Daily Archives: May 15, 2022

This is the second in a two-part series. In our first installment, read about how the aftermath of the leaked Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade revealed extensive connections between the white nationalist "groyper" movement and the far-right Catholic network around the controversial outlet Church Militant.

The activist wing of Church Militant is called the Resistance network. As of 2020 the outlet said it boasted more than 5,000 members, and claimed to have launched groups in almost every diocese in the U.S. Last June, the group claimed that its protest of a church vaccine drive in Southern California forced the drive to end three hours early. The same month, members of the Resistance network hosted an "affidavit-signing drive at Church Militant headquarters" outside Detroit, joining with other right-wing Michigan groups in demanding a forensic audit of the 2020 election and holding a protest rally on the state capitol steps.

More recently, as Resistance leader Joe Gallagher outlined at a Church Militant rally last November, the group has picketed local bishops; brought "ex-gay" conservative firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos to the Penn State campus to advocate "praying the gay away"; and protested at a Dallas memorial for George Floyd to "bear witness to a real racial injustice: the mass slaughter of the unborn, which disproportionately affects minorities."

Now the Resistance network is looking to recruit directly from the groypers, the largely young far-right followers of white nationalist Nick Fuentes. On May 2, Gallagher interviewed Dalton Clodfelter the same groyper leader who celebrated the Catholic counter-protester at New York's Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral last weekend introducing Resistance viewers to Fuentes' website, CozyTV, as a "new streaming platform for a lot of awesome younger conservatives." Gallagher hyped the reported 1,200 attendees at Fuentes' AFPAC III gathering, saying that "obviously [America First] is booming, you guys have gotten hugeYou guys go for the jugular every single time." He continued, "[You go for] the truth, you're not afraid to hide it at all, and that's one of the most respectable aspects of America First, is you guys don't really care. And that's cool."

RELATED:White nationalists get religion: On the far-right fringe, Catholics and racists forge a movement

Clodfelter, who told Gallagher it was Yiannopoulos who first introduced him to Church Militant, pitched America First in a language that his new audience was likely eager to hear. "It's not like it's the alt-right, because that is not even cool anymore, even if you wanted it to be. And it's also not like normie neocon conservatism. it's Christian nationalist." He went on, "The message of America First is tied directly to the word of God and spreading Christianity through our nation where it's lacking everything we do is [a spiritual battle], we're fighting demons, we're fighting Satan." Clodfelter emphasized the need to "grow the viewer base" of CozyTV, explaining that "a majority of white young Zoomer men would just love CozyTV the problem is, they don't know where to go to get it."

America First is not like the alt-right, said one groyper, "because that's not even cool anymore. And it's not like normie neocon conservatism. ... It's tied directly to the word of God ... We're fighting demons, we're fighting Satan."

Clodfelter went on to draw a particular connection between the groyper movement and Catholicism, saying he'd never considered joining the church before getting involved with America First. "I met people who are truly devout, truly living by the word and they weren't hypocrites," he said. "They were representing Catholicism so well for me I was like, wow, the least I could do is go to Mass and do some research." Now, he said, he's studying for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults the formal process by which unbaptized adults become Catholics and says he understands why Fuentes says of the groypers, "This is sort of a Catholic movement."

Since then, Resistance has continued to brand itself to appeal to groypers. One advertisement for Resistance posted on Gab last week featured the America First and CozyTV logos as well as a style of sunglasses popularized by Fuentes as part of last year's "White Boy Summer" groyper branding campaign. Meanwhile, as reported in part 1 of this series, Clodfelter attempted to mobilize groypers to attend Resistance counterprotests of pro-choice demonstrations planned for weekend in cities across the country.As of Friday, theevents appear to have been removed from Resistance'swebsite, while on Telegram Clodfelter noted late Wednesday night that most of the counterprotests had been postponed,writing, "Working with Church Militant on this to make sure we are doing this in the most organized and safe way." Clodfelter still claims the groypers will rally in Nashville.

A Resistance advertisement features the America First and CozyTV logos as well as groypers' favorite sunglasses. "Based" is movement parlance for someone who holds far-right views, while "Zoomer" refers to a member of Gen-Z.

Not every Church Militant staffer appears thrilled with the growing crossover, however. In July 2021, Church Militant executive producer Christine Niles remarked on Twitter that "the America First movement, which has great things to say, is ill-served" by Fuentes' open antisemitism. "This unfortunate obsession with the Jews will sink the America First movement, and that's truly a shame." Some audience members have pushed back as well. "Was a supporter of CM, but no more," commented one viewer in February 2020, after Voris ran an interview with Fuentes ally Michelle Malkin. "I'm all for borders. I'm all for preserving Western culture but I'm not down with Holocaust denial."

In emailed comments on Wednesday, Voris told Salon, "Church Militant might partner with anyone in a particular effort to achieve a limited and shared goal. In this particular case (Roe), yes. [Church Militant] will link arms with almost anyone who decries the horror of babies being hacked to death in their mothers' wombs. Isn't 'linking arms' the very thing Antifa and BLM and the Democrats do?"

Voris noted that Church Militant did not attend the America First conference in February, "and has no first hand knowledge of what was said or presented." However, he continued, "it should not be surprising that two (or more) organizations that hold GENERAL views of the current cultural crisis would experience SOME crossover of ideas. Every organization on earth shares SOME things in common with other groups. That said Church Militant doesn't align itself with any specific group in a formal way including groups that are expressly Catholic."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

"Where we enjoy shared ideas, we may cooperate," he continued. "To the degree [Church Militant] 'values' INDIVIDUAL members of any group (not the group as a whole), it is because of shared religious values, namely Catholicism and what the Church teaches on ALL matters."

"Groypers are everywhere" including on Church Militant's staff

It is counterintuitive, to say the least, that an ostensibly faith-based organization is embracing a movement so explicitly bigoted as the groypers. Fuentes has engaged in elaborate jokes denying the Holocaust, praised Hitler and told viewers on one livestream show that "frankly, I'm getting pretty sick of world Jewry running the show," to name just several examples of his virulent antisemitism. Fuentes has disparaged African-American voter outreach as attempts to "flood the zone with n****r votes," called for "total Aryan victory," rejected "race-mixing" because "people should stick with their own kind," bragged that he "made misogyny cool again," celebrated domestic violence against women and much more.

On his Thursday night livestream show, Fuentes responded to the claims made in part 1 of Salon's investigation. "You're damn right the groypers are forming an alliance with the Catholics," he exclaimed, "and you're right we have a plan, and we are gonna take the Republican Party and we are going to drag it against its will back through the doors of the church and to the altar, and we are going to baptize it." Clodfelter, meanwhile, extolled his audience to "show our love and support for Church Militant. These guys are strong, these guys are determinedyes, we're collaborating in this effort to combat Satanism in America, we are. Groypers are everywhere."

