How our bodies can develop collective containers to handle the charge of race
KEY POINTS
- The ability to hold and work with energies of race isn’t inborn. It needs to be acquired through effort and practice.
- Many white bodies aspire to help create a living, embodied antiracist culture—but aren’t yet ready to turn those aspirations into reality.
- Reps make the difference between good intentions and wise, concerted action—and between losing steam and pressing forward.
- Whatever your skin pigmentation, do not pretend that you are unable to rise to the challenge of Somatic Abolitionism.
Race has its own unique charge, texture, weight, and speed. The ability to hold and work with these energies isn’t inborn. It needs to be acquired through effort and practice.
Most bodies of culture acquire this ability when they’re young. We have to, because it’s so closely tied to our survival. Some of us learn it purely through the hard knocks of life. Others, like me, are more fortunate: our parents and other elders carefully coach us in a variety of racial survival skills. We also learn it by observing the actions of our elders—especially what we watch them lean into and recoil from.
In contrast, most white American bodies have little agility, acuity, or grit around race. This isn’t because of some ability they lack. Most white bodies simply haven’t had the collective desire to learn to work with the spring-loaded energies of race. In most cases, they also haven’t had a need or an interest in doing so. Throughout their lives, they’ve been able to fall back on white advantage—and to simply ignore or turn away from issues involving race.
Unfortunately, as a result, racialized trauma stays stuck inside their bodies day after day, year upon year. It also becomes a part of the collective white body. And it gets transmitted to later generations as an accepted, standard, and morally acceptable way of being.
Because most white bodies haven’t built this agility, acuity, or grit, when they encounter strong energy or stress around race, their racialized trauma can easily get activated. They may then shift into fight, flee, freeze, fawn, or annihilate mode. Often this means becoming anxious, or angry, or defensive, or tearful. They may then try to blow their pain through other bodies—especially bodies of culture.
Right now, many white bodies—perhaps many more than you realize—have the right intentions and aspirations for creating a living, embodied antiracist culture. But they aren’t yet prepared to turn those aspirations into reality. These bodies will first need to be tempered and conditioned through reps—repetitions of the body practices in this blog and in my books My Grandmother’s Hands and The Quaking of America.
Reps make the difference between good intentions and wise, concerted action—and between losing steam and pressing forward. Without enough reps under your belt, you may have a strong burst of energy for a time. But when the going gets tough—which we both know it sometimes will—you’re likely to give up or slow down. However, if you’ve been practicing enough reps, day after day and month after month, you’ll have built the stamina and resilience and grit to keep moving steadily forward.
Please don’t confuse a lack of preparation with a lack of ability. If you have a white body, you are already fully equipped with everything you need for its tempering and conditioning around race.
If you have a white body, pause. Notice the energy—and perhaps the quaking—that arise in your body right now.
If you have trouble experiencing this energy, ask yourself this question (literally speak it aloud): When did African people start to develop paler skin? The correct answer is less than 8000 years ago.
Now pause and pay attention to your body.
If you didn’t know the correct answer to that question, then ask yourself this follow-up question, again speaking it out loud: Why did I not know this information?
Then pause and notice the energy in your body.
Whatever your skin pigmentation, do not pretend that you are unable to rise to the challenge of Somatic Abolitionism. You can either accept this challenge, and sometimes make mistakes or fail, or choose to not take it up at all and accept the consequences of turning away from your own growth and liberation.
We don’t just practice Somatic Abolitionism as individuals. We also need to develop a collective container that can handle the charge of race. This is especially important for people with white bodies. Creating this collective container will require time, commitment, and practice—and plenty of trial and error.
I don’t know how long this container will take to create. But we need to think in terms of generations, if not centuries. White-body supremacy has been circulating in American bodies—and has been intrinsic to American life—for well over three centuries. That cannot be quickly undone.
That is no reason to turn away from the task of individual and collective healing. Regardless of how long the work may take, it begins—or continues—right now, in your own body.
You are not doing this just for yourself, or for me, or for any particular person or cause. You are doing it because you don’t want to pass on the cruel legacy of white-body supremacy to your children, or to your children’s children, for generation upon generation.
The efforts you make will not only support your own healing and growth. They can support the lives of all the people you encounter, whatever their body pigmentation. They can create more room for growth in the bodies of your children, your grandchildren, and their descendants. And, year by year, generation upon generation, they can transform the energies of race into energies of liberation.
If you have a Black or a white body, one of the body practices below can help you create more room for this growth. (I’ll offer a new body practice for bodies of culture who are not Black in my next post.)
Black Bodies and White Comfort
If you have a Black body:
Recall a recent incident in which someone with a white body asked or expected you to comfort or protect them. They may have asked you directly and overtly—or they may have expressed a desire or expectation without verbalizing it.
Use your imagination to relive that incident; then answer these questions:
- What did your body experience when it recognized the request or expectation?
- Did you say yes or no? Why? Did you say anything else?
- What did you experience in your body when you said yes (or no)?
- If you said yes, what was the result of your comfort or protection? What did the white body say and do? How did your body respond to the incident?
- In retrospect, was your comfort or protection genuinely necessary? Was it helpful? Or could the person have soothed or protected themselves?
- If they had soothed or protected themselves, how might the situation have evolved differently?
Afterward, soul scribe—that is, write about what your body experienced, in whatever way you wish. Note any:
- vibrations
- images and thoughts
- meanings, judgments, stories, and explanations
- behaviors, movements, actions, impulses, and urges
- affect and emotions
- sensations
If you have a white body:
Recall a recent incident in which you asked or expected someone with a Black body to comfort or protect you. Use your imagination to relive that incident, and then answer these questions:
- What did your body experience that encouraged you to request or expect that help?
- Why did you make the request of that particular body?
- Did the person say yes or no?
- What did you experience in your body when they said yes (or no)?
- If they said yes, what was the result of their comfort or protection? How did your body respond to it?
- In retrospect, was their comfort or protection genuinely necessary? Or could you have soothed or protected yourself?
- If you had soothed or protected yourself, how might the situation have emerged differently?
Afterward, soul scribe—write about your body’s experience in whatever way you wish. Note any:
- vibrations
- images and thoughts
- meanings, judgments, stories, and explanations
- behaviors, movements, actions, impulses, and urges
- affect and emotions
- sensations
This post was adapted from my new book, The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning.