Click here to view our July 2021 - July 2022 Annual Report
Letter from the Racial Equity Index Working Group
The moment we choose to love, we begin to move against domination, against oppression.
The moment we choose to love, we begin to move toward freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.
- bell hooks
It would be easy to start our annual report letter off with a list of our accomplishments from the past year, but love requires us to liberate ourselves from the facade of perfectionism and white supremacist capitalism which centers output over humanity. So we, The Racial Equity Index, start with an acknowledgment of our reality - we are 11 dedicated humans, supported by 5 brilliant peer reviewers, a community of supporters and advocates, and all the beings in our lives that support us in showing up, every day, to do this required but difficult work.
Fighting for racial equity in global development is a daily act of love because every day we continue to experience racial violence in our work and experience the layered and broad violence of the sector which continues to perpetuate harm to Black, Indigenous, and people of color who show up every day to do necessary work.
Organisations that were vocal about their commitments to anti-racism work in 2020 are still being challenged almost daily for continuing to uphold racist organisational structures, and leaders within these organisations continue to place their fragility ahead of their self-accountability and failure to recognise the consequence of upholding harmful systems of violence and unwillingness to distribute and share power.
Meanwhile, our work continues to be praised by many across the global development sector - and our research quoted and referenced. Yet, we have continued in our struggle to establish substantial and sustainable funding while similar equity initiatives from mostly white-led, well-established organisations are funded.
As volunteers navigating the reality of a systematically racist society, we are tired - but we are not alone. We aspire to integrate and deepen collective healing, compassion, and love throughout our endeavors, partnerships, and connections with one another as a BIPOC-led collective with lived experience of racial trauma. We look forward to releasing more opportunities for the global development sector to join in a trust-based partnership with us on this journey towards racial equity and justice.
We are doing this work at the same time as carrying out our full-time jobs, part-time jobs, consulting work, raising children, and caring for loved ones - so collective care and our love for each other is front and center, always.
To our Black, Indigenous and people of color community - we hold you in honor, respect, and recognition of our collective fight for racial equity, justice and freedom.
