Avidya & Conversations about Race on/off the mat
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Emily Kramer
Jan 30, 2014, 12:48:35 PM1/30/14
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Hello community -
I don't often send out emails of such length, but I was compelled to write this morning, which became today's practice. Now I'm sending it along to you all (partly as a follow up pitch for the upcoming Yoga & Social Justice forum sponsored by Off The Mat, see details pasted below).
I don't often send out emails of such length, but I was compelled to write this morning, which became today's practice. Now I'm sending it along to you all (partly as a follow up pitch for the upcoming Yoga & Social Justice forum sponsored by Off The Mat, see details pasted below).
I'm sure many of you have seen this recent piece written by a white woman who describes her experience of becoming aware of race during a yoga class (I hope you've also read one of a number of smart, conscious responses like this one). It's all over facebook, but I prefer this forum to issue my own response. To be perfectly honest, I actually didn't want to respond - it's uncomfortable, time-consuming, and it is work. It is also vital, necessary, growth inducing work that propels me towards a world I believe in - where honest dialogue about a shared love takes place. So here I write, because I see that it's my ethical and yogic responsibility to push myself in these ways.
I remember the time in my life when I was first consciously experiencing my own whiteness. It was painful and disorienting, I had a number of contradictory guttural responses - I wanted out of my skin, I wanted to ignore it, I wanted to exorcize it, I didn't want to love myself, I felt betrayed. It is terribly disturbing to uncover the subconscious implant of oppressive ideology; the world felt absolutely twisted from the inside. The revelatory, yet deluded internal state that I experienced during my own "racial awakening" - that perhaps this author is expressing in her piece - is not new or unique, and this state must be moved through, and moved through carefully. This presents as a challenge for someone with privilege who has not heretofore been called to think wisely about their privilege before acting.
What the author of this controversial piece glaringly doesn't mention is her white privilege - one fact of which is that she doesn't generally have to think about race when she navigates the world, because it's easier & safer to be white in the world, period (crass satire alert / here's a classic educational article on the topic, and another author to explore, and yet another). The specificity of a race privileged experience is effaced in a culture where whiteness is the imposed norm. For this author, it's the presence of a black, large bodied woman in a space that is dominated by small white women like herself that makes her aware of race (as well as her size), and she becomes disquieted and uncomfortable. She goes on to expose her inner travails during this particular practice, which ultimately includes paternalistic concern and a paralyzing deep fear of the woman of color behind her. Myself, a white woman who has spent some time in self-aggrandizing agony about my own racial privilege - I would offer that she is, as well, deeply afraid of herself, afraid of uncovering and owning up to her own haunting inheritance of white supremacy. What is particularly difficult for me about the piece is that the author is clearly trying to be self-aware, but can't expand her mind beyond her own projections that come from a place of ignorance, avidya (the root of suffering according to yogic philosophy / Sri Patañjali's Sutras). The regard the author has for the woman behind her is narrow and presumptuous, cloaked in dehumanizing sympathy that further edges this individual out of the space. It is disheartening to read knowing that the author is trying to make a statement about racial inequality and her place in it, but spins out into a self-conscious tizzy that revolutionizes nothing. This scenario reminds me of C.S Lewis' great epistolary, The Screwtape Letters, wherein a dialogue between demons takes place about how best to manipulate humans into thinking they are doing good, when in face these humans (or "patients" as the book write) are coerced to follow the demon's evil ploy. How easily we can cause harm, even with the best of intentions, when fear is at the wheel.
I remember the time in my life when I was first consciously experiencing my own whiteness. It was painful and disorienting, I had a number of contradictory guttural responses - I wanted out of my skin, I wanted to ignore it, I wanted to exorcize it, I didn't want to love myself, I felt betrayed. It is terribly disturbing to uncover the subconscious implant of oppressive ideology; the world felt absolutely twisted from the inside. The revelatory, yet deluded internal state that I experienced during my own "racial awakening" - that perhaps this author is expressing in her piece - is not new or unique, and this state must be moved through, and moved through carefully. This presents as a challenge for someone with privilege who has not heretofore been called to think wisely about their privilege before acting.
And here, I gained some wisdom - I am not to blame for being raised in a culture that subtly and definitely oppresses ALL of us with the notion of otherness; a culture that has me yearning for an unattainable perfection, harming myself to save face for a reputation "goodness", a culture that deeply wounds us based on myth and archetype brought garishly, and condemningly to life.
AND YET - what I am for responsible for are the actions I take with this profound knowledge and awareness. Fear won't bring me closer to the answer, but always draws me further into the illusive tangle of privilege. How can I be more conscious in the seat of a yoga practitioner and teacher? How can I remain teachable, humble and willing to change, willing to be wrong, willing to speak up despite fears that may be present!? My spiritual practice is about learning and re-learning how to distinguish between my true self (unconditionally deserving of love, creative, empathetic, inspired by the divine), and the thoughts, judgements, resentments, spiritually/materialistic pursuits that I mistake for my true self on the regular - that constitute avidya, the real root of suffering! I am responsible to look through and beyond the veil, and then through the next one and the next. The finger that points to the moon is not the moon. My practice is to return again and again in earnest.
I'll endwith this - what I appreciate about this piece is that it breaks open dialogue about an often taboo topic: identity and power in a space that is guiding toward truth, equanimity, and union. The answer is not of course to ignore power differentials or pretend these don't exist or have an impact, but to replace fear and ignorance with consciousness as our guiding principal.
AND YET - what I am for responsible for are the actions I take with this profound knowledge and awareness. Fear won't bring me closer to the answer, but always draws me further into the illusive tangle of privilege. How can I be more conscious in the seat of a yoga practitioner and teacher? How can I remain teachable, humble and willing to change, willing to be wrong, willing to speak up despite fears that may be present!? My spiritual practice is about learning and re-learning how to distinguish between my true self (unconditionally deserving of love, creative, empathetic, inspired by the divine), and the thoughts, judgements, resentments, spiritually/materialistic pursuits that I mistake for my true self on the regular - that constitute avidya, the real root of suffering! I am responsible to look through and beyond the veil, and then through the next one and the next. The finger that points to the moon is not the moon. My practice is to return again and again in earnest.
I'll endwith this - what I appreciate about this piece is that it breaks open dialogue about an often taboo topic: identity and power in a space that is guiding toward truth, equanimity, and union. The answer is not of course to ignore power differentials or pretend these don't exist or have an impact, but to replace fear and ignorance with consciousness as our guiding principal.
Onward,
ek
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