Guest blog: One of Us, All of Us

Guest Blog
By: Amira Barger
Resourcing Teams and Communicating

This week’s blog is guest-authored by Amira (Mira) Barger, MBA,CVA,CFRE – Cook Silverman’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Search Consultant.

Because in the nonprofit sector and in every aspect of life, the issues that affect Black people affect all of us. So until Black people are free, no one is free.

Martin Luther King, Jr, from his cell in a Birmingham, Alabama jail, once wrote that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” In my previous blogs, I’ve discussed in a broad sense the idea of community. Without having to rehash everything I previously wrote, essentially the idea was empathy through collaboration in order to expand and understand a broader worldview.

My aim here is to address this more specifically as it relates to people of color - and, to speak to my experience, Black people specifically. Because the issues that affect Black people affect all of us. So until Black people are free, no one is free. The peace we seek is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice. In the nonprofit space, our work often leads us into communities that are disproportionately composed of people of color. The systemic inequities that affect these communities are why many of our organizations exist at all. We serve to meet the needs in order to help tip the scales towards those at a disadvantage.

That being said, how we address the needs at hand is as important as the needs being met. What do I mean by that? First, I believe it is important to always lean into someone else’s personhood. When you hear the phrase “Black Lives Matter”, what is it that Black people are asking for? At its most basic level, it is simply acknowledgement of another person’s humanity. How do you address your constituents? How are they identified in your meetings internally and in your communication externally? For example, do you serve the homeless? Or are they people who are unhoused? This may seem like a trivial matter of semantics, but I assure you it is not. It matters because “the homeless” can be marginalized or painted with a broad brush. They just need a place to live right? Well, maybe. When you lead with someone’s personhood, you are able to address each person’s need more specifically. Maybe they are suffering from loss of employment, and would benefit from employment assistance or simply need help paying rent to get back on their feet. Perhaps mental health services are required, perhaps substance abuse treatment would be the appropriate avenue for assistance, perhaps they’ve aged out of the foster care system. It goes on and on. But when we address others as people first, it allows us to meet them at their point of need and provide services that will actually be a part of the solution.

Secondly, no matter how well meaning, you want to avoid the mentality or perception that you or your organization has arrived as the “savior”. Remember, the root of the need exists in 400+ years of systemic oppression. If you were actually Superman, you could not “save” people from the full breadth of the ways that society has stacked the deck against them. The allure of this tendency is understandable and gross. Certainly, it makes us feel good to provide help to someone in need. Our job is only to do our part to work toward justice. Assistance is always appreciated where it is needed, but you should not just be showing up telling people what they need and how they need it. This harkens back to the idea of collaboration, but it also speaks to the idea of radical and inclusive representation

What is the makeup of your staff? Of your leadership team? Of your board? More specifically, do you have people sitting around a table making decisions for Black people without any black people sitting at that table? Certainly, Black people are not a monolith, and one Black voice cannot speak for all (Of course, this leads to a discussion on tokenism, but that may have to wait for another discussion, as I don’t nearly have the space to address that here.), but how can you hope to understand the needs of community to which you have no connection?