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!
In the weeks following the election, I was on the road all over the country, gathering with thousands of leaders, organizers, and funders. When I got on the plane to Washington, DC on the day after the election, I felt a power I didn’t know I had—to look straight into the face of my worst fears for our country and greet it with power and resolve.
The memory of Harriet Tubman jumped into my body. I felt ten-feet taller and engulfed in a heavy cloak of protection. Harriet brought enslaved Africans to freedom in Canada through an elaborate system of travel, shelter, and care. Harriet could easily have brought her family to Canada and stopped there, but she repeatedly came back to the United States and carried hundreds of others to freedom. Her unyielding bravery reminds us that the fight for justice isn’t a singular act but a lifetime commitment to freedom for all. Her legacy fuels my determination and our collective mission at IISC to keep returning for those still seeking liberation.
She was not done. I am not done. IISC is not done.
What I learned from my days in DC and in subsequent convenings and conversations is that we have a duty to work for justice—for ourselves and for others, unequivocally. Come January and the inauguration, we will enter a strong era of oppression and suppression. Rest assured IISC will not let any human or system of hate stop the work for justice. We will work to significantly expand human connection and collaboration so that no oppression or its deep shards of pain and injustice can stand.
At IISC, we know this country has the potential to reset in the right direction. Doing so will require us to be facilitative leaders—people who create the conditions for everyone to lead, to forge new pathways, to reach for and love “the other,” and to create enduring and bold networks that together are big enough and resilient enough to take on any fight that comes its way.
We’re so excited to launch new offerings to support you. Our staff and members of our “Dream Lab” will roll out a new interactive learning session in 2025 on network leadership, a training on shared leadership, a new program to amplify and protect the leadership of women of color who are leading organizations and brave movements, and more. These resources are designed to prepare you for this next chapter in America’s story.
Go back to your communities and expand who will be on the side of love and liberation so that we can reach our North Star. Change what you can control—make your workplace more humane, join actions of resistance, talk with people who others won’t talk with, and collaborate instead of competing out of fear.
Powerlessness is pernicious. But it can’t stand up to the strength of connection, collaboration, and interaction. And the persistence of love, the greatest force for change.
I started my day today with my regular spiritual practices and the music of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Their music was the soundtrack of my political and spiritual awakening. I found wisdom there for this day, and borrowed the title of this post from their song of the same name.
It’s important for me to acknowledge the disappointment, anger, and fear that I and many people feel in this moment, and to hold one another gently as we grieve. Rumi wrote: “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” And so I enter this day with resolve, looking at the wound and also looking for the light that can enter through it. Sweet Honey shines a light through their song I Remember, I Believe.
I don’t know how my mother walked her trouble down I don’t know how my father stood his ground I don’t know how my people survived slavery I do remember, that’s why I believe
While we face hard times today, this isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. Our ancestors faced even harder times. They, and our descendants, are counting on us to weather this storm.
The late love warrior John Lewissaid, “Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we must all take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.”
I am asking myself, What must this generation do now? What do we – the larger movement for justice and also IISC – need to learn? What do we need to change? How do we protect those most at risk and encourage those who feel despair? How can we “block and build” in this moment and the season to come?
As we live our way into the answers, let’s remember that we are in this together and we cannot give up. And as the lyrics of another Sweet Honey in the Rock song remind us,”We who believe in freedom cannot rest … Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot, I’ve come to realize that teaching others to stand and fight is the only way our struggle survives.” (Ella’s Song)
As you review the framework, would you share your responses to the questions below in the comments?
What does it bring up for you?
Where do you find yourself focusing your thinking and efforts?
What might you want to explore, start, continue or further develop, or stop doing in any of the stages?How does the framework help you prioritize and perhaps find empowering areas for action and partnership?
As you navigate the complex times of COVID-19 and racial uprising, consider what it would take to transition through these four dimensions, what needs to be in place, what is already in place, and what we need to reimagine and rebuild.
1 – In the Trauma Dimension: How are we responding to the impact of trauma from COVID, racism, and other shocks?
Racial Equity & Justice:
Are we removing racialized barriers to emergency resources?
