Category: Organizational Management

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Weekly Round-up | Performative Activism and The Truth About the History of the Americas

Every week I create a round-up of my favorite reads and listens over the last 7 days. Some links go directly to articles and books, others go to my post with notes.

This week was a particularly light reading week, with most of my time spent on making progress through Hood Feminism and 1491; Both which are still not finished. I usually get through books pretty fast but Kirkland Arts was bringing in a new Executive Director this week, which took up most of my available free time and energy.

Tuesday: Executive Onboarding

In anticipation of the new ED onboarding, I’ve been going through my old executive materials as well as looking up new resources for dealing with virtual onboarding. While nothing was stand out, I did like the break down into 5 categories by Nick Chambers.

Thursday: Poetry

Brainpickings is one of my favorite websites and this week one of the featured authors was the poet Lisel Mueller.

Friday: Performative Activism & Settler Priviledge

What is Performative Activism?
“We know performative activism occurs when those with power wish to give the appearance of supporting members of Black, Indigenous and racialized communities — but aren’t willing to transfer power and transform organizational cultures, policies, practices and behaviours.”

Why should we care about performative activisim?
Aside from the fact that the nonprofit sector is rooted in White Saviorism, “Performative activism leads to new and insidious forms of oppression for Black, Indigenous and racialized people. Performative institutions distract from the real issues at stake and also create additional labour for the Black, Indigenous and racialized people who end up collaborating with them. 

Weekend Reads: 1491

Despite going to relatively well resourced schools in the 1990s and early 2000s, I didn’t receive a comprehensive or accurate education in the history of the pre-Columbus Americas. I remember doing study projects on spanish conquistadors, with the focus on their ‘discoveries’ and achievements, rather than on the genocide of the existing indigenous populations. I was taught hat the Americas were for the most part uninhabited and underdeveloped by the time the Europeans landed, and that there were no major civilizations aside from the ‘barbaric’ Maya or Aztec.

1491 hammers home the astounding and offensive the gap between my childhood education and reality. Before Columbus, there may well have been more people living in the Americas than in Europe, with some estimates putting it as high as 112 million, many of them in urban complexes bigger and more sophisticated than London or Paris. These civilizations undertook major engineering and public work projects, build monuments to rival the Egyptians, and modified their landscapes to produce an abundance of food. Furthermore, the largest human dieback in history occurred when the Europeans arrived–carrying with them Smallpox, with up to 90% of the population dying from the disease.

I first read 1491 in college, but was so exhausted due to my academic load, that the impact of what I was reading was minor. Living now in the Pacific Northwest, and travelling more extensively across the western states of the US, this book has re-opened my eyes to the past brilliance and devastation of our indigenous populations.

Still in Progress…

I’ve been slowly making progress on these below, and will log them with my notes once I finish (Hopefully this week?)

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Notes | 7 Questions to help figure out if you’re dealing with a performative nonprofit by Sanaa Ali-Mohammed

  1. How do they treat Black, Indigenous, and racialized workers who speak out about white supremacy and racism?
    [Performative] “leaders tend to favour the ones who make them feel comfortable, who aren’t asking the organization and leadership to do better”
  2. How do they approach internal interventions?
    [Performative leaders] “shy away from training and conversations about anti-racism, instead preferring to speak about equity, diversity and inclusion. However, you can’t have equity if you’re not dismantling oppression and talking about anti-racism.”; Performative nonprofits often adopt a “checkmark” approach of “let’s do training, so we can say we’ve done training.” 
  3. How do they quantify their commitments and measure progress?
    “For a sector [like fundraising and philanthropy] that has become so good at quantifying things, that organizations don’t have measurable outcomes [especially for addressing anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism] is concerning.”
  4. How are mistakes, oppression, and harm acknowledged?
    Performative leaders and institutions will often fail to acknowledge or challenge the broader systems — like imperialism, capitalism or settler colonialism — that lead to specific instances of oppression, and will instead focus on the resulting symptoms.
    ..without acknowledgement of harm caused and apology and reparations to those who have been harmed, institutions and leaders cannot form authentic relationships. ;
  5. Do they demand trauma porn?
    Performative institutions demand Black, Indigenous, and racialized people’s stories of overcoming pain and adversity, in many cases in exchange for access to resources like funding.
  6. Do they recognize the complexity of Black, Indigenous and racialized people’s experiences?
    Performative institutions often mask internal issues of racial discrimination through tokenism, which relies on the idea that all Black, Indigenous, and racialized people are interchangeable for one another.
  7. Are they taking risks?
    Authentic allies are willing to take risks to interrupt oppression.

Anti-racism work is not just about training[…] It’s also about shifting culture and policies embedded across all levels of an institution, which requires allocating the time and resources needed to do so effectively.