09/20/2024
It was a true honor to hear speak at the Celebration for Resilience event last night, after attending the KER Risk and Resilience Symposium that afternoon as a member of the Impact Maker team focused on Tree Equity and increasing canopy coverage in vulnerable Phoenix neighborhoods. Heather’s seminal book The Sum of Us should be required reading for everyone but especially people working on systems change and resilience initiatives. Her work communicates what racism costs us- how long-standing and deeply impactful trends in thinking about race and social order negatively influence America’s economy, environment, health, and wellbeing- and paves the way for changing these dynamics.
In her talk last night, Heather spoke about how people who have been marginalized and have experienced systemic failure are poised to see the entirety of systems and uniquely influence change making with their wisdom and perspective. I know this to be true through my experience working with communities to address complex problems- and my own lived experience with certain systems- and it is a guiding principle of Frame Consulting’s efforts.
In this phase of growth as a consultant, I’m acutely focus on projects that support leadership expansion to include people most affected by decisions and not just the people with resources or authority to make those decisions, and am committed to a culture of understanding what racism and zero sum thinking takes from people and communities. We must examine who is benefiting from it and call it out, over and over again. Now more than ever. Spoiler alert- it’s not you or me.
