Wendy Jane's Soul Shake

Happy 2023!

I know I’ve been quiet here on the blog–very quiet in 2022. I only wrote two pieces, far fewer than the past ten years I’ve been writing entries on Wendy Jane’s Soul Shake.

Reflection

And there is a reason, well, there are many reasons why, and initially I wasn’t aware of all of them. At first, my conscious thoughts were things like, what else can I say that I haven’t already said, and, who needs to keep hearing from this white woman. There were thoughts I had about needing to overhaul the blog, tech-wise. The outdated, clunky theme doesn’t always work properly. There were thoughts about changing up the content. I figured if I was tired of hearing just myself talk about whiteness, I should bring in other voices. A friend, who is Black, suggested I be in conversation with other white people on the blog, to hear from others on how they experience their whiteness, and where they see themselves in the work of transforming white supremacy culture and systems of oppression into a future that is free, and equitable for all of us.

There was also the realization of how prevalent it was for me, and many white folks, especially in the last two years, to post on social media about our outrage about racism, about the fact that Black Lives Matter, and how we all urgently wanted to fight for what is right. And then there was the real feedback from some Black people, and Indigenous people, and people of color, who showed us how much of this is performative. It showed us how we post about our outrage, put a sign in our front yards, and still go about our day-to-day lives upholding our white privilege and power, and not changing a thing in terms of shifting that power in all areas of our lives–where we live, where our kids get to go to school, who gets what job, whose doctor believes their patients know their bodies, who gets sicker and dies during the pandemic, who dies more giving birth, who feels they belong in workplace culture, whose ideas matter, who gets to build wealth, and on and on.

Some of these reasons, I know, were ways for me to make excuses, deflect, and find ways to feel comfortable in my own discomfort around being a white woman who wants to be part of the collective “doing the work” of transmuting white supremacy culture. Transmuting, or changing in form, nature or substance, is a term that Diedra Barber and Maureen Benson, co-hosts of the podcast, Eyes on Whiteness, and co-directors of Transmuting White Supremacy Culture and Patriarchy use, to teach how through the cultivation of intersectional leadership, “a foundational (and daily) practice of introspection, self-awareness, intersectional inquiry, transparency, vulnerability, and invoking collectivism,” we can intentionally shift the culture from white supremacy and patriarchy, toward a collective way of being that reduces harm to all, and builds a just future that goes far beyond “diversity and inclusion” efforts.

My discomfort, I know, shows up in a number of ways. It can be the anxiety that still comes with speaking up about racism within a group, whether at my work at the hospital when a co-worker says something racist, or shows ignorance toward culturally responsive care, or, within my friends group. I know in my heart and my brain, that it is far more important to me to speak up and address racism, than to worry about the conflict that may arise, or the way other white people are going to see me. The majority of the time, I do say what I believe needs to be said. The anxiety is still there when I say it, and so is the good old tinge of white supremacy culture worry that the words coming out of my mouth won’t sound smooth and perfect. The other discomfort is worrying about whether I should step back. For example, I worry if I’m writing or talking about matters of race that should be said by Black people, and not me. And, like all “good, white people, ” I worry about slipping up and causing harm to Black people. Again, I know this is all part of the process, By the virtue of living as a white person, I am going to cause harm. I am going to say and do things that cause harm to Black people, and I have to acknowledge that, take responsibility for my actions, apologize, correct course, and move forward. I know I have messed up this year, and caused harm to Black people in this past year, either in word or deed, or in omission of word or deed.

On Being Quiet

The other reason, which I wasn’t initially aware of during this past year, is that it’s okay to be quiet–as long as I/we, are still being a part of the work to shift culture. I may not share my outrage as much on social media, or post all the events I’ve taken part in–all the things I’m doing behind the scenes, even though in a minute here, I am going to be letting you know what I’ve been up to! It’s okay to sit in reflection, allow your self-awareness to grow, to absorb life, and know “next-steps” will come to you, and you will still be a part of the work. The ‘being quiet’ part reminds me of a phone conversation I had last spring with community activist, youth leader, non-profit director, Pilar McCloud.

