[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/02/16/lanes-lines-and-the-relational/

Lanes, Lines, And The Relational

Discussion

[Danielle Holcombe]

I’m convicted by how often my walking with others has not had love at it’s core. Thinking about gift and risk. And I read that section as though you were speaking more to the receiver of the gift, on how to appreciate the risk and respond. But I was definitely struck by the love in the giver; and how often that is lacking in me.

If I truly want this community you speak of, then y’all need to see that in me. Hesed, in my queries and walking with others, and also when someone else comes alongside me to speak into my life. That same Hesed in my response. “To do less than this is to abdicate the responsibility of being in communion with the Other, for both parties”.

There is absolutely risk required in relationship like this. And it often seems easier to just keep my head down and take care of what I’m responsible for, but where is the love in that? How can I be a contributing, nourishing part of this community with that attitude?

I want to say that I’m ready to see, and to know, the Other here. And that I’m ready to be seen and be known. And yet I find that I’m clenching a little bit. It feels terrifying in a way, and a little bit exhilarating. I know some of you will take these steps with me so I will keep walking.

[Lace Watkins]

Not many, I reckon, but some. And that will be enough.

[Clare Steward]

I am here and walking and am also struck by love being at the core of this community that Lace built and that I am honored to be a part of. I do need to re-examine how I am engaging here and in other spaces and constantly hold up that mirror for myself when I am outside of this community…. LoR is a place that I can trust someone to hold it up for me when I am out of alignment and can’t see it. When I look in my mirror, I need to ask what is the spirit in which I am engaging and is my engagement in alignment with the NS?

[Laura Berwick]

I can still recall some of what went through my mind as I sat looking at my laptop at the Lace on Race post where I committed to being “All In”. I… recognized at that point that I did not have to be known. I could form a definite lane and stay in it, contrary to what was asked of me. And as an intensely introverted person, that was a lot of what I wanted.

But I had come to Lace on Race as part of learning to be a better friend to Black people and people of color in my life. Because it had been brought home after a life of thinking I was doing all right, that all right was all I was doing. And all right wasn’t even what I felt like the world I am part of was doing. And doing better would mean doing different, so now was the time to do different. To be a new person doing a new thing in a new way.

So that lane is not so much a lane here. And… I can still see where the concept of lanes can keep me from overstepping among people I might harm by overstepping, people I am not in relationship with (yet?) out in my offline world. But here, in this community, being all in, agreeing to adhere to the guidelines that shape the new things and new ways, I can’t hide in a lane from accountability, and I can’t hide in a lane from calling others to account.

It’s that community part. That’s a very new thing and new way for me on this scale. But sitting down at the table, in a kitchen, or in a cozy dining room, or in a grand bistro… that brings home for me very concretely how one can commune in kind candor, still saying and hearing things that may be hard to say and hear, but are needed. That’s what I’m here for.

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

As I was reading your comments, it did occur to me that those lanes you refer to don’t make sense when I am actually sitting down in a cafe in community. especially, this community. We have permission in this community. I opt in, by choice, and agree to the focus of the North Star and agree to the guidelines and to being open to feedback and to course correction and to calling in others as needed just as I expect to be called in as needed. Having Love at the core is the doing things in new ways. I, like Danielle said, find I have not always had love at the core. Love leading would have led to my speaking up and asking Lace how she was. Love leading would not be me standing on the sidelines wringing my hands wondering what to do. Love leading is reducing harm.

[Jen Scaggs]

I can relate to this so much, as an introvert, being comfortable as an unknown. But also wanting to do better and so needing to do different!

[Lace Watkins]

Hey there! I’m glad to see you. You said that you want to do better. In the context of the conversation here, how might you do better going forward?

[Jen Scaggs]

I think the first step in doing better is to be present here more, as I know I was not around enough in recent weeks to realize what had happened in the first place. Actually commenting and engaging in conversations here is a way for me to do different and better, since my usual response (in other spaces) would be to read, take it in, think about it and move on without engaging. And finally, speaking out when harm has been done, like it was done to you, Lace.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Jen, I am hoping you are willing to explore this a little more and get practical. I, too, am an introvert. I used to think I could do nothing unless I could be as articulate, as wordy, as loud, as others. I have since discovered that is very much not true. Put yourself in all of these situations. Black or brown woman being attacked verbally on line or in the real world or on Zoom. What can you, as introvert, do to mitigate harm – in the immediate?

[Jen Scaggs]

Rhonda, I guess in the immediate, my response would have to be to speak out in support of the person being harmed when I see harm being perpetrated. I’m still not exactly sure of the correct way to do that, but letting the victim know that I believe them and see the harm that has been done and letting the perpetrator know that I don’t agree with what they are doing.

[Rhonda Freeman]

I resonate with this response. If I am ‘in real life’, I try to – at a minimum – move to stand next to the person that is being harmed. At a minimum, to say to the person who is speaking: “What you are saying does not match my values.” Online, I can type “What you are saying does not match my values.” and, I can stand by the person being harmed by stating publicly “I am standing next to you. Is there something I can do to support?”

[Jen Scaggs]

Great concrete examples, Rhonda. Thanks!

[Jessie Lee]

Thank you for this conversation and your point about not becoming someone we are not (as introverts) even in service to racial justice. I can respond to harm as an introvert. Love the practical examples of what that looks like for you, Rhonda. I realize that often when something feels off about how I’ve engaged with a person causing harm, it’s because I’ve tried to mimic others’ styles without bringing myself, which really isn’t eye to eye. I’m going to think about how *I* specifically will respond at minimum in future situations, so I can improve the quality of responses as compared to myself instead of others.

[Christina Sonas]

I’m reading through this entire conversation again; there’s so much here! I sparked when you said, “…not in relationship (yet?)”. Because I’ve been growing in my ethos (from so much learning here about relational ethics) the idea that we are always in relationship with all people, in some way, especially now that we live under globalization and with full awareness of our global human community. It’s a bit chicken-and-egg, I think: my praxis with any and everyone needs to be rooted in hesed and relational ethics, and that means we’re in relationship, which means hesed and RE… So the concepts in this piece — permission and imperative, gift and risk — are in play all the time, with every person. Even if I never see them or know their name.

[Clare Steward]

There is permission in community- By engaging here, I am accepting course correction and feedback with an open heart and mind even when it is difficult to hear and I accept that it is most important for me to hear when the feedback is difficult to receive. I trust that when I am being called in, I am being called in to alignment for the purpose of lessening and mitigating harm. Doing the work in community and surrounded by trusted relationships is crucial….I can not always see when I am out of alignment and having it pointed out to me from the right spirit will help me carry the right spirit and vision forward in to other spaces both virtual and in person.

I have a responsibility to reciprocate course correction and guidance and calling others in with Hesed love because relationships are a two way street. I am not here to merely consume what is being served up but to learn how to serve, to learn how to lessen and mitigate harm endured by Black and Brown people all the time, in all spaces and in all places. To only consume what is being served is transactional and true change can not come about that way- behavior changes come with deep work. Course correction will not be provided in the same way in all spaces and in order for me to truly hear it without my usual defenses of putting up walls and shields and offending from the victim position before abandoning the work, I must build the strong foundation that keeps me pointed in the direction of the NS. This community, this house that Lace built is the space where I can learn to build my own foundation and continue to strengthen it and reinforce it- it is not one and done, it is ongoing and without a strong foundation with the right ingredients, everything else built on top of it will crumble.

I love the visual of creating my mirror and giving it freely to those with whom I am community and relationship with. I have chosen to hand my mirror to others knowing it is fragile and breakable and trusting that they will safe-guard it and hand it to me to look into when it is needed. I have chosen to hold the mirrors of others and safe-guard them and hold them up when needed. There is risk in this for sure, knowing that mirrors can get thrown and smashed but I also know pieces can be picked up and new mirrors created. I also acknowledge that the mirrors of Black and Brown people are broken more frequently and need to be handled with greater care. Community, relationships, and seeing eye to eye means that when a mirror is broken, especially when it is not my own, that I step up with a broom and a dust pan for cleanup and that I am there to support rebuilding.

[Clare Steward]

Some additional thoughts:

When we were initially told that, as ww, we need to stay in our lanes, I could understand how there should be caution around us inserting ourselves because we often do so in dangerous ways. The framing that the situation with Holly was an innocuous “disagreement” is dead wrong and she absolutely crossed lines with an intent to wound and destroy. So, while I understand staying in my lane when there are conversations or disagreements happening between women of color, staying in my lane does not apply when someone is being mentally and emotionally abused.

I started thinking about where my lanes are in relation to PoC in my life….. my family and my lifelong friends etc….The suggestion that I should not be trusted to step up and step in if I see them being harmed, that doing so would be swerving out of my lane, has had me in a great deal of internal angst. Holly and I entered into the LoR community and therefore, into community with Lace around the same time. If Holly saw justification in weaponizing what she learned out of relationship with Lace, shouldn’t I be justified in taking action against that based on what I know to be true of Lace?

And then I started thinking about what defines a relationship and if the depth or longevity of the relationship should change anything about how I act when harm is being done. Thinking in terms of lanes with people I don’t know….that my stepping in could be dangerous because I am dangerous…And that I can use that as justification to do nothing and be complicit in harm. I was so grateful for the distinction between lanes and lines. There should be no hesitation when a line is crossed, the safety of my fellow humans outweighs any lanes… while I also recognize that I have to be aware of the fact that my biases and skewed perceptions can make me dangerous and that I may not even be able to distinguish between lanes and lines.

[Deleted User]

Sorry about the mess of me posting in the wrong place. I’m not sure whether every page template you use has a comments section at the bottom but I’m sure they can be set up to not have them there if you don’t want.

** Crossposted from the article page/.

Hey there,
I’ve frantically chewed on all of this over the weekend. I’ve actually been reticent to speak again because maybe I have a different perspective to others here and that in itself feels “out of community”.
I showed up here in the space with only one reason, to learn how to be less harmful to black and brown people and so far, I can only say a big thanks to the community here and Lace for your energy and labour. But, saying that, some things have felt funky and if am to continue walking here confident in my North star, I feel I should address.
So the first thing is “listening to black and brown people”. I’m not so discerning to understand white adjacency yet but I do know that not all skinfolk are kinfolk. I’m not inclined to swallow fish whole but if two people are involved in dispute, I cannot choose a side because one person is darker than the other or discredit a brown words because they don’t deliver the message in a palatable way. As the two people are black and brown, I feel that I am obliged to listen.
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To me, I was a diner in restaurant when an employee comes screaming from the kitchen smashing the place up. The chefs come out, have their words, the managers words almost silenced in the mele. The chefs follow the employee to their car and follow them home (because the employee is still screaming). I’m agog. I didn’t say anything because this looks to me that there was enough going on without me. And more people joined in, the mess got bigger and louder.
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After everything calmed down
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First I felt a discomfort when the finger pointed to me. The manager is asking me…Why didn’t I say anything?
Then I felt discomfort when I was told I by the manager that I could have done better by asking if they were OK in the middle of the situation.
A manager surrounded by expertly trained chefs.
I’m a diner here, I’m not back of house. I feel I’m being called out for not getting involved into what is both an employment and personal dispute between two people I’ve never met in the eye. I eat what the managers and the chefs serve. One day, I may take their training and learn to cook those dishes, be on the chefs team. Until then, I savour their cooking.
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The employee screaming was telling everyone there’s no health and safety on the chipper. Some diners left. Some diners jumped in with, ”I’ve been eating here for years, no way!” Others, stayed silent. And here I felt like because I’ve eaten here for a while, I’m expected to side with the manager and ignore the employee because they screamed and smashed stuff up. But two things can be true. I do wonder if and what health and safety measures will be put in place to protect both the manager, the restaurant and the employees in future.
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After all this, I know people who have aired similar views to me have left the restaurant. I’d like to say that I like the meals served here, they give me nourishment, the menu is fabulous, but if dining here means that I will be made to feel discomfort because I have not jumped to be a chef when I am currently a diner, I’m not sure how I proceed.

[Christina Sonas]

The thing about analogies is that we create them to match the perception we already have. Which means your analogy includes all your biases, including your white supremacy.

What if your analogy had the disgruntled ex-employee coming in the front door and into the dining room, shouting for the chef to come out of the kitchen right now? What if the person, while speaking face to face with the chef, grabs the chef’s arm and turns to you — you’re at the closest table — and starts speaking to you while shaking the chef’s arm, telling you all their thoughts? What if they yank off the chef’s toque, or grab the spoon the chef was still holding when they came out, or slap them? What if there are a few people who followed them in, and are standing by the check-in with their arms crossed?

You’re right – a lot of us sous chefs were dealing with the disgruntled ex-employee. Which is sort of the point. What do *you* do with the trembling chef standing near you? If the chef is a stranger? If the chef is someone you see and speak with every day when you come in for lunch?

[Deleted User]

Hi Christina,

Thanks for your comment here. Yes, analogies match perceptions and with all of your instances depending on the circumstances, I am likely to act differently and accordingly. Can it be understood that I don’t see it as my place as a WW to get involved in and with every single circumstance?

[Lace Watkins]

does your identity and status as a white woman override your overarching personhood?

[Deleted User]

Hi Lace. No but in the space it’s very much the focus. As I said a bit further down, I let peoples colour confuse things in this situation because thinking on I’d of taken the same response regardless. My reference to WW getting involved with everything is that it feels like no filter is applied and that we’re being given cart blanche to get up in peoples business.

[Christina Sonas]

Aren’t we, though? Taking carte blanche to get in everyone’s business — about racism? I feel like what we’re being asked to do is recalibrate our entire white sense of carte blanche and business, to create a new model without the bias of our white supremacy intermixed. In many ways, that means stepping back from places where we should not be, but are present because we take permission via white supremacy. (Individual things like when we give an unhoused person a burger instead of the money they’ve asked us for; societal things like when we critique the BLM movement and its tactics.) And then stepping into the fray where we remain detached because white supremacy has falsely elevated us beyond “the lesser races”. Basically, take what I would do if the person had Kate Winslet / Leonardo diCaprio characteristics, and do that for everyone because everyone should get the privacy and respect I give white people and also the concern and intervention I give white people.

[Deleted User]

“Everyone should get the privacy and respect I give white people and also the concern and intervention I give white people.”

To me that’s what I did.

[Christina Sonas]

“I eat what the managers and the chefs serve. One day, I may take their training and learn to cook those dishes, be on the chefs team. Until then, I savour their cooking.”

I can see the Cafe analogy can be read this way, but we are not here to savor anyone’s cooking. We are here to receive nourishment and be filled with resources so that we have increased willingness and ability to go out and get the job done, and done well. It’s not a food lover’s cafe; it’s an employee’s cafe. If you don’t want to help run the cafe, or learn the ropes so you can manage the cafe in the next building, that’s fine. But you’re still being fed as a member of North Star Industries. Is this landing with you?

[Deleted User]

Hello again. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood what’s meant by the takeout window, the bistro and the chef’s table. I’ve perceived these as different levels of training and understand that chefs table is by application only. Only when you’re at a level of minimum engagement and reliability.

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I understood that the space here is a practice space for us to discuss topics not in any old way but with hesed and good praxis. It may be an employees cafe, even so, that doesn’t indicate to me to jump in here and chew on personal and corporate beef.

[Shara Cody]

It feels like you see LoR as a business with hierarchy within separate teams. I can easily find myself looking for structures, inputs, and outputs so I can follow the rules in my defined role but that’s for my own comfort. I’ve been working on actively stopping myself from falling into that systems habit because systems are part of what are killing BIPOC and what need to be changed. If I see hierarchy and structure at LoR first (and I make lanes from it), I’m immediately not putting the North Star first therefore not doing what I say I’m here to do from the first step.

[Deleted User]

Hi Shara, nice to meet you. LoR has just been launched as a non profit business. Those structures are in place. I completely agree re changing the system but here already a black woman is at the helm of that.

[Lace Watkins]

You you seem to have a really big problem with the fact that we became a formal entity. Why is that? And why do you think that that diminishes? Have you consumed anything of what I’ve either written or put in a video about my stance on nonprofits? Do you understand why we went that route? I’m having a hard time figuring out why you seem so focused on this, which is a natural progression for an organization of our size and Mission.

[Deleted User]

Hi Lace,

I think Shar mentioned my seeing LOR as a business which is exactly what it’s just become. I heard and totally understand why you went down the route you did and your stance on these types of structures. I must state plainly I don’t have an issue with any of that but it does inform decisions on how and when I act.

[Lace Watkins]

Let’s let’s get to the heart of the cookie. You seem to find this whole thing rather unsavory; our going to a formal structure. What is it, exactly, that you feel has changed between January 11th when we were not a formal entity and January 12th when we got our papers in the mail? Because I’m in the thick of it. And I can tell you that except for giving Danielle headaches, nothing has changed. What did you think when you read about our using the structure in order to subvert it? And why does it change your relationship to the space? This is a move towards greater accountability and transparency. As well, it helps us with smaller organizations. We can be a better mentor to and advocate of these organizations. We can be their fiscal sponsor. So community members Like Bernie Gutierrez, who does such good work, can use us so that she can do her boots on the ground social advocacy work. You seem to think that this move somehow delegitimizes the concept of community. A community that you have never seemed to have fully bought into, despite the fact that in order to be in the Bistro in the first place it was necessary to affirm both the North Star and the guidelines, so at least on paper you agree with the overarching ethos. Put another way, participation in the bistro affirms a certain level of skin in the game . That by itself precludes the passivity and the consumerism that you insist upon. In practice, you continue to hold yourself apart and above. It is very hard to have this conversation with you because it feels super accusatory. Like we did something of a bait-and-switch on you. Why do you feel that way? Why do you feel that this needs to be a seat-of-the-pants ad-hoc sort of almost accidental thing, rather than something that has discipline and long-term stability at its core?

