The Women's Center is a more than 30-year-old institution won through struggle and action towards creating a safe and supportive space to empower women. In theory, this empowerment applies to all women. In practice, however, the problems that plague the society at large also find their way into the women's center.

The incident began over a dispute about the pet policy. A woman wanted to enter the Women's Center with her pet dog, but was told by staff member Lynn Murray that the pet policy only allowed for pets that serve a medical necessity for the owner.

Lynn Murray spoke about the events that day: The dog-owner was not satisfied with this reply and insisted that she should be allowed to enter with her dog. Murray remained firm and reiterated the policy and the reasons for it. When logic failed the dog-owner, she resorted to yelling, making threats and racist remarks towards Lynn, a woman of African descent. The dog-owner is white woman.

Lynn then threatened to call the police and then proceeded to call them. At this point, the dog-owner left.

A few moments letter, a loud crash was heard in the resource room of the Center. A brick had been thrown through a window. The shattered window is just above a couch that fortunately was not occupied at the time.

The police came and filled out a report, but the suspect has so far not been found and has not returned to the Women's center. There was one additional witness to the argument, a visitor to the center. She remained silent during the entire incident.

The Community Responds The Women's Center is located on Pleasant St. several blocks out from Central Sq. It is a well-maintained building that has been converted into a space that serves many functions. The entryway is decorated with handouts and notices of every color of the rainbow. There is a computer room in the basement, a kitchen, several comfortable meeting rooms, offices, and a resource room. The resource room has a bulletin board with more notices and a whole shelf of giant binders with all sorts of information for people seeking housing, healthcare, counseling – you name it. Information about relationship violence is on hand, and the women only calm environs give a sense of support and safety. But violence against women is not always perpetrated by men.

The executive director of the center, Mary Quinn, took the incident quite seriously. She drafted a statement that is printed on orange paper and seeks to explain why what happened is a hate crime, is illegal and asks for help in finding the perpetrator. It further calls on members of the community to interrupt racist behaviors when they see them. “The Women's Center does not tolerate racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, or other attitudes or actions that diminish the humanity of all of us,” it states.

Just as opening a Women's Center in Cambridge has not eradicated male-supremacy in the community, posting a sign won't solve the problem, but it seems that a good number of women at the Center already understand this. The racist attack has become a catalyst for re-examining race, racism, and white-privilege in a more comprehensive way across the Center.

One problem the Women's Center does not have is all white leadership. The board and the staff are both racially diverse. Nevertheless, having participation of people from oppressed groups is generally the easiest thing to change in an organization.

Creating a collective sense of awareness for how racism is manifest in language, assumptions, expectations, etc. is a longer task. The Women's Center is attempting to strengthen the sense of individual responsibility by having trainings for the 50 active volunteers who lead support groups or provide other services at the center. The thinking is that if this front line of active women can have a strengthened collective awareness of racism, than individual women will be empowered to confront incidents and behaviors as they come up at the center.

The most difficult part of uprooting racism in organizations is figuring out how to set the priorities and allocate resources in a way that does not perpetuate white privilege. When Mary Quinn came in as the new director several years ago, things shifted positively in this direction. She comes from a welfare rights organizing background, a struggle where race, class, and gender oppression come square together and must be confronted simultaneously.

Some changes since Quinn brought her more active anti-racism analysis included increasing diversity in the volunteer core. One critical reason for this is so that Women of Color would see women who look like when they visit the center. It helps demonstrate that the center welcomes all women.

Another way that the Center has shifted in recent years to be more inclusive is by changing some of the focus projects. The creation of a computer center for low-income women who do not have access to computers at a workplace or are unable to afford one at home is an example of addressing a need that is important to Communities of Color, who are disproportionately shut out of resources and access to technology.

Of course, white supremacy is not entirely defeated at the Center. A lot of the perpetuation of white-privilege comes in unconscious forms. White women began meeting to confront their own white privilege – this is a positive action. Clearly the Women of Color at the Center should not be asked to shoulder the burden of addressing the racism of white skin privilege. Be that as it may, the question remains, should Women of Color be excluded when they might have the most insight and experience to lend to the effort against it?

On the other side, when Women of Color held a meeting, some white women felt nervous about being excluded. Do those of us women who are white really understand that the situation is not symmetric? That we have privilege that we don't even notice most of the time? Do we notice that we can choose to “opt out” of dealing with racism, but Women of Color can’t?

Lynn wants people to know that the brick throwing is not an isolated incident. As she puts it, “Bricks of one kind or another get thrown every day.” Perhaps most are only visible if you do not have white skin privilege or an internalized sense of second class status.

Hope is found in how this community moves forward. Lynn explains, “We need to not just be reacting to incidents like this one. We need to be integrating anti-racism work into everything we do.” Toward this end, in addition to the trainings and agenda shifting that is already ongoing, the Women Center is seeking community input on how to improve. They will host a community forum this fall to get feedback about how to be more than just a haven from male-violence and male-supremacy, hopefully a haven from all violence and all forms of oppression.

An oasis of justice in the heart of a very racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic society? Maybe it isn't possible, but it is certainly a goal worth struggling for. We at The Bridge commend the Women's Center for their struggle.