This weekend was astounding for me. My heart is so full.
Claire, one of our Admins, came down from Seattle and we spent some deep time, sharing, weeping, laughing, and eating.
So much eating. Never straying from the little hamlet of La Mesa, next door from San Diego, but in our own world. Along with Marlise, Skyped in from Iowa, we talked about our day to day joys and challenges and the deep privilege of running this space for you.
San Diego is a beautiful city. There are beaches, and mountains, and desert within reach; Balboa Park with the Rose Garden, and our famous zoo.
We saw none of that. We didn’t need to. The task for which we were together, to cleave and to plan and to vision was more humbling and compelling than any sight we could have seen; any beach we could have walked; any sunset which we could have marveled.
Two years ago last month, when I founded Lace on Race, I had a vision that seemed almost foolishly audacious: to create a space that would cull from best practice the most effective methods, and then to add some of our own; folding each element into a cohesive whole.
I knew a few things from my work in social science, politics (both electoral and grassroots), labor, and faith based work: that theory is important; that knowledge is crucial, that instruction and exhortation were necessary.
Here is what I found was missing in my own life as I engaged and interacted with each of those spheres: that commitment to any given conviction required tools that were all too often lacking.
People bailing over slight differences; power dynamics unaddressed; unstable and intermittent commitment; factionalism–in short, behaviors that undermined and sabotaged even the best work attempted by the best workers.
There were successes to be sure. But at the end of each campaign; each organizing effort; each initiative, there was almost never celebrating and cleaving and consolidation; almost never space and room to build on gains to create even bigger ones. Each effort began from scratch, with scarred and bruised warriors, scarred and bruised from *each other* almost as much as the systems and individuals and institutions we were dedicated to confronting and dismantling. Where there should have been deeper and deeper comradeship and collaboration, there was instead mistrust and wariness.
The fights kept coming; we burned out, and sometimes even turned on each other.
We have seen it in each of the areas I have found myself serving; churches split over issues of faith and culture as well as internecine wars within congregations themselves; grassroots organizing paralyzed over structure and priorities; electoral work compromised; social change work stymied.
For a long time I had wondered what was missing from the recipe that made the souffle of justice work all too often fall flat.
I concentrated upon two things.
One, that what we call communities rarely actually are. We group together people of shared interest and/or shared struggle and call them ‘communities’ when all too often they are at best alliances, or even distant associations.
Patriarchy, manifested in racial justice work as white supremacy, dominated all and was an infection that showed up as classism, colorism, collusion, power unacknowledged and therefore dangerously wielded, and still more all adding up to undermine and sabotage mutuality, parity, interdependence, trust–all the things that are crucial to true and lasting community. Who held the megaphone? Who held the purse strings? Who set the agenda? Who jostled for position? Who did the media call first? Who got the last word?
And also, and even more importantly, this: that the people who were called or otherwise drawn to the work were dedicated, but also often deeply wounded. No one is able to engage with full heart and soul and mind without also bringing in their shadows; their schemas, their patterns; their ambivalence, their insecurities. Most unacknowledged. Most unconscious. All dangerous.
Often, we are unprepared for what will come up for us until we are in choice points or pain points, which are inevitable when approaching this work; when we are confronted or challenged or triggered. And depending where you are on the spectrum of power, these schemas and patterns show up in behavior that is in direct opposition to stated goals and values. How it shows up is different depending upon where you are on that spectrum, but maladaptive attitudes, assumptions and patterns shows up for all of us.
This leads to burnout. Leads to withdrawal; leads to downright destructive behaviors that tear down not what needs to be confronted and dismantled, but instead destroy the stated aims and deeply harm the very people we entered into this work to stand with and succor. And destroys ourselves.
This is true *all along the power continuum*; for both perpetrator and for victim–and for most of us we are both. This leads to all kinds of dysfunction; offending from victim position; retaliation; ghosting from both the path we are walking and from our ethics and values.
So we try to undertake tasks that require stamina, resilience, faithfulness, relentlessness, and endurance, without the tools for any of those virtues.