Are we using a racial equity impact analysis tool to understand and evaluate our response? Even when we feel rushed?
Are we recognizing deep racial harm in our organization and networks?
Collaboration:
Are we pausing and engaging in quick and meaningful stakeholder engagement to guide our responses and ensure less harm?
Are we attending to both relationships and results as we carry out our work?
Love:
Are we acting and responding with humility, empathy, and transparency?
Are we practicing presence and accountability?
Networks:
Are we connecting with diverse networks to gather and share information and foster flows to address critical needs?
2 – In the Reckoning Dimension: How are we grappling with deep distress and the reality of shifting resources? How are we embracing racial uprisings for change? How are we embracing uncertainty?
Racial Equity & Justice:
Are we acknowledging inequities revealed by crisis?
Are we acting to undo the racialized impacts of our actions?
How are we recognizing the leadership of Black people and what are the lessons for our organizations?
Are we engaged in transparent and collaborative decision-making?
Are we facilitating conversations and activities to face the pain and opportunity of this crisis, our potential power together to make change, while also planning for next steps?
Love:
Are we embracing where people are? Their feelings, conditions, perspectives?
Are we modeling vulnerability as a sign of strength?
Are we exploring the reality through the lens of love and possibility?
Networks:
Are we setting strategic direction with critical partners?
Are we listening for and following the ideas of BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, people of color)?
3 – In the Healing Dimension: How are we creating the conditions for healing and well-being?
Racial Equity & Justice:
Are we supporting BIPOC people and communities to move through trauma, grief and anger toward joy?
Are white people leaning into discomfort, trauma and pain, and working that through with other white allies?
Collaboration:
Are we generating and living into community care guidelines to support self-care and collective well-being?
Are we designing and facilitating in ways that allow people to process holistically – intellectually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually?
Love:
Are we convening grounding conversations that allow for brave space, emotions, and truth sharing?
Are we offering resources for healing modalities?
Are we acknowledging all paths to healing?
Are we meeting pain with action and redistributing power and resources?
Networks:
Are we deepening networks and attending to flows of resources that create healing and well-being for people?
Are we setting up more distributive structures focusing on regenerative flows of resources of many kinds?
4 – In the Transformative Futures Dimension: How are we envisioning and living into equitable and resilient futures?
Racial Equity & Justice:
Are we pivoting from supremacist and extractive practices to what is liberating and life-honoring?
Collaboration:
Are we facilitating leaders to envision and invest in equitable and resilient futures?
Love:
Are we encouraging building futures from the lessons of love, possibility, and shared humanity?
Networks:
Are we fostering a new level of learning, sustainability, innovation and radical collaboration with people and our planet?
Are we focusing on systems change and building long-term movement?
Note: This blog was authored as a framework to assist leaders moving people and organizations through COVID-19. Shortly after it was written, the racial uprisings of 2020 began after the many deaths of Black people in the United States. We have since updated this framework to bridge the approaches we believe are necessary for navigating both COVID-19 and racial injustice. Please view this blog and new resource.
As we find ourselves rowing in uncharted, uncertain, and scary waters, feeling like we’re up against waves of deep tension and crisis, we know that we need to row together in new and deeply collaborative ways. Yet under current conditions, many leaders are overwhelmed with concern about their own organizations; their staff, volunteers, Board, constituencies, and networks. We are all problem solving minute-to-minute and facing many critical decisions – decisions which could determine if people have a source of income, if they will receive essential services, and, indeed, even if they will remain healthy and alive.
We need to support leaders at all levels – individually, organizationally, and at the level of the ecosystem of networks around them – to work strategically and collaboratively in this critical moment. We are using IISC’s Collaborative Change Lens, to harness the power of collaboration by focusing on love, racial equity, and networks. We are supporting leaders online, and will eventually support them in-person (yes, that day will come), to plan and move through the stages of transformation offered in this framework during the pandemic and beyond.
Organizations, communities, networks, and even individuals may experience these stages in linear ways. Or, they may dip in and out of the stages at different times as they move through challenges and opportunities. We are supporting them to shift from emergency responses to creating conditions for resilient futures that create regenerative and equitable systems that are sustainable for the longer-term. This includes helping individuals and groups “do what they do best and connect to the rest,” and to act in networked ways to strengthen response and movement.
