Owed,
Not Earned

Inclusion safety is the first stage of psychological safety. It is not a reward for the worthy, and not a prize you win. It is the baseline we owe one another simply for being here.

Be human.
Be harmless.

Meet both and you are in · that is the whole qualification

No litmus test

Not your diagnosis, your speech, your output, your history, or how easily others can make sense of you. There is no audition at this threshold.

Worth, not worthiness

Worth is a thing you have, entire, already. Worthiness is no one's to weigh at the door — and if it is ever anyone's business, it is not here.

The one disqualifier

Acceptance is owed to everyone. So is safety from harm — and harm is the single thing that can cost you your place. Not your way of being. Only harm.

“Inclusion safety is not earned but owed. Every human has title to it as a nonnegotiable right.”

Timothy R. Clark · The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, 2020 · Stage 1

the full creed:
starstuff.earth/inclusion-safety-creed
print freely · share freely · CC BY-SA 4.0

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Stimpunks Foundation × More Realms the whole of it

Broadside · Open edition
Side B of B

The creed

i · the whole of itHere is the whole of it, before anything else: your place among us is not a prize you win. It is yours because you are here.

ii · worth before worthinessWe will not audition you. Inclusion is a judgment about your worth — which you have, entire, already — not a verdict on your worthiness, which is no one's to weigh at the door.

iii · be human, be harmlessWhat does it take to qualify? Two things. Meet both and you are in. We say the second part out loud, because a welcome that tolerated harm would betray the very people it exists to keep safe.

iv · the binding thingRead Douglass for every characteristic, not race alone. When we include one another, we set our differences beneath a deeper, common thing — and agree that the common thing matters more.

v · older than humanityThe common thing beneath our differences is older than humanity. You, and we, and everyone at this door were made in the same stars — the same hydrogen from the same beginning, the same calcium and iron from the same dying giants. Kinship is not a courtesy we extend to you. It is the material you are made of.

vi · come inSo: if you have flesh and blood, we accept you. If you are made of stars — and you are — you are already one of us. Come in. Rest. You are owed this.

“I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity.”

Frederick Douglass · Our Composite Nationality · Boston, 7 December 1869

The four doors

Inclusion is the first of four. Beyond it lie the freedom to learn, to contribute, and to challenge the status quo — but none of them open until this one does. So we hold this one open first, and for everyone.

You do not have to earn your way in. You were ★stuff all along.

The four stages, the definitions, and the quoted lines are Timothy R. Clark's, from The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2020) — the inclusion-safety material is Stage 1, including “if you have flesh and blood, we accept you,” the worth-before-worthiness distinction, and be human and harmless as the qualification. Frederick Douglass's line is his own, from Our Composite Nationality, delivered in Boston on 7 December 1869 (the Library of Congress manuscript is catalogued 1867). The move past common humanity to common origin — that belonging is constitutive because we are made of the same star stuff — is ours.

the full creed and every source:
starstuff.earth/inclusion-safety-creed · stimpunks.org · morerealms.com
print freely · share freely · CC BY-SA 4.0

Owed,Not Earned

Owed,
Not Earned