From the time of America’s founding, our country has been animated by two competing visions:
- One nation, with liberty and justice for all
- White bodies rule (and its variants: white male bodies rule, white Christian bodies rule, etc.)
The history of our nation can be seen as an attempt to simultaneously honor both of these impossible-to-reconcile visions.
Time after time in our history, our country has exploded into violence, just as it is doing today. On one side have been people devoted to creating a nation of liberty and justice. On the other have been people devoted to whiteness. Both groups insist that they are the only genuine, loyal, patriotic Americans.
These two visions are not merely at odds. For one to be realized, the other must be renounced. Yet both are woven through all our institutions, our body politic, and our cultural and historical DNA. And both can be traced back through many generations of white men who publicly enshrined human rights, freedom, and the sanctity of life while practicing enslavement, genocide, land theft, and/or religious persecution.
Throughout America’s nearly 250-year history, whenever the country has threatened to tear itself apart—as it has done multiple times—its white leaders have always (with the exception of the Civil War) managed to forge a compromise. Although the specifics of each were unique, each followed the same principle: lift up white bodies and mistreat bodies of culture.
This is not the place to provide an exhaustive list of such compromises. However, here are a few of the most notable ones:
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- In 1787, in order to get Southern states to sign on to the new US Constitution, Northern delegates at the Constitutional Convention agreed to count each enslaved African or African American as three-fifths of a human being—not a full member of the human species.
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- As part of the Compromise of 1850, the US Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. The act required that any enslaved person who had made their way to a Northern free state not only could be returned to their owner, but legally had to be. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying these enslaved people. In addition, under this law fugitives could not testify on their own behalf, nor were they permitted a trial by jury. Heavy penalties were imposed upon federal marshals who refused to enforce the law; penalties were also imposed on people who helped slaves to escape.
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- After the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election, Congress held the country together through the Compromise of 1877, which pulled federal troops out of the South. This resulted in the end of Reconstruction, the beginning of mandatory segregation in the South, and the widespread disenfranchisement of African American voters.
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- In 1938, in order to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was part of the New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt agreed to specifically exclude protections for professions with large numbers of bodies of culture.
In each of these cases—and many others in American history—the only way that white leaders with differing views were able to forge a compromise was by writing into law a new, additional aspect of white-body supremacy. Time after time, our Union was preserved by an agreement to harm bodies of culture and elevate white ones.
I’m writing this on July 21, 2022. By now it’s clear to almost everyone that America is once again fighting desperately over its own soul and its own future. Every day, each of us is confronted with the same two questions:
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- Which star should guide and define America—liberty and justice, or whiteness?
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- Which star will define and guide me?
This choice is precisely the same one we have always had. Yet this time, the traditional compromise—Let’s assist white bodies and shaft bodies of culture—is no longer possible. Today, about 42% of America citizens are bodies of culture, compared with 80 to 85% in 1787, 1850, 1877, and 1938. Today, large numbers of bodies of culture are widely recognized leaders and influencers in virtually every aspect of American life. And today, millions of white Americans will refuse to accept anything less than liberty and justice for all. (I’ve subtracted the white folks who can perform progressivism on cue but who won’t take serious risks.)
In My Grandmother’s Hands I wrote:
Today we’re at a reckoning. We Americans have an opportunity— and an obligation—to recognize the trauma embedded in our bodies; to accept and metabolize the clean pain of healing; and to move through and out of our trauma. This will enable us to mend our hearts and bodies—and to grow up.
Americans have reached a point of peril and possibility. We will either grow up or grow smaller. This trauma will either burst forth in an explosion of dirty pain, or provide the necessary energy and heat for white Americans to move through clean pain and heal. Only this second outcome will provide us with genuine safety.
In The Quaking of America I wrote:
The game is up. The reckoning is here. The conflicts that have been building for centuries are now in our streets and in our faces. The contradictions baked into American culture can no longer be swept aside or denied. How will we resolve them?
The reckoning is upon us—and you are part of it.
We will not achieve liberty and justice for all by simply wishing for it, thinking about it, and strategizing around it. We will only build liberty and justice by putting our hearts, minds, and bodies on the line—over and over, time after time, just as many generations of Black, brown, and Indigenous people have done, from the bottom up, since before America was founded. We will establish liberty and justice for all only through the creation of a living, embodied antiracist culture.
Now it is up to us.
By now, I mean right now. The forces of white nationalism—tens of millions strong—are poised, guns ready, waiting for the signal from Donald Trump to “save America” through widespread brutality and murder.
If you think I am overemphasizing this threat, watch this Washington Post video interview with policy analyst and historian Malcolm Nance, or read his new book, They Want to Kill Americans.
The body practice below will help you begin to prepare your body for the days ahead.
BODY PRACTICE: METABOLIZING THE RECKONING
Find a quiet, safe spot where you can be alone for a few minutes. Sit quietly and comfortably for half a minute. Take a few deep breaths.
Then read the words below aloud. Repeat each sentence three times:
The Reckoning is here.
I live in a time of great peril and great possibility. I do not and cannot know what will emerge.
As the future unfolds, I will act from the best parts of myself.
As you read these words, notice what you experience in your body. Take note of any:
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- vibrations
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- images and thoughts
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- meanings, judgments, stories, and explanations
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- behaviors, movements, actions, impulses, and urges
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- affect and emotions
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- sensations
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- imaginings
Pay special attention to any urges, any constriction, and any sensation near the bottom of your belly. Notice any pressure, textures, speed, rhythms, direction, weight, or charge that emerges.
You may experience clean pain, such as dread or fear. You may experience a pleasurable sensation, such as relief or release. You might experience both pain and pleasure together.
Take a few more deep, slow breaths.
Then scan your body and notice any places that want to be touched. For the next minute or two, using one or both hands, touch each of these spots in whatever way it wants to be touched—for example:
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- lightly pressing
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- gently squeezing or gripping
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- rubbing
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- holding or supporting
You may also want to simply let the palm of your open hand hover above the spot, an inch or two away, for a few breaths.
Invite this body practice into your life as often as you like.
As our reckoning unfolds, make a point of doing this body practice whenever you sense peril and possibilities growing.
If you like, soul scribe about it by writing down what you experience in your body through the VIMBASI listed above (vibrations, images and thoughts, etc.).
The body practice above, and other portions of this blog post, are adapted from my new book, The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning.