Creators or Just Consumers? What are we building beyond the current system?

Our blog is a space to explore the hard questions that move organizations toward real change. Grounded in the belief that racial equity must live in both culture and daily practice, we share stories, tools, and reflections that help bridge values with action. From internal leadership shifts to community-rooted strategies, we highlight the everyday work of building racial equity, one decision, one relationship, one breakthrough at a time.

August's blogging prompt comes from ​Heidi​.

This question—what are you creating?—has been echoing in my mind ever since I heard it on one of my favorite podcasts (currently on a break). It was posed not as a judgment, but as an invitation: to pause, reflect, and recognize just how much we constantly consume, scrolling through social media, reading newsletters, downloading tools, and attending webinars. Even in the equity space, it’s easy to fall into a rhythm of consumption.

But what are we putting back into the world?

Are we creating? Not just in the traditional sense of producing a product or a post, but in the deeper sense of shaping culture, building new systems, imagining freer futures, and experimenting with new ways of being together at work and in community.

At Equity Matters, we believe the work of equity is creative work. We’re not here just to critique what is, we're here to co-create what could be. We write this blog to help organizations grapple with the tough questions that drive genuine change. We want to uplift the everyday breakthroughs, the internal shifts, the messy middle of trying, failing, and trying again.

So this month, we invite you to sit with this question too:

What are you creating?

Beyond critique. Beyond consumption. Beyond the systems we inherited.

Let’s build something that reflects our values, one decision, one relationship, one bold experiment at a time.

LaToya:

Lately, I’ve been in deep conversation with a few powerful leaders in early childhood and liberation work—Evette, Dae, Sandy, and Melia. Together, we’ve been creating something intentional. Not a formal organization or initiative (yet), but a space rooted in care, vision, and truth. A space to pause, reflect, and ask: What are we really building beyond the systems we inherited?

We’ve been dreaming—not in the abstract, but as a deliberate act of resistance. Dreaming as a way to name what we deserve, what our communities need, and what our children have always been worthy of.

And just yesterday, we had our first formal gathering—a sacred pause in the whirlwind of daily work and survival. We broke bread together, sharing healthy and essential foods that nourished not just our bodies, but our spirits. We created space for presence, for laughter, and for truth-telling. We rallied in each other’s support, lifting up our visions for the future and how we want to live, lead, and love.

We opened the gathering with burning—intentional cleansing and clearing of the space, of energy, of anything that no longer serves. That act alone felt like a declaration: we are making room for what’s next.

In that circle, one question echoed clearly: Are we creators or consumers?

So often, we’re expected to consume: frameworks that don’t fit, language that erases, systems that deplete. But in the space we are building—rooted in relationship, in ritual, in liberation—we are remembering that we’ve always been creators.

We’re visioning boldly. Disrupting gently. Designing futures where our communities thrive—not just survive. We are building something that is not transactional—it’s transformational. Something not pre-packaged, but deeply alive.

Being a creator means holding complexity with love. It means allowing room for the sacred and the strategic, for softness and strength. It means recognizing that clearing space—physically, emotionally, spiritually—is just as important as filling it.

What we are building together may not yet have a name, but it has a heartbeat. And it’s already shifting how we show up in the world.

So when I ask, Creator or consumer?—my answer is clear.
We are creating. With intention, with fire, and with each other.
And this is only the beginning.

CiKeithia:

What are you creating?

• Intentional spaces centered in joy, justice, and healing

• A shift in thinking that asks not what can’t be accomplished, but what are the steps we need to collectively take to build what it is we envision

• Leveraging my power to bring in more diverse voices and perspectives

• Space to “dream without constraints.” We push this in our training sessions

What do I see in orgs I work with?

• A shift moving everyday actions from individual to collective

• Increased explicit and bold actions- saying what we mean!

• A deep and profound recognition of the way we participate in upholding systemic inequities and working intentionally to dismantle practices rooted in white supremacy

• Increased interest and action focused on analysis

• New processes and practices (interdepartmental teams, mix of positional power, positional and emerging leadership)

• Development of accountability practices

• Empowerment of those with the least amount of positional power and influence to lead systems work within their org

• Increased understanding of their role in the larger ecosystem

Heidi:

The truth is, I am a consumer. I consume the news, podcasts, audiobooks, sometimes all in one day. I consume for fun too: bike gear, travel gadgets, puppy comforts, baby and toddler everything. My online shopping history is… robust.

But it's not just stuff. I also consume ideas, especially around equity and justice. Some are well-worn concepts I keep returning to, like Critical Race Theory, Levels of Analysis, Targeted Universalism, or Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Others are making a more mainstream comeback, like mutual aid models or Indigenous frameworks for governance and sustainability. And then there are the more unexpected sources, random Medium articles, Instagram posts, or a passing quote from a podcast that sticks in my gut.

Still, I’ve come to realize that a lot of what I call “creating” is remixing. Our Color Brave Space norms, our racial equity tools, curriculum, and evaluation frameworks, they’re creative, yes, but they also stand on the shoulders of ideas that came before. And that's okay. We need reinterpretation and adaptation. But I also feel the pull to go beyond remixes and incremental improvements. I want to build more beyond the current system, not just tweaks and toolkits, but real shifts in how we relate, work, and imagine possibility.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between critique and creation. I know how to analyze systems. I can spot the gaps. I can name what’s extractive, oppressive, or performative. But what am I actively building in response?

I want to spend more time in creation. More time in imagination. More time in relationship and experimentation, because that’s where new systems are born. Not in polished strategies, but in honest questions, half-formed ideas, and bold attempts at doing things differently.

That’s part of what this blog is about. It’s a space for the messy middle of change, where consumption meets reflection, and reflection leads to creation. And hopefully, creation leads to something bolder than just a rebranded status quo.

So I’ll ask again, for me and for you: What are we creating?

Not for our resume or our performance review. But for people. For our future selves. For the world we want to live in.

Let’s build something together, something beyond.