ILRPs Tell About Their Work

At the workshop for the International Liberation Reference Persons (ILRPs) in September of 2003, each person attending gave a three-minute description of his or her work, constituency, and perspectives on using RC in her or his particular circumstances. Those talks have been printed in several issues of Present Time and appear below.

Barbara Love
International Liberation Reference Person for African-Heritage People

All human beings deserve an opportunity to live in a world characterized by love, justice, equity, and compassion, and to recover from the effects of oppression. Our slice of that is African-heritage people. We want to make sure every African-heritage person gets a chance to do exactly that.

Re-evaluation Counseling has proven to be an effective tool for many of us in recovering from the effects of oppression and in our efforts to create the lives and the world that we want. Though we know that RC is not the tool for every black person, we want every one of us to have a chance to make that decision. To that end, we want to have enough black people in the RC Community to make this possible.

That's the vision, and the mission. Our primary organizing strategy and tool has become the Black Liberation and Community Development Workshop (BLCD). I want to tell you a little about BLCD. A number of people cooperate to make BLCD happen. Since I can't tell you about all of them, I brought this paper, which will tell you who our teaching teams are at BLCD, who the organizing team and support teams are, and who are some of the many people who think throughout the year about how to make BLCD happen.

We have set a goal to increase the numbers of black people in RC dramatically by 2010. Specifically, we intend to double twice every year until 2010. "Double twice" means we will have upwards of a thousand black people at BLCD in 2010. After next year we will change to an alternating Regional/International BLCD structure. One year we'll have Regional BLCD workshops, and the next year we'll have an International BLCD workshop. We are working to build the Regional infrastructure to allow that to happen. (You can read about this in something called "A Vision and Strategy for Black Liberation."*)

We are also trying to think in many formats about the varied parts of the black constituency. We have the beginnings of a revised black liberation policy statement, a black young-adult liberation policy statement, a black women's liberation policy statement, a black Protestant liberation policy statement, the beginnings of a black men's policy statement, and a black young people's policy statement. We're trying to think in particular ways about various parts of our constituency.

At BLCD, a pamphlet we developed called "Creating the Village" helps BLCD participants figure out how to make the most of BLCD each year, and how to carry the spirit of BLCD back to their home Communities.

* This is not yet in print.

Marilyn Atherley
International Liberation Reference Person for Educational Change

I noticed when I started doing this job that there were a lot of people doing great things in the school system but not getting the kind of support they needed in the RC Communities. Classroom teachers were coming into RC and not being able to get the Co-Counseling sessions, discharge, and attention they needed to stay in RC, or the support they needed to do their work. So I concentrated on helping people in the RC Communities discharge more about learning, school distress, and reclaiming intelligence. I focused on getting everybody to educational change workshops — not just people who were in the school system or directly involved in the schools. I tried, and am stilltrying, to get everybody to notice that this is something they need to do.

The educational change workshops have been a challenge because some people come to discharge on their early school memories and reclaim their intelligence, and some people are educational change activists. A weekend is not long enough to give either group the amount of attention it needs. I try to do enough to help everybody reclaim his or her intelligence, and I try to give the teachers enough attention.

The second thing I've been thinking and talking about is how we teach RC. A lot of school-related distresses get restimulated in the way we teach it, making it hard for people to be in classes and stay in Co-Counseling. I've been encouraging people who teach RC to notice that they are teachers, and that they need to discharge their school and learning hurts to have enough attention for people in their classes to be able to learn well. An RC class is a learning environment, no matter how we make it look.

We still need to figure out how to take RC into the school system. It's a great place to take it, and there are so many different ways it could happen. We have to keep thinking about how best to do it — how we can be most effective.

Marsha Saxton
International Liberation Reference Person for Disabled Persons

My constituency is quite a collection of people. One group is people with a range of long-term disabilities who are interested in disability liberation — working for access, accommodations, political power, and inclusion in society. This group has a growing sense of pride. A second group is people with chronic physical difficulties who are hoping to get cured and leave this constituency! They work to apply RC theory and practice to enable recovery from injuries, illness, or physical symptoms.

Dealing with both these groups together is my biggest challenge. The people with chronic illness seem to struggle much more with feelings of victimization than do the people with long-term disabilities, who, generally, take five to ten years to confront and struggle with the internalized oppression, and then figure out how to go ahead and have good lives. This can be harder for people with chronic illness.

My third group is allies, including parents of disabled children, elder-care family care givers, and paid helpers and assistants for disabled people. Through my wide-world work, I've been helping to organize home-care workers, primarily middle-aged African American and Latina women. Disability oppression and economic oppression hit them hard. Another favorite group is "allies to physicians," people resisting feeling victimized by the medical system, trying to think well about doctors, and helping to transform the health care system.

