Why Beloved Community.
“The place that I fit will not exist until I make it.”
As a queer mixed race woman from a working-class, single-parent background, American-born and raised by a Filipina immigrant, I have spent my entire life trying to “fit.” Growing up, my family couldn’t afford name-brand Converse (mom insisted Payless knockoffs were fine) and while other girls on the cross-country team had shiny new Nikes every season, I borrowed my coach’s hand-me-downs or got mine secondhand.
When I was in grad school, I was “too political” and my research statements “too activist.”
Among some community organizing and activist circles, I have been slammed for being “too academic.”
In the Philippines, and sometimes among members of the Filipino American community, I’m not Filipino enough; my Tagalog grates on their ears and my light-skin makes me “Other” (albeit a privileged Other).
Meanwhile, in the U.S., I’m a chameleon but everyone agrees I’m certainly not white, the exemplar of Belonging in the United States. I’m too colorful, too outside. But hey I’m fetishized as unique, different. As a white woman in my doctoral program once confided in me, “You’re so lucky to have some color. I’m just boring old Wonder Bread.” Lucky indeed.
As a result of being constantly reminded that what I have or am is either not enough or too much, it’s no wonder that on the brink of my 40th birthday (which also happens to fall beautifully on International Women’s Day) I have come to feel run-down and fatigued. Doing all the twisting and contorting in order to fit (even at least some parts of you) gets to be exhausting and comes at a heavy cost; you begin to forget what your wholeness feels like because you’re so accustomed to just showing up in chunks, fragments, pieces of yourself—you come to think that’s the only way you’ll ever belong or feel accepted: always and necessarily conditionally.
Also on the brink of my 40th birthday, however, did I cross paths with Beloved. I don’t even remember how I came across the job announcement for the Director of Research & Impact position. But I was immediately struck by the jargon-free and unapologetic language regarding equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. Beloved explicitly centers and celebrates Black leadership as well as queerness. But from Day One, I held my breath. Coming from environments and leadership that invited me to the table but deterred my contributions, or valued me for my outputs rather than my development as a whole person, I didn’t believe Beloved existed, even after I had found it. I spent the first few months in my new position at Beloved holding my breath, waiting for my boss to chastise me for not working hard enough or to identify some type of misalignment regarding the coaching and guidance we provide our clients and our own internal equity practices. By Month 3, however, I started to exhale. And Month 6 I stopped holding my breath altogether.
I was drawn to Beloved and I remain at Beloved because I believe that this organization is a manifestation of Baldwin’s sentiment: “The place that I fit will not exist until I make it.” This manifestation was first envisioned by Beloved CEO and Founder Rhonda Broussard but when I arrived I discovered that there was space for me to help shape it. In fact, a precondition of my stepping into this space was that I would roll up my sleeves to contribute to our community and team culture. Moreover, as we expand and invite others to step into this space, we continue to cultivate, shape and nurture collectively. There is no scarcity here, only abundance. There is plenty of room for everyone’s wholeness because we choose to make the space. We are free to make space, we are given permission to make space; indeed, our culture of belonging demands that we show up as our full selves. It also warrants mention here the critical role that Black womxn leadership plays in activating such a vibrant, safe space.
In How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community (2020), author Mia Birdsong examines the origins of the word free, drawing on David Hackett Fischer who traces the word to the Indo-European friya, which also means “beloved.” She elaborates,
Friend also shares this common root with freedom. A free person was someone who was “joined to a tribe of free people by ties or kindship and rights of belonging.” Freedom was the idea that together we can ensure that we all have the things we need—love, food, shelter, safety. The way I’ve come to understand it, freedom is both an individual and collective endeavor—a multilayered process, not a static state of being. Being free is, in part, achieved through being connected. (18)
These same beliefs undergird Beloved. Being Free also raises for me two questions: Free from what? And free to do what? We at Beloved early on, while onboarding new folx, name the importance of discussing what it is that we are fleeing from and in so doing identify how Beloved carves out a space wherein we experience freedom from work trauma, microaggressions, lack of work-life balance… For me, Beloved is a manifestation of this “Being Free from What.” But our organization is also exemplary in its Being Free to BE… namely, to Be our whole selves as well as the freedom to imagine new ways of Being in our workplaces and in the world as a whole.
At Beloved we often share that one of the aspects we deeply value is the sense that we can show up as we are, unapologetically, as our whole, authentic selves. I never thought that this space existed but I believed in its possibility—and now I know it to be true. I came to Beloved as a recovering academic, having internalized much of the white supremacist logic that punctuates higher education: perfectionism, workaholism and a chronic sense of urgency, and a tendency toward ego. Now I work in a place where vulnerability is viewed as a strength (and one’s capacity to demonstrate it is actually valued, such that it is included in our staff evaluations), growth mindset is celebrated, collaboration and teamwork are regularly enacted and embraced, and our equity values align with our practice such that we gift ourselves a monthly sabbatical annually.
So, why Beloved? In short, because in order to show up it doesn’t require me to leave a part of me at the door, to arrive in fragments and pieces. Rather, working at Beloved requires and in fact celebrates my Wholeness in all of its imperfection. I share my experiences here and celebrate Beloved not to build a monument to this incredible organization but to signal to others who have lost hope or who continue to search for belonging that places like this do indeed exist and that we must make it so.