The Inner Work of Racial Justice
Transcriber: Rhonda Jacobs
Reviewer: Peter Van de Ven
Over the past generation,
we’ve witnessed a great shift
in our understanding
of the mind-body awareness
and compassion practices
commonly known as mindfulness.
And now, in light
of the reawakening to racism
sparked by the horrific killing
of George Floyd,
we are experiencing
a similar shift in consciousness,
one in which we’re called to reckon
with the legacies of white supremacy
and the harms that result
when racial prejudice
and systemic power intertwine.
What I’d like to share with you here
is how you can bring these two shifts
in consciousness together
in your own life.
In my work as a law professor
and a mindfulness teacher,
I’ve seen how relationship-focused
healing-centered mindfulness
can support the work of racial justice,
which I define as love-in-action
for the alleviation of racism
and its harms against us all.
To be clear, I focus on racial justice
not because other types
of justice don’t matter,
they do,
but because we cannot fully address
other forms of justice
without addressing racial justice.
I’ve been teaching about racism
in the context of law and culture
for many years,
and along the way,
I’ve learned two important things.
The first is that although we may not know
all of the historical details,
most of us know a lot more
about white supremacy
in our bodies and in our bones
than we have been raised to see or to say.
And the second is that coming
together to examine racism
causes us a lot of stress,
to the point that
without supportive practices,
we are practically bound to fail
before we even start.
Scientists have been telling us
for decades that race,
the social construct created
to serve the political and economic needs
of exploitative systemic racism
is a biological fiction.
But, it’s a fiction we’ve been
taught to believe is real,
and as a result, it has very real
consequences in our lives.
What’s more, our cultures train us
in subtle ways of racializing people,
that is, identifying ourselves
and even others in terms of race
and then believing
that these racialized identities
have predictable behaviors and attributes
that justify the inequities
we see in the world.
The painful truth
is that we’ve inherited a world
built by systems of white supremacy.
We live in these systems
and these systems live in us.
At the same time,
in recent decades, we’ve been taught
that the goal of anti-racism
should be to become color blind -
to not see race
or its consequences at all.
Not surprisingly then,
conversations about race
are generally filled with so much anxiety
that we often turn away
out of feelings of fear,
frustration or futility.
And as a result,
action for positive change
is stalled again and again.
Unlearning what has been
so deeply engrained in all of us
is not easy.
It requires intentional efforts
to expand perception,
to deepen awareness
of how race and racism operate
both within and around us,
and to develop the stamina
for staying engaged.
So we each have work to do.
And compassionate mindfulness can help.
I call this the inner work
of racial justice.
Of course, the precise nature of the work
will be different
for every single one of us.
For example, the work
to be done by a Black man
considering Native American objections
to the name of his favorite football team
will be different from the work to be done
by an Asian heritage woman
grappling with the systemic reasons
why Black men are under-represented
in her workplace.
And for people racialized as white,
the work may be very different still.
It may require stretching to understand
just how racializing practices
cause harm to people of color,
as well as overcoming the feelings
of shame, fear, anxiety or potential loss
that may come up when white people
think about what might be needed
to achieve greater racial equity.
Let me give you an example
from my own practice.
As a little girl, I received
subtle teachings in colorism,
a dimension of racism that people of color
sometimes internalize,
a preference for lighter skin over darker.
An aunt of mine once told me
to avoid marrying a dark-skinned man.
Now, the memory of this
is painful, even shameful,
even as I stand here right now.
But we all carry memories
of moments like this
when the biases in our society
have been presented for us to absorb.
Seeing them is just the first step
in interrupting their harmful effects.
So as we awaken to the imprints
and ghosts of racism in our own lives
and seek to create more
racially just outcomes for all of us,
we have to take action,
separately and together.
Mindfulness can help us in this as well.
Now, mindfulness is often defined
as the practice of paying attention
in an open, compassionate
and non-judgmental way
and a way of being that often results.
While there are many ways that
this can assist us in fighting racism,
I want to focus on just three.
First, mindfulness can help
deepen our awareness of racism
and how it causes harm,
both in our own lives
and in the lives of others.
Now, as you engage in anti-racist work,
you may find, as I did,
that you need to heal
from the racial wounds
that you have suffered in your own life.
Mindfulness can support
you and your community
in this important step.
Now, on the other hand,
if you seek to be an ally to others,
mindfulness can help you
see the legacies of white supremacy
that you have been trained not to see
and understand its harms more clearly.
Thus, if you have not experienced racism
much in your own life,
as is true for many white racialized
people and some people of color too,
mindfulness can help you
in learning how it operates
and discerning how to disrupt it.
Now, when you use mindfulness
to look closely at the social
context in which we live,
you can more readily see
the often subtle rules and structures
that give some people opportunity
while at the very same time
shutting out so many.
Many participants in my classes
describe arriving at deeper
racial insights like these,
what I call, in contrast
to color blindness, “color insight.”
For example, there was a white
racialized young man
who came to see how he had actively
avoided learning about race
rather than simply
never having seen race or racism
as he had grown accustomed to believing.
And then there are the students
who find themselves surprised
by feeling deep connections to classmates
from racial backgrounds
different from their own
through listening to their unique stories.
