when all your white friends can talk about are the riots

I received a text today from a dear white friend, very concerned about the riots. Let’s just jump in to it!

Here is my response, as a white woman who has been on an Antiracism journey for the last 11 months…

“We are not being asked to justify horrendous acts of violence on the streets. 

We are not being asked to sit idly by as horses are killed and shop owners are physically and mentally destroyed.

We are not being asked to weigh in on how much is too much and we are not being asked to predict the outcome.

We are being asked to turn our eyes and ears to Black voices. 

We are being asked to stay focused and vigilant about unpacking hundreds of years of internalized racism. 

We are being asked to declare out loud that Black lives matter and we won’t back down from our own internal AND external work until all systems of oppression come all the way down, and Black lives matter to this country, it’s people and the globe. 

We cannot do this when the media keeps distracting us with footage of riots. 

I know, I know this has become a blood bath. I know that innocent (meaning non-directly antagonistic) people are being mamed and destroyed on many levels. 

I know that many of the looters are instigators and agitators who have no real eye for the movement. I also know that many of them are Black folks.

We have never been here before. Black lives mattering has never happened in the history of this country. 

We don’t know what it would look like if it did. 

I have listened to and spoken with so many Black folks not just in the last few days but in the last year and they have asked me to stay focused.

They have asked me to look the other way on the riots and mind my own business and refrain from forming my own opinion on whether the riots are right or wrong; that such thoughts are distracting and inherently racist.

They have asked me to put my body on the line for them and they have asked me to listen. 

There are many Black folks who are vehemently against the protests and riots. As they have every right to be. The same is true for Black folks who desperately want to see this toxic thing burn to the ground by any means necessary.

That is a discussion for the Black community. Not for us.

I know this stance is divisive and the whole thing is truly unfathomable..but so is the idea that Black lives matter. 

As a white women, I’ve never been required to listen to Black people. To take their words to heart in a personal feet-to-the-ground way. By looking the other way on the riots and instead staying focused on antiracism work, I am correcting my habit of only listening to white people. 

I invite you to not take sides on the riots and instead start reading books by Black authors and listening to Black owned podcasts and paying Black women to educate us, and I’ll keep doing the same!

Action Item:

If you want to SUPPORT BIRTH EQUITY AND BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES: DO THIS: URGENT SUPPORT NEEDED: Roots Community Birth Center in Minneapolis, owned by black midwife Rebecca Polston, is in need of urgent support. Rebecca was forced to abandon her birth center due to the protest and fires near her business. Funds are needed to purchase hotel suites for clinic, delivery and postpartum support. There are only seven black-owned birth centers in the United States, please help keep this one open.

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MAKE A CASH DONATION: Venmo @projectmotherpath

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#amplifymelanatedvoices #supportblackbusiness #blackwomenbusinessowners

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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner! (Hint: White Supremacy)

In the previous post, I shared about my first ever Anti-Racism event, “Let it Start with Me: Anti-Racism + Yoga Workshop” led by my Anti-Racism Coach, Tina Strawn.

In this post, I’d like to share my second Anti-Racism event I organized and was a part of!

Since Tina was in LA for a couple of weeks, I wanted to make sure to spend time with her AND I really wanted to introduce her to some of my friends, as she has become such a significant person in my life.

Tina and I discussed doing a MLK inspired dinner, where we’d gather a group, eat and discuss King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail.

As a white woman, raised colorblind, believing we are all the same and, of course, “not racist”, I thought it a great idea to invite Tina to have a meal with my white friends.  And I assumed that since my best friend’s parents happily opened their home to a party of twelve and offered to cook for the occasion, that this was evidence of the important people in my life taking a first step on an Anti-Racism journey. 

I would soon see this is not the case.

Martin Luther King with a side of Pallela is not Anti-Racism work.

Tina brought her two cousins, and I invited one of my Black friends, making four Black people and eight white people. And when four Black people walked into a kitchen of eight white people, it became clear what Tina and so many Black people mean by predominantly white spaces not being safe.

A distinct tension fills room, a tension that sounds like a very high pitched “hi! hello! nice to meet you!” I could now see how us white people want so badly to ignore race and play it cool. But we’re not cool. We’re awkward and confronted and, turns out, we’re not fooling anyone.

After we finished eating, it felt like a good time to pass out copies of MLK’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail and start a discussion.

It’s important to note, many of the quotes and memes posted on social media on MLK day come from this particular letter, except King’s words are misrepresented in a way that elevates “good white people” and negates what Dr. King is saying— which is, that good, white, non-racist people are more dangerous than the KKK.

This is what we discussed at dinner, and this is where whiteness is thrust into the spotlight.

