Wow, thanks so much for elaborating! While different forms of activism are all important at different times, that acknowledgment of what lives inside you and allowing that to inform your actions is so powerful. I love that by de-centering your own voice, you were able to form relationships with those around you and that felt like the biggest step towards healing for everyone.
I really appreciate that you are considering not necessarily what you want from a situation, and rather what will actually lead to change? This is a concept I think about a lot when engaging with others who disagree. I will always seek to be anti-racist... but what actions can I take so that others become anti-racist too?
I appreciate you for sharing this perspective! I think this particular description is profound:
"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. "
This reminds me of the nuance in the work that we do, where it is important to both show-up and fully recognize each individual before us while pushing back on narratives and biases against whole groups of people.
@nicole yes the prison industry is a weird thing. I knew both family and non members who worked in the prisons. Very depleting work. Funny that in the last video session Bill mentioned COs pension plans. It’s true so many prison employees I knew back in those days all talked about the retirement package but they were all pretty miserable and most of them heavy drinkers and heavy prescription pain killers users.
It is all so very sad. A true reminder that our current carceral system is not good for anyone involved.
@nicole it is sad and very weird how much of the upstate NY is connected to the prison industry. My grandfather too was a high ranking CO and although quite kind to me was very cruel to his own children. On a related topic when we first started at the max prison the superintendent of the facility told us that the culture of COs needed to change because so many families of theses men and women were suffering on account of the work. He was so right on.
@breathingstillnessgmail-com I resonated with your share because I moved to Upstate NY when I was ten years old from Kenya. It was isolating and horrifying coming from a multiracial, multiethnic (albeit with entrenched colonialism) place like Nairobi, Kenya of the 1980s to upstate NY 1991. As a kid you just want to get on with life and adapt somehow so that's what I did. I made friends with white kids and got on with my life. But I do remember kids yelling radicalised epithets to my sister and I. We didn't tell our mother (who is white) because we didn't want to worry her. I kept getting asked if I was adopted which I thought was weird but didn't compute what it meant at the time. Being biracial proximity to whiteness. I knew how to move about in white spaces but only in ways that were deemed appropriate and not "too Black." There was a lot of internalised racism and inferiority and the aspiration was to move towards whiteness. It wasn't until I moved to Boston to college and met more Black American peers that I began to take pride in and identify more as a Black woman. I have experienced racism in America and I have also experienced a deep sense of community and belonging in Black America.
@wambuinjugunagmail-com thanks for the thoughtful words. Upstate is a hard culture, lots of despair there. There are islands of culture in college towns and university centers but when scratching past the surface it's a tough environment. I was happy to leave. For me, it was living in Ottawa CN where I first found a culture affirming of a variety of perspectives and then oddly enough here in Anchorage AK. It has people from all over the world working together to try and create a life here on the outer rim of the world. Anchorage still has its intense pockets of white outlying suburbs, a powerful oil industry and a huge military presence but still there is a hope that life might be able to be a little different in this place.
@breathingstillnessgmail-com Totally agree David. My mum was a university professor at St.Lawrence University in Canton, NY. So I was in a position of relative privilege being linked with the university. However, the further away you got from these havens, like you said, the despair is palpable. It's an interesting dynamic.
I really resonated with the fact that as a white woman, I've felt that I need protection from society. Not sure if that is Black bodies ...or all bodies but sitting with it. I have definitely felt fear around Black men before; I also find Black women to be "strong" as a community and as a child being glad that I wasn't "different" in colour as I felt so different in so many other ways. I have been learning much about white history while reading this and am learning a lot about even my own body. I feel fear as knots in my stomach, sweating, clenching.
1. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona. However, I was born in New York, and that's where my family is from. Growing up in a radically different places than my parents helped me identify my own thoughts around white bodies and black bodies which may be in contrast to their thoughts or feelings. Growing up, in school, there were only a handful of black students, with the majority being white. I feel like I lived in a decently progressive area, in the early 90s, and I don't recall hearing any racial slurs from any of my classmates. With that being said, racism, or trying to judge the differences in white and black bodies, was not something I was seeing until I was a bit older. And shockingly came from the people closest to me. The older I grew, the more the adults in the family allowed their thoughts and opinions to be heard, and the more I saw how rampant racism really is, even in front of my own face. Seeing such radically different viewpoints than my own, it helped me to reaffirm my own values and beliefs in the equality of everyone.
@wambuinjugunagmail-com I know the Canton NY area pretty well and spent a lot of time in the "north country" as we called it while growing up.
Thank you for sharing your experience. As a white woman, I often struggle with when my fear is justified and when it isn't. I understand that I have reason to fear in many situations, considering how often women face harassment and abuse. I also consider how women of color often experience so much more racism and pain than I ever will.
I work hard at processing each situation I encounter and question the narrative in my head- is this currently a dangerous situation, or am I projecting what I witness in the media onto a current moment?
Thanks for sharing your experience. You mention that as you grew older, the more you witnessed racism in your own family. I am curious if this led you to think back on your experience growing up, and if there really was more racism than you originally perceived in your progressive community?
I ask because this was my experience. I can't remember any overtly racist situations that I witnessed, but I do now recall numerous microaggressions as well as common jokes about the town next to me, where its community was made up of a majority of people of color and immigrants.
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 nice (France) where the diversity is very great. it's very multicultural and I was exposed to racial diversity from a young age. in primary school, my best friend was skin-colored, and i had no problem with that. thereafter I had other skin-colored buddies and it didn't really shock me or make me fell unconfortable. I never thought white bodies were superior to black bodies
2) focusing on my bodily sensations allows me to better understand my body, to get to know it better. This is something I do regularly in my yoga practice. When i practice, i concentrate on body sensations all the time. Focusing the attention on my body sensations cause my thoughts to evaporate wih helps me clear my mind. When attention is repeatedly redirected from ruminative thought, towards the body sensations, my thoughts just sort of evaporate. and then redirecting the attention to the breath or other body sensations, just silences them. It's when I feel tense and nervous that I practice yoga a lot and focusing on my bodily sensations helps me a lot to let go
Thanks for sharing, Kelly!
When you say "skin-colored", does that refer to a person of color? I have never heard that phrase before and am wondering if that is a term used in France.
What I have learned from some of our participants in France is that while many parts of France are multicultural, there are very different experiences for people that are born in France and/or white compared to the experience of immigrants and people of color. I would be curious to know more about your friends' experiences.
I like the way you describe focusing on your bodily sensations, and how that causes your thoughts to evaporate.