Why "Beyond Us and Them"?

Why are we asking you to give up half a day to engage in a discussion about how to address intolerance?

Short Answer: Because we believe this community has the capacity to provide new models for preventing hate crimes that can be used by people across the country and around the world. This event is designed to spark action deep inside our communities that will raise awareness about bias and create an atmosphere that may help us to prevent hate crimes.

Not In Our Town is a national movement of civic leaders and community activists to address hate and bias in proactive, unifying ways. For the past twelve years, The Working Group has been documenting Not In Our Town stories of communities who are working together to address intolerance and prevent hate crimes. As these towns become engaged, they help build on a social innovation model that becomes more nimble and sophisticated as it progresses. Although the first two Not In Our Town films were created for a national PBS audience several years ago, we teamed up with KQED to create a first-ever regional special, Not In Our Town: When Hate Happens Here.

Our early screenings of this film for Palo Alto school leaders, students and teachers launched a deep and moving discussion—but more importantly, it led to action. Palo Alto Schools are now planning their third year of Not In Our School activities. Last year, we received a grant from Silicon Valley Community Foundation to plan two events that would help broaden the discussion and launch new action in other communities in the Mid Peninsula. The Not In Our School Event last November sparked a lively and meaningful discussion among three hundred students from Mountain View, Los Altos and St. Francis High Schools. (We’ll screen a short film clip from this event on March 13.) We look forward to follow-up action from students and school leaders.

It takes effort and sometimes courage to step out of our comfort zones to talk about bias and prejudice. But in the words of Billings, Montana Police Chief Wayne Inman who helped inspire the Not In Our Town movement, “Silence is acceptance.” We hope you will engage and speak out at this Not In Our Town event—and then take new ideas and actions into your community. We’d like to document your stories—and what you do next--and tell the world in our films and the on new social networking site we’re developing.

We look forward to learning from you.