Image Description: Illustration of colorful valleys and peaks with the sun partially visible on the horizon in the distance. Getty Images via Unsplash.
There are many ways to measure time and multiple timelines unfolding at once. As the Year of the Snake begins and Q1 winds down, we (like many others) are juggling various practical, essential tasks: finalizing contracts, submitting reimbursements, and strategizing responses for the shifting funding landscape. We’re balancing these practical tasks with the metaphysical work of connecting with our values, intention setting, and reflection. This balance led us to revisit reflections from our colleagues who attended Race Forward’s biennial racial justice conference, Facing Race. That post-conference debrief quickly bloomed to include the wonderings, longings, and commitments we’re weaving into the months and years ahead.
We offer some of those reflections, takeaways, and questions here. May you also have time to attune to your longings and commitments (individual and collective) amidst the demands of this moment.
Democracy is a tall order, especially in a multiracial context. Post-conference and post-election, folks spoke of a deeper appreciation for the complex task of creating democratic processes when there isn’t a shared history, identity, experience, or geography on which to scaffold our efforts. We ask: How do we redefine “winning” so that all of us get our needs met?
Movement dogma — and the corresponding elitism — has reached a point of diminishing returns. Over the past decade some of our progressive movement practices have calcified into gospel that can’t be questioned without conflict. Additionally, some of our key concepts and tenets – like DEI and inclusion– have been reduced to buzzwords. The meaning behind the words gets diluted. And often the terms are US-centric, undermining our potential for international solidarity. In this moment, shared understanding and deep reciprocal learning need to be prioritized over semantics. We ask: How can we practice rigor without rigidity? How can we amplify true alignment instead of pressuring ourselves to conform to elitist-coded ideals?
“We will rescue ourselves through democracy, not in spite of it,” said Kim Anderson, Executive Director, National Education Association (NEA). We need each other. Connection and attunement are key across our multiple and layered differences, so that we can deepen our understanding of each other’s fears and motivations, needs and desires, gifts and strengths. Democracy doesn’t mean that we always agree, but that we turn towards each other, tune in, and find some agreement. It means that we prioritize ways of being that hold sacred our common humanity and the gift of life on this planet. We ask: How can we listen, collaborate and network to leverage each other’s skills, interests, and capacities for the benefit of all life?
Organizers have been strategizing for this moment. As a whole, IISC operates as a capacity-building nonprofit and is a step removed from front line organizing. Many of our practitioners come from political organizing backgrounds and/or participate in organizing efforts. Even the seasoned among us are working to get clear about how to organize in this moment and in this landscape. Folks who attended Facing Race were energized to hear from organizers who offered strategies and plans to meet this moment, like People’s Action. We ask: How can we infuse our capacity-building with an organizer’s mindset (i.e., amplifying people power, building critical connections, championing principled struggle)? How can we prioritize supporting organizers?
What questions are you and your community holding as you navigate this moment? What answers are emerging as you wonder? If you want to work or wonder together, know that we’re always here.
This Black History Month is a harder one than most. It’s a marker of a terrible moment when our president is calling for an end to racial justice and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs. His actions are fueling the resurgence of white nationalism and scaring institutions to backtrack on their equity work. The stakes are high: hostile workplaces, preferences for jobs and opportunities to the elite, and an erasure of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color history. And this doesn’t have to happen on our watch. There is much we can and must do together to ensure these next four years don’t set America back for decades. There’s a lot of faulty information and fear out there. We don’t have to settle for it.
This month and beyond, we need to tap into the strength and love of Black history to move forward boldly. Below are ways we can do this.
1. Support civil rights and civil liberties legal organizations.
Civil rights and liberties organizations are already filing lawsuits to stop the implementation of orders that attempt to dismantle racial justice, DEIA, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigrant protections. Many executive orders signed by past administrations, including the current one, have been knocked down, in part or in full because they violated the US Constitution and civil rights laws from Title VII to the Americans with Disability Act. We can stand against discrimination and unfair practices. We can support the organizations fighting in the courts. Organizations run by Black leaders and legal institutions such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, the Protecting DEI Coalition, and organizations like ACLUs around the country are pivotal to the strategy to challenge racist and discriminatory policies.
