A presentation for participants in the ICERM Ethno-Religious Conflict Mediation training and certification program, this slide show explores perceptions on race relations, actions taken so far, and how to achieve sustainable peace.

1. RECONCILING THE D.S.A.
A presentation for participants in the ICERM
Ethno-Religious Conflict Mediation training
and certification program.
By Nance L. Schick, ICERM Student, March 2017
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

2. BACKGROUND
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)
Fifty-five percent of people in the United States who
identify as non-Hispanic white believe relationships
between white and black people in the U.S. is good.
Forty-nine percent of people in the U.S. who identify
as black agree.
See http://www.gallup.com/poll/1687/Race-
Relations.aspx.

3. BUT I THOUGHT WE WERE THE DIVIDED
STATES OF AMERICA!
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)
• Black Lives Matter
• All Lives Matter
• Alternative Facts
• Women’s March / A Day without Women
• A Day without Immigrants

4. W.M.L.S.?
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)
What Might Lederach Say?
In John Paul Lederach’s Building Peace: Sustainable
Reconciliation in Divided Societies, I was introduced
to Curle’s Matrix.

5. CURLE’S MATRIX
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)
UNPEACEFUL  Relations  PEACEFUL
STATIC UNSTABLE DYNAMIC
POWER
BALANCED
3. Negotiation 4. Sustainable
Peace
UNBALANCED
1. Education
Latent conflict
2. Confrontation
Overt conflict
LOW   HIGH
AWARENESS OF CONFLICT

6. WHERE ARE WE NOW?
• Quadrant 1 (Latent): Education (e.g., Bar associations,
employee training, management training, salons, discussion
groups, blogs, social media)
• Quadrant 2 (Confrontation): Riots, Activism, Violence
• Quadrant 3 (Negotiation)
• Quadrant 4 (Sustainable Peace)
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

7. WHICH PARTIES ARE INVOLVED?
• Decouplers – Assist core patrons in removing themselves
• Enskillers – Develop or equalize skills
• Envisioners – Provide new data, ideas, theories, and options
• Facilitators – Moderate face-to-face discussions
• Enhancers – Provide additional resources
• Monitors – Reassure parties agreements will be kept
• Enforcers – Police post-agreement behavior
• Reconcilers – Build new relationships across divisions
See “The Process and Stages of Mediation: The Sudanese Cases”, Christopher Mitchell
(Lederach, 1997, p.68-69).
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

8. ARE WE MISSING…?
• Explorers? – To reassure adversaries that the other isn’t wholly
bent on victory?
• Conveners? – To initiate the peacemaking process?
• Unifiers? – To repair intraparty divisions?
• Guarantors? – To ensure no party suffers overwhelming costs?
• Legitimizers? – To endorse the process and outcome?
See “The Process and Stages of Mediation: The Sudanese Cases”,
Christopher Mitchell (Lederach, 1997, p.68-69).
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

9. WHERE CAN WE GO?
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2015)

10. BUILDING THE STRUCTURE
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)
LEVEL 1: TOP LEADERSHIP
Military / Political / Religious
Leaders with high visibility
LEVEL 2: MIDDLE-RANGE LEADERSHIP
Ethnic / Religious leaders / Academics
Intellectuals / Humanitarian leaders (NGOs)
LEVEL 3: GRASSROOTS LEADERSHIP
Local leaders / Leaders of indigenous NGOs / Community
developers / Local health officials / Refugee camp
leaders
Focus on high-level negotiations
Emphasizes cease-fire
Led by highly-visible, single mediator
Problem-solving workshops
Training in conflict resolution
Peace commissions
Insider-partial teams
Local peace commissions, Grassroots
training, Prejudice reduction,
Psychosocial work in postwar trauma

11. INTEGRATION
Diversity training shortfalls:
• Focus on numbers without inclusion and integration
• Often no long-term plan or insufficient maintenance
• Continued allowance of jokes, gossip, and other
unprofessional behavior
• Fear of failed communications may lead to none
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

12. INCLUSION
Addresses diversity training shortfalls:
• Sees numbers as instructive, but not the end game
• Develops long-term plan in alignment with clear experiential
goals
• Includes ongoing maintenance, including monitoring
• Allows and guides communications skillfully
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

13. ANALYSIS
Monitors progress:
• Do percentages of minorities match the population?
• Have experiences of people at all levels improved? How? How
have they not?
• Have complaints gone down? Is productivity up? Anything else?
• What is being communicated in spoken word, written word, and
body language?
• What else can you see, hear, smell, or otherwise experience?
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

14. WHO SHOULD WE EXCLUDE?
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)

15. CONCLUSION
Copyright, Nance L. Schick (2017)
Forty-five percent of people in the United States who
identify as non-Hispanic white believe relationships
between white and black people in the U.S. is not
good. Fifty-one percent of people in the U.S. who
identify as black agree. There’s certainly more that can
be done to improve race relations at many levels and
create sustainable peace.