White backlash from the last year of movement toward racial justice has fallen especially hard on Asian and Black leaders. I wrote this essay about how we can care for each other when gaslighting and exhaustion loom

This article was originally published in the Nonprofit Quarterly’s spring 2021 issue, “Radical Leadership: Visioning Lines of Flight.

White backlash is everywhere. It riots in our nation’s Capitol. It makes bold leaders tiptoe through the nonprofit sector. It causes a foundation to close its doors just as it begins to reckon with the intersection of misogyny and white supremacy. It makes headlines in education.

Unlike the vaunted conversations about leading organizations toward racial equity, white backlash—the hostile reactions of white people to that very possibility—often goes unnamed. So does its human impact: racial burnout.

Both backlash and burnout thrive without language to expose and examine them; but once they are called out into the open, leaders can strengthen themselves and each other. Inviting and framing that conversation is key to my consultations with people who want to stay in movements for racial justice for the long haul. (Continue reading here.)