I was yet another white person reaching out to Pilar, a Black woman, to talk about racial justice–in this case, to inquire how the local Jewish Temple whose Racial Justice Committee I was involved with, could better connect with people in the Black community in Providence. I’ve known Pilar for a number of years now, since I moved to Providence, and admire her greatly for her passionate commitment to serving the Black community in Providence, and beyond. Pilar fights for what’s right in public education, housing, employment, public safety, and tells it like it is to us white folks who sure need, not only to hear it, but to do something about it. And yet, for so many Black women, we white folks will admire them, and talk about how strong, how brilliant, how resilient, how tireless they are, but not see them as human beings who deserve rest, who shouldn’t have to carry the burden of doing all this work, and who should be paid for their labor, whether being asked to speak at an event, or being invited “to connect” and share their knowledge of racism and the impact of white supremacy on the Black community, and then, still be asked to tell us what we can do to “help.”

In our phone conversation, Pilar, talked about how fighting for justice is not just showing up at the State House for a rally, holding up signs, and posting on social media. I remember her sharing, and I’m paraphrasing here, that it’s not just speaking up when a big event happens, like the George Floyd murder. Fighting for justice is the tireless, day-to-day, being in the community, being in community, and seeing what needs to be done to make things safe, make things better, make things fair and equitable, for Black and brown people who don’t have the same privilege and power as white people do, and then, doing it.

Pilar’s words resonated with me that day. It is my hope they resonate with other white people, too. To hear them means to keep working every day of our lives, on changing the power and privilege dynamics that keeps white people at the top of everything. It is not an event. For me, it is a way of showing up and moving through all the spaces I am in, striving to be in “right relationship”, as activist, and author, Sonya Renee Taylor says, with all of the people I interact with. That I retain my awareness of the lens I look through as a white, Jewish, middle-aged woman, middle-class, who grew up in the Northeast. That I stay aware of the way white supremacy culture permeates majority white spaces, and bring attention to that, and act in a way to be a part of shifting away from that, to a culture that is truly–though I hedge to use this word because of its ties to DEI work that often fails at it–inclusive, and just.

How Quiet Can Lead To Intuiting What You Need

Being quiet this year was good for me, necessary. I took more time to do internal reflection on how the traits of whiteness and internalized racism show up in me. In the spring/summer, I took part in a twelve-week, online Embodied Social Justice Program, led by the non-profit organization, Transformative Change, with lead co-facilitators, Rev. angel Kyodo williams, and Dr. Sara King. I learned so much, too much to try and concisely share here. I learned more about the critical element of somatic, body conditioning as integral to individual and collective change work. I experienced what it meant to be in community, to sit in affinity group break-out rooms and have to talk with other white folks about what comes up for us in being a part of the work. I had to also, at times, sit in my own discomfort at being the white gaze witnessing the pain and discomfort of members of our cohort, who were Black, Asian, Latinx, Indigenous, queer, trans, disabled, as they shared their life experiences with racism, white supremacy culture, and white people’s behaviors, and a few times, the harm caused during the program.

I continued to be a part of activist, author, blogger, Shay Stewart-Bouley’s, Beloved Community, a group of about fifteen, primarily white women, and several white men, who meet monthly over a course of five months, to share about what we are up to in the work of anti-racism, and to hold one another accountable in the work. Here is another space where I am learning what it means to be in community with others. I have always been shy, quiet, and someone who liked working on things, whether artistically, or at work, on my own. I now realize that, even though we are born with some of these innate qualities of introversion or shyness, it is also true that white supremacy culture created the myth of individual meritocracy, and living according to the desires of the individual. We live by the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality, when Black and brown people in this country weren’t given the boots or the straps. We give praise for individual achievement and advancement as if a person gains things all on their own. Yet, it is the creation of laws, policies and systems which afforded white people in this country the opportunities to advance, while slavery, Jim Crow laws, redlining, voter restriction, and an unjust criminal justice system, placed obstacles and stole those opportunities for Black people in this country to advance. Living my life focusing on myself, and not being a part of community building, has limited my ability to truly be a part of racial justice work, and be a part of making an impact.

I learn from Shay, and my fellow Beloved Community members, as I learned from the words of Rev. angel Kyodo williams, that none of us do the work of transmuting white supremacy culture alone. We do it in community. As Rev. angel says, “…look inward first, and then when you’re ready to turn outward, grab a hand.” I’m eternally grateful, too, that Shay, paired me up with my two cohort buddies, Alyssa and Gabi. We meet to chat in between our full community meetings to support one another in the work, and it means so much to me to have their presence and care, and honesty, as we share our experiences–the good, the bad, and the ugly–and carry one another along on this journey of learning and unlearning.

