Anti-Oppression Principles and Practices

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us work together.

— Lila Watson

Origins

As long as there has been oppression, people have been working to end it. In recent decades, in the US, the Highlander Center and the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond are two of the organizations that have taken the lead in working to undo racism and build collective liberation. This work deepens each year with new collectives emerging and new practices evolving.

Activist groups sometimes make the mistake of assuming that challenging oppression (the unjust exercise of power or authority) is what they naturally do; that we are inherently anti-oppressive merely because of our intention to do away with oppressive structures. Unfortunately the situation is much more complex, and we often ignore that complexity at our peril.

Our oppressive actions diminish us, divide us, and inhibit our ability to organize broad-based, emancipatory movements.

We have been socialized in cultures founded upon multiple forms and overlapping layers of oppression, often leading us to inadvertently perpetuate dehumanizing behaviors, situations, and structures. Our oppressive actions diminish us, divide us, and inhibit our ability to organize broad-based, emancipatory movements.

In order to build a domination-free world, we propose for discussion the following tenets and practices hoping they can provide a solid foundation for advancing our work and deepening our interpersonal relationships

Tenets

• Power and privilege can play out in our group dynamics in destructive ways. For the good of all, we must challenge words and actions that marginalize, exclude, or dehumanize others.

• We can only identify the ways that power and privilege play out when we are conscious and committed to understanding how white supremacy, patriarchy, classism, heterosexism, and other embedded systems of oppression affect us all.

• Until we are clearly committed to anti-oppression practice, all forms of oppression will continue to divide and weaken our movements.

• Developing anti-oppression practices is life-long work (see: PRINCIPLE: Change is the only constant). No single workshop is sufficient for unlearning our socialization within a culture built on multiple forms of oppression.

• Dialogue, discussion, and reflection are some of the tools through which we overcome oppressive attitudes, behaviours, and situations in our groups. Anti-oppression work requires active listening, non-defensiveness, and respectful communication.

Personal practices

• Challenge yourself to be courageously honest and open, and willing to take risks and make yourself vulnerable in order to address racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other oppressive dynamics head-on.

• When you witness, experience, or commit an abuse of power or oppression, address it as proactively as the situation permits, either one-on-one or with a few allies, keeping in mind that the goal is to encourage positive change.

• Challenge the behaviour, not the person. Be sensitive and promote open dialogue.

• When someone offers criticism in an oppressive framework, treat it as a gift rather than an attack. Give people the benefit of the doubt.

• Be willing to lose a friend, but try not to “throw away” people who mess up. Help them take responsibility for making reparations for their behaviour, and be willing to extend forgiveness in return.

• Take on the grunt work that often falls on women, especially women of colour. This includes the work of cooking, cleaning, set up, clean up, phone calls, e-mail, taking notes, doing support work, sending mailings.

• Understand that you will feel discomfort as you face your part in oppression, and realize that this is a necessary part of the process. We must support each other and be gentle with each other in this process

• Don’t feel guilty, feel responsible. Being part of the problem doesn’t mean you can’t be an active part of the solution.

• Contribute time and energy to building healthy relationships, both personal and political.

Organizational practices

• Commit time to facilitated discussions on discrimination and oppression.

• Set anti-oppression goals and continually evaluate whether or not you are meeting them.

• Create opportunities for people to develop anti-oppression skills and practices.

• Promote egalitarian group development by prioritizing skill shares and an equitable division of roles, responsibilities, and recognition.

• Respect different styles of leadership and communication.

• Don’t push historically marginalized people to do things because of their oppressed group (tokenism); base it on their work, experience, and skills.

• Make a collective commitment to hold everyone accountable for their behaviour so that the organization can be a safe and nurturing place for all.

The work outlined here, learned over time from many teachers, is adapted from “Anti-Oppression Principles & Practices” by Lisa Fithian, itself compiled from the “Anti-Racism Principles and Practices” by RiseUp DAN-LA, “Overcoming Masculine Oppression” by Bill Moyers, and the FEMMAFESTO by a women’s affinity group in Philadelphia.