2. Remember your power and independence if you’re not in the federal government.
The administration’s most recent policies apply most directly to the federal government, although there are attempts to influence the private sector and others to follow suit. If you don’t receive or if you reject federal funding and contracts, and you are a non-profit, a charitable foundation, or a private company or business, you can use this opportunity to hold the line. Unless Congress or your state passes new laws, continue to move forward with your racial justice and equity work and don’t look back. Even when laws are passed, check in with your networks to understand the actual implications. For example, if certain words are targeted, you can still do critical anti-oppression work. Here is an example from leaders in climate justice about how to remain conscious of disparate impacts in your policy and legislative work. Let’s also support the organizations and brave leaders who are standing up to protect federal employees and civil rights in federal agencies.
3. Amplify and advance your racial justice work.
Consider all the benefits it has brought you. At IISC, as we partner with organizations and cities to build out racially just and equitable practices, we’ve seen firsthand how they become better institutions and agencies as a whole. They seed new ideas, improve outcomes for people and communities, recruit and retain collaborative leaders, and center humane workplace practices that benefit all. In fact, in the report, Blocking the Backlash: The Positive Impact of DEI in Nonprofit Organizations, nonprofit workers were most positive about the workplace when their organizations employed five or more diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. And we know that employee morale just makes good economic and common sense.
If you pause your racial justice and equity work, you can expect to be left behind by organizations who will benefit from diverse approaches, to lose your best employees if they don’t feel valued or respected, and to be exposed to lawsuits from employees who experience discrimination. We must show what happens if we don’t advance racial justice and equity work. If we see trends toward toxic workplaces, violence, and poorer health, employment, and educational outcomes, let the media and our communities know about it.
4. Stand up and be visible and bring in new allies.
Recently, I was on a call with 3,500 Black women leaders around the country fighting for civil rights and justice. They are clear that we are too quiet at this moment. We must make the time and muster the confidence to contact those who can influence change quickly: policymakers, companies we do business with, social media organizations, and media outlets that have rolled back their equity and democracy commitments. We can protest in our streets, neighborhoods, and workplaces. We can put a spotlight on what’s wrong and remind our country of the benefits of inclusion, shared power, and repair. We can ask for help from other leaders and organizations if we get attacked. Let’s keep expanding our movements by identifying new allies who share our values. Let’s be proactive and reach for people who have not yet joined us. For example, think about veterans, parents, rural communities, working-class communities, labor unions, and faith-based communities who share our values.
5. Move into leadership everywhere you are.
If you are a BIPOC or white leader, or leader of any background, who understands what it means to create a better workplace and institution by investing in racial justice and equity, we need you to stand up against the backlash and push forward the broader vision of collective wellbeing. The movement for racial justice has never been a single-issue movement. Racial justice is immigrant justice, gender justice, trans justice, and economic justice. Fight for all and stand together. Join the ranks of leaders in communities and institutions of all kinds who are pursuing justice. Run for school board and other municipal-level positions, or state and federal office. Become board chair of an organization or company. Seek support from those in similar positions so you can build coalitions and protect one another if attacks come your way. Gain allies and champions and do the work that you know is necessary to defend hard-fought victories, protect the most vulnerable people in our communities, and build toward a bold future in which we all thrive.
We have a lifetime to stand tall and powerful against assaults on our communities and to build a better and enduring future. Even though damage will be done over the next four years, let’s remember that the struggle for civil and human rights is as old as the country itself. Some of our civil rights laws have been around for sixty years while others have been in place since the first Reconstruction Era. For the past fifty years and more we’ve seen the power of working for justice by developing and implementing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies and practices.
You can’t take away what has been learned, built, and integrated into our minds, hearts, and structures that easily. The muscle has been developed and the space has been claimed. We don’t have to comply. We can be courageous in collaboration as we continue working together to build the future we all need and want.
