Do I Hate You?

As I heal my own racial wounds and internalized racism, I seem to be attracting white people bringing up issues of race with me. It may be that they feel safer with me, a petite Asian woman/yoga teacher/poet, than, for instance, a pissed-off militant black man or woman. Or it may be I am the only person of color they know well enough to bring up risky topics, and besides, Asians are “honorary white people,” right?

Often these discussions become impassioned. After all, a beast like global white supremacy won’t budge without a little …. feeling.

All too often, as the conversation progresses, my white friend becomes uncomfortable. They claim I am shouting, that my anger is coming from nowhere, that I vibrate hatred, that I hate white people, and specifically, I hate them.

I know from anger. Not only are Koreans expressive, passionate people, but I’m a fire sign, pitta dosha, and as the baby of my family, the bearer of the emotional baggage. I was a rageful child and had temper tantrums well into my grade school years, driving my parents crazy.

As a teenager and young adult I learned to channel my vague sense of rage into art, dance, music, writing, activism, spirituality, and more. I learned that my anger was larger than my personal wounds and unmet needs, but also cultural and intergenerational. As an adult I began to understand my anger in the context of deep injustice in a capitalist, patriarchal white supremacy.

Despite my hours of meditation and yoga asana practice each week, it’s still all too easy to marinate in anger if I am not channeling that energy consciously into constructive projects. One foray into a racist, sexist mainstream media can set me off, or any number of other prompts.

As for hatred, probably like many of you, I like to think I bear hatred toward none. While I certainly have favorite folks to hang out with, and others I choose not to, I don’t feel enmity toward anyone. Even when I picture someone who has committed serious harm to me or others, I don’t feel hatred. I feel compassion for their suffering or lack of knowledge that has led them to harm others.

Do white friends and acquaintances wanting to talk about race prompt my rage and hatred? Certainly the injustice and oppression wrought by white supremacy should not be tolerated. Maybe the more constructive question is: why aren’t more white people equally outraged about the system of global white supremacy? Yes, even when I don’t hate the perpetrator of racism, there are times when I hate the racism that runs this nation and the world. Then my equanimity training kicks in and I realize that we attract what we resist, and fanning the flames of aversion only keeps me trapped.

So all of this comes up as I discuss race in impassioned conversations with white friends, when they stop and back off because I Am Shouting and Raging and I Hate Them.

I discussed this phenomenon with an older white friend. She attributed it to white people clinging to their privilege when they feel their status being threatened. “White people aren’t used to seeing people of color as their equals,” she admitted. So they may see an assertive, passionate person of color as aggressive, threatening, angry, and hateful, when maybe, I’m “just sayin’…..” Just speaking my truth clearly and directly, that’s all.

Dear White Friend,

Are you my ally? Do you really want to dismantle racism/white supremacy, or are you trying to convert me to your point of view, get me to salve your wounds, or flash your anti-racist resume to win points from a person of color?

What are you passionate about? What do you raise your voice over? Or were you brought up to keep strong feelings suppressed? Can you experience strong feelings or disagreement without hating? Haven’t you had an impassioned conversation with a teenage child or other family member that, even though voices may have been raised, was not hateful or rageful?

I do not hate you. What a waste of energy that would be. I hate the actions of white supremacy that oppress and exploit. Don’t you feel the same way, and if so, why aren’t you expressing it? After all, white people need to take responsibility for dismantling white supremacy.

For God’s sake, don’t be afraid of me. Walk side by side with me. Join me in the sacred battle of eliminating oppression and exploitation on every level. Confront your own anger so you don’t interpret every feeling I have as rage or hate. Do your own inner work so you are not threatened by strong feelings, and you feel your own feelings. Do your own research so you don’t expect me to educate you. Meet me halfway at least, so you’re not coming to me at the Racism 100 level when the rest of us are at the 700 level and ABD.

Most of all, stop taking stuff personally. What a God-awful distraction and waste of time.

Of course we’re pissed off: if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention. But nobody’s hating on anybody. We’re too busy for that. Let’s get to work.

On Offending White People

Like many other persons of color, I was raised to protect white people. Unwitting participants in white supremacy, my parents were determined to uplift their children by making sure we got our fair share. My immigrant parents could see no future for us that did not include excelling within the economic, political, educational, cultural system already in place, that of global white supremacy. This meant we internalized a sense of inferiority, so that we stayed submissive, respectful, quiet, and never offensive.