As leader of our group, who creates the container for this work to happen, I think about how that is a lot for Shay, a Black woman, to take on. Yet, Shay has told us she feels strongly that the work needs to happen within the white community, and more importantly, that the work is relational. That the way we move things forward is by being in relationship with one another. This is an important learning for me. I can see much more clearly now because of Shay, that yes, us white people need to be talking with one another and looking inward to reflect upon our own internalized whiteness and racism, and, look outward, and act, to be a part of the change. We also, of course, need to build cross-racial relationships in the work of transmuting white supremacy culture and systems of oppression.

On My Taking Baby Steps To Build More Community

Speaking to being in community with other white people, a close friend of mine, Anisa, sent along a group email to me and six other white women in our friends’ circle. The email contained a 21-day Racial Equity Challenge sent out by the local United Way. She said she was taking part in it, and passed it along to see if any of us wanted to join in. We thanked her, and at the end of the challenge, one of the women emailed the group to share some of her reflections, and said she was interested to hear what others in the group thought and felt. I thanked her for reaching out with that prompt, and upped the ante I suppose, by asking if all of us would be interested in meeting to get deeper into anti-racism conversations together. I was glad to hear the “yes” from everyone in the group, and we have been meeting monthly since last April.

I knew one of my reasons for wanting us to come together was to keep anti-racism work going. I noticed that conversations on racism were waning among white people. It’s just as Pilar noted above. The quiet came after the media coverage on anti-Black racism diminished. Corporate DEI efforts continue to dwindle just two years after the murder of George Floyd. I am grateful that my friends are showing up, in all of our imperfectness, to recognize and reflect on the power and privilege we hold, to learn and grow, cause less harm, and be a part of the necessary collective change our country sorely needs.

And even within our group, I realize the question of identity, how we see ourselves and one another, and the desire to not erase the complexity of our identities, is present for me. When writing this piece, I reached out to Anisa and asked her how she likes to identify herself as I know her father is Iraqi, and her mother, a white American. Anisa told me, “I’m constantly wrestling with this…I’ve even listened to some podcasts on this topic that actually sometimes give me the aha moment….I feel I both deny my Arab culture and want to acknowledge this part of my background, yet not speaking Arabic and growing up in the states, not in Iraq, with all the advantage and privilege of being white-it feels if I use the term Arab American that I am appropriating a life I have not lived, especially the political unrest. And then since Arab is not on a census, or as a box for race – I am left with white.” She finished with saying that she’s not sure how to identify, and this causes her discomfort. I truly appreciated Anisa sharing with me in her email reply, and a face-to-face, fuller conversation shortly afterward. I gained some insight and education, and the reminder of how complex and layered identity is, and I got to learn more about how my friend feels–something I never took the time to ask her about before now.

Some of the books I’ve read this year include, Dear White Women, Please Come Home, by Kimberlee Yolanda Williams. Shay asked our Beloved Community group to read the book, a collection of scenarios all experienced by the author, a Black woman, and written as individual letters to her long, lost (fictional) white woman friend, who she hopes will “come home. ” The metaphorical coming home is what Kimberlee, the author, keeps holding onto hope for, that white women will rise to the occasion and finally become “sisters” with Black women, instead of rendering them invisible, and causing harm, as Kimberlee so vividly shares in her book. I am currently reading, also at the request of Shay, for the next section of our Beloved Community convening, White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism, And How To Do Better by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao. Once I finish reading this book, which I’m glad will be discussed with Shay and the rest of our community, I will be reading Myisha T. Hill‘s new book, Heal Your Way Forward, The Co-Conspirator’s Guide To An Anti-Racist Future. I follow healer, author, speaker, coach, Myisha on Instagram at the suggestion of my Beloved Community buddy, Gabi. I have appreciated Myisha’s “Instagram Lives” with Joquina (Kina) Reed, a Black woman, who is a justice, equity, diversity and inclusion specialist, community advocate, podcaster, and digital content creator.

