Kenith Bergeron Part 3 of 3

Kenith Bergeron was a Conciliator and then Senior Conciliation Specialist in CRS Region 5 from 1999 to 2020.

There are 3 parts of this interview and a summary: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and The Summary. This is Part 3.

 

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Bill Froehlich (00:00:01): Well, welcome back, Ken. This is the third part of our oral history. Today's date is June 23rd, 2022. And we talked before about some examples. We talked about street mediation. We talked about table-oriented mediation processes. And today I want to focus on your more typical cases, just generically, knowing that really there is no typical case at CRS. Everyone has its, every case has its own flavor. It's different. Every community you go to is different. And we started this part of the conversation last time, but I want to continue it today. So my first question for you Ken is, in again, in your typical case, was your goal to get a settlement for a place and time-limited situation, or did you try to support the community in securing larger systemic change?

Ken Bergeron (00:01:03): I think the -. My goal always is to come out with an agreement for documenting the work that I did as, on behalf of CRS's intervention as a third party neutral. However, the goal is dictated by the parties and a successful mediation then is determined by what the parties have achieved. I determine success as leaving capacity to address future conflict, resolve the current conflict, but a mechanism in place to address and resolve future conflict. That I think is a defining achievement for community based mediations. You don't want to walk away with party, leaving parties ill equipped with tools not to solve problems. So you want to have some kind of advisory boards, or commissions, or councils, or something that you've left in place after it's over with as evidence that you've been there. But also, that they have the capacity to voice their concerns. Oftentimes what brings you there is a lack of communication. So the capacity instrument has to be something that sustains ongoing dialogues and communications.

Bill Froehlich (00:03:06): And is that how you would measure success of your intervention as well, whether they would have sustained ongoing dialogue? Or would you measure, use other measurements to measure your success?

Ken Bergeron (00:03:21): With respect to what I said previously, absolutely. Capacity is key. But anything that quells violence, anything that brings people together and builds relationships that, you know, the relationships come from interest based negotiations as opposed to positional differences. So getting people to move away from their positions towards interest, resolving interest and working together to come up with solutions is another way to, you know -. Was that achieved? If that was achieved, then you know, that is success in a mediation, even if it's not a signed agreement. If you've got people talking when you walk away and you know, where they were hating each other and about to fight, you've achieved a monumental success. And I try not to take credit for those things. Because the work that's done are the people in the community that, whether they're the hierarchy or the low man on the totem pole in the community at the table who has had his voice heard. You know, being able to get them to talk is a true measure of success.

Bill Froehlich (00:04:50): Yeah. So there are multiple measures is what I'm hearing. Getting folks to talk, getting folks to identify their interests, getting to a assigned agreement, getting to something that is sustainable. A mechanism for the capacity of the future.

Ken Bergeron (00:05:00): Sustainable relationships. Yes. Absolutely.

Bill Froehlich (00:05:05): Well thank you.

Ken Bergeron (00:05:05): And you, you know, the agreement is in writing but anything also that points to a policy, an ordinance, a resolution, something in writing that says that in the future we're going to do X, Y, and Z, that's icing on the cake.

Bill Froehlich (00:05:21): Policy change. Yeah. Okay. So I want to turn now to political polarization. How has political polarization impacted your work as a CRS conciliator? And perhaps it's evolved over time, maybe the polarization is different, you know, in the past decade or the past few years than it was when you began.

Ken Bergeron (00:05:49): Well when I came in to CRS, we were in an administration that was almost similar to the previous administration that we are, that we just had. CRS was told, or as it came down through headquarters, "we are not going to mediate Native American cases." No. "We're not going to mediate mascot cases." And that was the first time that I saw the agency being moved because of a political alignment.

Bill Froehlich (00:06:43): Let me pause you for a second. And when you say mascot case, do you mean like this college university or sports team had a particular mascot that was causing tension in the community? Or is there something else?

Ken Bergeron (00:06:57): So just like a popular team. Let's just say you had the Braves, or the Warriors, or the Redskins, or the Indians. We were told we should not do those cases. And you know, that kind of took us, took me back because I was, you know, involved in at least one or more of those well, several mascot cases over my career. Even at a state level, state university where I live, we had a mascot case and there were several high school cases that I was involved in. So to be told that you can't do that. And then there are jurisdictional tensions where the community is saying "we think this this mascot, or the name of the mascot and the mascot itself, is offensive to Native American people." And then you have certain Native American coalitions that would stand in defense of that with the community. And then the school boards, or perhaps the board of governors at a university would just, you know, say "we're going to table this, or, you know, we're going to step back, or whatever." But that was the first time I saw CRS kind of cow tying on a political level. The previous administration that we just had did not want CRS involved in to, or have any CRS involvement in, critical race. Anything that had the perception or the -. Anything that had the perception of it being critical race theory, or whether it was doing some sort of diversity or cultural competency or that type of work. And so even you couldn't take a -. You could not take a, you know, you usually had an opportunity to get some training once a year, or maybe a couple of times a year based on your budget, to take certain courses that would give you some professional enrichment. But we would deny taking critical race theory, or courses that had anything with critical race theory, or the perception that it involved that in it. So.

Bill Froehlich (00:09:59): How did you balance that with your charge in the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Ken Bergeron (00:10:08): Well, I guess the hard part, you know Bill, is knowing that you are a conciliator and you're not making the decisions. And that you cannot, you know, work against the grain. I mean, you can't go against what they are asking you not to do. I know I had a course and that I was about to take, and then I was later determined in the application process that it was denied because it looked like critical race theory, but it really was a course on cultural competency. So I don't know how critical race and cultural competency are the same things.