As you review the framework, would you share your responses to the questions below in the comments?
What does it bring up for you?
Where do you find yourself focusing your thinking and efforts?
What might you want to explore, start, continue or further develop, or stop doing in any of the stages?How does the framework help you prioritize and perhaps find empowering areas for action and partnership?
Facilitate rapid problem-solving and decision-making in the face of immediate needs, heightened risk, chaos, and/or uncertainty.
_____
Collaboration Priorities:
Focus on relationships and results for rapid decision-making and crisis management
Engage in quick and meaningful stakeholder engagement of those impacted by critical and consequential decisions to generate effective responses.
Ground all decisions in what is best for our shared humanity and fate.
Love:
Act and respond with love, humility, empathy, and transparency.
Let those in critical need know they are not alone.
Show up with and model presence and focus.
Racial Equity:
Avoid “savior syndrome” and respect the dignity and voice of those most in need in the moment.
Recommit to racial equity practices and approaches from the organization’s past that can build resiliency.
Anticipate and remove racialized barriers to accessing emergency resources and uniquely tailor responses to account for historic inequities to eliminate disparities in the emergency response.
Networks:
Foster connectivity and flows between leaders in various sectors and ecosystems to gather and share information, understand the current reality, and respond to complex problems.
Tap into diverse networks to address critical needs and discover new possibilities.
Eliminate bottlenecks and liberate the flow of critical resources.
Grapple with the reality of fewer resources and more distress within the organization/community.
_____
Collaboration Priorities:
Facilitate conversations and coordinate activity to prepare for emerging into a period of relative stability, focusing on shared and equitable leadership.
Work with others to read patterns; probe, sense, and respond iteratively to achieve stability.
Love:
Shape conversations, cultures, and approaches to exploring the current reality through the lens of love and possibility.
Embrace the full complexity of where people are and how they are experiencing current reality.
Model vulnerability as strength.
Encourage people to reach for connection to experience belonging and avoid isolation.
Racial Equity:
Acknowledge and address the reality of stark racial disparities in our social systems that the emergency reveals. Remember and communicate that equity is not the same as equality.
Collect and examine data on who has been impacted by your and others’ decisions and how; determine new paths and approaches to root out inequities.
Foster deeper trust and network connections by continuing to exchange ideas and resources.
Build a gift culture where people offer what they can for the good of the whole.
Set strategic direction with critical stakeholders and partners. Join forces, align, or merge.
Create the conditions for healing and well-being for people in groups, networks, and sectors in which we live and work.
_____
Collaboration Priorities:
Model communication and consistent practices of support, cooperation, and coordination.
Generate and live into community care and mutual aid guidelines to support healing, refreshment, self-care, and improved physical and emotional well-being of oneself and others.
Love:
Convene healing conversations that allow for brave space, nourishment, emotions, truth, and care.
Leave channels of communication open for how people are feeling and experiencing things.
Remind everyone that individuals will be in different places at different times, and that is okay.
Racial Equity:
Make space for people with shared racial identities or a shared purpose to come together to move through and release trauma collectively, and to experience liberation.
Design and facilitate in ways that allow people to process holistically – intellectually, physically, emotionally, spiritually.
Networks:
Generate new connections or deepen older ones to refresh and heal on individual, interpersonal, organizational, and network levels.
Attend to flows of resources that create healing and well-being for people.
Envision, live into, and develop capacities for new and better futures
_____
Collaboration Priorities:
Facilitate leaders, organizations, and networks to envision and generate elements of a new future that is different from what was imagined before the emergency.
Create emergent learning spaces for people to share what they are experimenting with and learning.
Love:
Imagine a future from the lessons and examples of love, possibility, mutual aid, and collective care.
Build systems, processes, and practices that begin to manifest the future that you envision.
Racial Equity:
Design your vision and future practices by grounding them in the value of transformative equitable well-being and thriving.
Pivot from supremacist, extractive practices to what is fundamentally liberatory and life-honoring.
