Conversations about race between black and white residents will improve community relations, a charity is hoping. Newington Green Alliance will be hosting its “What are they thinking?” event on 27 November to put this theory to the test.
The event is intended to do this through the exchange of opinions between black and white individuals, which NAG hopes will foster greater understanding and tighter bonds between racial groups.
Andy Pakula, an organiser at NAG, touted the event as a key tool in building community relationships: “People are sort of in their own bubbles, and we’d like to break that down, to create much more connection between groups.”
The event allows individuals in one group to voice their opinions while the other group listens, before the two switch roles. The format received a positive response when trialled earlier this year.
“We’ve done this before with a white group and a black group and it was astounding,” said Pakula, “by the end of the pilot, which we had set for an hour, everybody in that group was saying they wanted to continue meeting.”
Plans are already being made for further events with different social groups in conversation.
“We want to do this again with black and white, but we also recognise that there’s a tremendous value in doing this with all kinds of mixed groups,” Pakula said. “So what if it’s Turkish immigrants and white British, middle class and working class, cis and trans? There’s so many possibilities.”
Pakula believes that the secret to the success of these events will be their unstructured and open nature:
“There’s nothing staged about it… It’s real people just addressing a question. I really want people to understand each other better. If we can get that far, that’s great.”
