PITTSBORO — For Karinda Roebuck, it’s all about community.
Roebuck is the executive director of Community Organizing for Racial Equity (CORE), formerly Chatham Organizing for Racial Equity. And whether it’s through cross-cultural caucuses or social justice exchanges — one of the organization’s latest initiatives — the Chatham-based, volunteer-led group is “recreating what a nonprofit would look like,” Roebuck says, all the while keeping community, reconciliation and education at its core.
Since December, the organization has been hosting a monthly Chatham Social Justice Exchange online as a place to gather for meaningful conversation through a lens of racial equity and justice. But last Thursday marked the first time community members could do so face to face.
For two hours, a small group gathered in a meeting room at the Chatham Community Library, turning over ideas and sharing personal testimonies.
Roebuck emphasizes that participants in the social justice exchange aren’t required to have a specific background or training in equity work. In a previous Q&A with the News + Record, Roebuck had stated that the monthly gatherings are meant to “meet people where they are, wherever that happens to be on their journey.”
“This is a space where people can have first point of contact with CORE,” Roebuck said. “You don’t need any prior experience with equity, no prior training with equity. If you’re interested in social justice, come to talk to us. And we will engage in conversations, and we will model what equity looks like in our conversations.”
The exchange began with a check-in, during which those present were asked how they were arriving to the space. Participants then brought up experiences or thoughts they felt like sharing, with the conversation flowing freely from person to person.
While Thursday’s event largely centered around racism and white privilege in the U.S. and in Chatham County, Roebuck said previous discussions have also focused on intersections with environmental justice and education.
Cathy Holt, 68, was one of CSJE’s participants on Thursday. Holt, who is white and works as a yoga teacher in Pittsboro, said she’d never attended one of the exchanges before, but came because she was motivated to move beyond talking to her friends about politics and the state of the world.
“Just sitting around and talking about how sh*tty the world has gotten, it’s just making us feel sh*tty,” Holt said. “It takes some action.”
Though it was her first time in the space, Holt said it was a “wonderful opportunity” for learning and engagement with other Chatham County residents.
“I felt like it was people with big hearts that were here, it’s why they were here,” Holt said. “So I think anyone would feel fairly comfortable.”
CSJE was born out of an initiative called the Saxapahaw Social Justice Exchange, which was co-founded by LaShauna Austria, a community organizer, faith leader and owner of Seeds of Change Consulting and Kindred Farms. Austria now partners with CORE to facilitate the Chatham exchanges, which are a part of the organization’s Community Reconciliation Project.
According to CORE’s website, the project in part centers on developing relationships to establish networks of support, recognizing the effects of systemic inequities and structural biases and providing space for a learning community. Other aspects of the organization’s reconciliation arm include the People of Color and White Anti-Racism Caucuses, which offer spaces to address the impacts of racism and racial trauma.
CORE’s reconciliation project has a holistic behavioral health focus, which Michelle Wright, the group’s reconciliation director, said is crucial. Racial trauma impacts both a person’s physical and mental health, she said.
“The experience of racialized America is not separate from how you move through the world,” Wright said. “So we start using language like ‘oppression,’ and what it means for you to live in a society that oppresses you or your community and things like that, and so there’s really not a way to have this conversation without addressing mental health. Because it’s a thought process.”
Similarly, focusing on experiences of mental health is important to community connection, Wright said.
“To be able to build relationship means that we have to be able to meet people with levels of vulnerability, and [be] able to take these deep dives again into your well-being and your identity,” she said. “And that all is enwrapped in your mental health.”
A tangible representation of this is the “marketplace,” which wraps up each of the exchanges. Community members offer what they have and ask for what they need, whether it’s seed sharing or employment opportunities. The marketplace is one of Roebuck’s favorite parts of CSJE.
“So often in our mindset, we’re so used to the zero sum game, right? But we can see that that myth of scarcity is false, and that there’s abundance in our community,” she said.
Beyond the social justice exchanges and caucuses, CORE also participates in community organizing and hosts local events, most recently in celebration of Juneteenth. The group also holds educational workshops and training sessions.
Moving forward, Roebuck says CORE is hoping to expand to other counties — hence the name change from “Chatham Organizing for Racial Equity” to “Community Organizing for Racial Equity.” Even within the county, the group is looking to increase participation in the social justice exchanges among community members living on the western side of Chatham. In the future, the group may hold the exchanges on different sides of the county every other month to achieve this goal.
“Our goal is to think of this as an opportunity for us to expand beyond Chatham and to have a social justice exchange network,” Roebuck said.
The Chatham Social Justice Exchange is held on the second Thursday of every month, and more information about the event can be found on CORE’s Facebook page.
Reporter Maydha Devarajan can be reached at mdevarajan@chathamnr.com and @maydhadevarajan.