[Deleted User]

What is it, exactly, that you feel has changed between January 11th when we were not a formal entity and January 12th when we got our papers in the mail?

Lee: Nothing

What did you think when you read about our using the structure in order to subvert it?

Lee: I didn’t have any thoughts on it.

And why does it change your relationship to the space?

Lee: It doesn’t, just to this situation.

It is very hard to have this conversation with you because it feels super accusatory. Like we did something of a bait-and-switch on you. Why do you feel that way? Why do you feel that this needs to be a seat-of-the-pants ad-hoc sort of almost accidental thing, rather than something that has discipline and long-term stability at its core?

Lee: All I am saying is I came to a different conclusion in the circumstances and I want to understand if there is space here for that. I’m sorry you feel accused.

[Lace Watkins]

You said: ‘ I must state plainly I don’t have an issue with any of that but it does inform decisions on how and when I act.’

This strikes me as disingenuous, at best. You’ve been perseverating on the issue of our structure for days now. You do have an issue with it. You just don’t want to own it, and you don’t want to say it plainly. So, candor. What is the problem? And why *does* it ‘inform decisions on how and when you act’?

[Deleted User]

I’m sorry you feel I’m being disingenuous. I’ve been responding to the comments more than anything. You know, even if I put the structure to the side, I still would have made the decision I did because there were 5 people (whoever they were) dealing with an incident between two people (whomever that may have been)

My problem is I came to a different decision on how to act and on reflection I would have only stepped into the conversation had I been the first person there.

I could just say I’d jump in next time, but I wouldn’t if the circumstances were the same. Wouldn’t that be more disingenuous?

And what I am asking from the community is, is that allowed? Am I allowed to come to a different decision?

[Lace Watkins]

I have to say I have such a problem with the way you frame. Again, it’s a disingenuous sort of abdicating agency and choice. This is an opt-in opt-out space. So long as you follow the guidelines, you’re cool. But based upon what I have seen from you from the last few days, there are pieces parts of the guidelines you decided to absolutely ignore. I’m going to go back to the guidelines and I ask that you do too. And see the pieces Parts where you align and see the pieces Parts where there’s definitely dissonance between your stance and what we ask in the guidelines. In terms of your being in this community. Tell yourself the truth. You stance is harmful to brown and black people. You can be here, so long as you know that people will tell you that. I just a very long response to you about 10 minutes ago, that speaks to some of this. I look forward to your response. But yes, Lee, absolutely there is a prescription do both the ethos and the method that we employ here. This practice space is meant to Spur you to action when warranted, and it was absolutely warranted on the day in question. So the question to ask yourself is if you do indeed have the capacity, volition, and agency to walk here? That’s not a decision anybody can make but you. And you’re keeping on doing your best just throw that decision, and the concomitant responsibilities, onto others. At this point, total candor. I’m speaking as much to people who are reading this, what we call the cheap seats, as I am speaking to you. Your intractability and your top down stance and your holding yourself above and apart makes it hard to locate you and your insistence on a kind of toxic neutrality as a cover for lack of action is dismaying. Again, in this practice space this is not where you learn how to observe. This is where you learn to act. You have said before that you are in this space because you want to learn how to do better by black or brown people. That’s a paraphrase, but I think I’m getting it basically right. How do you feel your choices over the last few days, and the things you have written here, align with your stated purpose for being here?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Lace Watkins. Reason: Clarity; cleaning up voice to text

[Deleted User]

Hi Lace, I returned to the guidelines and there was nothing that said that everyone should confront against one person. You say that everyone should have spurred into action on that day. I understand this is a practice space and is safe-ish for black and brown people but if we’d have all confronted Holly like you’re saying we should, wouldn’t that have been really harmful for her? My stated purpose for being here is to not be harmful to black and brown people. That in this instance includes both of you, doesn’t it?

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I’ve been mulling this over more this weekend and see the root of my inaction is because I felt that the actions being taken against Holly were proportional. Lace, I think you said 5 people not including our admin team had confronted. Although that didn’t seem enough for you, to me that was enough.

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How much confrontation is acceptable? Who gets to decide that?

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At what point does too much confrontation then become violence in itself? And in this case to a brown person.

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After the event I considered what I could have done better. I stepped into community with people that looked to have been out of alignment and had gone unchecked but the situation with Holly felt funky.

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In summary the potential of 9000 people confronting someone who’s sloshing is too much to me.

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What I do need to interrogate is why it took so long to get to this point.

Some of my thoughts are, being afraid of conflict. Hiding behind hierarchy rather than confront what had been put down by the person I see as “in charge”. Thinking that speaking my mind to the person “in charge” is in some way disrespectful. That coming to a different conclusion to you is in some way wrong because you are the person with the most knowledge and know best.

[Lace Watkins]

I’m using voice to text thanks in advance for your graciousness with any errors. I’ll come back and clean it up, and when I do I’ll remove this disclaimer.

It is noticeable that while you took the time to answer Danielle, that you have not answered any of my own queries. In fact even when you have sort of responded to me, you sidestepped pretty much all of my own direct questions to you. There is supremacy there. I am asking you directly to return and to read everything that I’ve written to you, and give me the courtesy of answering my questions. Thank you.

[Deleted User]

Sorry Lace, I thought I had answered your questions. I think there are now 9 or 10 people walking with me here. It’s easy to lose track of trying to respond to everything and a bit overwhelming. If you advise which questions I’ve missed answering, I’ll answer them.

[Shara Cody]

@lee what I hear in your response to me is that because Lace, a Black woman, is the leader of this space (and now non-profit business), our North Star is present with which you give yourself permission to default back to systems thinking and abide by the structure and hierarchy that you see. Does that sound accurate to how you’re feeling?

Acknowledging and following Lace’s leadership is definitely part of supporting our North Star but using it to reason that taking action is not your responsibility (and defaulting to structure) is the exact opposite of what she’s asking us to do. Lace spends a lot of time having us consider, reconsider, and revisit what it means to see eye to eye and talking about keeping LoR flat and round.

Instead of seeing it as “business as usual”, Lace is inviting us to help build a community. I think that what is being asked of us by Lace is to stand up and step in no matter what. If you decide you don’t need to take action, what is the change in behavior that you are trying to achieve?

[Rhonda Freeman]

Shara, I like this question for all of us: “If you decide you don’t need to take action, what is the change in behavior that you are trying to achieve?” When my action is inaction, what is it that. am trying to achieve. I want to be honest with myself when what I am trying to achieve is self-preservation or avoiding discomfort. Black and brown people don’t have that choice, I often do.

[Deleted User]

Hi Shara,

Yes, I’ve been struggling with that and defaulting as you say. And yes, I understand to stand up and step in no matter what. It’s the “no matter what” when it means that it could then be disproportionally responsive to be harmful to another person of colour.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Lee, I think I am hearing you say that if one PoC is assaulting another PoC (verbally or otherwise), your concern is stepping in to support a PoC and thereby causing disproportionate harm to another PoC? (Wow, that came out more complicated than I planned). Not sure I have that right, but if I do, I am willing to share what I do in those situations if you are interested.

[Deleted User]

Hi Rhonda,

Yes, please share.

[Danielle Holcombe]

So did you see actual harm or violence being done to Holly? Because if you saw any of our interventions as harm, then you still ought to have spoken up. That is also a part of the ethos of this space. We hold one another accountable. But if you did NOT see our walking with Holly as violence, then how do you perceive that you also stepping in would have been harm? Either way, your silence is not supported by your argument here.

And do you understand that Lace (a real live human being – not just a persona) was being violently bludgeoned? You have basically told us all, I am entrenched in my position. I know that the path I chose was right. Can I stay anyway?

No one is going to tell you that you have to leave. And two Black women here have said that the conclusion you came to was the wrong one – one (Lace) said so directly. You still opt in or opt out – but you have decided that YOU are the expert on harm in this situation and that YOU know better than the two Black women leaders here who are saying the opposite. I would think that would give you some pause – but it has not. You have dug in harder and harder with each opportunity to look at things another way.

Also, not one single one of your responses has had any type of vulnerability in it. Nothing from you where one might be able to locate you or feel your presence in the room here with us. I can’t find community anywhere in your comments. I’ve asked you directly twice if you are here for the type of community being built here – one where indeed we have a responsibility to and for on another. I get the distinct feeling that is not what you are opting in to.

[Deleted User]

Hi Danielle,

You’re right, I could have said that I thought Holly was getting enough flack but I didn’t and this I could do better on with reflection.

I understand no one is going to tell me to leave and that people here in this space think I made the wrong choice. I think maybe because I am struggling to get to the same conclusion I should leave this one open and come back to it in future after I’ve had time to better understand.

I think it’s hard for anyone to locate in community when their thoughts are different hence my asking the question. You asked me if I’m here for the community being built here and I responded to you down the thread as yes.

[Shara Cody]

I’m glad we’re hearing the same message, the same call to step in no matter what. Is being “too stern” with a perpetrator more harmful than doing nothing (the default choice not to act) when someone is being attacked?

What action/response could you have chosen that would have reduced the risk of disproportion that you’re worried about?

[Deleted User]

Hi Shara,

That’s a good question. I’m thinking on the idea of ‘solidarity’ more.

[Julie Helwege]

Good Morning Lee,

You continue to remain centered on you and your question, rather than lessening and mitigating the harm endured by Black and Brown people perpetuated by you and white supremacy. That is not in alignment with this space. The North Star is front and center, always here, not your question and point of view.

And this alone is harmful behavior.

You’re question has been answered so many times – this is an opt in/opt out space. You’re choice. You have to decide if your disagreement or point of view is harmful, (which your continued double downs, centering, defensiveness and straw mans are), this is what the walking will always look like. It’s how we roll here – I expect the exact same walking when I’m being harmful. Oh, and I’m harmful and walking every day here to be less harmful and much safer. None of us are harm-free – that is the work.

And being right is a losing strategy as I’ve also learned here.

And 9,000 people saying something? Another very misleading comment. If you are identifying with the 9,000 lurkers on this space, that is telling. There is a lot to read about lurking and the harm it causes.

All of your points have been countered – for example, I’ll throw out your privacy point – if you were so concerned about privacy and respecting a Black and Brown woman – why did you choose to rubberneck and read everything? You chose to engage and get involved and then chose silence. Lace teaches here silence is complicit.

There are so many things to interrogate in white supremacy and how we locate ourselves – as Dani said, you have yet to be vulnerable and truly walk in community with us.

And using the guidelines as a weapon to justify your behavior (“there is no guideline…”) as well as proportionality (you deciding how many people should say something and get involved) is harmful too.

What if 10 more voices would have curbed Holly from saying some of the extremely abusive and harmful things she said?

We’ll never know.

*grammar edit.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Julie Helwege.

[Julie Helwege]

And one more point, because it’s really important. You deemed 5 people a “proportional” response.

As you’ve mentioned, 9-10 people have weighed in and walked with you, while pointing out your harm.

How many voices is it going to take for you to locate your own harm in this situation?

[Deleted User]

Whilst I’ve struggled to keep up with the comments and questions here, Lace has called me in for failing to answer all of hers which I’ve had to ask her to break out because I can’t see what I haven’t answered so I respectfully ask you to ask yourself the same question. I think I’ve said on a number of occasions now that I’m struggling to keep up with everyone’s comments and I have been gracious to answer them all.

[Julie Helwege]

“I can’t see what I can’t answer… so ask yourself the same question?”

– I need more clarification – what question would you like me to ask myself and answer? Happy to do so. –

My point wasn’t about you keeping up with the comments – I do appreciate you keeping up with everyone, and I understand working through threads and the overwhelmed feeling that comes with it.

My point was the method here vs. just going back and forth on points of view. I see it as transactional vs. relational walking.

To me, walking in this community is sharing points of view, while always identifying harm and pivoting to race. I’ve heard your point of view, but not the harm identification and race pivot.

I’ve seen comments like you’re thinking about things and processing – that’s baked in supremacy too. Or when we talk about holding our own hands vs. extolling labor. For example, reading the by-laws vs. asking questions about our flat and round structure.

I have that own challenge to myself with the “needing to process,” and Lace has called me in on it and walked with me. I’m working on it because I can’t be reflexive if I have to always process.

And Lace had no time to process when Holly attacked; she had to reflexively act.

I was also trying to point out to you the alternative – what if 10 more responses to Holly would have given her pause and she wouldn’t have shared more of what she did? It’s assumptive question on my part because it didn’t happen, but it’s something I’ve thought a lot about. To dismantle oppressive systems – the 9,000 need to show up, not just a handful.

And I was calling you in that there’s been a lot of effort in working to help you uncenter and provide a lot of different vantage points, surrounding harmful white supremacy behavior that isn’t just about your silence. Yet you continue to remain stuck.

I do feel like you are trying to catch up on months of walking in a few days – which just isn’t possible. You can read the guidelines, but they aren’t immediately inculcated. You can go through some of the pinned posts, but that won’t make you relentlessly reliable and reflexive. I am not reflexive and relentlessly reliable yet either, and this situation helped me see that more clearly and I’m course correcting and walking that much harder accordingly.

Regarding 9,000 people, we have never had 9,000 walkers respond to any comment. Lace talks about 9,000 members, but it’s in connection to the 150-300 members who are truly active and wanting more of the 9,000 to stop lurking, show up, and do the work.

And I don’t understand how if 9,000 chimed in that outing an anonymous donor, for example, was not in line with our ethos – how does that harm Holly?

I think you have an opportunity to pivot away from your initial disagreement and identify some of the ways you’ve harmed. And regardless of your decision and disagreement, it still hurt Lace.

You can also start to engage and walk consistently here. Like I referenced, the guideline videos and pinned posts are a good place to refocus. I’m still working through the pinned posts myself.

Just my ten cents. Thanks for continuing to walk with me through a lumpy crossing. I’m learning a lot from this entire exchange and doing my own rooting too.

[Deleted User]

Sorry Julie, my question was the same as yours ‘How many voices is it going to take for you to locate your own harm in this situation’? I was meaning that in my trying to keep up with everyone I was loosing track of it all and then called out by Lace. It reminded me of BLM squares whereby so many voices end up growing out the one/ones that need to be heard. But I understand the keeping up is on me not you.

I also recognise that as a walker who has so far not been “called in” it’s going to be likely that I’m going to exhibit behaviours that I don’t recognise and go through this process. I thought I was doing well by not sloshing and running away but I recognise there is more to it than that.

I do appreciate everyone’s efforts and time here, I’m sorry if that hasn’t come across.

I think I’ve already said upstream somewhere that I’ve been asking the wrong questions because I struggle to see how that situation should have looked instead of how it did. You say here about stating outing a donor is not in line with our ethos, which seems so plain and obvious enough and harmless although I don’t think anyone said anything that simple. I could be wrong though there were so many voices.

I’m not really clear on what you require for the harm identification and race pivot and I’m wondering whether that’s because the perp was a person of colour and I’m not well versed with supremacy as is clearly coming across in this thread.

And thank you too for walking with me.

[Deleted User]

I’d like to add here that I meant “drowning” not growing.

Also I recognise the situation hurt Lace. I acknowledge that this event was traumatic for her and that I could have stated this to her. I got lost in her asking “Why didn’t anyone ask me how I was?” with her feeling I would be disingenuous rather than thinking or even asking out loud, how could I have supported her. I suppose I felt accused and shame walked and in that became confused and stuck.

[Deleted User]

I referred to 9K people because that’s how Lace refers to the community I believe.

Regarding privacy, you’re right. I absolutely could have decided not to read everything, thank you for bringing that up. I will interrogate that as I’ll interrogate what I could have said in the situation rather than be silent and where I don’t take up too much room so that the voices of the people that counted weren’t silenced in the melee. I think of the BLM square here.

Re the guidelines, I was sent back there directly by Lace or I wouldn’t have mentioned them. I never said I get to decide how many people get involved with something.

[Clare Steward]

Hi Lee. I hear your concerns about being disproportionally responsive:

“Yes, I’ve been struggling with that and defaulting as you say. And yes, I understand to stand up and step in no matter what. It’s the “no matter what” when it means that it could then be disproportionally responsive to be harmful to another person of colour.”

Going back to the story Lace shared, color can be taken out of the picture completely and what is left is that people stepped in and applied Hesed love and care unilaterally- there was no taking sides or judgement, there was swift movement to stop the harm in it’s tracks and then each party was surrounded with community and support. If stepping in means to do so with Hesed love and minus any of the losing strategies, how could that create more harm?

I hear you say above that you understand you need to step in no matter what. I am feeling that as well and for me the question isn’t whether or not I should say something/do something, it is HOW I do so and that is why I am opting in here so that I can build the right muscles to do the right thing reflexively and without causing harm. I say this while also recognizing that making a choice to stay out of it when harm is occurring is to be complicit to the harm so I need to lean in to the work. Doing the work in community is key because I can not always recognize where I am losing sight of the NS. When I am being called in on something by multiple people, my desire to defend my position kicks in and that is a big flag for me that I have a wall up and am at risk of my go to of offending from the victim position.

You do have quite a few people walking with you here and I hope you feel that it is with the purpose of calling you in to community and continued walking within a relational context.

****Editing because I realize I said something that is extremely problematic above…about taking color out of the picture- that is not the correct way to view this, it is akin to saying “I don’t see color” and I apologize for any harm my comment inflicted. I must always keep in mind who I am interacting with and do so with the NS front and center. The idea of applying relational ethics and Hesed love unilaterally is the point I wanted to make and did so very poorly

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Clare Steward.

