May 31, 2020
Resources
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies / Resmaa Menakem
How to Be an Anti-Racist / Ibram X. Kendi
White Fragility / Robin DiAngelo
“How can I be vocal about anti-racism work during this time?”
“A lot of white folks are coming into this understanding of - I want to do something about this, I want to use my voice. So for those of you who are just getting started, welcome to the table. A lot of us come to this work late, and I think there’s no better time to show up and use your voice than now. Start reading, get to work, start to understand, start to speak out and don’t be afraid. You might mess up, you’ll probably mess up, and to just not be fragile if you get called in, you might cause harm, but just be humble along the way. ”
“How do I start a dance practice?”
“Put some music on that feels good to you, get the record player out, whatever feels good. And just start moving your body. A lot of times when I teach dance class I tell people, you can think of different elements - move like you’re made of air, or made of water, or fire, or earth - and just see where that takes you. Move intuitively. There’s no wrong way to have a dance practice. You can dance in silence, dance outside, wherever feels exciting to you. I hope whoever you are and wherever you are, you start a dance practice, let it be fun, let it be joyful, let it help grief move through you.”
“What advice/medicine do you take from that glorious scene in the season two finale of Buffy and the Vampire Slayer to what we are dealing with now?”
“The thing Buffy does is she takes her power back and then shares the wealth with other people. She lets her friends in on the fight. She doesn’t hoard resources, she’s like “I’m the vampire slayer, and oh, Willow, I think you’re a witch.” In this instance, I really think we see the lesson of whether it’s blatant racism or police brutality or sheltering in place and that wearing down on you, maybe you have a chronic illness, maybe you’re lonely because you miss people - we have the power to look for resources, implement them in our lives, and share them with the people around us. We can’t let vampires attack us. That’s what police are, right? That’s what white supremacy is. It wants to suck the living life out of people, specifically Black people, but all of us.”
“How do we engage with our family members who aren’t quite at the same level of understanding about anti-racism and social justice?”
“This is an urgent time to call in people - we need as many people working in solidarity right now together. But, your family might be angry with you if you try to talk to them about something [like white supremacy]. They might not fully understand. We can have gentleness and compassion for them and their experience and to send them resources.”
“I’m hearing a lot of confusion about what to post on Instagram - how to convey solidarity, what’s appropriate, what’s just taking up space, how to de-center whiteness and also tackle it. What do you think?”
“I hope to use my space, whether it’s the show or my social media presence, to really just use that platform to redirect. So whether it’s my newsletter I send out every week, Instagram, Twitter, just focus on where can I point people to that isn’t me right now. What educators, what funds to donate to, what books to read, other social media feeds of folks to amplify their voices who are speaking up right now. A platform - if you have 6 followers, if you have 1 real life friend - is an opportunity to redirect, decenter whiteness, and direct them to other people who have been committed to this work for a really long time. ”