Ken Bergeron (00:11:05): You know, it, we are -. I think someone will tell you that -. And I've also heard in other instances where we have had a case that dealt with an LGBTQ community that we were -. And in fact, our budget was cut at one point because of our involvement in a southern state where a LGBTQ couple had been involved in some commercial business and the community did not want them to be present and then we interceded to try to help and were told that it was not jurisdictional for us. You know, perhaps at that time it wasn't but with the passage of Matthew Shepard James Byrd, you know, as time went on, it certainly did become jurisdictional. You know, this occurred even after the Attorney General gave us the directive to go and assist in this southern state community. So, you know, CRS has been an instrument. Has been used politically to do or not do certain things. And in spite of how you feel about it personally, it's a job.

Bill Froehlich (00:12:37): So that I hear that in transitions between administrations, when the national political landscape shifts, there are some changes to the work that a conciliator might do based on the directives from above. Are there any other shifts that you noticed between administrations? You were there from Clinton to Bush, Bush to Obama, Obama to Trump. So there were a lot of transitions. Are there any others that you noticed?

Ken Bergeron (00:13:07): Well, there appears to be from the administration and you working through the Attorney General and, you know, their connection to the leaders of the country in interest to address hate crime, religious hate crime. Way back following 9/11 when I first started there was an effort to make sure that we were working to address and provide Muslim hate crime, respond to that, and/or respond to trying to promote Muslim cultural awareness and then seek cultural awareness, kind of follow that. And so in responding to hate crime in those communities, and it ultimately resulted in us moving towards developing a program called Protecting Places, protecting houses of worship. And I think that was successful in allowing communities that had experienced hate crime to talk about and hear what a hate crime is. Hear the US Attorney. Hear law enforcement talk about how to respond to hate crime. And even CRS got involved on some of those programs and told them what the definition of a hate crime was and how to prevent its occurrence and active shooter training and those kind of things. Especially for houses of worship that had been, whether they were victimized by graffiti or whether or not they had actually experienced some, a level of hate.

Ken Bergeron (00:15:05): So CRS kind of has been reactionary in many sense, in many ways in responding to the tenure of whether it be violence or political sentiment at the time in the country. You know, right now we're experiencing various degrees of hate in the country. And we are still responding to them, particularly in houses of worship where cultural and misunderstandings occur and even racial. CRS has been around in, and I think at our inception, our response was to address racial tensions, violence, and disorder. We're still dealing with racial tensions and it's amazing that they have not they've not quelled in any way. They, you know, they still continue to go on and are exacerbated by some level of you know, political sentiment, whether it be you know, driven by the political powers that are in office or Christian nationals or any types of hate groups. It's still driving and increasing tension in our country. And CRS then has its hands full with fewer conciliators to address all that continues to go on. And here that the hate crimes or the hate and the bias incidents are still outside of the law enforcement issues, where there is a perception of bias in a division that occurs after shootings or use of force incidents. And, you know, their marches and protests like George Floyd and Jacob Blake, those types of things. So it's a very, you know, it's a very tenuous time in our nation. And especially to to be in a position where you're trying to resolve conflict and you're constrained by lack of resources. It's hard. It's hard for CRS as an agency right now. And COVID, my God.

Bill Froehlich (00:17:53): <Laugh>. Let's talk about COVID in a little bit. But I appreciate you sharing all these constraints. I find it interesting that CRS worked on religious, issues connected to religion, particularly with Muslim and Sikh community and issues connected to hate before the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd act was passed because, you know, as I read the original mandate, it doesn't connect to religious tension. And so can you tell me more about how under the mandate, this mandate of title 10 of the 1964 civil rights act, you were able to engage in issues connected to religious tension, issues connected to hate?

Ken Bergeron (00:18:36): Well.

Bill Froehlich (00:18:37): This is in primarily after 9/11.

Ken Bergeron (00:18:41): Well, the passage of the Matthew Shepard James Byrd Hate Crime Act gave CRS and the FBI the authority to respond, FBI to investigate hate crimes because of LGBTQ and particularly those things that were interstate or, you know, things that hate crimes that had occurred because of weapons that then the FBI could investigate. And then CRS was identified in the bill or the legislation to help to address community tensions and act in a way to build capacity and prevent the hate crimes from occurring in the future. So, you know, there are a number of things that I saw us responding to. One, we developed training within the agency to promote transgender, transgender awareness for law enforcement. And we were doing trainings for that for various law enforcement jurisdictions following, or at the behest of, a law enforcement community asking for training or after a hate crime incidents. In a LGBTQ jurisdictional incident, we would go in and you know, provide training if a community agreed to it.

Ken Bergeron (00:20:28): And we would, we identified transgender partners as we did with the Sikh and Muslim trainings. We never did the trainings ourselves as conciliators because we were not Muslim, or we were not Sikh, and we were not members of the LGBTQ community, and we couldn't speak on those issues. But we identified people and trained them so that they were able to use the training materials that we had and to provide those trainings. And then those trainings would build for law enforcement community, especially on the transgender side. It would build awareness about who the transgender community was, what they, how they differentiated between gay and lesbian persons and/or queer persons. And it taught law enforcement how to engage with them, how to build relationship with them, and how to be more respectful.

Ken Bergeron (00:21:37): So I think that, you know, when you, what we see now is the, a continuation of transgender murders. I mean, they happen... on inordinate scale in terms of numbers on an annual basis. And so what you want is law enforcement to be well informed on how to respond to those and do it in a respectful way as opposed to being, expressing bias, even though they may not be members of the LGBTQ community. Because, you know, the transgender community or the LGBTQ community will tell you "well, law enforcement doesn't like us" or, you know, "they will say all of the inappropriate or offensive terms about us in any given instance when we are engaging with them, or after a hate incident, or a situation has occurred, or if you call them for service." So you know, the training is crucial. Hate..., as we found, as we're beginning to find, it really just has no barriers. It just kind of is not just, in response to your original question, it's just not the four categories of race, color, national origin. Now it's gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, women, you know, gender, and so forth. You know, you've got eight jurisdictions that fall now. So your radar is, has to be broader than it was, than before the Matthew Shepherd James Byrd Hate Crime Act was passed.

