Get Out the Way: Co-option of Radical Language Is Over by Ariel Breaux-Torres
Across the UK we’ve seen an increase in divisive and hateful rhetoric demonising commitments to equity and anti-racism. We’ve also seen fascism, not as distant history but at our doorsteps and in our neighbourhoods. Our present global realities remain a sobering reminder that our moment for change is now and is within our power to claim. The responses have varied, with some seizing the moment, doubling down on commitments, and turning toward mobilisation and organising. In contrast, others either bury their heads in the sand, go back on commitments, or give way to despondence, apathy, and despair. Among those are charities and NGOs who silently retreat from their 2020 commitments, and move toward more palatable inclusion initiatives. We have also seen variations of ‘all lives matter’ approaches by these institutions, and the deployment of a tactic called co-option. Namely of radical language and ideas — without the necessary actions (sometimes opposite actions) that sit behind these claims.
Co-opting can be linked to a well known tool used to perpetuate and maintain systems of oppression: extraction and exploitation. Both co-opting and extraction/exploitation are the continued legacies of imperialism and colonialism within the third sector. This method takes advantage of the many folks brought into organisations, often under false promises and commitments to radicals change.. This is an important element for the cycle of exploitation. Folks are enticed to enter, then are extracted from, and discarded when no longer of use, or are forced to leave — whilst they attempt to protect and salvage what’s left of their wellbeing and integrity.
Imperialist and Colonial Legacies in the Third Sector
The imperial and colonial origins of charities/NGOs is a well documented fact, one which Adéọlá Naomi Adérèmí explores in her Uncharitable paper. She opens with a quote by Thomas Sankara that says “Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.” When we consider this quote we can clearly place this more subtle form of imperialism at the heart of the charity sector. In Adéọlá Naomi Adérèmí’s paper she aptly describes charities as “crumbs thrown to the most marginalised” naming that they “were never invented as a funnel for liberation or alternative realities of possibilities.”
Imperialist ideas and colonial practices are not relics of the past in the third sector, they are alive and well. The evidence is in the extraction and co-opting. Economic extraction cannot be limited to only thinking about natural resources, it can also be applied to extraction of energy (mental and physical), knowledge, language, ideas, theories, and practices. This extraction, just like the extraction of natural resources, is violence and must be named as such, specifically epistemic violence. Epistemic violence is often described as the devaluing, erasure, or rejection of other forms of knowledge; particularly knowledges held by Black, Brown and Indigenous folks and communities. Knowledge is violently extracted to then be contorted into something that serves the maintenance of systems of oppression and domination; leaving power unshifted. Mincing words does not erase the violence, it only gaslights those on the receiving end and pacifies those enacting the violence.
The perceived inherent goodness and morality of the third sector is driven by dissonance that denies that imperialism and colonialism are even relevant to charities/NGOs. This allows exploitation to operate covertly and insidiously, frequently under the guise of benevolence, inclusion, and ‘bringing more seats at the table’ and ‘voices into the room’. But, this does not happen in a vacuum. This form of epistemic theft[1] requires a symbiotic relationship with internalised oppression or the coloniser within. As sahibzada mayed describes:
“Over time, control ceases to look like conquest and begins to feel like instinct. It calibrates our nervous systems toward deference or vigilance. It shapes posture and tone in an attempt to appear more palatable. It teaches us to comply without question and assimilate within dominant structures. What begins as subjugation inevitably becomes culture; extraction becomes a pattern of relationship and a way of being. One that is replicated across institutions, workplaces, and movements.”
This dynamic of exploiter and exploited is maintained by both the colonial institutions, and the colonised people. Radical ideas, knowledges, and politics are imported into these institutions, often by Black and Global Majority women. These women also face combined racism and sexism, with Black women also experiencing misogynoir[2], while embarking on a quest to create change from the inside out. Capitalism and the cost of living crisis also have a role to play in this, where larger institutions are able to offer wages far beyond what many offer, yet still frequently below that of their white counterparts. This still calculates far beneath what would be adequate compensation proportionate to the immense benefit these institutions receive. Conditions endured at the grass roots also make positions within these institutions seem like respite and a genuine opportunity to drive forward transformation. We might believe that these opportunities are ones to bring about change from within institutions, but, when such institutions are so steeped in imperial and colonial legacies (often without acknowledgement or recognition) what change can be attained is severely limited and often has steep personal costs. This includes psychological weathering (that can manifest in mental and physical distress) and moral injury.
How Extraction Turns to Co-opting
“Once institutionalized, theories are refined like any other extracted resource, repackaged, and commodified.”
Co-opting is not new, it’s a tactic that has been deployed throughout movements and throughout history. I’ve seen this happen first hand, where words and language have been used as cover and/or redefined into more palatable alternatives. In turn, the result is little to no challenge — allowing the status quo to remain intact, even if superficially changed.
Co-opting can also take place with or without malicious intent. Being well meaning, does not mean you are not co-opting. This is important, because the idea that it requires malice, provides an escape for the third sector to not see itself as implicated nor guilty of it when that is indeed what is happening. Many movements have seen this, for example the inappropriate use of MLK’s thoughts and ideas by the white moderate whilst excluding his critique of the white moderate themselves. Or the rampant use of the term “intersectionality” while being watered down to simply mean having multiple identities while avoiding the requisite analysis of power and systemic oppression that Kimberle Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins illustrates is central to the concept. This can also take place when things that are simply the bare minimum are badged as ‘radical’. For example, “involvement” and “lived experience”. Involvement is the bare minimum, the start not the end point. How can anyone know more about something than the people who have actually experienced it? These things aren’t radical; they are merely common sense. Badging them as any more than that engages in a similar, albeit inverse, process as the shifting of the Overton Window[4]. When something that should be commonplace is deemed “radical” — it is an effort to convince folks to be grateful for bare minimum effort, whilst inadvertently lowering their expectations.
