Facebook Publication Date: 43897.752083333

***REQUIRED READING***

Please mark ‘read’ and add a comment showing you have done more than scrolled or skimmed.

If there are elements you feel should be included, please feel free to mention those in the comments as well.

Candidly: I would like to see 100% engagement from each of you. This is important.

With thanks, Your Lace

***************

For a long time, we have resisted formal guidelines for Lace on Race, the assumption being that people would enter this space, and the ethos and mission would be clear and compelling enough to make a list of rules unnecessary. For the most part, this has been true. However, since we are picking up new people every month, in ever greater numbers, we felt it would be wise to be a bit more explicit about expectations and how we operate in here, which is indeed different than other spaces you may have encountered. We have thought and discussed these guidelines, and we truly feel that these new ways of being, codified here, will be beneficial. We appreciate you all, and are so honored and grateful you walk with us. This is just another way of showing that very thing.

*No reacts. Ever.

*We are not an entertainment space. While we hope we are engaging and a pleasant place to be, as well as informative and instructional, we are not here for amusement or as a distraction. We take this work seriously, and we assume that, if you are here, that you take the work as seriously as we do. Toward that end, we ask that you spend enough time here to actually get something from it, and that you not limit yourself to what you find easy. That means different things to different people. How much time spent is an individual choice, but we will say that the more you are here, the more benefit you will receive. Scrolling and rolling is not going to get you to where you say you want to be.

*We have said this before many times. Facebook actively suppresses us; you will find only a fraction of what is here if you depend upon Facebook to include us in your feed. This means, as in everything in Lace on Race, it is on you to make coming here and engaging with the material and with your fellow walkers, an intentional, reliable practice. Like everything in racial justice work, it will not just happen for you. And Facebook aside, there will be no automatic prompt for you to visit and engage with the website.

*If there is no new material posted up by me or by the Admins, that does not mean that there is nothing to gain. We can say this with confidence: very few of you have actually read through and, crucially, *commented on* every pinned post and website article. And even if you have, it is always profitable for you to revisit them. You will encounter them in a new way. And there will probably be new comments for you to engage with.

*Thoughtful posts. They don’t have to be dissertations; a paragraph is fine. But try to stay on topic, and if you have a general observation, pivot to race as quickly as you can. And you always can.

*Because this is indeed a novel space, where you are challenged to interact with both material and your fellow walkers in ways you may not ever have before, we ask that you give yourself the commitment to be here for a period of time, reading, engaging, fully acclimating yourself to the space, and engaging with intent. Merely lurking or spectating is not enough. One of the challenges we have faced here is what we call churn, with people coming in and out. One of the skills you will be building here is how to become a relentlessly resilient and reliable person; this will bode well for you here as well as outside of this space. We are only as faithful and safe as the whole community commits to being.

*Engage with other community members, not just Lace or Marlise or Claire. As important: Engage with those who engage with you. It is damaging to community, and just plain rude, when we ignore each other. We do our best to operate like we’re actually together in my living room or front porch. It’s important to feel connected; engagement with others is the best way to try to create that.

*No blocking of Lace on Race staff, or of community members. Ever.

*Read the pinned posts here on the Facebook Page , and also the posts on the laceonrace. com website . Circle back often; they are added to frequently. There is some overlap between the Page and the website, but there are some real differences. Check both.

*People have wondered what is required reading. The shortest answer is that all of what we present to you is required reading, most particularly pinned posts and the website. We take time and great intention to curate for you the best of what we find. Your way of honoring our efforts is to read with and engage with rigor. We do notice that when we say ‘Required Reading’ on the top of the post, we get greater engagement; still, it is less than 10% of those who actually see the post. That may be ok in other spaces, but here we are New People Doing New Things In New Ways. This includes how we consider our involvement and commitment to this space and with each other.

*Practice Kind Candor. For the purposes of this space, that means no snark or sarcasm, no punching down.