Bill Froehlich (00:23:37): And so I really appreciate that explanation of how that Matthew Shepard James Byrd Act expanded the scope of your work and your radar for community tension. But I want to go back to the, after 9/11, and the, you were doing some work with Muslim communities, as you mentioned before. How did that fall under the jurisdiction of the race, color, national origin of the original civil rights act?

Ken Bergeron (00:24:14): It is national origin.

Bill Froehlich (00:24:17): National origin. Okay. Okay.

Ken Bergeron (00:24:18): It is national origin because people were Sikh or Muslim, it you know, it's where they, they're, it -. Sikhs were oftentimes misidentified as Muslim. And, you know, you either had to go in and do one or the Muslim or the Sikh cultural awareness training following those particular incidents. And then, you know, for the Sikh community, it was the first person that was a victim of a hate crime, was a Sikh person in Texas. Or was it New Mexico? I'm not exactly sure. But it's still a terrible price to pay just to be misidentified because you're wearing a dastar, you know, a turban, so to speak. So CRS has, you know, because of political concerns and support for these communities, was able to step up and do these trainings.

Bill Froehlich (00:25:32): So I want to go back to the political landscape for just a minute. Have you noticed, did you notice as a conciliator increased political tensions in the communities you were working in, and how did that increase tension if it was there, on the local level, impact your work?

Ken Bergeron (00:25:51): With respect to politics?

Bill Froehlich (00:25:55): Mm-Hmm.

Ken Bergeron (00:26:00): I think, I didn't really notice any rejection of our work or communities not accepting our work because of political reasons. Maybe not until we got until the last, until we started to see a lot of the protests following Mike Brown and you know, of course George Floyd, or George Floyd or when you started Breonna Taylor, because there was a perception then that the administration was pro law enforcement, and that as you showed up, that you were part of the administration. And then there was some, they would look at you... with some kind of, with a jaundice eye. You know, "can we really trust you? Are you here because of the DOJ and we know who's really running the DOJ, and so no we don't want to accept your services." So, you know, as of late based on the previous administration, there had been some apprehension in communities of color to accept our services.

Bill Froehlich (00:27:31): So how would you break through that apprehension? Or were you able to?

Ken Bergeron (00:27:38): Well I think I might have mentioned before if it is the, if they are the activists in the forefront and they are rejecting you, then you try to find out who your partners are, or your allies are, and then develop partnerships. Not partnerships, but at least try to develop relationships with them. The traditional civil rights organizations, ministerial alliances and things like that, are generationally distant from young people who are bringing activist protest. So they're more, you know, accepting of our services and particularly where you have established a prior relationship in that community. They would be more respectful of, or at least respectful of the agency, or the department, and be willing to set up something so that you can have a meeting. And whether or not you are able to get the activists to join the meeting, you know, become something else. But still, just having some measure of community in the room with city officials, or law enforcement, or school districts, or those type people in hierarchy, you know, develop a dialogue, or level the playing field or, you know, at best try to come out with some kind of mediation or something. But try to build a relationship around that.

Ken Bergeron (00:29:20): So... the generational divide, the mistrust... of the political mainstream of the previous administration, and maybe even some with this current administration, it makes you kind of wonder, you know, it makes you wonder how then do you work to get with them or how do you work to get to them? And I think perhaps you have to adjust your mindset as a conciliator and transcend the generational platform, or find ways, you know, you have to be cognizant of your communication ability. You have to be articulate and across generational lines. You have to be up to speed on all levels in cultural awareness to do this now, this job now. And I think that's how the job really has changed. You know, we've, there are things we don't do, not just talking to the press, but there's certain trainings that CRS isn't doing anymore. And we're relying on different training mediums, or tools, that either make us more effective or give us less [inaudible] as a result of doing trainings so that we come out with something that is evident, you know, some evidence of our involvement, but not necessarily, some things work, some things don't. I always think that a bandaid is, does not necessarily mean capacity has been built and success may not necessarily have been achieved. So because of CRS's limitations and lack of resources, I think, you know, we're throwing a lot of bandaids out there.

Bill Froehlich (00:31:26): I appreciate you raising the generational divide. One of my questions that is on my list to ask you is how do you deal with people who demand justice and have no interest or willingness to negotiate with respect to where they're coming from? And it seems that you've just provided that illustration of the younger generation of new activists who demand justice. They're often more reluctant or hesitant to meet with you. Whereas the older generation where you might have more relationships, they might understand what CRS does and the work that CRS does might be more willing to engage. I'm wondering, are there any other methods or ideas that you have for breaking down this generational divide or for working with those who demand justice and refuse to meet with you?

Ken Bergeron (00:32:18): If -. I gave an explanation about a Black Lives Matter protest march, where we were asked to monitor or coordinate the march with law enforcement and that particular group, rather than follow the script, they, and go to the place where the shooting had occurred. They decided to occupy the expressway. Well, you know, CRS, they used CRS. They used CRS and law enforcement to ploy their objective to occupy the expressway so that they could get their voice heard on how they felt about the shooting of this black male. And as a result, it was disingenuous on their behalf.

Ken Bergeron (00:33:23): Although, CRS did work with law enforcement, and on site provided on site reconciliation during the occupation of the expressway so that the resolution of the protest march was done without violence or a violent interaction between the protestors and police. Being able to gain trust with them occurs best through understanding where, you know, where they, what their positions or interests are. And sometimes you get it from the social media platforms. And if you can get that information from the social media platforms, and if you are, can talk to the individuals who are involved, you can work with them through sentiment, you know, understanding where they are, and understanding what their objectives are, and what they want to do. But try to let them know that you can serve in a very neutral way to help them exercise their first amendment rights, either through a protest march, which is really an old school thing, or a rally, which is still an old school thing. But still have it. Have them work with you and have you as a conciliator bring law enforcement and/or the permit for the rally or the march done so that it is, they're able to protest peacefully. And I think at the end of the day, for everybody out there wanting to protest nowadays, they still want a peaceful resolve, you know. Except when they're rumors and misunderstandings where people want to riot. You know, and those things still occur. So.

