I am feeling a reverence for this practicum journey. I am grateful for the opportunity to research, explore and create on such an important and fascinating topic. And I am excited to feel into how this chapter wants to close, leading the way for what wants to happen next. I am in a place of sitting with how to organize my experience in these last few blog posts, a reflective presentation summary for a supervisor, a final presentation to a live audience, and an experiential workshop I will be facilitating regarding this process (on March 23 at YogaMCC). What have I learned? What does completion look like at this point? What is the story I intend to tell?
As part of my integration and organization process, I have landed on what these next three weeks may look like in terms of content creation. First, I feel called to explore my ability to articulate, again, why this all matters, both as a reflective exercise as well as to increase my calm confidence in conversations with folks who have strong opinions one way or another, or are new to the process of digesting and metabolizing this content. I also want to include some experiential education regarding what I have learned and how that informs the direction my gaze and energy is flowing towards, which will be the topic for next week’s blog. Lastly, I am drawn towards utilizing symbols to organize the headlines for my autoethnography, and will begin with that process two weeks from now as I explore creative ways to present this as a final project.
One of my favorite integrative reminders comes from the work of Daniel Siegal (2017), a researcher, author and psychiatrist that focuses on mental health and attachment in the developing and “developed” brain. He teaches the importance of differentiation before the work of integration. Integration, Siegal (2017) says, “is more like a fruit salad than a smoothie" (p. 87). I have found this visual to be potent in my various integrative processes, as this denotes the goal to see and know the parts and pieces involved, explore the relationships and space between things, and then mindfully link or come back to wholeness without blending or losing the boundaries or uniqueness of each part being included. For Siegal (2017), the process of integration is one that optimizes well-being and healing, as harmony emerges between the extremes of chaos and rigidity.
As I have learned more about cultural humility and competency, there are striking similarities as integration or collective wellness is a process of differentiating between groups and individuals, recognizing similarities, and bridging those differences in the name of connection and human-ness (Intercultural Development Continuum, 2024). As Audre Lorde (1984), writer and renowned activist states in her paper Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference:
“Too often, we pour the energy needed for recognizing and exploring difference into pretending those differences are insurmountable barriers, or that they do not exist at all. This results in a voluntary isolation, or false and treacherous connections. Either way, we do not develop tools for using human difference as a springboard for creative change within our lives. We speak not of human difference, but of human deviance” (p. 2).
As I circle back to the focus of this blog post - why this matters - I hope you already feel the importance of this content. The points I explore below are not exhaustive, in fact, there are many more reasons why this work matters. The reasons that stand out to me and that I share come from my positionality and perspective in what brought me into this work and what keeps me motivated to continue on despite the moments of a bit too much chaos or stagnancy (Siegal, 2017). I hope that part of my work here is what inspires you to keep learning, reading, and listening to folks who are in “other” groups, as the more we open ourselves to others’ perspectives, the closer we get to the truth.
Why This Matters
This project began from the seed of curiosity regarding how to better engage in conversations related to systemic racism with folks who appear resistant, defensive, or exhibiting some version of denial. The topic of race and race-related issues can feel like a field of landmines, and nothing about that analogy invokes a sense of safety. Once our nervous system is activated, hypervigilance and over-thinking keeps us in an activated state, and a multitude of mental and physical illnesses and struggles are likely to manifest or worsen (Levine, 1976). When we remain in this head-driven way of being, disconnected from the wisdom that is within us, it is easier to go along with the Western culture’s status quo that asserts qualities of individualism, competition, and dualism as necessities for “success” (Okun, 2023). This incessant “othering” leads to a stance of inherent superiority that manifests as “the right to dominance” (Lorde, 1984, p. 2).
These are attributes of a culture that continues to operate within the confines of colonial thinking, and we will all benefit in various ways by deconstructing these tenets systemically and internally so we can unite as a collective, and optimize our individual health and well being. We must learn how to feel again, how to remain in discomfort long enough to release and transform what is stuck in our psyches. This is a journey that brings us back into our bodies, back into a heart-led way of being.
Topic aside, learning how to engage in difficult conversations of any kind is a valuable and transferable skill set.