In short, mindful awareness
of race and racism
reveals our innate ability
to connect with one another
in ways that are essential
if we are to keep working
to dismantle oppressions.
Now, the second benefit
that mindfulness offers
is that it increases
our compassionate resilience,
helping us develop the stamina necessary
for anti-racist engagement
over a lifetime.
The work of racial justice
requires, as we all know,
more than just a few moments
of racial awareness.
It requires an ongoing commitment.
And to stay in this awareness
as we work for change,
even a heartfelt desire
to make the world a better place
is simply not enough.
We need practices
that help us deal in an ongoing way
with discomfort, sadness,
fear, rage and grief,
the strong reactions and emotions
that are predictable whenever
we turn toward this aspect of our lives.
And we need places where we can learn,
where we can make mistakes
and be vulnerable
so that we can build up inside ourselves
the sense that yes, we can do this,
sometimes working within
our own racial affinity groups
and at other times working
across lines of racial identity.
Mindfulness enables us to hold
the complexity of multiple realities
and develop the emotional intelligence
to respond rather than react
to everything we may experience,
including the cognitive
and emotive dissonances
that arise when we come together
to discuss our different perceptions
of, say, the same set of facts.
Mindful breathing and movement,
lovingkindness and empathy practices
have all been shown to help build
the relational resilience
necessary to turn toward each other
rather than away,
and to do the work rather than
just coast along in our unjust systems,
particularly when faced
with resistance, fragility
and other defenses against vulnerability.
And mindfulness has been demonstrated
to assist us with both
minimizing our own biases
and protecting us against the threats
to our well-being that bias often poses.
It allows us to develop the equanimity
for staying in the work
and to cultivate the fierce,
power of love to make a difference.
And I know something about all of this
from my own experience.
As a Black woman,
regardless of whatever successes
I may have achieved,
racism has always been
a very real threat to my own well-being.
And like anyone else,
I’ve struggled with my own biases.
It wasn’t until I started
exploring mindfulness
that I began to reconnect with
and actually feel
a way of grounding myself
in a sense of belonging,
despite it all,
and, tapping my inner resources
for doing the work
that it is mine alone to do.
The third benefit that flows
from using mindfulness
in the work of racial justice is this:
It can deepen the ethical
foundation for the work,
anchoring it in a broader effort
to remake the world
in ways that help everybody.
Mindfulness has been criticized
for focusing too much
on individual introspection
and personal well-being,
and not enough on socially
conscious engagement
with and for the benefit of others.
But here’s the thing:
True mindfulness is so much more.
Rather than rendering us passive,
these practices
open our frames on reality,
allowing us to see relationships
between people and things
that have been hard to see.
They energize our capacity
to recognize the wonder
of the generous planet that we share
that miraculously sustains us,
and the moral implications
of the radical interconnectedness
that we share with all
of our fellow human beings.
Now, when applied to racial justice,
mindfulness can lead to the understanding
that a racial injury against one
is an injury to us all,
and, that correcting against racism
helps liberate every one of us.
As the late congressman
John Lewis often said,
echoing Dr. Martin Luther King,
we are one beloved community;
we are all brothers and sisters;
we all live inthe same house.
And I believe that this community,
this family, this house,
each of these is global.
If we can get past our fears,
we will discover that embracing
our connections to each other,
the joy, and yes,
even the vulnerability of that,
feels so much better
than living separated
and heavily defended lives.
Indeed, managing our fears
and building a more just world
may actually be the key
to our literal survival in these times.
Studies suggest
that as inequality increases,
average health and well-being
indicators decrease,
and vice versa.
In short, racism kills,
and justice heals.
For me, remembering and drawing strength
from our common humanity
is like walking myself home
to a stabilizing, comforting,
grounding space
from which we can dream our biggest dreams
and live our fullest lives.
And as I realized at a recent conference
held by the Institute
for Mindfulness in South Africa,
this is more than just a metaphor.
The conference was held
at the Cradle of Humankind,
a World Heritage site
that is home to the largest concentration
of early human ancestral remains
anywhere in the world.
Anthropologists believe
that this is the region on the planet
from which all ancestors
of the human beings alive today originate.
Being there was a reminder
of a simple, powerful truth
obscured by racism:
that although our many
brothers' and sisters' faces
may look very different from our own,
we are truly just one human family.
My teacher and friend the great
Jon Kabat-Zinn is fond of saying,
“If you’re breathing,
there’s more right with you
than wrong with you.”
Now, I believe we can take
this truth one step further.
Wherever we are right now,
and despite all the legacies
of racism among us,
as long as we are breathing,
there is more right with our lives
together in this multicultural world
than there is wrong with it.
We must remember this
and honor each other’s humanity
as we seek justice.
And from this place,
we can experience the personal justice
of healing the wounds of racism
wherever they exist.
We can feel our inherent belonging
and that of others,
and we can deepen
our individual and collective ability
to do justice and to thrive
in this very life.
The power of mindfulness
to support us in doing racial justice work
inspires great faith in me
that better days lie ahead.
Indeed, doing the inner work
of racial justice
may be the single best path we can take
toward accepting the great
invitation of this time:
to do what we can
to walk ourselves, one another
and humanity itself back home.
Thank you.