Now that I have awakened to this habit of thought and behavior passed on through generations, I have the responsibility of dismantling it. I have to catch myself every time I am tempted to please and protect white people, recognizing that the system of white supremacy hurts absolutely everyone, including white people. Instead of stifling my truth and making myself sick, as I have done for most of my adult life, I am finally learning, at age 48, to live and speak my truth, and stop unconsciously complying with systems of oppression. This means that I may offend white people.

White supremacy hurts everyone. People of color experience this harm daily, through the media and through microaggressions, which may marginalize them, exoticize them, objectify them, and reinforce a sense of inferiority and shame. The problem is white people can stay immune to the harm of white supremacy. After all they are on top. White people can be unconscious of the pain of white supremacy until it is pointed out to them. That is, until they are hurt or offended by a person of color.

Would-be white allies, take note:
If I offend you, I am compelling you to experience the harm of white supremacy, which hurts both white people and people of color. If something I say hurts you, it’s because you are awakening to the pain that white supremacy causes, the pain that has always been there, like the water table under the earth’s surface. While people of color live with this pain, you have been largely protected.

I will not protect you from feeling the pain of white supremacy, for white people will never dismantle the system of white supremacy without feeling this pain. I will not even protect my own children from experiencing the pain of white supremacy. Unless we all awaken to the suffering and harm created by this system we will be silently compliant. White people comply by upholding or resigning themselves to the status quo. People of color comply by internalizing a sense of inferiority and shame that compels them to protect and please white people, and support the status quo.

I will not apologize for offending you. Instead, I welcome you to our club. You have been awakened to the pain of white supremacy. Now what will you do with this awakening?

SURRENDERING ISLAND-STYLE

I woke up early this morning to hit the road with my thumb in the air. I knew I needed to give myself a good hour at least to get from Kapaa to Kalaheo on the island of Kaua'i. The buses are on weekend schedule, meaning they run every 2 hours instead of hourly. My only hope to arrive on time for 8am yoga class was to hitchhike.

Talk about making yourself vulnerable. I'm almost 50 years old for God's sake. But not a rental car to be found until Monday. After all, we're on an island. When car rental agencies sell out, they sell out. It's not like they can drive them in from another county.

I tried raising my hand boldly at head level, walking backwards. I tried a milder shoulder height gesture. I tried walking sideways instead of backwards. I settled on a low thumb, hip level and slightly outward, open heart center toward oncoming traffic, and direct eye contact with drivers. I practiced metta meditation as I walked, wishing every person well. Still, it took me a good 30 minutes until a middle-aged local marble worker in his big red pick-up truck was willing to stop, and then was only able to take me about 1/3 of the distance I needed.

At the bus stop where he dropped me off, folks had been waiting since 6-something in the morning, and here it was, 7:30 already. Once again I put myself at the mercy of the community and stuck my thumb in the air but 8am came and went, with no bus and no stopping cars.

How can I complain, deeply disappointed to miss my morning asana workshop, but hey, it's the tropics, and here I am on a beautiful, breezy, sunny day instead of sub-freezing Wisconsin. Surrendering island-style means not everything goes according to plan. It means you can only get so much done and get so far in one day. It means you have to slow waaaay down.

The pidgin I overheard on the bus was music to my ears, which had grown used to nasal Midwestern accents. I soaked it in like I soaked in the sun to replenish my vitamin D appetite. I picked up a spam musubi, a nori-wrapped roll, in the convenience store and ate it as a rite of passage, re-entering island life, tasting my childhood.

Riding the bus, eating processed convenience store food, talking to locals on the street and in their cars, I shed my privilege, my expectations of efficiency, my pretense of control. I remove my mainland layers of not only clothing, but values of whiteness that I have internalized. I become that little brown girl again that I left in Hawaii in 1975. I sit on the curb and watch the boys in the skate park at the bus stop, talk to the grandmas, eat manapua and crack seed. The bus will come when it comes.

2012 Personal Mission Statement

I am here on the planet to heal myself on every level of being, so that I can encourage and inspire others to heal themselves. I am here to participate in the healing of my ancestors, my progeny, and members of my communities, as well as communities themselves. I am here to be teacher, student, and collaborator in the process of healing.

