May 2024
Art by Jen Bloomer from Radici Studios
Dear friends,
Several years ago, a colleague and I eagerly showed up to a community advisory board meeting for a partner organization we were working with. We were excited to introduce our new project about better embedding equitable practices into the organization’s work within the community. Since the community members attending the meeting were passionate about addressing health inequities, we anticipated that they would be enthusiastic to partner with us. We were dead wrong (at least initially).
At the meeting, we informally chatted with the community members and then started to present our project. We ultimately asked if they would help us organize a focus group where we could hear their ideas and perspectives. The chilly response we got from several Black community members was not expected: “We already told you about the racism we experience. Go do your homework.” While they had not directly told my colleague and I about their experiences, we represented leaders and other decision-makers that they had already shared their perspective to through public comment, open letters, and other forums. They were tired of sharing what was wrong without seeing action towards change. Indeed, we did need to do our homework. We had screwed up.
At that point, we could have found other community members who were willing to talk (and thus quickly fulfill our project goal of conducting focus groups). Or, we could have said “we tried, they said no” and continued our work with the partner organization without community member involvement. Instead, we slowed the project down, rolled up our sleeves, and started to do the homework. We dug up public comments, reports, and open letters. We talked to others in our network who better knew the community’s history. And, we started showing up to events hosted by community leaders to demonstrate our support and better understand the context.
After a few months of this homework, we asked the community advisory board if we could come back to their meeting with an update on the homework we did. They graciously invited us back and we were able to share that: (a) we heard you and apologize for last time, and (b) this is what we’ve done and learned since the last meeting. We then asked if they had questions for us and if we could continue visiting them. This time the answer was different: “Sure, we’d love to have you back.” Since then, our connection has blossomed into a beautiful partnership where community members, staff from the partner organization, and my colleagues and I are coming together to co-create equitable processes for work in the community.
I learned many lessons from that experience and it makes me think of some recent words from anti-racist thought leader Dr. Chandra Ford. She recently visited my campus and discussed how to work in partnership for equity. She said: “One way people sometimes approach it is: ‘I don’t want to do the wrong thing so I’m not going to do anything.’ I think that’s problematic. The harder thing to do is show up, get cursed out every so often, and still show up the next day and keep showing up.” Making a better world possible requires us to try, fail, and try again, while always listening and being responsive to partners to build trusting and lasting relationships for change.
Take care and keep showing up,
Paul
Today’s Key Point:
Making a better world possible requires that we show up, and keep showing up, to build the partnerships and relationships necessary to make lasting change.
Today’s Reflection Questions:
Where have you been hesitant to take action due to fear about doing the wrong thing? What ‘homework’ could you do to help you overcome that?
When is an example of a time you’ve made a mistake in relationship building and overcome it?
Who is someone you know who ‘keeps showing up’? How does that make the people around them feel?
What is preventing you from continually ‘showing up’? What in your life could you change to make showing up more possible?
Quote of the Month:
“Courage allows the successful woman to fail – and to learn powerful lessons from the failure – so that in the end, she didn’t fail at all.”
-Maya Angelou