Because We Need Each Other is an innovative and emergent project dedicated to getting curious about Cancel Culture.
We seek to transform movement fractures to a culture of belonging through relational healing, analysis and skill-building.
A lot is in motion right now, with whirlwinds, intense attacks, and trigger moments happening. It’s stressful yet activating, disheartening yet inspiring. The complexity brings us together, and at times, threatens to pull us apart.
Over the last decade, a confluence of call-out culture, cancel culture, unhealthy identitarianism, social media and an increasingly polarized society have led to feelings of burnout, campaigns and organizations being slowed or shut down entirely because of internal conflicts, and many leaders being taken down by the very movements that they have been serving for years.
These dynamics have led to the fracturing of connections across movement spaces and real harm in many meaningful relationships. In speaking with movement leaders, it seems as though there has not been a single sector of the movement that has not been negatively impacted.
What We’re Here to Wonder:
What do we do when we find ourselves caught between conflicting worldviews? Many of us are working to build beloved community and return to our village roots, while some of our organizing traditions encourage an “us vs. them” worldview. What happens when the “us vs. them” mentality turns inward?
What should we do when the structures that dominate movement work – such as non-profits and academia – are not designed to cultivate complexity or a sense of beloved community?
How are identities being weaponized, and by whom? Who benefits from this, and what are the consequences?
What are the benefits and risks of “standing up” to a cancellation? What is our responsibility to do so? How do we respond without replicating call-out culture?
How do we attend to our collective trauma without perpetuating binaries?
How do we further our abilities to listen to other perspectives and bridge commonalities?
