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Is your work focused more
internally or externally?
This is a great question. Ultimately
the work will be focused both
internally and externally. The plan is
to start internally first, to do some
housecleaning, so to speak, and make
sure we have a good foundation
and shared understanding about
our DEI mission, vision, and goals. I
think it is vitally important to make
sure that each City employee feels
seen and heard, and that they have
equitable access to all the resources
made available to Shaker employees.
From that space our hope is that
our residents will feel the same way,
and my work will shift to encompass
the needs and wants of the Shaker
community at large.
What aspects of theater led
you in the direction of DEI?
So many, but primarily my experiences
as an actress. There was always a
scarcity of roles available and the
kinds of roles available were often
filled with stereotypes. The disparities
in the numbers of BIPOC (Black,
Indigenous and Other People of
Color) directors, designers, producers,
theatre owners – all of this led me
to wanting to impact DEI in the arts
specifically. What made me want to do
it at the City level was highly impacted
by my experience on a national tour.
We’d go to different cities, and the
company manager would suggest good
restaurants and interesting things to
do, but they also talked about how to
be safe. We’d be told “You don’t want
to be by yourself in this city,” or, “Make
sure you come right back to the bus
after this show is over.”
I could feel how different cities,
how different people, treated me
based on me being a Black person. I
realized through that tour experience
how unsafe and unsettling it could be,
just to be who you are and depending
on what ZIP code you’re in.
As I matured, I started to see an even greater responsibility within the
arts. It was all about the narrative. That’s when I realized the power that I had
as an artist, and the responsibility attached to that. I started to do work that
provoked action and change, and that’s how I deal with theater now. Theater
teaches empathy; you have to be able to see things from another perspective,
not only to change people’s behavior, but to change their hearts and the way
they understand.
You also have experience as a Trauma Specialist. How did that come about?
I was developing and implementing the CARE Program with The Cleveland Play
House in the Cleveland School District. We initially started in schools labeled
“Investment Schools” by the U. S. Department of Education, which were some
of the lowest performing schools in the country.
We had all these lofty goals, but we were met with a lot of academic
challenges, and we began to notice other issues that were blocking the students
from being successful. These were the results of systemic inequities: food and
uniform disparities, neighborhood safety, etc. I also looked at the Adverse
Childhood Experience scores for our county, the City of Cleveland, and the entire
state. Adverse childhood experiences are things that happen to a child between
infancy and 18 that have negative impacts on their physical health, emotional
health, and academic success. At the time, Cuyahoga County had the highest
ACE scores in our state and Cleveland had the highest scores in our county.
Situations such as having an incarcerated parent or witnessing violence
affect a child’s ability to succeed academically. We realized right away that in
order to teach a social-emotional learning curriculum, we needed to do it with a
trauma-informed approach. That doesn’t mean we had to find out every child’s
individual trauma experiences – but we needed to take it into consideration and
create safe spaces for kids who have experienced trauma to be able to thrive.
The team leaders became certified as Trauma Specialists so that we could
do that with the curriculum we were creating, and with the spaces we were
inviting our scholars into.
One of the interesting things about the intersection between these two
kinds of work is there is nothing about racism on the Adverse Childhood
Experience survey, but it is hugely traumatic and impactful in the lives of our
children and whether they have access to what they need.
How broad is the DEI spectrum?
I think it’s huge. My version of DEI encompasses every way people identify, and
that’s a myriad of social locations: socioeconomic status, class, race, wealth,
nation of origin, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age,
ability – all ways in which people can identify, and all their intersectionalities.
Education level, how your race and age intersect – these affect your life
drastically. It’s not just race. Right now, race is the hot-button topic. Race
impacts all of the things I just mentioned, but there are so many ways that we
differ and identify, and all of that is included in DEI. SL
Hold your device’s camera over the QR
code to see Colleen’s interview as part of
the Voices of Unity series on Fox 8.
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