To identify where this widespread co-opting, by large overly resourced charities/NGOs with strong colonial and imperialist lineages shows up we have to look no further than strategies promising radical futures using buzz words like ‘lived experience’, ‘communities’, and ‘sharing power’. Strategies and visions whose origins can likely be traced back to exploited, unnamed, unacknowledged Black and Global Majority thinkers within organisations. Many who frequently have short tenures and are often discarded or leave once they have been sufficiently mined of their labour (read: forced to choose between their integrity and wellbeing and continued employment) and the ideas, language, and ‘radicality’ can be performed convincingly by the institution.
But here, is where the co-opting takes place. Where radical language and words remain and actions revert back to the status quo. In the absence of internal critique, genuine challenge, genuine relationships with those the organisation should be supporting: conditions of accountability are not being cultivated. This is where visions of reparation, community self-determination, and non-existence of the organisation itself become rewritten. In the re-writing, original visions are reframed to suit the ongoing extraction. They cement the organisation’s existence as a contingency for this ‘liberated future’ and place conditions on what behaviours need to be performed by Black, Global Majority, and other marginalised communities in order to be deserving of self-determination and funding.
Organisations continue to position themselves as necessary, oftentimes as an intermediary broker of power and resource. This is accompanied by a laundry list of reasons why that power and resource cannot simply be redistributed to communities; removing the organisations themselves from the equation. In doing that, they maintain power and ultimate ownership even when participating in practices that on the surface look like resource redistribution, like grant making. Grant making is then presented as the solution itself — rather than a stepping stone toward something that resembles a more anti-oppressive alternative. This is not “radical”, it's more of the same.
A grant by definition: is money given by an entity for a specific purpose (e.g. academic research, community projects, etc). Emphasis should be placed on the phrase “for a specific purpose” because this is ultimately defined by the grant makers even if there is flexibility in what is delivered and how it is delivered. Beyond this, grant making requires the continued existence of grant makers. When we take the word “grant” out of the funding context, it can also mean “to formally or legally allow, bestow, or concede something to someone.” Again, grant making remains situated within a ‘charitable’ frame positioning charities/NGOs as benevolent bestowers of knowledge, wisdom, and resource. This is different from what is actually needed which is resource redistribution and reparations.
Redistribution can be understood as sharing or allocating resources in a more equitable way. Though it may seem like grant making inherently achieves these aims, there is a distinction between two very different ways of operating this task. Grants sit within a context of a favour and/or a “gift”, whilst genuine redistribution isn’t paternalistic or altruistic, but instead prioritises spreading resources — rather than violently hoarding them. Redistribution cannot be separated from reparations. Reparations are a critical and necessary form of redistribution. Reparations acknowledge that harm has been done, and situates financial and non-financial redistribution as a means of repair. Not a “gift”, not a favour, but repair for harm that has been done. It also views the financial and non-financial resources held by these institutions as ill-gotten gains made possible by systems of oppression. Any visions or strategies that utilise grant making as a mechanism toward liberation, that starts and ends with grant making — does not move towards true redistribution. It is just grant-making, with punchier language.
“Frankly speaking, we cannot expect liberation or freedom from institutions that are established as the bedrock of imperialism and classism.”
This is not to say all charities who speak of radical and reimagined futures are engaging in co-opting and have exploited/extracted from Black and Global Majority staff. But, there are very few putting their existence in any kind of risk toward true liberation and an ever increasing number of Black and Global Majority folks with radical politics finding themselves unemployed or retiring from the third sector. Meanwhile, their work and words live and linger on the lips of those who remain, uncredited. Accompanied by an expectation that they should feel gratitude for having such a ‘legacy’. Tokenistic words of thanks and appreciation from those who’ve benefited from this process the most (e.g. senior leadership), while those who genuinely express these sentiments are left without a full view of and an inability to name and confront the violence that has taken place. I know many Black women including myself know this well.
“We may use some of the same words, but there are fundamental differences in our beliefs and in our goals.”
So, what is the benefit of co-opting for both institutions and individuals? Ghassan Kanafani describes this as “a sense of security for those who are frightened by change, and a curtain of fog over the movement that they truly fear.” This begs the question: what is maintained when radical language is used without radical action? Is it our place within systems of domination and oppression, our comfort, our proximity to power, or the illusion that reform is all that’s needed rather than abolition? If we truly want to join communities of solidarity and reject co-opting by committing to both theory AND practice, at minimum we need to be honest about what we are/are not willing to do and get out of the way.
“Theory’s Cool, But Theory With No Practice Ain’t Shit.”
Sources
[1] The theft of knowledge, wisdom, ideas, practices from Black, Global Majority, Indigenous, and other marginalised communities without proper acknowledgement and respect to whom and where it came from, often to be made ‘mainstream’ in some way. Frequently coupled with actively harming the communities that were stolen from.
[2] Mysogynoir is the specific combination of anti-Black racism and misogyny directed specifically toward Black women. It highlights how race and gender intersect, creating unique, compounding layers of discrimination and prejudice.
[3] https://www.insurgentthoughts.com/p/ghassan-kanafani-and-the-co-optation
[4] The Overton Window is a theory that describes how policies and practices can move across the spectrum of normal/accepted to unthinkable. The theory posits that you can shift the window by starting with the unthinkable so things that are less radical seem more acceptable by comparison. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v-hzc6blGI&t=59s