DEI Racial Equity Principle of the Week: Principle #3

For the next several weeks we will be sharing 1 of 10 Racial Equity Principles created through the work of several grassroots organizations, most notably the Dismantling Racism Works collaborative, and curated by Tema Okun. Each Racial Equity Principle includes a definition and description of how applying that principle may look in our daily lives. We encourage you to reflect on the description of each principle, how much you can relate to or see value in it, and to what extent you may want to apply any of the approaches suggested in your daily lives, inside and outside of the Kent School. 

Racial Equity Principle #3: Think and Act Collectively

"We live in a culture enraptured by the idea of the single hero riding in on a white horse (or an inter-galactic spaceship) to save the day. We are all of us raised by institutions (schools, the media, religious institutions) that reinforce the idea of individual achievement and heroism. The reality is that our history and particularly the history of the arc of social justice is a history of movements.

This principle is based on the idea that we save and are saved by each other. By design, this culture insures that we have a very weak collective impulse; the collective impulse that people and communities held originally (Indigenous nations and cultures) or brought with them from other countries and cultures, has been systematically erased in the service of white supremacy, capitalism, racism, and power hoarding. This means that we (may) have to (re)teach each other and ourselves to collaborate and act collectively. We can look for guidance to those people and communities whose resilience has preserved that impulse. Acting collaboratively and collectively means that we build strong and authentic relationships that enable us to act in concert with each other from a place of wisdom gathered collaboratively and collectively. It also means that we learn from our mistakes rather than pretend we never make them."

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