Imagine some friends invite you to a meal at an exclusive restaurant. You’ve heard good things about the place, so you’re excited to go. Your friends make plans that work well for you and you have a great experience. Imagine another scenario: others were invited who you cannot stand, you are facing financial strain and it’s too expensive, the meal is at an odd time for you, or the menu doesn’t accommodate your dietary needs. In both cases you were included, but your experience depends on how well you fit in with the plans your friends have made without you.
When it comes to building a beloved community, inclusion is important. But it isn’t enough. It’s important that everyone involved - not just a few decision-makers - are co-creating the work. At FCNL, we don’t just want to invite more people into the way things are now - we want to be part of co-creating something new that meets all our needs.
To reflect this evolving understanding of FCNL’s goal, we are replacing the word “Inclusion” in our Anti-racism, Anti-bias, Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (AJEDI) acronym and commitment with the word “Integrity.”
This intentional shift in our AJEDI acronym recognizes the power of language and how it is an important tool for shared understanding and orienting collective actions. Our efforts towards justice, peace, and equity benefit from the grounding Quaker testimony of integrity in ensuring that there is consistency between values and organizational action.
Our efforts towards justice, peace, and equity benefit from the grounding Quaker testimony of integrity in ensuring that there is consistency between values and organizational action.
Inclusion’s definition, ‘The notion that an organization or system is welcoming to new populations and/or identities,’ does not always include confronting existing imbalanced power structures. This can be experienced as skipping the co-creation of work with those we hope to bring into our work as partners, not just honorary guests. Integrity, ‘…being authentic and having consistency between once’s values and one’s actions,’ leads us to consider our underlying values and commit to continued alignment with them in actions.
Integrity asks us: what are our values and how are we faithfully living into them? It is an anchor, holding us accountable to our community as we faithfully integrate our commitment to AJEDI throughout all that we do. FCNL recently embraced my new job title, ‘Community Integrity Manager,’ acknowledging that integrity is essential to all of FCNL’s work. Relationships are at the base of all that we do. As community, we must continue to maintain integrity at our core - practicing living out our AJEDI commitments inherent in Quaker values.
This shift also aligns with FCNL’s prophetic aspirations for our work. Integrity is language that can evolve with us and has deep Quaker roots. Throughout history Quakers have taken, at times prophetic, stands with integrity to their values. For some examples from Quakers in America: 18th-century John Woolman was famous for the consistency with which he lived out his opposition to the slave trade by refusing to use or buy any item that had unjust manufacturing practices, Bayard Rustin, at a time of extreme state violence and oppression against gay and Black people, lived his truth as an out gay man and as a Black man who organized nonviolent direct action with a major role in the Civil Rights Movement. Mahala Ashley Dickerson was the first Black woman attorney in Alabama and Alaska and often represented people facing discrimination.
Integrity calls FCNL to be transparent and tell the truth — even when those truths are uncomfortable.
From conscientious objectors, pacifists, and abolitionists to refusing barriers based on identities, Quakers have a strong history of living into the testimony of integrity by refusing to conform to laws and societal norms that did not align with their values.
Integrity calls FCNL to be transparent and tell the truth — even when those truths are uncomfortable. It calls us to co-create with those who are different than us, so we can celebrate with a ‘meal’ that everyone can enjoy. As an FCNL community, we are excited to embrace integrity as a defining term to support all our important efforts toward the world we seek.
