Question:
What would you say that civil rights mediation is about?
Answer:
I guess for me, coming in as a minister, I always thought it was a moral issue.
Question:
A moral issue?
Answer:
There are just some fundamental things that are right. The trick is to find solutions within
the
mediation process that helps make it correct. I don't know how you'd introduce that into the
equation unless somebody brings that to the situation. Nowadays people do enter into the field
with a much better understanding and there's a lot more discussion going on about the role of
mediation. I think this is what has been talked about over the last few years. This whole thing
about transformative mediation within civil rights puts things in a very different light. Civil
rights mediation is always within a world of politics, and it's a rare, rare situation where you
would have transformation. I think you make changes, shifts in power. I don't know that I
understand transformative mediation. When I left CRS I did some interpersonal mediation.
Question:
Do you mean relationship type mediation?
Answer:
Yeah, right. In those situations it would be clearer what the transformation would be, but I
think when you move into something with civil rights where you talk about groups of people,
politics, and communities, I think in those situations there has been a shift in power or decisions.
At the best you've probably helped some group of people, maybe you appreciate a little more the
views of others, but I don't think transformation has happened.
Question:
Maybe you're thinking of transformative in a much larger way?
Answer:
Some of the debate, which I think is healthy about understanding the role of mediation, I
think is on one hand, numbers mark your success, then you can get into just racking up the
numbers. That would reflect upon what's really happening in this situation and I think that kind
of debate does help you think about what you're doing. Maybe transformative mediation has a
lot of pieces to it.