Bill Froehlich (00:35:44): So you mentioned rumors earlier in our last conversation, but you just raised it again. And that brings me to another question on my list. Specifically, how did you deal with rumors with fake news and sources of misinformation, particularly in this media rich environment with social media, the internet, et cetera?

Ken Bergeron (00:36:10): Well there's back, gosh, maybe early two thousands. I was introduced to a concept of rumor control. And I know it's a tactic that CRS, it's not a tactic, it's really a technique that we, or a tool that we, use where tensions exist or the potential for violence exist we will set up rumor control. And rumor control either means finding a conduit or, which could be made up of law enforcement. It could be, media could be involved. Government could be involved. But anything that dispels rumor or is proactive to prevent rumors from occurring. So the more transparent a community is with respect to how developments are in the community. What's the process of the investigation or what are police doing in the community? Or is there a community... meeting going to be held? Or what the mayor, what will the mayor be doing? Or what are ministers doing?

Ken Bergeron (00:37:40): And the more proactive you can be in getting out a positive message, the more effective you are in dispelling rumors. And being able to counter any information that -. Like the example I gave where the community thought that the police car ran into the back of the gang leader's bike and it was a white officer. Well, the community that, we had the city quickly say, you know, it was not a white officer, it was a black officer. And it was, the car was never involved in hitting his bike. He lost control at an intersection and ran into the abutment of the church. So rumor control is proactive messaging, clarifying messaging, that dispels rumors. And it is done through media channels, with the cooperation of media channels, or press announcements, or PSAs, so that the truth is heard. Yep. And things don't get out of hand based on mistruths or misunderstandings.

Bill Froehlich (00:39:05): Excellent. And I, the example of the community in Michigan with the gang leader and the church accident is a great illustration of how you do that. So back here. So I have a couple questions about policy. Specifically, what changes have there been in policing tactics, techniques generally, during your career that have impacted your work? If any.

Ken Bergeron (00:39:41): When I -. My first mediation agreement <laugh> back in 2000 in Michigan, was between a civil rights organization and a police department. And it resulted in the willingness of a police department, or a chief, to form a police advisory commission. And for the last 20 years, I have seen a willingness in law enforcement to be willing to sit down and form advisory commissions. City is being willing to form a human relations commission to deal with racism and racial tensions. School boards wanting to form advisory commissions as well to improve race relations in the community and to recruit teachers of color, same with law enforcement in terms of recruitment. So I've seen that as a tool.

Ken Bergeron (00:40:55): CRS has also had different techniques that it's used where it will do a, it will have a, the police and the community come together and strengthening police community relations. An SPCP is what they call it. And it is really a community dialogue where the community and the police department come together. And it's almost a SPIRIT for the community and law enforcement to talk about ways to improve policing. It, you know, the SPIRIT format is short of a mediation in that, you know, the parties are not necessarily engaged around a table, but now you will take different entities in the community, school districts, social service agencies, civil rights agencies, law enforcement agencies, and sit them around the table for, you know, maybe two days and have them talk about ways to improve community policing and build trust. And some mechanisms might come out of that. Who knows, maybe a police advisory commission will surface.

Ken Bergeron (00:42:19): But generally people will say, we don't like, you know, on the initial side of the problem identification side, they'll say "well, we don't like these things." And then on the resolution side, they'll, you know, they'll come back and say "we agree that we want these things." And everybody votes on what they agree to. And the police chief will come forward at the end of it and talk about what he's willing to address or what he's capable of fiscally implementing. Facilitating race dialogues.

Ken Bergeron (00:42:53): Our new tool that CRS is using to get people to come together and talk about race. And CRS facilitators will go out and, you know, facilitate a race dialogue in a community. But, and so, you know, sometimes you will find along the way of trying to do this conciliation work, that policies will come forward, a resolution will be written, a city council ordinance will surface. And I think CRS during my tenure, I saw more of that occurring than I heard occurring prior to the year 2000. I came in 1999. But from the 2000s all the way up until, you know, when I left in 2020, I saw that CRS, more of what I'm telling you now, in terms of conciliatory agreements or policies occurred. And I think perhaps that might be a strength for the agency going forward. If they're able to continue doing what they're doing and if they can get communities to listen and to have a willingness to work with CRS.

Ken Bergeron (00:44:28): I think that CRS has a challenge of trying to be perceived as legitimate and effective in its work. Contingency planning work in advance of a popular verdict announcement like, you know, that followed George Floyd, so that you now have a plan in place to prevent the escalation of violence... are a good tools and techniques. And so we've done some of that work. You know, mass demonstration guidance, how to respond to tensions following a shooting. CRS does give guidance on those levels. So the techniques and the tools have improved that enable the creation of, you know, ordinances, resolutions, and policies. Commissions and councils being created. I think that's how CRS has become more effective in the 2000s going forward.

Bill Froehlich (00:45:54): So all this is really fascinating to me. I appreciate you raising the SPCP, the SPIRIT activities that CRS does. I would love if you can, expand for a moment about how CRS helps communities think proactively about what, how is the community preparing for this verdict? How is the community preparing for X? Can you walk me through some of that proactive work?

