Developing a Liberatory Consciousness in Funding (Podcast Transcript)

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Sherylynn Sealy:
Welcome to a podcast by Grantmakers in the Arts. A national membership association of public and private arts and culture funders. I'm Sherylynn Sealy, GIA's program manager. We finally made it to 2021. And while a new administration gives us high hopes for the future, there is still a deep amount of both systemic and internal work to be done. Last year, when we entered into this space of institutional reckoning, we saw racial equity and solidarity statements filling our inboxes and flooding our social media. In the philanthropic sector we saw restrictions and red tape being swiftly stripped away, which showed the world the power we have to create a more just society. However, and I quote, "While we all continue to work for social change to reduce inequity and bring about greater justice, we continue to behave in ways that preserve and perpetuate the existing system." So what can we, the philanthropic sector do? We were glad to have the woman behind that quote joining us today.

The brilliant Dr. Barbara J. Love, consultant, author lecturer, and the founder of the framework, Liberatory Consciousness. She'll be speaking about how we can develop a liberatory consciousness that can lead us to even more drastic change this year, both within our institutions and outside of them. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Love.

Barbara J. Love:
I'm delighted to be here.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yes. But let's get right into it. How are you showing up today?

Barbara J. Love:
Okay. Well, you said a key word about a new administration and we are speaking the day after the installation of the new administration.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Correct.

Barbara J. Love:
I woke up this morning, realizing that there were muscles loosening that I had not known were tense and tight.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right.

Barbara J. Love:
That's how I'm showing up today. High hopes for a new administration. Obviously one person and one administration cannot correct completely the long-term systemic ills that plague us, but they can point us in a good direction. And they can take the necessary steps to get us moving. So that's how I am today. And as my sister girl, Amanda said, "If we can believe it and we can be it, then there is light, there is light."

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yes. Amen to that. That's right. And so, I am really excited for you to share a little bit more about your work and specifically your frameworks. Your framework, the liberatory consciousness framework. And I learned about this through some of our friends and colleagues at United Philanthropy Forum and their racial equity cohort. We were talking about some of the great work people are doing and your framework was a part of the discussion. And so I want to hear a little bit more about the framework from you, the creator, what does it mean? What does it entail? Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Barbara J. Love:
I certainly can, and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to do so. I think a liberatory consciousness is the piece that will move us consistently and steadily toward the ability and increased ability to create the world that we want. We can talk about specific behaviors and we can talk about specific strategies. We can talk about specific policies. We can talk about specific actions to take, but the framework that helps us figure out at every moment, what is there that we need to pay attention to that helps us move toward the world that we want. Being able to analyze what that might be. Being able to develop action strategies. Being able to figure out the collaborations that are necessary to do it. That is what is going to consistently and more steadily move us toward creating the world that we want. So a liberatory consciousness is about one, having a vision of a world characterized by liberation.

Obviously that means eliminating oppression in all its myriad forms. And I spend a lot of time thinking about racism as a key issue and white supremacy as a key issue, because I think those are wedge issues that keep us from being able to successfully focus on the range of other issues of oppression that we must work on. But a liberatory consciousness is about being able to envision a world characterized by liberation. I put a lot of emphasis on this visioning process, because if we can't imagine it, then we cannot create it. And we do have to imagine it because we have never witnessed it. None of us have ever experienced a world characterized by liberation. You know, a key issue of all the discussion during the inauguration yesterday was about this democracy and about this form of government. And that this form of government is built on a promise.

It's a promise of we, the people by the people, for the people, with a recognition that we have not yet been able to accomplish it.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Exactly.

Barbara J. Love:
So we're saying, can we envision a world characterized by liberation? And what does that look like? And what does that require of us? What does that require of us individually? What does that require of us collectively? What does that require of us institutionally? What does that require of us as a society? So with that as a framework, then there are some very specific component pieces, and I call them elements or components because I don't want people to think of it as stages that you go through, because as you will see, this is a continuously evolving cycle.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Right.

Barbara J. Love:
But elements of a liberatory consciousness I've described as awareness, analysis, action, accountability and allyship. Awareness means starting with this vision of a world characterized by liberation. What do we notice about the organization that we're involved with? What do we notice about the behaviors that we see from ourselves, from those around us, from our politicians, from our local governments, from our institution, from our health agencies? What are we able to notice? So it's continually training ourselves to be aware of what is going on around us. And then analysis means being able to match up what we notice against the vision of a liberatory society. To what extent does what I notice right now move in the direction of liberation or away from liberation. And I hold the position that none of it is neutral. If you take any policy, practice, language, behavior, attitude, belief, and follow it to its logical conclusion, it will either point us toward liberation, or it will point us away from liberation.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right.

Barbara J. Love:
We may not be able to see it in the micro, but if we extend our awareness to the macro, then we can see in which direction it is pointing us.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Exactly.