Just this month, I took part in anti-racism educator, Ashani Mfuko‘s 5-Day Anti-Racism Conversation Confidence Challenge. I realize that even though I’ve been on this journey for a while, it is a life-long process to keep learning and unlearning my own internalized racism, my relationship with white supremacy culture, and get better at having the conversations that need to be had when doing the work. I gained much from taking part in the challenge, especially leaning into Ashani’s guidance in the areas of having curious, open conversations with people who are covertly racist, instead of shaming and blaming.

In my community, as a writer, and artist, I work to support Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and non-Black artists of color, through the arts coordination I facilitate at the hospital I work at. I attend art events–gallery exhibits, poetry readings, plays–led by, and featuring Black artists, and other artists of color. I also work to stay conscious, every day, on how I show up and move through all the spaces I find myself in.

I share all that I’ve been up to, not to say, look at what I’ve done, I’m a “good, white person.” I share it to show some of the ways us white folks can be a part of the transmuting of white supremacy culture and systems of oppression–how to be part of this liberatory work. I believe, as I’m taught by so many, especially so many Black women who lead in this work, that white people, we need to liberate ourselves too. We, who have to remind ourselves that we have a race, and that we are the creators of the systems that now exist that keep white people in the position of power and privilege, and we are not free until all of us are free of these systems. And I don’t share what I’ve been up to to say, look I’ve read all the books, taken all the courses, joined all these groups, and so now I know it all, and I’m good. Absolutely not. As white people, we can learn things and know things, and a lot of us would sure like to keep it at the intellectual knowing part, but until we know it in our hearts, and in our bodies, we will not be a part of the change we need to be a part of. If we simply say we know about racism and white supremacy culture, and keep on living the way we’ve always lived, thinking that the knowing makes us “good, white people,” then we stay complicit in upholding white supremacy and its systems of oppression.

On Uplifting The Work of Black Women

And if you noticed, aside from the white peers I am doing the work with, every person that I mentioned in this post that I have learned and grown with this past year, in reading their work, or engaging with their programming, have been Black women, and women of color. We white women, all of us white folks, need to give credit to all the Black women who are leaders of anti-racism education, activism, and healing work. And to pay them for their work.

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. It is 2023. Now is the time, if you are not already engaging with anti-racism work, to be a part of the work of transmuting white supremacy culture and systems of oppression into a liberatory future where all of us can live free and thrive and belong. There are so many places, and ways to be a part of the change we need. Won’t you look inward and see yourself, and look outward, and before you move forward, like Rev. angel says, “grab a hand.”

I thank you, as always, for taking the time to read this, to reflect on it, and to reach out with any feedback, questions, or conversation you’d like to further engage with.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, peaceful, joyful new year.

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Sources:

www.blackgirlinmaine.com

@blackgirlinmaine

www.ashanimfuko.com

@ashanimfukoofficial

www.joquinareed.com

@divestingfromwhiteness

www.myishathill.com

@myishathill

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pilar-mccloud-605ba07b/

https://pilarmccloud.wixsite.com/pilarmccloud

www.engagingacrossdifference.com

@kimberleeyolandawilliams

www.transmutingwhitesupremacyandpatriarchy.com

www.diedrabarber.com

www.maureenbenson.org

www.mindheartconsulting.com

www.revangel.com

www.transformativechange.org

Celebrating diverse Jewish community at Diana’s Passover Seder

***

February 14th marked ten years of writing the Wendy Jane Soul Shake blog. What started as a singular journey to question and explore my strong desire to connect across racial lines, embrace Black arts and culture, and fight against the most overt forms of racism, while knowing some of the subverted systems of oppression, is still a journey for certain. In the last few years, thanks to video recordings, and the realization of how fragile our democracy really is, many of us white folks finally awakened to the racial violence this country was founded on, and continues to perpetuate. We also know many white folks are clinging tightly to their positions of power, privilege, and white comfort. The blog, and my journey, has taken these twists and turns right alongside this living history.

Lately, though, I think about what kinds of things I should be writing about now. Not that there isn’t enough evidence to show us that the work of, not simply being aware of racism, but of working toward a future where we are all liberated from racism, is still needed. In just the last month we learned of the killing of Amir Locke. Amir was a young Black man from Minneapolis, killed by a police officer conducting a no-knock warrant. On February 18th, the convicted police officer that “accidentally” thought her gun was a taser and killed Black teenager, Duante Wright, received the lightest prison sentence of two years for taking Duante’s life.