Need support in this moment? We’ve got you. See Resources in the Age of 47, our living document filled with tools for action, resilience, and justice. Updated weekly—share it with your networks!
Collaboration Lab participants discuss social and economic resiliency at The Point CDC.
The following post and pictures appeared recently on the Hunts Point Resiliency website. Since 2015, a team of us at IISC have been working with the New York Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and the Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resilience (ORR) to design and facilitate a robust public engagement process around a HUD-funded resiliency planning effort in the Hunts Point community of the South Bronx.
The Hunts Point Resiliency Project builds off of Hunts Point Lifelines, one of six winning proposals from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Rebuild by Design competition in 2013. The City has $45 million of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding to advance resiliency in Hunts Point through further study and implementation of a pilot project. In March 2016, the City selected HDR, Inc. to lead two feasibility studies for energy resiliency and flood risk reduction, as well as conceptual design and environmental review for a resilient energy pilot project. IISC has taken the lead in designing an engagement structure and process for community organizations, business owners, elected officials, City agencies, and local residents to identify resiliency priorities, do public eduction outreach, and provide feedback that informs the project.
The Collaboration Lab was designed in partnership with The Point CDC to help deepen these conversations, looking at resiliency in more holistic terms (economic, social, cultural) and also strengthen connections between community members and organizations and City agencies.
This is a follow-up post to one from a few months ago focused on public engagement structures as important contributing factors to community resilience. The previous post ended by noting another important part of the engagement for resilience story is process.
For work we at IISC have done in a variety of communities, we have strived to ensure that public engagement processes are accessible, equitable, contribute to self-empowerment and community resilience, and get to other meaningful and desired outcomes. To this end, we have brought a number of process design considerations (see list below), all viewed through our collaborative change lens, which lifts up power, networks and love as central features to building real capacity for change. Read More
Many of us who identify politically as left of center, and who work in nonprofits or foundations, have been upset, shocked, angry, sad, disappointed and more about the election of Donald Trump last week.
In reaction to this loss, many are awakening to the white supremacist (alt-right) forces gaining strength in our county. Many people are experiencing a greater degree of fear for our nation and for their safety than ever before. In the last week, I have witnessed a few reactive behaviors that are not going to serve us through this time. If we don’t stop ourselves from practicing these behaviors, we are in danger of pursuing short-sighted strategies that end up preserving the status quo, rather than taking advantage of this moment to push us forward toward a greater force of woke people standing for justice.
A team of us at IISC are partnering with an engineering firm to work on a climate change resiliency planning initiative in a vulnerable neighborhood in New York City. Our role is to lead the creation and implementation of a “stakeholder engagement plan” for broad-based input into project deliverables, including a fully funded infrastructure project and a feasibility study.
In developing our proposal for this initiative, we were guided by the notion that resiliency can and should be a core feature of social structures and processes. That is, threats to resiliency are found not simply in conditions such as low lying coastal communities or lack of back-up energy generation, but also in social disconnection and impaired flows of key resources. We were already aware of some of the vulnerabilities of this particular community, as well as its strengths in that it is well-organized and has a considerable density of social services and community organizations. That said, even when there are such assets in a neighborhood, there are many examples of municipally-sponsored projects that by-pass or fail to fully honor existing assets and networks in a community, with results ranging from missed opportunities to actually leaching resources (including time and trust). Read More
Everything around us is designed. This stage, this auditorium fills 4,000 people and its sole design purpose is to have you focus on me. That’s how it’s structured. But there are other consequences of this design. So, for example, if you happen to be about six feet tall you’re probably hoping I’ll start talking so you can get your knees out of the front of the chair in front of you, right? Or if you happen to be, you know 4’5” or under you can’t wait to put your feet back on the ground. Those are the flaws in these designs because what we tend to do in this world is design for the middle and forget about the margins. What these new movements are saying to us is that it’s actually in the margins that we have to concentrate our design. And this feels a little counterintuitive, right, is that if you actually pay attention to the margin and design for them you actually cover the middle. It’s like a tent, right? If you take a tent and you stake it far out at the margins, well guess what, the middle is always covered. And the further out you stake it the stronger the structure you get. And why is that? Because in our systems and our social systems the people at the margins are actually living with the failures of the systems. And they are creating adaptive solutions to them. So when we design to take care of them we build stronger systems for everyone.