Barbara J. Love:
So being able to do that analysis. If you're in school, what about the discipline code? If you're in the classroom, what about this lesson plan? If you're in government, if you're in a lending, if you're in the arts, if you're in philanthropy, what about our policies and our programs moves us toward liberation or moves us away from liberation? How does this grant, how does this project, et cetera? And once we do that analysis, and the analysis piece is very important because too often people want to jump to action.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right.

Barbara J. Love:
And they want to do something right quick because it makes them feel better, or feel less guilty, or feel some sort of way. And one of the first items on this list of characteristics of white supremacy organizations is urgency. You know, people just want to get busy and do something. But action without analysis often leads us in contrary directions to the vision. And our vision is our North Star. Our vision is our goal post. It is the setting that we want to keep our sights on at all times. So, once we have conducted an analysis in the context of the vision, based on what we have been able to observe, then we can decide, so what is needed. What is needed to move us in the direction of liberation? What is needed to correct to this action that took us away from liberation? And what's the process that needs to occur to make this action happen? It doesn't always mean that I am the one who must do it, but it does mean that I am in charge of figuring out the resources that are required to ensure that the designated action occurs.

It might mean supporting another person to do it. It might mean supporting another group to do it. It might mean calling in another organization, but it does mean thinking about how do we best make this happen. And then accountability is about once we have on the basis of our vision, on the basis of our noticing X, Y, Z, on the basis of our analysis, what are the implications of that? And on the basis of then having decided on appropriate sets of action, appropriate action strategies, how do we hold ourselves accountable to the vision? Who are the communities to which we hold ourselves accountable? So we're holding ourselves accountable to the vision. We're holding ourselves accountable to our various constituencies and communities. We're holding ourselves accountable to the goals that we have set to enact this vision of creating a world characterized by liberation, a world without oppression. We're holding ourselves accountable to a variety of others, whomever those others are. And that's one of the places where allyship becomes so important. Because unless we are in communication with designated and specific others, it is so easy to not hold ourselves accountable.

It is so easy to not to measure up. It's so easy to let it go and say, "Oh, well, next time. Or we did the best that we could," or to point the finger in some other direction as with excuses about why this is happening and not moving us to our liberation. And the other thing about allyship is that having many people thinking with us about movement meant toward the goal of liberation provides perspectives that no one and no one group can have alone. I will see things that you will not, and you will see things that I will not. And particularly on the issues of counteracting oppression, eliminating oppression, ending racism and white supremacy for instance, there are ways that we have all internalized the attitudes, beliefs, understandings, and sets of behavior patterns that are necessary for perpetuating and sustaining racism.

And I can't always see myself. You can't always see yourself, but working in allyship means that you'll be able to see what I am not able to see in my analysis of what's going on. And I will be able to see sometimes what you are not able to see. And so allyship helps us cover our blind spots. I don't like to use the term blind spot because that too is a word based in oppression of people with disabilities. But the places that our consciousness does not allow us to understand, and working in allyship helps to create fewer of those gaps. The other thing about allies, I like to make this point also, is that sometimes people think of allies as people who act on behalf of members of a target group. And I think of allies who act on the basis of liberation, who act toward liberation, who act toward the elimination of oppression on their own behalf, not on behalf of others.

They're acting on behalf of their own vision. They're acting on behalf of the world that they wish to create. So specifically I do not want white people, for instance, working to end racism on my behalf.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Right.

Barbara J. Love:
I do not want white people working to end racism on behalf of black people or people of the global majority or BIPOC people. I want them to work to end racism because racism is contradictory to their vision of the world they want. It's contradictory to their vision of a liberatory society. And so they're working on their own behalf, not on behalf of some others.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah, that was powerful, Dr. Love, and you said quite a bit. My next question was going to be about what keeps us from having the world we want. And I feel like as you went through all of the stages of liberatory conscious, or not stages, excuse me, the word isn't fast, it's-

Barbara J. Love:
Cycle, elements.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Elements, that's right. All of the elements of liberatory consciousness, within each one there are sort of like different ways to kind of set you back if you are trying to achieve a higher level of liberatory consciousness. So, can you just talk a little bit more generally, I guess, about what truly keeps us from having the world we want, and maybe what you've seen the most?

Barbara J. Love:
What keeps us from having the world we want, I'll speak both on a macro scale and on a micro scale. Generally it's greed. Generally we live in a capitalist society that is based on the profit motive, and grieve is the driving force behind capitalism. And it leads us to think in terms of what can we gain for self rather than how can we create a world that works well for everyone. And capitalism, while it is not necessarily, or it may be necessarily contradictory to the notion of a world that works well for everyone. But unfortunately it is based on the notion of some shall have and some shall not. And capitalism necessitates a have not class. So on the macro scale, there is that. Also on the macro scale, but with a very micro focus is the reality that all of us have been socialized in a society that is based on accepting that some people will be mistreated.

