Feedback as a tool for liberation

By Dāna James, feedback & connection coach, engagement strategist for people-powered projects

There’s an entire sector of nonprofit professionals, funders, and organizations dedicated to fostering meaningful conversations that go beyond the surface. This isn’t feedback for feedback’s sake; it’s feedback as a tool for transformation. When I attended the Feedback Labs Summit, it felt like entering a magical place where it seemed like maybe, just maybe, people were actively trying to live out this vision of connection and accountability.

Feedback is a strange thing. We’re surrounded by it constantly—whether it’s from friends, coworkers, or even strangers on the internet—but very few of us have deeply studied how to give or receive it in a way that fosters connection. And yet, we rely on feedback to build and maintain our relationships. Without a feedback practice, our connections remain fragile, like an angry voice on the internet—loud but lacking depth or substance. Without shared language, there can be no shared culture. And without shared culture, there is no hope of psychological safety. 

As a 2024 Feedback Champion Fellow, the language of the feedback sector is new to me, but the practice of feedback is not. In one of our first sessions, fellow Feedback Champion Garrett Blaize said something that immediately resonated with me: “Oh, so we’re just learning new language to assign to this practice, but the elements of this are naturally present within many of our cultures.” 🔥

Garrett’s words instantly struck a chord. Feedback isn’t new—it’s part of our day-to-day world, whether in family, community, or professional settings. What’s different now is how, through our nonprofit work, we’re systematizing the language around it, giving us tools to sharpen how we navigate dissonance and connection. 

Garrett’s sense of self—his clarity, his deep-rooted voice—reminded me how powerful it is when someone speaks from a place of truth. There’s no questioning the authenticity of that kind of voice. I want to be him when I grow up.

Feedback is necessary to address conflict

That moment hit me on a personal level because it spoke to something I’ve been reflecting on for a while: the way our world responds to itself feels out of sync. We keep rebranding the same tools and frameworks and moving goalposts, but we rarely address the core dissonance that sits beneath the surface. What is feedback for, if not to address dissonance?

Dissonance—or, more commonly, conflict (or the fear of open conflict for those who that resonates with)—is something our dominant culture struggles with. There’s a deeply ingrained discomfort with open conflict, with any critique touching the heart of our identity, especially when it comes to philanthropic work. 

No one wants to be seen as the villain, the problem. But friends, what is a story without an antagonist? What is triumph without challenge? Feedback, messy and uncomfortable as it can be, helps us face these challenges head-on and grow through them.

This is why I find the world of feedback so exciting. There’s an entire sector of nonprofit professionals, funders, and organizations dedicated to fostering meaningful conversations that go beyond the surface. This isn’t feedback for feedback’s sake; it’s feedback as a tool for transformation. 

When I attended the Feedback Labs Summit, it felt like entering a magical place where it seemed like maybe, just maybe, people were actively trying to live out this vision of connection and accountability. The effort Feedback Labs put into shaping and collaborating with the local community as well as the community they serve was tangible. 

The sessions at the Summit were rich with insight. Each one brought its own special flavor, methodologies, and frameworks for building better relationships through feedback. But beyond the techniques, what stood out to me was the vulnerability in the room. The dedication and passion for their work shone as each person contributed a bit of their story to convey the takeaways and lessons embedded within their experiences. People were not just sharing what worked—they were sharing their own stories, their challenges, and their struggles with feedback in their own lives and work giving us as attendees the gift of their vulnerability, presence, and reflections. 

Feedback definitive language about systems at play and a shared understanding of what that language means

It really was amazing to see so many spaces so focused on truly interrogating their relationship to feedback as a practice. But I am who I am, and I am drawn towards the intangible. The unsaid and unseen. And I noticed something.

Even in the midst of that openness, I couldn’t ignore a lingering tension. I noticed it in the hesitation I had about what to wear to certain events. I saw it in the way many of my cohort expressed being unsure if they had prepared enough, and how I sometimes didn’t feel quite comfortable offering feedback in certain sessions. 

Even though our program manager, and the whole team over at Feedback Labs, really, encouraged us over and over to show up as our authentic selves, I still felt this tug of unease. I trusted their words, but something held me back. 

Why was I, and so many others, still hesitating? Me and my inexhaustible curiosity could not stop sitting with this dissonance. Wondering what lay at the heart of it for me.

It didn’t take long to connect the dots. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy these sessions, I did. I’m someone you want in your audience. I will appreciate your offering. This goes without saying. I honor folks who have the courage to be seen, regardless of what they show. That’s my culture. 

