The conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on all three counts for the murder of George Floyd was hailed by police and community members alike as a rare moment of accountability in a long history of police killing Black men in America. Whether the case also marks a broader shift to address systemic racism depends on how willing we are to overcome the forces that keep these systems in place. For The Civic Canopy, that entails honestly acknowledging how we have often protected the very systems we believed needed to be transformed.

I was reminded how strong the forces are that keep us from changing these patterns of racial injustice while watching the testimony from the eyewitnesses to George Floyd’s murder who tried to intervene. Even in the instance of such clear oppression, when a man’s life is being extinguished under the brute force of a white officer’s knee, those who challenged this behavior were treated as a threat and pushed back.

Let that fact sink in a minute. Those who challenge acts of oppression are viewed as threatening regardless of the legitimacy of their challenge. Tragically, this absurd inversion of legitimacy is the norm in our public discourse as well, including in most public processes I have witnessed and myself facilitated.  Facilitators are frequently brought in to lower the temperature in discussions, and in the process, reduce the energy to address inequity.

These recent events have reminded me of a lesson I learned years ago while attending a three-day training on dialogue. I was early in my career, and eager to learn how to help diverse groups deal with conflict productively. The first few days felt a little slow as we practiced the building block skills of listening and asking generative questions.  On day three it was finally time for an extended dialogue on the chosen topic of education reform.  At last, I would get to see the facilitators in action. Minutes into the long-awaited discussion one of the participants spoke up to complain that the facilitators were being unfair in how they called on people. I was annoyed that such a petty concern was now delaying our discussion of more important matters. I even felt somewhat defensive on behalf of the facilitators who were being unfairly attacked. I could feel the tension in my stomach as the whole training seemed to be falling apart.

But instead of acting defensive, the facilitators leaned into the challenge from the participant, asking them to say more about their perception.  “Some people are just jumping in whenever they want,” they remarked. “I’ve been raising my hand, and you have ignored me.  That is not fair.” As one of the few people of color in the training, their accusation had extra charge behind it. The facilitators acknowledged the importance of this concern and invited other people’s reflections as well. What had initially seemed to me to be beside the point—who speaks and when in the group—emerged as the most important point, and the dialogue opened up brilliant layers and insights into how power is exercised through patterns and systems that remain invisible to many of us and all too clear others.

After the session, I approached the facilitator to ask what allowed them to remain so calm in what felt like an awkward situation. They said they saw it differently, and that what was awkward was that it took until day 3 for the group to finally leave the comfort of the “forming” stage to get to the “storming” stage. “When people are clinging so tightly to politeness and keeping things safe, you really have to support the resistors or the group will never succeed.”

The power of that lesson is finally sinking in for me, too many years later. If the very systems that hold inequity in place maintain power by marginalizing those who challenge them, then those committed to changing those systems must intentionally center the discussions at the margins. This means more than having people closest to issues at the table to solve them—though that is a start. It means reframing their challenges to the system not as threats to resist but as wisdom to welcome into the discussion.