We have, all of us have grown up in, and we have learned the sets of attitudes, beliefs, understandings, and behavior patterns that enable us to function well in this society. And functioning well in this society means that we have to look at the characteristics of this society. And this is a society that has accepted that some people will be mistreated. Some people will go hungry. Some children will not go to school. I mean, it's based on the notion that, I mean, remember what an extraordinary fight occurred to get affordable healthcare.

Just the notion that every human being should have healthcare is offensive to some people. It is still offensive to some people. And up until the last administration went out, they were still trying to upturn, overturn the Affordable Care Act, because the notion that every human being should have healthcare is not a part of the common understanding.

The notion that there should be a guaranteed minimum wage, $15. Who can live on $15? But the notion that there should be a $15 minimum wage nationally is an affront to many people. And this country still does not have a $15 minimum wage. I mean, just so many ideas that are a part of the common understanding, part of common society that are contradictory and antithetical to having the world we want, because the world that I want is a world that works well for everyone. It's a world where the resources are made available for those who need it so that they can live good lives. Housing, just the fact that there are as many people. Take any given community in this country, and there are people who are houseless. There are people who don't have housing to go home to. How can we have a society in which people are multi billionaires and still have people who are houseless?

Sherylynn Sealy:
Like it's unreal, yeah.

Barbara J. Love:
It's unreal. And my point is that we accept it. As a society we accept this as normal, and natural, and okay. So when we talk about what keeps us from having the world that we want, part of it is that we have accepted collectively and individually that we cannot have the world that we want. We have accepted that it's not going to be possible to have the world that we want. And so we don't even know how to organize our thinking toward creating the world that we want. The enormous relief that I feel today that this new administration has been inaugurated is based in part, in large part on while I know that this administration cannot eliminate a couple of centuries of white supremacy, genocide, slavery, Jim Crow.

Sherylynn Sealy:
The list goes on.

Barbara J. Love:
You know, separate but equal, vastly unequal treatment for different segments of the population. I know they can't overcome that overnight, but I do believe that we will not have to fight so hard to keep from being pushed in the other direction. And so what keeps us from having the world that we want? Lack of a collective will to create the world that we want. Lack of a collective vision that it is possible to have a world that works well for everyone. And being unable to imagine it, we are unable to want it. And we're unable to then organize ourselves toward creating the world that we want. And okay, I'll stop there.

Sherylynn Sealy:
I mean, if you have something else I can, if you want.

Barbara J. Love:
Well, this is a longer, more convoluted discussion, but it is about those people who have been so damaged by an unequal society, and whose had their belief that the reason their lives are so miserable is because some other people have some goodies that they were entitled to in which they therefore don't get, because these undeserving people are now getting what they are entitled to. It's the conversations about immigrants, it's the conversations, any conversation about reverse discrimination. Any of those conversations where people whose lives are miserable have been brainwashed into believing that their misery is not about this vastly unequal class system, this vastly disproportionate distribution of goods on the basis of the economic system to which we have been subjected.

And it's because of these other people. And so those people carry beliefs and attitudes and consequently behavior patterns that make it difficult for them to be in communication with, to be in collaboration with, to be in allyship with other people toward creating a world that would work well for them and for others. Because they assume that it's a zero sum game, and if others get it, they don't. And so in order for them to have others must not have. That's another key piece of what keeps us from having the world that we want. We can't figure out how to be in common allyship with each other.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I'm actually glad that you said that, because as we think about the next question, and it's more funder specific. And so a lot of the past few years here at Grantmakers in the Arts we've been talking a lot about narrative change. What does it look like to fund narrative change? What are different examples of that? You have to create the vision. And so with that in mind, I ask you, what is the opportunity cultural funders have to realize the possibilities? And what responsibility do they carry as stewards of accumulated wealth?

Barbara J. Love:
Hmm, hmm, what a wonderful question. And I wish that I had an equally wonderful answer.

Sherylynn Sealy:
You do.

Barbara J. Love:
But I will try in these two or three parts. One, you spoke about funding programs and projects that help to change the narrative. And that is going to be a key part. Changing the narrative is going to be a key part of all of our work in this next period of time. And the extent to which you can facilitate programs and projects which zero in on creating opportunities to do that, I think this will be critical. And part of that is creating opportunities for those people whose narrative has been created inside a closed loop, inside a closed cycle. To have an opportunity to be in communication with people outside that closed loop. I don't profess to know much about that because I've been so …I'm so astonished actually by conspiracy theories.

I confess to being astonished by them. Because in my opinion they carry within them the proof and the stark acknowledgement of their foolishness, of the lack of truth. I mean, every conspiracy theory that I've heard so far contains within it the proof of its inaccuracy. And that people can take one of those theories and believe it therefore is beyond me. So I don't know how you do it, but I do know that's part of what you're going to have to do.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah, yeah.

