Q: Examine your own beliefs about white bodies, Black bodies, and police bodies. Can you trace the beginning of these beliefs? How does your existence in your body impact your beliefs about other bodies?
Q: Complete the body practices in Chapter 2- what did it feel like to focus on your body sensations?
1. I grew up in a small upstate NY town. If you know anything about upstate please know some things. First it's poor. Many of the towns out in the hills are just one step above Appalachia. Poverty brings with it addictions, abuse and desperation. Next, prisons are everywhere. Regardless of what direction I turned, if I walked far enough a prison or detention center could be found. They had names such as a camp, farm, or referred to with some ambiguous nickname. Some of these even sounded mysterious like Five Points but never were they called what they really were, prisons. Inside they were filled hardened criminals, black and dangerous. At least, that's what the popular folklore told us. These facilities and the industries supporting them were the major employers in the area especially after other businesses left the area in the eighties and nineties.
My particular community was almost entirely white where the only African American family's last name was oddly enough White. Really! The other two African American children in my school were adopted and both suffered a lot of verbal abuse especially the girl who was somewhat awkward. I remember a poor white boy in homeroom yelling and calling her all sorts of racial slurs. We laughed. Honestly, I just didn't know what to think. Since my father was very dark and rumored to have African American blood mingled in with his Italian ancestry (this was never discussed) I felt a certain attraction to these kids. But I was going through my own youthful angst trying to fit in to the weird world of public education. My skin color just wasn't as dark and my eyes were blue.
On my mother's side my grandfather was a correctional officer who had very strong feelings about African American and minority communities. Although relatively kind to me, he drank too much, could be rather gruff, was abusive to his own children especially his sons (my uncles) and remained conservative in his political outlook until his death. He was a very huge figure in my youth, I respected him and feared him. I felt the same way towards the law in general.
I have to admit that growing up in this area left its mark upon me. It took me years to come to terms with my own body, the abuses I had suffered and the hard realization that my family including myself had a negative and fearful attitude towards the Black body.
2. I enjoy these practices and have a personal practice that involves very similar body awareness techniques. These have made me aware of my own discomfort in my body from injuries and the lack of self-care in my youth and early adulthood. It's pretty interesting how thinking of that special person makes me feel. It takes a while for it to drip in and get through the resistance but there is a moment when it begins to soften my shoulders, neck and facial expression.
Q: Examine your own beliefs about white bodies, Black bodies, and police bodies. Can you trace the beginning of these beliefs? How does your existence in your body impact your beliefs about other bodies?
Q: Complete the body practices in Chapter 2- what did it feel like to focus on your body sensations?
Sorry for my english...
1) I grew up in the french countryside, in a village with mostly white people. I was lucky anough to grow up with a classmate originary from Mali, an adopted girl. My mother explained me than I was scared of her when I was 4 years old, at our first class, I was not used to see colored people.
Growing up, I never really gave importance to the color of black skin, as I used to spend hours with a "Black" girl, but going to the small town I started to ear about a comunity of Turkish people, denominated as "The turkish", even though between the people living in the poor area, we could find people from Algeria or Maroco.
What represent to be black in USA it is more similar to what represent to be an Algerian or a Turkish in France, probably even more in the countryside. Youth, I never really feel defferences between my friend from Mali probably because the difference was not only a matter of color but of a social class and of a cultur, an history of life, as my friend grew up in a french family coming from the same social class than me, educated to the same christian private school, going to the same dance classes... the only difference for me was the fact than I knew my biological family, not her. She was adopted, not me.
Starting the college, things changed as I head about "the turkish", a denomination related to the bad boys of the school.
We had an important comunity of Turkish people in the small town where was my college, with parents coming from turkia, children born in France but still called "turkish", and not considerated turkish when they were visiting the family in Turkia. Their situation was different than the situation of the few "Black" people of the school who were mostly all adopted. So, at the college in my mind a construction started : the denomination "Turkish" was related to bad behaviors. People, adults, were not talking about people from Turkia, Algeria, Maroco in the same way than people from "black" african's countries, probably because the number of adopted children, and the fact than the black families managed his process of integration throught an assimilation process ( integration of the cultur of the hosting country based on the repression of the native cultur of the immigrant). The african in france, would be easily seeing as "the good african, working hard and not complaining", "the Maroccan? a thief, a barbar of muslim obliging his wife to stay at home and be uneducated". My sad observation was even if I didn't want to make differences, I did, as they shown me, so, teenager I was feeling insecure to have turkish people waitting at the door of the school, but black, I didn't noticed them.