Groyper guru Nick Fuentes has praised Hitler, called for "total Aryan victory," complained about "world Jewry running the show" and bragged he "made misogyny cool again."

While Niles appeared ambivalent about America First, or at least its leader, her colleague, 27-year old Joseph Enders, is a full-fledged groyper. Variously named as a reporter, senior producer and associate producer at Church Militant, Enders is a fixture on Church Militant Evening News and a regular contributor to churchmilitant.com.

Enders didn't always support white nationalism. In 2018, he self-identified as an "Augustinian nationalist," claimed affiliation with the Proud Boys and uploaded interviews to YouTube where he argued with white nationalist leaders like Richard Spencer and James Allsup. "The philosophy of the right," he told Spencer in June 2018, should be animated by "a people that focus[es] inward on preserving the traditions of Western culture [but] race should not be a consideration in this. I think we should only judge people based on how they exercise their will."

By late 2019, however, when the groypers entered the national spotlight with a series of public stunts challenging conservative leaders on college campuses, Enders had changed his tune. "I don't think anybody is saying we're preserving our race because our race is better," he explained when he called in to the streaming show of Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes on McInnes' Censored.TV platform. Defending the groypers' emphasis on white demographic "replacement" the conspiracy theory that white Americans are being "replaced" by nonwhite immigration Enders told McInnes, "You're into fashion, so you'll understand this analogy: When we look at a country, there are people that wear the country the best, and that's usually the founding stock of the country."

Since joining Church Militant's staff in 2020, Enders' embrace of the groypers has continued apace. "Nick is a Mass-attending Catholic, unheard of at his age," Enders posted on Facebook in April 2021. "I can't help but like Nick the Right needs more of [his] trollish humor to root out the grifters. It's supremely entertaining." A year later, his support was even more pronounced. "I hear this Nick Fuentes dude is pretty based," he tweeted on April 30, 2022. "I have to say I support his efforts to put America First."

Church Militant reporter and producer Joseph Enders wearing the groypers' America First hat and sunglasses, in a summer 2021 Instagram photo.

On Gab, Telegram and other social media platforms, Enders regularly celebrates America First and its political ambitions; shares content from groyper leaders like Fuentes, Vince James and Anthime Gionet, (aka "Baked Alaska," who on Wednesday undermined his own Jan. 6 plea deal, potentially sending his case to trial); uploads photos of himself sporting the blue "America First" hat and other movement paraphernalia; and participates in debates on movement strategy. Like others in the groyper orbit, he regularly traffics in antisemitism, including using the(((echo))) symbol, a meme created by white nationalists to target Jewish people and organizations. In the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Enders quoted, with seeming approval, a statement by Vladimir Putin decrying European countries' supposed abandonment of "Christian values" and shared an article arguing that Putin was seeking to "rebuild Christendom."

White nationalist themes carry over into Enders' work with Church Militant, as well. On Church Militant's website, articles written by Enders quote Fuentes, name the Jewish identity of political opponents and claim that critical race theory "rejects the ethnic identity of White Americans." On the outlet's nightly news program, Enders has championed white nationalist slogans like "it's ok to be white," claimed that "the Left's essential policy when dealing with race is 'is it going to hurt white people?'...more dead white people is the policy of the Democrats," and protested the decision by the flagship Conservative Political Action Conference to bar Fuentes from attendance.

When news broke last week that the Supreme Court was moving to overturn Roe v. Wade, Enders' message was direct and disturbing. "Get ready witches," he posted on May 3 on Gab and Twitter, "we're coming for your birth control next."

As mentioned in our first installment, this is all part of a broader pattern of overlap between the far-right, including the white nationalist right, with right-wing Catholicism. In 2017, groyper leader Milo Yiannapoulos was drummed out of many right-wing movements for statements he made minimizing child sex abuse, and subsequently used his return to Catholicism as an opportunity to rebrand. This March heheadlined an anti-abortion convention in Ohio that was blessed by the local Catholic bishop, and in June he will be a featured speaker at a Church Militant Resistancebootcamp. Canadian white nationalist Faith Goldy, who was disgraced after appearing on the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, likewise touted her return to the church as part of her rehabilitation. "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander found his way to a new audience at the end of 2020 with a highly public conversion to Catholicism, as did "Kent State gun girl" Kaitlin Bennett in late 2021. They joined a core group of far-right activists who have deployed their Catholic identity in service of their movements, including Pizzagate provocateur-turned conservative commentator Jack Posobiec, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Fuentes himself.

As the alt-right was planning its 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia, one of the most popular places where activists did their planning was a Discord chat forum called the "Nick Fuentes forum," dedicated to exploring connections between "Unite the Right" and the Catholic Church. Within it, hundreds of posters discussed traditionalist Catholicism and posted memes alternating, or combining, Crusades-era imagery with neo-Nazi and antisemitic content.

As journalist Eric Martinreported at the liberal Christian magazine Sojourners, some posters identified themselves as "Charles Coughlin Roman Catholics," for the 1930s pro-fascist priest and broadcaster who helped pioneer the demagogic media style that is fracturing our democracy today. Fuentes himself haswaxed nostalgic about fascist and monarchist regimes in Europe and Latin America that were grounded in Catholic teaching, and in 2018 declared on a livestream that, "in an ideal world," there would be "a global Catholic theocracy" and that "the state should enforce morality that is informed by Catholic teaching."

More broadly online, far-right activists online began adopting phrases like "Viva Cristo Rey" (Christ the King) or "Deus Vult" (God wills it) in their posts and tweets, and Catholic symbolism like medieval crosses and Crusader imagery.

Some conservative Catholics have welcomed this development. In a 2019 article published by the Catholic right magazine Crisis, "Kids in defense of the culture," American Greatness editor Pedro Gonzalezpraised Fuentes' groypers. "They have chosen to be guided by a Christianity hammered free of the dross of the modern world," Gonzalez wrote. "In an age of compromise and petty principles, groypers have chosen to stand for something, armed with little more than digital slingshots. That alone is reason enough to hear them out."

Some conservative Catholics have embraced the groypers, arguing that they "have chosen to be guided by a Christianity hammered free of the dross of the modern world."

