Self-Reflection for Community Organizers

Written by Native organizer Kelly Hayes, co-founder of the Lifted Voices Collective

1. Who am I accountable to?

2. What community consents to my leadership when I assume it?

3. How do those interactions function?

4. Am I sure the people I'm accountable to have a traversable path to intervention/interruption/dialogue, when they feel differently than I do?

5. Who helps me reel myself in when I assume harmful attitudes, or replicate structural oppressions, internally or externally?

6. Who do I turn to for counsel/support in holding myself accountable when I have caused harm?

7. Do I acknowledge that we all both experience and cause harm?

8. Do I believe that mass movements are grounded in relationships, and if so, am I working to build those relationships, or simply attempting to enforce ideas?