All the people are my people. All of us means all of us.
I coined the term Preemptive Radical Inclusion in about 2012 and started talking publically about it in 2013. As I have developed the ideas since then, it became clear that it is an approach, a philosophy, and an adaptive set of perspectives and practices that people use to increase justice and equity in their lives and organizations.
Preemptive Radical Inclusion (PRI) is a way of being, of leading and following, in turn. PRI is a philosophy about creating just, loving, and creative spaces in the world.
But PRI is more than just a philosophical approach; it is an intervention, an activity, a process. PRI requires reflection and exploration, and it leads us to make decisions about what our next moves will be to involve everyone within those spaces where we have leadership responsibility. PRI means that we challenge what we already believe, the systems that have worked for us and we enjoy, and lean into learning how other people experience those systems.
Practicing PRI means we have to change. In fact, it’s a sign that we are practicing Preemptive Radical Inclusion that we notice it is we who change.
Preemptive Radical Inclusion is a framework for liberation and justice to use when we are in positions of leadership when we are given–or have taken–responsibility within a group or organization. Whether it is the formal and constant leadership of organizational leaders, or if the leadership is temporary for a particular event, our responsibility is to plan for, include, and involve everyone–broadly speaking–in our event.
Preemptive Radical Inclusion is not a box to check off in a planning process, e.g., “put out a “call for diversity,” so check inclusion done.” Instead, it is a lifelong practice. It is not a thing to do, but a way to explore and perceive. It is a way to examine privilege, to take on responsibility, set aside control, and to work for justice.
Preemptive Radical Inclusion lives at the intersection of trauma-aware and anti-oppression practices. PRI challenges leaders with enough tension to require growth and not permit avoidance or denial, while holding enough space for the complexities of leaders’ histories, identities, and experiences to remain attended to but not centered.
It is preemptive because we, as leaders, are responsible to figure out, in advance, how to involve everyone in the experience or meeting, or activity; and we make those changes without all attendees having to make their needs known because we have already planned for them. We do this because we want a community that is full and welcoming, a community that creates justice and well-being. How we make this happen is not something most of us were taught. We have been limited by the framework we inherited; we perceive the world the way we were taught to perceive the world. Now, we practice and choose a new way.
Preemptive Radical Inclusion means that we intentionally position ourselves, before we know anything at all about anyone in the room, to presuppose that everyone is already, and always, in the room. We don’t wait for an individual to tell us what they need, and THEN meet their needs, we create experiences that preemptively involve them. The burden is on those in leadership to be aware of the needs of the people we are most likely to miss. Needs that can be reasonably anticipated, with ongoing education to increase what we can anticipate along with our capacity to account for it in the way people need.
The word radical is there in the middle because, if leaders (and I mean here those empowered to have responsibility) are doing this correctly, the created experience won’t be the expected experience. It might even be dramatically, radically different. When we begin inclusion efforts, we often do so from a limited knowledge base. As we continue, we will change — our committment, knowledge, capacity, and generosity as we create new practices in family, social, and institutional systems.
Inclusion doesn’t simply mean that we include others in our circle of what we already do and how we do it. It reuires that we expand experiences and events to encourage deep involvement and do what is necessary to make that involvement possible. There are easy ways to miss the mark on this. Inclusion without centering the voices of the most marginalized is not inclusion. When we involve and attend to others in the creation of our projects and communities, our “we” becomes larger, our circle increases; and what we do and how we do it can be transformed into something new. And we change. The first evidence of success in practicing PRI is not more people in attendance, it is that we ourselves have changed.
As we learn that our leadership so often requires that we follow, we move from inclusion as a doorway to better community life, and begin practicing a more equitable, just community life. As we grow and learn, we find we must let go of how we think about some things and think differently, of how we do things and do them differently. We have to let go of the presupposition that it is we in leadership alone who do those things, at times. PRI done honorably means that while we may have been given or have taken authority and power, we must frequently give up that decision-making and authority, and defer to those who join us as we, together, find a new way. We keep learning, growing, and changeing until Liberation for all comes. All of us means all of us. Whether the time of Liberation comes during our lifetime is not relevant. We hold up the best of our humanity and move toward it.
Preemptive Radical Inclusion means that we notice all the privilege we bear (when the system as it is set up works well for us) and when and how we exert it. We must examine ourselves when we claim to be “leveraging our privilege for good” or “using it for good,” to make sure we aren’t really just trying to keep it. We are introspective about when we are truly being intentional about the choices we make between when to use our privilege for good and when to set it aside for justice. We can’t fall into the fallacy that good is the same as justice. The space needed and the judgment necessary to discern between the two is full of dialogue and reflection among peole with very different relationships to systems (how “the world” works.)
We are all both privileged and challenged in different ways. We benefit from and are marginalized or oppressed by our communities and social and political structures, in different measure. When we are in positions of leadership it is our responsibility to identify the ways we benefit from structures of oppression, as well as the ways we are marginalized and/or oppressed, to sit with that complication and discomfort as we figure out how we can be part of a liberation struggle that reaches back in history and forwards toward justice.
We all get free together.
Offerings in brief
Justice and Peace Consulting provides one on one executive consulting for learning or exploring complex situations. Workshops for Preemptive Radical Inclusion options include a one-hour ntroductory talk, a three-hour introductory workshop for teams, a 6-hour kick-starting workshop, and weekend retreats for in-depth exploration. All JPC workshop experiences include concrete best practices and next moves and can be modified/adapted for the particular challenges you are experiencing in your own context
In addition to introductory workshops, focused workshops include (brief titles):
Preemptive Radical Inclusion – privilege, marginalization, and oppression
Preemptive Radical Inclusion – bearing witness as welcome
Preemptive Radical Inclusion – Genders and Sexualities
Preemptive Radical Inclusion – GLBTQ+
Preemptive Radical Inclusion – kink and ethical nonmonogamy
Preemptive Radical Inclusion – Neurodivergences: Making space for different brains
Preemptive Radical Inclusion and our Puritan Roots – white supremacy culture and why we need to understand our institutional Puritan roots (a workshop for UU and UCC folks)
Preemptive Radical Inclusion – for sexuality educators (or other specific professional populations)
Preemptive Radical Hospitality – Welcoming the stranger and ourselves
Bearing Witness: An antidote to gaslighting
Trauma Sensitive support with Survivors of Abuse (for professionals and paraprofessionals)
Mind Your Ts and Qs: An Introduction to Radical Welcome of Trans, Non-Binary, GenderQueer, and Gender Non-Conforming Folx.
This workshop is for anyone who wants to learn more about gender diversity and support people whose gender is not what our society has taught us to expect typically. Participants should be willing to explore the ways our own experience of gender isn’t the only experience of gender. This workshop is especially for people who might not even be sure we know what all those words in the title mean or why they are spelled that way! CB will create a space in which people can be curious and brave to ask questions and explore gender and gender identity in new ways so that we can better be the Beloved Community, an open community of justice, equity, and love, for all.
We will also work with your group on longer consultations to dig deep into the work you need to do to increase justice and equity in your organization.