While we strive to be accessible, inclusive, welcoming, and honoring of ALL individuals, we acknowledge that the ongoing work of building community and solidarity across power differentials—from our different social positions and uneven access to resources and privilege— is messy. We know we will fall short at times. When we do, we invite you to share any experiences related to feelings of discomfort, exclusion, and lack of safety to help us create and improve the community at Empowered Spaces.
Your voice deserves to be heard and your experience matters. We value your feedback, and we take this feedback into our advisory committee meetings to discuss how to continue growing and improving, how to make repairs and how to do better.
At the same time, we are not expecting you to do the work for us. We are committed to doing the deep inner work of recognizing our own privilege and internalized systems of oppression, identifying the implicit biases we carry, and then holding ourselves accountable. We believe that learning is never over for any of us.
It is not enough for us to just say that we hold brave space and are welcoming to all, if we are not holding that same space and attuned presence to acknowledge and heal our own inherited shadows of colonization and social location to power and privilege. Not only is it not enough, it is harmful.
We share in the vision of a just, equitable, and safe society for all, and we are daring to work towards creating the world we want to inhabit.
