Meet Hollis, CAP's New Deputy Director of Equity & Inclusion!
Hello!
My name is Hollis Kinner (he/him) and I am CAP’s new Deputy Director of Equity & Inclusion. I am beyond thrilled (and humbled!) to be in this important position and to be part of a nonprofit that’s been a decades-long staple in the region for people living with HIV and AIDS. HIV work has been dear to my heart for several years; that passion has been demonstrated through my volunteerism at various Walk for AIDS events, through participation on an HIV Planning Council, through an internship with an organization that supports the HIV community, through World AIDS Day programming in my previous position, and through my academic studies in the behavioral sciences and in social work.
I also have a strong interest in organizational change, specifically regarding racial equity and including other diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI) topics. So, when I saw the marketing for this position in late summer 2021, I knew it was absolutely perfect for what I was seeking. I wanted to be part of an organization that passionately works to improve peoples’ lives and thus local communities. I also wanted to be part of an agency that understands that it has its own work to do to become more inclusive and equitable, both internally and externally.
As a Black male who navigates this world with a strong understanding of intersectionality and with multiple marginalized identities in their own right, I’ve always been interested in equity work. And due to my own lived experiences of not fully being accepted in communities I belong to without abandoning aspects of my whole self at the door,
I’ve always had a keen eye that helps me pinpoint things crucial to systems-level work. I’m always pondering such questions as, “Who is in the room and who is missing?” “Why are they not here?” “Who is taking up space and to whose expense?” “Was/is this process equitable?” “How are marginalized and historically excluded people, in essence people of color, being included, supported, and valued?” “How is power and privilege operating here? To whose benefit? To whose expense?” These are some of the questions that propel the work that I do.
My professional background is pretty diverse regarding equity work. For most of my career, I worked in special education public classrooms teaching and supporting students with an array of different abilities. Most recently, I also worked in higher education where I mentored and advocated for trans and queer students with an emphasis on supporting trans and queer students of color. To me, this was equity work within equity work. During my time at Portland State’s Queer Resource Center, our team worked endlessly to implement a new culture that created a welcoming, supportive, and representative environment within our center for PSU’s students of color who are also trans and/or queer (QTBIPOC). For years (before my time there), students existing at this intersection have reported not being able to access the center, its programs, resources, support services, and staff due to not feeling welcome, experiencing covert and overt racism, and not seeing themselves reflected in the environment. It was important for me to help visibilize these students who had been invisibilized and harmed for so many years within our center, across campus, and within the larger city. After holding a series of focus groups and going through survey data, I introduced a “Leading with Race’ (learn more here) framework to the center, meaning all of our discussions and decision-making now had race at the forefront. Using this framework to increase accessibility for our QTBIPOC students, we revamped our hiring practices, reassessed our community relationships to prioritize partnerships with BIPOC, created new budget values, made our physical space more representative and inclusive, created new QTBIPOC leadership opportunities, and restructured our programming, to name a few action steps.
And through consultation, I also introduced the Leading with Race framework to a local nonprofit as I supported their organizational change efforts to advance racial equity and larger DEI topics within their agency. This work included assessing various stakeholders, departments, and areas of their organization through a series of focus groups and surveys, which culminated in the agency’s first racial equity assessment report.
I have so much excitement and enthusiasm for both this work and my new journey with you all at CAP. I’m also committed to building on the great work of my predecessor, Déja Fitzgerald. I see two things super critical to this work, and the first is building relationships and making genuine connections. Starting here is important to foster trust, learning, vulnerability, accountability, and an understanding of lived experiences. Without any of these things this collective work will be hindered and change will be deferred. The second thing is simply having process awareness. I’m very process-oriented, as the process is where people get lost, withdrawn, and/or harmed, and these things may occur when people are not feeling heard, valued, or included. It’s important to be clear that this work has no final destination. Equity work has no ending. The process is ongoing and must continuously be fostered, cultivated, nurtured, and reassessed. Additionally, the work will not be easy. But I’m convinced that the work will be meaningful, impactful, and will get us to a point where it is sustainable.
I pledge to be collaborative, inclusive, and accessible as we embark on this journey together to increase capacity for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) together at CAP. The internal pursuit of JEDI connects to our external pursuit of it. I’d like to extend an open invitation for anyone and everyone to connect with me. I’m the type of person who learns through my conversations and interactions. Please feel free to email me at hkinner@capnw.org as I would love to connect with you too!
Be well,
Hollis Kinner
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