September 14, 2022: "Culture Club"

September 14th, 2022

Greetings, everyone. For the sake of an ongoing desire for transparency, the LSN wanted to share our official email response to Drew regarding the "Culture Club" and some other issues.

- Drew's emails were shared with each affinity group in the LSN to get overall thoughts and impressions.

- A draft response to Drew was then sent to each Affinity group in the LSN

- A discussion was had in each group which solicited recommendations for additions, edits, clarifications, etc.

- The Reps of each group brought the words of the individuals in their represented Affinity group back to the LSN for discussion.

- Edits were voted on and the draft was finalized.

- Once the vote was passed to confirm the email, it was then sent to Drew.

Bureaucracy took about a week in this instance to ensure everyone that wanted to be involved was given a chance to do so. We all work at different speeds, but patience and seeking input is very important. It can look "slow" depending on what end of the spectrum of "available spoons" you fall on.

When that when there is a vote by LSN reps, while we try our best for a consensus, we make final decisions by majority vote.

We wish to remind you that once again, the function of the LSN is to amplify the voices of the marginalized when dealing with Red Barn.

As it says in our response email below, we look forward to continuing the work with Drew (and Red Barn itself) to improve Dickens Fair for everyone. Because that is truly our goal.

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Hello, Drew,

Thank you for your patience as we’ve been formulating our response to your inquiry. We appreciate you reaching out to us, as well as all the work that RBP has been doing thus far to make DCF a safer environment for everyone.

We’re eager to speak with you and the rest of RBP’s leadership about further improvements upon DCF’s structure and culture. However, we have serious concerns about the Culture Club as you’re currently proposing it:

- In the Minimum Requirements for a Safe Dickens Fair, we’ve stipulated that in order for certain requirements to be met, RBP would need to engage with members of all affinity groups, including those participating in the current boycott who are still willing to engage. Naturally, this includes LSN member groups and their representatives. By allowing only current participants to attend these Culture Club meetings, those of us who are boycotting DCF but may still want to return at some point in the future would be wholly excluded from voicing our needs regarding issues that could still directly affect us. We understand that this is not the only way that marginalized community members can reach you with their concerns, and that some community members – including some who are marginalized themselves – are afraid to voice their concerns in a forum where other marginalized community members may voice opposition. With that said, not opening these meetings to both current and boycotting participants does not assuage the fears of many of those who already mistrust RBP's motives or willingness to act on their concerns. As a result, many of those who feel this mistrust still believe that using those other avenues to reach out to you will likely prove to be in vain. We are not suggesting that these fears necessarily reflect reality; only that their existence is also a reality that should be accounted for.

- We understand that holding these meetings during the production run would necessitate scheduling them during the week. However, this also means that many community members affected by the issues we’re concerned with would be unable to attend them, be it due to working a job or tending to other pressing obligations. This would then remove another opportunity to have our voices heard.

- While we can see how the phrase “a fully inclusive space for all participants” might be intended to encourage marginalized community members to attend these meetings, experience has taught us that creating a wide-open forum for discussing IDEA issues also encourages many who are *not* affected by those issues to attend with the intent of shutting down or squeezing out the concerns of the marginalized. When this happens, marginalized community members who are already overtaxed from being marginalized usually choose to stop attending at all, so as not to expose themselves to yet more harm. We’re worried that the same will happen at Culture Club meetings.

- While we choose to assume that this was also not RBP’s intent, naming this forum “Culture Club” gives the impression that the issues to be discussed will not be taken as seriously as other aspects of putting DCF on. “Culture Club” is what some of us did as an extracurricular activity in high school – personally enriching, perhaps, but ultimately nothing that the school administration felt any obligation to consider very deeply. Issues like racism, antisemitism, accessibility, sexual and gender-based violence, and more have far greater implications for not only marginalized members of the DCF community, but the viability of DCF’s very existence in the modern world. Those who want to preserve both may feel discouraged from attending meetings if they have the impression that their role is ceremonial at best (however mistaken that impression may be).

Despite these concerns, we are not suggesting that no version of Culture Club should exist. What we *are* suggesting is that the format be modified to encourage as many marginalized community members as possible to attend them – including those of us who are currently boycotting.

Whether the format of Culture Club is to be modified or not, we’re also suggesting that RBP’s leadership meet with LSN representatives directly to discuss the points that have been laid out in the Minimum Requirements. Whatever impression you all may have of the LSN’s efforts thus far, the truth is that we have never taken any pleasure in this boycott. We find it just as exhausting as anyone else in the DCF community, if not more so, and we would be overjoyed if we could end it in good conscience. However, in order to negotiate this, we must first feel reasonably confident that there has been enough progress to ensure that we’ll never feel duty-bound to stage another boycott in the future. This will require direct communication between LSN representatives and RBP’s leadership – not open forums or roundtables in which any number of others have ample opportunities to muddy or drown out our voices, nor hired consultants who may not be able to tell us what has been communicated to you on our behalf. Without direct, continuous communication, the Minimum Requirements can never be fully met, no matter how much progress RBP makes toward meeting them otherwise.

Thank you for considering our concerns. We eagerly await your response. In the interest of transparency, we also want you to know that moving forward, any delay in a response from us is due to all LSN representatives having significant stressors in the rest of our lives (i.e., working or going to school full-time, disability, major life events, and so on) – not a lack of engagement or investment in dialogue with RBP’s leadership.

Regards,

The LSN