October Newsletter: How Do You Shape Change?
A WORD FROM IRIS
My mom and my eldest child share a love for Afrofuturist stories. For those out of the loop, Black and brown people in the US have been writing this type of speculative fiction since the 1800s, but the label/definition didn’t appear until the mid-1990s.
I’m not as passionate a fan as they are, but I really do appreciate the real-world issues inside these stories. Take Octavia E. Butler’s two-book Parable series (1993, 1998), for example. People couldn’t help but notice in 2016, that the first president in Butler’s dystopian United States dismantled worker protections while the second invited followers to help him “make America great again” (Parable of the Talents, p 31).
Meanwhile, the young Black female protagonist creates a new belief system based on the idea that “God is Change.” Her philosophy is that people must “shape change,” and accept it as the indifferent, inevitable, and constant force that governs all of existence. And that the practice of working to influence and collaborate with change would lead humanity to mature as a species.
How do you shape change? In your organizations and workplaces, are changes anticipated and carefully prepared for, or are actions mostly reactionary and opportunistic? How much does your organization embrace societal change by adjusting policies, procedures, and/or the internal culture accordingly? How much flexibility, understanding, and care is provided for folks as changes happen in their personal lives, in the organization, and in the world?
Afrofuturism is full of food for thought like this. Let’s take a page from it and imagine the possibilities.
NEWS TO CHEW ON
Disability and leadership: Engendering visibility, acceptance, and support (Report)
The following conversation is from a short story about a fictional condition that causes self-mutilation, shortened life expectancy, and eventual dementia if not managed. A young woman and an older woman, both born with this condition to two parents who died of it, are touring a facility for severely-affected people.
“No ordinary person can concentrate on work the way our people can.”
I turned to face her. “What are you saying? That the bigots are right? That we have some special gift?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s hardly a bad characteristic, is it?”
“It’s what people say whenever one of us does well at something. It’s their way of denying us credit for our work.”
“Yes. But people occasionally come to the right conclusions for the wrong reasons.”
– “The Evening and the Morning and the Night,” Octavia E. Butler
The older woman is pointing out that many people with this condition develop skills and ways of being that are sometimes better than what unaffected people are doing. Don’t just stop at accommodations. Consider also centering alternate ways of being that not only include people with disabilities , but also improve everyone. If our procedures, systems, and norms are accessible so that all people can participate and excel, they must also welcome and actively create leadership opportunities and access to power for all people.
FROM THE TOOLKIT
Afrofuturism invites us to examine our selves, communities, and ways of being with fresh eyes. One way Social Justice Synergy can help navigate that examination is via our six-week critical race studies workshop. There are also plenty of excellent self-guided resources available in Our Tool Kit.
TOOLS FOR RESISTANCE
When top-down changes are introduced in your organization, do you get to ask questions?
In the award-winning Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, we see ruling classes prospering off the lifeforce and special ability of a separated, oppressed class. But in greedy bids for even more comfort and power, the ruling classes try to introduce new, even more oppressive systems that threaten to shatter the planet completely.
A few important questions to ask when decisions come from on high:
• What might be some “unintended” consequences of this change?
• Who was consulted in these decisions, and who was missing from that conversation?
• Who is missing right now, as we interrogate this matter?
PAUSE FOR JOY
Take a page from Ifé and my Mom’s book and tear into these titles!
Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents
The Broken Earth Trilogy
Blookchild and Other Stories