According to Miller and Josephs (2003), one of the challenges “in analyzing white identity is that the issue cannot easily be raised without putting the white person on the defensive and arousing considerable persecutory anxiety and counter-hostility” (p. 103). What this tells me is that there are important and powerful feelings being triggered in these conversations, (in Internal Family Systems language) “trail-heads” (Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020) that lead to the underlying pain and wounding. From this perspective, these conversations are potent opportunities for cultivating wellness for ourselves, each other, and our planet.
Moving in to be with the feelings that arise during race-based conversations is not meant to be a form of penance or self-flagellation (Menakem, 2021; Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020). When we are under-resourced in our ability to understand how to ‘be with’ and stay present and connected while experiencing intense emotions, avoidance and denial feel like a saving grace (Miller & Josephs, 2009).
When someone feels “under attack” (or in other words, a critical mass of danger signals) it is common to engage in erroneous ‘othering’ and lean hard into dichotomous categories that further feed a sense of separation (Wong, 2018). The label white privilege has intense emotional substrates attached to it, as those who accept this label of privilege often feel shame or guilt, while those who deny this label tend to experience feelings of anger or indignation (Dobbs & Nicholson, 2022). Deny or accept, these emotional substrates are intense and it makes sense that without understanding or support in how to be with and process these emotions, there is a tendency to project blame, defend our identity we perceive as being under attack or completely shut down and avoid due to the sheer overwhelm of it all (Wong, 2018). Without a critical mass of safety signals, there is no hope for the important process of deconstructing and critically examining ‘whiteness’ (Lawrence & Bunche, 1996).
While there are many white-bodied people who fully acknowledge white privilege (Dobbs & Nicholson, 2022), this does not equate to a productive conversation or understanding of what to do with this knowledge (Miller & Josephs, 2009). And of the nearly half of the white-bodied population who expresses some or full denial of white privilege, this is correlated with a higher likelihood of furthering discriminatory systemic behavior by way of preserving the normalcy of microaggressions and implicit/explicit bias and attitudes that “oppose affirmative action, social welfare spending, and liberal immigration policy” (Dobbs & Nicholson, 2022, p. 14).
This also sheds light on a common sentiment conveyed by white folks who say that we (as a collective) have transcended race (Miller & Josephs, 2009), often coupled with the proclamation of an ideal quintessential ‘color blindness’ (Lawrence & Bunche, 1996). Not understanding that racism is built into our society leaves many white-bodied folks blind to the continuation of daily microaggressions (Miller & Josephs, 2009), and therefore, unable to be effective allies. Miller & Josephs (2009) suggest that growing up with the white supremacist cultural tenets of a “competitive, individualistic, materialistic, and status-conscious society” has intensified the “traumatic social mortifications” we experience in our youth and this unconsciously sets us up to be ill-equipped to recognize the impacts of white-ness (p. 96).
For white-bodied folks, doing the work to first acknowledge that white privilege exists is a vital step in reducing discriminatory behavior, but we need to go deeper in order to change our default thinking and reactions towards a more inclusive, equitable and heart-centered way of being.
Immense skill is required to honor differences while recognizing commonality (Agate & Finney, 2023). Strategic essentialism is a philosophy that attempts to support this vital aspect of integration (Mounk, 2023). It says that for the sake of agreeableness, we must use definitions and categories, yet we must also hold onto the equal truth that they are social constructions (Mounk, 2023). A common argument in opposition to race-based conversations is that to acknowledge race as a social construction and then use it as the sole or primary prism to examine any phenomena (i.e., white privilege) perpetuates a dangerous contradiction (Mounk, 2023). White privilege is not the only form of privilege or supremacy that is wielded and the cause of harm and imbalance in power.
This is an area of the conversation that requires we revisit nondualism, and its merits in conceptualizing the complex reality of multiple truths simultaneously. Privilege takes many forms (Liu, 2017), and shapeshifts based on context and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 2018). As a form of power, it also influences whether someone feels able to engage in various forms of ally-ship (Case et al., 2020).
While I agree that we must be mindful to not simplify or monolithically reside in the prism of white privilege or white supremacy culture at the center as the only problem (Mounk, 2023), it is vital that we do not use this as reasoning to side-step race-based conversations altogether. I propose that white privilege and white supremacy culture are important for us to understand, deconstruct, and critically examine so that we can engage in race-based conversations without the fragility of unprocessed wounds needing fierce protection (Miller & Josephs, 2009; Menakem, 2021). And, an equal truth is that we need to recognize the root of white supremacy culture and the resultant white privilege that connects us all as we share a similar wound from “...a colonial shattering of identity, or a wound inscribed at the heart of an identity no longer coinciding with itself—the recurrence of which is being anxiously defended against” (Drichel, 2013).