In order to fulfill this mission my goals are:
1. To live increasingly independent of societies and livelihoods based on exploitation and oppression of the earth and its people, especially people of color.

2. To live in voluntary simplicity requiring a minimum of earthly resources, while cultivating a sense of inner abundance.

3. To cultivate clarity of consciousness and continually increase my capacity for loving kindness through practices such as yoga, meditation, the arts, and deep conversation.

4. To build healthy communities by participating in cooperatives and other structures free from exploitation and oppression on every level.

5. To live cooperatively with people of color and others committed to healing themselves and their communities, sharing resources, inspiration, and healing practices. These resources may include time, energy, space, food, and knowledge.

6. To strengthen cooperative communities by practicing clear, compassionate communication through deep listening, and frameworks such as Nonviolent Communication, Circle work, Clearness Committees, and more.

as it is

reflections on a vipassana 10-day intensive

imaginary facebook status update:
work out the terms of your own damned salvation
save yourself from your own misery

i wake up to 4am bell and walk out to dome of stars
every morning the moon is in a different place in the sky

WPEG radio
all peggy all the time
full slate of programming from gospel music to sutra chants to call-in talk shows
over days the volume diminishes

day 5: is this what silence sounds like?
as soon as the thought materializes the silence is gone

goenka's gravelly voice
anitya
anitya
anitya
changing
changing
changing

he instructs me even in my sleep
in equanimous dreams

no keys phones pens notebooks money ID to carry around
how do we know who we are?
we cling to our water bottles
eager to make fetishes out of anything
guzzle water and burp through 1-hour sittings

adhitthana
1-hour sittings of strong determination
don't open legs or hands or eyes
my body eager for drama churns in empty-stomached digestion and hyperventilation
the dhamma hall full of sneezing and burping and the occasional fart

this too shall pass

avarice and addiction come out at lunch
food our only comfort
we weep in silent appreciation on day 8 when warm chocolate chip cookies are presented
just when we thought we were over our cravings

confession: breaking my vow to abstain from killing any being i swat 4 mosquitos over the 10 days
still trying to practice indifference
in adhitthana i feel one land on my neck
feel the sting and itching
then forget about it

sensation
respiration
respiration
sensation
anitya
anitya
anitya

every thought every emotion
manifests somewhere as a sensation
can i feel it?
where does it arise?
watch it come up and disappear
sensations arise to vanish
between sittings i watch bubbles come up through the algae in the pond
then pop

stop your ego-dependent psychoanalysis
the incessant inner narration
come back to sensation
come back to the body
only the body contains the truth
the body itself the healer

bring out your dead
a la monty python
i clean out all my closets and coffins
let it all pass

Electoral Politics as Usual

As disappointing as the loss of Sandy Pasch to Alberta Darling may be, we are once again reminded that electoral politics is not on the side of the common good. The system has been corrupted to the point of serious dysfunction. Many would argue that it was never set up in the first place to serve the common good, thus the restrictions both historic and present on women, blacks, felons, not to mention the electoral college, voter ID bill, and many other restrictions.

How many times do we have to be abused before we pursue an alternative path? The first election to demoralize me was the 2000 Presidential election, decided by the Supreme Court. Then again the 2004 Presidential, and most recently with the "irregularities" in the Kloppenburg/Prosser election.

Not that we should abjure the responsibility of voting (although I completely understand why some marginalized people have given up on it completely), but that voting should be only one of a myriad other actions. Don't put all your food into a broken refrigerator. Everything will get spoiled. And don't spend thousands of dollars trying to fix that refrigerator. Instead, create alternative ways to preserve food without refrigeration.

So many friends invested all their hope into the recalls, and were left devastated in the wake, besieged with dozens of "if only's": If only I had given more money, if only I had spent another weekend canvassing, if only I could have convinced so-and-so to volunteer....

It's conceivable we could with tremendous effort and expense fix that damned refrigerator. But isn't our energy better spent elsewhere? What if we had spent the millions of dollars generated by the recalls and given it directly to the poor?

