An insightful look at the Caribbean
Dialogue
By Ian Forrest
Founder/Host
05/19/05
Hosting the Caribbean Dialogue over the past year and a half has been my consummate pleasure and if you have been before you know it is something I am committed to doing and in a number of the people who attend with the fervor of the Dialogue Junkie I am, then it goes without saying the Dialogue is a necessary thing.
I will say though that ever so often the Dialogue has to answer to the question, particularly from the Newbies (New attendants) as to what it is and where it is headed…what is its real purpose and what then is it’s end point, where will their participation in it take them?
The questions are valid and it is with patience that I answer them recognizing that people have a right to know particularly if they want to take the step of committing to the Dialogue (and I know that it does take commitment….every Thursday at WBAI on Wall St. in lower Manhattan 7-10pm, who am I kidding?!!!).
So with the help of the faithful we posit the whys and the wherefores of the Dialogue as we forge the whereto.
By way of Background, here is how the Dialogue started:
The Dialogue came into being in December 2003 as a result of a feeling of loneliness on the part of Ian Forrest (Dialogue founder) who while in Jamaica was always not more than a telephone call away from a conversation on things affecting the country, region, world…such conversations were in the taxis, on the buses, in a plethora of places, solicited and not….here in NY, to find people with interest in the first place and knowledge in the next instance was to say the least a challenge. So utilizing the power of the airwaves, Forrest decided to put the word out that at WBAI, the Caribbean Dialogue was going to kick off with a discussion on Grenada, 20 years in the aftermath of the US led invasion….Joachim Mark, Grenadian Historian served as the Dialogue’s first guest.
Since then the Dialogue has hosted a number of significant individuals from diplomats, to authors, from child care workers to anti-incarceration activists, from independent filmmakers to politicians.
It has done informal explorations of University of the West Indies subject matter looking at Politics and the conduct thereof in the Caribbean. It has done a film series featuring the definitional work on globalization by Stephanie Black, “Life and Debt”, the film debut of Patrice Johnson with “Kings County” and then another debut by photographer cum film documentarian, Rex Miller, “I’m Walking a journey through Parchman”.
The dialogue has featured writers such as Colin Channer reading from and discussing what was his latest book project at the time, “Passing Through” and Glenville Lovell of Barbados with his book “Love and Death in Brooklyn”.
To the Dialogue’s credit, all its meetings have at least 6 individuals in the room ready to talk, and among that group there is always a female presence and 90 percent of the time there is a newcomer to the discussion.
Over the year and something now that the group has been meeting, snippets of a significant number of the presentations made at the Dialogue have made it onto the airwaves of WBAI (with more to come) and that to my mind is significant to say the least as issues of relevance to the community seem to only be able to make it on the airwaves sporadically (i.e. outside of Dog-Fraid hours).
But what really is the Dialogue in a nutshell?
The Caribbean Dialogue is primarily a discussion space, where members of the Caribbean Community here in the Diaspora come to, as it were, “change thought” on their individual and collective experiences and realities. It is meant to be a learning, sharing space wherein people feel free to express themselves about the things which interest and affect them.
Who is the Dialogue?
The Dialogue is whomever has an interest in things Caribbean and wants to express or bear witness to perspectives on same.
Where does the Dialogue conduct its
affairs?
The Dialogue until it finds a permanent space has staked out
a presence at WBAI and uses its conference room/performance space as its base
of operations for the conduct of its Thursday evening sessions.
What is a vision for the Dialogue?
The Caribbean Dialogue in the year + since it has been operating has in effect been addressing in a very small but significant way, the need for a space in the Diaspora to address the myriad of concerns that emanate from the region (Caribbean) and within the Diaspora itself about a way forward.
It is an ongoing charge of leaders of the Caribbean community every time they visit, that the Diaspora needs to get itself together to a point where it can now begin to lobby for and on behalf of the territories and the peoples in these territories, not to mention for their own interests stateside.
The Dialogue endeavors to become that centralizing, coordinating body for the response from the Diaspora on issues of concern and interest to the region (here and there).
To become the Diaspora’s one stop shop for the affairs of
the Caribbean Community.
The Dialogue as it seeks to move forward transforming itself into a formal organization, endeavors to become a recognized not for profit 501 c(3) corporation, with aims objectives, bylaws and a board of directors, overseeing the work of an Executive Director and staff who shall be responsible for the conduct of the Dialogue’s day to day activities.
The Dialogue for all its work will need to be a viable entity with strong financial support capable of financing its operations and programs.
The Dialogue will eventually be housed in a building it can call its own, a building which will house its staff and with a number of meeting rooms wherein groups of persons from fledgling organizations within the community would be able to come and hold meetings and receive organizational/institutional support towards formalizing their operations.
The Dialogue will constantly be on the lookout for opportunities for members of the community, to have the Caribbean represented at the table, particularly in instances where such representation is logical and to be expected, for example in cities/towns where we have a significant presence and the issues directly affect us.
For all of its ambition the Dialogue has as its challenges:
Because of the free flowing nature of its participation, people are free to come and go as they please. Hence often times there is a commitment issue with people who otherwise seem ideal prospects for participation beyond dialogue, not turning up consistently to hear about how it is they are needed to be part of the action that is being contemplated.
The question to resolve of who is a member, who is a visitor has not been explored.
The question of dues has not yet been explored…does a person meet an attendance/dues paying combine regimen to qualify as member and if so what?
Resources are not only limited to finances, for which to date we have seemed to need little of beyond some chump change for snacks which ever so often we acquire though the encouragement of a few who prompt it…there being no structured collection inside the meeting or at meeting’s end.
This resource challenge impacts such things as the editing and post production of the recordings made at the dialogue. It impacts the dissemination of information (through radio announcements, emails and phone calls to the group) regarding upcoming dialogues and the planning for them. It impacts the determination of our programming for the Dialogues in such a way as would sustain interest of existing and prospective Dialoguers.
An expressed wish list of Dialogue Programs voiced to a number of Dialoguers in the recent past have included the following:
· Dialogue Debates: which we were hoping to hold on topics to a mass audience at a number of venues in the community (these to be held on bi-monthly Basis). That has subsequently morphed into the Dialogue Series scheduled to begin at the Brooklyn Public Library in July (God Willing) or September.
· Women Readers of the Caribbean Dialogue: which was hoped would have begun in January (2005) with support from Prof. Elizabeth Nunez (author/teacher at Medgar Evers College) to expose the work of excellent Caribbean writers.
· Caribbean Mixer: which was to be an event to help make the learning curve of the average Caribbean Immigrant much more smoothly dismounted, so that we did not have to be learning the same lessons that everybody before us learnt, but that these events could be path guides to the services/opportunities in our midst, the ways of figuring things out, the places to get help/support etc.
· Incorporation of the Dialogue: that in and of itself was a major project in which the input of Dialoguers in the know about such things would have been critical. The whole construct of what the dialogue was about and who it purported to serve, who was it’s leadership and the ways in which it would carry out its vision and mission. I have subsequently come to learn of the fact that organizations in this bit of business that we are in get grants to work on their going forward.
All that to eventually do what? These would be programs of the
Dialogue.
Political Education
Civic Education (rights and responsibilities of the citizen)
Entrepreneurial Development.
Parent/Child Development
Cultural Literacy/Advocacy
Media Literacy/Advocacy
Education on Educational
Opportunities