But moderate and liberal Catholics were appalled. "It's such a horrifying appropriation of Catholicism," noted writer and researcher D.W. Lafferty in a 2020podcast episode produced by Where Peter Is, a moderate Catholic website that tracks the Catholic right. Lafferty described the new far-right aesthetic as "Pepe Catholicism," while Georgetown University theologian Adam Rasmussen called it "Catholic LARPing": a way for the alt-right to pretend they were "Knights Templar fighting the forces of darkness in the deep state."

As Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb, author of the papal biography "The Outsider: Pope Francis and His Battle to Reform the Church," explained during the 2020 presidential campaign, the far right's adoption of Catholic symbolism was a means for the movement to infuse itself with deeper spiritual meaning. "The populists and nationalists were looking for some kind of soul for their politics. And they found it in some symbols of the faith," Lamb said. "And they're powerful symbols. Quite often they make the whole case that the past has been lost."

"In a sense, you empty the content of the religious," Lamb noted earlier this year, "and use the externals the rosary beads, the crucifix, some words, perhaps some prayers but you use it as an identity marker to give your movement a sense that it has a soul or deeper intensity at a moral level."

But that influence goes both ways, and as Lamb noted in 2020, as more and more right-wing Catholics identified themselves with Trump's re-election campaign, "Trumpism," in turn, "got into the church."

As Lafferty said at the time, "What's happening on the right, I think, is unprecedented," except for the historical examples of ultranationalist fascist groups before World War II, such as Action Franaise in France or the Falangist movement in Spain. "But fascism isn't new and the Catholic Church was often complicit in fascism," he added. "So it's not totally shocking that people can come in and do this."

The revelation that some highly enthusiastic and visible elements of the Catholic right are now partnering with a group whose reputation is based on snarky displays of over-the-top bigotry just marks an escalation of that trend.

"This is a continuation of a pattern that's been happening for years," said Lafferty, "and it's only going to become more intense now that we're looking at the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned." As a faithful Catholic, he agrees with the Church's stance against abortion, he said, but he also sees the imminent SCOTUS reversal as one more "pillar of what we call 'normal' falling."

"I worry whenever you see anti-abortion rhetoric mixed with anti-immigrant rhetoric or isolationist foreign policy," said Lafferty. "It feeds into this spreading panic that Western culture is disappearing and immigration is killing Christianity and white hegemony. Ordinary Catholics who may have good intentions need to wake up to this the bishops included. Because if we look at what's happened in the Republican Party, a fringe populist element eventually took over. We could see the same thing in the church."

Massimo Faggioli, a church historian at Villanova University and author of "Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States," observed that "almost anyone with an internet connection and an attitude can start a Catholic blog or website" these days. And that means "there are forces, movements, energies in this underworld that don't appear officially in the Catholic handbooks or registers, but are there. They have a following that is still small, but no longer as marginal as it used to be."

"The 'America First' Catholics have momentum," Faggioli said, as well as a powerfully motivating narrative: That "this is a time for war." That, he said, is what makes the growing alliance between groups like the groypers and Church Militant dangerous. "It's bigger than just the number of those who are physically involved in these movements. We know how influential they are with young priests, with the seminarians. Their voice is magnified because, in the church as in many other organizations, it's not how many there are but where they are. What is their position? What are the assets they can mobilize?"

The "biggest capital" such groups possess, Faggioli said, "is the sign of our times, our zeitgeist. There are clouds on the horizon, a bad moon rising domestically, internationally. And religion plays an important part."

Read more on religion and the far right in America:

Read more:

"Traditional" Catholics and white nationalist "groypers" forge a new far-right youth movement - Salon

It was an idea hatched decades ago in the early hours of the morning.

Disillusioned with the state of the nation's political direction, a few of us decided to form our very own political movement, one that would capture the mood of the population.

Just a few years earlier, there had been mass demonstrations, marches through the streets and, for a while, it seemed as though a new generation realised it even had the power to force nations to stop a war. But then, in the aftermath, nothing.

And so was born the Australian Apathy Party. We even came up with a catchy slogan. "Who Gives a ****?"

LIVE UPDATES: Read our blog for the latest news on the 2022 Australian federal election

Unfortunately, it never went any further. No-one could be bothered doing anything more about it, which neatly captured the Zeitgeist and more than fulfilled the project's meagre ambitions.

A similar mood seems to be descending across the nation.

With less than a week to go before the nation heads to the polls, the two main parties are locked in a battle over pretty much nothing. There are no great ideological differences, apart from last week's scrap over minimum pay, and the campaigns have been remarkable for their almost complete lack of policy.

Nobody even seems to have noticed. Which all seems a little odd. For despite a simmering discontent between the generations the battle between Gens X, Y and Z and Boomers nowhere is there any co-ordinated plan to redress the economic bias against our youth. Nor is there even a debate.

It's not merely a question of inequality. There's also the issue of sound long term economic and budgetary management. The entire artifice is unsustainable.

The only inter-generational issue in the headlines is housing. If we didn't already know, it's almost entirely unaffordable for a large portion of the younger generations. Apart from a couple of gimmicky solutions, however, there is no plan to provide a real fix.

But what about the overly generous tax concessions that benefit older and wealthier Australians, the cost of which escalates each year, that have helped create the structural deficit destined to punch a hole in the nation's finance for decades to come? This isn't even on the radar.

As for climate, which usually registers as one of the key issues for younger Australians, there's largely been radio silence.

There's an old maxim that says oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. And if the 2019 election taught our pollies anything, it was that oppositions should avoid policy at all costs and let the government simply fall over.

Having lost what was considered an unlosable election in 2019 with a plan to wind back the tax breaks on housing, the ALP under Anthony Albanese has walked back on it.

At some stage, however, regardless of which party is in power, tax reform around housing will become unavoidable. The main tax breaks negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount have two effects. They push up housing prices and denude our tax take.

Combined, the two tax breaks cost the federal budget around $28 billion a year in foregone revenue. And, as the blue line on the graph below shows, investors are surging back into the market with record levels of borrowing. As interest rates rise, the losses investors incur on rental properties will increase. That will result in even more tax revenue foregone.

Despite claims during the last election campaign that Australia's two million property investors were "ordinary" Australians, data released this month by the Parliamentary Budget Office show the overwhelming bulk of tax benefits accrue to those in the top 10 per cent income bracket. Negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks go to top income earners and men.

Defenders of the schemes argue that removing the tax breaks would see a shortage of rental properties.

They may be right. Because if investors only bought properties they could rent for a profit, there would be a lot less investors in the market, which would take the pressure off prices and allow renters to put a roof over their head.

As a nation, we're getting older. Proportionately, that is. At the moment, about 16.5 per cent of Australians are at retirement age. Within the next 40 years, that is expected to climb to 22.8 per cent.

