DD&I Statement of Beliefs

working-docs/statement-of-beliefs.md

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+This document is licensed [Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, "CC BY 4.0 license")
+
+## We believe that all communities have values.
+These values can be implicit or explicit. It's important to us to make our values and priorities clear.
+
+## We believe in [intersectionality](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, "Intersectionality").
+There are many intersecting oppressions in society today. Some of them can make it difficult for people to take part in open source communities. We oppose excluding people due to racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, islamophobia and class, as a non-exhaustive list. We seek to amplify the voices of those affected by oppressions. We also want to create safer spaces in the Drupal community where individuals can work and grow.
+
+## We believe in the power of community.
+Individuals can work together to make communities better or worse. We choose to work with and within Drupal spaces to make them safer and more inclusive for people who identify as members of systemically oppressed groups. We do the majority of our work in public and we are a group of volunteers from the community. We strive to showcase and support work that improves the community. We work to make our community stronger by helping community members become better at recognizing and fostering inclusion.
+
+## We believe in accountability.
+The actions we take within our community matter. We are accountable for our actions and words that harm others. We support individual accountability. We will take personal responsibility for our actions and correct our mistakes. We support community accountability through codes of conduct. These codes of conduct must be strong and explicit. And we must have a defined mechanism for responding to violations to the code of conduct. The Drupal community is part of a broader open source community and an even broader technological community. We support individuals being accountable for their actions everywhere that community exists.
+
+## We believe in [praxis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process), "Praxis").
+Theory without action is meaningless. We provide opportunities for education for community members about topics they aren't aware of. Topics such as intersectionality, systemic oppression, and the movements against oppression. We give presentations, create documentation, share information, and have conversations. As we engage members to learn more, we also provide them with strategies to take action in their own lives and opportunities to get involved in our work.
+
+## We believe in inclusion.
+We advocate for inclusive and safe spaces. All events, spaces (online and physical), projects, and artifacts (like documentation) should be accessible.  Some things are often left out of accommodations like a prayer room, a lactation room, translation and closed-captioning, venues that are physically accessible, and childcare. We also advocate for proactive efforts through event design and speaker selection to ensure a diverse speaker lineup.
+
+## We believe in visibility.
+We must be present, vocal and steadfast if we want to improve the health and safety of the Drupal community. It is not enough to believe everyone should feel safe in our community. It is necessary to support that belief with praxis (action). We must stand in solidarity with those around us and challenge ourselves to be more vocal advocates. To help with this, we support training and capacity building for individuals. We support them in learning more about systemic oppression and its effect both on people and the technologies we build.
+
+## The purpose of this document.
+We would like to be clear about what we stand for and how this can be seen in our work. There are several reasons for this: so that participants in the DD&I initiative can act by these values; new members can determine if they feel aligned with our values; and we can make value-aligned strategic decisions. We further believe that all actions we take - as technology workers and as humans - are both embedded with values and a manifestation of the values that we hold.
+
+We believe all of the above is what drives us to continue working. We hope to make Drupal a safer, more inclusive and demographically representative space. As these beliefs evolve, we’ll update this document and discuss the impact of those changes on the daily work that we do.
+
+
+### The text above is distilled into a shorter mission statement that you can use to talk about us:
+The Drupal Diversity & Inclusion Group (DD&I) believes that the Drupal community should be a safe, respectful and inclusive space for all participants. We believe that the Drupal project benefits from a diverse contribution pool and we strive to foster a welcoming and inclusive culture everywhere Drupal exists - at events, online, and in our workplaces. DD&I is a collective of volunteers that works to foster a network of individuals dedicated to equitable access and to create an inclusive infrastructure to ensure everyone has the opportunity to participate and contribute.