Community Cultural Wealth: September 2024 Reflection
Over the past few months, these reflections have been a personal take on how white supremacy culture (wsc) presents itself and ways I am seeking to unlearn and counter it with something more spacious, loving and liberative. Over the next few months, I hope to share resources that have helped shape my framework towards equity and justice. In order to talk about how these resources have either lovingly wrecked me or revived my imagination, it is important for me to name that living in a black woman's body means that without any intentional effort my very existence has been an act of resistance against wsc; I am actively existing in a posture of resistance from it. That while I must engage with systems steeped in wsc values, my social location and my cultural identity often proceeds me.
Furthermore, my explicit commitment to cultivating transformative spaces is radical, labor intensive and dynamic. What this means for me is that I have to take good care of myself because this work is trying and can create weariness. I have to be reminded, restored and rooted in a sense of dignity, strategy and ultimately, self and communal love that sustains me throughout this work.
This month, I want to reflect back on a foundational resource I read about 6 years ago that has both informed and empowered me in my work and my lived experience. In this article T.J. Yosso (2005) lists the 6 types of cultural capital communities of color have and I saw myself and my work reflected in each one. Through this resource, I had been invited into a reframe and shared language for how we uplift, and acknowledge inherent and acquired skills that my community, and thus I, possess as we navigate structural racism. Grounded in a critical race theory (CRT) lens, T. J. Yosso's research article on Community Cultural Wealth of Communities of Color reinvigorated my sense of agency and resulted in a distinct shift to an abundance/asset based approach when engaging in racial justice work. From that point on, I refused to talk about BIPOC folx without allowing them to speak for themselves and highlighting their strengths both within and outside of the constructs of wsc.
I am sharing this resource because it reminds me of the way that CRT helped me feel seen and empowered to critique, affirm and imagine new systems. And as we seek to unlearn white supremacy culture, we must always reserve energy and imagination for what we will replace it with. I believe this requires both a returning to and imagining of something new. While the article is a longer read I encourage you to be invited into a reframe of how we talk about the skills and strengths of BIPOC folx. I think so much of DEI work is put on the backs of those most marginalized to explain what repair should look like. And while our voices should be heard, our dignity should be honored and the responsibility of building new systems MUST be shared. And so the charge is for us to be in consist learning and unlearning. So this is a call for white Folx and people with access to power to do better than the status quo so you can share in this work of justice and for Black and other marginalized identities to ground yourself in the fullness of who you are.
Reflection Question
What would it look like for you to lean into an abundance or strength-based lens in your life and work?
Article Citation: Tara J. Yosso (2005) Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth, Race Ethnicity and Education, 8:1, 69-91, DOI: 10.1080/1361332052000341006