Ken Bergeron (00:46:24): Well, generally your work is coordinated through your US Attorney or maybe your FBI. And you're letting them know that, you know, imminently there is a trial coming forward in response to the verdict of a high profile shooting of a black male or a person of color, and that the decision of the jury or the verdict that will come out of that, might lead to a reaction like in Rodney King, where LA experienced riots and you know..., even Ferguson, for example, those kind of things. You want the city to be prepared on how to respond, to minimize the loss of life, or even the preservation of property, or values in that community. And so having a contingency plan is about having the city officials be prepared to make statements following the verdict, having law enforcement officials work with community officials to call for violence after the verdict, or call for peace after the verdict, please not violence. Call for peace after the verdict. And to even perhaps allow for grievances to be heard where or having the community to have listening sessions so that they are able to unpack their feelings following the verdict pro or, you know, positive or negative. And you know, those things work to reduce tension. It's having -. It's having -. It's being more transparent. It's allowing community leaders to have an active role in calling for peace in a community and working with law enforcement or having the community do it themselves. And/or having a meeting at a church or a school following the verdict. Or an early release of students so that they will not be impacted by the verdict or just being able to go home rather than be on the street. Or have a pre-assembly with students so that they can talk about the verdict rather than act on the verdict out in the street or be a conduit. So you know, it's high school students and colleges and universities that are involved there. So the contingency planning is an effective tool that helps communities to prepare for you know, any kind of eventuality that comes out of a high profile verdict court decision.

Bill Froehlich (00:49:52): I appreciate you sharing some of the details about that. I want to go back to the question I asked you about the justice system and ask you more, a more targeted version of it. Specifically, have changes in policing impacted your work? Meaning more communities are following a community policing model, presumably now than they were two decades ago. That's an assumption I'm making. The Obama had its model for 21st century policing.

Ken Bergeron (00:50:31): Five pillars.

Bill Froehlich (00:50:32): That are developed. Right. Have those -. Have changes in policing based on the 21st century policing model or more communities taking a community policing approach, have they impacted your work or have you not seen much impact because of those initiatives?

Ken Bergeron (00:50:52): As you were speaking, my thoughts went to the departments who have had training on 21st century policing. The cultural competency training, the implicit bias trainings, the crisis intervention trainings, the de-escalation trainings. So departments overall have been more proactive into educating their offices on how to respond, or how not to respond negatively, or to be, you know, liable in a situation that could lead to something that would offend protestors or to act out in negative ways. So I've seen departments make those adjustments.

Ken Bergeron (00:52:04): Now we're dealing with, you know, people talking about defunding the police and it's not really defunding the police, but there's an effort to follow perhaps the Eugene, Oregon CAHOOTS model, where you now have a crisis response team made up of social service worker, a mental health worker, or someone in the medical field respond to a situation involving someone who is experiencing an episode, but it does not you know, it could be an episode that appears to rise to a misdemeanor level, but it is because of the mental state or maybe the or the drugs or whatever that a person might be having. It doesn't rely -. It doesn't stand to the level of a criminal act. So I see a lot of departments moving in the direction of adopting in their crisis intervention models what looks like the Eugene, Oregon CAHOOTS model and some departments are using, training their own people to do it. And other departments are trying to use outside agency. You know, in those instances it gets down to funding. If you're going to use somebody from the outside to help, you know, do this work with you they're going to be look, they're looking to get paid. And so some departments then are more, they want to stick to having their own officers do this training, but and so they're training them on crisis intervention techniques.

Ken Bergeron (00:54:04): I think there has to be a reckoning all the way around to address these issues and training all the way around on the mental health, social service, law enforcement. I think they all have to come together. I think it's, it is -. In communities where poverty exists and, you know, there's a lack of medical or how should I say it, health. There's a lack of health. People can't afford healthcare. And as a result of lacking healthcare you, your mental health treatment is not there. And so poor communities are more apt to experience the needing crisis intervention models working with law enforcement. And of course what that does is it prevents a shooting perhaps from occurring because a person or young kid with, that I've seen several times, with autism grab a buttter knife and the, a law enforcement officer shoots him because the parents have called because the young man doesn't want to go to school that day and... sees the law enforcement officer and gets a butter knife and, you know, pretends that he's going to cut the officer, but it's just, it's a butter knife, you know. And now the kid is dead and the community's upset. But to prevent those things from occurring and tension breeding and potential protest from occurring from situations like that, I see the crisis interventional models being needed more across the country. And you know, some people are not doing that for political reasons. You know, I don't, you can't, you know, you don't -. You don't have a dog in the fight, but things are what they are.

Bill Froehlich (00:56:24): Have you arrived at mediated agreements that have built in some of these models that you've just been discussing to the community's vision of the future?

Ken Bergeron (00:56:40): I was working on one just as I was leaving the agency and they were looking at mental health models, crisis intervention models, and you know, asked, they were looking at plans to address systemic racism. It's a newer feature. So we never really got a chance to sit down and mediate it, but it certainly would have been part of it. The models that are out there now require some studies, some research. They're probably maybe five or six municipalities or jurisdictions that are doing some things right. Or have some good models to follow. But Memphis and Eugene, Oregon are the two that I know that are out there. Other mechanisms that I have seen really kind of might include getting youth involved or the community involved in outreach to prevent the escalation of youth gang violence. That's another mechanism. But I, you know, as in terms of being a part of an agreement that really had, I had, I didn't get there. Got close to having the CAHOOTS model in one of the last jurisdictions. And it was a dialogue in the community, not a mediation.

Bill Froehlich (00:58:48): Can you say more about the models to address youth violence and what those look like and how those weaved into your work?

Ken Bergeron (00:59:04): So it's kind of violence interrupters that comes to mind. That's a local group here in, where I live and they partner with law enforcement. If you have youth gang violence, which really is about shootings and retaliation, your violence interrupters..., the people you can put on the street who are often ex gang members themselves, can work with police after a shooting and go in into a community where there is an expected retaliatory shooting that is going to follow the shooting that did occur. And what you want is the retaliation shooting not to occur. And so these interrupters are supposed to go in and work with the community and the gang members to get them not to retaliate. And the back and forth the shooting, the retaliation, the shooting, retaliation is what you typically see in a lot of urban environments. And so I think that is perhaps another mechanism. If you can get a interrupters or youth gang prevention groups to work with law enforcement to prevent some of the stuff, especially where there's this perception that law enforcement is, are shooting black males, young black males, high school students age students in an inordinate way. And then that builds, increases tension and mistrust. So being able to tap those and pull them inside of a resource if you're at the mediation table could serve to improve a mediation and make the, improve the capacity of a mediation surrounding those types of issues where law enforcement community would be involved.

