Ep 17: BOTH Ownership AND Community

As 2020 comes to a close, April and Tracie talk about the importance of everyone taking ownership over their own journeys, even as we work in community. With some tips and insights to think about, we invite everyone to make a commitment to pursue greater racial justice in the new year.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Learn more about Dr. Barbara Love and her work on healing internalized oppression.

Transcript

0:00

- As this challenging year comes to a close and we look ahead to the next one, we remind everyone, you have more power to create change than you realize. This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie, A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker. In a complex world, change takes courage. Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- I'm saying for this episode, that I really just wanna focus in around ownership which is different from toxic individualism. To me, there's a healthy balance just in general, in life around as much as a person can, saying that we are leaders for our own life journey.- Yeah- And that leadership is best done in deep partnership and collaboration and there's a role for community but to me, often people get into this annoying either/or garbage and to me, community and partnership and friendship is vital and none of those things can compensate for a deep love of self and a profound sense of ownership over every aspect of one's life. I'm saying not necessarily that everything that happens to me is my fault but that whatever happens to me, I am going to have the power of choice, I'm going to take ownership over my healing. I'm going to reach for community or the opportunity to engage in communal healing, right? And what does this look like in the context of racial justice? For folks to say, "I take full ownership around advancing racial justice as meaningfully and powerfully and courageously as I can within my own life and within the spheres in which I operate. I'm focused on myself and I want you to focus on yourself." Not to the exclusion of community but also in the context of other pieces saying and specifically this is like, to me, it's both for people of color and specifically for me as a DEI educator and professional and racial justice activist and leader... in one of the programs I'm running. I feel people are placing the burden of their own racial justice responsibility at my feet as though I could somehow pick up their work for them and carry it.That's generally indicative of someone who's very early on in their journey and so they still have some of those old internalized patterns that come out of both sexism as well as slavery. So, there's both caretaker sexism happening. In part for me as a woman and often it's not conscious, it's subliminal but when things get tough,"I'm looking for a person of color to help me with this'cause this is too much for me and you're clearly strong and you can do this." And it's like no, I can't. I can't carry your liberation for you. I can help facilitate each of us in connecting with each other and doing our own courageous exploration but for me, I'm excited about people really owning the journey, overseeing and saying,"There's more I need to learn and if I haven't learned everything I learned from a teacher. I'm going to still be grateful for what I did learn from them." and they'll say,"Okay, what else is there for me to explore and find and take ownership of?" And if that feels slightly too onerous, then there are a range including myself included, hi, as well as a range of other people in the Jewish community and beyond who offer resources who further advance my learning journey toward greater racial justice.- Yeah.- You seem like you have something to say Tracie and I always love what you have to say, so...- There are a couple of things that are kind of coming up for me as you are talking. One is in addition to sort of what you named, sort of the intersectionality of the sexism and the racism when folks are looking for you to take care of them. There's also, I think people, especially in this realm, underestimate their agency and efficacy as I believe- Yes.- a form of bypassing which I know it is because I used to do it. So, when I first started learning about... When I first started really paying attention to racism and white supremacy culture in a very intentional way, I remember saying like,"I don't know what I can do, what can I do? I'm just whatever." And I would name my profession which is just-- Yes, I think that it is so the thought- It's baloney- it's like, I can't do this, and I'm like 'yes you can'- Yeah, or this like 'I'm not the boss'- You think I can do it for you, I can't do that. I'm not your social justice mammy. it's not gonna happen. And even if I were, it's not going to get you what you want.- And it's not for your boss either. I mean, of course it would be better if you could bring your boss along(chuckles) but I think that it is a form of bypassing to say,"I can't actually have any effect anyway so I'm just not gonna deal with this." And so, I wanna name that, then that gets laid at your feet as a woman of color who also does this work but it also is just a thing that sometimes, especially early in our journeys, we carry around with us we white folks because we don't feel like making a change and we know it would require a huge change and I say that with love because that is the way that I initially kind of came into the work. And then, the other thing is that you named just now that you and the other folks who do this work, people of color, white people or whatever, I wanna name the fact that you get compensated for this and that is appropriate that you should get compensated for it. And I wanna caution folks who might be listening who are... White skin folks who are like, "Yeah I have that friend or that colleague who is the person of color who can help me understand this." I just wanna say out loud, this is emotional labor. It takes emotional labor for folks of color to talk about the ways that oppression that affects them shows up and so it's not a thing that I want. I wanna encourage you to make sure that you're in deep relationship and that you are getting consent from the people of color in your life who you're reaching out to if they are not folks who do it for a living and you're compensating them. As I did in our Thanksgiving episode, I sort of said,"I wanna talk about this, is that okay with you? Are you up for it?" And you need to accept no for an answer, if no is the answer. Those are the things that came up to me.