This week, my boss told me she loved me. It was not problematic, in fact it was beautiful. It was following a few days we had taken as the IISC network to get clear on our next strategic steps, considering how we are part of a movement of racial equity change makers.
While we have spoken for several years about how love is a central part of our collaborative change lens, we are doing an ever-better job of embodying it, first with ourselves and then with our clients.
Cornel West tells us that justice is what love looks like in public. He and others have revitalized a tradition that is more holistic and does not segregate love, both in the feeling state and the action state, from our work for equity. Many have preceded us who carry that wisdom. In gatherings of activists and change makers, I hear people yearning for our full humanity, to be able to have emotions as we work, to feel whole in our beings, to feel like we each belong. In our work spaces, especially when we are working at our life purpose, we yearn for satisfying and impactful spaces where we are paid what we need, can bring a wholeness, and can enjoy people and art. One of our labor foremothers in Lawrence, Rose Schneiderman, put it this way– “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”
Over the past five years, we have been trying to center love. We do that in light ways, by using the word, and by bringing a variety of practices to our IISC and client spaces: intentional breathing and meditation, appreciations, embodying joy and love as we start a day, reclaiming space and time for fun and playfulness and relaxation. While these can be light touch, they are also not to be underestimated. Too frequently, we and others, make it through many a work day without any of this.
And this year we have been committing to dipping our toes in further. Some of the ways we are experimenting with and aspiring toward love at IISC:
We prioritized a small group of practitioners to imagine what equity work with love at the center looks like and how that differs from an organizing or facts-based strategy
We let each other know that everyone belongs and that everyone is loved.
We take pauses before entering difficult work or conflict settings
We try to start our own and other gatherings from a place of vision and abundance
We are embedding more practices into our training and consulting and coaching work
Love is definitely an emotion and can be expressed in words. It can also be felt more fully if it is in everything we do from how we interact throughout the day, to how we design spaces, to how we use time and build in pauses, to how we deal with mistakes and conflict.
This week, as we gathered around what might be heady material, editing our theory of change and planning our next strategic steps, we used half a day to get to know each other and our cares through honoring ancestors, building an altar, and talking about our fears and anger. And this intent was spread throughout our time.
One activity that many found deeply connecting is described below. I am calling it “Greeting with love and joy.” It was intended to ground, to center joyfulness, and from there to greet one another in silence and with a depth of connection.
These are some of the ways the activities and spaciousness made me feel vulnerable, more willing to share more truth, more open to hearing others and more open to seeing them fully, less reactive, loved.
Love surely is the answer to many questions. And it is not easy. We need to honor the time it takes, and we need to take seriously how to prioritize and integrate love, especially during times of conflict, and in all our work, including finance!
We are curious how love comes to work for you. What are some examples? Where are you feeling challenged?
Greeting with Love and Joy
This activity starts with time in a standing meditation to get grounded and connected to the world around us, to “gather” some elements we might need and to recall a time of joy. We then spend time in silence, connecting to others in the gathering, by walking around and stopping to gaze at another person from that place of joy or love. We end with some music or a chant to allow people to shift back into sound and return to the circle.
Guided breathing to center and to gather elements.
Ask people to stand with legs shoulder-width apart and either eyes closed or gazing down. Lead them through a series of deep breathing:
into their centers.
into their length, grounding into the floor and connecting through the head to the sky, gathering an element from each place.
into their back bodies to feel supported by ancestors and into the front body thinking about their commitment to the work.
into their side bodies to connect to people on either side of them and in the broader community.
back to center to imagine a moment of joy or love, to envision the sound and smells and feel that so they can carry that into the next piece of the activity.
Walking activity
Now let that picture and feeling of joy expand in your body from a kernel in your belly, out through your body, and to begin to expand beyond you.
Walk around for a minute with your eyes mostly down, feeling your joy in your step.
Now, raise your eyes and with the joy throughout your body, stop as you encounter another person. As you encounter each person, you are invited to pause for 10-30 seconds, as you are comfortable, and gaze directly into their eyes. You are bringing your joy & love to the greeting, you are seeing them in their joy, and you are receiving the love and joy in how they are silently greeting you.
