Aaniin indinawemaaganag (Hello friends/colleagues). I’m Elizabeth Taylor-Schiro/Biidaabinikwe (St. Croix Chippewa/Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe), Independent Evaluation and Research Consultant, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Minnesota, and co-chair of AEA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Working Group.
Over this past week, our DEI Working Group members have taken the opportunity to share some pieces of the journeys we have taken as individuals and as a collective in our work around DEI as a part of the working group. In the sharing of these journeys, we hope that you as members have been able to recognize that this work is indeed a journey with lots of winding paths and uphill climbs, and we are all entering it via a different entrance and we utilize different strategies as we embark together all without knowing what our destination is. We are learning, unlearning, and relearning all at once while leaning on one another’s experiences and perspectives – and not without tension, but grappling with how to move that tension into a space of growth.
All of this wouldn’t be possible with the myriad resources we shared amongst and discovered with another to further our own personal work around DEI, as well as shape the work we do around DEI within AEA and how we can help AEA be a conduit for others to do this work themselves feeling safe and supported. These resources include educational materials, histories, and frameworks connected to a very broad and complex “definition” of DEI, including strategies and guidance for rest and grounding as we journey onward.
We thought you might like to see some of the resources we’ve been utilizing and may find some use in them as you embark on your own DEI development (however you personally define “DEI” and “development”).
Rad Resources
- Bobbie Harro’s Cycle of Liberation (Framework)
- Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out by Ruth King (Book)
- “We Rise” by Northside Achievement Zone and STRONGmovement (Video)
- RaceForward Racial Equity Impact Assessment Tool (Assessment Toolkit)
- Racial Equity Tools (Resource Database)
- Black Lives Matter Meditation for Healing Racial Trauma (Guided Meditation)
- Reflecting on Three Years of Shared Leadership by Elissa Sloan Perry and Susan Misra (Reflection Piece)
- Language of Appeasement by Dafina-Lazarus Stewart (Article)
- A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement (Guide)
Do you have some resources that you’d like to share with our working group? Please send them my way by emailing me at tayl0564@umn.edu.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting DEI Week with our colleagues in AEA’s DEI Working Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from working group members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.