Integration vs. Inclusion

SIMONE’S STORY

I cannot tell the story of who I am without speaking about camp. It makes sense that even to this day camp is still a large piece of the work I commit to. It has been the biggest connector to my most authentic self. My most beloved community.

I was adopted by mother Ruth Gamble when I was one. She was a foster mother in the Bronx. Growing up, our home was a revolving door of children in transition. I remember growing up with different kids living in our house for weeks or months at a time until they were placed elsewhere. Eventually my mother adopted my siblings and we would form the Gamble family. We consisted of 9 people: 6 brothers and 2 sisters — few of us the same hue, only some sharing the same blood, but no matter what, we were family.  In a way, this experience prepared me for camp. Building the foundation for creating and building deep connections with people who didn't look like me, yet still considered family. 

My mother was a huge advocate of education, and this was a year round push. Because of this, she enrolled my siblings and I in camp programming every summer. First,  local day camps and then to the big leagues — sleepaway camp. Initially, attending camp was not a choice we made. But as we got older, she gave us the option  of deciding how we spent our summers. I was the only person out of my siblings who continued attending camp. I was a camper till I aged out at 18.   I attended Christian Camps, Technology Camps, Sports camps.  I tried them all. Camp was a place where I perceived I could truly be myself. To live outside of the suffocating societal limits of what it meant to be Black and girl. Breaking this idea of living along a monolith. 

For so long,  camp was my utopia. When I turned 18 and could no longer be a camper I knew I had to continue this journey. At that point, I applied to work as a counselor at camp.  My work at summer camps continued from ages 18 to 28. Throughout that time, I was given the opportunity to have different roles and eventually became  Assistant Camp Director. Being on the other side as a staff member was very different. The glow of camp still shined brightly, but my lens shifted. 

The work that I do now with camps centers a lot around creating safer and equitable spaces for campers of color and other marginalized identities. To unpack the invisible backpack many cannot see they carry. Much of this work asked me to take a deep dive into my own experiential history  with camps and what I had to suppress to maintain my vision of it as a Utopia. I couldn't imagine exploring the ways I may have not been allowed to show up fully in all my intersectional identities when many of my happiest moments were made there. But I had to do this work of critical reflection on the transformation camp offered as well as the spaces of harm. 

WE must recognize that we can love camp and still see spaces where it can grow. To shine a light on the gaps. Just as we do for our campers and staff.  Just as we love them deeply, we must love camp just as much. We must  include in our definition that love is also actionable and accountable.  Loving camp means calling out the behaviors that violate the safe space of another. Loving camp looks like correcting language that might harm another. Loving camp looks like bringing those whose identities have them experience life on the margins finally be centered. Included.

Today I wanted to highlight this concept of Inclusion that has consistently been on the minds of many camp leaders when discussing how to create safer spaces for all identities. But we must first discuss the stew in which camps were built in order to understand how we truly create environments of inclusion. The history of camps inform so much of how we continue to run our camps today and to veer from that would look like a deconstructing of this original history. 

HISTORY OF CAMP

These early summer camps targeted middle-class, urban boys who it was feared were being “mollycoddled” by overbearing mothers and female teachers in the overly “feminized” realms of home and school. They needed a dose of savagery, common opinion held, lest they become “sissified.” Yet this middle-class project promoted an idea that reformers had first piloted with the working classes: in the 1850s, New York City’s Children’s Aid Society had shuttled “street rats” westward to be adopted by Christian farm families who were believed to be their last best hope for salvation from a life of poverty and vice. This “uplift” mission also energized the first generation of summer camp boosters, who like many Progressive reformers believed the thousands of Eastern and Southern European children crowded into tenements with their foreign parents and unfamiliar customs would otherwise spent the summer loafing on the hot city streets, hardly learning the virtues or practices of American citizenship.

Camp wasn’t just for boys. By World War I, girls went to camp too. Learning to cook, sew, and otherwise prepare for motherhood was a standard part of cultivating virtuous young women who would resist the temptations of the “New Woman” who wore short skirts, smoked, and embraced her sexuality.
NATALIA MEHLMAN PETRZELA, 2018

Once we reckon with this history and the original missions of camps, as well as, how many of these values re still embedded in our camps today, we can then do the real work of inclusion.

INCLUSION VS INTEGRATION

Inclusion (verb): is defined as a a state of feeling, belonging, and working where diversity is created and valued in a community or organization. People in an inclusive space consistently feel seen, heard, respected and safe.  If you were to put it in a party analogy, inclusion means you would make sure everyone feels like they can have a good time at the party. There is food they can eat, music they can enjoy, tools for them to meet new people, and accommodations for them to access the space (an ASL interpreter, a wheelchair ramp, etc.). Essentially, everyone feels safe enough to dance!

Many times when we first approach this work we use an integrationist lens. Integration is the bringing together of people from the different demographic and racial groups that make up society. Even with attracting diverse talent, camps must make sure there is a concerted effort to foster inclusive practices at their camp versus assimilating marginalized identities into the dominant culture, which from its history is rooted in whiteness, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and classism. Integration asks people entering a space to conform to the dominant culture and not the reverse. 

