Making Things Right

‘Silence is violence’, they say.

‘But I show up to protests and speak out’, you will think.

And you will defend and find countless other examples to confirm the ways in which you are not racist and are, in fact, doing your part to dismantle systems of oppression.

But I want to share a story with you. It conveys the insidiousness of the tendency we have as white people to value white feelings over Black lives.

It portrays the depths to which racism exists deep within us, even as allies.

I left Zuda Yoga in May 2018. In the polite way. Respectability politics. I thought that to not speak openly was the proper and virtuous thing to do. It’s not in my nature to publicly drag anyone through the mud.

I themed my final class around justice and our responsibility as practitioners of yoga to look at our role in the greater good of humanity. I said words like ‘privilege’ and ‘power’. I created a playlist for my final classes, thinking that white folks would read between the lines of those songs I played. I believed that my covert statement was loud and clear.

But it wasn’t.

I should have know better because that’s not how it works in a room full of white people. We don’t do a good job of reading between the racist lines.

Anti-Racism needed my voice.

Not innuendos. Not hints. But my actual voice.

This week I came face to face with the ways in which my silence perpetuated over two more years of harm to the Black and Brown community. And it has been a glaring and valuable reminder of the way in which white people value the feelings of other white people, over Black lives.

Amy Cooper - white feelings over Black lives

BBQ Becky - white feelings over Black lives

Permit Patty - white feelings over Black lives

Zuda Corri - white feelings over Black lives

In my time at zuda yoga, I witnessed and was complicit in tokenizing, lack of accessibility, lack of representation, cultural appropriation, micro-aggressions, and spiritual bypassing.

I was silent for many years. And in my silence I was complicit.

Over time I had a realization of the harm my silence was causing, and I eventually found courage to speak up. I began naming and calling these harms out. I asked to engage our community in the learning and unlearning involved in anti-racism work.

I was told no - both with words and actions.

And that was when I made the final decision to leave.

Speaking up was not easy and it came at the cost of a lot of people thinking I was an irrational snowflake. They called what I did ‘cancel culture’ and ‘low vibe’. They said that anti-racist work was divisive, because ‘we are all one’.

Pay attention to who say these kinds of things. Notice they are mostly white people.

Privilege is refusing to believe something actually exists, because it doesn’t pertain to you. It’s crucial for us to understand that as white people we can be nice (or yogic, or spiritual, or loving) and still engage in racist behavior that causes harm.

I implore white people to see the impact of my mistake and harms caused to a community that is already in pain.

White Silence, costs lives.

Literally. But also figuratively.

My silence cost heartache and preventable pain. My silence gave BIPOC the impression that this was a safe space for them, when it wasn’t.

Making Black Lives Matter is so much bigger than holding up signs at a protest. It goes beyond hard conversations with close friends. It’s so much bigger than a social media post. It’s about speaking up at the expense of our own feelings or the feelings of our white friends.

BIPOC have been screaming racism for years, often to no avail. But the power we hold as white people is that when we say it, many white people will finally listen.

To the Black and Indigenous People of Color whom I have caused harm, I am deeply sorry.

And I understand if you don’t forgive me, because an apology is not about what we say.

It’s about what we do.

Please know that my commitment to anti-racism will be my living amends to all of you.

Love,

Corri