But in most justice work, neither of these two things-lack of authentic and sustaining community, nor an awareness of and commitment to interior work that can either nurture and turbocharge community or undercut and ultimately destroy– are addressed, or addressed *first*, or addressed *well.*
There is good reason for that. We in social justice work keenly feel the urgency of the work we are called to do. We often feel, rightly, that we are underdogs on the defensive, and that there is a finite amount of resources, both external and internal, a finite amount of power, influence, and position, and we act from that fearful stance, which leads to what people often do when they feel cornered and/or threatened and/or unseen (or seen in a way they would rather not be)–flighting/ghosting, fighting (with each other and with the sloshing buckets we carry), freezing, or fawning, all of which lead to the behaviors above.
And we feel alone. Even in groups and committees and boards and political parties and union halls filled with people, virtual and actual. Alone, alone, alone, each of us trying to affect what seems unmovable, with scores of people doing the same thing at different areas of the stone, so often with so much energy working against each other, tired, but not knowing why, unaware of the person opposite us applying pressure from the exact opposite perspective, each wondering why their energies are voided.
Individualism is not the answer. Applying scads of energy and effort from competing and contradictory places does nothing but give energy to the stone itself.
And the stone grows bigger; racism seems more intractable, and we don’t know why. And we turn our energies downward to blame the people under which the stone is crushing–the people we say we stand with and for, and inward to our unacknowledged work we have yet to uncover and confront, which leads to passivity, helplessness, fatigue, cynicism, and defeat.
I had a quiet conviction that with two interventions, we could begin to move the stone.
One, to do the interior work necessary to shore up muscles, apply pressure and effort more effectively, and to deeply believe that the stone can move and that we are the ones to move it.
Put another way, Capacity, Volition, and Agency.
The effort was there, but the stone needed the effort of all these discrete and disparate people to expend effort, internal and external, *in the same direction*–all while being oh so very careful not to further harm those under the weight of the stone.
That takes true community, leveraging all that they have in their individual efforts. That means succoring each other, and all of us in the gym we have co created. That means learning how to use newly gained muscles. And it means not doing it to look good as we flex in the mirrors of our own egos, but rather a shared ethos and commitment to using all we have and are to move the stone, and make the stone our unrelenting priority in each of our lives. You affect what you value. Your, and our, effectiveness is in direct proportion to the value we give this work.
The whole point of Lace on Race is to Move The Stone. And to be utterly mindful of who is under it. Trampling with unconscious bias and violence is no better–in fact is far worse– than leaving the stone intact.
And in these two years, we have begun to do all of the above. Learning to attend to our interiors; learning to leverage together through true community; committing to Full Respect Living, and minding our feet even as we put our collective shoulders to the stone.
But there is still more we need to do.
My hopes have been partially realized, and for that I deeply thank you. I am confident in my bones that we, individually and collectively, have made a real impact on the stone.
It’s still there though.
My hopes are many, but it can be summed up easily by my mantra for you all: Keep walking. And collectively pushing.
My laundry list so that we can indeed to do and be what we have envisioned together are these:
–Increased engagement from all of you. Page views are up, as well as people who have chosen to follow us. But following and/or liking Lace on Race is only the first step. Community only happens when you show up, visibly, reliably, faithfully. We need to see each other. Lurking undermines community. Only you know what you bring. And each of us brings something of value to this space. Find what your resistance is, what your clench is, and do the necessary work to push past. By being here, you have made a commitment to yourself, to your values, and to your fellow walkers. Here, we feed each other, we lean on each other, and in this virtual space how we do that is to show up for each other. I would like to see month over month steady increase in the number of written responses to posts, and not only by regulars. Risk is essential to growth. This also means a commitment to coming to the Page and the Website regularly. Depending on Facebook to embed posts in your feed will not work; we are suppressed. Making the choice to intentionally come and spend time with your fellow walkers, and with me, is so important. We have now embedded the Page into the website (thanks Marlise!) so it’s now one stop. But you will have to develop the discipline and the volition to take responsibility to come.