*We call this space a ‘safe-ish’ space for a reason. We deal daily with topics that are activating and challenging. It is your responsibility to be able to hold on to yourself, to hold your own hand, so that you can co-create this safe-ish space with your fellow walkers. Our topics are not always safe or easy; it is imperative that each of us is as safe for each other as possible, as Padrag O Tuama says, to ‘be a place where [our] feet can stand’. That means being here, seen and available, and reliable. This means holding fictive imagination for each other. That means reminding just who it is you are talking to. This means remembering Hesed.

*Please run resources you might want to share with admin staff by shooting us a message. We may use it, we may save it for another time. We are extremely careful about the materials we present to you, and outside resources are assumed to have been vetted by us. As well, we care about pacing and timing; some resources are indeed good, but we as a group are not ready for them yet. (Strong hint: if everyone read and engaged with the pinned posts, particularly the Relational Ethics series, we would be ready that much faster.)

*No deleting. As much as we can, we try to make this space as much like a conversation as possible. That means owning your words much like you would if you were speaking them out loud. As well, no material editing that would change the meaning or intention of your posts. Editing for spelling, grammar or style is fine. If you find you want to make a correction, you can amend under the post or inside the post with a clear disclosure. The original words still stand.

*No shaming, no humiliation. This is not tone policing. This is about making a space you and your fellow community members (including Lace herself) are not just willing, but eager to come to and engage with. We can talk about anything, but not any old way. Remember who you are talking to–fellow walkers who deserve your absolute best.

*As much as possible, we do our work in public. Toward that end we kindly discourage PM’s that attempt to ‘take it outside’ and do an ancillary discussion. We have found this to often be an attempt to avoid accountability. And it damages community cohesion. We should all know the same thing in the same amount at the same time. When we do get PM’s that query or comment, and the admins feel that it is more appropriate on the OP, we will request that you restate your comment or query there. As well, we ask that you keep side conversations to a minimum. We know it is a real temptation when you have friends you either know from other places, or friends you have made here, and that’s great! But having parallel conversations on posts deprives the rest of the community.

*We hope we never have to use this guideline. We know that, when confronting difficult topics, one can get activated, and conflict can arise with community members. This is exactly the time to put the skills you are learning to good use. If you need to, admin staff can walk with you. This community hinges on cohesion and unity; we are walking together. What is imperative is the commitment to hang in. It is crucial to the community that you are and remain a resilient and reliable presence in the community, and it is also important to your own individual and personal praxis. One thing that we are learning here is that learning how to internalize and apply Relational Ethics principles are important both to this space as well as to your outside lives. They must be practiced. We have rarely blocked community members, though we do reserve the right to do so for the safety of the community and the health of this space.

*Lastly, we consider financial engagement crucial, both for the health and sustainability of of this space, but for your personal practice as well. Honoring the work of women of color, both of me and of the contributors we bring to you means making this commitment a non negotiable part of your walk. It means insuring the viability of this space, as well as for the community partners we support–and it encourages your congruence regarding this practice in your outside lives as well. As well, we are different regarding financial engagement in this regard: we overtly ask and expect all who walk here to engage, regardless of how they identify racially and or ethnically. We walk with parity and mutuality here; no exceptions or carveouts.

We are committed to this being a ‘free-ish’ space. This means no paywall; all are encouraged to enter and co create community. This is a risk for us. It means that those for whom this space has value also have a concomitant responsibility to seriously consider and then act upon a conviction to financially engage.

We love this space. So much. And we love each footstep of our fellow walkers. We are convinced that these guidelines are in alignment with our values, and will buttress our ethos and shared commitment to the work.

Keep walking.

Permalink: https://www.facebook.com/laceonrace/posts/pfbid02MXwr2gRbCmaSoWMWdYecxbdrzFREqiJTP6aVBFru1mKxGkZ3o56wzyQ8513UN48pl

Post Type: Link

Caption Type: N/A

Is Cross Post: 0

Is Share: 0

Impressions: 5

Reach: 5

Reactions: 1

Comments: 79

Shares: 0