Thread by @LizMaryWard

A thread absolutely no one asked for but has been in my drafts for days ⬇️⬇️⬇️:

I've been thinking a lot lately of the framing of 'critical friend'. It's often used in EDI discourse etc, and I'm going to be a #ControversialTurtle here and say: I don't like it.

If you know me, you know that I'm driven by Love over Fear. 'Critical Friend' sits in the realm of fear. Do you have critical friends? Family? parents? How does that work for you?

If you believe in Radical Love (and by the bell hooks I do) then my read of that is that you believe in taking people on the journey of self discovery to self actualization. It's not 'You're Wrong' it's 'I can understand why you said that, but have you thought of it this way'

from social justice discourse, activists and EDI managers alike, I think we sit in the space of Critical Friend, without realising that - you have to have the relationship in place to *be* that critical friend. Way too much Critical, not enough Friend.

And it's a pretty standard example of theory vs praxis - we digest the books, but don't ringfence time to reflect on how we apply it. Especially when many folks in these roles/spaces are White (there, I said it)

The extreme? We end up with a 'Critical Friend', calling a WOC a white supremacist (for example) - when there is 0 relationship built to establish that (very harmful) accusation being true. "It's a theory, so must be applied here" outweighs "what does this accusation mean"

(just to clarify, I'm not a white supremacist, and as a direct descendant of slaves and someone who grew up terrified of the KKK even in the 90s, it's pretty heinous to suggest otherwise)

I think we can't be 'Critical Friends' if we don't actively and dedicatedly practice emotional intelligence a)because this work is hard so you need boundaries and b)because people are hella complex so you need to understand them!

instead the Critical Friend assumes that the person on the other end is immediately ready to hear what is being said. When actually, we end up with no one listening to each other at all. No one is friends here.

So here it is: I'm saying we move away from being 'Critical Friend' because that term is false and hollow. Instead, if you really want to do the hard, (at times) thankless and (at times) inspiring task of handholding people through anti-oppression work, you have to be led by Love

Instead, be questioning, supportive, driven by building relationships. If we want to even dream of being abolitionist in our society, then it starts at home. You know what that means? Hard flipping work mate.

It means saying: I am going to sit here and listen, try to understand you, get to grips with your context, your world view, your passion, then offer my thoughts and work *with* you to build a world that we can all thrive in.

You ain't gunna get there by being a Critical Friend.