The Bernal Story: Mediating Class and Race in a Multicultural Community

7. Documents and Disturbances

75 7 Documents and Disturbances Negotiating in the Real World I T TOOK T EN DAYS to reach consensus on a meeting time. I interpreted the difficulty of that process as a warning sign of impending burn-out. People were feeling, I thought, both tired and anxious. Although the group had already exceeded my expectations for the mediation by striving for a negotiated settlement, I sensed that few if any of them actually saw a way that might come to pass. At length, we determined to meet again at the Neighborhood Center on the evening of February 16. Following the strong convergences that had happened in the last two meetings, my intuitive sense was that the participants were now pulling away, driven by a kind of centrifugal energy born of anxiety. Concerned people not at the table were daily expressing more concern. I was getting emails and copies of replies to emails voicing heated opinions and questioning how much longer the suspense would last before a decision was known. Things that Go Bump in the Night In any mediation dealing with public issues, there are ghosts at the table. (Indeed, the same can be said about most “private” mediations, too!) Depending on the importance of the issue to the public, the number and significance of the ghosts multiplies. Two more or less organized constituencies had all along been a presence and now began to declare themselves more loudly. Between the first and second mediation sessions, Mauricio had discovered the organizing potential of Facebook. One of his fellow 76 . A Well-Fought Conflict Save the Bernal Library Mural committee members had established a page and invited participation. Over a couple of weeks, several hundred people signed on. Mauricio expressed fascination—and excitement —about this new tool. Predictably, neighbors who disagreed with the website’s position were upset about its existence. I had talked with Mauricio, Darcy, and several other mediatees about the question. My feeling was mild; it might serve the process we were conducting better to do less agitation in the community outside the room, but I understood Mauricio’s inclination to make manifest the strength of his constituency. During the second meeting, the Facebook page was addressed in the form of “held feelings” and paranoias. The page cast doubt on Mauricio’s seriousness in negotiating in a genuinely cooperative spirit. Several other organizing activities had added to the concern. Mauricio’s group had held a fund-raising party at a popular Latino club on Mission Street. Dan had printed up posters and the group had distributed them to storefronts around the neighborhood. All in all, it was clear that Mauricio had no intention of calling off his campaign while negotiations proceeded. But did those actions mean he also had no real intention to negotiate in good faith? I had several long talks with Mauricio and urged him to explain his motivations to the group, which he did in response to Darcy’s questions. The poorer, Latino and Filipino segments of the community, he said, had too often experienced disadvantage. There was a prevalent anticipation of being overlooked and overridden. Successful negotiation depended on a sense of strength, not weakness. To make manifest the numbers supporting his position was to put him in a position to negotiate as an equal, an essential precondition to an outcome that would stand the test of time. My contribution to the controversy was to theorize the significance of equalizing power to the process we were undertaking. At the same time, I urged Mauricio to conduct his campaign with respect for his opponents. If those who disagreed with him were vilified in public discourse, then the ability of the group to form and sustain the interconnected relationships necessary to successful negotiation would be damaged. Mauricio had heard enough reflection of how hurtful Documents and Disturbances . 77 some of his earlier rhetoric had been that he agreed; the tone of the campaign did in fact grow noticeably more celebratory, less laced with name-calling or judgment. Now, a week after the third session, with tensions once again rising , Darcy launched a counter Facebook page. I knew that there had been roiling commentary within her group of neighbors. Amy had done a thorough and skillful job of answering emailed questions from members of the “New Deal for Bernal” group (with the subject line “Inquiring Minds Want to Know”). She wrote careful summaries of what was...