“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” - Maya Angelou
We are all a work in progress. I am no exception to this. As a yoga teacher and circle holder, I have tried to be as honest and transparent as possible about my struggles, mistakes, and fumblings. Recently, I’ve understood the gravity of a perpetual mistake I’ve made. I’ve suggested everything is optional.
Everything can’t be optional.
I’ve suggested students find comfort and ease. Not everything can, or should, be comfortable. The feeling of a right to emotional and psychological comfort of white people, in fact, is a characteristic of white supremacy. And easy is not the tone of this revolutionary time.
Do white people need to be made comfortable? Is yoga (or yoga-inspired exercise) just another space to hide in privilege? It is a practice appropriated from people of color, commodified by white people and, ironically, not ironically, used in some regards by white people to stay away from deeper conversations about race. As Robin DiAngelo states, “white people have extremely low thresholds for enduring any discomfort associated with challenges to our racial worldviews.”
White folks like me are having a reckoning right now. There are major parts of white culture (inside and outside) that need to be excavated, looked at dead on, and then done away with. This is not comfortable work and it won’t be complete after one, or even dozens of, times. This is a lifetime of work that we MUST start, continue, and maintain from NOW on. Look at the news, read the statistics, don’t let denial take your hand. Centralize Black voices as you undertake this reckoning. Do your work.
And most importantly --reflect on how you’re feeling after reading this. Notice. Discomfort? Defensiveness? Boredom? Confusion? Appreciation? Wonder? Whatever it is, dig in. Then ACT.
Resources
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. By Robin DiAngelo
Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out. By Ruth King
How to be an anti-racist. By Ibram X. Kendi
So you want to talk about race. By Ijeoma Oluo
Yoga and the Roots of Cultural Appropriation by Shreena Gandhi and Lillie Wolff
There is no Neutral - a Tedx talk by Michelle Johnson
