First name / Hello,,
For those of us still reeling from the presidential election, the thought of being more connected to those around us can feel terrifying.
Most mornings, after dropping my kids at school, I go to the coffee shop and catch myself silently interrogating everyone around me. I search their faces for signs of sexism, transphobia, and racism. I ask myself if they look like the kind of person who cast a vote that has sent so many marginalized people into states of fear and paranoia.
Yet the word “community” keeps coming up in my life. When coaching founders, talking with friends, or even when braving a casual conversation with that stranger in the coffee shop.
I can feel all of us trying to make meaning out of what has happened this month… reevaluating the work we feel called to do at this specific moment.
Without being prompted, community is the word on everyone's lips.
“I want to spend more time in community with people who get where I’m coming from.”
“I want to be building my community more locally.”
“I want to get off of social media and build a new place for my community to come together.”
If you know me and my company,
Fearless Foundry, you know that community has been at the heart of what we do since day one.
In fact, in my first year of founding the business, I was running not one but three different online community groups as a way to stay connected to the people and causes that I cared about most, while also bolstering a network around our business.
Today, we lead two communities, one free and
one paid, and they have been a huge source of passion, purpose, and inspiration, particularly in recent weeks.
But as we talk about community, I think there is another word we need to consider, one that came up in a powerful conversation with a woman named
Maya Sedillo the morning after this month's election.
It was the word kinship.
Maya’s definition captures something I have been feeling viscerally for a long time but simply didn’t have the words to describe until now.
According to Maya, kinship is the experience of knowing each other well enough to feel safe and seen in each other's presence. It doesn't mean we don’t have differences or that we have every single belief or value in common, but it is about having a baseline understanding and respect for our identities, stories, and experiences that allows for trust to form, and with it the recognition that we have more in common with each other than we have things that would divide us.
And for me, kinship is something I see missing from too many communities right now.
If your communities are anything like mine, they're filled with strife and struggle. I am witnessing a distressing uptick in online anger, finger-pointing, name-calling, and negative comments to a degree that I've only seen once before– around this same time in 2020, on the brink of an administration led by the same man this country has elected again to lead it.
You'd think, as someone who has worked on the internet as long as I have, that nothing would surprise me. Yet still, it has hurt and hardened my heart this week to watch how people who I thought I considered key members of my community, have turned their anxiety, their anger, and their frustration with the powers that be at each other and, in some instances, at me.
But here's the thing that many of us are forgetting when it comes to community:
Community doesn’t simply mean showing up and sharing the same room, virtual or otherwise.
Community means having the respect and understanding that even when our ideas or opinions may differ, we won't actively attack or harm each other with our words or our actions. I means that even in states of dysregulation, we will do the work to dig deep and to look at our own shortcomings and not sling arrows at someone else for the sake of sidestepping our own suffering.
As hard as it has been to witness the anger and infighting in some of the communities I'm connected to in recent weeks, I have also found kinship and solidarity in spaces and places that I might not have expected but actually needed it most.
So many other founders have shown up for me in incredibly genuine and vulnerable ways; this has truly carried me forward in a season where I have found it really hard to show up, particularly publicly.
When I reflect on my conversation with Maya, and on the others I’ve had with brilliant women who are committed to continuing to do the hard work of community and kinship, I realize that not only do I have community, but I have bright and burning lights around me that are guiding and setting the example of what leadership looks like in moments that are incredibly hard.
Rather than feeling like I'm standing off in the galaxy all alone, I can see that I'm a part of a much bigger constellation of people who feel called to contribute their work to the world in a way that helps and heals as best they can.
So whether you're new to my community, or you have been here for quite some time now, my ask for you is simple:
Reflect on what the community looks like to you and ensure that your interactions within it are done with integrity.
Remember, it isn't about simply showing up to the same places or being a part of the same member portals.
True community is conducted with care. True community leads to kinship and a deep remembering of all the beautiful things that we carry in common.
Yours in solidarity,
Madeline
