Happy Lunar New Year! The Fakequity team sends you well-wishes during the Chinese Year of the Fire Monkey. For many this is a time of the year where we look at our Chinese animal horoscopes and plan for the year ahead. Depending on the website you read you may either get a glowing prediction for the year or something draconian such as “If you are born in the year of the Horse you better buckle down and work hard because the year of the Monkey brings unexpected changes and you’ll lose all your money.”

We give you the Fakequity “Ally Organization” Lunar New Year Horoscope, or maybe it is Fakequity Horrorscope. Think of the wheel like the traditional 12 animals of the Chinese Horoscope. If your organizational practices fall into one of these Fakequity “Ally Organization” categories your fortune will be shown to you. The predictions are just predictions; will you and your organization fall victim to the prediction or work towards determining your own racial equity minded destiny? Your organization’s year is in your hands. The fortunes can be mitigated if you do the hard work of engaging with the community, using a racial equity lens, centering work in communities of color, continuing to learn about race and equity, and calling out fakequity.

Being a genuine racial equity ally organization is challenging, and the Fakequity team hopes that these predictions open up conversations for ally organizations to recognize and then quickly work to change (or avoid) some of these typical fakequity ally organizational practices. Missteps and challenges are part of this work, and because ally organizations are closer to power and control the (unintentional) blunders feel especially painful, and actually continue to uphold systems of racial inequity. While these predictions are focused on racial equity ally organizations, they can also be applied to other equity areas.

The predictions brought to you by Heidi S. of Equity Matters, Dr. Christine N. (who has a knack at reconfiguring words and serves as an honorary member of the Fakequity team), CiKeithia, and Erin. Leave a comment and tell us what you think of your predictions. If you would like a PDF emailed to you please contact fakequity@gmail.com.