If we really take a hard look, we have to stop and wonder, do our camps reflect these integrationist tendencies? Do our campers of various marginalized identities experience this at our camps? Inclusion has to go beyond the small changes like adding a cultural meal to your roster, or playing music of a different culture, or hiring a few folks of marginalized identities, or putting up a few signs in a different language. It is a complete culture shift. It has to be a concerted effort to recognize the ways that camps have solely been built around whiteness and how this will inherently exclude so many others.  Inclusion asks us to bring those identities that are marginalized to the center and allow them to inform what a camp that is rooted in their safety and inclusion looks like and being comfortable with decentering the comfort and norms of the dominant majority. This is hard, but not impossible. Below are a few quick tips to get this work started, but it does not end here. It is the tip of the iceberg. 

WAYS TO BUILD AN INCLUSIVE CABIN ENVIRONMENT

On Gender Identity

1.  During introductions, in addition to names, ask folks to share pronouns (by choice).

2. Provide campers with opportunities for campers to share pronouns on physical spaces and bodies i.e cabin bunks, stickers/buttons.

3.  Have discussion with the campers about the practice of sharing pronouns and the harm misgendering can cause. 

4.  Correct campers if misgendering happens

5.  Allow campers to self-identify (even if it shifts;gender fluidity). 

6. Avoid policing or questioning of campers gender expression (i.e. clothing behaviors, chosen activities, preferences).

7. Re-organize programming that is centered along the binary  

8. Allow Trans campers to choose where they wish to reside. 

9. Share stories, contributions, images of various gender identities in cabins, songs, activities, and programming.

10. Avoid gender stereotypes that may “other” campers that don’t fit into this narrative. 

11. Do not silence staff or campers from sharing their gender identities

On Racial Identity 

1. Don’t ask BIPOC campers to explain the experience of their entire race.
2. Allow campers to self identify their race (don’t make assumptions).
3. Address microaggressions and speak with campers about what they are and the harm they cause.
4. Educate yourself on cultural appropriation and address it when campers engage in it.
5. Provide products, toiletries, that cater to BIPOC communities and assess schedules that don’t allow for proper physical care of bodies and hair for these campers.
6. Provide space for campers to share cultural norms and allow space for practice in the camp space
7. Allow space for campers to discuss societal issues that impact their community
8. Allow space for campers to speak languages outside of English.
9. Remove images and activities rooted in cultural appropriation
10. Add land acknowledgments in introduction and physical spaces
11. Provide representation of BIPOC identities in programming, activities, imagery, literature, etc. and led by those who share those identities or using video or other facilitation tools
12. Allow campers of various identities to introduce new games and camp songs to the rotation that all can learn and be added as part of new traditions

On Sexual Orientation 

1. Don’t assume your campers are attracted to the opposite sex (i.e asking your girl campers which boy they are asking to the dance). 

2. If a camper discloses their sexual orientation to you, do not share with outside parties without their permission.

3. Have intersectional representation of queer idenities in your staffing, camp imagery, phsycial space, literature,  programming, and led by those with the expertise/direct connection.

 4. Unlearn Implicit Biases you may hold about LGBTQIA+ folks/Learn appropriate language and definitions for queer identities and experiences. 

5. Call out All forms of homophobic bullying and microaggressions from both campers and staff. 

6. Allow Queer campers to share their romantic interests without shame or stigma. 

7. Share representation of Queer identities in physical space or allow campers to do so. (i.e. flags, public figures, etc). 

8. Research materials to have on tap to be prepared to respond with helpful resources if necessary. 

9. Provide space for Queer and Trans campers to share their full humanity outside of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, etc. 

10.Provide space for community building for campers to find commonalities over difference Ex: Share how a piece of their identity is their superpower. 

11. Do not silence staff or campers from sharing their sexual orientation 

On Class Difference

 1. Don’t assume all campers have equal access to experiences, things, etc.

 2. Don’t set up campers to ask for things they need instead of providing it for them (providing toiletries, clothing, swim gear, shoes, etc, in super accessible places for campers). 

3. Avoid referring to campers who need assistance as scholarship campers.

 4. Avoid assuming all BIPOC children are on scholarship.

5. Talk about class and capitalism with campers so poverty is not a source of shame 

6. Avoid shaming the needs of campers with more needs (i.e calling campers greedy if they desire extra food at meals, not providing access to snacks outside of three given meals a day. 

7. Avoid telling campers that they should be grateful for the bare minimum (bc of their class). 

8. Examine biases that may share around negative stereotypes you have about poor neighborhoods and communities. (assumed danger/criminality). 

9. Ask campers privately if there are things they may need that is not provided and not in front of the entire group. 

10.Be mindful of exclusion of campers in conversations or activities centered on class and privilege. 

11. Create a communal shelf of supplies, games, and other items to help folks feel cared for and included (things you know campers have as part of your hidden curriculum)