And not that there’s not still Black people, people of color, Indigenous people, LGBTQ folks, and folks with disabilities, fighting to get a foot in the door, raise the glass ceiling, and merely to feel they are authentically accepted and belong in the majority white work spaces they so often find themselves in. All of this still exists despite the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives that every corporation, and non-profit organization hurried to initiate after the murder of George Floyd. DEI is big business now, as evidenced by the many job openings available for DEI Directors.

There is so much more of course which we need to transform, and I feel it’s important to keep documenting these times we are moving through. Yet I’m feeling I need to make some changes too–here on the blog–and in the way I move through this world. In a recent post a friend suggested I bring in other voices–perhaps interview, or be in conversation with others about racism, white body supremacy, and the work of transformation. To write about a future that is for all of us. A future where we exist side-by-side without the weight of a hierarchal oppressive system. To hear from others through their lens, and lived experience, what all of this means to them, and how they see a way to do the work we so sorely need to keep doing.

Got Community?

Which brings me to community. Right before the pandemic I interviewed for an opportunity to be trained as one of a group of Artist/Community Health Workers, who would engage and co-create an arts-based project with a selected community, considered marginalized. During the interview, I was comfortable answering questions, like, “Why are people poor? Is it because they’re lazy, don’t work hard enough?” I was able to plainly answer that I believed it was racism, and structures and laws of oppression, like redlining, urban renewal, inequality in school resources, and not people’s laziness or lack of responsibility. Then I was asked the question, and I’m paraphrasing here, “What community or communities do you consider yourself a part of?” Right away, I became uncomfortable, and blocked. I didn’t have an answer about my community.

I had only recently heard a few Black people, leaders and activists in the racial justice world, say that white people don’t have community. It often takes me quite a while for something to click, to understand the depth of what is being said. During the interview, I stammered. In my head, I thought about how growing up I felt I belonged in a more formal way to my Jewish community. Our family belonged to a local Reform Temple. I went to weekly Hebrew school and Sunday school classes, celebrated the Jewish holidays with my family and relatives, and felt a connection to the small handful of Jewish kids in my elementary school classes. We were way outnumbered by the majority of Catholic and Protestant students. On Mondays when the Christian kids left school early for Catechism class, it was just me and Chucky Handler as the two Jewish kids left in the classroom, along with Nicky DiMerali, the only Muslim kid in the class. Days like those, my sense of our connection, of belonging to each other because we were in the minority, and other, was more pronounced.

Things changed once my sisters and I left home after high school. My family left the Temple. Also, my mother passed away from cancer when I was twenty-six. She was the glue that held together our family’s Jewish holiday celebrations. When she passed, and as our generation of kids grew up and moved away, the honoring of the holidays fell apart. Today, I am still in community with my Jewishness in a more informal way with my great friends, Diana, Marci and Ilira, and my Aunt Jane, who have over the years, included my daughters and me in their Jewish holiday celebrations. And though I don’t now belong to a synagogue or temple, I was invited to join the Racial Justice Committee at a Temple here in Providence, and am again, learning what it means to be in community there.

My mom finding community? Mrs. Handler (Chucky’s mom) (left) and my mom (right), co-chairs of Temple Israel Annual Art Show, Waterbury, CT

I don’t think I mentioned the Jewish community in the interview, but I did mention my artist and writer friends as people I am in community with. Still, I felt the tension in my body arise with the growing knowledge that I could not truthfully name much of a community that I was a part of.

I was painfully shy growing up, and often did, and still do, feel like an outsider in a group setting. When I was younger, I stayed quiet in the ballet and gymnastics classes, and larger social groups I found myself in. I was good when it was me and one friend, or within a small group of people, but for some reason, which I can finally say is most likely some form of social anxiety, I get petrified of sharing anything about myself or my opinions. While getting my morning coffee today, I was pondering all this, and said to myself, it’s part Wendy, and part white supremacy. It rhymed, and the ring of it sounded about right.