–That every person engages with the Pinned Posts, and the posts on the website. There is no way you can learn from the easy shared posts; no way you can learn how to effectively engage in your outside lives absent utilizing all the tools we have curated for you. Toward this end, we are going to be more intentional about Onboarding, and mindful adherence to the guidelines.
–That we become the gold standard of what the work, and what beloved community can look like. Marlise, Claire and I–and now Danielle– take this seriously; we think of all of you, collectively and individually constantly, and we do our utmost to model the engagement, love, and commitment we ask from each of you. But with the increased engagement we hope for and expect, we can’t do it alone. So we are committed to mentorship of those of you who want it, and are aligned with our ethos and method. We believe in this method. We believe that it is replicable and scalable, and we have enough faith and realistic audacity to be convicted that what we have to offer is something the entire field needs.
–That we become real community in real life as well as virtually. There are clusters of you who could walk in still deeper ways right where you are. We want to provide the tools, and I want to meet you in real ways. Forming Lace on Race groups across the country where we learn to apply what we have learned and internalized in real time is a hope I pray will materialize. Damn, but we have good people here. We need to love on each other like Claire and I loved on each other this weekend.
–That we learn the skills, the authentic intentions, and the tools to engage in what is almost never seen: cross racial relationships that do not inevitably wound. That we learn how to never allow ourselves to succumb to violence, that we melt our weaponry of whiteness and supremacy, and make ourselves, through trust, and faithfulness, and a deep sense of and respect for the Other places where we are truly trees under which those who walk with us, inside and outside, can truly be nurtured and held. That we will bring our full selves to being ground under which tired and oppressed feet can stand. With each other. With ourselves. And that we are unwavering in learning and applying all we have to this crucial effort. This means eagerly learning and internalizing. That means risk. That means true graciousness, curiosity, and generosity. That means what love truly looks like.
–This one is crucial: that we become a space that people of color can trust, rely upon, and rest in. This means a commitment of No Harm from white walkers; it also means concomitant responsibility and accountability from those of us who are not white. In the past two years, we have not insisted upon this, because of the tenderness of this cohort, and our emphasis on being the safest place possible. But while safety is crucial, so too is our learning how to succor and love on and exhort and teach each other, for us to build muscle and resilience and stamina, so we can do the work well too. We will be opening groups that are specifically for people of color. There are issues and elements that are best processed and unpacked without the pressure of the white gaze. This is where we learn to *treat ourselves gently and well* this is where we learn to engage effectively, which can often look different for us than for dominant culture. We will learn to tell our truths both without compromise and in a way that is heard and that lands squarely, using the same ethos of kind, yet unvarnished candor.
–This place needs to become sustaining in a way that does not provoke anxiety for myself or the community, as we hold our breaths each month to see if we will make it to the next. That means my hope is that all of you who walk will also financially engage. This is an important part of your praxis of service and congruence (there are plenty of posts about this in Pinned), and part of our collective praxis as well. We are committed to paying major contributors, are committed to paying for our beautiful website, and honoring our Admin staff, who work beyond belief to bring you our absolute best. My hope here is that we expand this to include everyone, regardless of skin tone or identity. Our model is different; this is not only a lab for one cohort; it is a way for us to all live closer to the world we want to see, and that means we need to learn shared effort. My hopes are that we can consistently make Basic Budget, and expand that so that we can do more, give more to those we partner with, and make this place one you can count upon.
–My final hopes are these: that I get to see each and every one of you next year; that you show yourselves to me, and allow me to abide with you. My hope is that I become more and more a woman worth following, not with a flick of the thumb, but in ways of depth and length. My hope is that you carry a bit of me with you when you come to this space, and then return to your individual worlds. My hope is that we plant thousands of orange trees, and that we nurture ourselves and our places of influence in greater and greater ways. My hope is that we are all changed, even as we remain fixed on our goal.
Move. That. Damned. Stone.
I love you, each of you, so very hard.
Keep walking.
–Lace
Please visit the Discussion Forum for this post
Weekend of Hope: The Lace on Race Vision
Hope and Vision Series Links:
A Quilt of Vision: Abiding in Community
Reflect on Whiteness, Reject the Myths, Engage in “Good Trouble”
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