[Julie Helwege]

I really appreciate the perspective on not choosing sides, but speaking and addressing harm in a Hesed way. I have used “sides” language, and I’m course correcting. It’s not about sides, it’s about mitigating harm.

[Deleted User]

Hi Clare,

I think I’ve covered a lot of this upthread but yes, HOW is the question. May I ask, what would that look like for you in this situation?

[Clare Steward]

I can tell you what I did and then I can tell you where I think I need to improve and keep walking.

When Holly initially responded to the thread on the Board announcement, my first response was to ask her to consider unblocking Lace and the admin team so that they could see her comments and respond. I wanted to reinforce the guideline of no blocking or banning and also making sure everyone could see all comments and respond- it is important to keep the door open to communication. (I would need to go back and look at my exact wording to examine how I said it to make sure it was devoid of any slosh- I recall being activated and working hard to control my emotional regulation)

My second comment followed very quickly and it was in response to Holly asking everyone to go look up Terry Real because Lace’s concept of Kind Candor was based of the work of a “white man”. My comment was that I found this an odd thing to ask everyone to do as Terry Real is part of our pinned posts and required readings and that Lace has made no secret that she has used a lot of concepts from Real’s work and has been open in discussing an upcoming series around that work. I asked her if she had read the pinned posts. (In hindsight, the last comment about her reading the pinned posts was a passive aggressive punch-down with the intent to reinforce the fact that she had not done the work required of being a member of the board because it was obvious that she was not revealing a big secret- it was said with the intent to embarrass her and that was wrong on my part and was a sneaky little jab. I should have stuck to the fact that Lace was very out in the open regarding where some of the foundational concepts were coming from and that living out loud was part of the ethos here. My emphasis was in the wrong place with the last comment)

My third comment was to declare that I am opting in to this space, the internal praxis and the ethos and community that Lace created and I listed out the specific elements that I believe in and declared that continued work and walking will help me become the person I say I want to be. (I would change nothing about this as I was personalizing and then pivoting to how these methods will keep me in alignment with the NS. It was showing support to Lace that I believe in her work and I trust her leadership).

I made other comments in response to other walkers in which I restated the fact that we should be communicating with winning strategies and people must be called in when there is punching down and weaponizing of afflictions. (I do need to go back and look at HOW I said that and see if I was commenting in a way that was sloshy and with any passive aggressiveness. I do stand by reinforcing the guidelines and relational ethics that we have been learning in regards to being able to communicate effectively. Holly was not using winning strategies and as she was on Lace’s page, she should be called in to do so.)

I hope this is helpful. I am asking for feedback and suggestions from the community.

[Deleted User]

Hi Clare,

Thank you for sharing this with me. I’m not sure I understand what all the “winning” and “losing” strategies are as yet. I’m assuming they’re covered in the pinned posts and I’ve either missed them or not got to them.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I am experiencing some dissonance between your analogy and the stated ethos of the community. I am thinking especially of the “Words from the Board Post”. I don’t see you there, so I can’t tell if you’ve read it. This part in particular seems not to match with your analogy: “We have deliberately drafted our Bylaws in accordance with our ethos of flat and round; that is, none of us sits above another, and all have an equal seat at the table.” How do you see that ethos in your restaurant analogy?

[Emily Holzknecht]

I am clarifying I only looked at the “Words from the Board” post at the Bistro. I realized that it was on Facebook too and you may have commented on that one.

[Deleted User]

Hi Emily,

Yes, I read it on Facebook and yes I too feel that dissonance. I haven’t yet read the bylaws, I tried to but they couldn’t be expanded on my phone and it’s unusual for me to be sat at a PC in my ‘freetime’ so it hasn’t happened yet. I took ‘flat and round structure’ in reference to the non profit set up, not the functions it performs and the privilege of its community do or don’t have in. In the restaurant analogy I saw the chefs (flat structure) taking care of their business.

[Lace Watkins]

Quietly, I feel I have to say this. You have strong opinions about how we are choosing formal governance oh, but you have not taken the time to actually read the bylaws. You have taken time to opine here. They’re not hard to read and it’s not at all long. In fact, you spent more time here than it would have taken to Simply read the bylaws, and, as well, my commentary on why we decided to go with this structure. Yet you seem to take great issue with the structure itself. I’m curious as to why that is. I would think that someone who was focusing as much on it as you are would actually have done the legwork.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Lace Watkins. Reason: Voice to text cleanup

[Deleted User]

Hi Lace, I will read the bylaws and come back to this.

[Danielle Holcombe]

Good morning Lee,

You’ve had a few replies to your comments now. How are you feeling about things this morning?

I’m noticing a lot of self focus in your original comment. It can be hard sometimes not to conflate personalizing (looking at my behavior and responsibility) and centering (giving primacy to my feelings). We are asked to look inward, but sometimes I look inward at the wrong thing.

I did notice a few things that I would like to walk with you on specifically but I also know that other folks have already done so and I’d like to assess your capacity, agency, and volition to continue this conversation first – esp since I haven’t yet seen replies from you to those comments.

There is room to ask questions and feel unsure about things here. We can come around one another to learn to find the answers to our questions and to help each other see when there’s something in one of our eyes preventing clear sight.

We must never lose sight of our North Star while we do those things.

Are you ready to keep walking here?

[Deleted User]

Hi Danielle,

Thank you for your note. Today, I’m still chewing on things. I think lot of the analogies about the space (cafe etc), the launch of the non-profit as a functioning business with staff, the personal relationships and the expectations of this space had/have left me somewhat confused.

.

And yes, I focused on my understanding of the situation because I struggled to make sense of it. Since thinking further I’ve wondered what I would have done if the two people were both black or both white, and, my response would have been the same. That might mean that my praxis is way off, I think more perhaps that there is some relationship building to be done.

.

I appreciate your walking.

[Danielle Holcombe]

When I asked you to bring your comment to the Bistro, how did you feel? I went back to read my words and I see that rather than inviting you here, I said “I wish you would…”. I WISH I would have asked you to walk with me in a more eye to eye way, rather using words or a tone of correction with you.

We do not want to remove the option to comment on an article (where you commented originally) because there are some people that primarily read on the website, and we want to keep that door to the Café open so that we can continue inviting diners in.

I’m guessing you might have felt ‘spanked’ by me when I said “I wish you would …”. I cannot know your feelings, but what I can observe is that the very first thing you did when you brought your comment here was to offer a solution to prevent something like this from happening again. Lee, I’m sorry that I lost sight of the very thing that we are asking you to practice and participate in here ~ relationship.

The conversation everyone is having with you here is about community. You seem stuck a bit on check boxes or putting everyone into a category so that you can determine who holds what responsibility. But in this LoR community, we all share responsibility with, and for, one another. Are you here for a community that looks like that?

You opened your comment looking out for your comfort (making a suggestion that could have helped avoid you being asked to move your comment in the first place) and you closed your comment looking out for your comfort (“but if dining here means that I will be made to feel discomfort because I have not jumped to be a chef when I am currently a diner, I’m not sure how I proceed”).

Do you think that you focus primarily on your own comfort in most of your relationships? I think that has always been my habit. I have been practicing since being here though, how to be in relationships in new ways. Because I don’t think that I can ever lessen and mitigate the harm to Black and Brown people, perpetuated by white people, by ME, and by white supremacy if I am focusing on my own comfort.

[Deleted User]

Hi Danielle,

No need to apologise, I didn’t take your request in any other way than it was intended. My offer of a solution was because I didn’t realise after you asking me to move my comment that it is a feature you want, that’s all.

.

It wasn’t for my comfort that I offered solution, sorry you saw it that way. And no, I don’t look for comfort in relationships, that’s not what they’re about. If I did that would I be here like this now? Here what I’m trying to understand is if we can be in community and come to different decisions on things.

.

Analogies don’t help sometimes and in trying to juggle lots of things at once l’ve messed some up but that’s OK, that’s what we’re here for right?

.

Maybe my question should have been better posed as this. “Is this community OK with me being here and coming to a different conclusion on how to act in this instance?” Because, when I think of all the instances I wouldn’t get involved, I have also thought of when I would have acted and that would have been if I was first to the scene and saw what was going on.

[Danielle Holcombe]

Well, I quoted you talking about your discomfort (in a sentence that seems to ask whether you can stay in this space) so I’m surprised you say you are not prioritizing it.

When you made your suggestion (simply because you did not know our reason for leaving the comments open) did you just assume that you had a bright insight no one else had thought of? I’m asking you to look a little deeper here. I understand that there is a surface narrative you tell yourself, about yourself. “I have good intentions. I meant well. I’m being misunderstood.” But here we are learning the habits of white supremacy so we can root them out of our lives. And here in this conversation, you are using those habits and then denying it when it’s pointed out to you. You are going to have to let go of your narrative of yourself in order to really look at the insidious tactics underneath. And you have them, because we all do.

You are hard to locate because you are not letting your guard down or being vulnerable or real here. Let me tell you about a time when I first came to LoR. I came upon an ask, maybe it was a longer piece where Lace was talking about how much the ask takes out of her and how we as a community are not stepping up. I had recently learned about Patreon. Completely new information to me (and to the person who introduced me to it). Because it was new to them and new to me, my brain decided it was BRAND NEW. My brain, steeped in a soup of white supremacy that says “look what I discovered” as I take someone else’s idea and present it as my brain child. Do you know that Lace did indeed NOT appreciate my Patreon suggestion? Can you think why?

What assumptions went into my thinking they needed my help when what was asked for was my financial engagement? And what was I overlooking? Lace and her team (albeit a much smaller team at that time) had of course discussed funding. I was fairly new to the space and had not yet understood the importance of our engagements being intentional. Passive income is not the goal for Lace on Race. But I was also uncomfortable with seeing the asks and hearing how hard they were and I wanted to present a solution to ease my discomfort.

I didn’t even think about the team working hard behind the scenes. I thought Lace needed my ideas. You have been here while Laura and Marlise have been building the new website. You have been here while we talked it up and excitedly encouraged everyone to join. You have seen how intentional Lace is about so many of her practices. It really didn’t occur to you that we would have thought about those comments there? Why not? It could be a number of things. You say you weren’t prioritizing your comfort, but you certainly were thinking you had a solution no one else had thought of.

I asked you another question in my last comment though, that I notice you didn’t answer. Are you here for the type of community that exists here? No one is telling you you can’t have a different view. But if you have determined that there is only one way to see things and you are right, then you may struggle to be in a community where we grapple with new ideas every day and hold each other accountable and all share in a collective responsibility.

[Deleted User]

Hi Danielle,

This is all a discomfort but I prefer the discomfort of saying I came to a different conclusion than I do saying I would do something different if in the same situation again.

I mentioned the box in passing because you asked me to move my message, which made it sound like a glitch. If you hadn’t I wouldn’t have mentioned anything.

What you’re telling me here, on the one hand, is that my suggestions or comments or ideas will be considered as supremacist whilst on the other hand Julie is telling me I should “engage in the community and provide feedback and/or suggestions. My response to her was, “….I don’t get to say how Lace or her team do things unless I am specifically invited to do so. Again it’s not my place.”

It’s no biggie, I understand your point here.

Am I here for the community that exists here? Yes. I don’t believe I’ve said anywhere that anyone else was wrong. Just that I came to a different conclusion.

[Clare Steward]

Hi Lee. Something that stood out to me was when you wrote:

Maybe my question should have been better posed as this. “Is this community OK with me being here and coming to a different conclusion on how to act in this instance?”

It got me thinking about my my propensity towards wanting another person to make a difficult decision for me, to remove my responsibility and accountability in tough situations. I want others to tell me it is ok for me to leave so that it will ease my feelings of being out of alignment and take away my choice and any guilt I might feel for walking away- ‘welp, they told me I don’t belong…that’s on them not on me. I did my best.’ I have actually seen this behavior in others as well in LoR when we have come across lumpy crossings…”Are you asking me to leave?” “Are you saying I should stay?”

Other spaces make it very easy for us because we can and do get blocked or banned or thrown out the door. This is different because Lace does not block or ban or turn off the mic…the fact that this is an opt in/opt out space speaks volumes as to the level of responsibility we have in our own actions.

The question isn’t if this community is ok with you being here, the question is are you willing to work through this lumpy crossing to stay within the community and do the deep rooting and digging necessary to feel in alignment? The question is, how will you choose to continue to show up with relentless reliability when you face other lumpy crossings online or in person?

[Emily Holzknecht]

Lee, I was thinking along a similar line to Clare. When you ask “Is this community OK with me being here and coming to a different conclusion on how to act in this instance?”, I think what you are actually saying is “I am not willing to walk with anyone further in this area. My mind is made up. I have already reached a conclusion, and I am not willing to look deeper to see where my supremacy might sit in this area.” But being overt in saying that feels dangerous so you have phrased it as an question instead because that’s what we white women do to make ourselves seem neutral and accommodating when we really are not.

[Deleted User]

Hi Emily,

Yes, I see what you’re saying. It’s not that I’m unwilling to walk with anyone, I think I’ve walked quite a lot here, I understand that everyone’s reflection on the situation will be different. I’m just stating that rather than simply agreeing which I think would be disingenuous. And yes, I agree I need to be open to everyone’s thinking on this.

[Deleted User]

Hi Clare,

Yes, I can see where you’re coming from.

“The question isn’t if this community is ok with you being here, the question is are you willing to work through this lumpy crossing to stay within the community and do the deep rooting and digging necessary to feel in alignment?”

I’m here doing the walking, others with similar thoughts on the matter seem to have disappeared though.

The question is, how will you choose to continue to show up with relentless reliability when you face other lumpy crossings online or in-person?”

I think that depends on the crossing, I don’t think it is so straight forward to say that every given moment should have the same response.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Lee, I realize this is an exchange with Danielle, but I would like to weigh in. During this engagement Leonie asked me ‘at what point would you step in’? What constitutes violence to a black or brown person? Does it have to be physical? I am paraphrasing, but that’s what I got out of her calling me in. What I learned is that I don’t care what the situation is, the analogy is, whether it is a business, or a space like this, or my corporation, or my church, or… I want to practice the courage to step in and mitigate harm to black and brown people. If I don’t then I am adding to that harm. My support might be standing next to them and asking – what can I do to help. Or gently saying to someone ‘your words or actions aren’t working for me’, but I very much want to step in, in some way. Does that make a bit of sense?

[Deleted User]

Hi Rhonda,

Appreciate your thoughts. I think when I dissect everything to the core I would have stepped in should I have been the first person to the scene. When I arrived there were lots of people dealing with the situation. I know we spoke about putting our words into the ring and that makes sense. And then I have to consider proportionality too.

[Lace Watkins]

I am I am very curious about your conceptualization of proportionality in this context. Particularly because it seems that as you consider proportionality as to what Holly did in that space that day, the only way proportionality works for you is if you assume that at least on some level what she did was justified. Do you? As I have said both in writing and in videos, let’s assume but I was absolutely terrible to her. That she was 100% right and I was 100% wrong. Do you feel that her actions were in any way proportional. Do you feel that there is something that I could have done as an antecedent to warrant and deserve what she did? No, you do not have to know the particulars. Her behavior speaks for itself. Do you feel that there was something that I could have done to Warrant her taking down, or trying to take down, an entire organization?

[Deleted User]

I don’t think what she did was justified or proportional. I don’t think you deserved what she did. I don’t think that you could have done anything to warrant her destroying your lifes work.

[Marlise Flores]

I’ve been reading along this exchange, and something in particular has stood out to me, as someone who has experienced abuse personally while within a community that saw but considered it a personal matter. That move of “mind your own business” is rooted in abuse and white supremacy. It is how organizations skirt around ever making statements or getting involved in anything pegged as a “personal matter.” And, yes, it perpetuates harm because, while it never manifests as someone directly commenting on the matter or calling to account any individual causing harm, by inaction the harm is continued.

I need you to know, as someone who has been told directly that “it isn’t my place to get involved,” never was I able to protect myself or stop the abuse that was occuring, and hearing that someone didn’t want to hold me or listen to me felt so extremely lonely. That *is* the voice of complicity.

The implications of this ripple out to more than just me or to this space. We shift that force field of what is and isn’t our obligation to report/to speak up/to check in with someone so that we always remain comfortable. I experienced it in academic and religious settings, where I expressed harm was occuring, there was enough visual proof, and still the response was that it was a personal matter. Even within my family, it has always been deemed as something the smallest unit should handle. And yet, that means that power dynamics will always be enforced. Do we actually think that the one causing harm is inclined to stop on their own?

This sounds suspiciously like how white people have tackled racism over the years. Only recently has there been a move for community to hold individuals somewhat accountable.

I want to return to what I felt as someone being told “it isn’t my place” and turn to look at what Lace felt then and now as you are telling her that it isn’t your place. How does that make me any sort of dependable, if there is always a hazy field around what I will or will not deem as my place to step in?

Will I get it wrong sometimes? Most definitely. But if I truly believe that everyone has agency, then I need to trust that I will be told if my involvement is unnecessary by the one facing harm. I am removing agency if I decide what another does or does not need.