We are who we are as individuals, based on our family genes, brain chemistry, and the way we were raised. And being considered white, and growing up under the social norms and structures of white supremacy, and patriarchy, we are conditioned with what we are told are the proper manners, and ways to behave. Times have evolved. But a majority of us are still also taught that good old American dream myth of individualism, of how, if we just work hard enough, and simply pursue our passions, we can achieve whatever we desire. We are told success is having a job where you are paid a lot of money, have a house, get married, and have children, and raise them in the same way. Maybe the actual words aren’t said, but the lessons are learned through the modelling and messages we received in our homes, our schools, and our social groups, which all come from the overarching systems of white supremacy culture.

We aren’t taught the child across the street, or across in another neighborhood, is our child too. If we were, we would all work together to make sure everyone is safe, and every one is cared for and supported, and gets what they need to live and thrive in this life. We would lift one another up, and figure out what we need to fix things for the betterment of all of us.

And if you’re white and you are reading this and saying, but I have community, I will say, Not All White People. This is not personal. This is a system that is entrenched in white American society. Sure, there can be many of us who can name communities we are a part of, whether they are faith-based groups, book clubs, white-led anti-racism activist groups, running groups, parenting groups, and more. I know white people that have elder members of their families moved in with them to care for them. I see many friends who step up when a friend or a friend’s child falls ill, or faces some kind of harsh life event. Yet, even if we are working on cross-racial and cultural community building and engaging with folks that don’t look like us, are we bringing in our white norms of how this work should look? And what of our connection to other white people? Do we live in a web of interconnectedness with one another that serves the greater good of all? What I’m trying to get at is community as Dr. King called it in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

I am not an academic or social scientist, but I ask myself, and other white folks, have we been raised to truly live the words that some of us latch onto, which are attributed to people of the African diaspora: “it takes a village?”

And I wondered if we did, what then could our country look like?

And, like the first time I started hearing how white people don’t have community, I am now getting in touch with the idea of embodiment. I surprised myself, as someone who has worked in mental health for over twenty-five years, by not knowing until very recently what embodiment work meant. One of the first times I heard of the idea of working through trauma through the body was a few years ago when someone mentioned the book, The Body Keeps The Score. I started the book last year but I admit I didn’t get too far through it. I’ve had trouble focusing to read, and the book felt dry and clinical, and I found it hard to get into, valid as the work may be.

What Does It Mean To Be In Our Bodies?

Embodiment practices use the body as a tool for healing through self-awareness, mindfulness, connection, self-regulation, finding balance, and creating self-acceptance. The work of Embodiment or Somatic therapies believes the way for us to heal our trauma, and to settle our bodies out of the reactionary, fight or flight mode, is through working with our bodies to metabolize the trauma. Yes, it serves the individual. Yet it also serves the collective “us.” When we are embodied, we are present and can interrelate with others, and better serve the moment, have the challenging conversation, and work to make the changes and transformations we seek to see in this world.

Embodiment work, I know is a current buzz topic, and, yet I believe in the work. The way I felt my body respond during that interview when I became uncomfortable because I couldn’t find myself in community, showed me one example of how learning how to be aware and then settle my body in the moment could have opened me up to respond instead of react, and to show up as my authentic, imperfect self.

Another time the seeds of knowledge of embodiment were planted, was when sitting with musician/educator, and Director of Racial Equity and Belonging at the non-profit, Community Music Works, Ashley Frith. I always look forward to meeting up with Ashley, who I collaborate with in my work in mental health, and her work in also using her art as a tool for healing. In our informal planning meetings where we develop content for her artist residencies for patients and staff at the psychiatric hospital I work for, Ashley has said how we so often are not “in our bodies” and how in her work she tries to help people be in their bodies. I would nod my head, hearing this on a surface level, like, I know what you mean…being present, being in the moment, mindfulness…and would even think about how I know I run away from my body, but the real acknowledging or knowing of the depth of what she meant, I did not truly know.

I got deeper into my introduction to embodiment work when reading and doing all of the experiential somatic/body exercises in Resmaa Menakem’s book. My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathways to Mending our Hearts and Bodies. Resmaa, aside from being an author, is also a psychotherapist specializing in the effects of trauma on the human body and relationships in Black families and Black society. He calls his current ant-racism embodiment work, somatic abolitionism.

