This is our work/fight/responsibility too
I have spent the past month or so preparing and engaging in conversations with foundations, enterprises and social institutions in Brazil talking about the Equitable Evaluation Framework™ and critical consciousness. Our lack of the latter has become increasingly apparent as we near election day. A day that will reveal to us all who we really are.
Earlier today I read this post from Dr Kendi:
Ibram X. Kendi
@DrIbram · 2h
We must step out of the whirlwind + see what’s going on. There are people challenging racism + there are people trying to discredit and destroy those of us who are challenging racism, from Trump on down. But they’ll never stop our calls for justice. Together, we are unstoppable.
His words led me to write this:
@equitableeval people and those that are wondering IF we have a role in this. WE DO. evaluation is one way we generate and validate knowledge. we have done harm by contributing to the collective ignorance and cruelty that is running amuck.
our preoccupation with certainty, control and proof has limited our understandings of the complexity of the worlds that co-exist within our geography. we have let white dominant norms patriarchy and capitalism influence what we ask, who we ask, and how we make sense of things.
we have hid from our collective truths some full of joy and others not so much. our lack of a moral underpinning that reflects love and respect for all humanity in our evaluative work is one factor that brings us to today. we are on the verge of a dictatorship.
if we do not reclaim what knowledge is in the 21st century and how evaluative practice is part of that machine none of this will matter. it took less than 3 years for us to get to where we are today because we were all complicit since the beginning.
if not now then when?
Related Threads:
About The Author:
Jara Dean-Coffey (jdc) is Founder and Director of the Equitable Evaluation Initiative and the Founder of Luminare Group. For the past twenty-five years, she has partnered with clients and colleagues to elevate their collective understanding of the relationship between values, context, strategy and evaluation and shifting our practices so that they are more fully in service of equity. For more about musings + machinations click here.
