I’m thinking about white supremacy, what it means to be antiracist, and how to be an ally. What do I have to clean out/let go of, in order to become the person I want to be..the person this world needs me to be?
We’re called to examine internal forces that drive our external words, choices, actions, as you say here…”How much of my thoughts, my convictions, my fears, my worth, my esteem were handed down through generations…?”
My image of “Rebecca” was/has been, handed down to me, from my family of origin. I am uncovering the extent of this, more and more. To look at the trauma of my family’s past… It’s painful. So much fear! The fear, by itself, could cause complete self-destruction. I struggle not to run as far away as I can get from the fear, and from the reality of the destruction. I know the story of what happened to my Grandma Anna & Grandpa Charlie’s families. Just writing this, I choke back tears and feel sick to my stomach. I think of how Anna and Charlie did, in a very real way, shed everything to come here as refugees, escaping to safety, in the U.S.A. Even their names, (as was alluded to in this post) were different: Hannulah (a version of Hannah) became Anna. My Grandpa, nicknamed Chilibi (blue eyes) Chakir (chosen one) changed his given name Boaz, to Charlie. He said the officer at Ellis Island said, Chilibi was closest to Charles, so Charles, it was. New names. New country. Everything known, left behind… not willingly, nor intentionally, but abandoned hastily, for survival. How many souls at our Southern Border are fleeing for their lives right now, as I write this, fearing their own, or their children’s annihilation?! Again, I run away from the pain of the thought.
Now I think on my work with hospice, and those souls preparing to leave all of their mortal, earthly life, as they readied themselves for the transition. We, on the palliative care team, walked along side those who were ” sitting, noticing, examining, discarding, ” whether it was the dying person, themselves, or the family members with them, on their journey. Yes. Full respect living – this phrase keeps coming up for me. It was part of our ethos as a hospice team: full respect for the human beings, the transition processes, their loved ones and this profound time in their life.
FULL RESPECT LIVING. I love this phrase. Words to live by.
We didn’t name our practices the way they’ve been described here, but the intentions and actions were the same: Practicing kind candor. Offering gentle, clear eyed observations, or simply being quietly present, in the moment, offering love, solidarity, and comfort. It doesn’t seem like being an ally in racial justice work would require different skills, whether I’m interacting with white folks or black and brown folks. We’re all human beings.

I am here. I listened to angel Kyoto Williams several times over when it aired a few weeks ago, and today my head is fuzzy and my focus gone. I am reassured by the idea that there is time and space for inner work because it is essential. Reading all your comments, I’ll go back and listen again.

Hello Lace and fellow walkers. This talk with angel Kyodo williams, Lace’s commentary, and the thoughtful community reflections on doing the internal work and excavating down to our stud are very timely. Lately I have been struggling with internal resistance to spending time working on my internal journey here while finding myself still drawn to engaging with external anti-racist work. The struggle has been very unexpected and disappointing for me, who sees myself as someone who follows through on things that I care about, who reflects often on myself and the world, and who engages with deep parts of myself. But angel and Lace’s words about the importance of the internal work, and Lace’s words about the hurt that can be caused by trifling and flighty white women, have been the “angel” on my shoulder, calling on me to flex my weak muscles and stay in the crucible.

The community conversation here has been very helpful to me, also. I’ve really been struggling to understand my reluctance to spend time reflecting. But I’m getting glimmers of understanding, I think; I’m seeing myself repeat patterns of self-sacrifice (at work, in my case) and then self-indulgence/“self-care”/self-distraction at the other end of the pendulum swing. It’s humbling to think that hours ago I thought that I could be a helpful and reliable ally in anti-racism efforts.

Alexis – you raise an important point when you say “I think that goes back to sitting and working through them.” Rev Williams reminds us that Buddhism is not all or even mainly meditation. But sitting and meditating gives us an inner space to work on all of those thoughts and ideas and distortions that rattle around in our minds. The work is not necessarily that difficult – it is mostly to maintain our attention to whatever we use as a meditation device – a mantra, our breath, the movement of our diaphragm muscles, an image or even an object – and observing the space junk that flies around in our minds. And quietly reminding ourselves that that stuff is only thoughts. Thoughts are evanescent, transitory, and they vanish as they orbit past. And the good news is that we don’t have to pay a bit of attention to them as they bubble up and then disappear, except to remind ourselves that those thoughts are not us – they are merely thoughts – they are not actions, and they are not directives for actions. It is humbling to realize that what we consider precious, what we might be praised for at school – our thoughts and/or our knowledge – is nothingness. The solution to the clench is to let the clench happen, take a good look at it, and remember that the thoughts that lead to the clench are useless and can be ignored and discarded. For me, that is the key method for dismissing and even unloading that stuff. It might not clear out the first time or the 1000th time but those mental pathways will extinguish eventually if we can set the intention to observe them and let go of their importance and their presence in our minds. (And you do not need to be a follower of any religion to do it. . .)

Just to clarify, I said IF I wanted to comment on any On Being material, I didn’t say I had. They are a different group, working in different ways, with different people and I am well aware they have very few published comments, they don’t insist on them.

