These offerings and musings, are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.
These are stolen lands built by stolen people.
“Why racism and anti-Blackness are not the same, and why being antiracist requires mindfulness”
It's May 11, 2020, and it is early it is 5:00 o'clock in the morning, and I have just arrived at Vancouver Airport. I have a 7:00 a.m. international flight back home to the 3-0-5, aka Miami. It is not unusual for me to travel back home during May, but nothing about this trip and the moment we are in is normal. This trip feels very final because I have moved out of the room I was renting in Vancouver, put my stuff in storage, and purchased a one-way ticket to Miami. The world is currently experiencing a global pandemic, and in the middle of this, I am moving back home. The pandemic has turned mundane everyday activities into an extreme sport. Moving across North America and flying during a global pandemic is an extreme sport that I do not recommend trying. It took so much prayer, ritual, and lots of affirmations to ensure that my mind and body could handle traversing these fictitious borders of these two nation-states. I am traveling knowing full well that I am leaving Vancouver, where the curve is flat and making my way back to a chaotic country and city. Living in Canada has made it abundantly clear to me that the United States is my home. This is a highly controversial statement to make out loud at this moment as a queer Black femme. The moment we are currently in is once again being marked by hashtags memorializing premature Black death, Black pain, and Black mourning. Black people have new ancestors to add to our altars. Their names are #BreonaTaylor, #AhmoudArbery #GeorgeFloyd, #TonyMcdade and the many other Black lives that are lost that never become hashtags. The United States, as a matter of public policy engineers, the premature corporal and social death of its Black citizens and even with ALL that I prefer this side of North America any day over the sunken place, that is Canada.
What does it mean to miss and love a country that does not fuck with you, does not love you, that would be nothing without you, and you would be everything without its hatred of you?
Shit is complicated.
Back to the scene at the airport, I am waiting for the clock to strike 5:30 a.m. that is the official opening hours of the airport. I just paid an excessive amount of money to check in several bags. I am in line practicing proper physical distancing with my cloth mask on waiting to drop my bags off. The clock finally hits the appointed time, and the employee who will be claiming our baggage has arrived. She is East Asian, and I notice that she is very chipper since it is so early in the morning, and we are in an airport during a global pandemic. As I am waiting for my turn in line, I watch as this woman performs what I would label emotional labor. The sociologist Arlie Hochschild created the term emotional labor. The definition of emotional labor explains how workers have to manage their affect and their emotions to emotionally do their jobs. For, e.g., this employee is doing emotional labor by making small talk with everyone, smiling, and wishing each individual a safe flight. I do not know if she genuinely cares or if her job has made it compulsory for her to perform this labor. As I continue watching this woman do her job, my mind drifts, thinking about how weird it is to be in an airport right now. Under normal circumstances, this international airport, even at this early hour, should be busier. Still, the airport is operating at half capacity, and gloves and masks serve as a reminder that this is a different world. However, in the middle of my thought, I have a new thought. As a Black person, I always feel like people are trying to and with much success socially and physically distance themselves from Black people, our pain, and our struggle.
It is finally my turn to drop my bags and interact with the cheery woman. Immediately I get the sense there is a slight shift in her that occurs as I approach her, and this shift will create a significant fault line in our interaction. Every Black person knows the subtle cues and changes that happen in the demeanor of another that alerts you that the customer service you just watched everyone and their momma receive is not the customer service you are going to be served. The customer service I am going to be served will be scooped from a vat filled with anti-Blackness.
Firstly, there was no good morning for me or a small talk for that matter. To be honest, I do not require hourly wage workers to perform emotional labor for me to feel like I am getting "good" customer service. Still, if I watched you warmly greet twenty white people before me with a smile in your voice even if it was fake, I kinda sorta need you to keep that same energy when it is my turn boo. Now, it would be an excellent time for me to alert you dear reader that I am the only Black person in sight at this airport. Plot twist. Which is a common occurrence when I am flying out of Vancouver. This icy interaction is getting more frigid when the employee discovers that the barcodes on my seven pieces of luggage are not activated. A mistake that the woman made me feel personally responsible for causing. While all of this is happening, I can feel my anger rising and my patience wearing thin. I stopped and did the Black mental calculations: I am traveling internationally while Black which already requires its own strategy, there are no other Black people around, I am not Canadian, and we are in the middle of a global pandemic. All this equates to me not being able to afford being perceived as a problem or causing a problem.
I painstakingly recount this travel story because I want to do the following three things: talk about and introduce the concept of lateral violence, make the distinction between racism and anti-Blackness, and show you why antiracism is a mindfulness practice.
Firstly, lateral violence is when Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) get in the white supremacist sandbox. Instead of us breaking the box or refusing to get into the box, we choose instead to build sandcastles in the white supremacist sandbox and play by its logic. BIPOC play by white supremacist's logic; by allowing white supremacy to dictate the terms and conditions of our interactions. We also do this by subscribing to the same racist stereotypes and ideas about each other and parroting racist language.
