ST Healing Love-IntoBalance October2022 - Flipbook - Page 8
Finally, the backlash—so reminiscent of the days following Reconstruction with the rise of the KKK—that
has infiltrated our schools and stoked otherwise reasonable people with frenzied rejections of a truthful
telling of our collective history in the faux Critical Race Theory2 controversy. How do we find a common
ground for honest conversation and growth as a democracy when there remains the white supremacist
push to force a cherry-picked, white-washed narrative as the only truth?
Still, in the midst of a continuing, albeit shape-shifting pandemic and all the hunkering down it demands,
we press on and are determined to share from this context and what we’ve learned from it. 3
Alignment and Coherence with Many Co-Sojourners
There have been many positive and exciting
conversations with a myriad of people about the
first paper and its contents. And we’ve presented at
conferences such as the American Evaluation Association
and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations to name
a few; and we’ve presented to groups who wanted to
dig deeper (e.g. Liberatory Leadership). The response
at the presentations and conversations has been
overwhelmingly affirming and uplifting.
One group in Memphis (Center for Transforming
Communities) launched “12 Days of Joy” during the 2021
holidays based on our Measuring Love continuum.
There are many others who are aligned with us and who are doing incredible work across the country.
In evaluation, philanthropy and community-building practice. In terms of aligned efforts, here is a
sampling of some that are noteworthy:
if Foundation is a relatively new foundation, whose mission, as stated by former president & CEO Yanique
Redwood is as follows: “We achieve our vision by centering the leadership and expertise of Black people
and people of the global majority in the Washington, DC region who live at the sharpest intersection of
systems of oppression, in particular race, class and gender identity.” https://www.iffdn.org/who-we-are
Social Insights Research—Zuri Tau, CEO—where these unapologetic leaders practice
research and evaluation in service of equity. https://www.socinsights.com/about
Nicole Robinson, Ph.D. - An evaluator who wrote a powerful article (e.g.,
Part 3 discusses the 10 global forces that must be examined and included
in evaluation, including racial capitalism, neo-slavery, neoliberalism,
white supremacy, neofascism, neocolonialism, neo-feudalism,
imperialism, corporatism, and radical imagination!) that was recently
published (not available publicly without paying for it): Robinson, N.
(2021). A radical arc in systematically documenting political context
in advocacy evaluation. New Directions for Evaluation, 2021, 95–117.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ev.20470
The work of Hawaiian indigenous evaluators: CREA-HI (Culturally Responsive Evaluation and
Assessment-Hawaii) and their “Evaluation with Aloha: A Framework for Working in Native Hawaiian
Contexts” which underscores the “relationships with love” approach to evaluation or paper speaks
2 https://news.temple.edu/news/2021-08-05/untangling-controversy-around-critical-race-theory
3 Kate Morales Queerness Taught me That. An Open Letter to the Radical Educators of the Ecoverse and Beyond
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Healing Love: Into Balance | A Brown Paper