Whether our goal is to achieve race equity, or a deeper goal of: relational equity among all our members, we need to be willing to release the Dominant Culture within our organizations, churches, and committees that prevents us from creating the kinds of environments where healthy growth can occur.

The curriculum set out in,  AWAKE to WOKE to WORK: Building a Race Equity Culture  sums it up as this: Dominant Culture organizations “promote assimilation over integration, resulting in a missed opportunity” and ones “are asked to compartmentalize our identity, to check our trauma, and question our own heart wisdom… and then we are exploited — our hearts and ideas extracted from us while those with the most privilege design the organization and the Board.”

There are parts of this paper that are really useful, most especially when the light of class and caste are being shone.  Let’s not leave it at the level of color. Let’s dismantle the Dominant Culture within all our systems that prevent us from truly living into the promise of The Beloved Community. And more than simply dismantle, let’s build infrastructures befitting of The Beloved Community.  Let us listen with open hearts and open minds as they tell us who they are and how they came to be with us. Let’s not place anyone in silos, but rather create fields where we can all plant seeds and flourish. Let us authentically welcome all those who seek spiritual sanctuary and embrace the gifts they bring. Let’s heal the wounds and create anew our organizations in ways that include all our identities.