No matter who wins the federal election, older Australians will benefit from tax and super policies that make their lives easier, while young people struggle with cost of living.Why does it seem like baby boomers are getting such a good deal?

So what, you say? What it means is that the burden will fall on a smaller proportion of working age Australians to pay for those in retirement. And with the number of those over 85 expected to triple, to 1.9 million, the cost of aged care will soar.

Look at it another way. Back in 1981, there were 6.6 working age people for every retiree. That's now dropped to 4 working age people. And within 40 years, according to Treasury analysis, there will be just 2.7 working age people to pay for those who've permanent clocked off.

Thank heavens for compulsory superannuation, hey! Well, yes, it was a great idea. But over the decades, our superannuation scheme has morphed into a tax haven for wealthy, older Australians.

You get a tax break for making contributions to super. And the more income you earn, the bigger the tax break. Not only that, the earnings from your super fund are tax free, on a fund with up to $1.7 million. Beyond that, you pay tax but at a concessional rate.

Essentially, if you're retired, and you earn 5 per cent on your $1.7 million fund, you take home $85,000 without having to pay a cent in tax.

But a young worker, who probably can't afford a home, earning $85,000 a year slogging it out on the tools every day, forks out just shy of $20,000 in tax.

How fair is that?

And it doesn't come cheap. According to the latest Treasury estimates, the tax concessions on contributions and earnings now cost the federal budget around $43 billion a year and, without reforms, those costs will overtake the cost of the aged pension within 18 years.

In a hugely unpopular move, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 wound back some of the more excessive concessions around superannuation.

Since then, however, older, richer Australians have enjoyed something of a reprieve.

During the pandemic, when most young and newly unemployed workers were desperate for cash, they were given the option of cashing out $20,000 from their super funds. All up, around $35 billion was withdrawn, most at the bottom of the market and shortly before one of the biggest market recoveries in history.

For many, it will be a personal disaster.

Retirees on the other hand were allowed to do the opposite. Until the pandemic, those living off super were required to withdraw 5 per cent of their super each year. Beyond 74, and you have to liquidate even larger slabs. It was a measure designed to limit the extent to which retirees use super as a tax shelter.

So, while younger Australians were encouraged to sell down, retirees were allowed to halve the amount they were forced to sell so as not to be disadvantaged by the market crash.

That was in 2020. Oddly, in the following federal budget, the measure was extended even as global stock markets were heading into orbit. And in March this year, shortly before the election was called, the measure again was extended in recognition "of the valuable contribution self-funded retirees make to the Australian economy".

As we've learned from bitter experience, unwinding a tax rort is nigh on impossible. It usually is portrayed by the opposing side as a tax slug. And that rapidly growing older cohort is likely to desperately hang on to all their entitlements.

At some point, however, given we have deficits extending to the horizon, someone will have to pay for all this largesse. When it finally dawns on the new crop of voters that it will be down to them, things could get ugly.

Could it be apathy? Maybe.

Or perhaps that lack of debate and action on key issues is one of the corrosive elements eating away at the base of our major political parties and fuelling the rise of independents.

Loading form...

Posted7h ago7 hours agoSun 15 May 2022 at 6:34pm, updated51m ago51 minutes agoMon 16 May 2022 at 1:35am

Read more:

The missing election ingredient: nothing here for the next generation - ABC News

Click here to download this article as it appears in the magazine, with accompanying artwork.

Editors note:This article is from the Spring 2022 issue of theNonprofit Quarterly, Going Pro-Black: What Would a Pro-Black Sector Sound, Look, Taste, and Feel Like?

This conversation with Cyndi Suarez, the Nonprofit Quarterlys president and editor in chief, and CompassPoints Liz Derias and Kad Smith delves into the details of the organizations journey from white leadership to its current codirectorship model that centers pro-Blackness.

Liz Derias: We thank you and NPQ for asking us to write an article about building for pro-Blackness. Thats been one of our labors of love for the last two years at CompassPoint. And getting the opportunity to write the article after we had completed one of our cohorts focusing on this very issueand Kad and I getting to rock and roll togetherfelt right on time. It feels good to have gone through the process of bringing our thoughts and additional research together to this point.

Kad Smith: Its definitely been a labor of love. Liz was the architect and the genius behind this writing. One of the things Ive appreciated about Lizs leadership at CompassPointand I think its so important that this shine throughis that its informed by a political analysis that doesnt just track with somebodys professional rsum. So, what do I mean by that? Im talking about when somebody has a politic that informs the way they navigate the world and that emerges naturally in how they show up in terms of their professional accountabilities and responsibilities. I think that gives an organization an opportunity to understand the authenticity of why you, and why you leading at this moment. And if CompassPoint is talking about celebrating Black leadership, I think Liz has been as well-positioned as anybody could be to speak to what it looks like to come into an organizational environment and be pro-Black in ones orientation and have a politic thats informed by a radical Black tradition.

So, I think the piece that we wrote is a taste of that, and Im excited to have this conversation to build on it. We are in community with leaders every day who are coming up with questions and answers around: What would it look like to truly honor the experiences of Black folks, with no asterisk? Thats the multibillion-dollarperhaps invaluablequestion. As in, no conditions attached to the question of what kind of Blackness is palatable and what kind isnt.

Cyndi Suarez: How did CompassPoint start doing this work? Was it a question from the field that prompted it? When did the switch from critiquing white supremacist culture to a pro-Black stance happen? And how did it happen?

LD: I think Kad can speak to this in terms of the work that CompassPoint staff engaged with in 2015, 2016before I came in as a staff member. But some of it was precipitated by what was going on contextually in the world, right? One of our principles at CompassPoint is to live in symbiosis with our community. So, as things are moving in the fieldas things are being challenged and changed among movement organizationswe take that in and respond to that through training, curricula, content, internal development. We really try to live into one of our core strategies, which is to live liberation from the inside out and the outside in.

Our staff at that time were really moved by all the work that had been happening with Black liberation forces on the ground and all the continued responses to police violence and subsequent organizing. And they saw that as an opportunity to organize CompassPoint and not just be a center for nonprofits. We got to this place from the labor of folks who came before us over our forty-seven-year history, but it was time for a pivotit was time to respond to our community and build alongside our community as a movement-building institution.

CS: So, I hear you saying it was both: it was coming from the community and it was coming internally, from staff.

LD: Yep.