Years laters, I moved to a capital and started to work as an educator especially on the topic of migration and integration.
I learnt about the construction of the concept to be "black" or to be "arabic", I learnt about psychology, anthropology, sociology different disciplines working on the topic of the white supremacy, the slavery, the colonisation and the construction of prejudices and justification legitimizing the oppression of the african countries. I worked hardly to deconstruct that social conditioning which make us, white people, thinking in a different way inconsciously or consciously, if we hear about a "turkish" person or a "person", but, I can feel that it is still inside me and I can just keep going working on it and keeping me conscious of what my brain integrated.
A body of a Black, Arabic, Asian? is a body, with all a story.
After years of working with migrant and refugees people, white bodies would represent for me previleges, domination and anthropocentrism. But it also represent just a body, a body as all bodies... with his own differences.
Police bodies? The uniform has a bad conotation for me, more than to be Black or Arabic. We don't choose where we come from, but we can choose what we are going and what we want to do.
A Police body, with the uniform, means the representation of an authority which is not often fair, from my point of view. They are representing laws, mechanisms of a sistem built from the white supremacy, but not the general white supremacy, but a white high social class supremacy. That laws are not necessary done for the good of all the society, and, furthemore, they are not taking in consideration the history of individual people and the consequences of the white supremacy on the life of than people.
I also have done a work on that prejudice concerning the uniform, to see the body above the uniform. So a body is again a body.
Q: Examine your own beliefs about white bodies, Black bodies, and police bodies. Can you trace the beginning of these beliefs? How does your existence in your body impact your beliefs about other bodies?
Q: Complete the body practices in Chapter 2- what did it feel like to focus on your body sensations?
2) I took pleasure doing these practices. It brought me deeply in my sensation in different part of my body. I was interesting to the awareness techniques using in that practice to bring the "student" into a mindfulness state.
As I already have done a deep work on mindfulness through yoga therapy, feldenkrais and MBSR, I wouldn't say than that practice brought me to realize some pain or weakness in my body. However, finshing that session, I realized how much I worked on my own trauma throught excercices focus on building the mindfulness and how I would have done that exercice 3 years ago.
It is really interesting for me to do this kind of session with the experience of someone who came through his PSTS throught yoga, who realized the impact of the trauma on his body consciousness, but with now practicing with the focus on how sharing that experience as a teacher... How translate the experience in words, and guiding therapeutic movements...
1. I grew up in suburban midwestern areas where white bodies were very much "the norm". My parents didn't have any friends of other races and I was hardly exposed to any diversity. I also grew up going to a church where bodies of culture were often "othered" and viewed through the lens of the white savior complex. I willingly participated in things like mission trips, volunteer projects abroad, and the Peace Corps before coming to a more full understanding of all the harms these programs can cause. Reading "Me and White Supremacy" last year was a helpful exercise for me in examining my beliefs and biases against black bodies. Although I have seen myself as an activist for a long time, there are many ways to unconsciously do harm while engaging in activism.
I never had to fear police officers due to my whiteness, but in 2013 I was arrested and after that I carried a lot more fear towards police in my body. I got a tiny taste of the fear bodies of culture experience throughout life.
2. The practices in the book are very helpful. Engaging in this work on a somatic level is so important. Intellectual engagement is not enough!
1. I grew up in Arizona in a very white area. My family moved there from rural Arkansas in the 60's. We lived across the street from a reservation and I grew up thinking that this was 'special' for Native Americans to have their own land that we didn't have access to. I was taught the false narrative of how this came to be, in school and at home, never learning the truth of how reservations came to be until much later. When I was very small, I would hear stories from my mother and grandparents of segregation back in Arkansas and how my family's housekeeper was not allowed to use the bathroom in the house. It was just the way it was and I didn't think too much about it until I became best friends with the only black boy in my school in 4th grade. When he would leave after coming over to play, my grandparents would make comments to me about my friend insinuating that I should never develop any romantic feelings towards this boy, they wanted confirmation that we were only friends, etc. I was extremely confused by all of this....the fact that they would have anything to say at all and the fact that my grandparents had always been so kind and loving, but their comments felt anything but kind and loving. I remember feeling deep embarrassment, shame, guilt and confusion. I definitely received the message that my friend was "less than" and that it was solely determined based upon the color of his skin. Of course I never told my friend about any of this and then I moved to a new school (also predominantly white) a couple of years later and we lost touch.
