitchell.

The center is now in its 26th year.

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