Hi everyone, there is an economic blackout from 11/28 to 12/5 in protest of fascism and corporate greed, so please avoid spending money on those days, as well as avoid streaming services, social media, and AI stuff as much as you can. If you need to buy something, support local small businesses and pay in cash if you can.
This week is Thanksgiving, a day full of misconceptions and steeped in anti-Indigeneity, even by well-meaning colleagues. I highly encourage everyone read this article “In a season of rampant anti-Indigeneity, here are some things you should and shouldn’t do to be pro-Indigenous” by Chris Talbot, and then donate to Indigenous organizations, movements, and individuals.
While we’re on the topic of gratitude, every once a while I hear about people preaching about the importance of having an “attitude of gratitude.” Fundraisers will talk about it in the context of always showing appreciation to donors and funders. Leaders will mention it in terms of staff happiness and retention. Self-care experts will tout it as a way to avoid burnout. Gratitude is great and an appreciative approach has been shown to be effective in all sorts of way, so what sort of ugly, no-good, two-bit, ornery curmudgeon would be against it?
That’s where I come in!
OK, fine, I’m not against gratitude necessarily. I like getting thank-you notes and texts, and I often write them to people, sometimes to thank them for the lovely thank-you note they sent me. And I like starting and ending my day thinking of things I’m thankful for.
But like with everything else, oftentimes people advocate for things (especially things that rhyme and are catchy), without really considering the dynamics around them. I don’t like the concept of attitude of gratitude because there’s all sorts of problems with it, including:
It is often one-sided. Who is expected to be grateful? In our sector, it’s usually the people who need money to do stuff being expected to constantly be appreciative of those who have money. Except for employers being encouraged to be grateful to their team, I rarely see encouragement of those who have more power and resources to be appreciative of those who have less.
It allows for injustice to be glossed over. Training some people to always be grateful and others to always expect to be thanked means we often pave over deeper and more uncomfortable conversations about wealth hoarding, tax avoidance, stolen Indigenous land, worker exploitation, colonization, slavery, genocide, and other forms of injustice that make our work necessary in the first place.
It reinforces notions and feelings around “dependency.” We have a deeply embedded idea in the sector that nonprofits shouldn’t be “dependent” on funders and donors, manifesting in inane questions like “how will you sustain this program what this grant/donation runs out?” The attitude of gratitude just further entrenches this ridiculous idea.
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