My relationship with police bodies was quite complicated. Growing up white, I believed that police were there to protect me and I was taught to trust them and always find a police officer if I was ever lost or in trouble. However, my father was incarcerated a couple of times during my childhood. Visiting him in prison was always a scary experience and I feared when my dad was out, there was always the possibility that a police officer would come and take my father again. So on the one hand, I felt very safe in the presence of police officers when my father was not around, but when I was with my dad they always felt like a threat, although I never had the fear that they would take mine or my dad's life. It was many years later, when my dad was incarcerated the last time, that I began to explore how yoga could be a catalyst towards healing trauma for myself and also for my dad while incarcerated. It was in that work that I began to truly learn about the injustices that black and brown people face and how my father's experience with the justice system was very different because of the color of his skin.
From that time on, I've been working to unpack my biases and beliefs, conscious and unconscious, knowing how deep they run and that this work is never really done.
2. I love how powerful the body practices are. Focusing on my body's sensations can be so uncomfortable when I am not regulated, but tapping into the various resources offered, I could feel a palpable calm wash over my body when working through the practices. I especially love the humming and envisioning the person that makes you feel safe and loved. These are two practices that I use often when my nervous system is on overdrive.
@carriehoffman I can relate to growing up in a family that went to church and viewed things from the lens of the white savior complex. Always giving of time and resources through charity, but never really doing anything to change the system that created such injustices.
1. I grew up as a white Catholic in a lower middle class urban area close to downtown San Jose California. The neighborhood was what I considered normal - it was a mixture of generational immigrants and grandparents, working white people, the one black family and majority of Spanish speaking multi-generational families. My best friends were Mexican and I shared in many of their family traditions and gathering. The adults were cannery workers and construction workers building a better life and solid education for their children. We also had a few people with substance abuse who were in and out of jail for petty crimes. This neighborhood was two blocks in one direction to the Southern Pacific Railroad station, the train tracks, the ice company and a meat packing plant. This was our playground and we often explored these areas on our own. We played out in the street until long after dark and were comfortable in each others's home, knowing we were different in our cultures and languages but that was fun. The other white kids down the street kept to themselves and when my mom wanted me to play with them I never felt comfortable or like I didn't quite fit it, it seemed they were always whispering about me.
Another few blocks in the opposite direction was the "Rose Garden" neighborhood. From a very young age I knew this was a privileged and coveted place to live with broad wide streets with few cars parked on them and big beautiful homes. I would walk through here on my way to library and often came over here to trick-or-treat, thinking there would be better candy but I never saw people out playing in the streets. I always felt conflicted on these walks - like I wanted to be here, this was the ultimate place to live, but then it felt empty and lonely. I felt like I was being watched, as those watching knew I did not belong here.
My family has had a mixture of people in it for almost as long as I can remember. Not only were my best friends brown, my older sister married a Mexican man when I was 10 years old and we were very close with his family. A few years after my father died, my mother married a Mexican man also. My other older sister married a Black man who was my mentor and counselor during my college days. His cousins were my college roommates. I dated black men and was engaged to a black man. We have Japanese, Filipino, and Vietnamese family members. I always knew we were all different culturally and physically and we always acknowledged, shared and celebrated this. Because of this I always thought myself to be aware, unbiased, socially-forward and justice-minded and always standing proudly on the right side of humanity. It has taken me some time to understand that all of this experience does not make me as woke as I always saw myself, but rather one of the progressive whites who think they are. So now I am taking more time to listen, feel, and attempt to honestly understand what people of color experience, something that despite all of my integrated life I still cannot fully know.
2. I think the body practices in the book are great. I also know that for me they will take time and repetition and relaxing into the process. I found myself impatient wanting to "feel" something right away. I think I have spent many years being too busy to feel and recognize sensations and through some of these exercises I am remembering things long forgotten or put away.
@breathingstillnessgmail-com Thank you for sharing about the community you were raised. It is interesting to me to think about growing up in a community where prisons and jails were the main places of employment. This would further complicate my relationship with these systems, knowing that they employed so many in the community, but they were also doing so much harm.
I also think it's really important that you called attention to the ambiguous names of the facilities. Why did they feel the need to call them something other than what they were?
I feel a particular ache in my heart for the African American children in your community that suffered such verbal abuse.
I appreciate everything you shared about your community in France. I found everything you wrote very easy to understand, and we welcome diversity of language. Thank you for being here.
