Power is the ability to exercise one’s will, influence others, and control resources, agendas, or outcomes.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, coined the term intersectionality to describe the ways in which multiple forms of discrimination or oppression (racism, sexism, classism, etc.) combine or intersect based on an individual’s multiple social identities.
identity salience describes how prominent or meaningful certain aspects of one’s identity are in a particular context (Stryker 1980)
We help people who are like us
- Receptivity: a deep consciousness or attunement to the various elements of a situation, including one’s own internal experiences, the experiences of others, and any contextual forces at play (i.e. culture, power dynamics, etc.)
- Motivation: the willingness, commitment, and available resources to show up for others
- Responsiveness: discerning “what is needed here?” and offering what you can to the person or situation in a non-manipulative way (i.e. avoiding “fixing” or selfish motivations for helping)
Saviorism usually comes from someone in a more privileged position trying to help a less privileged group and follows the thinking that it is one’s duty to “save” others from what is perceived to be lesser circumstances because they are helpless to "save" themselves. What often accompanies saviorism is a deficit ideology, which views certain people or groups as inherently lacking or deficient (Gorski 2016).
"There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." Thomas Merton
- Fear: Not belonging, not being enough
- Name our fear, not let it drives our beliefs, actions, decisions
- Perfectionism, One-right way, Paternalism, Objectivity, Qualified
- Even the most strategic decision will have unintended consequences.
- Collective action & accountability.
- @I see it now. I often pushed my co-hosts aside, to take over a session, out of the belief "I know best, I can do this better." Perhaps it might have happened differently, and it would have worked out fine. But I want to take over, just because I am the designated, experienced "facilitator". I even PULLED the circle back to me, tried to give the empathy I thought was helpful.
- Either/Or
- Conflict & increased sense of urgency, no time/ encouragement to consider alternatives
- Dualism makes it difficult to stay in relationship with people in their complexity - loving and caring for them, yet still holding them accountable for their actions.
- @This either/or is so deeply felt within me. Either I'm a good, practicing meditator or I'm a scum living off the earth. How am I to reconcile people who meditate and drink and engage in sexual flirtations? Either I'm productive, making money, or a failure. Either I talk to mom in deep conversations like I imagined, or I don't care about her. Why don't I be with her, let her choose how and when to talk about certain things, treasure every word that fall out of her mouth?
- Progress is More & Quantity over Quality
- Consider the cost of growth in social, emotional, psychic, embodied, spiritual & financial realms
- If there's conflict between content & process, process wins.
- Growth that is necessary and organic, and the conditioned desire for more transactional power, more people, etc. for its own sake.
- Worship of the written word
- @Am I spending enough time in communion with my teammates instead of just texting?
- Individualism/ I am the only one
- for BIPOC people: being blamed and shamed for acting to solve problems without checking in and asking for permission from white people, not a team player
- accountability, if any, goes up and down, not sideways to peers or to those the organization is set up to serve
- romanticizing a leader (or yourself) as the center of a movement, idea, issue, campaign. @Without me, really, CS will continue naturally. How about I just listen for what is going on and support below the ground?
- the racialized other who I thought of with such paternalistic fondness might not want to be like me or even with me. @My "aspiring facilitators" don't look up at me with dove-eyed adoration, seizing the chance to work with such an "experienced expert".
- Defensiveness & Denial
- Much energy is spent trying to prevent abuse & protect power rather than
- facilitate capacities of each person or
- clarify who has power and how they're expected to use it
- Leaders perceive calls for change as personal attacks
- Sometimes we are working out our shit on each other and we tend to work out our shit on the people we're closest to, because that's who is available.
- Avoid deciding what someone can or cannot hear, particularly if you don't have evidence. Give people credit for being able to handle more than you think.
- Acknowledge the damage done to one group would erase the experience of another group
- Assume that any naming of racism is on target. Not ask "is it or is it not racism?", akd "how is it racism?"
- Urgency
- Sacrifice potential allies & democratic, thoughtful decision-making
- Privileges those who process info quickly (or think they do) over other modes of knowing (embodied, intuitive, spiritual)
- everything takes longer than anyone expects, learn from past experience
- Clarify ahead of time about how to make decisions in an atmosphere of urgency
- @I do this all the time. I make a timeline, to look productive. This is the month when it should be done. And I get jittery. Can I hold a goal with space? I want to pull together, because if blood goes in and doesn't go out I wither. I need to talk, to process, to see myself in relation to others' life journeys. We have too many short-term stints, everything counted in days and weeks. What about skipping a year? Or five? I will never listen unless my body drop dead. Or to keep myself up I seek dopamine. A nation of suppressing our difficult feelings. And I feel like I surround myself with people who push the same way. I am afraid of oblivion, of "just enough for today", always running a sprint, squeezing as many exercises in as possible even in my Vovinam class. Oh, hello to HIIT, versus qi gong. Had I been elsewhere, would I slow down? To coordinate across people's time. What kind of field can I be? Put myself in a place where grace can flow?
- Right to Comfort & Fear of Conflict, Power Hoarding
- Discomfort is at the root of all growth & learning
- Be transparent about power, so everyone understands who makes the final decision and/or how the final decision is made before you dive into conflict
- The coalition was, like many, unwieldy and fragile. The people at the literal table represented well-funded large and long-standing organizations used to calling the shots along with small, struggling neighborhood organizations housed in poor communities where the drug trade was most visibly damaging. The funder, and therefore the coalition, was not concerned with drug users and dealers with money who knew how to hide their habits in the performed safety of their manicured and gated communities. The funder, and therefore the coalition, was focused on “helping” stem drug use that both exemplified and defined the "plight" of those labeled ever deficient and needy. @Then she cried, wrapped in her blanket, and thought about how the anger was a great gift.
- @I remember me pushing the director for my travel document, the driver for my trip, and met with resistance. Who are you? Why do we have to run after you?
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