We are Corgi and Bun, a multidisciplinary creative partnership at the intersection of community, love, and decolonization.

People are complicated, messy, multifaceted, and all the more beautiful for it. Regardless of whether we’re organizing a rally, designing products and services, or gathering with friends, making sure everyone involved is seen and appreciated is the foundation that nurtures trust and grows healthy spaces for everyone.

In personal relationships, it is the difference between having that one token Black/Asian/queer friend and having a truly inclusive and diverse community. It is the difference between being an outsider advocate and being a co-conspirator.

In the workplace, it is the difference between teams that operate on a command-and-control principle and ones that harness everyone’s experiences to build in ways that are resilient and creative. It is the difference between coworkers who are checked out and those that are thriving.

But even though we know that, many diversity, equity, and inclusion programs fail at creating spaces where people who aren’t cisgendered white men can be safe and successful. Workplaces demand “culture fit,” suppressing differences and requiring employees to sacrifice their identities in order to survive. Outside of work, our personal circles continue to be insular monocultures where people must hide their true selves to feel a semblance of belonging.

Hiring diverse candidates only goes so far. Without also offering pay equity, tangible support, and real opportunities to help shape our teams’ directions and cultures, people grow frustrated and leave. Without challenging the white supremacy culture in our workplaces and homes— decolonizing all aspects of how we interact—no attempts at diversity will ever work because then all we’re doing is trying to find people who look different but think the same.

And that requires shifting the way power is structured and enabled. It requires creating new forms of leadership, some which may lack titles, that facilitate equitable contribution so everyone has agency over themselves and ownership over their work and their right to thrive. It is also about messy emotions, hard conversations, and sacrificing comfort to do inner work. It doesn’t begin or end with retweeting your favorite BIPOC hot takes.

Corgi and Bun is about understanding the power dynamics governing our spaces and exploring different frameworks and models for more equitable participation. We want to use an intersectional lens to look at how white supremacy culture permeates our communities and organizations to find interventions that can move us towards decolonization and equity.

We don’t have all the answers. We are still learning and iterating on our own processes. What we write here are works in progress, not finished ideas to be carved into stone. Our priority is to show our thought processes, our methods, and how we approach different contexts rather than laying out hard rules.

But Corgi and Bun isn’t just a blog about management or creativity or even diversity and inclusion. At its core, C&B is a creative partnership—it is about making things, creating and holding space for one another. It is about learning from each other in whatever medium or format allows everyone to shine and finding a path to go beyond mere survival to create a politics of joy and love.