What Does Care Look Like When the Systems Around Us Are Pulling Back Support?
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.
November's blogging prompt comes from CiKeithia.
When systems withhold food, pay, or justice, our communities remember what to give. For many, these institutions have never fully cared for us, and so we developed our own networks of support. Mutual aid, shared meals, and collective acts of caring for one another have sustained us. The lineages of care teach us to meet scarcity with creativity, and to practice generosity not as charity, but as a means of survival. This month, we trace those threads that carry equity work forward.
Hardships experienced in community have always been an issue, but as of late it feels real for so many in our community. I am angry at the idea of having to choose which basic need is most important. This is a false choice; we are all entitled to have our basic needs met.
To be completely transparent, I first learned about mutual aid in a formal way during the pandemic. I felt somewhat ignorant about my unfamiliarity, but the reality is what some would formally call ‘mutual aid’ has existed in my community since time immemorial and it looks like
Daily practice of checking on people, especially my elders.
Pooling resources- take what you need, give what you can
Showing up
Leveraging connections to advocate and amplify voices often unheard or ignored
Participating in community events that celebrate our joy and resilience
Daily practice of radical love and care, not just during tough times
Follow the lead of wise people who have been doing this work
Honestly, I didn’t think things could get harder, but they continue to get harder. Food benefits are being cut. Wages don’t stretch far enough. Institutions respond with policies and plans, but not always with care. What would it look like for organizations to become true caretakers, not just rule makers or employers, but communities that hold people when times are uncertain?
I didn’t grow up culturally Korean, but living in Korea after college opened my eyes to something I didn’t yet have language for. At the time, I was too young and too “independent” to recognize it. I found the constant checking in and concern a little overbearing. But later, while living in Mongolia, I began to understand. The small Korean community there reached out with a kind of care I hadn’t realized I was missing, care rooted in relationship, not policy. It made me see that every culture carries its own lineage of care, and we can choose to carry that forward in our work.
Three Korean practices have stayed with me and continue to shape my perspective on organizational care.
정 Jeong – Emotional Care
Jeong is the unspoken current that binds people together. It is the long-term care that remains steady, even when you haven’t spoken in years. In organizations, it shows up when we hold space for honesty, tend to conflicts with care, and remember that relationships, not tasks, are what sustains the work.
계 Gye – Economic Care
Gye began as a women-led savings circle for those excluded from formal financial systems. Its lesson is that economics can be an act of trust. Organizations carry gye when they practice transparency, share resources, and treat financial care as a form of justice, not generosity.
우리 Uri – Belonging Care
Uri means “we.” In English, we might say “my mom,” but in Korean, we say “our mom.” That simple shift reflects a worldview of interdependence. Within organizations, uri means replacing “those people” with “our community,” building belonging as a shared responsibility rather than a side initiative.
Care has always been relational, carried by people who knew systems would not save them. This month, I invite us to remember those lineages, to ask how we can build care into our everyday work. Not as charity or reaction, but as part of who we are together.
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