I appreciate that you acknowledged no matter how much work you do, you plan to continue working and remaining conscious of what you learned throughout your life.
@carriehoffman @shawn-chereskin
I appreciate you both for calling attention to the white savior complex in your Church Communities. I also find it important that Carrie saw this not just in Chruch, but also in programs like the Peace Corps. This concept is widespread, and something we hope to strongly push back on in PYP.
Thank you both for sharing, I learned a lot from your sharing your complex relationships with police officers.
Thank you for sharing about your family! Especially...
"It has taken me some time to understand that all of this experience does not make me as woke as I always saw myself, but rather one of the progressive whites who think they are. So now I am taking more time to listen, feel, and attempt to honestly understand what people of color experience, something that despite all of my integrated life I still cannot fully know."
I would love to learn more about what led you to this shift in thinking.
@shawn-chereskin That is a perfect way to describe the church mindset. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for asking me to think more about this transformation for me. As I said, I always thought of myself as an informed, aware and sensitive white person based on my life experiences. In fact, I was one of those who would eagerly engage in conversations to demonstrate this by standing on my soapbox to convince others of their misbeliefs and reacting with righteous indignation at injustices. Usually this never resulted in any positive changes or improved understandings, and perhaps just hurt feelings.
Several years ago when working on my masters in sports leadership we had a course on gender and racial diversity and we were asked to take the Implicit Association Test - the same test we took in the PYP foundational course. I was excited to see how "well" I would do because, of course, I was completely anti-racist. My results said otherwise - I showed a moderate automatic preference for whites over blacks. I took the test again because this simply must be wrong. Same results. In fact my most recent results from the same test showed the same response. This has helped me to realize that even I could be biased and if I was biased, then I could better understand how this same unconscious reaction lives in others as well. So rather than blaming people for their ignorance and dislikes, I began to look at myself more honestly. Instead of trying to change others and the world, I began to observe, listen, and just be there.
I have always used running as a metaphor for my life and healing, and so I started a running program at Homeboy industries where the foundation is that we must move ourselves to the margins and stand with those who are demonized so that the demonizing will stop. I just stayed there, being proximate and just being. I stopped trying to make this about me and my voice, I found kinship and acceptance and non-judgment and starting building the relationships. I found constant encouragement that this is where we start. Wendell Barry's injunction "you have to imagine lives that are not yours" guides me, but there are times when I still want to set folks straight, however I am growing my approach to engage and understand rather than to try to inform and convince. Thanks again.
Reflecting on a whole body rather than solely on skin color brings me pause as I write here and in reading My Grandmother’s Hands. Our bodies, a person’s body tells a story in and of itself. The story is intimate and personal, only the occupant inhabiting its own body knows the full story, feels the emotions, and navigates one's thoughts. And yet, there are very real “beliefs” about what a body is, represents, or with what associations it carries. Life-changing assumptions and judgments are made about bodies.
There have been experiences and periods in my life where I felt challenged by and uncomfortable in my own white skin. The town where I grew up was affluent and all white with the exception of about 4 Black families. Through awareness and reflection, I have come to notice my aversion to white and wealth; I immediately judge and feel dislike. I know I do this and it is something I am working on. I am still working to understand what my beliefs about white bodies are; I think there are other factors that influence my perspective of a body and the person that inhabits it, like personality and character.
Along the same thinking, my beliefs about Black and brown bodies are tied to my personal experiences with specific people. I love and have loved friends and partners with Black and brown bodies. I have noticed feeling more comfortable and accepted by my friends and partners with Black and brown bodies. This comfort is not about the skin color, it is about the person, our commonalities in life, and our capacity to connect through love and friendship.
In general, police bodies make me uneasy. I am suspicious and weary of police, their intentions, and motivations. I did recently start working with a client who is a police officer; the things he has said have surprised me in a positive way. This experience continues to challenge my thinking, assumptions, and serves as a reminder not to generalize an entire group of people.
Through physical movement, specifically swimming, yoga, and running, I have become more attuned and familiar with my body. With increased awareness of my own body, its limitations, strengths, and desires, I have come to understand that every body is different and a yoga pose that works for me may not work for another person. I recognize and honor these differences when practicing and teaching, offering modifications and invitations for individuals to follow their own lead. Having taught an array of individuals, I am aware of the physical sensitivities and experiences of trauma which people carry into class. I never assume it is ok to assist or touch another person; I always ask. The capacity to provide healing touch to another body has been a moving experience.