In early August, I attended* a workshop by Lillith (Karen) Grey at the Young Adult UU Southern Region Summer Gathering. The workshop, "Within-Community Advocacy" was between a beginner and intermediate-level advocacy seminar.
Grey gave a two-hour lecture (which I edited for clarity into two 48-minute podcasts) that touched on finding your identity within the social structures that exists in your various communities, types of advocacy and advocate “hats” and tools for your social justice toolbox.
Grey is the mastermind behind The Gracious Mind – a social justice outreach project and soon-to-be private counseling and wellness practice.
This lecture assumes that those participating (and listening to the podcast parts) have some sort of background in social justice and the lingo that goes along with it.
“...That you understand and acknowledge, and we all agree, that there are things like sexism and racism and historical systemic types of discrimination,” Grey says. “That those things exist and we would like them to not exist. That we are all on the side of good.”
Grey says the other assumption is that the audience understands racism is not just blatant name-calling.
“We all say things and we all do things that can cross lines for people," she says.
The Summer Gathering was a particularly hard – but rewarding – exercise in how to rebuild a community after deep miscommunications and unmet expectations. Grey acknowledges that in her lecture and fine-tunes it to meet our needs for that weekend.
She says we all entered the event with our armor off. A lot of her lecture would help us restart the dialogue needed to more forward as a young adult fellowship. But her guidance into the world of social justice and social welfare is also applicable to similar situations within fractured or hurt communities.
"We go out into daily life and we wear the Wonder Woman armor,” she says. “We're super tough. And then we come into our home communities – into here – and we take all of our armor off.”
Then we’re stretched thin, exhausted and feeling vulnerable, she says. “We get into a situation with people that we care about, that we feel safe about, and then somebody stabs us,” Grey says. “But we don't have any armor on…. It feels a million times worse than it would if you were still wearing your armor."
To get back to a place of mutuality, Grey speaks about coming to a situation with an idea of what your identity is within the social constructs that already exist.
No one comes to a situation or issue with an objective outlook, Grey says. “Whether you like it or not, you've been socialized in a classist, racist, sexist system," she says. “So, your perception of things will always be impacted by that.”
Grey says our identities are wrapped up in our own intersectionality – the idea that we’re affected by the institutions in which we are raised (all the isms), and everything is interconnected. One aspect of our selves cannot be examined separately from another. She says our identity includes the power structures that we live in, our access to resources, our race, our socioeconomic status, our our gender, our sexuality, our level of education, our priorities, our relationships, the time of year it is, how things are going in our lives, our mental state, and the list goes on and on.
"All of those things – put them together – they make this lens that we all look through,” Grey says. “If you deny that that lens exists, then you're not participating in social justice. The idea of social justice activism is that we say we know this lens is there. We know we cannot just dismantle the lenses all together.”
The question is, Grey says, “What are we gonna do to look at the lens, instead of critiquing what's on the other side of the lens?"
And that was all just in the first 10 minutes, folks.
Listen to the embedded audio player above for more of workshop Part A.
The second part of the podcast wraps up Grey’s lecture. Then she moves into specific tools you – as part of the young adult UU community or as advocates for a particular cause – can use in your work.
"You cannot be all the things for all the people all the time,” Grey says. “You just can't."
Grey speaks about the different advocate “hats” – some you might identify with, other you might avoid, depending on personal preference. As in all things, Grey says it's of the utmost importance to “be authentic.”
The minute you’re inauthentic (and this doesn’t mean the minute you are uncomfortable in a situation), she says, is the minute you lose sight of you advocacy.
There are advocates who have the following strengths:
Reflexivity – people who do advocacy work and then process and shift their thinking and actions accordingly.
Dialogue – people who can sit down and debate the issues.
Critical Literacy – people who, as advocates for a cause, consume media with a critical eye. There’s that statement: “Be critical of what you love.” This approach to advocacy can be very uncomfortable for other social justice workers, Grey says, but it is absolutely necessary.
To hear about some of the other advocacy “hats” like “alliance-building,” listen to Part B of the podcast.
There is one form of advocacy, in particular, that I identify with:
Listening – “This is a really critical point,” Grey says. “A lot of the damage that's done by marginalization and oppression involves a lot of silencing.”
Grey gives an example of listening as advocacy: “Let's say that a person of color decided to yell at me for being white. Maybe the best thing I can do right now is say 'Bring it. I will take it. I will carry this. Yell, scream, rant, call me the names, give it to me, I can take this, because somebody has to carry it.’ So, sometimes listening can be the most powerful thing that you can do for somebody... to carry the weight of that."
As a journalist who strives to be fair and transparent in my work, and someone who consdiers herself an ally for social justice, I most often take the role of listener. I also dabble in critical literacy. My role as a reporter, however, is to listen to people’s experiences and disseminate that information to a wider audience. And I try to be very careful how I do that.
It’s my goal to work with sources to get their narrative correct in the manner most comfortable to them (although that is situational, depending on the type of journalism I’m doing and whether it is an investigative report or not). Although I do sometimes make mistakes. My job as a journalist is to sometimes carry experiences that could negatively affect my own idea of identity, or challenge my advocacy.
At those times, it is not my turn to speak (which plays into the idea of directionality – a tool Grey mentions in her ‘toolbox’ part of the lecture.
I feel very honored that sources trust me to help spread their voice.
Listen to the embedded audio player above for insight into Grey's advocacy 'toolbox' and more of workshop Part B.
*I attended the workshop – and wrote about it – to help disseminate Grey's work to our UU community and social welfare advocates at large. This blog post does not act as an endorsement. Much of the content does, however, align with my principles as a journalist. I agree with a lot of topics Grey addresses in her workshop. I also believe there are multitudes of ways to be an advocate or support social justice in our lives.