But the thing I was really engaging with as I watched all of these sessions was this underlying dance I felt myself observing. Each session focused on the contributing factors to why feedback practices may be challenging. As I attended different sessions, I noticed that many presenters were dancing around the same thing: language. Each session was trying to grapple with issues like systemic inequity, diversity, power dynamics, and conflict—but the words they used were all different. Some leaned into emotional intelligence; others talked about class structures or historical extraction. But one thing stood out to me: no one was saying “white supremacy culture.” No one was naming whiteness directly.

Why not just say it? Why not call it what it is?

As a multiracial Black woman, the language of whiteness and white supremacy culture has been a framework that helps me make sense of the world I move through. It gave me the language to understand and navigate the complex, often invisible dynamics I’ve faced throughout my life. And we have the language now. It’s out there, researched and documented by scholars, activists, and professionals. 

Yet, even in spaces that seem progressive, where there’s a shared goal of fostering equity, we hesitate to use definitive language.

I couldn’t let it go. So I started asking questions. I poked around after sessions, and eventually, I found some answers. 

One particularly insightful session got me closer to what I was searching for. They said that they noticed if they used that “whiteness/white supremacy culture” language, they ended up spending more time educating about what whiteness/white supremacy culture is than actually getting to the work of improving dynamics within the teams that hired them to do just that. 

You can’t not get to the goal of what you were contracted to do. That’s a bad business model. You gotta deliver on your promises, and do what you came to do. So they use the term “white dominant culture,” to keep the conversation moving. (Which, honestly to me, feels almost more aggressive but I’m not a native to cultures who identify with whiteness so I can’t speak to the why… but I do still wonder about it.)

Fascinating. 

That explanation made me pause and wonder if my privilege kept me from seeing how little the shared understanding of what makes up a culture of whiteness is actually shared. The resource that defined day-to-day characteristics of white supremacy culture is a website, but it could’ve been a book. Then there would have been a barrier to the education, something the creator, Tema Okun, didn’t feel comfortable doing, recognizing that she herself had learned and developed this content with and from the contributions others. 

But how in capitalism are we to tell if something is actually valuable without a value being ascribed to it? If nobody spent money on it, is it even worth something? Whew, our culture is a loopty loop.

A shared literacy of what makes up the cultural practices of “whiteness” has provided such clarity and common ground with the spaces and faces with which I choose to spend my time. It’s clear that most of us don’t want to align with white supremacy culture, and it’s an easy place to start from. 

But only if you’re all using the same words. Only if there’s shared literacy. And I truly wish that for everyone. 

Never seen anyone not benefit from greater literacy around the tenets of white supremacy culture and the resulting American caste system we now all exist within on this land. Without it, feedback can feel hollow, unable to fully address the deep cultural forces that shape our interactions. And if we can’t use the language, what message does that send to those of us who will always see the practices of whiteness in the room? 

It’s in the water we swim in, so it’s necessary to acknowledge in real time if we want to develop trust and get closer to our goal of psychological safety. 

So when our reactions pump the brakes when change is on the agenda, but we can openly reflect with a shared rubric of patterns we don’t want to perpetuate—well in life there are no shortcuts, but it sure feels like one. 

My feedback: Don’t stop speaking about whiteness and white supremacy out loud, even when the words feel risky

I like to say I speak whiteness as a second language. I function as a translator in most spaces, helping make the intangible tangible so that we can use all our creativity to be brave enough to challenge the status quo.

Allowing my generational intuition and curiosity explore the frameworks of our work and finding spaces that are dedicated to acknowledging the poisons in the water has shown me that there are so many more models of success than what makes it to the big screens orwhat gets amplified onto our feeds.

Beginning in 2020, after the brutal, public murder of George Floyd and the summer of protests and marches that followed, the language of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) became, let’s face it, trendy. Organizations, from nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies, were suddenly adopting anti-racist language and frameworks. DEI initiatives were sprouting up everywhere. It felt like a moment of collective reckoning, a long-overdue recognition that the status quo was deeply flawed and needed to be addressed. 

But fast-forward to 2024, and we’re seeing a sharp pullback. Institutions, fearing backlash from right-wing attacks, are retreating from that language. The fear of lawsuits, of being targeted by conservative media, or of running afoul of Supreme Court decisions has led to a chilling effect. DEI is no longer the buzzword—it’s become contextualized as a liability.

If the language is no longer safe to use, what does that mean for those of us who have always seen and felt the practices of whiteness in the room? What does that mean for people like me, forced to learn to code-switch to survive, to navigate these spaces without rocking the boat too much by suppressing the pieces of ourselves that don’t seem welcome? Those who carry the generational fear of moving within an ecosystem that has never been calibrated to our safety? 

I can code-switch, sure, but man, am I tired. Aren’t you?

