Posts in Dismantling oppression
Pandering to funders
Pandering to funders

Ooof. It came to my attention earlier this week that an architect had resigned from UCSB's Design Review Committee over the university's proposed Munger Hall Project, a giant monstrosity of a student housing project where 94 percent of the 4,500 students would not have windows in their small single-occupancy rooms. Further, these rooms would be grouped into suites of 8 bedrooms per one bathroom. Oh and those 4,500 students? There would only be 2 exits to the building.

How could this be? Well, as the article explains, "The idea was conceived by 97-year-old billionaire-investor turned amateur-architect Charles Munger, who donated $200 million toward the project with the condition that his blueprints be followed exactly."

Did I say ooooof already?

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#architecture, #funders, #disruption, #feedback
Unresolved harms
Unresolved harms

A couple of weeks ago I found myself walking down the street in tears about something that happened to my family almost two years ago.

The anger, the rage, the hurt - it was so present, it surprised me.

Why was it coming up now?

It was because another family was experiencing something similar within the same community, even though for completely different reasons, and even though the community was now under different leadership.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick
Recovering is not the same as vacation
Recovering is not the same as vacation

Between the ongoing global pandemic and the Delta variant, the situation in Afghanistan, Hurricane Ida hitting Louisiana, as well as all of the usual horrors of the world, vacation feels like the last thing to be thinking about.

The fact is, in the midst of our team's August "retreat month" where our team puts a pause on external facilitation, meetings or calls, I just returned from a 2.5 week "vacation."

Yeah, those scare quotes are no joke.

What even is "relaxing" in a global pandemic? I feel like I've completely forgotten how.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#vacation, #workaholic, #workplace, #inclusiveleadership, #inclusiveworkplace
On Juneteenth and the racism of white confusion and denial
On Juneteenth and the racism of white confusion and denial

With Juneteenth now a federal holiday, a decision made on Thursday, the day before the Friday that would mark the holiday (I mean come on now!) many Black folks and others have been expressing mixed feelings about this development.

Unrelated to Juneteenth, our team has been having a lot of conversations lately with white leaders and their BIPOC staff about tokenism, performance, lip service, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. There is a HUGE toll to pay when actions and impact are out of alignment with professed values. It is EXHAUSTING.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#juneteenth, #whiteprivilege, #whitefragility, #trauma, #traumainformed, #truth
Grief and trauma
Grief and trauma

I'm still in a space where I am thinking a lot about grief and trauma, and not just thinking about it but feeling it myself at a variety of different levels

Maybe the grief of the pandemic is making all the other grief feel closer to the surface and easier to access, but I'm seeing so many layers to my own grief and to the grief of others. In many ways, the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion is the work of holding space for the hurt and harm of white supremacy and other systems of oppression while also figuring out how to create space for healing, recovery, and growth.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#grief, #trauma, #whitesupremacyculture, #DEIinapandemic, #healing, #burnout
What is the justice you are fighting for?
What is the justice you are fighting for?

By Malaika Aaron-Bishop

The thing about rage is that it leaves in its wake a kind of emptiness. For me, this emptiness is in some ways more debilitating than all the swirling, vengeful chaos that came before. Sometimes, all I can manage is to crawl into the darkness and hold on.

Outside, there is a hush, but even in the quiet there is evidence of broken trust, generations of social contracts violated. Shards of glass in shades of green and red and brown; bits of rubber, burnt and frayed; a mangled barricade hapless, and cast aside; bits of cloth lost among fallen leaves and branches; we all mingle among dust and debris. Where once there were people risking their lives and livelihoods to demand justice for themselves and their communities, there are only warped canisters, used and discarded, laying forlorn among the gutters. Some still dribble faint pools, stinging with shame, while the children and elders accosted and demonized for performing their civic duties go home to wash their eyes.

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Co-creating inclusion, Dismantling oppressionMalaika Aaron-Bishop#malaikawrites, #chauvintrial, #systemsofoppression, #blacklivesmatter, #whiteviolence, #justice
Individual accountability is not the same as systemic justice
Individual accountability is not the same as systemic justice

Almost a year after the murder of George Floyd, and less than a week ago, although it already feels a lot longer than that, Derek Chauvin was found guilty on three counts: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. I happened to be picking my son up from near the Barclay Center at 4.15pm while so many held their breath to hear the verdict. As we walked home we could hear helicopters hovering overhead in preparation for the verdict, and although we didn't talk to anyone, it seemed like people were on edge.

I was on edge, knowing that no matter how guilty he was found, it would be a mere drop in the bucket of centuries of systemic violence against Black and Indigenous folks, as well as other people of color.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#chauvintrial, #gaslighting, #systemsofoppression, #makevisibletheinvisible, #falconandwintersoldier, #johnwalker
Who would you cry out for?
Who would you cry out for?