Dottie Curry
International Liberation Reference Person for Elders

I'm the International Liberation Reference Person for Elders. I've done this job for almost seven years now. There are three things I've wanted to do: 1) The first has been to de-stigmatize the language and get people to understand that if you're "old," it only means that you've been here a long time. It doesn't mean anything else. To get people to understand this has been a chore, but it's working.

2) The second has been to put elders in the center of things. When I do my workshops, I talk about old people of color, old Gay people, old men, old women, old everybody, and what it means to place ourselves in the center of things. That's been working well. I go to RC workshops now, and I look around and elders are leading topic tables all over the place. There are lots of elders right here, and I'm excited about that. But it's kind of like the U.S. government — many of the people in leadership are elders, but when you go out in the Communities, elders are not there. If they are, they're sitting on the benches. So we're getting them in the center of things. I have what I call a leadership team. I have someone thinking about elders on every continent, except South America (and I'm working on that).

3) The last thing has been working with people who aren't elders and helping them into the ally position. I have the only constituency that everybody is going to become a member of unless something happens. In the process of beginning to think about elders, allies start thinking about becoming elders themselves. What I want is not only for people to live a really long time, but also for them to have full, healthy lives. I'm trying to separate elders from disability. Some elders are disabled, but not all. You don't become disabled just because you're an elder. I'm thinking about these issues and making it a worldwide effort. Life expectancy in many countries is fifty. I want to see a universal effort to make the world better for everybody.

Lorenzo Garcia
International Liberation Reference Person for Chicanos/as

My group is the Chicano/Chicana communities within the United States. For a long time we've been trying to figure out what it means to do Co-Counseling, and I think we're still figuring that out. Many of us came into RC from the frame of reference of liberation work. We have to face the fact that, though it's fundamental to change, what we're doing in RC is different from political work. Things have changed so fast in the last twenty-five years: what's happened with imperialism in the United States, in Central America, and in other parts of the world; the influx of immigrants; what's happened in Mexico.

My family being from New Mexico, USA, means I've had a particular history and set of experiences. For many Chicanos/as in the United States, there's been a pressure to assimilate, to be somebody else than who we are. A lot of us joined RC, in part, because it was a good way to get a sense of ourselves in relationship to all the things happening around us, including the changes happening in capitalism. This is not the same as taking on one's re-emergence for oneself.

There are wide-world confusions because Chicano/a RCers are involved in many different constituencies, many of which include groups they lead. There are wide-world confusions that reflect themselves back on Chicano/a Co-Counseling. It makes for an interesting time.

In this current period, the key issue is for us to build a solid core of Chicanos and Chicanas who are committed to our re-emergence, and to one another. This is actually much more than what we have been doing, and I anticipate the results will be considerable, and positive. I am trying to show myself more, not just settle for being a kind of "banner carrier." I am trying to learn how to model something different, to have a life that is good in every way, and joyful — with several hundred people in close to me, as close as we can figure out. I suspect that if we have this kind of core solidly established, things will begin to shift rather easily.

Teresa Enrico
International Liberation Reference Person for Filipinos/as

One of the first thoughts I had this morning is that I love this job, and one of the main reasons I love it is that I get to care about Filipinos/as and show them how much I love them, how much I love who we are and everything about us. In every interaction, in every place I meet Filipinos/as (at the airport, where they're working) it's exciting to figure out how to connect with them and let them know that I notice that they are Filipino/a — let them know that they are important to me and that our significance and our experiences matter. It's hard for us to remember that we're important, that we're not just servants, or people who will do the clean-up or the entertaining. When I can remember our significance, I like this job and it's fun.

We are a colonized people, and that has contributed to our invisibility and our feelings of insignificance. The Philippines is a Catholic country as well — the only Catholic country in Asia. There are other Asian countries with Catholics in them, but the Philippines is predominately Catholic. The intersection of racism, colonization, and Catholicism has had a large influence upon us.

Coincident with the collapsing of capitalism, for decades the main export of the Philippines has been our people. That has put us in an interesting position. There are communities of Filipinos in most countries of the world — from Iceland to South America, all over Asia and the Middle East, all over North America. I think about being in that position and the impact we could have. There are seventy million Filipinos in the Philippines and probably a million outside.

Francie Chew
International Liberation Reference Person for People of Chinese Heritage

My first goal has been to get Chinese-heritage people together. We are widely dispersed in the RC Communities. Also top priority is for us to understand that we are a heterogeneous group in terms of class, language, and ethnicity, and that our oppression is invisible to many people, and often to us.