“Colonization has sought to sever bodies from land, history, ancestries, languages and spiritualities. It has sought to take the myriad ways in which people commune, connect and participate in the world and to dismember them” (Todd, 2019, p. 160).
Part of this work is recognizing that the intergenerational wounds and ongoing process of colonization “continually recreates itself” (Todd, 2019, p. 160), and affects us all. Tiokasin Ghosthorse (2021) refers to this as the box that we are held within. This box is held together through authoritative thinking, or “power over '' that constrains and controls with time, and the linear thinking of one beginning and ending (Ghosthorse, 2021). This is symptomatic of dualistic thinking, i.e., a superior and inferior, us versus them or “othering”, and prioritizing newtonian cause and effect, all of which use violence and erasure to dissuade and invalidate “other ways of knowing and being in the world” that are outside the EuroWestern standard of accepted science (Todd, 2019, p. 160).
Both Todd (2019) and Okun (2023) would add to this colonial box as being held together by the economy’s obsession with wealth, hustle, and seduction for more. Scholar and activist Jack Forbes refers to this insatiable desire for more as a cannibalistic ego or Wetiko disease (Luna-Firebaugh, 2010). In his book Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism and Terrorism (2008), Forbes implores we come back to our interconnectedness and give to the world rather than remaining in a state of wetiko that devours, dominates, and extracts (Luna-Firebaugh, 2010).
Lastly, anyone who is interested in personal growth and being of help and service to others will benefit from the pulse of perspective that includes micro to macro level thinking. We are complex beings that are inherently relational (Wilson, 2019), which aligns with the notion that sustainable change doesn’t happen in a silo. Who we are, how we relate, and how we show up in each moment is inseparable from the systems we are a part of (Kania et al, 2018).
Expressing the sentiment of Paulo Friere in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Audre Lorde (1984) emphasizes that “the true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors' tactics, the oppressors' relationships” (p. 6).
Resmaa Menakem (2021) expands on this by stating that individual work is vital as healing from intergenerational and present day acts of violence and domination must begin with your body. He continues, “But it does not end there. In order to heal the collective body that is America, we also need social activism that is body centered. We cannot individualize our way out of white-body supremacy. Nor can we merely strategize our way out. We need collective action — action that heals.”
I suggest that what we need is more support in these conversations, more people who feel resourced and capable to sit in discomfort, and alignment in our collective goal of harmonious relationships that lead to the deconstruction of systemic racism within ourselves and the environments we live within. While I have shared my own ongoing journey of deconstruction of colonial consciousness, I am clear about what is required of me next. System’s change requires individual work in dismantling implicit bias and updating mental models, participation in healthy relationships and seeing/questioning power dynamics, and a broader scope and experience to deconstruct and reconstruct policies, practices and resources (Kania et al, 2018).
References:
Agate, J., & Finney, F. (2023). Intercultural development continuum (IDC). Intent, impact, and
intercultural competence: How to successfully navigate difference (Online Course). Retrieved January 5, 2023, from https://courses.ifs-institute.com/.
Case, K. A., Rios, D., Lucas, A., Braun, K., & Enriquez, C. (2020). Intersectional patterns of prejudice confrontation by White, heterosexual, and cisgender allies. Journal of Social Issues, 76(4), 899–920. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12408
Crenshaw, K. (2018). “She coined the term ‘intersectionality’ over 30 years ago. Here’s what it means today. Time Magazine. time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/.
Dobbs, R., & Nicholson, S. P. (2022). Inverting the Lens: White Privilege Denial in Evaluations of Politicians and Policy. Perspectives on Politics, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592721004102
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Luna-Firebaugh, E. M. (2010). Jack D. Forbes. Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism and Terrorism. The American Indian Quarterly, 34(1), 120+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A219578878/AONE?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=a08f8434
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our hearts and bodies. Penguin Books.
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Todd, K. L. (2019). Shedding of the colonial skin: The decolonial potentialities of dreaming. Decolonizing the Spirit in Education and Beyond, 17(28), 153–175. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25320-2_11
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