An Apology to Aros of Color and Dedication to Doing Better
We want to begin with an apology and official statement acknowledging that our actions in regards to developing racial diversity within AUREA have been inadequate. Being an inclusive and equal resource is important to us. However, we have not done enough for aromantics of color. As such, we would like to formally apologize.
We are grateful for the feedback that we have been given recently, which helped us to move in direction that we believe is right. Thank you for speaking up and for your dedication to the community. With the feedback, we have determined areas that need improvement. Each area is supplemented with action items that we are working on implementing.
Lack of Racial Diversity on the Main Team
All the members of our main team are white. This presents a representation issue when it comes to talking about the intersection of race and aromanticism, where we relied on contributors’ voices or risked filtering information through a white lens. We want to change that and enable aros of color to help manage AUREA’s resources.
AUREA has committed to the following action items to address this issue:
Expanding the main team
Defining clear responsibilities and requirements for new positions on our Get Involved page
Launching a targeted recruitment campaign for positions on the main team
Reaching out to aromantics of color to recruit for the main team in addition to open recruitment that we feel would be a good fit
Contacting our current volunteers to ensure they are up-to-date on the situation so they can make an informed decision on whether to continue working with us
Requesting feedback regularly from volunteers and the community to ensure that we continue to represent and provide resources for every demographic
Insufficient Transparency
AUREA’s plans for events, articles, and internal organization have not previously been shared. The reality is that months could pass between an idea being born and it being publicized.
Our communication about what we are doing to address our racial diversity issues is relevant too. We have only responded when asked and the responses lacked concrete information.
AUREA has committed to the following action items to address this issue:
Reviewing our Public Relations (PR) policies and integrating greater transparency, for example, giving a timeframe when a change suggested to us may be implemented, and including more of our plans in the monthly What’s Going On articles
Drafting and publishing a Policies page that outlines all of AUREA’s policies, including explanations of how and when we respond to feedback
Adding a permanent feedback form to the Contact page alongside our contact email
Insufficient Intervention in Response to Feedback
Some of our projects aimed at intervention and redevelopment in AUREA’s operations, while started with good intentions, have not been enough.
Members of aro communities have expressed frustration with AUREA’s team answering too slowly to matters broached on various forums. While the slow response time is due to the main team being small and all volunteer with full-time occupations, we do not want to settle for one-time statements and articles that are predominantly authored by the AUREA team as it is now.
AUREA has committed to the following action items to address this issue:
Incorporating more contributor-authored pieces and series into the News Feed
Introducing comments on all of our future News Feed pieces once we recruit dedicated comment moderators
Expanding our team in order to better attend to interventions and feedback, as outlined in the Lack of Racial Diversity on the Main Team section
Drafting and incorporating a permanent statement on equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice to be posted in multiple places on our website onto the website footer
Communicating more transparently about our operations, as outlined in the Insufficient Transparency section
We are deeply committed to allyship and making amends. We would like this official statement to serve as a record that the team and the community can look back on to keep us accountable.
If you have any additional feedback, whether now or in the future, please contact us.