The necessity of building and tending to our relationships

I have always understood relationships to be necessary for my survival. Growing up with scarce financial resources, the necessity of relationships and the collective became clear at a young age. I witnessed it as many hands contributed to building the Habitat for Humanity house that I grew up in, I saw it in the church where meals would show up at the homes of the “sick and shut-in”, and in countless other ways the community showed up to make sure no one fell through the gaps.

My foundational understanding of how much we need each other has infused the way I show up in my work. I understand the building and cultivation of relationships to be the bedrock of the work I want to do to make this world a just and liberatory space for all who inhabit it. That being said, I don’t believe in building relationships with everyone and I do not operate from a place of self-sacrifice to “build bridges across differences”. There are enough people in the world that don’t question my humanity or rights to build with.

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