The Privilege Of Personal Development
I understand what is happening in America right now is deeply upsetting and uncomfortable for many of us. Good.
We need to get a little uncomfortable. Stop looking away. Read books and articles and study history. Watch films like The Hate U Give and When They See Us. This made me so upset and uncomfortable, I was tempted to turn it off. I didn’t. I’ve had friends say they’re “not sure they can handle that right now.” We need to be handling it. We — as in white people — and I’ll say it — particularly white men, as women have also been marginalized at the hands of men’s blind power — need to be made extremely uncomfortable. People of color, indigenous people, and any sector of society that has been repressed have been uncomfortable their entire lives. Uncomfortable going out alone at night. Uncomfortable because of the lack of health care and access to affordable housing and equal education, which means higher paying jobs. Uncomfortable with sexual innuendos and rape.
This is not the time to numb our discomfort with alcohol or Netflix and chill. It is not time to employ all the convenient distractions of social media or media in general. Delete Instagram and Twitter and stop persistent perusing of the news. With all that free time, take up meditation and journal. It seems a world-wide quarantine wasn’t enough to inspire a good hard look in the mirror. Maybe curfews will do the trick. Use any spare time you can find to delve into your inner world and examine your own beliefs and pain and how you may have contributed to a game that is rigged so a certain segment of the population retain control. Where have you given your power away and allowed it? Where have you directly contributed?
I urge you — do not look away. Watch. Continue to watch. Be vigilant. Sit with your own discomfort then magnify that by 100. Imagine feeling that level of anxiety, stress and angst every single day of your life.
I will always attest that true change has to come from within and not without. Until the heart, minds and beliefs of every individual is geared toward peace, love and compassion, we will continue to wage wars, see the ‘other’ in everyone we meet, and feel like we need to defend ourselves and our liberties.
Unless you’ve had some life changing event or freak epiphany, pain is usually the impetus for what us white folk are so fond of calling “the work” — deep self inquiry, reflection, and personal growth and transformation. It seems we’ve got pain. At least enough of us do. However, “the work” also requires a certain amount of stability. A home and a job. The luxury of time and access to quality health care and education are requirements for “the work” of personal development. Which is why products and programs in the health and wellness industry — yoga, yoga apparel, supplements, diets — are targeted to mostly white females. Being white, many of us have some amount of time, education and money. Being female, many of us are inherently called to try to improve our situations and understand ourselves better. Men? Not so much. I understand this is a gross generalization and some men are called to uncover their own shame, pain and hurt. But many times, they use diets, working out, and meditation to achieve, not to understand. They are more driven to protect themselves from their pain and trauma. Women, quite simply, are more resilient when it comes to dealing with our pain. Ask any woman who has birthed a child.
This is where our systems come into place: systems that keep certain populations from ever gaining access to the time and tools necessary to do “the work” of healing from generational trauma and climbing out of the deep hole of repression. Systems that ensure if you are born into poverty, crime or substance abuse, you likely stay there. It’s really hard to heal when you are merely trying to survive.
This is why, for as much as we protest and insist things change, they rarely do. The foundation of our systems — political, economic and justice — is built in racism and sexism. Inequity is built into our Constitution. All of our founding fathers, with the exception of John Adams, owned slaves. So when they wrote, as Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What he really meant was all white men are created equal, because, clearly he did not see men of color as men. He saw them as property. And what about women? They weren’t even a consideration. They, too, were property. It didn’t say all HUMANS are created equal. It said all MEN. Black men and women were something to be controlled by white men and used at their disposal for their pleasure; as labor to build homes, work farms, ensure their legacy live on. The founding fathers racist and sexist sentiments are dried in the very ink used to write and sign the Constitution. So no matter how we try to bend and shape the laws to conform to a document fraught with inequality, the game will never change. We need to admit that the systems of this country were built upon founding principles that kept white men on top and everyone else beneath them.
Why are we so hell bent on insisting that men in white wigs who established our initial system of government over 200 years ago are right? I mean, look at their fashion sense. Who in their right mind would trust those guys? Why can we not admit that they were wrong — that WE are wrong — and course correct?
What we need is a new constitution. I don’t know exactly what it should say, but I do know it needs to truly reflect the hearts, mind and souls of all humans, not to mention the mother of us all — Mother Earth. Only with laws birthed from a new paradigm will we see justice and true equal opportunity for all. And only then, can we all begin to do the collective work of healing from our sordid, ugly history.
(If you are looking for a guide, I found this document with anti-racism resources to be very helpful.)
