{"id":229952,"date":"2017-03-29T10:53:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T14:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=229952"},"modified":"2017-04-19T10:42:29","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T14:42:29","slug":"diversity-conference-speaker-shatki-butler-grew-up-in-a-black-world-and-a-white-one-229952","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/diversity-conference-speaker-shatki-butler-grew-up-in-a-black-world-and-a-white-one-229952\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity conference speaker Shatki Butler grew up in a black world, and a white one"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shakti
Shakti Butler. (World Trust photo )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shakti Butler wishes she could avoid thinking about race for one day. So far, it\u2019s been an impossible dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could be at the beach, having a great time, and something will happen that reminds me of race,\u201d she says. \u201cA look, a comment. You don\u2019t know what someone means, and racial anxiety sets in. Every day, I think about race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler, a filmmaker and president of the nonprofit educational consultancy World Trust Educational Services<\/a><\/strong>, will deliver the keynote address at the University\u2019s annual Diversity Conference<\/a><\/strong> on Friday, March 31. Her talk is entitled \u201cIrresistible Justice: Cultivating Joy as a Pathway to Equity,\u201d and will begin at 8:40 a.m. in Strong Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. You can also watch the keynote address live online.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

An educator on diversity and racial equity, Butler has been aware of race since she was a toddler. Her father was from Barbados, the son of a Texas slave. Her mother was from Russia, 21 years younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my parents married in 1945, my mother\u2019s family disowned her,\u201d says Butler, who was raised in Harlem. \u201cMy grandfather died when I was three and never even knew my mom was married and had a daughter. He had a bad heart, and the family thought the news would kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler received a chilly greeting whenever she visited her grandmother\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would never touch or hug me. She was a seamstress, and she would make clothes for my doll. But that was all. It impacts me to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler attended all-black schools until her parents decided to enroll her in a private school in third grade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the only person of color from third grade through eighth,\u201d she says. \u201cEven though I\u2019m light-skinned, I identified as black. I always have. On the outside, people don\u2019t know what I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler says life at school was much different than life at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned to navigate through those two worlds,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Butler formed World Trust in 1991 with two partners who have since gone their separate ways. She has produced four documentaries that form the core of World Trust\u2019s teaching tools. Her 2013 film, Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity,<\/em> examines the causes and consequences of structural racism. Jared Bush, writer and co-director of the 2016 Disney animated movie Zootopia<\/em>, watched Butler\u2019s film and asked Butler to serve as a diversity consultant and advisor on their movie, which is about the perils of racial profiling.<\/p>\n

Butler watched early storyboard reels and offered feedback to the creative team of mostly white men. Bush told World Trust that Butler\u2019s input had a deep impact on the final product.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we learned from Dr. Butler and Cracking the Codes<\/em> had a profound effect on the entire storytelling team behind Zootopia<\/em>,\u201d Bush said. \u201cIt not only changed, but forever deepened the way we approach bias and stereotype.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theme of this year\u2019s conference is \u201cIt\u2019s Our Time,\u201d an examination of which barriers have been broken and which remain. Butler believes \u201cwe\u2019re definitely going backwards now\u201d in terms of racial equity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because people who fell silent because of political correctness and cultural pressure now feel they have the right and duty to say things people haven\u2019t been saying,\u201d she says. \u201cHate crimes are on the rise. People elected are more free to circumvent issues that deal with equality for everyone. It\u2019s pretty scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler\u2019s husband, Rick Butler, is a four-time Emmy Award\u2013winning director and cameraman. They have three children and five grandchildren.<\/p>\n

She dreams not only of a day free of thoughts on race, but a world free of racism. She will speak about that on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to talk about how we really are interconnected as a species, and what happens when we live according to the same values,\u201d she says. \u201cYou experience joy. You may not like someone, but there\u2019s a spark of who they are that you also maintain.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The filmmaker and educator looks forward to a day when she can avoid thinking about race. \u201cA look, a comment. You don\u2019t know what someone means, and racial anxiety sets in. 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