The Cost of Silence: Complicity and the Unbearable Weight of Inaction

I have been—and continue to be—a part of a system that too often values optics over accountability, placating corporate interests over radical transformation.?

When George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery were brutally murdered, the world witnessed a collective cry for justice. Yet within many international NGOs (INGOs), the response was tepid at best. Instead of a bold confrontation with the systems of white supremacy, colonialism, and imperialism that fuel racial violence, many INGOs created diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committees and hired external advisors—outsourcing the work instead of doing the hard work themselves. However, oversight remained firmly in white hands, and the toxic work cultures, especially for Black women and people of color—persisted.?

Instead, a false sense of reckoning was manufactured—a reckoning that allowed institutions to claim moral high ground without risking financial loss or institutional disruption. Local grassroots organizations and activists, who have long borne the brunt of systemic violence, were left to risk their lives and well-being (as they always have). They could not even affirm that Black Lives Matter without fear of retribution.

Fast forward to the genocide in Gaza, where the same culture of silence and fear has been cultivated within INGOs. Staff members have found themselves too scared to post on social media or wear symbols of solidarity like the keffiyeh for fear of being fired. Organizations also refuse to challenge USAID/US policy to name Israel as the aggressor or call it what it is - a genocide. And the most egregious: their failure to protect Palestinian national staff, and then degrade their martyrdom, as if acknowledging their sacrifice would force a reckoning with their neglect. This is all the more ironic when these organizations run programs in regions where the right to dissent is constantly under siege. As one INGO president lamented, staff and budgets must be “protected” at all costs, even if that means stifling genuine advocacy. Such policies reveal an organizational mindset that prioritizes budgetary comfort over the revolutionary change that local communities have long demanded.

The recent USAID funding freeze has further exposed the inadequacies of this approach. Suddenly, those who once claimed neutrality and apoliticalness was necessitated by the work are embracing advocacy—signing petitions, attending protests, and demanding accountability—even going so far as to sue their funders, but only to have their projects unfrozen. Yet, the INGO space has rarely fostered a deep understanding of what activism demands. In many ways, it reflects the failure of U.S. institutions to support a praxis of collective work and movement building. If the INGOs and contractors with whom we once labored had considered their roles in perpetuating power hierarchies, shifted frameworks from aid to reparations, and challenged structures like USAID, they might have been better prepared to push back in these critical moments. Instead, many have remained complicit, unsure of how to dismantle the very systems they claim to reform. If the sector had supported staff and workers to learn how to organize, form networks, and practice what it meant to challenge hierarchy and build power at the base, or even the basics of knowing what platforms and tools to use to engage in effective advocacy without surveillance, we would not find ourselves so powerless today.?

Today, INGOs find themselves in the same position, continuing to undermine the principles they purport to uphold. They’re scrubbing their websites of commitments to gender justice, DEI, and climate justice and callously laying off workers without regard to their labor, while maintaining costly supervisory and "leadership" structures, even when there isn’t a team left to supervise. In this climate, the silence of those in positions of power leaves the heavy labor of movement-building and radical change to local activists and grassroots organizations.?

Yet, instead of holding institutions like USAID accountable, many INGOs have become part of the cog—chasing crumbs, entangled in bureaucratic interests, and ultimately reinforcing the neoliberal systems. Their response to the funding freeze is promoting the notion of "aid as a critical soft power." While this rebranding appears progressive, a shift from overt force to culturally sensitive interventions, it often masks entrenched power dynamics. Aid conditions can reinforce Western hegemony and paternalistic models, sidelining local voices and reducing complex struggles to externally defined priorities. As a result, INGOs often collaborate with “safe” organizations—those that conform to mainstream expectations—while eschewing groups that are too queer, too Black, too political, too loud, and too radical.?

The cost of silence is steep. It perpetuates the marginalization of those who are most vulnerable and cements the power structures that demand our constant vigilance. A genuine reckoning requires us to confront our own complicity and to dismantle, rather than merely manage, the systems that foster injustice and white supremacy.

Credit: Thank you, Farah Mahesri , for your review, astute edits, and incredible camaraderie.

Image Description: The image has a predominantly black background. In large, bold white letters at the top left, it reads “YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU,” with the name “– Audre Lorde” in red just below. On the right side is a black-and-white portrait of a woman’s face in profile, wearing a headwrap.