On Being are a well established group, whatever they are doing they are doing well and successfully, they don’t need me to defend them to you.

I think you are rattled because I hit a nerve, your ‘thousands of supporters’ have dwindled to 6 or 7 and you don’t like it.

I was being honest when I said I hope your site will be a success, believe me or don’t, I really don’t care.

I made the statement that this “feels like a closed group”, because ……..it feels like a closed group. A handful of participants who clearly know you and each other. Since you ask, yes, I have read much of the FB page, (I am not an active or regular FB user) including your pinned posts and to be honest, that feels similar, with references to thousands of supporters but narrative and commentary from just a handful, albeit a few more than have apparently followed you here.

The comparison with the On Being site, with which I am familiar, was again, how I see it. They are open and welcoming, which as a newcomer, I don’t feel here. If I have comments on their material, I prefer to make them there. Doing so and expressing a preference for their work over yours, hardly constitutes ‘tearing anything down’, I don’t think my one opinion, which you are not obliged to show, is going to materially change the support you get here.

I hope this site is the success you want it to be, somehow I doubt it will be but hope I am wrong. In either event, it is not for me, as you have already recognised.

catherine, we are an open group. We do ask to please be kind as this is Lace’s place. Like Lace said, we do things differently here. And Lace has put a lot of great educational resources on Facebook. We are a collective who work to be here and support each other. We may seem small but if you want to be here the work is well worth it.

Lisa,
The excellent On Being materials are all accessible at the On Being website, where, to be honest, the whole environment and ethos feels very welcoming, sharing and educational. This group feels very ‘closed’, with only a tiny handful of participants.

Deb I agree with what what you’re saying about everyone suffering. Reading/hearing about how everyone suffers from white supremacy is something I haven’t of before Lace. I have to remind myself that I’m not different from other white people that who say racist things . I could say the same racist things tomorrow, and I know what I’ve said in the past. I can’s say I have humanity and suffer but they don’t.

At what point is my limit to see what could change? That’s a good question.

I’m going to need another listen, as it got quite disjointed and cut out on me. But wow, Lace, that has to be incredibly validating. You’re right. What angel brought forward about interior transformation and sitting and doing our inner work was spot on with regard to our practice here. I felt a real epiphany when she pointed out that legal change without social change at an individual level can be undone with the stroke of a pen. That was so revelatory to me, even as I’ve seen the undoing happen right in front of us.

I am reflecting now on what is at the core of me, versus what is extra, what other people have left in my junk drawer before it ever became mine. I went through this process about 15 years ago, when my father died suddenly. It was shattering, and I had to come to a reckoning with myself over what I needed to rebuild, and what I needed to finish demolishing and get rid of. I started that process again about five years ago when I finally got called on my nice white lady racism. And as far as I think I’ve come, here I am again, and the answers only get harder as I Marie Kondo myself.

But the more I pare down to essentials, the less I fear I’ll lose. And I was afraid, with the fear angel points out. I was afraid I’d lose myself if I invested too much in feeling and fighting the pain in our world. But this space has definitely helped me exercise my feeling and fighting muscles. I’m not there. But I’m still walking.

This touched on a lot of topics that I agree with, specifically the need to recognize that everyone is going through something, the importance of sitting to identify what’s going on before responding, and the fact that more people are not identifying by what they have inherited.

I did get a bit stuck in the discussion about survival, and how fewer people are living in that place. I agree that we have moved past the days of farming being required for survival but the brain doesn’t necessarily differentiate between crisis (needing to pay rent/meds/etc.) that way.

I attended a lecture on change not too long ago, that was really a lecture of grief. The speaker argued that humans response to unexpected/unwelcome change is the same emotional response as one has to grief. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was discussed and we discussed times we’d been called upon or forced into change and identified all the same emotions. We talked about the differences in emotion levels, and how being asked to change desks may not elicit the same emotional response from me as it does from another, but also that my response depends on how many other things I’ve been asked to change lately as well as the capacity I have for thinking things through.

Right now, we are in a big place societally. It’s needed and necessary. We are also trigger-stacking people. If we think about how we respond to losing a friend one year vs how we would respond to losing a friend every month of the year, or losing our entire family, that’s what this rapid ask for change is doing to some in our society. The backlash is apparent. The denial, anger, fear, anxiety, bargaining, depression… it’s all there. Brains don’t function well when they are grieving, and our society is definitely not functioning well.

That’s where that love comes in. Grief remains difficult, no matter what. It’s a lot easier to get to acceptance though when surrounded with grace instead of hostility. That’s where I struggle the most… it’s in standing firm against injustices, while meeting those engaging in them with some form of grace. It’s in sitting with the immediate anger I feel until it moves to a place that I can come from a place of curiosity. It’s the difference between a middle finger and a “what do you mean?” I inherited, “do no harm, take no shit.” I’ve tried to move that to a more active stance in harm reduction vs passively saying, “well it wasn’t me…” I’ll reflect on how where to next move towards, so “take no shit,” becomes effective, not simply defensive.

Where is the link? I’m assuming you’re referring to “On Being,” which is owned by Public Radio Exchange.