Secondly, every one of us needs to get better at making the distinction between racism and anti-Blackness. Anti-Blackness is its own universe within the universe of white supremacy. All racism stems from anti-Blackness, but not all racism is anti-Black racism. All non-Black people of color can, through time, educational attainment, class mobility and etc. be seen glowingly by the white gaze and above all be allowed to thrive and access full citizenship within this machinery called the United States. This level of absorption into the system does not happen with Black people. Black people under anti-Blackness are treated as perpetual outsiders. Anti-Blackness is what built this nation. Chattel slavery is what made America great. Black people have excelled at many things, but Black people are still trying to be seen as fully human within this system. There is no transcending anti-Blackness for Black people. Anti-Blackness stalks Black people like a shadow. Anti-Blackness in the stool that whiteness stands upon to know itself as tall and sturdy. All non-Black people of color measure their worth and progress against anti-Blackness. Everyone profits from anti-Blackness except Black people. You cannot compare anti-Blackness to anything else. The holocaust is distinct and cannot and should not be compared to anything else, just like the genocide of Native peoples. So too is anti-Blackness, and the litany of issues it unleashes upon the mind, souls, and bodies of Black folks it cannot be analogized.
My final point is the one that prompted this blog post. If you are seeking to be antiracist, then it is imperative to strive to be present in your interactions. I recount the airport story because I want to highlight how unconscious bias will set you up for failure if we are not mindful. I don't know what was informing the East Asian woman's behavior towards me, but what I do know is that I was treated differently. It was not the good kind of difference, and it was noticeable. Let's go further and take the example of Amy Cooper, the Canadian woman who in the New York park who weaponized her whiteness and her gender in an attempt to cause Christian Cooper (no relation) bodily harm by calling the cops on him. What if Amy Cooper had taken a minute to breathe? Perhaps she would have realized that the level of anger she was exhibiting was unwarranted. Maybe she would have noticed that she was choking her dog and acting like a racist damsel in distress. If she had stopped and checked in with herself, she could have gifted herself the choice of STFU and walking away. Her unconscious bias took hold, and it morphed into anti-Blackness, and now she has to live with the consequences.
The airport employee was fully engaging in lateral violence that was being fueled by anti-Blackness.I say all of this to say that if you intend to practice antiracism, then you must be committed to being present and aware of your interactions with people who are different from you. We have all been socialized and fed a steady diet of anti-Blackness. It is like high fructose corn syrup. It's in everything, and it's everywhere. The only way to stop yourself from ingesting it if you are trying to avoid it is by stopping to read the label. You learn to read and know racism by being mindful and aware.
In my antiracist workshops and individual coaching sessions, I describe antiracism as a practice. Antiracism is very similar to having a yoga practice or any other kind of mindfulness practice. You cannot mentally be out of the room when you are doing yoga. To hold complicated poses while remembering to breathe is hard. By dropping into your body and bringing awareness to your mat, can you genuinely do the pose, relax into it, check in with the parts of your body that is resisting, or experiencing pain in the pose, that is how we do antiracism. Antiracism is not solely an intellectual endeavor. Reprogramming ourselves to see Black people as people is going to take lots of unlearning. When we are on auto-pilot, we are more likely to misgender people. We frown at people whose faces represent the outsiders we have been told to fear. We miss racist interactions and miss opportunities to show up in solidarity for others. It takes work to not let your unconscious bias dictate the terms and conditions of your engagement with others. An antiracist life is not a sedentary life. It is a life that requires you to use your body, voice, mind, money, power, and etc., to disrupt, dismantle, and divest from white supremacy. It is not enough to wake up you now have to remain forever vigilant.
VIEWINGS AND READINGS
How To Be An AntiRacist by Ibam X. Kendi - I am finally getting around to reading this book.
In the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe -I am reading for my dissertation proposal it is a book about anti-Blackness it is beautifully written and accessible.
26 Ways To Be In The Struggle Beyond The Streets -[LINK]
Black Feminist Perspectives on COVID-19: A Reading List-[LINK]
A Youtuber Placed Her Autistic Adopted Son From China With A New Family – After Making Content With Him For Years - [LINK] “My heart aches for poor Huxley,” wrote one person on Twitter. “They dragged this poor little boy all the way from China, making him start all over again, then giving up on him.” The person added that Myka had gained followers and got sponsorships from the story.”
Mapping Our Social Change Roles in Times of Crises by Deepah Iyer [LINK]-”Identifying the right actions in times of crisis requires reflection, and it’s in that spirit that I’m offering a new version of a mapping exercise that helps us identify our roles in a social change ecosystem.”
LISTENING
The Unmute Podcast 38. Episode 045: Lindsay Stewart on Black Joy [LINK] - my favorite podcast has come back with a new season. This podcast is hosted by Dr. Myisha Cherry she is a Black woman and a scholar of philosophy who interviews other philosophers mainly scholars of color. This episode is about Black joy and the dopiness that is Zora Neale Hurston and her intellectual badassery!
Bottom of the Map: Space is Still the Place - [LINK] - This podcast episode is centered on the intersection of hip-hop and the afrofuture.
Writ Large: The full spectrum of human beauty - [LINK] What Zora Neale Hurston Can Teach Us About Cancel Culture
ANNOUNCEMENTS
I am happy to announce that I am back in the United States and home in Miami
If you like, love, and or support my work please consider giving. You can do so the following ways:
Cashapp: $LutzeB
PayPal: thefeministgriote@gmail.com
Zelle: lutzesegu@gmail.com
I will be announcing an online course this week. oI have adapted one of one of my popular offerings from last summer. People who are subscribed to my newsletter will hear about it first and unlock special discounts.
S.O.U.L Sisters Leadership Collective is hiring a Program Manager find the job description here [LINK]
I am taking on new clients for individual and organizational coaching [LINK]