Continue this for at least 5-10 minutes so that people can greet most others in the room. Consider integrating virtual participants by having multiple video stations so that participants in the room can stop by those stations to gaze at their colleagues who are remote.
Invite people to return to the circle/their seats. I ended with a short song/chant that I know as a way to bring sound back to the room and transition out of this intense moment of connecting. You can also ask people to journal or share feelings or an appreciation after they return. The intensity is both in insisting that we are connecting from love and in the silent but powerful eye gazing.
The board and staff of Interaction Institute recently gathered to learn from others working to bring about racial equity and to talk about how we build a board structure that supports or propels our work in new ways. To start the day, we did an icebreaker I called, “Reclaim for Liberation.”
A colleague planted this seed. What are the qualities or traits we once had that have been taken from us—by family dynamics or trauma, by histories of oppression, or as we have become adults and try to live in the dominant culture? And which of these do we actually want back?
Sometimes, as we are reaching for liberation, we find ourselves fighting against what exists. What we need more of is the vision of what we are heading toward. And sometimes, we imagine that we need completely new tools and skills and ways of being to get to our vision. What if we actually know (or used to know) most of what we need for transformation?
Growing up in this culture and transforming ourselves to fit, particularly as women and/or people of color and/or queer people, we shed things that are not only elemental to us but deeply important for our ability to move forward. Much of this is related to how white supremacy impacts our ways of being and asks most of us to be much smaller than nature would have us be.
When we did the exercise below, people told each other short stories of what they wanted to reclaim for the journey. The words that came up included play, song, dance, carefree, silly, laughter. And then the members of each small group used their bodies to create a sculpture embodying the words and feelings of their group.
It would have been even more effective if we then had kept those ways of being fully present throughout the day, particularly when more challenging conversations emerged. I would like now for us to practice bringing those skills into difficult conversations and see if they help us to speak and solve together.
Try this meditation and share what you see in the group. Do more possibilities or new pathways forward emerge as a result?
Reclaim for Liberation
Allow 20-30 minutes, ideally.
Let people know that in this work for liberation we sometimes feel that we don’t have all we need for change. And perhaps some of what we need we have lost on the way or was taken from us. We are going to spend time individually and as a group reclaiming some of the lost qualities that can be important to us now.
1. Start with a guided meditation (5-6 minutes to set up and lead people in and out)
Ask people to take up space in the room; to spread out; can stand or sit
Get planted—feeling souls of feet on ground, butt on chair if seated; close eyes or soft gaze
10 deep breaths
Feel your body planted—feel the souls of your feet touching the ground, feel your hands resting on your legs or by your side
Roll each shoulder back—breath into your full breadth, feel connected to those around you
Hear the sounds of the room
Breathe to elongate—feel the roots shooting down from feet, up from the crown of the head reaching toward the sky—feel your full length and integrity
Ask people to travel back in years; begin to imagine a place you felt joy or lightness, a sense of freedom
What sounds do you hear?
What are you seeing around you?
Are there any smells?
Look around
Are you inside or outside?
Is this a place you recognize or a specific setting that is important to your childhood?
Are there people around you or are you alone?
Play in this space, enjoy the feelings.
Is there a piece of yourself that is present that you may have left behind? Is there a feeling or essence of that self that you want to bring forward and reclaim? Is there something (playful, clear, relaxed) that may be useful for your liberation today?
Draw people back to the room – come back into your body, hear the sounds around you, become more conscious of your breathing again, take time to come back into the room, and – when you’re ready – open your eyes.
2. In Trios (8-10 minutes) [decide in advance if there are any instructions needed about how to form trios—such as with people you don’t know or with whom you work less frequently]
Each person gets a minute to share the quality that you want to bring forward. Ask yourself: What did I see in my younger self that might serve me in my liberation work today? Share a picture, words or a posture.
Each group decides on a way to share back with the full group—encourage a physical sculpture or representation that captures everyone’s words or the quality of what was shared
3. Share back with group—up to 1 minute per group.
4. Ask people to call out some of the other words or feelings they want to carry into the day. You may want to capture some on a chart so you have a visual for your time together.
