The incorporation of emotional intelligence skillsets in tutor training helps build empathy and communication skills that better prepare tutors to work with a diverse range of students. These skills are important for holding space for the voices of diverse authors and encouraging authenticity. In addition, writing centers must examine the racism inherent in Standardized English and encourage tutors to look closer at their internalized biases. Previous research by writing center scholars shows that training based in emotional intelligence and training based explicitly in activist rhetoric have similar outcomes: tutors become empathetic toward historically underrepresented voices and are often motivated to take an active role in social justice. This paper pieces together these different approaches to illustrate their efficacy and the opportunity writing center training has to push back against the systemic racism rooted in writing pedagogy. However, it is important that this education is based in challenging the internalized biases of privileged writers to avoid using historically underrepresented voices as a tool for our own enlightenment.