“America has race problems, but Baltimore has a special kind of problem,” says J.C. Faulk. “Poor black people live on one side of the tracks and more affluent, primarily white people live on the other side. There is deeply embedded racism here. It will not end until people get to know each other!”
J.C. Faulk, who had been a diversity consultant for more than 20 years, mostly on the corporate level, decided he could use his talents to address these issues. In 2015, he invited a few people over to his home for a conversation about the impact of racism. This dialogue took place in his living room with about a dozen people. He called the discussion “Circles of Voices.”
He held another, similar event. That one drew sixteen people. The next one, twenty people attended. Very quickly, those small groups outgrew his living room, so Faulk expanded the program. In 2016, he received an OSI Community Fellowship to help increase the presence of Circles of Voices in and outside of Baltimore. To date, more than 2000 people have participated in Circles of Voices events across Baltimore, taking part in sometimes difficult discussions around racism, sexism, transphobia, patriarchy, and class.
The reaction to Circle of Voices has been overwhelmingly positive. One woman who recently participated in a discussion about patriarchy came up to him afterward and said, “I feel like this has changed me.”
Faulk understands the importance of his work. He said as crazy as the world can be, “there are good people, sitting on the sidelines, afraid or not knowing what to do to change the narrative. It is the ongoing mission of Circles of Voices to diminish the impact of isms, while creating safe spaces for participants to tackle centuries old issues that stand in the way of Baltimore and America being what we can be. We have a long way to go.”
The wind was biting on a recent Saturday evening, making the topic inside the Impact Hub all the more poignant: homelessness. As the winter temperatures dipped, about 50 people gathered in concentric circles to talk, listen, and learn about the many aspects of homelessness in Baltimore. They convened there at the invitation of OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow J.C. Faulk, who has been hosting such issue-based “Circles of Voices” for three years.
Faulk’s “Circles of Voices” are public, open discussions about such third rail topics that have the potential to–if left unchecked–harm our city. People from all over the city have come together to tackle such issues as race and racism, transphobia, patriarchy, sexism and class issues.
“The idea is to have people engage in things that they would ordinarily be afraid to talk about in front of other people, ” says Faulk, pictured. “We never know who is going to show up, so it’s about creating a space that is safe for everyone.” Feeling safe is an important part of Faulk’s fellowship–which is officially called “An End to Ignorance/Circles of Voices”–because he deliberately nudges participants to step outside of their comfort zones.
“I have people look around the room, and I tell them to find someone who is somewhat unlike them, that they don’t know. Then, I ask them to sit with that person. I might ask a question like, “What happens when we ignore the pain of another?” I give them three minutes to talk and three minutes to listen,” Faulk says.
Here, participants pair off to get more acquainted.
“I try to bring people into the same space from different backgrounds, different cultures, different perspectives,” Faulk says. “So we can sit next to each other, look at each other. We all live very segregated lives. We do what’s familiar, what we’ve always known. I do this so that we can know that we are capable of doing something different than the way we’re doing things right now.”
Here, participants Al Reichett and Regina McKenny non-verbally express their shared humanity.
Faulk, shown here outside of his home in Barclay, had been a diversity consultant for more than 20 years, mostly on the corporate level, before he decided to use his talents in a different way. Faulk said, “I would walk into corporate environments, knowing that it was likely that they were checking a box to have me there. It did not sit well with me because I wanted something to change.”
So he started Circles of Voices in 2015 by inviting a few people into his living room to have a conversation about the impact of racism.
Since then, the Circles have gotten much larger; Faulk can no longer have the intense discussions in his home. He now hosts Circles of Voices in art galleries and other meeting spaces throughout the city–moving around to ensure diversity of place. Circles can range from 40 people to 120 or more.
Here, Beth Benner, Faulk, Bonnie Lane, Anthony Williams, and Jim French lead the evening’s initial discussion about homelessness in Baltimore.
A sign on the wall sums up in a succinct way the reason why Faulk believes the Circles of Voices are important.
“I believe that you have to create discomfort in order for there to be change.”