Recently, I was at a FedEx mailing papers. There was a line and I ended up, due to needing a notary, standing by the door, but not actually on a designated line spot, per COVID restrictions. A Black woman came into the store and stood on the other side of the line, clearly allowing distancing. An employee came up and asked her to step outside the store as there were too many people inside. She did not ask me to leave. And I was faced with a decision. I could abide by whatever structures I perceived, as she didn’t address *me*, and stay in the store. The line was moving quickly. Certainly, I was not addressed directly so was it my place? Meanwhile, there was a Black woman standing alone outside the store if I chose inaction. I chose to audibly tell the employee I would also be standing outside then, and walked out to wait. I didn’t go in until the line had moved up enough for both of us to enter, and I made sure to wait after I mailed items to assure she was able to do the same with no further issues. It is a relatively simple situation to bring up, and I’ve thought over what more I could have done to make the dynamic more overt without causing harm, but I think that there is something in particular to focus on.

Have I left someone to stand out in the cold? Have I left a Black woman, who experiences neglect historically and daily, to stand out in the cold?

Who I am here is who I am out there. If I am waiting on systems and structure to give me the go ahead to speak up, then I will always choose inaction by design. Am I going to stand out in the cold?

[Clare Steward]

Thank you so much for pointing out that inaction allows harm to be continued and that we can and have used “minding our own business” as a means to maintain our own comfort and to justify our desire look the other way and not get involved. Your example of standing in line helped me contextualize that it is up to all of us to make the decision to act in congruence with the NS…that we can continue to use not getting into personal matters as an excuse or we can actually be who we say we want to be. This is the whole premise of anti-racism right…that it is not a descriptor but an action…and actually, that it is not a single act within a single event but the ongoing choice to take action without waiting to be given explicit permission to do so. I think that how we carry out our actions is what we need to be extremely mindful of…not whether or not we should act when we see harm occurring.

[Emily Holzknecht]

(I am putting this in parentheses to indicate that my comment here is one that I haven’t seen how it connects to walking with Lee, but I have my own reflection on part of Marlise’s response. I don’t think I would have thought to state that I would also be standing outside then at FedEx. I would have thought about and possibly acted on offering for the Black woman to go ahead of me in line so that I would be standing outside and she would be standing inside. That would not have made the dynamic overt without causing harm. The dynamic, had I done that, would have been lost because it would have emphasized the individual instead of the dynamic. I would have looked like a nice white lady. I would have caused harm because I would have put the Black woman in a situation where she had to either choose to look selfish by standing inside with me outside or avoid looking selfish but still not look nice and accept the dynamic of being unreasonably forced to stand outside as a Black woman with the history of Black people left standing outside as context. You standing outside with her took the emphasis off individual characters and put it on the dynamic. You were not a nice white lady. You were disagreeing with the dynamic. You asked nothing of the Black woman and did not put her in a situation that would let others think badly of her.)

[Clare Steward]

yes…I see how the choice emphasize the dynamic is important and how offering to trade places with the woman could be problematic and even be considered performative. Knowing the appropriate way to act in the moment is going to take a lot of work on my part but I can not use that as an excuse to do nothing for fear of making a mistake because then the harm definitely goes unchecked

[Julie Helwege]

Thank you for sharing. My white savior tendency is strong, and I can totally locate myself in this same choice and behavior. Weeding and rooting.

[Christina Sonas]

The notions of “right place” and “right time” and “privacy” are all entirely white supremacy constructed. I’m not saying that they don’t exist in other societal paradigms and I don’t know how they work therein, but here in the USA, my space, and in the UK where Lee’s constructions are rooted, they are all designed to protect the power dynamic, as you point out, Marlise. For the last 100+ years, Black and brown leaders all over the world have said, over and over and over…: they are cover for abuse and excuse of power along every hierarchical gradient that exists. If I don’t reorient those notions toward explicit support of those with less power, I am refusing one of the most fundamental and universal requests of marginalized people, no matter the power vector.

[Jessie Lee]

Christina I appreciate this reminder that waiting for the right place/right time to step in and protecting the privacy of a perpetrator are white supremacy constructed. Also your framing of “refusing one of the most fundamental and universal requests of marginalized people.” I agree with you but also am grappling with the criticism from other woc saying that ww should not have intervened. Just trying to hold both things at the same time: that this is a universal request and that whether or not my action is misunderstood and criticized by poc who I don’t have a relationship with, and I remain responsible for taking action. I think I just worked out my own answer.

[Christina Sonas]

Jessie, I too don’t feel like I’m holding both of these priorities well at this point in my walking. These discussions in the aftermath of Holly have been very… excavating, I think.

One thing that’s in my mind now, after your comment, is a situation I was in a few months ago, which I haven’t been thinking of in our current context. I was engaging on a friend’s post and someone was saying all sorts of problematic things, which I was countering. And then he said, essentially, “You can’t tell me I’m wrong about this, because I’m Mexican and you’re white.” So because I’m white, I can never be positioned correctly on racism in relation to a BIPOC person if they disagree with me. I told him that I was listening to BIPOC leaders who felt very differently than him, and would consider what he had to say.

But this idea that I am not a white person being a loose cannon — that I am in service to multiple BIPOC thinkers and leaders. In the future, I wouldn’t offer to consider, unless it was new to me and I hadn’t yet considered and learned, but instead make it overt that I am a white person actively following and implementing the work of Black and brown leadership.

[Julie Helwege]

Hey Lee,

I feel like we’re stuck, we’re in a rut and you’re pretty entrenched in your position, so I’m going to be even more direct.

You continue to double down. I’m clear where you stand and you’re unwavering in your position.

So… Is it okay to disagree and still be in community? When really you’re making a statement – You disagree, and you aren’t going to change your position.

Followed by the question, are you going to excuse me from community for being misaligned? Answer: We don’t excuse anyone here – it’s opt in/out.

You keep mentioning the mic mute or some form of it… I see this as resisting our methods and ethos.

I also see you as interpreting being less harmful and much safer as applied to your own ideals and definition.

You’ve actually been fighting and resisting them for awhile – the supremacy I see is your entitlement to draw your own conclusions. You have a “right” to these conclusions on your interpretation of the North Star. It’s your way.

You said “my” North Star and it struck me – has this journey for you ever been about the collective or just about you and your feelings and deductions on whatever topic is being discussed?

I continue to see “pick and choose” behavior. And your responses here are defensive.

And there’s this surface-level praise and recognition – thanks much or the meals here are so nourishing, followed by a jab or resistance of some kind.

You’re protecting yourself as the dominant, majority, white individual. You’re protecting your right to disagree. Why?

I’ve also been thinking about how the North Star can be weaponized – are you weaponized right now, Lee? You hope for some validation – again, it’s your choice to stay or leave.

And the work here, regardless of the disagreement right now, is locating yourself in racism and supremacy and mitigating/reducing harm. So what if you’re wrong? What if I’m wrong? What if we’re both right? There’s still racism and supremacy in our whiteness that needs to be addressed – this includes your queries and position as it does mine.

The only “harm mitigation” lens you want to look through seems to be your own, which is in and of itself harmful. But you don’t see it.

Leonie laid out her analogy in “How do we walk in solidarity?” Did you read her Black perspective? Who are you listening, following and believing right now? Lace called you in for responding to other WW vs. her. Why didn’t you respond and answer the questions as asked?

You keep repeating the hierarchy, the diner, the personnel issue, the private matter on loop. Have you learned anything else in our walking together? Is there anything else you can glean outside of your unchanging position to speak up?

You also mentioned having to leave another group due to being misaligned. Did you choose to leave or were you excused?

And finally, do you think the methods here are requiring you to swallow the fish whole?

[Deleted User]

Yes, I’m pretty stuck and I am doubling down because I think I’m struggling to see how that situation would have panned out if we’d had all done as Lace expects. How does solidarity to Lace look without violence to Holly? How the two could be held at once and without drowning out their voices in the process.

I felt to step in wouldn’t have helped. I refrained from potentially causing harm. And, in retrospect, my issue as a community member is HOW to step in without causing that harm because until I learn that I would default to do the same again. I did read Leonies words and I’m going to go back to them as I think now after all these conversations they might make more sense.

[Julie Helwege]

How does solidarity to Lace look without violence to Holly?

To me, it’s standing with and for in a Hesed way. It’s honing in on violence and abuse and naming it.

Quantity is not harm – we need to outline harm correctly first.

How the two could be held at once without drowning out their voices?

I didn’t see any voices being drowned out. To me, holding two people at once is Hesed love. Lace displayed it well. I can tell Holly I see her hurt, pain and anger, while also stating that outing a donor and sharing intimate, harmful details about Lace and her life, while name calling, is not okay.

[Deleted User]

** Crossposted from the article page in response to Lace asking me did I read the hesed post.

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Hello Lace, yes, I read ‘Hesed and Unilateralism’? also but I couldn’t comment there without making observation which I felt was too personal, too much in your business and not my place to make.
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Noted your comment regarding my double posting. Sorry about that.
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From this essay, I took in summary that not everything is straight forward, that sometimes we need to hear the words of those close to us, however hard they are to hear to get a real grasp on what it is in front of us. Sometimes we don’t see, sometimes we can’t hear. That sometimes, having those around you who agree with everything aren’t always useful. Sometimes, you need a fuller picture and honestly, I think it’s only those close by, like your trusted sisters who can deliver those messages and be a real balm to you. In these moments you will find real relationship with friends and family who tell you what you need to hear not want you want to hear. This is Hesed.
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I understand, this might not be the right place for my comment perhaps but I took it as a prompt to be honest and open rather than to be scared and silent. Appreciate I can move this elsewhere.

[Deleted User]

** Crossposted from the article page in the response to Lace advising that I had her permission to speak openly.

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In response to the Hesed post, I struggled because…. As an employee, you voiced that Holly didn’t adhere to the basic requirements of the organisation and on exit from it I witnessed her gross misconduct. In this, you’re basically saying she disrespected you from the start.
As a personal friend, she then dragged you against your life’s work on both your personal and business pages.
I wholeheartedly agree that we don’t need to fight our battles in the gutter, you maintained your integrity and grace, but when you spoke about hesed you lost me.
You said you love and care for her and I think so do some women who still love and care for violent partners, then they end up dead. I questioned whether you were including yourself in your North Star and if so how will you mitigate being blindsided in the future?
I refrained from stating this because whilst I’m a regular diner, it’s your restaurant, I don’t get to say what stock you use in your soup.

…. addendum. If this needs to be crossposted to the Hesed post, please let me know. Will do so.

[Julie Helwege]

Cross-posted:

Hey Lee,

I have some thoughts, and I’m going to try to go line by line because this is important walking.

1. I’ve actually been reticent to speak again because maybe I have a different perspective to others here and that in itself feels “out of community.”

This is an opt in/opt out space. Many have shared their thoughts on this situation and disagreed. If you’re reticent, you need to reflect and interrogate it because that is not a community or LoR issue. We foster open discussion here; it’s not an echo chamber. Kind candor is how we roll, North Star, front and center.

2. After all this, I know people who have aired similar views to me have left the restaurant.

This is not accurate. Some have left, some have also chosen to stay and are walking in the Bistro. They are working through clenches and cringes. They are interrogating racism and supremacy as we do here and primarily, in their own behavior. In calling a thing a thing, it appears to me you are considering bailing from our community; you’re deciding whether or not to walk “out” of it.

3. I can only say a big thanks to the community here and Lace for your energy and labour. But, saying that, some things have felt funky and if I’m to continue walking here confident in my North star, I feel I should address.

I’ll gently point out your language here – you started with “I can ONLY say” and then inserted a BUT about some serious funk… you’re on the fence because of it. You have a lot to say here that is in direct conflict to only saying “thanks,” especially when you’re addressing North Star alignment.

4. I’m not inclined to swallow fish whole but if two people are involved in the dispute, I cannot choose a side because one person is darker than the other or discredit a brown persons words because they don’t deliver the message in a palatable way. As the two people are black and brown, I feel that I am obliged to listen.

Okay, you chose to listen, which is part of the walking here and a form of engagement without vocalizing (we call it lurking). You also made a choice to not vocalize. You fell in the rubbernecking category. You chose to not say anything as a diner – that was a choice point.

Also, you mentioned you don’t have white adjacency discernment, but you are clear you “cannot choose a side because one person is darker than the other or discredit a brown persons words because they don’t deliver the message in a palatable way.” It feels like your justifying your decision here to not choose a position. And how you are justifying it is a harmful step.

I did choose a side, and I chose to listen, follow and vocalize. Are you saying that my choice was only because Lace was Black and Holly was Brown or I was tone policing Holly? Gently, you could have asked me why I chose to speak up at any point in time. I would have walked with you.

5. You’ve also waited quite some time to say something in community (three weeks). Are you seeking validation from Lace or other walkers? If so, that should be interrogated too.

In the moment you chose to pause. So in your analogy, when the employee left, and everyone is sitting around and looking at each other, you chose to go with the Manager pointing a finger and saying “why didn’t you say anything?” Rather than you saying “is everyone okay?” “Are you okay?”

In your example, there’s also quite a bit of mess and collateral damage referenced to clean up. Someone may be hurt and in need of medical attention. And sometimes the mess HAS TO to be bigger and louder. I think about George Floyd. There were non-white officers involved and charged. Would my North Star have been out of alignment, if I would have stepped up in the Floyd situation? These situations are lumpy for a reason and HARD. That’s why the walking here is so incredibly important. And Lace is our teacher and leader – it’s important for her to ask these questions. She was also the one harmed and can question in her harm too. This wasn’t just an altercation at a restaurant over employment – this was deeply personal and confidential information being share with the sole intent to sabotage and harm. You leaving the community was a goal of Holly’s. She wanted to take others with her.

6. You mentioned that you have never met anyone “in the eye” here. It’s the because I don’t know you, I don’t have a position. Or because I’m a diner, I defer to leadership team. But you have a position here, Lee. And you also know this space is about the relational. If your relationships aren’t strong right now, how do you strengthen them? And the work is about YOU because leadership team and Lace can’t step up in your offline space. This is a practice space. It’s not just about eating a nourishing meal, it’s about taking action and walking too, especially through the lumpy and the biggest clenches and cringes. And “being right” isn’t the point.

7. “And here I felt like because I’ve eaten here for a while, I was expected to side with the manager and ignore the employee because they screamed and smashed stuff up.”

I felt completely different than you do. This wasn’t about the manager and employee exchanging harsh words – this was about violent verbal abuse for me and walking in alignment with my North Star values. And the violent, verbal abuse wasn’t pots and pans smashing it was internal bleeding and bruising.

And the ask wasn’t to stand with due to your tenure in the community, the ask to stand with was to lessen and mitigate harm caused by white supremacy.

8. I do wonder if and what health and safety measures will be put in place to protect both the manager, the restaurant and the employees in future.

Rather than wonder, why don’t you walk, engage in community and provide feedback and/or suggestions. Build relationships and continue to seek to understand and learn.

9. You’ve created an entire analogy to your side of the story and how you saw the situation.

Have you interrogated that from the North Star lens too – do you see how your analogy may cause further harm to Lace or other BIPOC? That you may be taking a top-down approach in how you analyzed these circumstances and what you’ve taken away from your listening?

And finally, you’re not sure how to proceed. I’m not sure how you proceed either. I hope you hold your own hand and know that this community is here to walk with you. I hope you head into the Bistro and keep doing the work. I hope you lean into those clenches, cringes and discomfort. North Star is front and center here. And my walking continues because of it. I’ve shared some of my own course correction and interrogation with this situation. That’s the work. And it’s always going to be opt in/opt out.

[Deleted User]

Hello Julie,

Thanks for your feedback here. Please let me try and also come back line by line.

1. This is an opt in/opt out space. Many have shared their thoughts on this situation and disagreed.

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Lee. I saw that at the time on Facebook but I don’t believe I’ve seen the same disagreements in the bistro, although I note that I may have missed this. This is where my reticence arrives because of the absence of this similiar discussion.

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2. This is not accurate. Some have left, some have also chosen to stay and are walking in the Bistro.

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Lee. OK. I appreciate that my comment was misleading. I’ll have a look for those discussions. I only saw Jaime raise similar concern to me, she’s since opted out I think.

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3. It appears to me you are considering bailing from our community; you’re deciding whether or not to walk “out” of it.

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Lee: I’m opening up the discussion to understand what is going to be the way forward. I don’t think I should have intervened, I recognise my view of the situation is different. Is it acceptable to have a difference of opinion here and still be in community?

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3. I’ll gently point out your language here – you started with “I can ONLY say” and then inserted a BUT about some serious funk… you’re on the fence because of it. You have a lot to say here that is in direct conflict to only saying “thanks,” especially when you’re addressing North Star alignment.

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Lee: Happy to take suggestion on how I could have formed that better.

4. Okay, you chose to listen, which is part of the walking here and a form of engagement without vocalizing (we call it lurking). You also made a choice to not vocalize. You fell in the rubbernecking category. You chose to not say anything as a diner – that was a choice point.

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Lee: To me, this wasn’t a conversation being served for everyone to engage with and if it was, to me this was a private matter.

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5. Also, you mentioned you don’t have white adjacency discernment, but you are clear you “cannot choose a side because one person is darker than the other or discredit a brown persons words because they don’t deliver the message in a palatable way.” It feels like your justifying your decision here to not choose a position. And how you are justifying it is a harmful step.

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Lee: I don’t understand how I’m being harmful, happy to walk more here. Thinking further on this though, I let this part overcomplicate matters. I’d of acted the same no matter anyones colour.

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6. I did choose a side, and I chose to listen, follow and vocalize. Are you saying that my choice was only because Lace was Black and Holly was Brown or I was tone policing Holly? Gently, you could have asked me why I chose to speak up at any point in time. I would have walked with you.

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Lee: You are one of the directors here. As far as I knew any of you could have been her direct manager.

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5. You’ve also waited quite some time to say something in community (three weeks).

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Lee: Not sure what you mean 3 weeks? It only happened last week?