- Especially in light of different power dynamics, and also internalized racism patterns people have to say,"And I'm totally okay if you say the answer is no."- Right.- If it's not now or if actually if you say to me"I completely understand if the answer is no or if maybe the answer is yes and it's just saying not right now" which is just being extra courteous and honoring the trained dynamic that many people of color have been raised with around fear of consequences for disappointing white people.- Right.- And fear of repercussion.- Yeah.- At times people say,"Oh, we asked them." But if you asked them in the capacity of their job and their you know, your hire or the first person of color, the level of choice there is slightly up for debate or nuanced discussion, right?- Right.- And so, another thing that's on my mind with this idea of ownership, and I can't remember if I've talked about this on this show yet. It's something that I learned from professor Barbara Love. She talks about oppression being like a table. In any oppression dynamic, there's the oppressor group, that's the tabletop and the oppressed group, that's positioned to lift up and prop up the oppressor. And what she teaches us is that internalized racism or internalized racial oppression or oppressor patterns, just like sort of a table. If enough people of color, did enough liberation and healing work and did it.... were no longer permitting the oppression to take place, and this is like a meta conversation, right? But if hypothetically, everyone was like, "no I'm not partaking in this system anymore," right. And similarly, like in either case which just makes the point around that in the context of community and support, our individual work is more transformative than many of us realize. Many people of color think they need to get white people to get the boot off their neck, which also does ideally need to happen. Let me not say that, it doesn't. And also, a number of white people think they need black people to come in and be their racial justice saviors and while it is true that ideally racial justice should center the voices of people of color specifically African heritage people or specifically black people and specifically indigenous native people. Indigenous leaders and black leaders cannot be responsible for white people taking ownership of it so they can be the source of direction and expertise around what needs to happen and then it's up for white folks to take that and take ownership over the stuff they're doing and shift it to lift that boot from the neck or that, right, but if the person knew how to get out from under which is not to blame people of color at all, it's to say that it can be incredibly generative and transformative in the context of community in combination with individualized learning to learn about how to over time incrementally remove the internalized oppression from within us through a variety of healing modalities that are out there from co-counseling and reevaluation counseling to somatics, to liberatory mental health support, to meditation and always education as a part of it to move our minds. I forget the name of the civil rights leader. She quotes, who says to paraphrase,"We didn't just need to get rid of Jim Crow, we needed to get rid of the Jim Crow that was embedded in our minds." because if we didn't, even after Jim Crow, a number of us would look to go into the back door rather than through the front door and that's internalized. It doesn't need to have an external role in order for people to enforce it and continue to have it live. And then the last piece for me, maybe it's like to tie into in this theme around the new year for a number of us. We have already taken ownership, but this is a key step I think that for many definitely who are at the beginning of their journey, or are even a year or 2 in, to make a promise to yourself that or a commitment to yourself that while being in accountable relationship to leaders of color again, particularly but not exclusively black and indigenous leaders that you're going to allow their leadership to help guide the direction you are going, but you are going to take, perhaps use a slightly cliche metaphor in other spaces but you're going to be the driver of the car(chuckles) of your life that you're in around saying that you could use particular directions or get help or get driving lessons or support. This should not be completed with perfection, that's not what I'm saying. This is a learning journey and a healing and incremental ongoing learning process for all of us but that you will commit to taking ownership of being on that journey. So, once you begin to do that from that base of deeper ownership, what is your racial justice vision for your life and for the world? As you take ownership of this, what does it look like for you? What kind of key role do you want to play in your own evolution as well as the evolution or advancement of racial justice in your spheres of influence, in your relationships, in your community, state and country. What is racial justice? What is your racial justice vision? And I want to... In this spirit again, of the Hanukkah oil, we talked about, don't worry right now as we enter this new year about being precise in your steps just get clear about that vision and how you would feel when it comes to be, when there's equity for all of us and when there's racial justice for all people and where there's equity and where past wrongs have been righted. What is possible, what inventions could be found, what solutions around global warming, and global sustainability could we collectively achieve? Tracie, do you wanna add anything else to help bring us home?- April, I think you really covered it beautifully. I would just paraphrase what you just said, which is that for this work, we need both our head and our heart and so let's imagine those visions and then use both our head and our heart to steer us toward them. And it is our job, each of our responsibility to do our own work and work in community and I look forward to a more racially just and equitable 2021 with you April.- It's just like we had last episode. Ken Ye'hi Ratzon, may this be God's will, yes!- Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at Elliot Hammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkratialjustice.com where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our short notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.