5. Decide as a group how you will keep pulling in these useful ways of being. This can be particularly useful if you have decisions to make or tensions to address. Ask people to consider an embodiment of their word or quality before engaging in such a conversation.
IISC exists to bring the best of collaborative practice to the work of social justice and sustainability. In the early years, some of our detractors felt we were too apolitical, that our call to “get the whole system in the room” was naïve at best and dangerous at worst. Without a power analysis, collaboration across traditional lines of authority, role and identity was of limited interest to some of the organizers and activists we knew. Collaboration might be a good idea for the allies, they thought, but it was silly to think that bringing the power brokers or counterproductive actors in the system into the room with those most affected would lead to meaningful results. That was the early and mid 1990s.
In some ways, our critics were right and we knew it. By the late 1990s, we began to bring diversity and cultural competency explicitly into our framework. After all, collaboration is about working together, and working together across race, class, culture, and role are part and parcel of that kind of work. We stretched our core methodology. We expanded the boundaries of cultural competency to include understanding historic and present-day structural dynamics of oppression and taking action to address structural factors. By the early 2000s we were crystalizing an understanding of power, network theory, and love as critical dimensions of collaboration. Since the late 2000s, we’ve been building tools and methods to bring power, equity, and inclusion into the center of our practice. The next stage of this evolving practice has been an increasingly sharp focus on racial justice in particular, to the point where the pursuit of racial equity is part of our stated mission. And, I’m excited to see how many people see the value of bringing that enriched understanding of collaborative practice to their work for racial justice. At the same time, I’m struck by the continuing importance of protest and civil disobedience to the pursuit of justice.
In this particular moment brings a question into sharp relief in this particular moment. When is it necessary to completely disrupt life or business as usual in order to shine a light on injustices and pursue justice? Can that kind of disruption be done in a collaborative way? What’s the role for confrontation?
I am indebted to Linda Stout and her colleagues at Spirit in Action for their 4Rs approach to social change. They recognize that there are times for Resisting violations of shared values and human rights; Reforming existing systems; Reimagining alternative futures; and Reinventing communities, organizations, and societies from the ground up to reflect the kinds of values we hold dear. If ever there was a time to resist, it’s now. And those who are resisting courageously in ways large and small need spaces of refuge and restoration. It’s exhausting and dangerous work. Reimagining is often led by artists, and the movie Black Panther highlighted the power of reimagining alternative futures. I think that much of our work centers on reforming existing systems, supporting people who are working to transform their institutions from the inside out. And, in a few cases, there are genuine efforts to focus energy and attention on recreating ways of being and doing together that bring the imagined future into reality.
I’ve been sensing a growing desire for a lot more reimagining and recreating. What’s the mix in your work and your world?
Many articles have been devoted to running effective meetings that build collaboration among teams, yet many fail to discuss the hidden element that can destroy a meeting almost without fail.
Power dynamics – the ways in which power works in a setting – can either sink a meeting and negatively impact relationships for years, or produce more shared power and capacity to get things done. A lot of the difference comes down to how we attend to power dynamics in meetings, how well we plan our meetings, how well we determine what happens within and outside of meetings, and how well we facilitate in the moment.
In every organization, there are people who hold formal power and informal power. Formal power is attributed to someone by virtue of their title or position in the organization. People carry informal power if they have influence over others or their organization, either because of their experience, force of personality or persuasion, unearned privilege, or because they have strong relationships with decision-makers and peers. Power is also deeply influenced by diversity and equity dynamics. In most Western societies today, many decisions in organizations are still controlled by people with certain backgrounds: over 40, male, white/European, heterosexual, and middle class and wealthy people. Many feel empowered to lead, speak, and make decisions by virtue of the standing society gives to them on the basis of their background. They get a lot of practice leading and people are acculturated to following and respecting them.
Power — the capacity to get things done — is neither positive nor negative in and of itself. It’s all about how we construct, reconstruct, and practice power. Individuals can exercise their power in healthy ways if they stay focused on making space for others and growing power to achieve positive outcomes by building “power with” others. Individuals and groups can exercise their power in unhealthy ways if they are focused on establishing “power over” others or concentrating power in a few.
