Anti-racism Is A Consciousness Practice: Learning, Resilience, Get In Close, Action
Photo courtesy of James Eades
How are you feeling about racism? How are you getting support for your feelings? Who are your sources of learning? What daily practice do you have to take care of yourself? How is your listening?
Sidewalk Talk has been about belonging and inclusion and was inspired by my own shock and waking up to police brutality against black people and gun violence over five years ago. The death and ongoing fight for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and the countless lives not covered in the media is why Sidewalk Talk listens. We will always will be 100% behind, Black Lives Matter now, then, and in the future in this work. We say often listening is a practice. So is anti-racism.
While anti-racism is embedded in Sidewalk Talk’s purpose, we are not anti-racism educators. I encourage you seek out your own black teachers and take up learning about white privilege, anti-racism, and social justice from them. I am still engaged in this work that began four years ago when I was called out on the sidewalk listening by a black colleague. She screamed at me. I wasn’t comfortable. It felt like shit. But she was effective. I got busy.
A few things I have learned in my own anti-racism journey are this.
Love the ef out of yourself. Like full-on and in ways you never have before. Why? You are better at owning shit - owning your mistakes, and regulating your nervous system. I am more courageous at owning my blind spots with less guilt and shame bleeding all over my black friends and everyone else when I do.
When I love myself I don’t have to become what I call an “anti-racist narcissist” or what activists call “performative”. I am done trying to be seen as a good white person. That means my being seen as good is more important than a black life. That is pretty jacked up. Besides, I am not good. I am also not bad. I am both. And I love myself. Period.
The binary of good or bad is part of our supremacist history. Good and bad splitting is not good for any of us. I am bleeding from it but black lives die from it.
And these binaries are ever present in trauma and racism is traumatic so we are gunna face good/bad splitting doing anti-racism work.
Love is a reservoir for resilience.
Be prepared. There are so many opposing views among black teachers and activists about the “right” way to do anti-racism work that someone is not going to like how you are working. My go-to now is to listen when I am confronted and not get reactive or tone police by asking someone to be nicer - and take it in. Make sure a person calling me out feels heard and I take in the care they are actually affording me.
Then, I sit with myself for a bit. I change what feels right and don’t change what I don’t think is right or simply am unable to change. I have lost so many social media friends the last few weeks. Some felt I wasn’t speaking up enough or in the right way and some felt I was too “San Fran liberal”. No problem. I keep on keepin’ on with my self-love.
As I say to my sons who started kneeling at the flag two years ago and got bullied for it - “Look, if you are going to start kneeling you gotta do it because it is the right thing not because you want an atta boy. Your black friends get bullied for being black. Love yourself so you can be more resilient in the face of the bullying. And use it to empathize a smidgeon with some of your black friends.”
Bryan Stevenson and Daryl Davis are two justice heroes of mine. Google them. Thank you to our Minneapolis team for illuminating this beautiful conversation between Mr. Stevenson and Oprah on Facebook live here.
What Bryan talks about is getting proximate. Or what Brene Brown calls “coming in close” and what Michelle Obama means when she says “It is hard to hate close up.” When Oscar Grant was killed I wanted to “get proximate” and “come in close” instead of heady pontificating. Besides that, I wasn’t quite sure about the blind spots of my own therapy field. So I sat on sidewalks to listen. And I do other stuff in my anti-racism consciousness. I hope you do too.
I am challenged daily learning about my unearned advantages because I have white skin and the blindness I have to the embeddedness of white supremacy, patriarchy, and greed that is in my cultural bones. Consciousness is hard. But I believe consciousness is what leads to a good life. That is why I am a psychotherapist and go to therapy. And consciousness leads to anti-racism and anti-racism requires a commitment to consciousness - it is bi-directional.
At the same time that I say this all about Sidewalk Talk, Rachel Cargle’s words come to mind. She says “We are not going to hug our way out of this”.
I combine her words with what Bryan Stevenson says, “We have gotten seduced by the politics of fear and anger”.
My hope is we can do more than hug while also not moving from the politics of fear and anger here at Sidewalk Talk. For me, that is to continue learning to lead in an anti-racist, non-patriarchal way. Holy crap leadership is some serious service work. And to continue to be transparent for equality’s sake.
If I am quiet, it is often because I am listening, centering others, practicing taking up less space, or I am still listening for right action that isn’t performative. I want to be clear, however, that my way is likely not your way and I love you for your way. I hope you sit and listen to find your way.
If you have questions, ideas, want to lean into how Sidewalk Talk is being a good steward of anti-racism, join the operations team. And if you have big feels coming up we are offering online listening where all your feelings are welcome.
As an act of resilience and love to provide sustenance for the road ahead we are coming together this Friday to do some singing.
This Friday night, we will join together on Zoom to sing under the leadership of Jocelyn B Smith. Jocelyn is an accomplished jazz vocalist from Queens, New York, now living in Berlin. She coincidentally heard us on Friday LIVE where I said my body needed to sing. How she found Sidewalk Talk is a little bit of sweet magic as Jocelyn scrolled on her computer to our Facebook LIVE while looking for something else and stayed to watch.
Jocelyn is a choir director for social change and founder of Songs of Substance. She is all about social transformation. Read more about Jocelyn here.
When: This Friday, June Noon PT / 3PM ET / 8pm London Time / 9pm German Time.
Where: Zoom
Intention: Singing for Release, Relief, and Continued Action
Agenda: Opening introduction to Jocelyn
Jocelyn and the choir, Different Voices of Berlin will sing for us
Raise our collective voices to sing Amazing Grace, Imagine, and We Shall Overcome.
Close in silent embodiment and intention practice.Sign Up Here. Space will be limited.
