Ashia Ray [they/them]
Ashia Ray is the Head Custodian of Infodumpery at Raising Luminaries, helping caregivers juggle advocacy and care work without losing their marbles.
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DISMANTLING SUPREMACY SERIES
Who Does Your Obedience Serve?
Accountability group & family discussion prompts for raising the next generation of kyriarchy-smashers.
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Posts may contain affiliate links and sponsorships, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Welcome to the Dismantling Supremacy Discussion Series
In this Collab Lab discussion series, we talk about supremacy culture and our responsibility to examine it within ourselves and our communities.
Connecting individual struggle & systemic inequality
Moral Virtues of Authority & Obedience
This work is best done in community: Join the Winter Incubator and Summer Luminator for space to work through this together.
In the Collab Lab, we’re embracing trickster strategies as a tool for resistance. Let’s examine how treating authority as a moral virtue keeps us complicit in supremacy culture—and how playful disruption might set us free.
What stories did you grow up with about authority and obedience?
How did the adults in your life frame obedience and rule-following?
What were the unspoken judgments about those who questioned authority?
Did you grow up seeing a connection between being ‘good’ and obeying without question?
When have you felt compelled to comply with authority?
- In what ways do you often comply in advance?
- Given your positionality, which kinds of authority is uncomfortable, but still safe for you to defy?
- How do you benefit from compliance?
- How are you harmed by unquestioning obedience?
How has your deference to authority harmed others?
Who benefits when you comply in advance? Who is harmed?
Whose safety and well-being relies on you breaking the rules?
When have you enforced rules or upheld norms that reinforce structures of oppression?
Have you ever dismissed someone’s resistance as ‘disruptive’ or ‘inappropriate’ rather than recognizing it as necessary?
How do you model critical engagement with authority for your kids?
Commit to Action: Developing Policy, Practice & Relationships
What POLICY will you create to resist automatic obedience?
Examples:
Pausing before enforcing a rule to ask, “Who does this rule serve?”
Choosing to curiosity instead of correction when someone resists authority.
Challenging yourself to identify and break one arbitrary rule a week.
How can you PRACTICE this policy – starting today?
Examples:
- Find one small, low-stakes rule to bend (or break) and discuss the impact with your kids.
- Reframe a moment of discomfort around rule-breaking as a learning opportunity.
- Practicing saying “No.” or “Why?” when told to follow a directive without explanation.
Who can you practice this in RELATIONSHIP with?
Example:
Encourage your child to ask for the reason behind family rules.
Discuss the implications of following an institutional norm with a colleague or peer.
Ask an elder to tell you which rules they broke at your age, and why.
Relevant Resources
- Join the Winter Incubator – where we dig deeper into demolishing supremacist norms with anarchy calisthenics.
- Join the Summer Luminator to identify ways to contribute, amplify, or break advocacy, parenting, and career initiatives with enthusiasm and joy.
- Join the Trickster Resistance Collab Lab discussion on using playful mischief to undermine authoritarianism.
JOIN US
PARTNERS IN CAHOOTS
ACCOUNTABILITY
Raising Luminaries is rooted in the unceeded land of the Wampanoag & Massachusett People.
Land acknowledgements are worthless without action. So we prioritize amplifying Indigenous-lead resources in our toolkits and reciprocate with donations to the Wôpanaâk Language Reclaimation Project.
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE
Ashia Ray & Raising Luminaries are participants in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the Bookshop.org Affiliate Program, affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com, Bookshop.com, and affiliated sites.
Photographs via Unsplash & Illustrations via Storyset, used with permission.
©2014-2026 Ashia Ray of Raising Luminaries™. All rights reserved.