Exhales
Wow, what a week.
From conversations with many of you, it’s clear that collectively we are “feeling it.”
Personally, this week I’ve been grappling with a wide array of emotions– anger, fear, guilt, shame, joy, sadness, & ease.
Which has led me to ask:
How can we create space for the full spectrum of human emotions? What about different emotions for different folks like:
BIPOC anger at injustice, police brutality, and institutional racism
The guilt of white Millennials waking up to our role in institutional racism
The fear and indignation of those who believe that racism is not real
More specifically, why does the subject of race make white people so uncomfortable?
Why does simply typing the word white (without quotes) send a chill down my spine?
White Fragility
“Whitness is a category of identity that is most useful when its very existence is denied.”
- Michael Eric Dyson
Robin DiAngelo masterfully explains this discomfort in her book, White Fragility.
She describes “the pillars of whiteness” – our unexamined beliefs that prop up our racial responses.
One such belief is that only “bad people” are racist. If only “bad people” are racist, then good people can’t possibly participate in racism.
This belief makes it difficult for white people to reflect on our own racism without destroying our identity of “goodness.”
As a result, when a white person opens the door to the ideas of whiteness, race, and racism, a flood of confusion and emotions can follow.
How can we change these pillars of whiteness? By examining the once unexamined.
For me, this starts with an examination of the two prominent emotions pouring out this week: guilt and shame.
Guilt and Shame
A few months ago, in a conversation for Look Up!, Andrew Horn shared with me the difference between guilt and shame.
“Guilt is when your actions are out of alignment with your own expectations for yourself,” he explained,
“Shame is when the public expectation or understanding of your actions is out of alignment with who you believe yourself to be.”
An Example:
If I believe myself to be an honest person, I will feel guilty lying.
If I claim to be an honest person, I will feel shame when someone calls me a liar.
I believe that guilt and shame can be powerful teachers and catalysts for change.
Guilt invites us to reflect on both our behavior AND our identity. When we become aware of guilt, it is an invitation to choose to align our future actions with who we believe ourselves to be, or to adjust our identity to align with our existing actions.
Shame has the same power. Do I want to change my behavior only so that others see me differently? Do I acknowledge that those shaming me were right and my behavior was inappropriate? Or do I believe that my shamers had it wrong and reinforce my identity?
Unfortunately, shame is often expressed by speaking to who somebody is rather than to that person’s behavior.
For example, “You are a racist!” rather than, “That thing you said or did was racist.”
Shame might have the desired effect in the moment. It might lead to more donations or black squares on Instagram, but it only fosters further resentment and disconnection later.
This is the problem with shame-driven performative activism.
“Performative activism: Action that’s rooted in what other people say you should do. Action that’s rooted in managing how other people see your or think about you. Action that’s roted in trying to be good or right. Action that’s rooted in maintaining or preserving status, capital, belonging, image and comfort.”
Awareness and Intention then Action
I hold that all emotions are acceptable. There are no “good” or “bad” emotions. Emotions are simply information - data that we must analyze to inform future action.
If we do not examine emotions and dig to their root causes, there are consequences. For example, unevaluated fear leads to phobia.
So when we become aware of an emotion like guilt or shame. We can ask, why am I feeling this? Is this true to me? What caused this emotion?
Trust the trigger to teach.
From there we can set an intention. For example, “I choose to change my behavior because I know that black lives matter.”
With that intention we can determine our next right action: a donation, a protest, a poem, whatever is the fullest expression of our intent.
Without this space to process, without the clear intention behind the action, we simply react to ease our own discomfort.
How can we solve institutional problems without first understanding and resolving their impact on us personally?
What’s My Next Right Action?
Are you’re feeling tired of the 24/7 social media news cycle and its effect on your nervous system this week?
Remember that social change doesn’t start on Instagram, it starts by changing yourself.
If you’re like me, this week started in chaos. I was lucky to have teachers and safe spaces to express and process my emotions. These spaces allwoed me to make a conscious decision to listen and learn, so that I could do better in the future.
I believe white people need safe spaces to process all that is coming up right now without burdening our black and brown brothers & sisters. In fact, many BIPOC leaders have called on us to do just that. Since it is predominantly white institutions that need to change, it is on white people to lean into this work.
If you are interested in going deeper on this, you can check out my conversation below with Simon Mont. Simon has created safe spaces for white folks to learn and process racism, you can sign up for these White Resilience Circles here.
Finally, please be kind to yourself.
Remember that self-discovery is a lifelong journey. Acknowledge the pressure you might feel to figure this all out right now.
I am a beginner on this journey, I will make a ton of mistakes (there are probably a few in this post), but I commit to doing better each day. I commit to learning, growing, and serving. That is the best I can do.
Yes, let’s hold each other accountable.
And let’s also create space for others to process, learn, and grow.
Then we will see a powerful movement supported by confidence and self-love, rather than guilt and shame.
Let me know what you think of this post
This Week’s Podcast:
A Conversation on Racism for White Folks with Simon Mont, Harmonize
Last week, I planned to release a podcast episode with Simon Mont. Though Simon shared some incredible insights in this conversation, in light of the current political climate in the US, it still felt a bit tone-deaf. So Simon and I decided to re-record a new conversation on racism (the original episode will be released this Wednesday)
Simon was an Organizational Design Fellow at the Sustainable Economies Law Center and currently stewards the Non-Profit Democracy Network. He has spent the last 10 years organizing, canvassing, teaching, and facilitating conversations on racial justice.
If you think (as I did) that the idea of a space created for white people only perpetuates racism, Simon addresses this question around minute 40. The BIPOC community has asked white folks to step up and create spaces like this.
What I’m Reading
Politics:
White Fragility, Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
Economics:
How to Diagnose Your Own Dutch Disease, The Financial Times
A Conversation with Chamath Palihapitiya, Credit Suisse Tech Virtual Speaker Series
Technology:
How Facebook Can Fix Itself by Barry Schnitt
Stakeholder Capitalism:
Reflections on Money in a Time of Transition by Andrew Murray Dunn
Philosophy:
Out of Your Mind, Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives
Thank you for reading this edition of the Look Up! Weekly.
As always, feel free to reach out with feedback, guest recommendations, and ideas for future posts and episodes.
If you haven’t signed up yet and would like to receive Look Up! Weekly directly to your inbox, you can subscribe or follow me on Twitter.