Helping Others Unlearn Dominator Culture
“Caminante, no hay puentes, se hacen puentes al andar.” (Traveler, there are no bridges, you make bridges as you walk.) -Gloria E. Anzaldúa
Resisting and unlearning the habits of dominator culture leads to authentic community engagement and significant rewards. This includes clarity on your wants and needs, more fulfilling relationships, and improved discernment of value alignment in connections with others. But identifying the ways our own organizations or research practices contain aspects of dominant culture is a complex, iterative process that is essential to dismantling oppressive systems.
That’s why we break down and teach skills and strategies needed to transform ourselves, our organizations, and our communities in our Equity in Action coaching and training work. When processing how the characteristics of dominator culture are impacting our lives, we ask partners to consider the following questions:
Do your values match your strategies? Why or why not?
How comfortable are you with being uncomfortable?
What is the connection between where you are in your self-awareness journey and the impact you are having in the world?
Dr. Lewis
When I meet with potential partners, I find that I say “no” much more than I say “yes.” The reason is simple: most organizations’ values do not align with their strategies for social change. Oftentimes, this misalignment is paired with internal ruptures and tensions amongst staff and leaders about the organization’s investment in community and social justice. In the end, pursuing a partnership without values alignment would cause more harm to the communities the partner claims they want to support.
This is why RIA created the Equity in Action Way organizational leadership training. Habits of dominator culture often get in the way of building impactful partnerships. Learning how to resist that culture is an integral part of establishing trust with communities harmed by the legacies of systemic racism.
“Habits of dominator culture often get in the way of building impactful partnerships. Learning how to resist that culture is an integral part of establishing trust with communities harmed by the legacies of systemic racism.”
But what are the elements of dominator culture? Well, it’s the characteristics of white supremacy culture and the norms that it has created and instilled in our culture. These norms impact all of us, regardless of our race, ethnicity, or gender. At the start of our EIAW training, partners often have the hardest time discussing the ways dominator culture operates – often unconsciously – within and impacts their own organizations.
For instance, one norm of white supremacy culture is “objectivity and quantity over quality.” Though quantitative data is valuable for understanding particular facets of a social justice issue, when dominator culture is in effect, privileging quantitative data over qualitative data—such as personal interviews, focus groups, or historical accounts—undermines the necessity of listening to the lived experiences of people who are experiencing harms caused by injustice. In contrast to white supremacy culture, at RIA we believe that those most directly impacted by the problem are the best experts to identify actionable, sustainable and transformative solutions.
Another facet of white supremacy culture is “Fear of open conflict, and right to comfort.” A common example of this is when leaders or staffers shut down discussion when discomfort arises and accuse community members who raise issues of being rude or confrontational. Those with more relative privilege or positional power often feel implicated and suggest the process in causing or creating harmful outcomes. Instead of believing and receiving and showing care or concerns with a willingness to hear them out, those in positions of power silence the truth because of how it makes them or their work appear.
We work with participants to develop alternatives to these norms, but the only way to do that is to first give them space to acknowledge and share how these norms show up in their lives, personally and professionally. This is a transformative process where peers get to understand each other’s different realities while also creating the building blocks of developing new organizational practices.
We recognize that partners balance personal commitments to liberation, but are met with institutional responsibilities that may reinforce the status quo of whiteness. Seeing partners as individuals belonging to multiple, sometimes conflicting communities helps us approach them with an understanding of how power manifests and impacts the day-to-day rather than seeing our partners as singular representatives of their institutions.
“Seeing partners as individuals belonging to multiple, sometimes conflicting communities helps us approach them with an understanding of how power manifests and impacts the day-to-day rather than seeing our partners as singular representatives of their institutions.”
When partners begin exhibiting those dominator culture practices that impact a project or community, our role as leaders is to pause, reflect, and reorganize. We ask how organizational mandates are constraining a partnership, and whether the individual partner recognizes how this affects the communities we serve.
Partnerships do not end when someone embodies the characteristics of their institution. The greater challenge arises when partners fail to recognize how their individual and organizational actions perpetuate white supremacy. Our task as RIA leaders is to meet this by supporting growth, deepening awareness, and protecting collective well-being while uplifting impacted communities. And we do this by building bridges, walking alongside partners as they navigate these tensions while holding to our shared commitments that were nurtured during our earlier partnership steps.
Dr. Bolton
It’s not always easy to admit, but BIPOC people can also reproduce white supremacy. We don’t just see it in laws, policies, or institutions: it shows up in how we treat one another inside our own organizations and communities. That’s a painful truth, but naming it is the first step to doing something about it.
