A Commitment to Accountability
in Anti-Racism Work

As an organization founded by a het, cis, able-bodied, white male from a christian background with class privilege, accountability in our anti-racism work is foundational to our integrity. While much of the language below is written from Ethan’s perspective as the founder, our community is aligned in the commitments and stands together. This document and the tenets stated here have evolved significantly over our journeys and will continue to in the decades to come.

Build and sustain authentic, reciprocal relationships across racial identities
I am committed to anti-racism because of caring relationships with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) who are friends with me - despite the extensive violence that white supremacist systems, and individuals, direct toward them and their communities. I am aware that my own internalized white supremacy can undermine and harm my BIPOC friendships . Thus in order to sustain these vital relationships, I work to heal my own racism while interrupting white supremacist systems around me.

Bring an intersectional approach to anti-racism
Intersectionality teaches us that people face multiple sources of oppression—race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other markers of identity—and that each informs the other. While the work of Embodied Equity Project focuses on racial equity, we welcome the complexity of people’s intersecting identities and invite them to bring their whole selves into the room. I also explicitly practice anti-racism and anti-oppression with white people, as well as cisgender, heterosexual, and class-privileged folks. I am committed to taking on the burden of emotional labor and to practicing somatics in a racialized context with white people and others who hold societal privilege. 

Continue learning and growing in my anti-racism journey
The deeper motivation in doing this work arises from an essential aspect of my humanity and yearning for authentic, co-liberatory relationships with BIPOC and white people. As a white man, I recognize the continued loss and harm in my own personal relationships as a result of white male christian supremacy culture. All of this allows me to recommit to anti-racism whenever I am faced with shame, disgust, guilt, and other emotions and bodily sensations that my white male conditioning finds difficult to tolerate. While I have explicitly practiced anti-racism for more than 15 years, I will never be complete in my learning. 

Honor my teachers
My teachers include individuals and organizations such as Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams, Paul Kivel, Martin Prechtel, the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, Visions, the Untraining, Race Forward, Fierce Allies, and the Center for Racial Justice in Education, among others. Authors and thinkers who have impacted my understanding of anti-racism include Audre Lorde, adrienne maree brown, Anne Braden, Myles Horton, Resmaa Menakem, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X Kendi, James Baldwin, bell hooks, and many more. I am grateful to have received much of my anti-racism education from BIPOC, and white anti-racists also contribute important leadership and wisdom into this field.

Sustain and maintain a community of mutual support and challenge. 
I have been privileged to partner with many BIPOC colleagues in two decades of social justice efforts. Within our partnerships, I practice transformative alliances, an explicitly reciprocal, mutually supportive model, wherein we offer each other accountability in ways that take into account our respective social/racial positionality. I frequently partner with BIPOC women and specifically solicit feedback around my content, facilitation, and how I show up in our co-conspiring. I welcome critical as well as appreciative feedback and practice being accountable for integrating what I learn.

Practice financial transparency around where our donations go and whom they are explicitly benefiting. 
Embodied Equity Project pays facilitators $200-350/hour, with white facilitator’s giving 10-20% of their earnings to BIPOC led racial justice organizations, including the Manna Hatta Fund and the Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity. The difference in take home pay between white and BIPOC facilitators is grounded in our commitment to reparations as well as differences in the emotional and somatic cost of facilitating anti-racist work.