Barbara J. Love:
Because there are people whom I would never have believed. I would never have assumed. I would never have thought believed in some of these conspiracy theories, and they do. And part of your work is going to have to be figuring out programs and strategies that makes inroads with those people whose thinking, whose belief systems, whose narratives have been developed with inside those closed loops and creating openings, creating ways for them to be in communication with others. And then there's a piece of work that you're going to have to do with people like me, who do not want to be in communication with people like them.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's fair. That's fair. You have reason to feel that way and to not want to do that.

Barbara J. Love:
Exactly. But people like me are going to have to change our behavior, because we can't have the world that we want if we aren't willing to be in communication with everyone.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Sure.

Barbara J. Love:
And so there's a piece of work you're going to have to do with us, so that we can do our part. And because our narratives too have to overlap. And it isn't that every person has to carry the same narrative, but we do have to have overlap, and we do have to be in communication. And we do have to see the possibilities of allyship with each other, even when we are not carrying exactly the same narrative. We don't all have the same experience. We come from different places. Our peoples came from different places. Our communities have had different experiences. Of course, our narratives are going to reflect that, but we do have to be in communication with each other.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah.

Barbara J. Love:
And you get to figure out how to make that happen.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Well, challenge accepted.

Barbara J. Love:
Okay.

Sherylynn Sealy:
And then before we move on, I wanted to sort of circle back to the elements of liberatory consciousness. Because a lot of the time when we're having these conversations, we're speaking about liberatory consciousness from the point of like us as an organization or us as an institution, we need to together become more aware, analyze this situation so that we can take better action and create better programs. But institutions and systems are made up of people.

Barbara J. Love:
Exactly.

Sherylynn Sealy:
So it's not just work to be done as an institution, but also individual personal work.

Barbara J. Love:
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. And you put your finger right into the heart of it, because I will only repeat what you said. Institutions are made above people. Institutions do not perpetuate themselves. They are perpetuated by people who hold particular beliefs, attitudes, and who therefore behaves in ways that perpetuate the institution. Racism does not perpetuate itself, but it is perpetuated by people with particular sets of beliefs, attitudes, understandings, and consequently then behavior patterns that enact and re-enact that racism. So the work has to be done organizationally, and it has to be done individually. And its policies and programs, even when deciding to look at a policy and bring it to the table for discussion, somebody has to do that. And so these elements of a liberatory consciousness need to be in operation as you're deciding what policies to bring to the table, what potential programs to bring to the table to even begin to have a conversation about. So the work has to be done on the individual level and also on the organizational and institutional level.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great. Thank you so much, Dr. Love. And before we go, do you have any final words for all of our listeners?

Barbara J. Love:
Yes, I suppose it's taking up from the last piece that you just said, and that is that it's up to all of us individually. Some of us have places and positions of authority and decision-making within organizations. And so some of us can see where we can be instrumental in making change. Many of us feel that because we are not in positions of decision-making or if we don't control a particular budget, et cetera, that that lets us off the hook, and it does not. We each have to do our individual work and we each, all of us must figure out the particular part that we get to play in creating a liberatory society, in creating the world that we want. We each get to do that visioning process. And we each get to do that personal individual self-analysis, where are the places where I carry attitudes and beliefs that are not consistent with a liberatory society? And what is the work that I need to do to transform those attitudes and beliefs?

And can we monitor our own behavior and language? Can we notice, just noticing that when I say using the word see in a particular way, that that's part of contributing to the perpetuation of oppression. Being able to monitor our own language and monitor our own behavior and notice the ways in which it either moves us toward liberation or contributes to the perpetuation of the oppression. And being able to interrupt it, being able to do the transformation that enables us to more effectively, consistently, and steadily move toward liberation. So I guess my final word is, it's up to all of us.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's right, it's up to all of us. Thank you so much, Dr. Barbara J. Love-

Barbara J. Love:
You are so welcome.

Sherylynn Sealy:
…that was incredible. I'm so honored to be in conversation with you today.

Barbara J. Love:
Thank you.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah, thank you for sharing your expertise. You leave us with a lot-

Barbara J. Love:
You are so welcome.

Sherylynn Sealy:
…to think about, you leave me star struck.

Barbara J. Love:
I'm so pleased to be with you.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Sorry, say that one more time.

Barbara J. Love:
I'm so pleased to be with you.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Oh, thank you. And to our listeners, we look forward to continuing these conversations and we're glad to kick off 2021 with you in this way. So please be sure to tune into other episodes of the GIA podcast. Be sure you're following us on Facebook at GI arts, Twitter at GIA arts and Instagram at Grantmakers in the Arts. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, Sherylynn Sealy at sherilyn@giarts.org. And as Dr. Love says, let's think about what works for everyone. Thanks so much for listening.