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6. Are you seeking validation from Lace or other walkers? If so, that should be interrogated too.

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Lee: Validation. In some ways, yes. Validation of similar thoughts within the community is a help because it means that we can have different opinions with what’s gone down and still be in community together. If however I’m the only voice of opposition, am I then a problem? I’ve had it very recently in another group, it became apparent that my thinking was not in alignment and because of that being part of that group became untenable. At the same time Im not expecting my thoughts will be validated.

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7. In the moment you chose to pause. So in your analogy, when the employee left, and everyone is sitting around and looking at each other, you chose to go with the Manager pointing a finger and saying “why didn’t you say anything?” Rather than you saying “is everyone okay?” “Are you okay?”

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Lee: That’s what happened. Isn’t it? Asking if everyone is OK after the event doesn’t reduce harm.

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8. In your example, there’s also quite a bit of mess and collateral damage referenced to clean up. Someone may be hurt and in need of medical attention. And sometimes the mess HAS TO to be bigger and louder.

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Lee: I think some of that mess and extra damage was caused because lots of people got involved.

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9. I think about George Floyd. There were non-white officers involved and charged. Would my North Star have been out of alignment, if I would have stepped up in the Floyd situation?

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Lee: I don’t believe this is the same. This guy had an officer on his neck for 9 mins whilst he begged for his life in a country where everyone knows police kill black people. This situation was two women, from what I knew friends and coworkers having a public showdown.

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10. These situations are lumpy for a reason and HARD. That’s why the walking here is so incredibly important. And Lace is our teacher and leader – it’s important for her to ask these questions. She was also the one harmed and can question in her harm too.

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Lee: I agree. I also think perhaps that Holly’s microphone could have been unplugged and the damage would have been less. I know that’s not how we role here but it also feels a bit like Lace offered up as the football for a kick around to see how we all respond (or don’t) isn’t mitigating harm. In this situation we all have different opinions and conclusions about what was the least harm.

11. This wasn’t just an altercation at a restaurant over employment – this was deeply personal and confidential information being share with the sole intent to sabotage and harm. You leaving the community was a goal of Holly’s. She wanted to take others with her.

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Lee: More reason for me not to be involved.

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6. You mentioned that you have never met anyone “in the eye” here. It’s the because I don’t know you, I don’t have a position. Or because I’m a diner, I defer to leadership team. But you have a position here, Lee. And you also know this space is about the relational. If your relationships aren’t strong right now, how do you strengthen them?

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Lee: Both. And yes, those relationships need strengthening through my showing up, being here and building relationships with people but that happens naturally. I don’t get to just show up and act like everyones bff, that feels contrived.

7. And the ask wasn’t to stand with due to your tenure in the community, the ask to stand with was to lessen and mitigate harm caused by white supremacy.

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Lee: I came to a different conclusion on how to act in that circumstance.

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8. I do wonder if and what health and safety measures will be put in place to protect both the manager, the restaurant and the employees in future.

Rather than wonder, why don’t you walk, engage in community and provide feedback and/or suggestions. Build relationships and continue to seek to understand and learn.

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Lee: I can absolutely do that yes. But I note that the community is a non profit organisation. I don’t sit on the board, I don’t get to say what or how Lace or her team do things unless I am specifically invited to do so. Again it’s not my place.

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9. You’ve created an entire analogy to your side of the story and how you saw the situation.

Have you interrogated that from the North Star lens too – do you see how your analogy may cause further harm to Lace or other BIPOC?

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Lee: I’ve digested and relayed everything as best I can. It hasn’t meant to cause any further harm. If it has I wonder how I could have explained my understanding of the situation without doing so.

[Lace Watkins]

Hey. It’s Lace.

I’ve been reading and considering this for a couple of days, and I think that I am ready to at least begin to engage with you.

I need to say this up front. While I hope you stay oh, I hope that if you do decide to stay, that you will decide to stay differently.

I think what I’ve been most dismayed by is that some of the most important things that I’ve been trying to impart to this community have seemed to elide you.

I have encountered what seems to be your stance before (this is not my first rodeo); that of a detached consumer who takes what they want but who doesn’t feel any particular responsibility as to what to do with the information that’s gathered and gleaned.

That is absolutely the antithesis of this space. I am surprised you either don’t know this, or refuse to acknowledge it.

I have said, and often, that what you know is less important than who you are.

If you are here in this space to ‘learn’ and that’s where it stops, I am not going to be very much use to you at all.

And that’s what this turns, Lee.

My usefulness to you.

There is indeed white supremacy deeply embedded within your stance oh, and if you continue to walk with me and everyone else on this, we’ll get to it eventually. But first I want to stick to this.

There’s no reciprocity on your end; as a passive consumer, you don’t see the need for it.

I challenge that.

So let’s start here.

Why do you feel that it’s okay to be a consumer and nothing more?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Lace Watkins. Reason: Clarity

[Deleted User]

I have encountered what seems to be your stance before (this is not my first rodeo); that of a detached consumer who takes what they want but who doesn’t feel any particular responsibility as to what to do with the information that’s gathered and gleaned.

That is absolutely the antithesis of this space. I am surprised you either don’t know this, or refuse to acknowledge it.

I have said, and often, that what you know is less important than who you are.

If you are here in this space to ‘learn’ and that’s where it stops, I am not going to be very much use to you at all.

And that’s what this turns, Lee.

My usefulness to you.

There is indeed white supremacy deeply embedded within your stance oh, and if you continue to walk with me and everyone else on this, we’ll get to it eventually. But first I want to stick to this.

There’s no reciprocity on your end; as a passive consumer, you don’t see the need for it.

I challenge that.

So let’s start here.

Why do you feel that it’s okay to be a consumer and nothing more?

Hi Lace,

Thank you for your response. At the time,

I took the information, digested it and decided to not take action for a number of reasons I’ve explained. As with every situation, I would do the same. Each situation calls for a different response. That doesn’t mean I’m detached from everything, to me it means I’m not just giving myself a blanket to get up into everyones business as I please.

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In this case, I sat as a diner.

The fictive descriptions have brought me there. The takeout window, the diner, the chefs table (which has been described at back of house chopping etc). Chefs table itself is by application and not a free for all. The business is set up with a board of directors, not as a cooperative. The community is now a not for profit business with intention of paying staff. A black woman is at the helm of that, with the power to unplug the mike.

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I note that the space is an opt in place for discussion on topics presented walking together in community but I didn’t feel that getting involved with your personal/employee grievances was the way to go. That doesn’t mean I don’t partake in discussions or help people walk when they need to.

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You say white supremacy is in my actions not to get involved but it’s also there when people call the police on black people thinking they’re doing the right thing too. Sticking our noses into absolutely everything or nothing isn’t the way. Its a balance of that, one that I’m learning to understand and employ.

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There are lots of facets to why I acted the way I did. It might be better to say when I would have acted different this instance?

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If I’d have come to the conversation and there were not already people there, I would have stepped in as the mediator voice. At the time I thought if there’s beef, this probably wasn’t the best place or way to approach or resolve it.

[Christina Sonas]

Lee,

Fundamentally, you’re being told by a Black antiracism activist that you made some mistakes. And your response is, they weren’t mistakes. How does that jibe with your presence here, your purpose to learn to be less harmful?

[Julie Helwege]

Hey Lee, I’m happy to do some more walking with you. Before doing so, Lace has asked you a couple of direct questions – I would encourage you to prioritize responses to her questions first.

[Christina Sonas]

Lee: That’s what happened. Isn’t it? Asking if everyone is OK after the event doesn’t reduce harm.

But that isn’t the only piece of the North Star, is it? Mitigate is the other piece of the work.

[Christina Sonas]

Lee: In this situation we all have different opinions and conclusions about what was the least harm.

Yes. And course correcting our opinions and conclusions after the event is crucial, I think. Because the foundation of white supremacy is defining things, not just doing things. The definition of things — “Africans are uncivilized savages” — is what establishes justification for the doing of things — enslaving Africans to exploit their labor for white capitalists.

For me, this is a really essential part of my primary rule in this work: Listen to and believe what Black and brown people tell me. Not just hear them, and then make an evaluation against my enculturated standards for things like relationship, harm, behavior, intervention.

It’s an extremely white European standard: Do not intervene in other people’s messes. Of course, the caveat is, “unless I want to for some reason”. This (double) standard applies to everything from our personal interactions with the world, all the way up to the nation-state level of intervention. I think interrogating those standards — and replacing them with more ethical ones — is critical to dismantling the racism that is built upon them.

[Christina Sonas]

You’re very focused on the learning here, and that you aren’t as advanced as others, and that there is a leader who is in charge. I wanted to say that this learning isn’t life-and-death — but I can’t because it has the potential to be lifesaving to the Black or brown person we intervene for, if we find ourselves standing on a curb in Minneapolis or New York City…

I’ll say instead, it’s not open-heart surgery. There is no risk of someone dying if we screw up while trying, whether that’s here or “out in the world”.

Boot camp is very, very brief. We were needed out there days, weeks, decades ago. In truth, I don’t think the things that hold us back are things that can be taught here. I deeply value the things that are taught here, don’t get me wrong; I use them every day, and they are very effective. Being a part of this community is highly motivating, and it has brought me to coalescence around the North Star instead of ineffectively waving my hands at different bits and pieces of white supremacy and racism around me.

But this space cannot give me the volition to do what is necessary. That comes from inside me, and it’s on me to open that door and let those resources out. The willingness to act in the face of harm, whether or not I think I know what I’m doing, whether I’m confident, or feeling well, or on my way to an errand… just to act. Every newly enlisted person is a novice — and we have obligations and responsibilities, just the same.

[Julie Helwege]

Hi again,

I have some thoughts on Hesed love too as I digested Lace’s beautiful video and her lanes/line piece.

Hesed is steady, it’s not self-serving. It’s durable and healthy love of self and others. It’s balanced and reliable.

How can Lace still love when violently harmed? I won’t speak for Lace.

But I can interrogate in myself, what is the alternative? Hate, contempt, despising, regret, self-abuse… I’m not interested in the alternative. I’ve always been told and believe love is a choice; it’s not just a feeling. Hesed is a choice.

The return to a violent partner, that’s not Hesed. That’s unhealthy, unsteady, unstable, unbalanced and violently harmful love. I don’t know that I would call it love at all.

Hesed isn’t naive, it isn’t being taken taken advantage of, it isn’t bitter, it isn’t harmful to self or others. And sometimes Hesed love is letting go; it’s releasing.

I’m still learning Hesed love myself. I can look at the situation with Holly and form my own opinions on the difficulty when trust is completely broken, when the cuts are deep and leave behind ugly scars, when the trauma and internal bleeding is reeling… how I myself may behave. And how I want to behave moving forward and walk accordingly.

I do see the healthiness and my own growth in choosing Hesed. In learning from mistakes and walking more wisely, yes… but also walking away still holding well, displaying tenderness and recognizing pain and hurt is not unilateral. Not holding grudges, not perpetuating more pain and harm.

I can still care and hold someone in my heart and prayers even though what once was has ended. And this choice has been a balm in my own healing process.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Reading what you are saying here, I am thinking also that Hesed is eye to eye. If I were to return to an abuser and let myself be abused, that is not eye to eye. That is letting someone stand over me.

[Julie Helwege]

It’s absolutely eye to eye. Great call out. And you are rocking the boards, Emily. Thank you for all of your engagement and walking. It’s noticed and much appreciated.

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Hesed love. It reminded me of the perspective I learned years ago that love is an action not an emotion. The emotion of the moment may be sadness, anger, disappointment etc, but I can still act – I can still show up, I can let go when letting go is the loving thing to do I can make a choice for love rather than hate. I believe that Hesed love includes Hesed for self as well as others. Returning to an abusive/violent partner is not loving self. At the same time, can make the choice not to hate, despise, etc. that abusive partner, but to leave and go separate ways truly wanting that person to heal for themselves. The choice to make for Hesed is a daily, sometimes moment by moment, choice.

[Julie Helwege]

Yes! My deepest relationships are choices and active, not feelings. The feelings are absolutely there, but not the driver. And it’s absolutely in the moment to moment for me too.

[Kelsi Watters]

Hi Lee, it’s Kelsi. I’m not sure we’ve had a chance to officially engage with one another, but if we have had past interactions and I’m forgetting, I apologize. Anyway, nice to meet you. I wanted to share a few thoughts on what you said. First of all, you seem to have a stance of “I’m only a diner, this was a matter for the leadership team so it’s not my place to intervene”. Is that accurate?

If that is accurate, I am curious about your understanding of how this space works. I understand this space is not a top-down environment. It’s not like most of corporate America (which is heavily influenced/constructed by white supremacy), where it’s not your place to engage with the management team. We, in community here, aren’t seated in a stadium with management at the top. We are sitting around the table, where we are here not only to be nourished by the bread that everyone passes around, but also offer the sustenance and the gifts that we have to nourish everyone else – EVEN the leadership team, EVEN Lace, especially because she pours so much into us. That’s my first thought.

Secondly, you assert that what happened was a private matter between Lace and Holly. Well, two thoughts. [1) In this community, we are very overt, and that is how we handle anything that emerges, especially if it involves harm and violence. If something involves community right here, in the community, because it’s part of walking and abiding with one another. (2) A black woman was being harmed. To me, if I (or another community member) witnesses harm being done to a black woman, my commitment to the Northstar would call me to respond – to stand with the person being harmed, to speak out – especially in a place where our commitment is to lessen and mitigate harm. Many of us, including myself, failed Lace and failed to be there when she was mortally, emotionally wounded.

Which leads to my last thought, about risk. What is your understanding of risk in this community?

[Deleted User]

Hi Kelsi, I’m really sorry, I just realise that I haven’t responded to you.

There are many facets as to why I didn’t intervene but absolutely I wrongly stepped into the hierarchy of this place even though it’s expressed overtly that it doesn’t exist.

My understanding of risk in this community is to be vulnerable. A few people have said that I’ve not been vulnerable but I think I have. It would have been much less risky and comfortable for me to have stayed quiet in this instance too but I haven’t because that doesn’t help anyone. Unfortunately, I’ve put my hand up in class and said I don’t understand and I don’t want to rather than how can I understand. I think I’m getting there… albeit slowly

[Christina Sonas]

We are acknowledging this in leadership chat, and you should hear it: you are definitely walking strongly right now, and that is more than 99% of white people do. And I think so many of us are engaging with you, because we very much understand how hard it is sometimes to find the key to a solid oak door of white supremacy that we are trying doggedly to get through. I am going to go back to the beginning of your experience with this situation, and read through the whole thing again from the perspective of where we are now. The key is here, somewhere.

[Deleted User]

Hi Christina, I appreciate that, thank you. I’m also going to reabsorb this whole thread after I’ve done some further reading with a pair of fresh eyes.

[Shara Cody]

Each woman brings something to share, serves others first, listens, engages with Hesed. That we need to assume good intentions in others and to take our shields down so we can be in relationship both giving and receiving. This is what is being asked of us in this community and in real life so we can be safer for Black and brown people.

Lanes vary based on the relationship you have with someone but lines, like humiliation and punching down, are always present and clear. The deeper the relationship the more the lanes and lines are clearly understood by each person. In the LoR community if there were rules around who could speak to whom, there wouldn’t be eye to eye relationships and therefore no Hesed so I can’t place lanes above lines.

Gift and risk: bringing what you have to offer and including the parts that will be harder for others to understand or accept. I’ve received so many gifts and seen the great risks that come with them at LoR. Leading this community has always been full of risks for Lace and after the violence by a community member, I see another set of risks by and for Lace that I hadn’t recognized before.

I hear this as a call to commit to go deeper into community and relationships in order to lessen harm to Black and brown people and I accept and honor this gift and permission to be in community. I’m ready to engage with love and be called in to make the world safer for Black and brown people.

[Kelsi Watters]

Hey Shara, it’s Kelsi. I have some thoughts here around whaty said, “assuming good intentions in the other and taking down our shield”. In deeper relationships, like the Communion of Hesed love Lace described in her essay, lanes are not necessary. The women abiding with each other can let down their shields because they are with people they love, trust, and know will offer them wisdom and perspective. However, the part I’m struggling with is “assuming good intention”. Here’s why. At LoR, we highlight the difference between intent and impact. Assuming good intentions (or rather, WW demanding that POC assume good intentions of us) is a way of letting WW off the hook or not holding ourselves accountable for the harm/impact of our actions. I feel that “good intentions” is weaponized by WP often. WW put up that shield of good intentions to protect ourselves from being called out, yet we ask black and brown women to let down their shield, taking whatever we offer, no matter how harmful, because of our good intentions. Furthermore, I wonder how often black and brown people are harmed by the shield of “good intentions” and thus how much more vulnerable it is for them to put down their shield while in community with white people.

What if you assume someone’s intentions were good, but their impact was harmful? Does assuming good intentions mean we keep silent because the other meant well, or is there still room for conversation around the impact? If so, what might it look like to have a conversation with someone whose intentions (we assume) were good, but whose impact was harmful?

How might assuming good intentions be in service or in disservice to the NorthStar?

[Shara Cody]

Hi Kelsi, I see the problem with “good intentions” and how it relates to the defense mechanism of intent over impact so it was probably not a good word choice on my part. I very much agree about the harm caused to Black and brown people by hiding behind “good intention”. What I was thinking of when I used the words good intentions was how Lace calls people good actors and bad actors. So people who are engaging in this community with, ha, I wanted to say good intentions again but maybe benevolent or altruistic purpose would be more appropriate. I think it’s assuming the best even as we call each other in and not as a way to avoid saying something just as you’ve done here with me. Perhaps assuming someone is a good actor helps us call in with Hesed because it makes us imagine that the correction is both warranted and wanted. You’re right that “good intentions” have been weaponized against Black and brown people and that wording is potentially activating. Would “good actor” or “assuming the best” work?

