In The Spirit of Loving Accountability

Because... "I'm rooting for everybody Black" Ain't Always Enough

“In the spirit of Loving Accountability…”

The first time I used this phrase, was in my closing to a letter I wrote to two Black women, almost three years ago to the date. The posture of that letter was one of genuine inquiry and curiosity—rooted in love, but not without questions. Questions that called attention to the gap between espoused values and observed actions.

In other words: “Fam, you ain’t practicing what you preaching. And ion like that. Let’s talk.”

It’s always been heavy on the loving, though.

Why? I’m acutely aware of the ways our systems and culture often extend less grace to Black bodies. Shame, scapegoating, and public opinion are often used to undermine our humanity. They make it difficult—sometimes even unsafe—for us to make mistakes.

Layer on top of that the intergenerational (and often trauma-induced) weight of exceptionalism (“Don’t embarrass us now!”) and perfectionism (“You gotta work twice as hard!”), and the act of holding each other accountable when we perpetuate harm? It gets complicated at best, perceived as a form of cultural betrayal, at worst.

And yet—we deserve better.

Better ways of honoring our humanity, while also owning when we’ve fallen short.
Better ways of contextualizing our behaviors—good, bad, and complicated—within history, trauma, and our own cultural ways of being.
Better ways of holding each other to a standard of BEing that reflects our most loving and liberated selves.

The spirit of Loving Accountability, by my definition, is an invitation:

To lean into care and nuance when we, or other Black folks with whom we are in community, fall out of alignment with who we truly are and who we are called to be.

I share this definition with the understanding that there may not always be alignment on "who we truly are" or "who we are called to be." I'll use this as an opportunity to clarify what this means to me.

Where do I root my imagination of “who we are” and “who we’re called to be”?

I lean on the wisdom of Drs. Elmer & Joanne Martin, who offer a framework for the Black Helping Personality—what they observed in cultural patterns across the continent and ways of being embodied by Black freedom fighters, healers, helpers, and leaders.

According to their research, we move in alignment and wholeness (our most loving and liberated self) when we are:

Grounded in the spiritual self — connected to a power greater than this material world.
Connected to the communal self — committed to the uplift and liberation of all Black people, knowing our individual freedom is bound up in the collective.
Rooted in pride and consciousness of the racialized self — aware of systems of oppression without internalizing them, actively resisting the self- and community-hatred they try to reproduce.

This matters because the spirit of Loving Accountability, as I imagine it, requires a benchmark. A shared orientation. A vision for who we’re striving to be—not perfection, but alignment.

Where there’s alignment, the spirit of Loving Accountability becomes an invitation—an invitation to affirm, to wonder, and to return to our most loving and liberated self.

In a recent convening of Black women, I described the spirit of Loving Accountability as both a being and a doing. When we embody it, we:

HONOR our individual and collective humanity, divinity, responsibility, and agency.
NOTICE + NAME how our behaviors and experiences may be shaped by harmful systems of oppression and trauma.
COMMIT to unlearning what doesn’t serve us, remembering what is true to us, and repairing harm when it happens.

The spirit of Loving Accountability has become the lens by which I process and make meaning of ruptures, interrupt harmful narratives and navigate principled conflict in community...with care.

Consider it's application to this example:

“Black people don’t know how to support each other.”

Every time I hear it repeated, this statement makes me cringe.

And…

The spirit of Loving Accountability… HONORS that one’s individual experience is real. Maybe there have been ruptures that have occurred within community that led to the internalization of this narrative; and…
The spirit of Loving Accountability… AFFIRMS that neither Black people nor Blackness are inherently deficient; and...
The spirit of Loving Accountability… WONDERS how the conditions of colonialism and white supremacy shape our belief in scarcity—this idea that there’s only room for “one of us,” complicating our ability to work with and support each other; and...
The spirit of Loving Accountability… QUESTIONS how a culture of urgency and extraction compromises our ability to do the necessary work of building trust, ensuring values alignment, or defining right-relationship; and...
The spirit of Loving Accountability… RECLAIMS the narrative by asking: What is my role in modeling the behaviors, creating the spaces, and designing the systems that support our capacity to be in right-relationship with each other?

When we embody the spirit of Loving Accountability, we are practicing a critical inquiry and depth that honors our humanity and complexity of our experiences.

You picking up what I’m putting down?

The spirit of Loving Accountability also keeps me from over-romanticizing community, which might sound like;

“I'm rooting for everybody Black.”

“I’m partnering with them because they’re Black.”

“They’re a Black leader—it’s a Black space—so they’re beyond reproach.”

The spirit of Loving Accountability... AFFIRMS:
Yes, community and solidarity are important (especially in mixed company); and...
The spirit of Loving Accountability... WONDERS:
What shared principles and values have been named?
Where is there alignment—or misalignment?
What norms exist or have been defined to navigate the differences?
The spirit of Loving Accountability…QUESTIONS:
What harmful or imbalanced power dynamics may be at play here—dynamics that uplift the humanity of some Black bodies while undermining the humanity of other Black bodies?
The spirit of Loving Accountability…UNDERSTANDS:
Whiteness, white folks, and the shenanigans they get away with or reward were never—and are not now—our benchmark.
The spirit of Loving Accountability...SEEKS TO REPAIR:
What impact does my words, behavior, or culture I created have on others?
What is my commitment to closing the gap between who I say I am and how I be?

You still picking up what I’m putting down?

I hope so.

Because… we deserve.

In the spirit of loving accountability,

Brittany Janay