On Anti-racism education
Recently, I have started to share my thoughts on cultural appropriation and awareness in yoga and wellness spaces. This still brings up a lot of fear for me, despite my joy that the intersections of race, privilege, power, and profit are beginning to be addressed. We have a long way to go, but I am encouraged by really progressive organizations such as Yoga Outreach (https://www.yogaoutreach.com/) that have been incredibly supportive of me and highlighted my work.
My intention with this uncolonizing yoga education is for intergenerational healing for all peoples. This may be an insanely idealistic goal, but I believe that our ancestors have wisdom they would like us to access, they have experienced hardships we can learn from, and that future generations need us to move beyond what has happened before. This work can be difficult. It means addressing the truth that has not been widely heard by dominant society, it means understanding new perspectives and ways of thinking. It requires so much courage and compassion.
I wrote the following reflection after hearing about some challenging circumstances that a local indigenous professor was facing. I have a lot to learn, and I am grateful that I can learn about decolonization from so many other amazing folks that are brave and willing to do the hard work of healing and connecting.
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I have seen some issues in my cultural awareness education already, with how content is received - fragility leading to anger/fear that gets taken out on the instructor... and students avoiding doing the deeper work to truly understand systemic adversity.
Doing uncolonizing, anti-oppressive and anti-racist work requires a willingness to come to terms with white supremacy, with historical and ongoing oppression, with understanding why humans can treat each other horribly. I've seen that it is possible to come out the other side a better, loving, more thoughtful and positively impactful human being. It is worth the work. I try my best to create compassion and safety when I do this work with yoga and wellness communities - but there is always a level of productive discomfort required in this material, in particular for people of privilege. I hope that more and more allies speak to their fellow white people about how to learn to listen and move forward.
In order to create belonging and justice, we have to acknowledge past and present harms and learn to do better. This is not about cancelling people or polarization. It is not about anyone being better than anyone else. It is about having difficult discussions so future generations don't repeat the cultural genocides that have happened on our soil and around the world. Confronting our own biases and our prejudices, questioning our assumptions and working through hard emotions are all necessary to create a more just, loving world. Feeling painful emotions and moving through them is part of this work. A big part. We cannot bypass the hard work, particularly if we have intersections of privilege.
We have to learn how to develop humility, listen to marginalized and indigenous folks, and re-imagine relationships and ways of living together. This requires courage and active participation of allies and accomplices. Dismantling racism, patriarchy, and the prison industrial complex is going to take all of us coming together in compassion, awareness and loving change, it is not asking just the folks directly affected and oppressed to do the hard work of decolonizing education. We need meaningful action informed by deep care and understanding.
Diversity and equity policies cannot be solved by checking boxes, stating lip service in documents or simply acknowledging power imbalances and occupation of lands- we have to go beyond that toward intergenerational healing, restorative action and heart based community building. Ultimately, we all win when we choose to learn about justice, power, and identity. We all win when historically marginalized groups are given platforms when their voices have been ignored for so long. We all win with diverse leadership, and equitable institutions that walk the talk. We can only embrace diversity and live in a multicultural society when all peoples have access to a good life and resources without facing systemic barriers each day.
I'm not a communist by any means, but I do firmly believe that we need to pay attention to who has the most money, access to funding, leadership opportunities, social capital, attention, representation and influence in our society - and actively work to diversify that.
Let's get real. We live in a society built on erasing and trying to eliminate and assimilate indigenous peoples. It's gonna take some deep work to heal those wounds, and we are all bleeding because of it.
We live in and benefit from the ongoing legacy of colonialism as settlers - Decolonization and Reconciliation is a lifelong process of humility, respect, listening, learning and working together.