Second, I have wanted to put our work in a global context. In a U.S. context we have been oppressed, but in many other contexts, including in the United States, our group has been used by people in power as a buffer group (between the people in power and the people who have less power). Our responsibility patterns have been manipulated so that we play this role.

Part of my work has been to go back to China. I'm eager to find out to what degree the patterns I see in the United States, England, and Australia are a product of Chinese culture as opposed to being a product of the immigration experience.

In the RC Communities, I'm interested in getting every Chinese person, in fact every Asian person (in collaboration with Jan Yoshiwara, ILRP for People of Japanese Heritage, and Teresa Enrico, ILRP for Filipinos/as, and with support from Barbara Love, ILRP for African-Heritage People), to be firmly part of an RC Area. I think that's important. I also want Areas to begin thinking about the Chinese (and Korean) adoptees who are coming into RC through family work.

Finally, I want to assist my people who are in the United States to not rest at their comfort level as a "model minority." [Editor's note: "Model minority" means a minority that is held up by the oppressive society as having succeeded. The concept is used to denigrate other minorities who are still struggling to succeed; they are told that their difficulties are their own fault, not due to racism and classism.] Many Chinese people are still poor and many are working-class. Not everybody has "succeeded." I want us to not rest on our comfort.

In the past two years we have begun looking at a superiority pattern that developed in Chinese culture as a defense against invaders. This pattern has allowed Chinese people to dominate and oppress not only all the other ethnic minorities in China, but also people in vast parts of Korea, southeast Asia, and elsewhere. Japan was hit by this in recent times. We need to look at it and understand that it's part of what keeps us distant from everybody else and from each other. It's very important.

Marcie Rendon
International Liberation Reference Person for Native Americans

My job description is to think about the Native people on the North American continent. But what it really means is that I have to think about Indigenous people around the world, and that requires me to think about each one of you, because the survival of Indigenous people depends on everybody thinking well. Most recently I have been thinking about genocide and how to counsel people to recover from both ends of genocidal recordings ("I'm going to kill," and "I'm going to be killed"). The Native constituency is also looking at oppressor patterns and how to counsel people on them. We think about this in the context of our particular situation in which, at one level, we don't have anyone to oppress — we just act out the genocide patterns on ourselves, or each other.

I've been thinking about organizing a group of people who know how to handle oppressor patterns. If you look at history, simply loving people hasn't worked. Killing the oppressor hasn't worked. Forgiving the oppressor hasn't worked. Meditating and becoming enlightened hasn't stopped the oppressor. The only thing that will really work is to learn to counsel people well and thereby eliminate their oppressor patterns. We also need to counsel people out of their oppressed patterns, so that they can stop oppressor patterns from coming at them, but the key thing for this period is figuring out how to work with people on their oppressor distresses.

As for the RC Community, I worry about U.S. RCers going out to other parts of the world when they haven't worked on USer oppressive patterns. People will think these patterns are part of Co-Counseling.

Jan Yoshiwara
International Liberation Reference Person for People of Japanese Heritage

I will talk about our strengths, challenges, and what some of us need help remembering about Japanese/Okinawan people. Our strengths are that we work hard, we're smart, we're principled, we like to do the right thing, and we are self-reliant. We also like to be helpful to others. We like to collaborate with others and work on behalf of the larger group. We're attractive. People like us. We're lovable.

In the RC Communities we have a solid group of experienced, committed leaders, including myself. We have a Regional Reference Person, two Area Reference Persons, fourteen active RC teachers, and lots of support group leaders. As Francie said earlier, we often collaborate with other Asian RCers in terms of classes, support groups, and workshops.

As for challenges, we still have great untapped potential. We have done well so far, and I am pleased but not satisfied. There are lots of people left to reach. Although most Japanese/Okinawan-heritage RCers are in North America, there are great numbers of Japanese/Okinawan-heritage people in South America and other parts of the world. Actually, there are more in South America than in North America. We have enormous potential for growth.

Some of us need help remembering our significance. We need to remember that we matter to the world and to others around us; that we love closeness, especially with each other; that leaning on each other is a strength, not a weakness; that we can decide to do things on the basis of what makes sense, on the basis of our thinking, rather than on the basis of duty or obligation; that we can be very good without being perfect; and that we have strong allies.

Dan Nickerson
International Liberation Reference Person for Working-Class People

I went to the factory in 1979, after attending a workshop Harvey Jackins led at which he said that industrial workers were a key strategic element of the working class. [Editor's note: See "The Working Class, the World, and RC," in Working for a Living No. 5 and The Benign Reality.] I thought, "Well, if that is our best thinking, who is doing this?" I looked around, and a few people were, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to have six doing it instead of five. So I went to the factory with many of Harvey's words ringing in my head. I went with the goal of making working-class liberation my life work and using the factory as a laboratory in which to test what we know in RC about working-class liberation. And I have done that since then.