Bill Froehlich (01:01:30): I imagine law enforcement might have concerns about working with ex offenders, former offenders, former gang members. Might have concerns with saying "okay, well, if I recognize a person who is currently on the street through this process that I've had an encounter with before that could also create tension." How do you work around those tensions?

Ken Bergeron (01:01:58): Well, I really haven't. I mean, I know that they exist. And I don't want to speak inappropriately because I've really have -. I had an opportunity to work with a group in Wisconsin before I left that did that kind of work. And you -. To get law enforcement to trust that individual and the people that work with him is a stretch for law enforcement. They have to have, they have to be presented with the opportunity to prove themselves trustworthy. And if that's the case, then they make a way for an inroad. Those agencies that, those interrupters that probably are funded receive money are less likely to mess up their, you know, revenue stream and have people working for them that are going to discredit, you know, their mandate. So I think it's -. Their work is needed. I think the communities, I'm starting to get a sense that communities are being asked to step up and become more of an active role or player in stopping the violence that we see in most urban communities. Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (01:03:43): Thanks for that exploration of those ideas, Ken. I appreciate it.

Ken Bergeron (01:03:47): Yeah and the, you know, with CRS it's, the question is jurisdiction. If there's not a racial or the conflict wasn't, didn't -. If it occurred because of something that's jurisdictional because of race then you're in. But if it's, you know, if it's just something that's just out there, that's not a conflict that has no jurisdiction, you really can't do anything. So, you know. You Have the appearance of organizing a community.

Bill Froehlich (01:04:18): Yeah. If there's violence that has a racial hue to it, mass violence that has a racial hue to it, I imagine you could gain entry appropriately with your jurisdictional mandate. But if it's just mass violence that's a different question. So what comes to mind is the recent tragedy in Buffalo with the shooting at the supermarket with the racist shooter. It seems that if you were in Buffalo doing work there, you could gain entry into that environment. Whereas another tragedy that didn't have a racial connection to it, you, it wouldn't, may not be jurisdictionally appropriate for you to engage in that part of the, or in that conversation. So, while I'm talking about what's jurisdictionally appropriate, I want to ask you really quickly who decides what cases you take? Was it you, your regional director, someone from national? And what were the criteria used to identify and determine which cases you should take?

Ken Bergeron (01:05:27): Well, everything in CRS if you're a conciliator should flow through your regional director. If you want to alert a case based on, once you've established jurisdiction, you've got to run that through your regional director who is going to be held accountable for your activities if they are, if the case is approved. So everything has to be approved through your regional director. And that is generally the case across the board in CRS. Unless perhaps Washington calls you and say "I want you to alert this case because it is jurisdictional."

Bill Froehlich (01:06:15): For example Grande Lum talks in his book about heading of to Ferguson after how Michael Brown was killed. And that might be a case where the director of CRS says "hey Ken, I need you down in Ferguson. "Not that you there, you may have been, but for this period of time I need there. So okay. Thank you. Staffing. IsCRS staffing sufficient to meet the need for services?

Ken Bergeron (01:06:48): Absolutely not. I think they've got 40 conciliators right now. I was shocked when we had 56, that the number just kept dwindling.

Bill Froehlich (01:07:04): What's a number that makes sense to you of conciliators?

Ken Bergeron (01:07:12): I think CRS needs a cadre of -. If I said 10 per region, or eight to 10 per region, I think that would be minimal. So we're talking 80 to a hundred people. Yep.

Bill Froehlich (01:07:44): At a minimum. Ok. And given your staffing was light and it is even lighter now in 2022, and we talked a little bit about this before, but were there any agencies that you partnered with consistently to engage in your work?

Ken Bergeron (01:08:02): Absolutely. Absolutely. There were -. The FBI was a go-to partner for me a lot of the time, particularly when a hate crime occurred, or where I had to do protected houses of worship, or some sort of dialogue. Or even if it was a mediation where the FBI could have been helpful with information, it would go to the US Attorney sometimes opened the door for us and even might have suggested some community partners that they were trusting of. You know, there were, in terms of, you know, case work, the US Attorney and the FBI are generally the two, the DOJ agencies that come to mind. There are other components within the agency that do work, but they don't necessarily help with respect to -. Or the civil rights division. Yeah. Leaving them out. My goodness. The civil rights division has helped quite a bit. Cops has helped in some of their cooperative or some of the processes that they used. So cops, the civil rights division, CRT, particularly when to clarify some legal issues or to even to get some help on a case, the civil rights division can help be very helpful. As in one of the cases I had involving a mosque where there was a RLUIPA, it involved RLUIPA violation. So yeah, those four agencies, US Attorney, FBI, CRT, and cops.

Bill Froehlich (01:10:14): Any state or local organizations?

Ken Bergeron (01:10:22): Well state governments, local governments, law enforcement, are usually going to open the door for you because you're DOJ following it and jurisdictional incident. The best partners are of course NAACP, LARASA, LULAC. There are Asian civil rights groups now. There are Muslim civil rights groups that we have worked with. There are Sikh organizations, SALDEF, ADL. On, you know, the Jewish community, American Jewish Federation. Those agencies I've partnered with or we partnered with from time to time. And then there, of course, some of the activist groups, like Black Lives Matter, that we've had relationships with. I do like, how should I put it -. Some of the LGBT groups like, oh gosh, there's a national transgender organization. There's PFLAG. I can't remember all of them. But they have been very helpful in some of our case work as well. Yep. They have local chapters.

