Posted on 08 March 2012 by @wiseoldsnail
Note: This statement reflects the process and decisions made by the former Occupy Oakland Media Committee prior to its dissolution by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly.
on the first of march, ten of us in the occupy oakland media committee gathered for a second session, lovingly facilitated by samsarah morgan, to address the issues we had been unable to address without help. those in attendance were myself, kevin, ben, dr, wendy, cami, diane, anthony, samsarah, and shake. though shake left before we officially approved any decisions, he subsequently voiced support for us making them, and for the process by which we came to making them, as did others. we adopted some language which we believe will help us move forward with our goal of providing this open publishing format, while giving ourselves space to work in which we remain free from the use of abusive and disruptive language and tactics. while we did this as a committee in service to occupy oakland, we have since been deleted as a committee by the general assembly. our intention was to offer these ideas to the larger community, to be improved upon and adopted by all. we still offer it.
:: statement of purpose
due to decades of poor social training, living in situations of considerable strife, and our personal and social differences, we occupants have been experiencing regular instances of verbal abuse and are often being exposed to behavior which threatens us as individuals and as a committee, and also degrades us as a people.
to address these issues in our attempts to treat each other well and present the world with a beautiful model of social interaction, we propose this code of conduct, which has already been approved by the media team:::
code of conduct:::
we as a people agree to use positive language in our efforts to communicate with one another and the world, even and especially when we disagree
we will refrain from personal verbal assaults, including the use of name calling or threats
taking responsibility for our knowledge and understanding of age old problems such as discrimination, we will continue to educate ourselves regarding all aspects of these issues in our efforts to retrain ourselves to speak and act with respect and honor for each persons ethnic, racial, and every other identifying characteristic
we each will take personal responsibility to assume that a verbal attack on us may be being made out of ignorance rather than malice, which will guide us to grant each person the possibility of retracting offensive comments and behavior
we will take that moment to breathe before responding to inflammatory comments directed toward us, or uttered in our presence
Guidelines::
to be a member of the committee:::
::: have to be vetted (create a process)
::: two tracks: member/contributor (to be determined)
::: embrace a policy of full disclosure
::: no censorship (no editing board)
::: we agree to uphold a high standard of personal accountability
::: emotional, psychological, spiritual, sexual, verbal, intellectual, ideological and physical respect to other members (non violent communication)
::: constructive, respectful critique of content balanced with praise
::: if a person is unable to adhere to these points, the committee will help that person find access to non violent communication training
::: if a person refuses to adhere to these points, that person is welcome to join another committee