On the first day in the factory I met a young woman (in her twenties). I taught her RC, and we became co-conspirators in organizing the workplace. Some of what we did is written up in A New Kind of Communicator, with the title, "Leading Is a Job You Just Learn How to Do." That was Harvey's title, and it's excellent.

So this is my passion. I do it every day. I love it. All of my struggles and joys, at least the biggest part of both, come together right there in the factory. This is what makes me credible as an ILRP — and in the working-class world, credibility counts for a lot.

The great thing about working in the factory is that if capitalism hiccups, you feel it right away. For the student of capitalism, the factory is an excellent place strategically. You don't miss out on anything. You don't have to read about it anywhere.

My challenge in RC, the path I have taken, is to try to move RC working-class liberation from being about claiming an identity to being about a liberation movement. Where we have been stuck is where people want to claim the identity but cannot figure out how to do the liberation part. Because of the oppression, many of our people in RC have lost their connection to the working class and in many cases to their families, even though they were raised in the same circumstances.

I have been aiming people back to the working class and to organizing non-organized workers into RC and other effective movements for working-class liberation. I've particularly focused on organizing those workers who are not university-educated, are working in basic industries, are working for an hourly wage, and are engaged in the direct production of the goods and services that allow our societies to function.

Gwen Brown
International Liberation Reference Person for Raised-Poor People

I started out as an RRP (Regional Reference Person), not as an ILRP. In the RRP role I built a local constituency in which there were many raised-poor Co-Counselors. Following that, I became ILRP for Raised-Poor People. One advantage of having done the local work first is that people in the group I lead are there locally to support me.

Another advantage of starting small first is that it takes a tremendous amount of attention and time to support raised-poor people into RC leadership. Society has convinced this group that they are not the ones to be up-front leaders. They have been told that their difficulties are due to their own shortcomings and that they should not expect to be able to use their minds to do anything big. If RC leaders can persist in holding up reality to raised-poor Co-Counselors, these distortions of reality can be discharged. If you invest time in these good smart big-hearted people, you will have yourself some great leaders.

People ask me, "How do you move raised-poor people forward?" The answer is simple. You keep your eye on their greatness, not on their shortcomings, and you give them time and attention. Give them the counseling they deserve. Hold out the big lives that are possible for them. Expect their resistance, but stay close. They blame themselves so deeply. They need good counseling. They need accurate information. They need to know about the long history (for example, of oppressive legislation) that has brought them and their families to where they are. They need to know you see their individual strengths and the incredible strengths of their people. Assist them to give up victimization (there is often a strong pull to stay in it). They need to know they can step out of it now. Encourage them in the direction of hope. Encourage them to take responsibility rather than blame themselves or other people.

Everyone needs to discharge a lot about race and class and to understand the intersection of race and class. Poor white people are set up as the most visible agents of racism. Many of them do have heavy patterns of racism. Many others, however, have close relationships with people of color. They have not been so thoroughly separated from them. They have lived together in the same neighborhoods and share similar class strengths and struggles. People from these two groups often find each other and connect well across race lines.

To be good allies to raised-poor people, Co-Counselors need to begin discharging on distresses related to dominance. For starters, look at messages you heard about winning, being the "best," having material things, looking good, being in control, and money. People from more privileged class backgrounds often don't know what class-dominance patterns look like. Recognizing them, deciding to act against them, and discharging them will be so important to our world-change efforts.

Jo Saunders
International Liberation Reference Person for Owning-Class People

Owning-class behaviour, globally, has never been quite so dangerous as it is now. My role, and the role of the owning class in RC, is to be like a Trojan horse. [Editor's note: A reference to Greek mythology. A Trojan horse is something intended to defeat or subvert from within.] If owning-class Co-Counselors can undo the damage done to us, by connecting with each other and reclaiming our goodness, then we will be able to get the accurate information we've been deprived of, acknowledge what's happening without shame or guilt, take responsibility, and make a difference.

I'm intrigued to discover that no matter what their cultures, owning-class children have been mistreated in much the same ways. The resulting patterns are also much the same. For the last ten years I've focused on making RC a safe place for owning-class Jews. Similar work is just beginning with owning-class people of color. Owning-class Jews need full safety to discharge on anti-Jewish oppression; owning-class people of color need full safety to discharge hurts from white racism and white owning-class imperialism. Only then will there be enough safety to look at their owning-class patterns. This takes time.