KS: Yeah. I would add a little piece of honoring. Liz has already articulated what happened in response to the zeitgeist of the last few years and to whats going on in the larger community and movement work in general. But I also think its important to acknowledge that there has been strong Black leadership at CompassPoint, even if it wasnt formally recognized. So, Spring Opara, Jasmine Hallthese are some folks who are still full-time staff members whove been truth tellers for the longest time, before it was chic, and before it was like, Oh, can you tell the truth about whats really going on? Can you really tell people about how folks are showing up, and be honest, and show up in integrity? Spring and Jasmine were folks who exuded that naturally, not as a means of, I think Im going to be received well by my colleagues, but, This is whats important for me to feel like I belong here.

And so I dont think that can be overstated. I also dont think that we can gloss over the fact that CompassPoint went through a shared leadership transformation, and Black folks were extremely empowered by that. Like, Oh, my gosh, we can question hierarchies, we can question the way in which decision making is happening from a traditionally white-led organization? The organization eventually pivoted away from that, and Black folks werent happy about it. Im just gonna speak plainly: There was a sense of a commitment to holacracy and shared leadership, and the Black folks on staff were doing some of the implementation and evaluation of that work, and it increased their responsibility and created visibility around their leadershipmy own included. And when the organization committed to moving away from that, that was one of the few instances that I would say CompassPoint unintentionally perpetuated anti-Blackness.

CS: Can you say more about that? What did you pivot to from this transitional codirectorship?

KS: We pivoted to a governing system with a codirectorship thats a little more loosely defined. And Ill let Liz speak to that. But essentially, we made a decision whose key momentum was coming from everybody but Black folks. We didnt pause and notice that Black folks were saying, No, this is really important for us, or consider the impact on the Black folks on staff when we made that decision. It took several years for us to even say that out loud. So, I say that because, now, when were talking about centering Black leadership, its also teaching us how not to replicate the mistakes of the past. And, you know, sometimes folks hear this, and they say, Well, what about such and such groups, such and such racial identity, such and such place? But lets start with what has happened to the Black folks on staff at this particular moment, and honor that if we had been more diligent and more principled in the way that we moved forward, we might have prevented a significant organizational change from having negative consequences. And lets honor our collective desire to practice shared leadership and to have leadership understood as something thats kind of fluid across the organization.

I say all that because its not lost on me that the leaders whove been at CompassPoint before Liz came in were leading in ways that I was notparticularly regarding the ways in which Black men and women are often asked to show up in terms of emotional labor. Im acutely aware that thats not a leadership style that I provided. Those leaders paved the way for us to see now what it means to talk about building a pro-Black organization. We cant lose sight of that. I think that Spring and Jasmine, in particular, as well as Byron Johnson, who is now at East Bay Community Foundation, and Fela Thomas, whos at the San Francisco Foundationa lot of these folks came in and, at a critical moment, helped piece together what pro-Black leadership and a pro-Black organization could look like, right when CompassPoint needed to have this more tangible form.

CS: Okay, lets get into thisbecause I want to get into what these things mean in more detail. I want to back up a bit and ask: What does being pro-Black mean to you? Before we get to organizations, or what a sector would look like, what does pro-Blackas a concept in and of itselfmean to you, as an individual?

LD: What pro-Black means to me, individually, and then also organizationally, and then more broadly in terms of the sector and the movement, is: striving to consistently build power for Black people. That is the crux for me: To be pro- Black is to build pro-Black power. And when we talk about building power at CompassPoint, we define it as building our capacity to influence or shape the outcome of our circumstances. And for usand for me in particularbuilding pro- Black power is part of a longer spectrum and continuum of Black liberation movement work that preceded me and even preceded slavery and genocide and white settler colonialism.

Building pro-Black power, I think, is taking a look at the ways in which powerformally and informally recognized positional powerexisted, unrecognized, in our communities before systems of oppression. Looking at this not with the intent that everything needs to be carried over, not with an essentialist eye, but with an eye to ways that we have moved in the pastour traditions, our norms, our mores, or ways of beingthat can inform the ways that we move now. And had it not been necessarily interrupted, for lack of a better word, by white settler colonialism, then our communities and our nations may have looked very different.

Building Black power, building pro-Black organizations, and building a pro-Black movement requires us to take a look back at the ways that power has existed for us in our communities before systems of oppression, in an effort to bring it into the current contextnot only to challenge the systems of oppression but also to carry forward what has been intrinsic to our communities.

CS: Im almost hearing you saying, What does power mean to Black people?

LD: What does power mean to Black people? If we are not fundamentally talking about power, Cyndi, were not building pro-Blackness. And thats a crux for us at CompassPoint. Weve been spending the last few months really interrogating and using your book, as a matter of fact, as one of our toolswhat building power means for us. Because were not interested in a cosmetic approach to building pro-Blackness. Were interested in building up the capacity for all staffwith Black people at the centerto shape and influence the outcome of what happens at CompassPoint.

CS: Thank you. What about you, Kad?

KS: I think in terms of what comes to mind with pro-Blackness, Liz said all the important things. The thing that I would continue to lift up is celebrating Black traditions and celebrating Black folks across the diaspora. Anywhere you go in the world, there are Black folks. And they all have such rich histories and ancestors whose shoulders they stand on, and descendants whose circumstances theyre trying to change. Theres such an abundance, and its such a large umbrella of an identity, and theres so much to celebrate there.

One of the things weve talked about is why not just focus on anti-Blackness? But when you focus on anti-Blackness, you tend to wind up with an in-group, out-group thing that perpetuates anti-Blackness. And there are ways in which we internalize our own racism as Black folks. What I love about the pro-Black approach is that it encourages and motivates us to look at whats already so clear to many of us who have been entrenched in this work: that there is more than enough inspiration to let you know that Black folks and Black peoples across the diaspora have a unique offering for this particular moment in time as we come to understanding what racial reckoning and atonement for a racialized caste system in the United States looks like. But perhaps more broadly, when we start to talk about how imperialism and capitalism have wreaked havoc across the world, what Black folks across the world can teach us about no longer continuing to sit idly by and accept that as the status quo.

So, it really is about celebrating the rich tradition of Black folks across the diaspora, and doing so with pridewhereby you feel it in your belly and you feel it in your heart and you even start to get a little shaken, because you know that theres something greater than you. Its something similar to what I get from a faith-based practice. When you understand that there are people who are connected to you because of a struggle, but also because of a rich history of how you want to be in community, how you want to celebrate one anotherit can be really magnetic.

LD: I have to say, its so nice to hear you talk about this, Kad. And this is an example of the work weve been doing the last few years to build pro-Blackness at the organization. Kad is exemplifying being able to say things like capitalism, imperialism, building pro-Blackness, building on our traditions and our norms. I dont know that that was the yesteryear of CompassPoint. This is an example of your leadership and your ability to articulate all this and create space, not just for the Black staff but all staff, to bring that analysis and those experiences in.

