Reflections on Creating Change--from Lisa

I learned a great deal about busting binaries work through Creating Change this year. Most importantly, I learned that the deepest form of binary busting is working across issues and communities in the most intersectional way possible. Prior to this experience, I had not quite articulated binary busting work in that way. Yet it is now clear to me that busting binaries has to result in something deeply radical beyond the act of challenging either/or thinking and practice. It must result in a deeper understanding of the overlaps and contradictions—in essence the messy places--- as they relate to issues and identities. Binary busting makes doing intersectional work both possible and urgently necessary.

I also learned more about how to concretely organize in this way. I realized that one thing that we sorely underestimate in our movements is relationship and community building. Having completely honest and accountable relationships with community is key to gaining invited access to those messy, contradictory and hard places where issues and identities overlap. In order to understand the intersections and overlaps it requires one to “hang out” in those vulnerable and hard places with folks for as long as it takes to move the work to a deeper place. Each step of the way requires transparency, openness and a strong commitment to supporting people in “go there” on there own time—not yours!

In the end, I gained tremendous clarity about how busting binaries/intersectional work demands flexibility in ways that one may not initially anticipate. To do this work in the most accountable way it’s important to develop a collective vision—yet be flexible around the ways in which that vision is achieved. Whether one is working within a specific community in an intersectional way or across communities in an intersectional way flexibility is key to getting as deep into the nuances and contradictions as possible. It is my experience that organizers often underestimate the importance of flexibility and therefore the nuances are overlooked. It’s this lack of attention to nuance and overlap that divides communities, fuels anger and mistrust and segments our movements.

This experience certainly gave me the opportunity to deepen my understanding of how this work is done—and it has further strengthened my resolve that binary busting work (as a framework for doing intersectional work) is exactly where we must move our movements.

Creating Change 2006, Kansas City, MO - from Ana

Some of the fundamental questions I ask myself in attending a conference often have to do with the approach and the framing of the work. What was amazing to me this year was how `intersectionality’ served as a framework for many of the institutes and workshops at this year’s Creating Change.

Here is a definition of intersectionality: “the Ontario Human Rights Commission offers a very simple definition of the phenomenon [of intersectionality] as `…multiple forms of discrimination occurring simultaneously’” from the Peel District School Board School paper: Manifesting Encouraging & Respectful Environments & the Future We Want – Issue Paper on the isms.

The People of Color Institute on the first day asked us to focus on privilege, language & generational experiences. What I discovered in this space is that it’s still hard for us as people of color to talk about carrying/walking with privilege. The idea that that is possible and also necessary to examine is still difficult for folks. Wow. I think one of the fundamental aspects of being a bridge person is that we’re constantly having to negotiate privilege and oppression within multiple frames, and it can feel really unsafe to unpack that. And yet, there are many, many points of connection between different kinds of experiences of privilege that would allow for the formation of bridges between people. For example, connections between the privilege because of U.S. citizenship and the privilege arising out of wealth. Something else that struck me is how shaped we are by our generation. I don’t mean the generation arising out of our individual ages, but out of our movement generation. I was in the group that has been in the movement 10-20 years. We were all struggling with questions of sustainability, and looking at the driving force for this work. There came a moment where we had to look at the question of “how does one frame work for liberation in the midst of responding to crises?”

It was wonderful to be at the conference together with Lisa. And to watch how the work around busting binaries is affecting how we talk about movement building, and organizational development, intersectionality and capacity building. Very exciting.