To get out of owning-class distress and achieve owning-class liberation, we owning-class people have to become allies to everybody. We have nowhere else to go! We who have been oppressors to everyone — our road home is to be allies to everyone. It's exciting to discover we can become a resource. I love the thought. We who have been plunderers get to be restorers. We can turn everything that has been upside down, right-side up!

Nearly every owning-class person I've ever met has had some real connection to a working-class person. These connections have kept us in touch with our basic humanness. Our job is to support working-class liberation, basing ourselves in these real connections.

Next I want to set up alliances with the middle class. Then we will be the "regiment" Harvey talked about and will "come over the hill" and make life very difficult for the opposition.

Seán Ruth
International Liberation Reference Person for Middle-Class People

Ever since I came into RC, my sessions have been about growing up middle-class. I wrote Harvey about what I was working on, and in 1990 he appointed me ILRP for Middle-Class People. That was the extent of my experience when I took this job.

When I started leading workshops, I was surprised and impressed by how bad middle-class people felt about each other and about themselves. RCers who were doing middle-class work were doing it mostly because they felt so bad and guilty and wanted to keep working-class people from criticizing them. Nobody wanted to be middle-class. Everybody was trying to find an excuse to call themselves working-class, so that they could go to one of the working-class workshops instead. So a lot of my work was creating safety for people to notice their own goodness. It seemed to make the difference that they could tell I loved them. For a long time that was what the work was about.

However, as I've understood more about middle-class oppression and created safety, I've begun trying to get people to think bigger. I've been communicating that middle-class liberation isn't about feeling good; it's about having big lives. I've encouraged middle-class people to think about what their lives would look like if they weren't organized around comfort and security. I've also been working with people on being honest. Do they really understand RC theory? Are they always honest with themselves about what it means to them or do they just parrot the jargon?

It has also been important to work on national liberation. This has been like pulling teeth, but I've noticed that a little goes a long way. If people do even a little of that work, it makes a huge difference.

Joanie Parker
International Liberation Reference Person for Trade Unionists

I've come in late to this meeting, and my being late illustrates what trade unionists are confronted with. Every single day we are in the mouth of the lion, dealing with bosses who are trying to take away workers' rights to good working conditions and living wages. I just can't communicate how much passion we all feel about this work. We all work. We all overwork. We work, work, work.

What we are constantly trying to figure out is how to move this group of people forward together. Within it are working-class internalized oppression and all the other internalized oppressions. We have to figure out how to get people to act together as a group.

What allows us to persist is the experience, on a picket line or on strike, of doing something all together — seeing our collective power and moving forward. That's what keeps us all going. The problem is, we don't often get enough discharge. And we don't necessarily feel connected to the RC Communities. Trade unionists get isolated in RC. The Communities don't really understand our work and the day-to-day crises. We are constantly handling crises. Employers are constantly giving us fires to put out. What's great is that when trade-union RCers do get together, we completely relax with each other in a certain way because we don't have to explain anything. We know what the work is about. We understand the pressures. We understand. We grab on to each other and hold on for a couple of days. Then we go out and face it all again.

A couple of weeks ago eight Co-Counselors were at a national (non-RC) union conference. They got together, each had ten minutes being listened to, and their spirits soared. I just got the reports. Doing that together was great.

Our challenge is trying to take Co-Counseling into the labor movement — a movement that, because of "mental health" oppression and anti-communist messages, doesn't want to hear about it.

John Fehringer
International Liberation Reference Person for Artists

When Harvey first asked me to be the ILRP for Artists, I was half expecting to be provided with an instruction manual. None ever arrived. What did arrive was my own confusion and struggle about what a liberation movement was and how to build such a movement for artists in RC. I had lots of theory, and my life as a successful working artist appeared to run against the core oppression artists face. However, I couldn't figure out how to apply this to the lives of other artists who were looking to me for something big that could make a difference for their lives. Several times I thought I would resign before I was fired from the job. Harvey's steady and reliable belief in me was what kept me moving forward.

By building an organized RC Area in Seattle (Washington, USA), I learned some things about organizing and about thinking about other people's growth and liberation, as well as my own. I used discharge to battle my doubts about being qualified or able to make a difference in people's lives and eventually succeeded in finding my voice.

Facing art and creativity is a lot about facing doubt. Where do we still doubt ourselves? I think the answer is at the center of where we reach for our creativity. You can be leading a powerful liberation movement, but if you find it difficult to make your way toward the creativity table at a workshop, you are carrying a residue of doubt that could eventually derail your liberation movement from the inside. Those tables and events are important. They offer a reference point for where doubt still has a hold on you. They give you a chance to face that doubt with encouragement, support, and discharge. I've found that persistent discharge on creativity is instrumental in eliminating doubt.

