Community change almost never proceeds in a straight line from assessment, to planning, to action, to the changes one hopes for. There are always things that go wrong, competing priorities that draw resources and attention to slow the work, and the need to pause, reflect, rethink and move forward. In racial equity work, however, a group can also anticipate that the work, if it is successful, will be troubling to many of the individuals who benefit from current power arrangements, and disruptive to institutions and organizations that want to move forward in new ways. Even very positive changes face resistance, sometimes from those who stand to benefit in the long run, when they alter current relationships of power in the short run.

Resistance, as used here, refers to the actions (or inactions) that people use to slow work that is threatening to them in some way. Retrenchment refers to a phenomenon in which racial j [...]