Whiteness looks like an emotional reaction to talking about racism and imagining what it must have been like for Black people in the past, because after all, racism is a past mistake. 

Whiteness sounds like, “I know I’m not doing anything to perpetuate racism but I’m not doing anything to help. Where should I start?”

Or

“I can’t believe people online can be so mean and racist. I would never say things like that.”

Or

“I just can’t believe this is over the color of our skin. We’re all the same!”

Whiteness also shows up at events where good white people feel they’ve done a great deed by coming to events that center Black history, but take no further action afterward. 

These are examples of how whiteness showed up at dinner. 

Whiteness, however well intended, has a draining and dehumanizing effect on BIPOC. White people crying about racism asserts the white supremacist power dynamic; one where we are fragile and sorry and ashamed and confronted, leaving no room for Black people to be truly heard, and no room for anti-racist inspired action because we’re too busy crying. 

I acknowledged this was the first time almost all the white people at the table had ever engaged in a discussion about race, racism and white supremacy. 

I acknowledged that I too was a white woman living thirty-two years convinced I’m not part of the problem, that my warm heart and spiritual practices exempt me from considering the impact my whiteness has on Black, Indigenous people of color.

I learned that this was not a safe space for the four Black people at the table and I believed Tina’s cousin when he shared that talking to white people is typically very draining.

I have been on an Anti-Racism journey for the last seven months, working with an Anti-Racism Coach and learning how to dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy by looking at the ways I personally uphold them as a white woman. 

While there are many ways to start on an Anti-Racism journey, the book “White Fragility” was a key resource for me, as it gave me a new and necessary vocabulary for what it really means to be white. This book alone is not indicative of Anti-Racism work but it’s a very helpful start. 

Both Coach Tina, as well as every book I’ve read, podcast I listen to and every Black mentor I follow on social media insist us white people are going to fuck up and make mistakes on this path— something I dread because I never want to let anyone down or hurt people of color, but I have made a lifelong commitment to divest from whiteness and show up for BIPOC in real, helpful and even risky ways. 

At the end of the day, I’d rather make mistakes on an Anti-Racism path than continue being harmful on a not-racist path. 

A Huge Mistake I Made at an Anti-Racism Workshop

Last month I organized a workshop Led by my Anti-Racism Coach, Tina Strawn.

The workshop itself went very well! Tina has developed a unique and very necessary opportunity for white women to look at our role in systemic racism and white supremacy through the lens of Yogic philosophy. 

I need to tell you about the days leading up to the workshop and where I, as a white woman, made some huge mistakes, which in turn harmed Tina and the work she and BIPOC share with the world.

I started talking about and advertising this workshop four weeks prior— posting about it on my social media platforms, and sharing in person with friends and Yoga students. 

I knew this event wasn’t going to spark the same level of excitement as a spiritual retreat in Costa Rica or a Tupperware party, but I thought at the very least ten people in my life were open, willing and ready to step into a space of self-reflection.

When Tina told me three people signed up a week before the workshop, I was elated and felt even more hopeful more would join. 

Not to mention, my white friend and yoga student had offered up her home to host the workshop and she was going to be in attendance, too.

During this time, my posts and ongoing conversations, upheld the importance of this work and maintained an honest, unmistakable description of the subject matter

...that is, until I panicked.

Two days before the workshop, two things happened:

1. My friend and host of the workshop broke her pelvis in a horse accident but still offered up her home.

2. Two out of the three people canceled, and since the ticket was non-refundable, I thought it a good idea to donate those two tickets for anyone who’d want to come.

I got desperate.

Not thinking about Tina’s feelings or the impact offering free tickets to this type of event would have, I scrambled to text people and even announced on social media (in BIG, OBNOXIOUS text) that I had two free tickets available and that if your weekend plans fell through, to come to an Anti-Racism & Yoga workshop because, after all, it’s free.

I also did not consider that offering tickets for free allowed for a lesser amount of accountability (or none at all)  from white people in anti-racism. 

This also gave problematic, resistant, argumentative and overtly racist people free access to a space that must be safe for Tina as a Black woman.

I also realized that offering the workshop for free suggests that money is the barrier to such a workshop when the real barrier is disinterest and apathy.

One of my “catchy” posts the day of the Anti-Racism workshop read: “Sunday plans fall through? Birthday party get canceled? Great! Come to an Anti-Racism & Yoga workshop this afternoon!”

I ignored what I’ve come to learn, which is that Anti-Racism is not something you do when plans fall through, you’re bored or need a way to fill your time. As a result of desperation, panic and just bad marketing, I put Tina in a compromised position and centered my needs over her safety. 

Even though the workshop itself went well, my marketing desperation is an example of devaluing Anti-Racism work and causing harm to people of color, particularly Black women who lead conversations with white people on race, power and privilege.