KS: One interesting point is that when we asked our twenty-seven cohort participants, What does a pro-Black organization look like to you?, we got twenty-seven different responses.

CS: So, lets get into itbecause thats the second question. What did you hear?

KS: Each one of those responses was, I would say, uniquely deserving of celebration, of recognition, and of acknowledgment regarding where it was coming from. Although we asked, What does a pro-Black organization look like to you?, not, What is pro-Blackness?, we heard: Pro-Blackness just looks like being comfortable in my skin; Pro-Blackness looks like fighting for power, for justice. But I think for me, knowing that there were twenty-seven folks who all said something differentthat there wasnt some prescriptive definition that we all landed on that made it sound neatwas powerful. It felt like a space to be creative and say, This is what it feels like for me, and receive affirmation and resonance from folks who might not have framed it that wayto hear or be able to say, I totally get what youre saying, what youre getting at, by lifting that up. That was so powerful for me.

CS: Were there themes?

KS: A theme that jumped out is that Black leaders would feel supported. Another one that came up was people being able to speak truth to power. So, an honesty aspect. Oftentimes, were met with a certain level of resistance when we speak about Black-specific issues. So, that is anti-Blackness rearing its head in a very petulant and kind of gross way when Black folks talk about things that are particular to Black people and are met with resistance. A lot of what was coming up in articulating the pro-Black organization is the eradication of that dynamic. So, I can speak to what it means to be a Black person even if Im the only one. Or even if Im one of four. Im not going to be met with, Wait, wait, wait. Were not anti- Black. Were not racist. Were going to say, Oh, lets go further there. Lets understand whats coming up for you. I feel like that would be in lockstep with other movements toward progress.

LD: Something that comes back a little to your question, Cyndi, about how we got to pro-Blackness at CompassPoint, is what we discovered from engaging with and launching our pro-Black cohort. We tried on a governance model called holacracy that Kad was offering, and then we moved into a vote on whether we were going to keep holacracy or not. And the Black staff voted for it, because it gave them the opportunity to step into their power without punishment. But that got voted down, resulting in a bit of a vacuum of What do we do next? And at that time we were hiring, so we had a plurality of Black staff for the first time in CompassPoints forty-seven years. Kad has already mentioned some of our staffIll add that we also had Maisha Quint, Simone Thelemaque. So many came in and provided a plurality.

This is important to note, because what we found as we engaged with the cohort is that its really hard to build pro- Blackness when you are the sole Black person at the organization. I mean, its like moving a mountain. And so that plurality provided an opportunity for the Black staff to get together and really interrogate pro-Blackness internally. And as we did that, we really built unitywe built across our values. And thats when we decided that it was really important for us to resource our Black programmatic work.

So, we already had Self-Care for Black Women in Leadership, which ran four cohorts at the time, and which is primarily a program for Black women in leadership to discuss these kinds of issues. What did pro-Blackness mean to them? How do they heal? How do they build their leadership? And then we pivoted to resourcing our B.L.A.C.K. Equity Intensive, which is the program were talking about. So, when we asked folks, What does it mean to build a pro-Black organization?, we had lots of different responses. Responses that varied depending on if folks were feeling like they actually have support in their organization to build pro-Blackness versus if they didnt feel like they had support, if they were the sole Black person.

And a theme that came up that helped feed our own understanding of pro-Blackness was how to build an organization where punitive action was not at the crux of everything you do as a Black person. That valuebeing punitive, being dominant, having power overis a relic, a continued relic of white supremacy, of white settler colonial culture. And so we are telling ourselves that we are undoing and challenging white settler colonial culture. That means that we are intrinsically challenging punitive action. And Black folks reality is punitive action in this world, right? We talk a lot at CompassPoint about power and policy, and how important it is for us to understand the rules that govern our lives. It is very important as Black people building a pro-Black organization to know the policies and the rules that govern our lives. Because historically, if we didnt know the rules, we could be incarcerated, we could be hanged for that. And so for us, knowing the policies that govern our lives enables us to make a choice: We can decide to follow these rules, to break these rules, to create new ruleswhich is all that organizing really is, right?

So, as we were talking with our participants, it was really important for us to challenge the punitive value thats embedded in our society and in our organizations. When people are afraid, when they dont feel psychological safety, when they arent able to speak truth to powerwhat undergirds that is a fear of punishment. And to build a pro-Black organization, you have to understand power, and you have to really be committed to removing punishment as a consequence of action.

CS: What Im hearing you say in essence is that you have to have more than one Black person.

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

KS: Most certainly.

LD: Yeah. But something that I really love about the B.L.A.C.K. Equity Intensive program is that it pulled in and recognized positional power. So, you can have a Black person whos on staff with you but whos still moving in ways that endorse or promote white supremacy habits. Whats more important is the commitment, the willingness, the politic that person holds and that the other people in the organization hold. So, as we were building this intensive program, it was important for us to draw in the commitment from those who have positional power, administrative power, executive power to support the staff. That itself is a shift, as well. Its not just having a Black person advocate pro-Blackness or challenge anti-Blacknessits shifting your whole governance, your whole structure, to make space for that person. And so we require executives and administrators who are supporting their staff members to be part of this intensive to really be supporting their staff members to be part of this intensive. CS: How did you know?

KS: Degrees of success. I think thats 2.0 learning. With some organizations, that principle just shone through clearly, and they were kind of a North Star in terms of how they were rocking with one another. And there were other organizations that had more of a challenge coming to terms with that.

CS: The people who came into the program came from organizations where they may or may not be one of the very few Black people?

KS: Yeah, one of very few. Everyone had at least some positional leader. Liz brought up the Self-Care for Black Women program. I dont think we can overstate how important that was for CompassPoints programming purposes in terms of centering Black people. I was in my mid-twenties when for the first time I saw CompassPoints training room filled with only Black folks. And that was one of the most telling moments for mebecause I thought, Oh, Im gonna stay at this organization. Now, Im a millennial. Most of my peers jump from organization to organization every eighteen months or so. Sometimes, even if the organization is doing right by them, theyre like, I just want something different.

At CompassPoint, I could have very easily fallen into that predicament as a millennial, but when I saw the Self-Care for Black Women programming going on, I thought, Wow, theres a there there. I dont mean to sound corny, but there is potential here for us to use this vehicle, or vessel, for transformation in a really profound way. That Self-Care for Black Women program that Spring, Jas, Simone, and Liz have led and helped to steward was the cutting edgethe edge leadership part of CompassPoint, so to speak. It gave us the legitimacy to say we can hold space for Black folks by Black folks, and nobody thats not Black is going to be able to call into question why were doing it. They dont have the right.