In this final segment of our three part interview, Dr. Ceasar McDowell introduces some early experiences that have inspired his work in community development. He also discusses the evolution of how we organize ourselves as human beings in community. He comments that while in the past we were born into specific communities or chose communities that were local and familiar, now “all of that has changed.” He adds that “we often find ourselves in places where we can’t then build an integrated community, so we look at how do we then take care of that other part of ourselves, which we can say is spiritual, relational, whatever it may be…For some people, they start to do it around work, or they do it around their habits, or they do it around church…All of that still keeps us separate, because now you’re holding this multiplicity of the places where you’re finding your identity and yourself and your connection, and it ends up being fragmented in some ways.” Dr. McDowell continues by exploring this new space that we find ourselves in, one of transition and change.
As we consider the changing socio-economic context in Europe and further afield, as the complexity of multi-faceted issues becomes ever more apparent and foundations try to figure out what to do to make change happen, one thing is certain. Conversations need to be started, understanding needs to be reached, agreements need to be built. This is where facilitation comes in. Facilitation creates the kind of safe spaces for people to discuss the most difficult and controversial issues. Our local work in Northern Ireland is a reminder of the need to engage in building peace and nurturing shared societies at local levels, group by group, community by community. At the core of this work is creating the conditions whereby people can begin to hear each other and be, to quote J P Lederach, ‘paradoxically curious’. Curious about each other, about how we see the world and about what drives us to hold – and defend – the positions we adopt.
In the second of this three part interview, Dr. Ceasar McDowell details his vision for democracy as an ongoing process of interaction and engagement. He shares that the work of democracy is “how people come to know and understand both each other, the issues that are important to them, and how they want to make meaning together.” He adds that his current work is focused on the idea of Big democracy which he describes as, “an aspiration. And at the core of this aspiration is the belief that the public is fully capable of working together to create sustainable, just, and equitable communities. But to do so the public must have ongoing, peaceful ways to interact around traditions that bind them, and interests that separate them, so they can realize a future that is an equitable improvement on the past.”
Since the origins of this country we have been embedded in a belief about the hierarchy of human value, a belief that some lives are more important than others. Two examples of this clearly expressed are racism and sexism. As long as this belief system persists, it will undermine democracy. One way it shows up is as microaggressions, those little bitty acts that say to someone, “you don’t belong, you can’t be trusted, you’re less-than”. It’s a message a black man gets crossing the street in front of a car when people lock their doors. Or the catcalls a woman gets walking down the street. Brain scientists are teaching us that these types of aggressions are deeply wired in our brain and to change them we actually have to change the experiences that people have.
An antidote to microaggressions are micro-inclusions. These are little symbolic actions that force us to recall our humanity. They’re acts of humanity that signal to those at the margins they are included.
“We can create a public that includes us all, and together bring in a new form of democracy.” -Ceasar McDowell #BigDemocracy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IISC President Ceasar McDowell brought Big Democracy to TEDx Indiana University on November 13, 2015. The talk explores how disconnections in narrative, communications, and design stand in the way of democracy and what today’s global social movements are doing to repair these connections. McDowell articulates that we are in a new era called Big Democracy, one which can hold the diversity and complexity of people in the world.
McDowell calls on the audience of 4,000 to begin the change today by practicing a micro-inclusion, or small way to show someone “you’re included, I can see you’re there.”
The talk closed a powerful evening of speakers around the theme “Eyes on the Stars, Feet on the Ground.” Thanks to everyone at TEDx Indiana University for the invitation to speak and for an incredibly well-produced event.