At IISC we have made some key observations about power in meetings:
Power dynamics are always present in meetings whether we see them or not.
Every meeting is a chance to build a group’s power and transform power dynamics. It’s important to design and facilitate meetings to create opportunities for power to be shared and openly discussed.
Meeting designers and facilitators must attend to formal and informal power and the dynamics that come along with it.
Meeting facilitators should be mindful of and acknowledge their own power and enact it in a way that builds the power of the group.
Every element of meetings needs preparation to make power and decision-making transparent. Consider questions like: Who is at the meeting and who is not? Why or why not? What’s on the agenda and what’s not on the table for discussion that should be? Who will be making the decisions that flow from what will be discussed (both in the room and beyond)? Who plays which roles and why? What work will happen outside of the meeting? What information from the meeting should be shared and with whom?
So, what are some ways to attend to power dynamics in meetings?
Assume power dynamics are always present in meetings. Design your meeting agenda to include multiple voices and perspectives. Lightly encourage people to step forward to lead and participate, especially if they have less power in the organization either because of role, positional status, race, gender, or other factors. Encourage people with traditional forms of formal power to do more listening than speaking.
Build a culture of collaboration in meetings. Think of meetings as an opportunity for a team to build relationships, learn leadership, design good processes, and counteract unhealthy uses of power. Design your meetings for relationships, joy, and creativity. Good things will follow! Always build an agenda that allows people to first interact on a human basis, such as starting with opportunities for people to do a “check-in” to share how their day or week is going or to learn more about each other on a personal level. Ask people a question that surfaces their personal and professional purpose. Encourage honesty, vulnerability, and calling people “in”, instead of calling people “out”. Spread a little business love around the room, creating openings for people to feel heard and noticed, and to experience a sense of belonging and interconnectedness.
Openly discuss power in meetings. Discuss openly with your team the question, what would be the benefits to our group if we shared power? Remind them that power is not a finite pie; rather, it can be infinite, expanded, and shared among people and leaders. Prompt them to explore how they can share “power with” each other instead of “power over.” Make a list of meeting agreements the group will use to share power. Ask people to monitor the agreements and be brave enough to intervene if people are not practicing them. Make a list of “power over” moves, so people learn the behaviors that reinforce dominant voices and power and exclude others. Have people take mental note of who is speaking the most and who is not. Make sure your discussions of power go beyond yourselves as colleagues to the people or communities you serve. How are they “at the table?” How are their priorities, assets, and skills driving the discussion?
Remember that power is a social construct. We can design spaces where individuals and groups experience their own and others’ power differently. Be proactive about ways to amplify the power of people who are typically at the margins of the conversation. Challenge the group to pay at least as much attention to the expertise that comes from lived experience (say, of poverty) as from formal theories and data. Flip questions on their head by asking “why not do things differently?” instead of “how can we work within given boundaries?” Ensure that people who are affected by the issues you’re working on are at the center of the conversation and have meaningful roles in the work over time (inside meetings and beyond).
Use your role intentionally and thoughtfully if you’re the meeting facilitator. Don’t dominate the discussion. Don’t come up with all the ideas. Stay as impartial as possible, even though you can never truly be completely neutral. If you want to contribute an idea or experience, tell the group you are switching from facilitator role to express your view as an individual and then step back into your facilitator role. Examine who gets to facilitate meetings and who doesn’t. Meeting facilitators can change the outcome of the meeting just by how they design and run it. Rotating facilitation and supporting people to learn how to facilitate and run meetings distributes power and makes meetings more dynamic.
The skills of meeting facilitation with a lens to share power are teachable and replicable. At IISC, we share some of those skills through training and consulting. We have learned that meetings that are both well facilitated and that attend to power dynamics can transform groups into highly functioning teams with deeper purpose and intention for social change.
At Passover, there is a song about being thankful for each thing we are blessed with. Dayenu means “it would have been enough.” It is a call to appreciate the small things and to recognize that they are enough. And yet, within the “enough” there is a simultaneous recognition that the first gift or step is not enough without the next one.
In a world where racism is rampant, and where the impacts are real – often deadly, even – is there an “enough” in terms of being collaborators for change? It feels like it is never enough when lives are at stake.