CS: Say that again?

KS: They dont have the right! As non-Black folks, you cannot say, Why would you make this space for Black folks? One, we see the vital need for it across the world. But in particular, we see via testimony, via experiential reflections, how valuable that space is. I wont go into the details of that, because its not a program I worked on, but if there is some potential opportunity for NPQ to harvest lessons from other folkstheres a lot to learn there. And we wouldnt be where we are now if we hadnt done Self-Care for Black Women. Its important to acknowledge that as the tradition that were building on directly at CompassPoint.

CS: Before we move on, can you give a quick example of what is a punitive systemand what that would look like for an individual in an organizationand what would be the opposite of that?

LD: Ill give you an example at CompassPoint. At the core for us as we were building a pro-Black organization was experimenting with a new governance model. Holacracy was useful, but it didnt meet our needsso, were developing a new kind of governance model. Theres nothing really new under the sunbut what it does is push us to center our values, which is something that comes beautifully from bell hookss centermargin framework. When we think about those most marginalized and what they value, and we make changes to bring them into the center or to expand the center, then we can have more of a liberatory organization. So, not doing that can be punitive. It can be really punitive by default, right? So, when I came into the organization, I observed that the majority of people who worked at the organization were women, and all the Black women at the organization were mothers.

CS: What role did you come in as?

LD: I came in as what we used to call a program or project director. Now I serve as a codirector. And so when I came in, we took a look at what it is that Black mothers value. They value the health of their children. They value time with their children. They value psychological safety for themselves, and not to have to be here and worry about their children. These are intrinsic values that are at the center for Black women. And the organization didnt offer 100 percent dependent coverage. So we had mothers, and sometimes single Black mothers, working at CompassPoint and then working at other jobs just to provide healthcare for their children.

So, in an attempt to build a pro-Black organization, we decided to flip that policy on its head. We wanted to figure out how to prioritize putting money into supporting our staff, which at the core would mean supporting Black mothers. And this year we passed a policy of 100 percent dependent coverage for all our parents. Centering Black women wound up expanding the center, because now all of our staffour white staff, our IPOC staffcan get care for their children. That policy is now institutionalized. It was a really beautiful practice.

This is targeted universalism, right? You take a look at who is at the center and who is the most marginalized, and you bring the most marginalized into the center, and you do that through policy change. Im really proud of us for doing that. Because, again, consequentially, whether it was purposefully punitive or not, we were smacking mothers on the handit was causing punitive action for them. They couldnt navigate through their lives as freely because they were worrying about caring for their children.

So, this is why we reject the concept of anti-Blackness, and reject diversity, equity, and inclusion. These arent frames that we use. We love all the DEI officers and practitioners and theory that have come through CompassPoints doors, but we reject DEI, because pro-Blackness is not about trainings or tolerance or building peoples understanding of pro-Blacknesswhich is the crux, I think, of DEI. It actually is going beyond just challenging structures, and embedding the core values of Black people and making them central.

Building pro-Blackness and building power require much more than just defending ourselves against anti-Blackness, and much more than just asking white folks in the organization to take a training. Its really about moving the needle with respect to looking at Black people as the folks who develop our governance, as the folks who, by virtue of our values, lead the development of the systems, policies, practices, and procedures at the organization. And that challenges the punitive naturewhen we center Black people, we challenge the punitive nature of organizations.

KS: In terms of themes that came up, a couple of folks from the cohort mentioned safety. Safety from discrimination, from undeserved consequences, from systems of oppression. Theres also the self-determination piece. If we talk about self-determination in terms of, for example, that flavor of the day, shared leadership, were hearing conversations around this in many pockets of folks across all different identities. What does it look like to have autonomy and agency in an organization that intrinsically depends on collaboration? What does it look like to find that balance? And theres something about Black folks consistently pushing the needle on self-determination for a group of people and for individuals, and trying to find what balance looks like there.

Also, in terms of the punitive piece, I want to speak quite frankly about that. What were seeing right now is a mass wave of organizationseither woefully underprepared, or who think theyre prepared but arent, or who are prepared but havent quite thought through the ways in which theyre going to brace for what seismic shift does to a systemwho are inviting Black folks into conversations around racial justice and racial equity and then are not happy when theyre met with answers they hadnt expected. So, when I think about the punitive aspect, the question for me is: How do we invite authentic engagement around change and transition within our organizations, around the ways in which we develop leaders, that will not be met with retribution or some recourse that is basically backdooring folks who thought that they were participating in good faith toward the advancement of an organization?

So, if a bunch of Black folks get together and say, Well, it is kind of racist that weve never had a Black executive director here. And then its, Were not racist. Oh, no, we do racial justice work in community. No. It can be racist and you can be good people; you can be anti-Black and you can still be great individuals. Or, We dont listen to our recipients of services. And Ive noticed an overwhelming trend that the Black folks who walk through our door in XYZ housing agency or XYZ gender-based violence organization are met with contempt and frustration. If people are upset by the fact that folks are naming that fact, then thats a form of punitive action that either encourages people to be a little less vocal, or conditions them to think that theyre not calling out what needs to be tended totheyre not focusing on the right thing.

And that endures, right? Ive experienced it, and Im sure that many if not all of us who are Black folks have experienced it in some way. And I think its crucial to be able to create the space for folks to say, No, that cant continue. If were actually going to do transformative work with a politic around justice, its not fair, nor is it impartial, to say that one set of things that we focus on is okay but another set is not. And theres a unique pattern around what it means to be Black folks calling out the ways in which Black folks are silenced, are ridiculed, are delegitimized that, if it continues, wont enable us to step into this work wholeheartedly and toward full effect. And thats what I think getting away from the punitive impact looks likeits being able to say, Nah, we will meet that in its authenticityand we will act on it.

CS: Well, thank you so much for explaining. That really puts a fine point on it. My last question is, What would a pro- Black sector sound, look, taste, and feel like?

LD: Thats a great question, and there are so many folks experimenting around thisI feel really thankful to be in the field, in the sector, right now, when were seeing organizations flip the dynamic of white people in power on its head. Part of what Im seeing in the sector thats growing this collective vision of building pro-Black organizations is white people who are executive directors, administrators, who hold senior positions, leaving their organizations and making space for Black leadership.

And I really love what you were saying, Kad. Theres this nuance of collective action when Black folks say, We need this level of safety. Were going to challenge the ways that we havent experienced pro-Blackness. Were not going to yield our power, were going to organize our power. And part of that is also Black people taking the power themselvesas executive directors, as senior managersassuming that your organization is hierarchical and/or that you have positional titles, which we do at CompassPoint.