An "ism" that operates at the core of artists' oppression is something I call "normalism" — the systematic mistreatment that is proportional to how far we travel from the center of what is agreed to be "normal" human functioning in a rigid society. We are targeted based on the degree to which we do not act "normal." Early hurts around enforced "normal" behavior sidetrack our creativity and our reaching for lives without limits. We can discharge these hurts. Artists' oppression and "mental health" system oppression are directly related to this mistreatment.

Joanne Bray
International Liberation Reference Person for Catholics

I'm interested in organizing practicing Catholics. I want to influence the institution and free people from policies that are crushing everybody's lives. I'd like to end the harmful effects of the institution on people worldwide — including Catholics, non-Catholics, Jews, people of color, and Indigenous people.

I had a wonderful time gathering together thirty Catholic leaders. They were thrilled to have the opportunity to discharge the internalized oppression that makes them feel like they're weird people because they go to church. I wish I could convey what it's like to hear five guys talking about being in the seminary, being priests, and so on.

In Ireland I asked the question, "What is it like to be a colonized Catholic?" I learned how the Vatican had cut a deal with England to prevent Irish Catholic priests from being educated in France, where there were revolutionary impulses. In other words, the Church and state collaborated in forcing oppression on the Irish people. It was great to be in England. I got a chance to love the English people, who are mostly Protestant. I worked with Irish Catholics on genocide and talked about Indigenous struggles and the potato famine. Then I went back to the English people and talked about being allies to Catholics.

Being in the southwest United States was incredible. There were Catholics from Mexico. There were many Catholics of color. When I did work on racism, I talked about greed. Greed is crushing us all, and we need to work on it. Lorenzo was stunning in giving people a picture of colonization and its effects.

Pam Roby
International Liberation Reference Person for College and University Faculty

As college and university faculty we contribute significantly to the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Our actions in and out of the classroom make important, sometimes life-changing, differences for students and others.

Today we are more aware of liberation issues and have stronger programs than ever before in women's studies and ethnic studies. We are also confronting decreasing resources and increasing inequalities. As RC colleagues, we celebrate and learn from one another's successes. We set goals and discharge distresses that have inhibited our uniting with others and have kept us from boldly applying our full knowledge and power for the creation of a just world.

I lead RC colleague workshops, an eliminating-racism support group for colleagues, and a half dozen telephone Wygelian leaders' groups. I've seen to it that the library of the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) has all the major Re-evaluation Counseling books and videotapes. I've taught an eleven-week UCSC course entitled Re-evaluation Counseling, with twenty-two students. I've also taught an ongoing Community RC fundamentals class of African-heritage women who are professional staff members and faculty at UCSC and other nearby universities.

The RC Colleague Commitment: As a full-fledged human being, I promise to think and respect thinking, to allow no invalidation of any scholar or teacher, including myself, to refuse to be isolated from my colleagues or to act as an agent of oppression, and to boldly apply my full knowledge and power for the creation of a just world.

Cherie Brown
International Liberation Reference Person for Jews

I have loved, thought about, and put my heart out for Jews and Jewish liberation for twenty-seven years. We've gone through many different periods. Because of the Holocaust and having been ghettoized, Jews don't always actively choose each other and know that we want each other. Building a place where we can deeply want, choose, and love each other has been essential.

This past summer I led, with Tim, a Jewish Leaders' Conference. Harvey had been a key ally to Jews and Jewish liberation, and that had fueled much of our movement. Because of our isolation as Jews and the usefulness of a strong ally, I needed to know that Tim was also fully committed to us as Jews and to our having Israel as a homeland. It became apparent that he was.

Many Israelis see themselves as Israelis but not as Jews. This summer we focused on this and listened to a panel of Israelis. Israelis have started writing on the Jewish leaders' list. This has been a profound movement forward.

Re-evaluation Counseling has made eliminating racism its key issue, and in this context, anti-Jewish oppression has come up in our faces. I've been trying to help Jews identify where we have experienced anti-Semitism. It is excruciatingly difficult for us to see beyond our personal struggles and find our voices — but there actually is a systemic worldwide oppression of Jews.

Another issue is assimilation. We have observed it in an interesting way as it relates to religious practice.

Marsha Hunter
International Liberation Reference Person for Lawyers

Some of you know that I have been struggling for seven years with this role of ILRP for Lawyers, each year deciding not to quit. This year something different happened: I now feel pleased with myself, and have decided not to quit for that reason.