Bill Froehlich (01:12:27): Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. One more question about policy changes. Have you noticed any changes to the education system as a whole or changes on a local level that impacted your work during your time as a conciliator?

Ken Bergeron (01:12:47): Well, we used a lot of SPIRITs when we were in school over jurisdictional issues dealing with race. Outside of the SPIRIT, what I've noticed is that early on SPIRITs typically addressed racial concerns. As time went on they became, they address relationships with the administration and policies and practices and you know, access to different things that didn't necessarily have to do with the precipitating incident, jurisdictional incident. So schools changed on the SPIRIT level because students wanted... more transparency from their educators and more accountability from their teachers. And I think... -. I think I noticed that as a trend as the number of SPIRITs that I did and how they changed over time, it wasn't just racial reconciliation. It was being able to improve the relationship between teachers, students, and the administration. So. I don't know.

Bill Froehlich (01:14:18): No, thanks for that illustration of how the SPIRIT program evolved from your perspective. So now I just have a couple of general questions about your experience at CRS to close out this component of the federal history project. So you've been, you were around CRS for 1, 2, 3, 4 administrations and more than two decades. Do you have any advice for a new conciliator attempting to navigate the bureaucracy at CRS?

Ken Bergeron (01:15:03): I guess the first thing I would probably say is CRS isn't a job. It's a career. It's a career based on a very serious mandate, the Civil Rights Act, Matthew Shepard James Byrd, you're upholding, you know, that work. You are the new Martin Luther King. You're not, you're neutral, but you're upholding that act. You're upholding that legislation. You are preventing hate crimes. You're improving cultural awareness across communities. You are bringing peace where there has been disharmony and violence. You are a peacemaker more than anything else. So in many instances, the work is not about you. The work is about what you bring to the community in need of solace at the time of its greatest need. You are sworn to defend the constitution, but you're also serving the country in its greatest hour of need. And it just goes on and on and on and you continue to stand on the shoulders of giants.

Ken Bergeron (01:16:52): So you become big and great by the work that you do in how well you do it. And you get recognition along the way, but the job is not about recognition. There are many times you won't even get a thank you. But you still do it. And you know when you've done something good, even when you don't get a thank you. You know when you've done some healing when you walk away or when somebody says "thank you Mr. or Mrs. so and so. It is not the badge you have in your pocket or the department that you work for. It's the work that you do. It is learning to do this job in every particular, every capacity that you can, developing every skill you have to be effective in finding every tool that will work for you. And being very, very careful not to expose the agency to any liability that would do be injurious to them because it's very fragile. The work we do is very fragile. There have been so many administrations that wanted CRS gone and we're still here. So you have to be careful. You have to take direction. You have to be open to receive criticism. And you have to be able to give it back. You have to speak the truth even when people don't want to hear it. So I guess that means you just have to be tough and sensitive all at the same time.

Bill Froehlich (01:18:55): That's great. I really, really appreciate that. And in that spirit, you said you have to be, accept criticism and be willing to give it back, to learn. You have mentioned throughout this conversation folks that you have learned from like Jesse Taylor, regional director in region five. You've mentioned the person you observed do this, or worked with in the Virgin Islands when you were on loan from a prior position. Who did learn from in order to excel as a conciliator at CRS?

Ken Bergeron (01:19:38): Well in CRS, we're supposed to be learning from each other always in terms of how a case was done and, you know, what were the outcomes of the case? How was it successful? What did you do to make it successful? You know, as a conciliator we should all pay attention to the techniques that were used. Add to our toolkit. The reason that Jesse was so influential with me was that he was coach. He was a coach. He was a consummate coach. And I had to learn that I couldn't be so full of myself that I couldn't sit down and listen to him. But being able to coach in an unbiased manner made me aware that some of the things that he was teaching me were techniques to make me successful in my case work.

Ken Bergeron (01:20:45): So CRS is challenged with... developing conciliators and regional directors. Many of them who don't have field experience. But coaching still becomes a very, very important tool for any new conciliator coming on. You have to be able to listen to some of the older conciliators and you have to be able to be coachable so that you can be successful. And of course, you know, if you've gone to law school and you got a triple master's degree or whatever, you know everything. But the question is is do you know how to interact with people who are calling you all kind of names, don't trust you, think that you are working for the government, and you are not there for them. And, you know, do you really, really know how to talk across cultures and across tensions to quell violence? They don't necessarily teach you that in law school and they don't teach you that in your master's program. So you have to listen to your coaches to find how to do entry even when it's most difficult. If you can do that, you'll be successful because one experience builds on another. You can get your feelings hurt by people who don't trust you. There will be people who even want to put their hands on you and you just have to be careful. So I would simply say be positive. Have a positive attitude. Try to learn as much as you can. And this is a job about giving. And not very many takers in CRS. It's not a nine to five paycheck job. You work 24/7. Your phone is on, the CRS phone that they give you, is supposed to be on 24/7 or you're supposed to be on call. And so you become a government servant and not yeah. I think that's all I have to say on that one.

Bill Froehlich (01:23:08): Do you -. Can you share -. This is great. I -. Do you have any concrete coaching lessons from Jesse Taylor you'd you'd be open to sharing?

Ken Bergeron (01:23:22): Man. Get choked up thinking about him.

Bill Froehlich (01:23:27): Oh, I'm sorry.

Ken Bergeron (01:23:28): No, it's okay. No, he would tell you to think out of the box. He would tell you not to follow a traditional process. You know, he would tell you if somebody says no, find another way to find a yes. If you can't meet with the mayor, you know, go meet with the chamber of commerce president, or go talk to a state legislature person, or another elected official, or talk to the police chief, you know, if you can't talk to the mayor. Or talk to somebody who is leading the Ministerial Alliance, white or black, or somebody of note if they don't want to talk to you You know, just because someone who is the mayor says no, there are other ways to be heard or to gain entry. And I think that helped me a lot with Jesse. Sometimes you don't, you know, you don't have -. You want to be transparent about your work, but there's some people that don't want to mediate in the beginning. They don't want to sit down and talk to the other side immediately. And you just have to find a way. You have to know, you know, all of the -. You have to work in timing. And so Jesse would, you know, Jesse would talk to me about timing and how to, when mediation was appropriate and when it wasn't. And he would talk to me about managing, you know, disputes and all of those things and techniques.

