When acts of kindness and calls for civility are fueled by social, economic, and racial privilege, these acts are often more about doing just enough to keep the status quo and not about transformative change for those who are experiencing struggle.

Kindness is not a journey for the meek and mild. For those of us who have been steeped in ways of being that are not kind, it takes tremendous energy to purge ourselves of patterns and behaviors that are not kind. Every day we have to choose to commit to live out kindness that day.

Expressions of kindness in times of social change and public protest should focus on those who are seeking justice and liberation and not on the ones whose privileged worlds are being disrupted by the leveling of a social playing field or a correction in disparities of access, power, or authority.

if we honor and value the complex ways in which people engage in organizational work, we are honoring the person and showing them kindness. At the end of the day, kindness in a meeting environment is about valuing the human before us: their time, their perspectives, and their personalities.

Being nice is often about avoiding conflict, letting inappropriate actions slide, or bottling up words and actions that ought to be spoken and enacted to prevent creating an uncomfortable scene. At its worst, being nice reinforces actions and attitudes that strip away human dignity.

Risk stepping into the mess because, more times than not, on the other side of the tension there are new beginnings, strengthened relationships, and the knowledge that conflict is not something to avoid, but a means to a deeper, stronger, and kinder world.

Kindness is not just the absence of being mean or hateful. Being kind entails actively resisting actions, ideas, and institutions that rob others of dignity.

There will always be injustice in the world, because, you know, humans. The question is how we will choose to respond to the injustice around us.

Without the voices from the edges publicly demanding, wailing, and protesting, institutions and systems that engage in exclusionary, oppressive, or marginalizing practices continue to operate with apathy or impunity. Destructive systems do not change themselves, and those working for change within these systems can’t do it alone.