What goes on for me is what goes on for all lawyers, which is that we have to pretend. We have to pretend to know everything, we have to look good. We also have to keep everyone at arm's length. It's been hard to organize on that basis. Despite this, there's a lawyers' support group in the San Francisco Bay (California, USA) area that has been meeting for a long time. They are supportive of me, and I stay close to the leader and another member.

Lately I've been thinking about why I became a lawyer. I did it because I wanted to have an effect on the world and make things better for workers. In particular, I was interested in transforming the justice system. Someone suggested that I think of the ILRP for Lawyers as being the ILRP for Legal Change, and that reinvigorated me. I'm excited to be thinking again. There's a way in which lawyers are not permitted to think. It's hard to organize and get close to people when we've been told not to think, so it's great to be able to think again. I am pleased with the work I have done.

"Jeanne D'Arc"
International Liberation Reference Person for Lesbians and Gay Men

I have a bunch of wonderful people for my constituency. Their commitment to all people, their broadening of the definition of family, and how much they have gotten in and done the work of building RC are examples of what I love about them. They do well until their patterns set them up to make messes. Anti-authority distress; anti-leadership distress; and the extra pull, from old undischarged longings and brokenheartedness, to "socialize" are examples of some of the things my gang can have a hard time with.

Unfortunately, the RC Community is not yet good at getting them out of those messes and distresses. That sets me up to be a pain in the neck, to show up in your Regions a lot more than you would like me to. A Community often has trouble in its approach to my constituency, because people don't understand well enough the distresses and oppression of this group of people.

I think my real job is to help people re-emerge enough so that "David" and I have more people able to think well about our constituences, their re-emergence, their liberation, and their leadership development. The issue is the naiveté in the world about the distresses of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered/Queer (GLBTQ) people. The requirements on the RC Community (to end Gay oppression and to learn to counsel the GLBTQ folks well, and for the GLBTQ folks to discharge on the possibility that the GLBTQ identity and/or the sexual feelings may be based in distress) are an attempt to cut through this naiveté.

Sometimes when "David" and I do something that challenges the distresses of one of our constituents, or our whole group, our constituents and/or their allies don't understand what we are doing and get restimulated and criticize us, instead of using what we have said or done. This undermines our trying to give them a hand.

A lot of people in my constituency are moving into leadership. That's great, but please don't move them too fast, and make sure you know how their distresses from GLBTQ internalized oppression may play out in their leadership. You really need to know about their early distresses, because part of GLBTQ oppression is to look better than where we actually struggle.

Janet Foner
International Liberation Reference Person for "Mental Health" Liberation

My job is getting everybody to understand "mental health" system oppression — how it affects everyone personally and also how it affects the goals of RC. I don't think we can reach our goal of restoring everybody's intelligence unless we do "mental health" liberation in a bigger way than we have so far. Re-evaluation Counseling is not therapy, but the opposite: RC is trying to make society fit the people, whereas therapy is trying to fit people into little boxes.

I've had to build "mental health" liberation for everyone in order to make space for ex-psychiatric inmates. There are ex-inmates in this room (besides me) whose names shall remain unrevealed. That's where we are in ex-inmates' liberation — people don't yet feel safe to talk about it. I have organized ex-inmate groups on the east and west coasts of the United States, and in other countries. That work has paid off. Now there are a bunch of ongoing ex-inmates' support groups.

The "Mental Health" Leaders' Conference was a big turning point. Tim came, and he and I were able to make a connection we hadn't had before. Our movement now has greater legitimacy in the RC Community. This has meant a lot to the "mental health" liberation leaders.

Jean Hamilton
International Liberation Reference Person for "Mental Health" Workers

My constituency is "mental health" workers. I want to remind you that "mental health" workers, both inside and outside RC, are good people who care deeply about human beings and their liberation. Sometimes RCers are confused about that.

It's been a little tricky to pull my group together. We're like parents, in that we spend so much time thinking about others that the idea of coming to a workshop and doing one more "counseling" thing can be a bit restimulating.

When I took the job, I decided I was going to be pleased with myself and with all other "mental health" workers, and it looks like that's working. I have a following, we're growing, and there's momentum. It's been helpful to have Janet Foner as such a strong ally; we back each other completely. Joe Gallagher has been with me, too, as he works for physicians' liberation. Having Emmy Rainwalker on the East Coast (USA) step up and say, "I care as much about this work as you do, Jean," has made a huge difference.

