Listening to Krista Tippett and Rev. Lucas Johnson talk racism on the On Being podcast, I realized I’m living the question: how can I deepen my commitment and practice of anti-racism?
My question feels both inadequate and true.
Inadequate, because it seems that no question could address the depth of anguish and suffering of my Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) sisters and brothers. And the question also feels true. It feels true because anti-racism is less an identity I occupy and more a practice I’m invited to deepen.
So I begin here- knowing that anti-oppression work is essential to the creation of new systems that are just, equal, and whole.
After weeks of my own sorrow and rage it felt good to be in community at Whitehorse’s Solidarity Vigil- #JusticeforRegis (Regis Korchinski-Paquet) on June 7th. A sharp contrast to negative media images, our community created a space for both anger and creativity. After months of relative COVID isolation, together we brought the real tension of exasperation (“enough is enough”) while also holding a vision of what could be.
For those of us with white bodies- there is a both/and we’re invited to hold.
We must develop the capacities to stay in the pain, anguish, anger and shame of racism (rather than bypassing or deflecting) while staying connected to a wider vision of equality and creative possibility.
Cautiously, I perceive a new level of consciousness in white bodies and yet, there continues to be significant resistance to acknowledging and staying in. So how can we explore this in a new way- so that our commitment and practice to anti-racism deepens?
Listen from the Body
I speak from a white body and as one socialized within a hierarchy of power that uses ‘race’ to categorize and ‘other’. I’ve spent years in and out of grassroots movements, social organizing, funding, and collaborating across identity differences and organizational borders.
At this moment, I’m heeding a different call. It’s a call to listen, less from an intellectual or policy place (although that’s crucial) and more from the intimate and deeply personal space of my body.
How I answer this call as a leader, citizen and human- moment to moment- is both a political inquiry and an intimate somatic journey.
At this moment in time, American somatic therapist Ramaas Manekem, in his work My Grandmother’s Hands, creates a new avenue for deeper self-inquiry. Tracing the lineage of trauma in both white and black bodies through hundreds of years, Ramaas illuminates that our traditional responses to racism through diversity and inclusion programs fail to become transformational. Rather, he nudges us boldly into the uncomfortable places in our bodies- where, for white folks, live ingrained responses, biases, and reflexes that sustain systems of domination.
Where and how do I deepen my practice of anti-racism?
This inquiry and my evolution, as my teacher Diane Musho Hamilton reminds me, is beautiful but not pretty.
It is layered with shame, guilt, competing perspectives, awkward tension, and at times, alienation.
Tracking the embodied experience of my own deep discomfort with my whiteness, privilege, and systemic racism is where Ramaas asks me to pay attention.
So this is where I’m deepening my practice at this moment.
I’m paying attention to when I check out, ignore, or deflect. When I feel safe and sleep well at night. The moment I decide to turn off the news, because I don’t want to hear any more. When I decide to emotionally bypass another tragedy, because I’m not expected at the memorial. Or how I flippantly talk about old TV shows like the Simpsons in the presence of an Indigenous colleague who reminded me how utterly racist it is, and questions why I’d watch it.
I’m noticing the moments when I’m defensive. When I unconsciously protect my power, by failing to understand how an action of mine was an expression of systemic racism. I’m paying attention to when I perceive someone else as “different” than me, and what happens to my nervous system. Then, what is the tone and location of where judgment lives in my body?
At a biological level, research reveals that humans are soothed by ‘sameness’ whereas our cortisol and stress hormones are elevated by difference.
Starting with my body, I’m invited then to notice who, what and when creates this sense of ease within my body. For example, I feel more relaxed when I know we’ve both gone to university that we’ve lived in both small towns and globalized cities that we love to mountain bike, travel, or drink green smoothies in the morning. I notice that I feel less relaxed, tense even, when there are things that differentiate us. While often this is creative and invigorating, sometimes it feels uncertain, awkward, or threatening.
I’m learning that so much of our responses are unconscious. Immediate. Internalized. So as I catch myself (or others catch me) in my body I can more skillfully participate in the creation of systems of justice, dignity, and equality.
The call to be an active and awake ally
The call and imperative to be an active and awake ally, as a white body and leader, is growing louder. Here in Canada, this national call emerged from our Truth and Reconciliation Commission (history of Residential Schools for Indigenous peoples), the finding of genocide with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, and, most recently the mobilization in the Black Lives Matter movement in relation to police brutality and systemic racism.
Listening to the myriad of BIPOC poets, mothers, buddhists, activists, professors, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals I‘m called to “do my work”, not only externally though writing MLAs/MPs, attending protests, collaborating in my community- but from the intimate place of my body.
For me, this is where my anti-racism practice is deepening in this moment.
This is a tender place to be. I feel this moment informed by Truth and Reconciliation, MMIWG Calls to Justice, Covid and Black Lives Matter is asking us to live into a both/and. To deeply, humbly listen and act in solidarity with our BIPOC brothers and sisters AND to be with each other, center to center, person to person- with our hands in the soil of a co-created vision of equality and justice.
Practice for You: Notice where you’re constricting- a practice of anti-racism
If you’re identified with a white body, here is a practice for you, to compliment or enrich the anti-racism practices you may already be doing. It is based on the foundational work of somatic therapist, Resmaa Manekem.
This practice recognizes that each of us, as leaders, and humans, in white bodies are in different places of recognizing and reckoning with our ingrained racism.
Over the next week or so, as you navigate discussions or experiences of race, systemic racism, whiteness, and culture change you are invited to simply notice when your body constricts as it experiences new truths, information, intense emotional tone or perspectives.
1. Notice where and how you tense or constrict– your breathing, shoulders, neck, stomach, or arms/legs.
2. Notice the constriction without judgment or trying to change, soften, or let it go.
3. Recognize what sensations, emotions or thoughts are arising.
4. Notice any resistance you have to the experience, and return again and again to the sensations, emotions or thoughts that are arising.
This practice supports your capacity to stay in, and ground yourself in your moment-to-moment experience, in one of the most complex and charged social power issues of our time.
The practice also supports an authentic knowing of what is real for you- how your nervous system reacts in the experience of difference. It enables you to stay with your experience (a little longer), without judgment, so you recognize (in more and more nuanced ways) how systemic racism operates within your assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors.
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With that, I’ll close with a mindful meditation. A prayer.
That as leaders our collective energy of grief, rage and desire for total transformation. That we no longer deflect or bypass the deep discomfort in white bodies and leadership to boldly challenge systemic racism in all forms. That we commit more deeply to anti-racism practice for the rest of our lives, and continue to co-create a vision of what a just and equal expression of living together looks and feels like.
In solidarity,
Jennifer
