I agree, recentering and solidarity are crucial— both for making progress, and for community building. That's part of the reason why I've always found black feminist communities to be safer and more welcoming than the white mainstream: womanists and black feminists have always considered solidarity and recentering to be essential components of praxis.
Solidarity is crucial for community building, as it sets the entire tone and feel of the community. Unfortunately, while I can describe the feelings it instills and how they differ from non-solidarity-focused communities, and while I know how to help maintain solidarity in solidarity-focused communities, I don't really have a good idea how to convert communities over towards being more solidarity-minded. That's something I've been wanting to work on for a while, but I'm not really sure where to start. The biggest problem for me personally is that I'm not a leader: I've never wanted to be a figurehead, I have no interest in authority for its own sake, and I'm not very good at offering feelgood messages and stirring up excitement. I'm much more comfortable in the role of "vizier": as someone who directs things behind the scenes, who provides crucial analysis & advice, and who acts as a counterbalance to the leader. This makes it really tricky when I try to start a movement or change a movement's direction, since people like putting me on the throne but I don't feel comfortable there. So yeah, still learning how to help foster solidarity instead of just upholding it.
Recentering is crucial for making progress. While there are people who actively try to derail conversations, I think the far more common problem is that whatever systemic pressures gave rise to the problems also causes people to deflect and dissemble. We like to think of ourselves as "good people" and it's hard to accept that our actions contribute to bad things, so there's always going to be some subconscious resistance to acceptance. This is part of why solidarity is so important: it establishes a network of social support to catch us and support us as we work through the hard work of accepting and letting go. Recentering comes in by not allowing people to deflect their awareness from the message. Lately I've been working on this technique and trying to become more aware of when and how people are deflecting. That's why I've become more aggressive about calling out when people have missed the point of whatever I've said. Unfortunately, when used too much, that can harm solidarity— since call-outs intentionally rupture the dialogue. Another technique I've been working on is not answering questions which are ill-posed. More particularly, rather than refusing to respond (which ruptures discourse), I start a discussion on why I am unwilling to answer the question. Typically this takes a huge investment of energy since I have to constantly refocus on why the question is ill-posed rather than engaging with any of the justifications for wanting an answer. Still, it's been working pretty well for me so far.
Vocalizing support is a big part of solidarity, so thanks for speaking up :)
Re: I've got your back
Solidarity is crucial for community building, as it sets the entire tone and feel of the community. Unfortunately, while I can describe the feelings it instills and how they differ from non-solidarity-focused communities, and while I know how to help maintain solidarity in solidarity-focused communities, I don't really have a good idea how to convert communities over towards being more solidarity-minded. That's something I've been wanting to work on for a while, but I'm not really sure where to start. The biggest problem for me personally is that I'm not a leader: I've never wanted to be a figurehead, I have no interest in authority for its own sake, and I'm not very good at offering feelgood messages and stirring up excitement. I'm much more comfortable in the role of "vizier": as someone who directs things behind the scenes, who provides crucial analysis & advice, and who acts as a counterbalance to the leader. This makes it really tricky when I try to start a movement or change a movement's direction, since people like putting me on the throne but I don't feel comfortable there. So yeah, still learning how to help foster solidarity instead of just upholding it.
Recentering is crucial for making progress. While there are people who actively try to derail conversations, I think the far more common problem is that whatever systemic pressures gave rise to the problems also causes people to deflect and dissemble. We like to think of ourselves as "good people" and it's hard to accept that our actions contribute to bad things, so there's always going to be some subconscious resistance to acceptance. This is part of why solidarity is so important: it establishes a network of social support to catch us and support us as we work through the hard work of accepting and letting go. Recentering comes in by not allowing people to deflect their awareness from the message. Lately I've been working on this technique and trying to become more aware of when and how people are deflecting. That's why I've become more aggressive about calling out when people have missed the point of whatever I've said. Unfortunately, when used too much, that can harm solidarity— since call-outs intentionally rupture the dialogue. Another technique I've been working on is not answering questions which are ill-posed. More particularly, rather than refusing to respond (which ruptures discourse), I start a discussion on why I am unwilling to answer the question. Typically this takes a huge investment of energy since I have to constantly refocus on why the question is ill-posed rather than engaging with any of the justifications for wanting an answer. Still, it's been working pretty well for me so far.
Vocalizing support is a big part of solidarity, so thanks for speaking up :)