Anti-racism goes beyond common communication models, in that it brings a direct awareness to the consequences of holding perspectives and engaging in action and non-action that results in violent outcomes for folks who are more systemically marginalized.

It starts with willingness to assess oneself individually, relationally and socially. What is your historic understanding of the current challenge? Understanding current injustice, along with iterative systemic and generationally compounded trauma, realizing these are compounded due to continual systemic pressures, individuals and groups develop a depth of capacity to witness and attend to challenges, going beyond intention to addressing impact and developing systems of equity and differentiated collaboration, which allows for both diversity AND inclusion. It involves commitment to consideration beyond oneself and one’s own generation, understanding the pressures and danger of ‘assimilation versus indigenity’ and racial capitalism that challenge all Black, Indigenous and other People of Color, recovering from genocidal, slaving and colonized violence. Understanding the interconnectedness of these inherently exclusive and violent systems is key to dismantling or transforming them effectively. In tandem, appreciation for historic efforts to live, resist and liberate, are essential to joining with marginalized folks in creating more equitable communities and organizational cultures and systems.

***For BIPOC folks, healing from the trauma of internalized racist structures and systems, can include internal and external observation and dismantling of internalized systems of oppression enacted on oneself or laterally and sometimes unknowingly, due to encapsulated trauma in the body, mind and Spirit. Sometimes, sadly, it’s all we remember or what was passed down for survival. Looking at issues of class, caste and systemically driven survival-based reactions and addressing the cost and consequences on us as individuals and on one another, we look at re-collaborating in ways that honor our collective grief and pain, and offer avenues forward that address both the need to differentiate and actualize and have truly safe and secure communities, while realistically addressing living in a context of continued supremacy based violence and moving towards healing experiences of more diversity and inclusion where and when it is possible. We recognize the challenges of trusting and resisting assimilation based policies that essentially weaponize us against one another and ourselves, and love one another and members of prior generations who have struggled against the terrors of a violent and genocidally designed and implemented system. It was not consensual and coerced, all of it. There is deep honor for the added trauma recovery work that is required for being able to live daily and to even consider living with trust of diversity and inclusion. With that honoring of the work, comes an honoring for needs for rest, balance, moments of ease and Self re-nurturance throughout. There is also an honest view of the roles we carry in our communities as a result of living with a lopsided access to safety, power and basic needs. I recognize the consequences of not-taking up these roles, for ourselves, dependents and others in the community and the added effort that it has and does require to live day to day and have community. With that understanding, trauma recovery can be engaged to find ways to address current needs and historic pain around the oppression and suppression of resistance and actualization efforts, while healing from trauma and finding more sustainable ways to meet safety and security needs and… yes, even living a more joyful life, today.

Some core components of anti-racism work include:

-Willing commitment to de-center dominant cultural “norms” and “standards”

-identification of some of these “norms” and “standards” and how these land in a privileged body

-identification of some of these “norms” and “standards” and how these land in a marginalized body

-identification of the trauma behaviors that are indications of a system or internalized system being in place

-understanding that this work at all levels, must include willingness and efforts to dismantle violence perpetuated at the systemic level, otherwise these efforts persist in an environment of danger, perpetuating gaslighting on a larger level

-recognizing one’s own privilege and access to structures and engaging action to bring change

-tailored commitments to address the biases one might be carrying individually

-Education of the Challenge

-engaging with media resources developed by folks of various backgrounds

-observing the difference in privilege and treatment of those with a differing social rank in various situations and the extra efforts required by marginalized folks to have those same comforts, if they so desire it

-recognition of the implicit ask in a system of privilege for marginalized folks seen and unseen, this involves understanding global economic and military policies and their effects

-consistent and intentional engagement in being respectfully present with folks from other cultures or economic conditions, without caving into defaults driven by racial capitalism that result in exploitation and extinction based actions and policies

-understanding with clarity the dangers of upholding a concept of supremacy, and the work to challenge assumptions of security and safety founded in that

-engaging in both immediate, local and systemic level action to dismantle violent institutions, not as practice, but as vital to one’s own wellbeing in a truly diverse and inclusive society

-Self Reflection and the Gifts of Healthy Shame Recovery Work

-being able to distinguish health from toxic shame

-having a practice of seeking out respectful support for working through racially based relational issues

-utilizing understanding of intentions to discern one’s values and to allow that to drive the work to change

-noticing when one is unable to access the body and the relationship of that numbing, high anxiety or responses of learned helplessness that have become embedded in somatic memory

-engaging in holistic systems of wellness and healing to unpack those embedded snapshots of soothed privilege that have allowed a disengagement with anti-racism work thus far

-remembering and reckonizing that true holistic healing is considerate and truly mutual, in that it will result in actual, lived changes of more safety, security and ease for those more marginalized AND looking for these results rather than temporary assuaging of white guilt to signify healthy and helpful change

-advanced work: recognizing one’s own systemic pressures are part of the same system that lands on more marginalized folks, and being able to map that cultural, social system with awareness to address consequences at an organizational level

-living this work, enjoying actual increased capacity and empowerment as a more vital and embodied individual, deepening a non-grandiose, sustainable and lived respect for oneself, and finding accompanying healing in all systems including

-commitment to one’s personal shame, grief and trauma recovery work in collaboration with relational and systemic level work

-developing a process of daily reflection and action rooted in self, relational and social level accountability

-Creating Systems of Sustainability and Engaging Truth, Amends and Reconciliation Work

These two final phases of the work are based on the efforts in the sections above, so the above efforts are vital to creating actual and useful change, as well as a community of actual trust and collaboration. Know that as we engage in this work collectively, individual traumas will surface and need to heal. It is imperative to apply some principles from transformational justice to being ready to hold space and care for those unwinding from generational trauma in spaces where actual collective and organizational healing is taking place. Efforts to address this stage of the work without completing the prior two, usually results in bypassing that can backslide or not fully take stock of the underlying challenges, resulting in continued challenges without meaningful processes in place to address the challenges.