lift as you climb

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the obligation and practice of using one's own advancement to create opportunities and open doors for others who face the barriers one has overcome or understands from personal experience — refusing to simply benefit individually from hard-won access to power or privilege without working simultaneously to extend that access to those still excluded; the phrase is particularly associated with the African American political tradition and with intersectional feminist movements, where it names the ethical responsibility of those who achieve positions of influence within systems that were designed to exclude their communities; lifting as you climb is both a personal ethic of generosity and a political strategy recognising that individual advancement within unjust structures does not constitute justice