the root
reparations [re-pə-ˈrā-shəns]
n. a repairing or keeping in repair
v. the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury
For years, we (Trish and Aida) identified with a very particular kind of leadership development. We were taught and ascribed to a model that put us in the business of identifying anyone from grassroots member leaders to emerging nonprofit professionals and imbuing them with a set of skills and experiences that would move them up a predetermined “leadership ladder.” The goal of this model was ascension, ideally for traditionally marginalized individuals.
By the time both of us arrived at our positions with the Center for Community Change in 2016 and 2017, we were carrying many questions and concerns about the value of this model to the communities we cared about based on our experiences with leaders and as leaders ourselves. Where exactly was this ladder leading us and our people? We were clear enough to know that if the answer wasn’t liberation, then there was no real point.
We were fortunate enough during this period of questioning to have our analysis sharpened by other women who had been sitting with similar questions—Dr. Charlene Sinclair, Zuri Tau, Nijmie Dzurinko, Tufara Mohammed, and Margaret Post. Together we held what we called a “second space” to begin to consider what it might look like to cultivate leaders who built community power through self-, organizational-, and community-wide transformation rather than by amassing it individually and ascending to positions where it could be wielded. We wondered and experimented together about what a training space might look like that had these goals in mind. How would the curriculum and the pedagogy be different than what we had experienced and taught in the past? How would we create an environment brave and grounding enough to spark radical imagination and for folks to proceed from a deep sense of purpose? Who and what would have to be present? What assumptions might we have to let go of and unlearn?
Calling In & Up is an offering of some of the lessons learned from our journey into and through these questions.
"Oppression and inequity are sustained and advanced through the control of systems (economic, educational, judicial, etc.) and ideas. The powerful—those in charge, those with authority and money—have always used their ideological power to shape thought and define what is normal, valuable, right, and wrong. And within a social order that is firmly rooted in the practices of nationalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, it follows that the knowledge and leadership of the people who society considers marginal will be suppressed. Even organizations and individuals with the best intentions can and do replicate these patterns. Practicing equity starts when the ideas and strategies of marginalized people are elevated."
Zuri Tau
Picking Up the Mantle
Fifty years ago, some of the founders of Black Feminist ideology—the Combahee River Collective—were in the process of articulating how to dismantle injustice. Their words resound today as a reminder of how far we need to go and the path we must take to get there.
We are bearing witness to the reality we see legislatively, electorally and situationally, that time and again when Black women set the agenda for transformative solutions to structural racism, we all do better. We also bear witness to the current, enthusiastic rhetoric around “trusting” women-identified people of color when the one thing our movements and organizations have consistently failed to do is demonstrably embrace their leadership.
We call in and lift up women-identified people of color, holding space for them to cultivate their leadership within a community that activates love as a tool for getting free and repairing harm.