Ken Bergeron (01:25:36): I think the thing that helped me a lot were when he -. I'm just trying to find a document where he might have been very helpful with me. Interspace negotiations, he tried to always tell me it's not about what, it's not the argument per se, but it's trying to get people to get into a relationship as opposed to, you know, yelling and screaming at each other. Negotiation. Negotiating issues into interest is something that he wants to talk about. So. But it is -. Some of the things that he talked about would, are triggers that were, when miscommunication, the potential for violence, neither party is serious about talking to each other. Whether or not legal procedures are in place or not. Whether or not -. If they're no substance issues. Only one person is willing to say, to talk, or to be a part of the negotiations. Or people who have no credibility or standing. And that's huge. You can't have them at the table. Or aa criminal act is involved. You know, knowing all of those pieces were things that he would sit me down and talk about as I analyzed parties. You know, that was kind of a measuring stick. You know, do you have all of these things in place. And then there's some instances where you have to talk about, or you have to think about, how long, you know, based, how divided people are and how long it's going to take for you to bring them together. Sometimes the mediation is just, the issues are just so deep. You can only break off one at, one or two at a time because it'll take you years to sit down and try to, you know, help heal a community. Some things you can do very quickly and there are things that will take, you know, five years. You don't want that. The longest time I've stuck to a mediation was about two years. So, yeah.

Bill Froehlich (01:28:21): Jesse Taylor sounds like an inspiring leader and I'm glad you had the experience. I take it he's no longer with us. Is that right?

Ken Bergeron (01:28:28): No, he's with us. But just, he just meant a lot to me.

Bill Froehlich (01:28:37): Yeah. Wow.

Bill Froehlich (01:28:38): And also, I can tell you that he always had a smile on his face that is so disarming to walk in a room where people are snarling and yelling and screaming at each other, and you the only person laughing and smiling. It is so disarming and it just lowers the tension in the room. It just takes the air out of the balloon. And so bring some positive smiles and attitudes and, you know, a cackle if you can. Or crack a joke.

Bill Froehlich (01:29:13): I love that. I love that advice. And I so appreciate it. And I'm sure you're picturing him walking into a room and doing just that right now.

Ken Bergeron (01:29:21): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (01:29:22): Oh man. Well, just a few more questions. Are there any sources or are there any materials you would advise a new conciliator to read, or review, or Ted talks, podcasts, to get into this material? Or get into this work?

Ken Bergeron (01:29:43): Well, I'm not saying this because of Grand but, you know, basically you have to read Getting to Yes. <Laugh> You have to know the difference between is, you have to know about, you know, moving issues and interest and being, how to negotiate to do interest based mediation that'll be successful. Not just in mediation, but in basic conciliation. Being able to ask people "what is it that you really want to happen?" You know, that's an excellent question if you can. You know, it's not about how they feel. But if you can get them off in a corner or something and just say "what is it, what do you think will fix this?" If you can get either side to start saying that and if you've done it in your pre-mediation, then you've really gone somewhere. So you'll get all of that out of Getting to Yes. And then, you know, CRS has a library of mediation books. Mediating Dangerously is one that I found some help with. Oh gosh. I'm thinking of one that really kind of points to -. Oh, you are mediating, -. You're sitting in the fire. Being able to sit in the fire and really kind of doing it by yourself. So sitting in the fire is a technique that -. It's a term that mediators understand to be, you are listening to both sides and they're throwing it at you and that in essence, you are, you're tolerating all of the tensions. That's the fire. And to be able to balance that and come out with something is what you do. Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (01:32:04): Do you have any written accounts of your work for a particular case or that you've written for a publication about your work, generally or specifically, at CRS?

Ken Bergeron (01:32:17): I have a media article about some of the cases that I did or several articles about those that I do have. Particularly the Muslim mosque. I did hold onto that. I'm not so sure if it was something that I might have written about CRS. But I'll look and see. I'd.

Bill Froehlich (01:32:39): I'd love a copy of the article about the mosque if you have it and if not, that's okay too. So two more questions for you. <Laugh> Are there any other questions I should have asked you?

Ken Bergeron (01:32:51): Well, no. I think this has been pretty thorough. I really respect the, you know, your objectives and the oral history project and I'm honored to be a part of it. And would love to help anyone at CRS or anyone going through some community based mediation, if I can. It's all about giving away and trying to pass on some knowledge that I've had rather than try to walk off the planet with it.

Bill Froehlich (01:33:35): Well, we -. I appreciate that Ken. It's been a pleasure to have you. And before I formally say thanks, is there anything else that you want to tell us on the record?

Ken Bergeron (01:33:47): Thank you, Bill. <Laugh> It's been a pleasure. I've enjoyed it. And I guess I, you know, I probably could have said about 50 million more things, but I've been very cautious about not naming names and places and people. So, but if I had been able to go into those details with you and those gory stuff you know, case by case pieces, you'd have some stories, so.

Bill Froehlich (01:34:13): <Laugh> I bet. But -. And I appreciate that particularly given you retired so recently. Things are so close. You know, what you have done in Minneapolis is still really relevant to what's happening in Minneapolis right now, for example. So I respect and appreciate your keeping things close to the vest. But this has really been an enriching conversation for me in this oral history project, Ken. And there's so much here for mediators to grapple with that you've said. I'm really, really appreciative. Particularly in this summer while I am reevaluating my mediation trainings. It's useful for that. So I want to say thank you. And I'll pause the recording now.

Ken Bergeron (01:34:58): Okay.