Creating Pathways to Social Change and Healing Cultural Harm
A collaborative reflection on anti-Blackness, lateral oppression, community accountability, and the work of healing across Indigenous, African American, Black, Caribbean, Asian/API, Latina, Deaf, and other communities.
"Love is accountability – community accountability that helps us to grow beyond."
Read the Two-Spirit Identity and Adolescent Survey Measures Report
This 2022 editorial examines what is lost when culturally specific identity is folded into broad survey language, and why research must be shaped with transparency and Native community guidance.
Read the ReportDeveloped through collaboration between the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition and Share Time Wisely Consulting Services, “Creating Pathways to Social Change and Healing Cultural Harm” grew out of a series of conversations and a conference panel shaped by advocates, organizers, consultants, and movement leaders.
Together, they explored how racism, violence, historical harm, and division continue to affect communities, and what it takes to move toward healing.
Key topics covered include:
Shared Leadership
- Rather than defining leadership as hierarchy, it relies on the ability to hold trust and keep survivors at the center, all while maintaining a willingness to remain present even why another person’s pain is not fully understood.
Cultural Humility
- Healing begins with learning
- We need to understand one another’s histories, confront bias honestly, and move beyond the assumptions created by media and stereotypes.
Barriers to Safety
- There are real gaps in support, especially for survivors in BIPOC communities and Deaf communities.
- Limited access to culturally specific services, inaccessible resources, and the treatment of disability services as secondary all deepen harm.
Spirituality and Truth-Telling
- Spirituality, ancestry, ritual, and honest conversation are central to healing.
- Truth-telling is part of facing difficult histories and creating space for individual and collective repair.
Healing as a Process
- Healing is an active and ongoing process that involves naming harm and recognizing how the past shapes the present.
Accountability in Action
- Accountability must be practiced, not just discussed.
- Accountability requires changes that create real community care.
Sustainability and Self-Care
- There is a serious toll on frontline advocates, especially BIPOC advocates, who may experience exhaustion, tokenization, low pay, and vicarious trauma. These are urgent concerns that should be part of the larger conversations around safety and justice.
More Downloadable Resources
- All
- Trafficking
- Sexual Violence
- MMIWR
- Two-Spirit/LGBTQ+
- Men's Work
- Youth Work
- Curriculum
- Reports
- Posters
- Indigenizing/Organizational
- National Tribal Sexual Assault Resource Center
- Elevate|Uplift