I’ve seen this happen in subtle ways, like how we police each other’s appearance. Hair, for example, carries so much weight. Locs or kinky curls are often judged as “unprofessional,” while straight hair is celebrated as clean, polished, or “work appropriate.” Those judgments don’t only come from white colleagues; they can also come from within our own communities.
The same is true of speech and tone. If someone speaks with slang, a heavy accent, or more expression than the so-called “professional” standard allows, they may be viewed as less capable or less deserving of respect. This kind of tone policing doesn’t just silence people; it erases the cultural richness of how we naturally show up in the world.
I’ve also noticed how colorism creeps in. Lighter skin is still often privileged over darker skin, even among Black and Brown folks. That proximity to whiteness, whether its complexion, hair texture, or speech, becomes a kind of currency. And those who don’t fit narrow ideas of what it means to be “Black enough” or “Brown enough” are sometimes pushed aside or labeled outsiders. The reality is that being Black or Brown is not a monolith. But when we hold each other to stereotypes, we recreate the very same exclusion we’re trying to resist.
“Those who don’t fit narrow ideas of what it means to be “Black enough” or “Brown enough” are sometimes pushed aside or labeled outsiders. The reality is that being Black or Brown is not a monolith. But when we hold each other to stereotypes, we recreate the very same exclusion we’re trying to resist.”
Alongside BIPOC people, white colleagues may also reproduce white supremacy. They often mean well but end up recentering themselves. I’ve been in rooms where people of color shared vulnerable stories of trauma, only to have a white colleague respond with tears. Their empathy might be real, but it quickly shifts the focus from the person who shared to managing the emotions of the white person. The same dynamic shows up in white saviorism, where the drive to “help” is less about what BIPOC communities actually need and more about alleviating white guilt. What’s left is a story where white people become the heroes, instead of centering those most impacted.
Another dynamic we rarely name is how often white people avoid calling out each other’s harmful behavior. Instead of intervening when racism shows up, many lean on being “objective” or “neutral.” Underneath, it’s often fear of conflict. But neutrality in the face of harm is not neutrality. It’s complicity. This silence protects comfort over justice, leaving BIPOC colleagues to carry the weight of naming and addressing what’s wrong.
All of this shows how deeply white supremacy is embedded, not just around us, but within us. The work, then, is twofold: to challenge predominantly white institutions and systems, and to interrogate the ways we carry those systems inside ourselves. Liberation requires disrupting silence, complicity, and internalized oppression so that we can honor the full, unapologetic diversity of who we are.
Dr. Mejia
As a recovering academic who engages with intersectionality both theoretically and personally, I understand white supremacy as a system of power and domination that permeates all aspects of social life: institutions, cultural norms, and relationships. As we navigate these systems, our choices are often shaped or constrained by them, sometimes in conflict with our values.
At RIA, we created a statement of nuance to understand how all of us (our team, participants, and partners) embody, internalize, resist, or navigate white supremacy. This statement acknowledges that anti-racism and liberatory practices are complex and rarely perfected on the first attempt (or the seventh). We also recognize that partners face competing demands when considering collaboration with RIA, such as the conflict between the personal values of an individual working for the state and the processes of that very system; the power imbalances between stakeholders; and funding constraints.
At RIA, we are also practicing these values—and sometimes we struggle. I have found that our closeness as a team can prevent us from “calling in” our peers because we fear it will cause harm. This often results in one or two team members carrying unnecessary weight or responsibilities that can lead to burnout.
“At RIA, we are also practicing these values—and sometimes we struggle. I have found that our closeness as a team can prevent us from “calling in” our peers because we fear it will cause harm. This often results in one or two team members carrying unnecessary weight or responsibilities that can lead to burnout.”
I also see a discomfort in our team using authority as scholars or as managers, because we see it as dominating, which is actually not true. We must be confident, leading with our strengths and making them accessible to our teams and community leaders while also ensuring the best decisions are being made for the greatest impact. This will mean that at RIA, we will disagree about the approach, and that someone must step up to lead with their expertise—not to shut down the possibilities that others present, but to move the work forward. Hopefully, we have built enough trust among us for others to respect our decision and expertise, even if they disagree on the specifics.
When people are not practiced in recognizing how dominator culture influences their lives and impacts others around them, that is when disagreement or conflict arises. It is a humbling process that is just as much about one’s own personal growth as it is about one’s professional impact. However, we were conditioned to believe that there is and should be a clear distinction between these two elements, resisting what crossing those borders would teach us about our true impact and purpose.
In fact, many of us are getting in our own way by not embracing vulnerability and discomfort, because that is where the most powerful growth comes from. That would mean abandoning or reimagining ways of knowing that our previous selves clung to to make sense of who we thought we were or needed to be in the world.
In this way, dominator culture keeps us from liberation.