By Malaika Aaron-Bishop

Today I woke up with fury lighting my fingertips and a pain in my core so deep that relief seems a comic, desperate apparition. It’s a pain that erases my past and kidnaps my future. Every hug, or walk, or daydream session with my mother, every Malta or metemgee served with a side of life-advice from my aunties, every chuckle with my sisters, every note learned from my father, every laughing gift from my brothers. Gone. Every smile that ever was, and every adventure I ever embraced. Undone. An Easter-time kite flown on the Sea Wall? Lost. A library book, and sweet colourful popcorn on Grand Anse beach? Vanished. Hunting for jamun in dense Plymouth greenery? Gone. Oddly shaped clouds set against clear Mullet Bay skies? Snuffed. Crisp, fragrant winds atop Table Mountain? Incinerated. All remnants of a life I thought mine, all the best parts of me that ever was and that ever will be, stolen, held hostage, beaten. Lynched. Today, I am strange fruit.

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Dismantling oppressionMalaika Aaron-Bishop#malaikawrites, #chauvintrial, #systemsofoppression, #blacklivesmatter, #whiteviolence
White violence
White violence

Adam Toledo, 13. Travon Chadwell, 18. Anthony Alvarez, 22. Iremamber Kykap, 16. Daunte Wright, 20.

All Black and brown boys killed by police in the last two weeks or so.

This is America, getting "back to normal." This is America, working exactly as designed.

I think we need to be talking not just about white privilege, white fragility, white supremacy or even police brutality but about white violence. It’s embedded in the history, the culture and all of our systems that impact our every day reality.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#whiteviolence, #dauntewright, #chauvintrial, #policeviolence, #abolishthepolice, #blacklivesmatter
Hyper-visibility
Hyper-visibility

It has been a strange time of hyper-visibility for violence against Asian Americans. Both before and since the shootings in Atlanta last month, there have been a number of incidents of violence against Asian Americans have been getting a lot of coverage. It is easy to feel more afraid, and hard to know if Asian Americans are actually less safe or if it just feels that way.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#antiasianhate, #blackandasianalliance, #blacklivesmatter, #asianamericanwomen, #chauvintrial
Collaborating to confront Anti-Blackness and Anti-Asian hate
Collaborating to confront Anti-Blackness and Anti-Asian hate

It's been a strange week. I've never had people check on me because I'm Asian, and never in my lifetime has there been such a spotlight on anti-Asian violence and hate, or on the experiences of Asian or Asian American women at the hands of white supremacy.

Contrary to my socialization, which was to blend in and be as white as possible to be safe, I have become used to speaking up as a British born Asian American woman of color. I have marveled at and appreciated being handed the mic and given a platform and the support to be heard.

This current "woke wave" though is not something I had anticipated.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#antiasianhate, #blackandasianalliance, #blacklivesmatter, #clubhouse
How the old factory model of education and the workplace is alive and well
How the old factory model of education and the workplace is alive and well

Something I've been thinking about is how I managed to go through my entire education and graduate from college without any real idea of my true talents and strengths. I only knew the things I was good at that other people and systems wanted me to be good at - in other words, being a good student. You don't have to have any real self-knowledge to be a "good student" in the traditional sense. In fact, all too often, passion and curiosity get in the way.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#education, #schools, #selfknowledge, #inclusion, #inclusiveworkplace
The double bind of white supremacy
The double bind of white supremacy

White supremacy (not far-right extremist groups but the mainstream system embedded in every aspect of our systems and culture here in the US and across the globe) deeply entrenched in people and organizations that are supposed to be there to help, that are the "well-intentioned" ones - I've come to expect it, yet it still cuts deep, so maybe I'm not as prepared as I tell myself I am.

Or maybe the day it doesn't cut deep is the day I lose touch with my own humanity - I don't know. It's a fine line.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#whitesupremacyculture, #problemwomanofcolor, #circlenotladder, #equity, #inclusion, #antiracism, #whitefragility
The violence of unity
The violence of unity

When you come to learn the truth about this country, even just a little bit more than what we are typically taught or lead to believe, when you come to understand how systemic racism and white supremacy were a founding principle of this country, built into every aspect of its systems and institutions in ways that are still very much alive, present, yet invisible to so many of us today, Trump no longer is an aberration. It's the system working exactly as designed in ways that we all can't help but be complicit with, whether with our intention or consent or not.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#election2020, #unity, #violence, #jamesbaldwin, #paolofriere
How can we meet community needs? Thoughts on in-person, hybrid or remote learning during a global pandemic
How can we meet community needs? Thoughts on in-person, hybrid or remote learning during a global pandemic

As many families grapple between choices of in-person, hybrid, or remote learning, I wanted to share some different articles that have helped me clarify my thinking.

Even if you are not a parent or caregiver, this is an important conversation to be aware of and part of - not only do you likely have friends, family and colleagues who are grappling with these issues, but these are community and systemic issues that impact us all.

Employers have a role too because they have the ability to mitigate the impossible math of working from home full time while your kids are at home full time trying to get an education, and that, as always, disproportionately impacts those already most impacted including BIPOC, low income, and essential worker families and especially the women in those families.

For those who hastily proclaimed that Black Lives Matter these past couple of months, it's time to act like they do.

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Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#blacklivesmatter, #onlineschool, #DEIinapandemic, #DEIforthelonghaul, #disruption, #schools, #community, #radicalimagination