Because electoral politics is inextricably part of the system of white supremacy, to invest all our hope and energy in it is to support continued racism. As Jimmy Boggs points out, "Democracy to white people is fascism to black people." Democracy via electoral politics only works for a percentage of the population: the (shrinking) middle class and above. The poor and people of color have been excluded by both Democrats and Republicans throughout our history, and regardless of the party in charge, white supremacy has remained intact. Thus, the subtext of the "I Voted" sticker proudly worn on election day is, "I benefit from and uphold the system of white supremacy."

The fact is anyone benefiting from banks, media, stores, and elections upholds white supremacy. Our focus on electoral politics feeds our delusional conviction that equality is possible in our current system. As plummeting stocks and recent rebellions in Milwaukee, London, Philadelphia and elsewhere reveal, we have nothing close to justice in the USA nor abroad. Our global system of white supremacy maintains oppression and exploitation, and elected officials from both parties all too often vote in the interests of banks and multinational corporations, and are funded by them.

What are the alternatives to our dependence on electoral politics? This is a profound question addressing every single aspect of our lives. I'm building housing cooperatives. What else?
- Stop shopping. Make it, trade it, grow it, forage it.
- Band together with your neighbors to grow food, potluck, share childcare and eldercare, car-share, and keep trouble away so the police are unnecessary.
- Move your money to a local credit union.
- Stop driving. Walk or bike. If you have to use fossil fuels, carpool or bus it.
- Stop consumption of media: TV, radio, internet, phone, newspapers. All mainstream media is owned and operated through the system of white supremacy. Even much alternative media is funded by the same sources, and depends on fossil fuels for transmission. Reduce your consumption by having one or more days a week with everything turned off. Soon you won't want to turn back on.
- Learn how to be healthy. Stop going to the doctor. Learn homeopathics, naturopathy, yoga, nutritional healing, meditation, etc.
- Quit your job. I'm serious. Then you can stop or at least reduce coffee consumption, stop eating out, stop buying clothes, reduce your stress and medical bills, reduce fossil fuel consumption, and have time to do the stuff above.

A ridiculous if not impossible list? That's why we are stuck and at the mercy of our elected officials. But they will not save us, our health insurance, or our retirement accounts. Even a temporary "save" will soon come crashing down, for we no longer have the global resources to sustain a 20th century lifestyle. We have to band together and save ourselves, step by step.

My Terribly Ironic Friends: Reconciling Cognitive Dissonance Through Art

I had a group of friends in college, virtually all white men, who were, and still are, as far as I can tell, terribly ironic, sarcastic, clever, irreverent guys. They made fun of everything. Bascially they were my drinking buddies. On some level, I'm still drawn to people like that: it's the Jon Stewart syndrome. But it's been decades since I've gone out drinking, and now I recognize this attitude as something more than fun, but rather as an attempt to reconcile cognitive dissonance through irony and humor.

My ironic friends are educated enough and moral enough to recognize their unearned privileges. They never use the term "white supremacy" and rarely discuss or recognize race. They have gripes with capitalism but accept it as inevitable. But deep down, my ironic friends feel conflicted about the suffering of others: crippling poverty, failing schools, foreclosures, prisons, endless war.... And they're smart enough to connect the dots and understand that the extreme disparities between rich and poor are due to a global system of oppression, intended and designed to benefit a few. They understand that this global system is one of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. They oppose this system, yet recognize they benefit from it. Yikes!

So Irony and Art come in. We use these practices to let just enough air out of the white supremacist/patriarchal/capitalist bubble to relieve our anxiety and allow us to sleep at night, but don't release enough air to actually burst it. We stand outside the bubble and question it, poke it, make fun of it, and talktalktalk about it, but don't actually change it. In this way, art and humor become palliatives, Marx's opiate for the masses, which is why we can't get enough of Stewart and Colbert.

So instead, can we actually use art and humor to change our lives and our behaviors? Can we use art for the revolution? Instead of retreating into the palliative of art, we have to make our lives the work of art itself. It's not enough to create art, to BE an artist. That's so 20th century. We actually have to LIVE it.

How do we daily live outside the white supremacist/capitalist paradigm? How do we daily refrain from buying anything produced through exploitation, using unrenewable energy, ingesting corporate media, supporting big pharma, depending on corrupt banking systems, and participating in racism/classism/sexism/heterosexism/ageism? These are the only ways to overcome cognitive dissonance. Irony is only a first step, a harmless little poke to the bubble of white supremacy.