Let's go full FUBU

Why we need more Intersectional Professionals to be loudly in leadership

Have you ever wondered what the author of a journal article or news item wanted to say but couldn’t? I often leave out some of my personal perspectives from public-facing writing, whether because of topicality, space constraints, or something else. In this Substack, I wanted to share some of the thinking that didn’t make it into a recent piece of writing. In January 2024, the Center released its first publication, Experts By Experience, co-authored by Kalila Jackson-Spieker and me. Our primary aim was to summarize the literature about what kinds of outcomes are produced by integrating lived experience into the design and implementation of programs and policies. Our secondary aim was to offer up best practices we could glean from the literature. What we didn’t have room for in that publication was some of the motivations we had for writing that piece, as that content would veer heavily into personal opinion. On this Substack, however, I thought I’d take some space to share the stuff that was on my mind as we were researching and then writing that paper, because I think it’s worth talking about. 

One big takeaway for me after finishing Experts By Experience was that we Intersectional Professionals have to go full FUBU. No, I don’t mean dressing head to toe in the streetwear brand I loved as a teen, but instead to build stuff that’s “for us, by us” because it’s clear to me that nobody else can or will. This isn’t necessarily because our allies don’t care, or aren’t motivated to integrate lived expertise, but instead because there just isn’t enough momentum being generated to make the changes we want to see, so it’s up to us to create it. So much of the literature that underlies the paper talked about the difficulties of power sharing with communities, and the resources needed to build relationships and trust. These things are undoubtedly true, but also reflect the imbalance of power when it comes to how people with lived experience encounter the institutions and organizations that are set up to enhance our well-being. Ultimately the fact that we have so little sway of the systems designed to serve us leads me to believe that true change will come not from better advocacy practices or mindset shifts among the people who are currently in decision-making positions, but instead from a shift of who occupies those roles. Ultimately we need more Intersectional Professionals in power, because that’s the only way we can actually redefine the spaces we work in. 

In my view, changing practice and policy to reflect the unique needs of Intersectional Professionals will only happen if we have more of us in leadership roles, including elected officials as well as non-profit and public sector leaders. We can’t rely on people who haven’t had lived experience with these systems to learn about what changes need to be made, or to become motivated to pursue those changes. Instead we have to find ways to seize the reins and set a new agenda. Similarly, if we want to change the standards around knowledge production so that the academy produces scholarship that reflects our lived experiences - both what counts as knowledge and what are acceptable methods to produce it - then we need more Intersectional Professionals in the academic world, setting the research agenda, doing the applied and theoretical work, innovating on methodology, and exploring epistemological questions. As the adage goes, we have to be the change in the world we want to see. 

OK, so how do we get there? The Experts By Experience paper argues that outcomes can be improved by leveraging lived experience in policy and program design and implementation. I won’t recap all the evidence here, you can go read the paper and decide for yourself. However, if the evidence is in any way compelling to you, it raises the question of why we don’t do more community-driven work. My conclusion is that we avoid it not because we don’t have the right knowledge, but instead because we don’t have the will to marshall the necessary resources. So how do we change our collective will, and get resources to flow differently? One answer is tied to one of the Network’s three outcomes - influence - we can achieve different outcomes if we accumulate enough power to pursue these changes ourselves, rather than relying on sympathetic allies. This brings us back to the idea that we need more of us in key roles in the organizations that direct, fund, and provide services that affect our communities. But of course, many of us are already in those roles, but are quiet about our lived experience. So, as a best next step, I am hoping that we can get more Intersectional Professionals to “come out” publicly as people with lived experience, and then commit to helping the next generation of Intersectional Professionals get onto leadership glide paths through mentoring, professional sponsorship, and the like. Those of us who are committed to improving outcomes can’t wait for people to make room for us, so let’s bring our own seats to the table, and then make more room for the folks coming behind us.