[Emily Holzknecht]

Lanes are necessary now because our relationships are not strong and our ability to be in healthy relationships is not strong. Lanes are necessary not because Black people, indigenous people and people of color inherently and eternally must drive in segregation. Lanes are necessary because of our context and our history and the immense harm that white people have done and continue to do to others. In the Beloved Community where poverty is no more, where racism and all its sub -isms are no more, where militarism is no more and where people get to live their lives generation after generation without the harm of those three evils and heal from generational trauma, then there will be no need for lanes. While we do not have a universal Beloved Community right now, Lace’s table that she sets where all are there to serve and to embody Hesed is a microcosm of Beloved Community where lanes are not needed because lines are not crossed and both the deep relationships built and the deep commitment to relational ethics ensures that trust is possible, that the beloved sitting at the table come to serve and to love and not to harm.

[Clare Steward]

I like your point that lanes are necessary in general because we have behaved in a way that causes harm both past and present. The constant reminder of making sure we think about how our words and actions would land on Black and Brown people, to practice emotional regulation and manage our slosh, to un center ourselves and to work hard to make sure this space is safe for Black and Brown people is all to help us stay in our lanes and lessen harm. Preparing us to be open to and accepting of course correction and repair when we do step out of our lanes is a huge part of mitigating harm and building resilience and reliability so that we continue to do the internal work and continue to show up effectively and safely in our external efforts.

[Christina Sonas]

Trust is so important with lanes — courtesy and community, too. But trust. Which there isn’t between BIPOC and white people, and so, lanes. And lines. All of the constraints on a journey get put into place because enough people aren’t trustworthy, and the risk becomes too high for the rest. Trust means we are confident in both intent and in repair if unexpected impact occurs. I can see exactly how little I’ve put into earning trust with Black and brown people and communities, and the lanes, the lines, and constraints are therefore brought upon myself and can only be dismantled by my relentless reliability.

[Rebecca McClinton]

I really like the way you worded this, Emily. If our lines are clear, and we’re all committed to and actively following the same lines and praxis, the lanes fade and are not needed. Lanes themselves existing are because lines are not being respected.

[Julia Tayler]

That was a lovely image of friends coming together. The risk of being in relationship isn’t something I’ve ever talked about or engaged with IRL or online. There is a lot of risk but it is worth the risk. We have to be worth the risk. I need to practice here so I can be worth the risk and so I can reflexively get in the game sooner. I read all the back and forth and wasn’t sure what to say. Wasn’t sure what the perfect thing was. Hesed and kind candor. Keeping the North Star center and getting in the game.

[Jessie Lee]

*crossposted in response to Miela’s comment on the site*

Thank you, Miela, for these insights, and for your example of pivoting to race and personalizing in a deep way.

I’ve been having trouble finding my words to respond to this, and I think it’s because my mind is cloudy from hurt and an impulse to guard myself, to isolate myself from community. I’ll be honest; I’m shaken by Holly’s 180 from celebrating the Center to trying to sabotage it and from seemingly loving Lace to putting so. much. effort. into discrediting and demonizing her. It is highlighting and underscoring the very real risk of abiding in community.

As someone who also has spent much of my life abstaining from that risk and preferring instead to retreat quietly into myself where I feel it’s safe, I’m afraid to have what happened to Lace happen to me. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be resilient enough to withstand it. I’d imagine Lace has these fears too, and hers, unlike mine, are based in a long history of being abandoned by white people and poc who say they’re “all in,” but blow up, shut down, or run away at a pain point. And she still shows up and bares her neck, knowing and maybe even anticipating the risks but bolstered to take them by her marrow deep commitment to our North Star, and sustained by her relationships and community.

I must emulate her, pushing through my fears and abiding in community anyway, because as you point out, a lack of community is where white supremacy flourishes. I am not equipped to dismantle white supremacy by myself; this HAS to be done in community governed by Hesed. If it is not, the tools of the oppressor will be all to easily wielded, and white supremacy and its harms perpetuated.

You and Lace have given me a lot to interrogate with this one.

[Shara Cody]

Miela’s comment about white supremacy flourishing in lack of community stood out to me too. As well retreating and abandoning commitments ensure community remains unstable and provides the excuse that conflict is why we leave. But community can’t become strong as Lace has described unless we stop running away.

[Lace Watkins]

say it louder for the bleachers. There is a payoff in sabotaging the world we say we want, however unconsciously. and that payoff cannot be confronted and challenged until it is named.

[Shara Cody]

Yes, sabotage is exactly what it is and you naming it made it more clear to me. I’ve felt that tug of retreat when things have been difficult and now that that tug of white supremacy has a name I think it’ll be even easier for me to identify quickly and pull that weed.

[Jessie Lee]

Yes, exactly this. I hadn’t thought about the incentive in sabotaging community. If we sabotage community, we are giving ourselves an out that will be socially acceptable, at least among people who are not invested in changing status quo through becoming new people doing new things in new ways. We are giving ourselves permission to abandon our commitments without taking responsibility for that choice, because we get to act as if community dysfunction pushed us out without acknowledging our role in causing the dysfunction. Thanks for this framing, Shara and Lace.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Jessie Lee.

[Kelsi Watters]

What a gift to read this essay. Speaking of “gift and risk,” I imagine there was gift and risk for you, Lace, in writing this essay. Some people will accept the gift for what it is; others may reject it, or misunderstand it, or not even read it. There is truth and Hesed love and your whole self, your heart and livelihood in these words so I imagine there is risk in delivering it.

Regarding lanes and lines: I was a bit confused before about the distinction between the two and how to apply these concepts, so this essay brought a great deal of clarity for me. Lanes can “sometimes be less tools for engagement, rather than excuses for inaction, or worse, collusion”. Remaining silent in the face of racial violence andharm to BIPOC because “it’s not my lane” is one way lanes are used as an excuse for inaction. Lanes could also be used for the more problemati concception of boundaries rooted in white supremacy – either setting boundaries that push others away, insisting that theone whois attempting to walk with us is “not in their lane,” rather than recognizing the harm we are causing; or using our misconcieved notion of lanes as a boundary against taking action that makes us uncomfortable. As the essay says, we cannot always see the path to and need for course correction on our own. We often need community to abide with us, to be open to the perspective and wisdom of fellow walkers to bring more clarity of vision to the path ahead – the problem that needs course correcting, and the actions that will get us there.

Lines, on the other hand, are more important. These lines are drawn against harmful behavior; and in this space, the lines are focused on lessening harm to BIPOC. Therefore, we community members have an obligation to speak out against any harmful behavior, by a white, white adjacent, or non-white person. Holly crossed several lines by thebbhaviorshe displayedeaandthose of us who were silent or tried to justify her behaviors, crossed a line also.

There is permission in community, and imperative. Permission in the context of relational community means we have the imperative to hold the other even when the other forgets or disregards the relationship. To me, this ties back to what Lace said in the video; that even though Holly has broken her personal and professional commitments as a friend and employee, Lace is under the imperative to continue holding Holly in Hesed love. This also speaks to unilateralism – if we have promised to hold someone well, to be their friend, then we don’t get to disregard our commitment to the other person even if they break their commitment to us.

“To do less than that is to abdicate responsibility to be in Communion with the other.” To say everyone gets aplace at the table, meanst that place will always be set for them, no matter how many dishes they break or how many times they walk away. That is why true community is so complicated, and so messy.

There is permission for the other to “get in our force fields” and the imperative to “have shields down” in order to hear and receive their perspective and wisdom. “In relationship, there are lines, but no lanes, or more accurately, as the relationship deepens, the lanes blur and fade”.

We are New people doing New things in New Ways. If I am going to be here, I must commit to my praxis with intentionality, and “accept the basket from everyone” in the community no matter how hard it may be to swallow the truth that is offered.

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

I appreciate you acknowledging both the gift and the risk in this essay Lace so lovingly shared with us. I had similar thoughts in reading it. I thought of the vulnerability she was showing and noticed the example she was displaying in how to be in community.

[Christina Sonas]

Your words on lanes and lines brought an phrase into my mind: Lines are ethos; lanes are praxis. There is destabilization in the renovation work necessitated by the widespread white supremacy throughout the structure of my identity, my ethos, my praxis. In truth, there are lengths of this highway where I simply cannot tell where I belong among the lanes and lines that are intermingled and overlaid by competing systems in myself and in society. (I live in the San Francisco / Oakland area and this white-knuckle driving situation is far too prevalent here!) But in this work of navigating antiracism and white supremacy, I am more fortunate than when I am in my car, because — if I listen and and integrate — Black and brown people have left signposts, cones, and are even standing as signalers to show me where I need to go. I don’t have to guess. And when I choose to guess, rather than follow, I am endangering everyone around me by holding myself separate from community.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

This is an invitation to true relationship. I learn over and over here that I can’t truly be part of a community if I hide parts of myself. I keep discovering new ways that I hide, to protect myself from that vulnerability. I might say or do something that someone else doesn’t like, or that hurts someone, so I say nothing. Someone might say something that hurts me, so I hedge my involvement and keep people at arms length. If I don’t care too much about them, it will hurt less when I do wrong, or they do.

[Christin Spoolstra]

I love the reminder that there is risk in relationship and how the ideas of lanes and lines fits with what you were discussing in the comments on the Hesed and Unilateralism post.

We are new people doing new things in new ways. We can say anything but not any old way.

Being here is a commitment to community, a commitment to the relational. “There is permission in community. And imperative.”

In thinking how anti-community white supremacy is, I’m contemplating how to bring the relational outside of this space. And I’m grateful all over again for this rehearsal space where I can make my plans and practice them so that in the moment I can respond with community-oriented Hesed.

[Rhonda Freeman]

What came through to me loud in clear in this writing is that it is all relational. I work for a brown man. I have heard countless times ‘don’t take it personally’ in the workplace. I never believed that, but with this writing, a light goes on. Duh…. How many micro-agressions have I committed over the last 23 years? It is all relational. It is all personal. I am sad but committed.

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

You have a beautiful gift of words and of painting a gorgeous, detailed, rich imagery. I felt like I was right there with you. I felt the warmth, the love, the balance of hard things said and heard AND the tenderness in which it was all said AND in which it was heard. It felt very mutual – not a one sided account, but true communion and community and conversation. In addition to the clarity of lanes and lines that others talk about, I also saw eye to eye relationship in action. I appreciate your heart, your gift and your risk in giving us those things. I am here. Walking. Being a new person doing new things in new ways.

[Rebecca McClinton]

“There are lines for everyone we are in relationship with, no matter the depth or the length of the relationship. Humanity must never be compromised.” I first read this piece last night and coming back tonight that’s the *line* that stands out the most for me as I continue to examine lines and lanes and how to call a thing a thing with people of color, with kind candor and not weaponizing my whiteness. In Lace’s narrative here it’s also the actions that stand out to me in the women described. I always think it has to be words, the right words, said in the right way, asked in the right way, but the actions are so much where it’s at. Actions are about keeping lines. Lanes start to look like lines (or I start to treat lanes like lines) when action’s not present.

[Laura Berwick]

The conceit of driving lanes can be a helpful analogy, but no analogy is exact. The conceit of a cafe with different dining rooms, a main dining hall, a teaching kitchen, can hang context and a concrete image on how Lace’s kitchen table can be expanded to seat us all, but again, the analogy isn’t exact. It’s helpful, beautiful, touching, can cement a better understanding, but it will have gaps.

And those gaps are where we white women can find cover. We can interpret staying in our lanes to absolve us from action. We can interpret being just a diner and not a chef to do the same.

What doesn’t have gaps are our guidelines and foundational material/starters forums/pinned posts. Those absolutely provide the most complete cover for what is expected of us here, accept no substitutes.

There is a lot going on in a conversation further up-thread, and I’m hanging this here instead, because there are responses owed to Lace that I don’t want to divert (give cover for omitting), and because I think this is important for me and possibly others, to not lose sight of, even in the beauty and power of what Lace has presented.

The work is done with love here, but it’s work, work is required of all of us here, and that is made clear in plenty of places. To use the fact that we’ve formed a non-profit to absolve ourselves of the work here is to completely gut the purpose of the non-profit we’ve formed. Which is to support… the… work… here. And more, but that’s an AND, not a BUT. To use the image of a beautiful dining room to absolve ourselves of active participation because in a dining room we expect to be served and filled while we just sit passive is… first off flawed, because at the very least we do NOT get mind-read and spoon-fed at restaurants; we are active participants in our nourishment… but also it is taking that beautiful imagery and using it as cover, and even potentially weaponizing it, to say obviously we must mean what we’re showing as analogy to be the full picture, in spite of what we’ve said in the guidelines and required reading that goes further.

I need to use these beautiful analogies for the purposes they were developed for: to elucidate and drive home aspects of my work, not cover for me to hide from the work I’m clearly expected to do in this space.

[Deleted User]

Hi Danielle,

This is all a discomfort but I prefer the discomfort of saying I came to a different conclusion than I do saying I would do something different if in the same situation again.

I mentioned the box in passing because you asked me to move my message, which made it sound like a glitch. If you hadn’t I wouldn’t have mentioned anything.

What you’re telling me here, on the one hand, is that my suggestions or comments or ideas will be considered as supremacist whilst on the other hand Julie is telling me I should “engage in the community and provide feedback and/or suggestions. My response to her was, “….I don’t get to say how Lace or her team do things unless I am specifically invited to do so. Again it’s not my place.”

It’s no biggie, I understand your point. I won’t mention anything again.

[Lace Watkins]

That last sentence of yours is supremely passive-aggressive.

No one is saying that you cannot speak, absolutely no one is saying anything of the sort.

What people are walking with you about is your intractability.

And your insistence upon basically saying ‘I will be here as I choose, and I will completely disregard the agreement that I made with this community, because I hold myself above and apart’; this is the Crux.

You acknowledge that this is a practice space. What you don’t acknowledge is that your stance side steps that practice. You are watching other people practice. But you are not practicing yourself. That is doing a disservice to the community as a whole.

No one, certainly not I, have a problem with dissension or disagreement. The problem lies in disingenuousness. The problem lies with your trying to deflect responsibility for your own agency and choices. And, also, what seems to be your insistence upon completely disregarding the ethos of this space in service to your own distorted ethos, while still wanting a place at the table, but only in the ways that you choose, a rather toxic unilateralism.

This is very much what our ex employee felt entitled to, and when she was not accommodated, she Unleashed what she hoped was mortal havoc, which you seem to feel was at least somewhat morally Justified.

Speaking of moral equivalency, here are some other things that I’ve noticed.

You never asked me what happened, really. And, crucially, you’ve never asked how I am.

I wonder if that lack of curiosity and compassion stems at least in part to your distaste for our ‘new’ structure.

Now that we are an entity that you find somewhat crass and unseemly (which also needs to be unpacked), that gives you permission to no longer think of me as a person, if you ever did. Now we’re just another faceless entity.

You’re dead wrong about that, but if even a part of you feels that way, that is absolutely driving your choices here, as you yourself said upthread.

So again, Lee, face me.

Later on today when I have the time and the spoons, I am going to pick up some of the highlights of what you’ve said so far and answer them one by one.

But first, *again*, you need to do me the courtesy of answering my own queries to you and responding to my own comments to you.

It is not lost on anyone here that you have been responding to various white women, while simultaneously completely ignoring me today. You have steadfastly refused to face me.

You *have* been asked to speak; you just been incredibly selective as to what and to whom you choose to speak.

In this very long thread you gave a recitation of what you feel your North Star is. Make no mistake, what you have decided is your North Star is not the North star of this space.

I can say that with authority, because I crafted it.

You say that you the reason that you became involved with this space is because you wanted to learn how to mitigate harm to black and brown people.

But, as always, who we are in this space is Who We Are.

And extrapolating out to your offline life, as well as in other online spaces, I’m concerned.

Here, in this practice space with incredibly low-risk, you chose to literally sit it out.

There is nothing that gives me confidence that in a real time situation, that you would not choose the exact same way of being, which would absolutely be detrimental.

With real-time harm, in or out of virtual space, no one has the privilege that you have reserved for yourself and taking days upon days to decide whether or not to act.

I did a quick and dirty search. According to Facebook, you have been active since around mid-December, although it feels longer than that. Even so, I feel the need to mention that. The person with whom you ascribed more Creedence that myself, and moral equivalency with myself, have basically been inactive both as an intern and as a member of the community since basically October. This is where the supremacy comes in. Because, regardless of whether or not you acknowledge it, we did have something of a relationship. You did not have a relationship with the person who, by your inaction, you ultimately aligned with. Because your silence was indeed alignment with the intern. And again, extrapolate that out. You say that you want to become less dangerous to black and brown people. Do you feel that in these days and weeks of your processing your choices, do you feel that, by your actions, or, again, in action, you are a less dangerous person? Again, Lee, face me.

[Deleted User]

Lace, if you want to share what happened then fine, but I don’t need explanations and I don’t think it’s fair of me to ask them of you. And, I never asked how you were because I thought you’d have perceived my approach as the unfamiliar kind smiling white women as disingenuous. That’s not lack of curiosity or compassion, that’s just lack of relationship, which grows naturally and isn’t forced. And clearly, something to work on.

You’re saying that I don’t think of you as a person yet I’ve reached out to you in the community as a person a few times and to date I don’t ever recall a response from you. I’m not pointing this out as a “poor me” but I feel you’re unfairly accusing me here of just seeing you as a consuming place.

