These five core principles guide all of Reckon With’s work. Each one is based on learnings from multiple movement Elders and teachers.

1. Interdependence

We honor the Indigenous knowledge that all beings are connected and that thriving for all requires each of us to play our unique role. For “white” people, this means turning towards and organizing the other “white” people in our lives instead of leaving our communities to “help” or change others.

“For an ecosystem to thrive, each being has a part to play: the oak tree must play its role, the chipmunk its role. If the chipmunk tries to be the oak tree, the ecosystem will become unhealthy and out of balance.”

First Nation peoples, including the Onondaga Nation

“I tell sincere white people, 'Work in conjunction with us- each of us working among our own kind.' Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do- and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people!

We will completely respect our white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give them every credit. We will meanwhile be working among our own kind, in our own black communities- showing and teaching black men in ways that only other black men can- that the black man has got to help himself. Working separately, the sincere white people and sincere black people actually will be working together.

In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America's very soul.”

Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

2. Start with ourselves

We commit to practicing the humility required to see ourselves – not only others – in the problem we are fighting to solves. We remember that no matter how much we learn and care, there remains work for each of us to do. We recognize that the molecular work of interrupting and repairing harm within our own thoughts, decisions, and actions every day can meaningfully contribute to transforming collective systems.

“Transform yourself to transform the world.”

Grace Lee Boggs

“Perhaps, however, the moral of the story (and the hope of the world) lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself.”

James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (1972)

3. With rigor and with love

We dedicate ourselves to the spiritual discipline of turning towards and sticking with the “white” people in our lives. If we are in relationship, then we are in responsibility to one another to be in the journey of mutual evolution. We choose to engage with both the rigor that truthtelling demands as well as the love that transformation requires, neither coddling nor bulldozing.

“White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this – which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never – the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.”

James Baldwin, “Letter from a region in my mind” (1962)

“Love is not antithetical to being outraged. Let’s be very clear about that. And love is not antithetical to anger. There are two kinds of anger. There’s redemptive anger, and there’s non-redemptive anger. And so redemptive anger is the anger that says that – that moves you to transformation and human up-building. Non-redemptive anger is the anger that white supremacy roots itself in. So we have to make a distinction.”

Mama Ruby Sales, “Where Does It Hurt?” (2016)

4. High expectations, high support

We are equally sober about how challenging it is for “white” people to respond differently to racial injustice than we have been conditioned, and also how urgent it is for this organizing to effectively occur. As participants commit to the lifelong work of racial repair, Reckon With commits to providing ongoing, multi-faceted support. When we feel supported, we do things we previously thought weren’t possible.

“Resilience is learned through acknowledging fear and unease but not giving way to it. Resilience is built, one challenge at a time, and is fortified by support.”

Linda J. Kligman, Ph.D., International Institute for Restorative Practices

5. All we have to gain

We understand that brutality that is committed or witnessed without intervention both harms the victims and distorts the perpetrators. For generations, “white” people have enacted violence against Black and non-white people, our children watching, and we have called it not only permissible but required. We are damaged, disconnected from ourselves, our relationships, our ancestors, and the land. Instead of fearing what racial repair may unearth, we honor it as an invitation to all that we have to gain: authentic culture, healthy connection, and soul healing.

“I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks.”

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

“I actually think there is something that feels more like freedom, more like equality, more like justice, and it’s waiting for us, but we’re being constrained by our unwillingness to talk honestly about the burden of this past, which I think has created toxins in the air. It’s like there’s pollution everywhere in this country because we haven’t been honest about this history.

And I think that truth-telling can truly set us free.”

Bryan Stevenson, “Stevenson reflects on inequities 10 years after ‘Just Mercy’” (2024)