Belonging and Accountability

2 minute read time

This post is a tribute. A combination book report, goal setting exercise, and zine preview. And it all starts here:

I’ve read a few titles from adrienne maree brown over the years, and gosh I am a fan.

This one is a continuation in her Emergent Strategy Series, a collection of writings about communication, care, and potential for the future. Bite-sized snacks filled with compassion and humility. I always dog-ear a lot of pages, and examine my own approach to life and the work of liberation when I read her work.

THE ZINE

While I continue to fumble around in the zine-a-verse, and find my style and footing, I am also enjoying myself! It’s fun to play on a small scale, with easy materials, and accessible tools.

This particular zine takes the lead from one of adrienne maree brown’s column in Yes! Magazine titled “How to Be Accountable with Your Words“. She reproduces this work in the book Loving Corrections, and I loved every sentence.

Remember, a zine is meant to be easy to build with accessible materials. Here is what I used in this mini zine.

tools: scissors, glue stick, markers, scallop circle punch, stamps and black ink pad
foundation: 8.5×11 white printer paper
old magazines, washi tape, various stickers, orange paper

Each bit of text in the zine represents a “heading” of a paragraph in this article. She expands on each one in the work, and I highly recommend you read the piece in its entirety.

I didn’t set out to replicate the whole article or the whole book – that feels scary and impossible! I wanted to capture some of what I felt while reading the piece – that’s the bright oranges and artistic vibe – and use this medium to remind myself (and others potentially) about the lessons available in her larger body of work.

GOAL SETTING EXERCISE

Did I promise you a goal setting exercise? I suppose I did.

I know that I am going to start using a lot of what I learned in this book to frame and build my Not Ladylike Community events. But I’m not quite sure how…

amb asks:

What does it look like to start from a place of considering the needs of everyone in the room and seeing them all as justified needs?

Y’all, what does it look like to do this? And how can we do it every time, and at every gathering we host?

Step one is to build this into the project management document that I use for every event. (Because of course I have a project management document for my events). Here are some of the questions for my new framework, the goal being to ensure I have them answered before I open registration.

BUILDING THE FRAMEWORK

When creating an event, hosting a meetup, or building a community gathering, write this list on a sheet of paper (or on your computer) and answer each one:

List out all the possible needs of folks who might attend
How am I communicating that these needs are met or considered?
How will I ensure accountability of myself, other volunteers, and each attendee to uphold these agreements?
What is the process for making changes at the event based on immediate feedback?
How will I get feedback after the event, and what is the process for implementing that feedback?
What is the intended goal of the event, and how will I know I achieved it?
How will I communicate the goal?
How will I celebrate everything we accomplished or learned?
How will I be accountable to my community at the gathering?

If I’ve learned anything from the Not Ladylike Hikes lesson, it’s that I need to talk about this as much as possible. This is one (imperfect, growing and learning) step toward that.

WHY THESE GOALS?

I read this excerpt from the book at a recent Crafternoon event:

If we hope to strengthen the net of our society, we need to strengthen the bonds between each pair and group of individuals. What we want is a net so strong, so satisfying, that no one can fall through it. A healed society would be one in which no one becomes the bearer of unjust hardship, where individuals don’t bear the weight of systemic failures. There is a degree of loss and pain that is part of the human experience, but we can heal our relations to each other to move toward a reality in which no one is given a life that only produces trauma and suffering.
adrienne maree brown, loving corrections

“A lofty goal for a simple craft party”, I added. But people applauded. Applauded!

Maybe having lofty goals isn’t such a bad thing.

We are still living in a world dominated by goals and aspirations that were not set by us, but were set upon us by corporations, governments, or by “the imaginations of ancestors who didn’t love us.”

It takes all of us working together, imperfectly, to strengthen our connections and achieve a positive future.