I keep saying this but I don’t have a problem with your structure but you won’t let that go. I wonder whether your own personal issue with being a non-profit is being projected onto me as a mirror or something.

You’re also accusing me of not facing you and answering your questions. There’s 8, 9 or 10 women walking on this thread now, it’s actually quite overwhelming trying to juggle and respond to everything and everyone. I’ve not deliberately not responded to you and I’ve said down thread if I’ve missed anything, please say.

I’m sorry you feel I would be harmful outside of this space. And, at the moment I acted how I did, I’ve actually spent days interrogating my action, which is different than what you are explaining.

I have been around longer than December and I’m sorry that you feel my silence meant I aligned with Holly. I think I made it clear, I didn’t align with her and that she was neither justified or proportional in her actions. I thought the reaction to her was proportional though and because of that, my action meant that I wasn’t harmful because a disproportionate response to her would have been.

[Deleted User]

Hello again. I’ve been doing more walking on this idea of “solidarity”. May I ask, what the situation should have looked like had we done as a community what you expected? I think this is where I’m getting stuck because I can’t see how that looks and all I can see is potential harm.

[Deleted User]

Hello Marlise, I’m sorry for your experience. You sound like you had no one in your corner. Please don’t think that I was turning my back on you or Lace. As I said, had no one been there I would have stepped in.

I absolutely agree with all your comments here. I don’t just choose inaction as a default, I chose inaction on this occasion in response to the situation. Others chose action. We all came to different conclusions.

[Lace Watkins]

I have another illustration; something that happened about 25 years ago, which is not the same scenario that Marlise describes, but that I think is complementary to it. I am going to break it out into a separate comment, because I don’t want this conversation to be completely taken over; this i think has relevance to everyone.

[Marlise Flores]

Lee, the irony is that all of the individuals who I would consider as having left me out in the cold when it mattered most would absolutely consider themselves in my corner. They simply chose when and why they would do so, based on their comfort and positioning.

That you chose inaction intentionally is an even greater concern/pain. Your point seems to be that different conclusions can be derived (and they certainly can), but you are skipping over that those different conclusions have direct impact.

You’ve mentioned above that if others had not stepped in, you certainly would have. This seems to diverge from prior comments that critiqued others stepping in, but I would like to point out something I find essential that is often overlooked in the argument that “pile on” doesn’t help. If I had not been the only one paying attention that day in FedEx, if others had also stepped outside with us, perhaps something more than quiet “solidarity” would have been achieved.

I have had a few individuals who have quietly stood in solidarity with me in the face of abuse and pain….but, while that certainly helped me feel less alone and find comfort to endure the abuse, the harm never stopped. I think we absolutely need to consider that “solidarity” is a bare minimum response, and by itself does nothing to shift or change the systems of oppression that are in place (and reflected in the attitude that others have it handled).

[Deleted User]

I understand different conclusions have a direct impact and I’m sorry if I appear to or have critiqued others here, that wasn’t intentional. I understand your point regarding “solidarity” too. I will think more on that with regards to this situation in particular.

[Julie Helwege]

Thank you for the vulnerable sharing – your the point about community solidarity really hit home. The difference between one and everyone in the store walking outside is stark. You can’t dismantle entrenched systems, if everyone doesn’t show up.

We have such an opportunity in this community to walk together in solidarity and drive much needed change.

[Marlise Flores]

*adding it takes practice within community to know how to collectively respond in a way that mitigates harm AND shifts systems

[Lace Watkins]

I don’t think anyone has said this to you plainly; straight no chaser.

Your response was wrong.

Here is my story (also broken out in to a separate comment):

____________________

I am breaking this out into a separate comment because, while I think the conversation with Lee is important, and I hope instructive, I feel that this story also has relevance.

About 25 years ago, when I was living in a different part of the city, a group of us were coming back after dinner, and we saw an altercation; a man was berating and threatening a woman who was cowering, right in the middle of the street.

A crowd had formed, and while a few people were tepidly trying to get the man to stand down, the majority, the vast majority, of the people were absolute bystanders; rubbernecking to see if it would escalate to the point where the man actually became physically violent.

Our group, maybe eight or ten of us, went into action without even discussing it first.

We all made noise, startling the man, and giving us time to move. A few of us took the man aside, after first letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that what he was doing was wrong; and that he could not continue to harm. The rest of us surrounded the woman as a type of shield while also asking if she was ok, and seeing if she had been physically harmed. We asked if she needed 911, or if we needed to call the police on her behalf; she said no, but we didn’t leave it there.

The ones with the man, de-escalated him, while we found out what was going on with the woman. She lived with him; she was scared to go home with him, so we offered our homes to her for the night.

Meanwhile, the man was told in no uncertain terms that he was not going to have contact with the woman any further that night, and we gave our phone numbers, mine and ‘Dan’s’, so he could call one or both of us in the morning for next steps.

You will notice something in this story.

*We didn’t know what had gone on before*.

In the moment, it absolutely didn’t matter. We collectively decided that there was nothing the woman could have done to warrant the treatment she received.

While we did get fuller context later, it was absolutely not required in order to take decisive action; to get the woman to safety, and to stand with the man. It took a while for him to de-escalate, and we were with him. We did not abandon him; we gave him strong parameters and boundaries, yes, but we also stayed in community and relationship with him.

The woman was safe. The next day, we located resources for her, and let her know she had options.

Later that day (or the next, I am not sure; it’s been long time) ‘Dan’ and I met with the perpetrator at a Denny’s. We laid out what was going to happen next, and we gave him resources as well, and let him know we would continue to walk with him (though we didn’t use that language). We also let him vent, but we were firm in telling him that, while we could talk about what he felt was his justification in what happened that night, the first order of business would be *his* behavior in the moment, and taking as long as it took (lots of food. gallons of coffee.) for him to ‘get it’.

This was crucial. While he was ‘the perp’, we acknowledged that he was in pain too; one doesn’t do what he did without some root cause, internal or external. We made it plain that we would stand with him while in no way condoning or enabling further violence. We were there for him–while holding him strictly accountable.

When we intervened, there were a few bystanders who suddenly found their voices and their agency, and offered to call 911, to hold the man back physically (after the fact; we didn’t use any kind of force).

The point here is, that one can hold to principles and choose in the moment not to ‘take sides’, but still be present in effective and empathic ways.

This too: that people often need ‘permission’ to choose to act. There were as many reasons for inaction as there were people who rubbernecked (at least 30; maybe more. it was dark). But even with those who wanted to act; they felt somewhat paralyzed until they knew that they *could* act.

We didn’t know how long it had been going on; it didn’t matter. We didn’t know what, if anything, she did to ‘deserve’ it. What we did know was that it couldn’t continue, and that we couldn’t wait for someone to suddenly find courage. We knew we couldn’t walk away. We knew that it was worth the risk. And we knew there would be no collective payoff. In fact, it cost us; it cost the family who took them in; it cost ‘Dan’ and I time and money at Denny’s; it cost those of us who researched resources; it took real risk of bodily danger for those of us who intervened on the man.

By contrast, let’s look at the risk in an online internet space.

That’s easy. There is none. Worst case, you might get yelled at by someone you don’t know and are not in relationship with. Holly might have locked and loaded on you. But….that’s it really.

But in intervening, you could have made a real difference.

Just as the women bystanders now had a reinforcing illustration that it’s not ok to verbally and emotionally (and possibly physically) harm a woman, the men did too. Now they knew that if these quiet Mennonites saw them doing something, that they would not duck their heads down and look away. They knew there would be consequences.

Pivot to the Lace on Race community.

Holly and I and Leadership Team were not the only ones in the metaphorical dining room. There are many Black people. We’ve talked about them; talked about how the risk they take even in lurking when it comes to white people who might well be dangerous themselves, or who will collude with dangerousness when it comes to it.

And it did.

So. It’s an easily discarded argument that because one didn’t know the details or the backstory, that excused inaction. As well, there was indeed a way to both hold Holly and hold her to account.

Eventually, we all do need to talk about the embedded anti-blackness that undergirded all of this, but for now let’s consider this.

And yes, the woman victim was white; the male antagonist was Black. ‘Dan’ was white; I am not. It didn’t matter.

We could and did address the societal and structural forces that were factors in his behavior; but in the actual choice point, that did not excuse our responsibility to act.

So, let’s talk about this. What do you take from my story?

[Deleted User]

Hi Lace.

I have a story too. My mum and brother were driving home one day when they saw a guy getting beaten by a group of guys. My mum started to turn the car around and told my brother to intervene. My brother said, “I’ll get my head kicked in”. My mum said, “That could be you on that floor, if you don’t get out, I will.”

My brother intervened the fight and they took the guy home. Had they drove past and the situation been getting dealt with, they wouldn’t have intervened.

What I saw in the Holly instance was your group already on the scene with the task in hand.

I think what you’re saying from your story is that what you saw from the community was a tepid response to Holly and you wanted it to be better?

[Lace Watkins]

I am breaking this out into a separate comment because, while I think the conversation with Lee is important, and I hope instructive, I feel that this story also has relevance.

About 25 years ago, when I was living in a different part of the city, a group of us were coming back after dinner, and we saw an altercation; a man was berating and threatening a woman who was cowering, right in the middle of the street.

A crowd had formed, and while a few people were tepidly trying to get the man to stand down, the majority, the vast majority, of the people were absolute bystanders; rubbernecking to see if it would escalate to the point where the man actually became physically violent.

Our group, maybe eight or ten of us, went into action without even discussing it first.

We all made noise, startling the man, and giving us time to move. A few of us took the man aside, after first letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that what he was doing was wrong; and that he could not continue to harm. The rest of us surrounded the woman as a type of shield while also asking if she was ok, and seeing if she had been physically harmed. We asked if she needed 911, or if we needed to call the police on her behalf; she said no, but we didn’t leave it there.

The ones with the man, de-escalated him, while we found out what was going on with the woman. She lived with him; she was scared to go home with him, so we offered our homes to her for the night.

Meanwhile, the man was told in no uncertain terms that he was not going to have contact with the woman any further that night, and we gave our phone numbers, mine and ‘Dan’s’, so he could call one or both of us in the morning for next steps.

You will notice something in this story.

*We didn’t know what had gone on before*.

In the moment, it absolutely didn’t matter. We collectively decided that there was nothing the woman could have done to warrant the treatment she received.

While we did get fuller context later, it was absolutely not required in order to take decisive action; to get the woman to safety, and to stand with the man. It took a while for him to de-escalate, and we were with him. We did not abandon him; we gave him strong parameters and boundaries, yes, but we also stayed in community and relationship with him.

The woman was safe. The next day, we located resources for her, and let her know she had options.

Later that day (or the next, I am not sure; it’s been long time) ‘Dan’ and I met with the perpetrator at a Denny’s. We laid out what was going to happen next, and we gave him resources as well, and let him know we would continue to walk with him (though we didn’t use that language). We also let him vent, but we were firm in telling him that, while we could talk about what he felt was his justification in what happened that night, the first order of business would be *his* behavior in the moment, and taking as long as it took (lots of food. gallons of coffee.) for him to ‘get it’.

This was crucial. While he was ‘the perp’, we acknowledged that he was in pain too; one doesn’t do what he did without some root cause, internal or external. We made it plain that we would stand with him while in no way condoning or enabling further violence. We were there for him–while holding him strictly accountable.

When we intervened, there were a few bystanders who suddenly found their voices and their agency, and offered to call 911, to hold the man back physically (after the fact; we didn’t use any kind of force).

The point here is, that one can hold to principles and choose in the moment not to ‘take sides’, but still be present in effective and empathic ways.

This too: that people often need ‘permission’ to choose to act. There were as many reasons for inaction as there were people who rubbernecked (at least 30; maybe more. it was dark). But even with those who wanted to act; they felt somewhat paralyzed until they knew that they *could* act.

We didn’t know how long it had been going on; it didn’t matter. We didn’t know what, if anything, she did to ‘deserve’ it. What we did know was that it couldn’t continue, and that we couldn’t wait for someone to suddenly find courage. We knew we couldn’t walk away. We knew that it was worth the risk. And we knew there would be no collective payoff. In fact, it cost us; it cost the family who took them in; it cost ‘Dan’ and I time and money at Denny’s; it cost those of us who researched resources; it took real risk of bodily danger for those of us who intervened on the man.

By contrast, let’s look at the risk in an online internet space.

That’s easy. There is none. Worst case, you might get yelled at by someone you don’t know and are not in relationship with. Holly might have locked and loaded on you. But….that’s it really.

But in intervening, you could have made a real difference.

Just as the women bystanders now had a reinforcing illustration that it’s not ok to verbally and emotionally (and possibly physically) harm a woman, the men did too. Now they knew that if these quiet Mennonites saw them doing something, that they would not duck their heads down and look away. They knew there would be consequences.

Pivot to the Lace on Race community.

Holly and I and Leadership Team were not the only ones in the metaphorical dining room. There are many Black people. We’ve talked about them; talked about how the risk they take even in lurking when it comes to white people who might well be dangerous themselves, or who will collude with dangerousness when it comes to it.

And it did.

So. It’s an easily discarded argument that because one didn’t know the details or the backstory, that excused inaction. As well, there was indeed a way to both hold Holly and hold her to account.

Eventually, we all do need to talk about the embedded anti-blackness that undergirded all of this, but for now let’s consider this.

And yes, the woman victim was white; the male antagonist was Black. ‘Dan’ was white; I am not. It didn’t matter.

We could and did address the societal and structural forces that were factors in his behavior; but in the actual choice point, that did not excuse our responsibility to act.

So, let’s talk about this. What do you take from my story?

[Rhonda Freeman]

I take that everyone had a role – everyone has a role – to mitigate the harm to brown and black people. In the immediate. At a minimum, I stand next to someone and hold their hand. If I am asked to contribute financially (and even if I’m not directly asked) I contribute. I don’t ask what it is for or what it will be spent on or if it is deserved. Also, I am responsible to keep an eye out. To look for where I am needed. That is community.

[Clare Steward]

Thank you for sharing this Lace, it definitely helps me see how we can unilaterally apply our ethos to everyone and it no longer becomes a question of “sides”. The need to act was immediate because the behavior being shown was unacceptable and dangerous. There was no choosing sides or asking about what happened and trying to justify or condemn, there was only action to get the harm to stop and both parties involved were held in community and relationship. This is where I know I need to strengthen my muscles, springing in to action and doing so with the correct actions. I am not there yet…I often get stuck in paralysis and am unsure of what to do…waiting for someone else to direct me on what the “right” way to respond is. That is dangerous. I need to keep walking and keep working until I can get it right and get it right quickly and I strongly believe these conversations and continued course correction within community is key.

I am also struck by the follow up and care after the immediate situation was diffused. After harm occurs, we can’t just sigh with relief and be glad that it is over, there is continued care and concern that is involved…to the extent that parties involved are willing to continue to walk in community.

[Marlise Flores]

Seeing eye-to-eye should be applied to everyone. It is possible to prevent harm without using sides to not walk with all involved. Resolution can look different for each individual, but it must include stopping/preventing further and not neglecting the individual facing the harm.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I am thinking about how interrupting violence in this situation was successful in part because there were so many people all working together, a coordinated effort of people who share an understanding of nonviolence and of interrupting violence. If the only person to intervene had been the first Mennonite of the group to see what was happening, that person alone could not have taken the man aside (it likely takes several people to take a violent man aside peacefully), shielded the woman, taken her home for the night and followed up with the man the next day. Interrupting violence effectively was a community effort. And because so many people were involved and on the same page, it was possible to do a good job, a thorough job and to do it with care for all people involved.

[Shara Cody]

Acting as a group certainly made stopping this violence more effective. When Holly was violently commenting on the LORCRE inaugural post, leaving Lace to respond on her own would be the same as watching the man assault the woman in the street. If only one person other than Lace responded to Holly, it would be the same as one person getting between the man and the woman. The more people, the better protected the person being harmed is and the better walking can be done with both people.

In an earlier post where I was sorting through my plan on how to act in future situations, I had concluded that focusing most of my attention on the person being harmed and telling the perpetrator to stop and how their behavior was unacceptable was the way to go. From this story I see that I missed walking with the perpetrator as part of what I’ve committed to learning to do. I’m thinking that there may be situations where I may need to help and protect the person being harmed in the moment and follow up with the perpetrator after maybe but that every situation will be different and the point is to act.

[Jen Scaggs]

You are so right that knowing the context should not be a necessary prerequisite for acting to stop harm immediately. I think that is something people often get hung up on, especially in online spaces, wanting to know all the details before “choosing a side,” but as you said it doesn’t matter. The harm cannot be allowed to continue. And you’re right, the risk in an online space is so low as a bystander, there is no excuse not to act.

(Reposted from below since I accidentally posted it in the wrong place!)

[Rebecca McClinton]

I’m thinking how it shouldn’t take an analogy like this one to make it more clear to me, but it does, and I’m investigating that. I’m especially considering the “permission” part. I can find myself in that.

[Jen Scaggs]

Wow, Lace, what a beautiful analogy! Truly having love at the core of all of our interactions is so important when we are in community with each other, and when we are coming from a place of love, there is no room for defensiveness. I have made the mistake of being defensive in past conversations in other spaces, and that is not helpful. Not only does it ruin the relationship, but doesn’t allow for growth and understanding.

I admit that my knee-jerk response to this situation was to stay out of it. I felt that being fairly new to this space, and not having the time to truly read all of the comments to see what happened made it “not my place” to get involved, when surely there were others who were more experienced who could do better. However, I understand that as a practice space, this should be the place to practice standing up and getting involved to stop the harm. Silence is complicity and I should not be complicit when someone is being harmed. I’m sorry that you were harmed, Lace and I’m sorry that I was not here standing up for you.