I wonder what this retreat from language is doing to our collective psyche. For those of us who have learned to see practices of whiteness for what they are, who have embraced the language as a tool for liberation, what happens when that language is deemed too risky to use? The silence speaks volumes. And it makes me wonder: how do we foster feedback that’s truly transformative if we can’t even name the culture and systems we’re trying to change? How do we signal safety to those for whom the workforce was never built to support?

For marginalized communities, psychological safety is always a complicated thing. In professional settings, especially ones steeped in dominant cultural norms, psychological safety is a promise most often broken. We can’t control what others will say or do. We can’t predict how biases will manifest or how feedback will land. 

And yet, we have to engage. We can’t afford not to. Literally. What we can do is build cultures of accountability, where feedback isn’t just a formality, but a practice that acknowledges power dynamics and systemic inequities. We may not be able to guarantee safety, but we can commit to accountability.

This requires courage. It means being willing to have hard conversations, to sit with discomfort, and to call things out, even when the words feel risky. It’s the only way forward. We can’t afford to retreat from the language of transformation just because it’s under attack. We owe it to ourselves—and to each other—to keep pushing forward.

Feedback is not just about improving systems or achieving goals. It’s about creating spaces where we can show up as our full selves, name the forces at play, and challenge the status quo. It’s about building cultures where feedback isn’t just another tool for grant reports, but a practice that truly moves us toward justice, equity, and inclusion. 

Without shared language, there can be no shared culture. And without shared culture, there can be no psychological safety. And without psychological safety, there can be no real experimentation, no true innovation. Our creativity is the cure, but it’s gotta be a safe space to play.

How to begin to use feedback as a tool for liberation

Working on our relationship to feedback is essential if we want to create a sense of belonging in every space we inhabit. Feedback is not just a tool to improve performance or efficiency—it’s a way to build relationships and communities where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued. 

But the day-to-day characteristics of white supremacy culture—things like perfectionism, defensiveness, urgency, and power hoarding—are barriers to engaging in critical feedback. These traits keep us from being honest with each other, and more importantly, with ourselves. They keep us locked in patterns of behavior that prevent growth, stifle connection, and perpetuate harm.

Defensiveness, in particular, is a good place to start for anyone who is genuinely interested in implementing a transformative culture within themselves. When we feel attacked or criticized, our first instinct is often to protect ourselves, to build walls around our identity, and to deflect any feedback that might challenge our sense of self. 

But defensiveness is also an opportunity—a place where we can pause, reflect, and start to unravel the toxic traits we’ve internalized. If we have the courage to sit with our discomfort and listen, we can begin to dismantle the limiting beliefs that exist in our bodies as a result of normalizing these toxic traits for generations.

This work is not easy, and it’s not quick. It’s personal, it’s collective, and it’s lifelong. But one by one, person by person, we can grapple with these patterns. We can learn to identify the poisons we’ve absorbed and choose, consciously, to release them. 

Feedback, when practiced intentionally, can be a tool for liberation—a way for us to break free from the cycles of harm and build something new.

The future is ours to build, friends. There are poisons in our love well, yes, but we can still love well. With shared language, co-created culture, and a feedback practice to keep the wheels turning, we can move toward a future that feels worthy of our efforts. 

I hope we each find the courage to name the impacts of white supremacy. Call it white dominance culture, white supremacy culture, or some clever euphemism—specific characteristics led us here. 

This sector exists because of a history of extraction, supported and celebrated by those who walk with whiteness. And no amount of creative language changes that fact. It is better to face it, grieve it, and realize that it is a part of our stories and likely still a part of us. It preys on our fears and our human vulnerabilities. We have to practice not letting it. 

I find joyful effort in my practice of seeing whiteness. I see it in the struggles of my favorite animated characters and between the lines of conversations left unsaid in workspaces. 

When I’m given feedback that makes me feel Defensive, I know what conversation to have with myself. I also know which friends to call who can hold me in my vulnerability while I process holding myself accountable. When I get caught being stubborn about something, my community can remind me that there is no One Right Way, and when I exclaim “Oh, come on!” we can laugh together at the fact that no matter how hard we try, old habits are hard to break. But it’s easier when we’re held accountable. 

I can laugh because I know I’m good enough. I’m human, and I’m trying.

These patterns are tangible and present. We must be present with them in order to change them. 

This is the feedback I have for us: If we are afraid of words, we will remain terrified of conversation. And there are lots of conversations standing between us and the future we hope to build. 

So find the words that work for you, have the conversations, move at the speed of trust, and know that there is support out there. This is the work of people and spaces who believe we are better together. Feedback nurtures trust. Trust nurtures community. If we listen with more than our ears, we will always find the words we can use to move forward.