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FGC Racial Wounding Reporting Form

What is this form?

This form is a place to report incidents of racial wounding that occur within Friends General Conference. That includes committee meetings, the Gathering, Spiritual Deepening e-Retreats, Meetings for Worship, Central Committee, and any other space under the care of FGC. Once you report an incident, it will be reviewed by the Addressing Racial Wounding Committee. In addressing racial wounding at FGC, we hold the awareness that patterns of white supremacy culture and racial oppression have been present in the FGC community for a long time. We recognize that racial harm has caused many People of Color to leave the Religious Society of Friends, and has made spaces unsafe for many Friends of Color who remain in the Religious Society of Friends. In reporting and tracking the harm that occurs, we hope to respond to, take accountability for, and prevent racial wounding in order to become an actively anti-racist faith community. 

We are learning from movements for Transformative Justice about how to respond to harm without treating people who have done harm as disposable. Our framework for responding to racial wounding is grounded in following the lead of the person who experienced harm, and any actions or accountability steps will be guided by their desires. And we hold space for the transformation of people who cause harm, knowing that they can learn from these processes to avoid causing harm in the future. We believe our community can be transformed in this work.

* We consulted Beyond Survival, edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, in constructing this form. We are grateful to all the contributors to that book for their work, guidance, and model in transformative justice. You can find the book here: 
https://www.akpress.org/beyond-survival.html

What can you expect from this process?

Your grievance will be heard and held with compassion and respect by the working group.

This process is based on your consent. You may share as much or as little as you feel comfortable.  You will not be required to disclose any information.
 
This is your process. You are the expert on how you were impacted by this incident and the person who knows best what you need to begin healing. Your needs and healing are the priority for the working group. 

You will have the opportunity to recuse any working group members from handling your grievance. This can be for any reason you will never be expected to disclose why unless you want to.

All of the following questions are optional. You may share as much or as little as you would like. Having more information is useful to the committee in addressing your grievance, and we respect that people who have experienced wounding may choose not to share details for many reasons. 

Confidentiality and privacy of Friends engaging this process will be respected. If any information is to be shared publicly or with any party collaborating in remediation it will be only at the explicit request of the Friend bringing this grievance. The Addressing Racial Wounding Committee will keep a generic record of all incidents of racial wounding for the accountability and transparency of the organization. This generic record will include: when the incident was reported, type of incident, if/when/how it was addressed, and when and for how long the committee met. 

Who is the Addressing Racial Wounding Committee?

Contact Regina Renee Nyègbeh, clerk of Committee for Nurturing Ministries and the Institutional Assessment Implementation Committee at cnmclerk@fgcquaker.org.

What is Racial Wounding?

First and foremost, racial wounding is what a Person of Color says it is. We offer this definition knowing there are many other possible definitions.

We understand racial wounding to be protecting power, white supremacy culture, institutions, or the status quo above the well-being of a Person of Color in any of the following ways:


  1. Harm to a Person of Color, whether intentional or not

  2. An act, sentiment, or behavior diminishing someone’s humanity to a race-based stereotype

  3. Othering, exclusion, silencing, erasure, or denial of a Person of Color’s lived experience

  4. Dictating the appropriateness of a Person of Color’s emotional response (tone policing)

  5. Appropriating, tokenizing, or exotifying the cultures of People of Color.

  6. Disrespect of the boundaries of a Person of Color; non consensual feeling of entitlement to People of Color’s time, attention, emotional labor, bodies, and spaces

  7. White people being present where it’s not appropriate, and feeling justified (for example in a POC-only space)

Questions - all are optional









What would you like to happen next?

Friends may request whatever remedy they feel is necessary to alleviate the wounding of this circumstance. Some possible examples might include:
  • just being heard and held in worship by the working group
  • documentation of the incident 
  • to be heard out by the wounding party without their reply
  • to receive a true apology
  • an event-wide or community-wide reckoning with the incident
  • request that the racial wounding is included as a part of the Noticers’ report
  • guarantees of non-repetition
  • the initiation of an accountability process for the wounding party
  • an accountability process or further racial justice training for leaders of the space where the wounding happened
  • in extreme cases where attempts for remediation have failed the wounding party may be required to leave the FGC event in order to make the space safe.




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