Update & Signal Boost: Dhobi ki Kutti

[endotwracism]

Two weeks ago we uplifted two posts from Dhobi ki Kutti, a fan of color and OTW volunteer, that recount the retaliation she's experienced at the hands of OTW leadership for speaking out against racism within the organization. One post shared a Constructive Corrective Action Procedure (CCAP) letter from OTW Chairs that reads as a blatant attempt to silence her. The other demanded the suspension of OTW Board Member Alex Tischer for their repeated racist remarks. Tischer has since resigned from the Board, along with Antonius Melisse and Natalia Gruber.

Kutti's latest post Racism within the OTW goes into further detail about her experiences as a volunteer, and the racism she's witnessed and been subjected to:

In 2020, when I asked the OTW Board to document the conversation around #BlackLivesMatter, and racism, and they put it off, I started gathering evidence. I had an idea of writing a report, a thorough, researched, documented argument that could prove to anyone without a vested interest in denying it, that the Organisation for Transformative Works was infected, from top to bottom, with structural racism.

This post is not that report. I had not intended to become active in the org because I had already learned that it was futile, but in May 2023 I saw fellow and ex volunteers being abused by a hostile management, and there was no way I could keep quiet about it. I focussed on victim advocacy, and on uncovering facts by asking questions in public, so that there was a documentation that other volunteers could look towards. In the process, I became a target of the kind of relentless racialised microaggressions that wear you down, no matter how prepared you are. And then of course the org decided to escalate with the macro aggression of sending me a CCAP, the kind of blatantly racist written proof that, to anyone outside the org, was a piece of evidence beyond any doubt.

We here at End OTW Racism offer Dhobi ki Kutti our full support and will continue to push the OTW to address the racism within its organization. You can read dhobikikutti's full post here on Dreamwidth.