As we state in our guiding principles, Lost River Racial Justice believes it is critical for our work to be accountable to those most directly impacted by racism. We are currently a group with all white leadership. We strive to be attuned and responsive to the needs and priorities of organizations and movements with multi-racial and People of Color leadership. We value the hard-won collective wisdom that communities of color have built across generations living under colonization, chattel slavery, original and new Jim Crow systems, and other manifestations of white supremacy–essential knowledge in the fight for racial justice that we would lack if we worked primarily from our own lived experiences. These commitments help us to determine how we can be most effective in the struggle for racial justice, and to maintain integrity and humility around our strengths and limitations.
LRRJ maintains formal accountability relationships and affiliations with the following local and national organizations:
- The Root Social Justice Center, working most closely with their Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Caucus
- Migrant Justice / Justicia Migrante
- Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) National. SURJ is a white-led organization with accountability partnerships with national POC-led organizations, including the Movement for Black Lives, Color of Change, and Cosecha.
With our accountability partners we work to:
- Communicate our intentions around being accountable to our partners, communities, and movements, and ask them what accountability means to them
- Build, maintain, and prioritize a long-term organizational relationship of reciprocal support, understanding that the more power and resources we shift back into indigenous and people of color communities the more free we all become
- Provide clarity on what support we want and what we can offer
- Seek out and respond to their requests of us as an organization, as we are able
- Support their projects, programs, and campaigns as they align with our guiding principles
- Support and contribute to their fundraising
- Inform them of our major plans, transitions, and decisions
- Ask for feedback and input while maintaining our autonomy
- Periodically discuss and ask for feedback on our guiding principles
- Discuss and dialogue when ideas or actions between our two organizations significantly diverge
We stay in touch with our accountability partners through a designated liaison who is a member of the Lost River Nucleus, and we try to have regular email, phone, and/or in person communication as schedules allow. We strive to be accomplices and allies participating in POC-led movements for social change and helping build and lift up multiracial leadership for racial justice in our community and beyond.