For keeping up my learning, I now follow Resmaa on social media (look for him on twitter and IG). Also, Ashley informed me about The Embody Lab, “an online hub for embodiment education, connection, and healing, for global transformation.” I just attended their online Embodied Social Justice Summit last weekend. The five-day free summit was packed with many speakers from the field, including a highly,can’t be put in words, impactful session with Resmaa Menakem and the Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams. Only able to attend on the weekend because of work ,I did still get to hear many people speak, some of whom led us through experiential body work. I was also actually able to see the many faces attending on-screen, and to engage in a breakout session during one of the talks. The Summit was educational, inspiring, and overwhelmingly enriching. I feel like I finally get more what embodiment is about, and want to go deeper into the work in service of social justice. At the summit, even though it was online, I felt a sense of community.

I believe I have a very unsettled body, and one that avoids conflict–again, part Wendy, part white supremacy. I believe that embodiment will help me be able to be present instead of reactionary in the midst of the work I am doing with others, in service of the collective transformation necessary to see a better future for all of us. Part of white supremacy culture, too, and part of human nature, can be thinking we can have a quick fix, or we keep searching for something outside of us to ready us for growth, and we can keep waiting for ourselves to be perfect at something before we take action. This sentiment was actually voiced by a Latinx man who was a part of the Summit breakout session I was in. He said that “white people are always waiting to be perfect…and then they don’t act..” He expressed his frustration with this, which led him to currently withdraw some, from the years of activism work he had been a part of. In getting more involved with embodiment work, I vow to myself to not wait to be perfect.

The Building Blocks Of Community

Another recent opportunity to come out of my Wendy and white supremacy conditioned body, and to enter into new communities focused on transforming our future through anti-racism work, was a five-session online Beloved Community group with author, activist, non-profit leader, political leader, and speaker, Shay Stewart-Bouley. Shay is the author of the blog, Black Girl in Maine, which chronicles her life as a Black woman living in the very white state, as well as her experiences with racism, doing anti-racism work, and now includes other writers on race, too.

In her desire to have white people deepen their anti-racism work beyond talking about it, and reading all the right books, Shay created the Beloved Community as a forum for people–everyone was invited, regardless of race or ethnicity–to come together to share our stories of race, share what obstacles come up for us in doing anti-racism work, and to promote us taking concrete actions in service of bringing about equity, true inclusion, accountability, and racial justice in our communities–whether that is with family, friends, our workplaces, our schools, our local businesses, or our neighborhoods.

Throughout our online meet-ups, I held the paradox in my body and mind about being anxious about messing up and saying something ignorant and imperfect, and knowing that I was fully okay with messing up, because that is part of the process, and journey. It’s not about me. It’s about transforming white supremacy culture through community building. While the Wendy DNA that’s meshed with the white supremacy gets in the way in group settings like our Beloved Community, I truly experienced growth by being a part of it. Shay provided the container, and served as facilitator of our monthly meetings with fifteen white woman and one white man, ranging in age from, I believe, our 30’s through 70’s, many living in Maine, and the New England area.

In the Beloved Community I got to hear from everyone else about their lived experiences, how they came to this work, what they are up to now, and the progress and setbacks and challenges they face when doing the work, or block themselves from doing the work. Whether we want to call our blocks fear, or something else, it really is about unlearning our entrenched white supremacy ways of being.

I got to share about my experiences too. During the next-to-last session, Shay also gave us each a “buddy” from the Beloved Community to talk to outside of group. This was great, as I got to talk to a woman where we shared about actual things we are working on in terms of racial justice, supported one another with feedback and ideas, and were vulnerable and honest about who we are as we do this work. We plan, as Shay hopes for all of us in the group, to continue talking beyond the scope of our Beloved Community, which ended last week. I have deep gratitude for Shay and her work, and for convening all of us together in service of moving racial justice work forward, with truth, grace, and accountability.

Let’s Talk!

I am learning about what community means, and what it means to build community. I am working on unlearning the untrenched ways of white supremacy culture which hinder building safe, inclusive, loving communities.

I would love to hear your thoughts about community. What it means to you. What communities you belong to. How you build community. How you use community building to work toward racial justice.

I am highly grateful for this community here–to you who read the blog, who interact with me, and one another, here on the blog, on other social media platforms where the blog is shared, and of course, in live conversation off of social media, I thank you for helping me to realize what community is.