Our antiracism initiatives…
Accessibility and inclusion are core NARIX values and are an active area of focus for us. We are proud of the progress we’ve made, but we know we still have a long way to go and we are committed to doing the work to make our organization and events more inclusive.
Because of a series of racial microaggressions at our Montreal event in July 2024, we are currently focusing on making NARIX better for Black attendees. We approach that work from an antiracist perspective: we believe it is not enough for NARIX to not be racist, but that we need to be actively working to dismantle the racism that pervades our organization, our attendees, and our world.
This post discusses our antiracist initiatives. We’ll begin by reviewing the policies and projects that were in place for our Montreal event and then discuss three new initiatives that we launched as a result of what happened in Montreal.
We want to note that while we are currently particularly focused on antiracism, we continue to work on making NARIX more inclusive of many different identities. Those efforts will be the topic of a future post.
Existing projects
Our inclusion efforts have evolved as our organizational capacity has increased, and as we learn from experience. Going into the Montreal event, we had five inclusion initiatives that are relevant to antiracism:
Tracking attendee demographics
NARIX is the North American Rope Innovation eXchange, and we want our events to represent the full diversity of North America. We know we fall short of that goal in many ways, including racial diversity. We track and publish the demographics of our attendees as a way of holding ourselves accountable, and as a tool for focusing on the areas that most need improvement. You can read our NARIX by the Numbers posts for:
Affinity group meetups
Affinity group meetups play an important role in making NARIX more inclusive. At our Montreal event in July 2024, we had an official BIPOC meetup (as well as meetups for 5 other groups: men tying men, trans folks, older folks in rope, ace/aro folks, and fat folks). These meetups have been met with a lot of positivity, as well as suggestions as to when/where to better hold them in order to smoothly integrate them into our attendees experience. We will continue to offer them as long as attendees want them.
Automatic admission
NARIX is a popular event and we have many more applicants than spaces, so we use a lottery system to determine who is invited to attend each event (see our current application process writing for details).
Because certain groups are under-represented at NARIX, members of those groups skip the lottery and are automatically invited to attend if their applications are accepted. For the Montreal event as well as our upcoming Austin event in December 2024, every accepted applicant who identified as BIPOC skipped the lottery and was invited to attend.
Neck rope policy
Because neck rope is triggering for some Black folks, we restrict neck rope at our events. The neck rope policies that were in force in Montreal were as follows:
Neck rope that is part of an integrated harness (like over-the-shoulder straps) is welcome in all of the tying spaces.
Neck rope that is not an integrated part of a harness (like finishing your upline with some light choking) is only welcome in the party space for more edgy play.
Neck rope that consists only of a single column tied around the neck and up to the point (resembling a noose) is not allowed in any of the spaces during this event.
We understand that some attendees don’t like this policy, and responded negatively to it in Montreal. We’ve heard this feedback, and reviewed the policy, and ultimately we came to the decision that we’re keeping it.
What we heard from some Black attendees at LA and Montreal is that the image of rope around the neck in the United States stands as a constant reminder of their 2nd class status, the destruction of the family unit, and the traumatic loss of life through violence. Ultimately, it is in our values to acknowledge that history and enforce this policy, in the liminal space that is a weekend at NARIX.
Building bridges with the Mexican rope community
NARIX has historically been disconnected from the Mexican rope community: we have never held an event in Mexico and we have had few if any Mexican attendees. As part of our commitment to representing all of North America, we have begun building bridges with the Mexican rope community and gave automatic acceptance to every Mexican applicant for our upcoming Austin event. Within two years, we hope to hold our first event in Mexico with the help of the local Mexican rope community.
New commitments
At our Montreal event in July 2024, Black attendees experienced numerous racial microaggressions. You may have read about their experiences, which have been posted on FetLife and Instagram. We are choosing not to link to their accounts so that they are not inundated with new comments or asked to do any more labor on behalf of NARIX, but many of those writings are still available online.
Those experiences made it clear that NARIX needs to do a much better job of being inclusive of Black attendees in particular. In the aftermath of that event, we had many discussions within our organization, with the people who experienced harm in Montreal, and with many BIPOC members of the rope community. As a result of those conversations, we have committed to three concrete actions:
Actively removing problematic topics from the board
NARIX uses an unconference format where anyone can post session topics on the suggestion board. In Montreal, several problematic sessions were posted—while they were never held, the suggestions remained in place for the whole event.
We have committed to creating a formal policy for removing problematic suggestions by the end of September.
BIPOC leadership
Over the last few years, NARIX leadership has varied between 1/3 and 2/3 BIPOC. We are currently at the low end of that range as we have added steering committee members, with 2 BIPOC steering committee members out of 6.
This has been something that the current steering committee has been acutely aware of, and with our current/potential pool of volunteers, leaders, and connections in the rope community across North America, we feel we can start to make leadership additions to reflect the diversity that we want to see.
We have committed to reaching and maintaining at least 50% BIPOC leadership.
Antiracism question
Events in Montreal made it clear that it isn’t sufficient for us to welcome and support Black attendees—we also need to work to ensure that the event is actively an inclusive environment when they arrive. This means that every person who attends our events will need to support inclusion, rather than undermine it.
We have committed to putting a question about antiracism on the application for Austin and future events.
You can read more about that question, how we implement the concerns that have been raised about it, and how we will be improving on future applications here.