[Jen Scaggs]

You are so right that knowing the context should not be a necessary prerequisite for acting to stop harm immediately. I think that is something people often get hung up on, especially in online spaces, wanting to know all the details before “choosing a side,” but as you said it doesn’t matter. The harm cannot be allowed to continue. And you’re right, the risk in an online space is so low as a bystander, there is no excuse not to act.

[Jen Scaggs]

Reposting this in the thread above, as I didn’t hit the correct reply button.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I am seeing a pattern in your responses in this conversation that I think others are directing you towards, but I haven’t seen it click with you, so I’m going to try my way of saying it too because I know for me that sometimes hearing the same thing said but in a different way gets me to the understanding that was escaping me.

Some people have been saying you aren’t walking. Obviously you have been engaging in this conversation for days now, and I remember a comment of yours where you say you are walking and yet others have said this isn’t walking. And it hasn’t felt like you are doing much walking to me either.

Pause for a moment. Is your curiosity sparked now? Or your defensiveness? Is your mind running through examples you could use to prove that we are wrong and you ARE walking? Is your mind running through all the possible reasons we might be faulty in our experience of the situation? Or are you wondering “Huh. That’s unexpected. I wonder why we are experiencing this conversation so differently. I wonder where I can take some of the responsibility for what others are experiencing from me.” Or maybe even, “I didn’t expect that! What a great opportunity to understand myself better!”

The pattern I see is many people are pointing out how the way you have responded to something specific or in general fits into a larger picture of white supremacist behavior seen in many many white people. This is a gift they are giving you, saying “We believe that you will be able to accept this gift of an illuminated pattern of behavior and explore it and hold it up the light and try to see where maybe you fit in it even if it’s just a little bit”, but instead of you doing that, it feels like you push the gift back at them and say very bluntly “I wasn’t doing that. The pattern you are pointing out is irrelevant in this situation.” The bluntness of the responses is the indication that you are not walking, that you are not trying to see how despite intent you might be fitting into a pattern of behavior.

It is a pattern of focusing on you as the individual and not the pattern. Or focusing on a single thing you said instead of the pattern of all the things you are saying put together. We need you to zoom out a bit: to see yourself in the context of community, to see yourself in patterns of white behavior, to see an individual statement of yours in the context of the larger pattern of your statements.

Here is another way you are pushing away blame from yourself instead of examining it and taking responsibility for it:

Lee: Sorry Lace, I thought I had answered your questions. I think there are now 9 or 10 people walking with me here. It’s easy to lose track of trying to respond to everything and a bit overwhelming. If you advise which questions I’ve missed answering, I’ll answer them.

Lee: Whilst I’ve struggled to keep up with the comments and questions here, Lace has called me in for failing to answer all of hers which I’ve had to ask her to break out because I can’t see what I haven’t answered so I respectfully ask you to ask yourself the same question. I think I’ve said on a number of occasions now that I’m struggling to keep up with everyone’s comments and I have been gracious to answer them all.

Where are you taking responsibility for your own challenge here? You are asking Lace and others to take responsibility for it for you by asking them to break comments out. Given your assertion that too many people were calling in Holly, it’s hard not to think you aren’t also hinting that too many people are calling you in, thereby hinting that it’s our fault you aren’t answering the questions. I am reminded of the pinned post where Lace asks what we know of her afflictions.

I am going to put out an alternative way one could address the same situation that wouldn’t be pushing responsibility away from yourself and that would be walking with community:

“I appreciate everyone who is walking with me and all the time you are putting in. You clearly have a lot of faith in my ability to grow! I find that I have been lacking in my strategies for keeping up with everything and all the questions. Here is how I am going to change what I am doing, implementing strategies that allow me to keep track of all the questions and which I have answered, so that I can be responsible for myself (hold my own hand) and really honor the amount of effort everyone is putting in to walk with me…”

Can you see a difference there? Can you think of some strategies for managing the comments and questions (other than asking others to do their own walking differently)? Can you think of some strategies that work for you personally to help you zoom out and graciously accept the gifts people are giving you of a bigger picture?

[Emily Holzknecht]

This is supposed to be tagged for @lee

[Deleted User]

Hi Emily,

Thank you for your comment and yes, saying something in a different way is a help. I’m not actually sure of how to manage 150 comments when I thought I’d answered them all but I’d be happy for any suggestions the community may have.

No, I don’t feel defensive and yes I’m curious to understand how I might be fitting into a pattern of behaviour so I’ve done some further reading on “individualism” and will continue to do some more. Yes, I can see where my behaviour matches this. Thank you.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I can tell you how I have approached overwhelming amounts of language-based information in the past. I am sure there are other methods – what do researchers and authors do? – and that you will have to find something that works for you. I know seeing how someone else works can be a jumping off spot for finding one’s own way.

First in terms of covering all questions, I like to be able to mark things off, like physically put a checkmark through them. So I might make a print screen photo that I can digitally check off each comment that has been answered and I can put side by side with the board next time I come back so I can see where the comments are the same and where new comments have been inserted. I might also actually print the conversation with a printed and mark it by pen. It wouldn’t be too time consuming or wasteful to do this for a class I was taking, so I can extend the same effort and expense here.

Context for this next part: I’m was a preschool teacher before pandemic times and the way that I teach required me to really analyze children’s words and work much more deeply than in the moment. Children that young make up for lack of fluency in their primary language(s) with all sorts of linguistic strategies that are easy to miss if you only hear what they say once and respond right then in the moment and never revisit the conversation to see what adult ears missed the first time. They also often don’t flat out tell us what their research questions and research-related thinking is, so as a teacher I had to revisit documentation and zoom out and try to look for patterns in order to understand the bigger picture of their communal work. I have before printed pages and pages of original child created storytelling and cut each little story separate from the others so I could lay them out on the floor and move them around and mark them up and do what I needed to do to zoom out and see the patterns that I couldn’t have seen if the only time I heard the stories was in the moment or the only way I read them was on a screen.

Did I print everything and cut it up and move it around all the time? No, but sometimes the occasion arose when that was definitely worth doing. You’ve been in this community since October, and I don’t think there has been another time when so many people were walking with you specifically for so long, so maybe in all those other months there would not have been so much benefit in taking a more thorough approach to interacting with the material provided to you (in part provided by you because your words are part of this too). Maybe there won’t be another time that needs something as thorough as printing and cutting and arranging and marking up for months more. But this time there is certainly an opportunity to try new methods that will help you access the content. @lee

[Deleted User]

Hi Emily,

Thank you for your response. You have a real researchers eye! And what an interesting job. Actually, the penny started to drop when you talked about patterns. Now, this could have been said in many ways by many walkers upstream but took me time to get there.

.

Honestly, I think I’ve been very hung up on the “Mitigating harm to black and brown people” and less with the “white supremacy” of our North Star because to date I’ve not really understood the extent of it. My anti-racist education so far has been mostly about trying to see the world through the eyes of black and brown people so I don’t cause harm, how to have healthier relationships and how to be out loud in digging out and highlighting covert racism that exists in culture and community. How to listen and respond without blowing up, shutting down or running away.

.

All the hierarchy, community, patterning anti-white supremacy stuff, I’ve paid less attention to and this is where I got stuck. Some people I expect to get stuck and leave. I didn’t want to leave but I also didn’t want to continue without stating my position. Unfortunately, when I’ve put that across here, I’ve done so without ‘curiosity’ as you say. I’ve been missing a big chunk of information and skill on how to approach a problem, not through laziness but just because I haven’t put that piece of the puzzle in yet, or have experience in doing so. To me white supremacy meant white people thinking they’re superior but actually, I see in this conversation and on the whole that it stands for so much more. I just thought I had a different opinion and wanted to be OK with that rather than understand why I had a different opinion. Now I know.

.

I also struggled to see what solidarity could have looked like without harm. “Holly, you’re being violent and are really hurting Lace and her work here”. That doesn’t hurt her or tone police her, it acknowledges the hurt to Lace. It’s an observation of what I am seeing without getting up in the business or taking up too much space. It doesn’t speak for or over anyone. I got stuck here too.

.

In this instance, after you mentioned this patterning, I needed to go outside of the community to get help with the ‘zooming out’ as you say. I’m not sure whether anything could have brought me to this place sooner. Sometimes I feel like this work is less like a lumpy crossing and more like an exorcism but thank you for holding my hand.

[Laura Berwick]

For everyone who has been walking here, with @lee and with each other, there is a new post that you will want to delve into. We’ve transcribed a recent Leadership Team conversation as a discussion in Chef’s Table: https://laceonrace.com/groups/chefs-table/forum/discussion/conversation-on-community/

Because reply abilities are still limited there, and we absolutely want your engagement, we have opened up a discussion here in the Bistro as well: https://laceonrace.com/groups/the-bistro/forum/discussion/conversation-on-community-2/

[Christina Sonas]

One thing that struck me today is that, in cyberspace, no one can see witnessing or monitoring. In Lace’s intervention on the concrete, it would be more clear, even in silence, how many were alert, and what the participation of each person was. We would have posture and demeanor and proximity to give us additional information. Those who are already standing up would see us observing, or we would catch their eye, and they might signal us to come over, or signal that we can continue along.

In cyberspace, I need to take a visible step in order to be known in the community. In this situation, I was a more active participant, so I was known. At other times, I will be less involved. I’m now resolved to be explicit about my positioning, with a comment of some kind, when I am ready to enter the situation but think it might be unproductive, counterproductive, or even harmful. Witnessing. Am I needed? Standing by.

I’m thinking of how what I’m naming bystander detachment is linked to authority structures and conditioning — we’ve been trained that someone else will do it, someone we’ve been enculturated to accept holds power that we don’t. And that’s white supremacy, that’s misogyny, that’s imperialism… All hierarchies of domination which convince us we no longer have or no longer need personal agency or capacity or volition.

What if the one thing I absolutely need to do to break down oppressive systems is to presume my agency, capacity, volition, are always needed, rather than only under circumstances that have been prescribed by the systems themselves?

[Konstanze Weltersbach]

In cyberspace we can’t see witnessing or monitoring. That’s why when the things started under the original announcement of the start of the formal organization, I wanted to say something, even if it was clumsy.

[Deleted User]

Hello All.

I think I’ve been very hung up on the “Mitigating harm to black and brown people” and less with the “white supremacy” of our North Star because to date I’ve not really understood the extent of it. My anti-racist education so far has been mostly about trying to see the world through the eyes of black and brown people so I don’t cause harm, how to have healthier relationships and how to be out loud in digging out and highlighting covert racism that exists in culture and community. How to listen and respond without blowing up, shutting down or running away.

.

All the hierarchy, community, patterning anti-white supremacy stuff, I’ve paid less attention to and this is partially where I got stuck in a non-response to Holly. Some people I expect to get stuck and leave. I didn’t want to leave but I also didn’t want to continue without stating my position. Unfortunately, when I’ve put that across here, I’ve done so without ‘curiosity’. I’ve been missing a big chunk of information and skill on how to approach a problem, not through laziness I don’t think but just because I haven’t put that piece of the puzzle in yet, or have experience in doing so. To me white supremacy meant white people thinking they’re superior but actually, I see in this conversation and after doing a bit of digging see that it stands for so much more. I just thought I had a different opinion and wanted to be OK with that rather than understand why I had a different opinion. Now I know.

.

I also struggled to see what solidarity could have looked like without harm. “Holly, you’re being violent and are really hurting Lace and her work here”. That doesn’t hurt her or tone police her, it acknowledges the hurt to Lace. It’s an observation of what I am seeing without getting up in the business or taking up too much space. It doesn’t speak for or over anyone. I got stuck here too.

.

After the mention of ‘individualism’, I went outside of the community to get help ‘zooming out’ on that. I’m not sure whether anything could have brought me to this place sooner, it was mentioned I know. I suppose not everything makes sense straight away. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to walk with me, or should I say holding my hand. I realise saying that also smacks of privilege. I note here that I’ve more work to do on my own on some of the concepts being discussed in this space and not expecting everything to come from within this community, the pinned posts or the boards.

.

[Lace Watkins]

Hey. Do you think you might be ready to walk with me now, in an authentic and a durable way?

[Deleted User]

I’d like to think so, yes.

[Lace Watkins]

Thank you. I hope that by the time we actually engage with depth and intention, that your response to my query will be more of a full throated ‘yes’.

We are going to close this thread. The original essay did get subsumed by this conversation, and it deserves pride of place.

So we are going to re-run the essay, where it can stand on its own.

We can do our engagement in Washing Up. I will open up a thread there.

Before we engage, I do invite you, if you have not already, to read the Leadership Chat that we posted up as view only in Chef’s Table.

Lee, I read your response. I hope that it was indeed a Damascus Road moment, and that it’s not just your saying what you feel I want to hear. I want to know if your walk is durable enough to have this conversation with me, and I am also interested if you are willing to fully face, me, shields down as much as you can muster.

Also, your post above left me a bit confused, so I will give some clarity. You had said that you were going to do reading outside Lace on Race; while further education is always a boon, I do encourage you to, before you go to outside sources, truly read (or reread) all of the pinned posts. They’re on the Page in Facebook, and I think they were also imported here. I want you to have our ethos and method firmly under your belt. As well, I would hope that, after you did that, that there would be at least a initial level of buy in and affirmation.

Lastly, a pivot to the personal. Do you feel you can walk with me? Do you respect and trust me enough to do this kind of work in the way that we do it here? Are you willing to go shields down with me? Crucially, do you trust my competence and my character?

[Deleted User]

Hi Lace.

Thank you for your note here. Understood that you will shut this thread and understand that you would like me to read the pinned posts and the post about the leadership chat. I have read leadership post but not yet had a chance to respond. I will.

Noted that there is then a washing up thread for me to go to.

Apologies for my quietness on the boards, a combination of personal circumstances and outside reading have prevented my engagement. (not asking for carve out, just letting you know the situation so you don’t think I’ve shut down)

My outside reading has been focused very much on this ‘individulism’ of white supremacy culture that I am exhibiting, mentioned by Emily and more broadly by Julie below.

In response to you directing me to the pinned posts, I didn’t go there because I didn’t want to throw myself over them cherry picking. As required, I’m following them methodically.

Also Julie mentioned, she hasn’t done all the pinned posts herself yet so I also took it that some prior knowledge of white supremacy culture is already present? This might be a big point in the US, not so much in UK. (Or maybe i missed this)

In any case, I know what to do. I hope by the time I do it, I won’t need to come to washing up with you because I’d of answered any questions myself. I’m nothing here that

A. I need to do some of my own hand holding right now

B. Be concious of the labour I land on you as a black woman to help me to understand. (Not fair on you)

[Julie Helwege]

Hi Lee,

You’re continuing to walk. I see some uncentering and resetting in your comments, heightened awareness as well.

You’re staying in the car right now. You have some good reflections and as always, more walking, course correcting, rooting and weeding to do. There’s always an opportunity to be a corrective experience or a cautionary tale.

White supremacy is interesting in how we (I) instinctively distance ourselves from it. I was called in here early in my journey when I immediately connected white supremacy to the KKK. It’s ingrained ideology and propaganda WP (me) have been listening to all of our lives that teaches us consciously and unconsciously – not me. I’m different. I’m a good person. I earned what I have. Etc. And it all reeks of harm and oppression. Of holding power at all costs.

If I don’t recognize white supremacy in all of its forms and how it oozes out of me in the moment to moment, I will harm over and over again. I will perpetuate and not mitigate. It’s why anti-racist and anti-supremacist are both interconnected and so critical to be less harmful and much safer to BIPOC.

I can say in 9 months of following Lace’s method – I’m safer and less harmful. And I still have a lot of walking to do to be much safer and even less harmful.

The method works by going all-in to this practice space and the relational; leaning into discomfort, cringe and clench. Interrogating those feelings, not questioning the process because the process is working when those feelings and that questioning occurs. It’s not manipulation (that’s actually white supremacy whispering as WP, me, try to manipulate the work and maintain power and status quo, for example).

That doesn’t make this community an echo chamber or a cult; it makes this a community of awareness, plain speak, accountability, reliability, durability and one that takes our white instincts and ideologies and flips them “on their heads,” while also expanding and enriching them. We have a lot of wonderful, beautiful things to learn from the Other. From Lace and her leadership.

And most importantly, if I truly want racial equality, I have to instinctively and reflexively live out this/my Praxis moment to moment, which means the self-work and walking is constant. Not my North Star (or my interpretation of it), but the North Star, front and center always. This can’t be mastered, and I can’t dismantle my racism and supremacy, if the work is intermittent.

[Laura Berwick]

This discussion has become two discussions, and both are important. So that both can receive their appropriate attention, the topic article, Lanes, Lines and the Relational, has been reposted for continued discussion at:

https://laceonrace.com/groups/the-bistro/forum/discussion/repost-lanes-lines-and-the-relational/

To continue walking with our community member Lee, a discussion will be opened in the forum under Washing Up (link to be posted when created).

Thanks for all the solid engagement! Please keep it up, and feel free to copy/paste/cross post your engagement on this essay by Lace, and add any new reflections, to the new discussion.

[Laura Berwick]

@lee , I’m leaving a note here to let you know that your last comment on this thread was moved to Washing Up, to facilitate continuing your walking there.

Here is a link to that discussion:

https://laceonrace.com/groups/washing-up/forum/discussion/conversation-with-lee-part-1/

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Laura Berwick. Reason: Edited to add link to Washing Up discussion

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