About us
We are an intentionally multiracial group of Black feminist and antiracist learners and guides who are committed to liberatory power and embodiment of antiracist culture.
We envision a Black feminist future in which all people experience care, safety, dignity, and belonging
We are a commitment to
01
Liberatory Power
02
Embodied Antiracist Organizational Culture
03
Black and Indigenous wisdom, power, and sovereignty
04
Each person’s inherent wholeness, agency, and dignity
“We value Black feminist praxis, deep listening, transformational relationships, integrity, authenticity, and embodiment.”
What’s Possible
Embodied
Antiracist
Organizational Culture
Despite what white supremacy would have us to believe, there are other ways of being, relating, enacting power, and organizing ourselves that reject the lies of Black inferiority, Native invisibility, and white superiority.
While an Embodied Antiracist Organizational Culture (EAOC) must be self-defined by each organization, for us in an EAOC:
the wisdom, skill and lived experiences of Black people, Indigenous people, and all people of color are honored and reflected in the organization’s power structure
intersectional Blackness is affirmed and Black, Indigenous, and other people of color don’t have to assimilate to nor center whiteness in order to thrive and experience safety, belonging, dignity, and joy
the norms and values of Black feminism or an Indigenous worldview (or the values of another BIPOC culture that is essential to the work of the organization) are centered
each person’s identities, positionality, and embodiment are considered important factors in the strategic role that they play in making the organization’s mission possible
the proactive identification and counteracting of anti-Blackness and other forms of racism inside (and outside) the organization is prioritized
antiracist values, mindsets, and assumptions are visible in behaviors, policies, practices, outcomes, and impact
Note: Sometimes it is strategic to pursue racial justice, equity and liberation in an all same-race or majority same-race organization. We do not assume that all organizations need to be multiracial in order to achieve their goals; we assume that some do, and these are the organizations our approach is designed to support.
Our approach
Cultivating Embodied Antiracist Leaders and Organizational Culture is an inward-facing organizational culture, identity, and strategy transformation process developed and facilitated by Mattice Haynes and Jen Willsea.
Our approach is intersectional while centering race, emergent, somatically aware, and trauma-informed; it is not an academic or intellectual pursuit. We are more process and relationships-oriented than content-oriented. We understand that there is different work and different levels of responsibility for each of us based on our racial identities - Black, Indigenous, other people of color, and white. We are committed to walking our talk and being transformed by the work; this is the invitation we extend to you in this process. We aim to do this work at a pace that respects its depth and nonlinearity, as well as our and our clients’ humanity.
Because white supremacy and anti-Blackness are the foundation of this country, this is the same soil in which nonprofit organizations have taken root. Despite good intentions and expressed values of social justice, nearly all nonprofit organizational cultures, including those with Black people and people of color in leadership, perpetuate anti-Blackness and define “professionalism” through a Eurocentric patriarchal worldview.
These organizational cultures are often dehumanizing, disembodied, toxic, extractive, and assimilationist, resulting in harm to Black, Indigenous, and people of color in the workplace. The distance between whom an organization professes to be and how they actually operate in reality creates tensions that fester and drain focus from the mission if left untended.
This approach requires racial reckoning. We define racial reckoning as an ongoing practice of truth-telling and grieving. This process invites individual and organizational reckoning with anti-Blackness and other forms of racism and oppression, imagining and pivoting towards an antiracist organizational culture, and learning to embody wholeness, antiracism, and liberation.