And there are organizations that are experimenting with more distributed leadership, with flat structures, and all of that is also part of building pro-Blacknessbecause I think an intrinsic value for us as Black people across the diaspora and the continent is this idea of communalism, that were constantly working together. Its not just the individual, its working for the whole. But there are many organizations that come through our doors at CompassPoint, and that we see in the sector, that are still hierarchical, right? Thats not a bad thing in and of itself. But building a pro-Black organization means that some white folks got to go. Thats important for the sector.

Whats also really important, though, is that our philanthropic partners are resourcing our work to do this. Its really important that we not be beholden to projects or initiatives that have concrete, predetermined outcomes driven by our foundation folksthat this building of pro-Blackness is actually endeavors of building capacity. So, what would it look like if our philanthropic partners resourced our sector through unrestricted funding, through general operating support, which would allow us to do the work like weve been doing at CompassPoint? Allow us to do the work of building the capacity of staff to play with this vision of pro-Blackness, to experiment with it internally, to experiment with it externally. Thats really important for our sector. And we think about our philanthropic partners as part of the sector.

I think whats really important for the sector is more space for organizations to learn from one another. Over the last couple of years, weve started to see large organizations placing Black women at the helm. Greenpeace just hired their first Black codirector. Change Elemental moved into greater shared leadership, and has a four-person hub structure that includes two Black women. Tides Advocacy hired a Black woman CEO. So, were starting to see theres a shift, and I would attribute that to the work of the last few yearsthe work of people being out in the street, of Black Lives Matter, of folks who are really trying to support the resourcing of the field.

And now that we have Black people who are taking up positional power, its really important to support them. I think what would strengthen the sector is giving time and space for Black people in positional power to learn skills, to network, to vent, to pool resources. And thats something thats been really important for us at CompassPoint. Were starting to explore hosting one of our next iterations of Black programming, which is our Black Women Executive Directorship 101, and creating space for us to really build pro-Blackness among those who are brought in and who can promote the changeand not just have our staff, who are coordinators, associate directors, directors with no positional power, trying to move the needle around pro-Blackness. We need that buy-in from those who hold positional power.

So, weve been playing and experimenting with Black female executive directorships to really account for whats happening in the field, as there appears to be money coming into the field to support pro-Black organizations, and we need to be set up to succeed. I say appears to beits early days. But theres a beautiful report that was released a few months ago about the level of philanthropic support thats been committed, and what actually is being funded.1

KS: Something that comes up for meand I always sit with this when were gearing up for some programmingis that Black folks are not a monolithic people. Theres such a range and diversity of thought among Black folks. And I dont mean to be simplistic in terms of thinking about a future where our sector has the capacity to really leverage being pro-Black or putting Black folks in positions to succeed. What I mean by that is, even if we think about the rich tradition of what it means to be a Black person navigating this country throughout the Civil Rights era, there were different schools of thought. We think about it as early as W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washingtonthere are different approaches. We think about folks who are integrationist versus Pan-Africanist. Theres such a beauty to what it means to be Black folks, which needs to be understood to best position us for a way forward. None of it is less-than or better-than, in my opinion. But thats just where I sit.

All that is to say, regarding pro-Blackness for the sector at this particular moment in time, that in the next decade or two I would love to see nonprofit organizations that dont just provide Band-Aid solutions but actually have a root-cause analysis and a radical approach. Angela Davis says it so poignantly: Radical simply means grasping things at the root. Our organizations, by design, have not been created to get at the root of problems. In fact, were beholden to government funding and philanthropic funding, by which they oftentimes steer us away from root causes and root-problem solutions.

So, if pro-Blackness is really going to take root in this particular sector, it means well see more nonprofit organizations that are actually positioned to solve the problems we set our sights on. And I see some powerful grassroots organizers and some folks doing mutual aid efforts who are starting to show that its doable. How do we bring that to scale and get them the same resources that folks who have been at 501(c)3s and (c)4s for twenty, thirty, forty years have access to? Thats the real, powerful question for me. And I think that at the end of the day, someones got to take the risk and say, This is a bunch of bullshit, yall. We got folks that are positioned to do this work at a high level who are already doing it very meaningfully, who are changing peoples material conditions and giving them better chances of survival and for thriving. And theyre not 501(c)3s, theyre not 501(c)4s, they dont fit the traditional nonprofit model.

So, when we think about a pro-Black sector, for me it means those organizations are going to be able to address those root causes. And as somebody whos light-skinned and has the undergraduate degree background, I shouldnt be taken more seriously than somebody who lives in the streets of Oakland and who says, Yo, this is what I go through being a houseless person. Thats a bunch of fuckery. (Im gonna use this sharp language, here.) I dont know anything about housing. I dont know what its like to be houseless. I can go get a degree tomorrow in public benefits or nonprofit governance or public administration, and then I would be positioned as some expert to solve these problems. But we position folks who are going through it in real time as if theyre less-than or their ideas arent as legitimate. And I just dont think that that is a radical way forward.

So, pro-Black, to me, means that the Black folks who are in the streets, the Black folks who are in prisons, the Black folks who have directly experienced some of the most brutal forces of oppressionthat those folks leadership will also be celebrated by everyone. And not just Black folkswhite folks, IPOC folks. That well start to understand the value of that. I think thats the ambitious goal weve set our sights on. And if it happens in our lifetime, well be lucky. If it doesnt, then our descendants get to keep on picking up the torch.

That, to me is a pro-Black sector. I want to see more houseless organizations run by people whove been houseless. I want to see more organizations doing transformative justice by people whove been in prisons, by folks whove been impacted directly by incarceration. Thats what I want to see. When we start to see that stuff, then Ill say, Okay, yeah, were really getting it. Were really starting to put our money where our mouth is.

LD: Kad pushed us to really think about and embed this in our program: Challenging our dependence on expertise. We are not experts because we have all these things, right? And we challenge that internally at CompassPoint. Were teachers and learners, and were colearners among our participants and our staff. And I feel really proud that were embodying that and to hear you share it, Kadextending more broadly vis--vis the sector this principle of not being so dependent on expertise but centering those folks who are most impacted, for lack of better words, and who can design and facilitate their own liberation alongside us.

CS: Well, thank you. I really appreciate this.

LD: Were really thankful to have this space. I think it gives us more opportunity to work with our participants and our partners when were able to be in dialogue with NPQ to shift the paradigm.

Note

More:

Moving the Mountain: A Conversation about Pro-Blackness with Cyndi Suarez, Liz Derias, and Kad Smith - Non Profit News - Nonprofit Quarterly