On the one hand, there is never enough until we have envisioned and called into being the liberated and equitable and pleasing community that allows us all to thrive. This reality requires a commitment that is bone deep. It is the kind of commitment that requires constant thinking and action to live into new ways. It is held knowing that upending racism and racist systems is something to die for.
On the other hand, each action, each change to the individual and to the system, needs to be celebrated. For that one moment, it is enough. As long as we know that a new moment emerges when more is needed, and the past action is certainly no longer enough.
What is the first step and what is the next one? For many white people striving to be collaborators, the work begins with learning and knowing and then shifting awareness, then teaching, then ultimately embodied anti-racism practice in relationship with other white people and people of color. Perhaps a move from external to internal; from pointing out the faults of others to seeing how, despite best intentions, we are each implicated in racist systems; from tight vigilance to looser living and correcting.
Reading books and learning by black artists and intellectuals who have created parts of the world we want Dayenu
Understanding the history of racism and how it got institutionalized in the US and globally Dayenu
Bringing a new consciousness to my actions as I walk through the world Dayenu
Naming racism in all-white spaces Dayenu
Building authentic relationship across difference Dayenu
Helping other white people along the journey through openness and kindness Dayenu
Showing up as a vulnerable person who can acknowledge my mistakes and own my racism Dayenu
Ongoing learning through books, workshops, conversation, community Dayenu
Contributing to and investing in multi-racial community at work and at home Dayenu
Putting my life on the line Dayenu
The work of a white ally or accomplice is never ending, to be sure. It requires a lot of effort. And yet, it should not be a slog. We are doing this for ourselves as much as for anyone else. We recognize that ending white privilege and white supremacy allows us to be full human beings as we disrupt the notion of superiority on which this country was founded.
In my work in trainings and coaching, I encourage both the ongoing effort and the need to celebrate.
Maybe this is one way to be gentle and joyful in our work for liberation – to celebrate each small step as if it were enough while also knowing that it is never enough until we are all free and that we need to want and to create more.
What does it mean to you to do equity work with both insistence and gentleness, step by step?
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach… What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Pursuing racial equity and systems change is a forever equation. I am noticing that our clients and friends believe that if we just implement racial equity, diversity, and inclusion “the right way,” our organizations, movements, and networks will immediately become effective multiracial ecosystems that produce transformative results.
We will always be undone. People and systems – the very world we live in – are ever changing and reverting and that’s why I have to be honest that the work of racial equity will always be unfinished.
People are always coming in and out of our organizations, some with knowledge of our path to create racial justice and others completely unknowing and beginning the discovery of systemic racism. Even if we root out systems of injustice and racism in specific institutions or sectors, they will exist in other places and invariably slip back into our ecosystem. The world is encased in racial stratification. We can dismantle racism in one territory and it can spread elsewhere as people and their ideas travel.
Oppression cannot be fixed. It’s not a linear proposition. It swarms, grows, gets attacked at moments, dissipates, and then finds its way back into our systems as fearful ways of thinking and unproductive ways of doing. And because we are a species and planet dependent on each other, the chronic patterns of racism can reenter our minds and societies. We are imperfect people in deeply imperfect systems.
We are making progress but it’s not the kind where there’s a clear end in sight. We’re learning together. We’re trying new practices of shared power. We’re rooting out racist policies in our laws and organizations. Our systems are feeling the pressure because of our joint actions.
But we won’t do it “right” and we won’t get it “right.” We will be undone.
But don’t let this disappointment get in the way of persistent bold action.
We will have moments of clarity. Moments of seeing new possibilities. Months of progress in our leadership for equity and justice. Years of growth and learning. Examples of power shifting and sharing all around us. Detrimental laws defeated. It will feel like freedom, like less damage is around and inside of us.
Let’s see ourselves as equilibrium makers, re-introducing people to see the problem of racism once again, re-balancing power as the dynamics return, re-calibrating systems when they revert, revisiting change in ourselves and others with humility, and re-birthing our best nature and ideas toward liberation.
Each of us are needed to extricate the roots of racism. We can still be a constant catalyst for change all the while knowing that we will be undone.