For about five years I have led workshops on each coast of the United States. There's a coming together of all of us. Before we can take a bold step toward changing the "mental health" system, we need to reach for each other more and realize how good we are. People are changing the system, but it's still kind of separate and private and behind closed doors. Two summers ago I asked people to look at how "out" they were — in the RC Community as "mental health" workers, and in the wide world as Co-Counselors. Being open, in public, about what we do and how we do it is terrifying to most "mental health" workers. It brings up "mental health" system oppression: being thought of as separate or different. I went to Janet's "Mental Health" Leaders' Workshop this May and left thinking that the RC Community needs to start telling people about "mental health" system oppression early on, beginning with introductory lectures.

Heather Hay
International Liberation Reference Person for Musicians

Where I struggle is also the most important issue for musicians, which is remembering that music is important for the world. This shows up in my constituency — often music is the last thing people think is important enough to put their attention on. However, music brings people together and lets us know how connected we are across cultures and languages.

My constituency includes everyone. Everyone is inherently musical — born wanting music, liking music, and being able to figure things out about it. As ILRP, I started by trying to lead everyone all together. I'm still doing that to some extent, but I'm also making a distinction between working musicians (those who do music for a living) and everyone else. We have to figure out how to be allies for each other.

Working musicians have lots of discharging to do to remember that we like music, to remember why we are doing it. We also have issues related to class, such as feeling "better than" people who don't do music. On the other hand, some musicians feel not good enough and can't claim the musician identity.

My job includes helping everyone reclaim this part of their humanness, this part of their creativity. It's part of what makes us fully human. (That doesn't mean everyone has to become a working musician.)

Competition keeps working musicians separated from each other and from non-working musicians. It keeps all of us divided from each other. I have been trying to get musicians to be honest about how much better they feel they are than somebody else, or how much worse. I'm trying to get them to honestly expose that part of their internalized oppression.

Patty Wipfler
International Liberation Reference Person for Parents

I'm working to help parents fully appreciate themselves. Society's lack of support for the work of nurturing children interferes with parents' ability to be proud of the thousand things they do daily to care well for their children. They are on-call as parents twenty-four hours a day, but they are often reluctant to claim the identity of parent. Other identities have been made to seem far more important. The struggle is to help parents set up the support systems they need and to proudly claim their identity. With discharge, support, and good information, parents are able to be pleased with the job they are doing and proud of their children, even in the middle of a loud tantrum in the grocery store.

In workshops I'm trying to acknowledge the depth of parents' oppression without giving it any more power in people's minds than it already claims. I've been talking about parents' liberation in terms of reclaiming our ability to play, to be learners, to love and be tender, and our right to make mistakes, to not know what to do, to ask for help at any and every juncture, and to govern our time according to our own good judgment.

Over the years parents' liberation has moved forward well. One sign of progress is that at the last parents' workshop I led, I didn't need to talk about how to counsel children. This is a thirty-year victory of sorts. In earlier times, parents felt desperate to get good information about how to counsel their children. They had questions their local resources didn't know how to answer. Now, in most of our Communities, family work and written resources have developed to where parents can get accurate, in-depth information about using Co-Counseling with children.

We have a good number of parent leaders who are bringing an RC perspective to parents in wide-world situations all over the world. Parents are in a wonderfully advantageous position to transmit the ideas of RC: every day in every family, children set up situations in an effort to discharge and work openly on distress.

I'm learning how to make work on racism central to parents' liberation. I want to create conditions at every parents' workshop that are safe enough for parents of color to work on the huge heartbreak of their children being targeted by racism, as well as their having been targeted themselves.

Joe Gallagher
International Liberation Reference Person for Physicians

I've been the ILRP for Physicians since 1992. I can see some progress. I'm impressed by the people in my constituency.

Our issues are not theoretically complex: doctors are desperate to discharge. The people who keep coming to my workshops are able to use the bit of resource and make good progress. We've had "physicians and allies" workshops near Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA), for about four years. People have said it was too early in physicians' liberation for allies to show up. But they do show up, and I continue to look for the problem it might have created. Either it's not there, or I can't see it yet.

There's a core of doctors whose lives are flexible enough that they can look at our distresses as physicians. Some have decided to stop prescribing psychiatric drugs. There's an ongoing support group in Seattle (Washington, USA) — people who like each other and meet repeatedly. Good stuff happens around Santa Fe and Albuquerque (New Mexico, USA).

I've finally been able to think of myself as being the leader of the group and rightfully so — as the best available person for the job. I've been able to write a bit. Janet Foner, Jean Hamilton, and Marsha Saxton have all been helpful. It's good we can support each other. I know it is an essential part of a rational health care system and is necessary for a rational society.

I've figured out how to talk to physicians about our oppressor roles without using a sledgehammer, so that people don't feel horrible. We all worked desperately hard to become doctors, and to find out it's a mess is kind of a bitter pill.