White Spiritual Women. It’s time.
How are you holding up?
Did you read the article I shared last week - about what to do now that Trump has been elected?
I spoke with one reader who said her brain couldn’t comprehend it yet.
If that’s happening to you, pause, rest, shake, do what you need to do to process whatever you’re feeling. Especially if you are one of the 90%+ of Black women who have taken the lead on pretty much everything for decades including the most recent U.S. election.
But, yes, even if you are a privileged cis-gender white woman.
Pausing can be a courageous and Culture Making move (thanks to Kelly Diels for this term).
Perpetual exhaustion isn’t the way forward.
Your perpetual exhaustion, chronic anger, and despair will only feed the systems of power that we want to dissolve.
If you are a white or white-presenting woman, though, please do your grieving with others like you, not in racially mixed spaces unless you are specifically invited to do so. And don’t expect your Brown and Black friends to hold your hand right now.
Pay attention to what Austin Channing Brown, author of *I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness* shared on Instagram this week. Encouraging us to watch out for the impulse to perform our white goodness on social media - and elsewhere.
Pay attention also to Andréa Ranae Johnson who shared “I am angry with white and non-Black POC who choose to cut off white family and friends that refuse to shift out of their racist and white supremacist ideologies . . . Black people don’t have that option . . . And in their cutting off they leave us to deal with their people and their problems ourselves.”
Set boundaries as you need to. Yes. But also sit with this truth and ask yourself what more you can do, if not today, then in the future to shift the needle on racial harm in your spheres of influence. Most of us are stronger than we think we are. And we can build capacity and skills that we don’t have yet.
Andréa also shared (and I’ve heard similar things from many other Black women) that she’s going to do less educating of white people in her work going forward — which she’s done a lot — and more centering herself. Sharing her stories and songs. I’m celebrating this so hard - and with deep gratitude for all she has taught me. I hope you’ll check out her creations!
So listen and learn. Stand with Black women. Believe Black women. Pay them well for their work. Share their work.
Grief requires grieving.
And also, whether you are Black, White, or Non-Black POC, grief requires grieving. You are human and you need nourishment, care and rest.
That’s just the way it works.
Feeling uncomfortable feelings has power. Emotions are energy in motion.
Let them move through and you can use that energy to support creating the world you want to live in.
If we don’t do these things the racist patriarchy wins. Don’t let it.
And when you are ready . . .
If you didn’t get a chance to read the article I shared last week I suggest you start there.
There’s a great section that talks about four ways to resist. If you’re on the inside of governmental institutions, or the military, for example, or other powerful organizations, you may be called to stay and resist from inside, to protect current policies, people, and practices you believe in.
You might need to resist by protecting the most vulnerable.
You might resist by dreaming of and creating alternatives to our current options.
Or something else.
White women, it’s time to join the resistance.
Even if you don’t know your part in it yet.
As the author, Daniel Hunter, wrote, “Your path may not be clear right now. That’s okay. There will be plenty of opportunities to join the resistance.”
And if you are a woo-woo liberal spiritual person who believes that all you need to do is bring more love inside yourself and that will ripple out into the world, you also are likely going to need to resist externally in some way at some time in the next few months and years in order to live in alignment with the love you believe in.
And keep doing the internal love work too, absolutely. But not ONLY the internal work.
If you’re politically conservative and somehow landed here reading this. I’m very glad you did. I’d love to connect and increase understanding across this divide.
And in this moment I want to say to you that you are very likely going to need to resist in some way at some time in the next few months and years in order to live what you believe about what love and care look like in your community - especially if you are a Christian who is genuinely seeking to follow Jesus and his way of love, and run in circles with other conservative Christians.
If you are Black woman who is exhausted and angry and sick of doing all the work and having white women not do our part — which is what I’m hearing from virtually every Black woman I know right now — I don’t know what to say except I hear you. I love you. I celebrate you. I’m gonna do my work with my people.
And if you want support from an amazing coach please reach out to Bettina Jones. She’s phenomenal and she’s all about supporting Black women like you — who’ve been doing the work, often as the one-and-only — for decades. She’s walked the path. She’s the real deal.
Here’s to thriving, and equity. Joy and justice.
Deb
P.S. This bears repeating: If you are a Black professional woman and you want support from an amazing coach please reach out to Bettina Jones.
P.S.S. Another great resource to consider (and not only for white people): Transform Your Hidden Bias, A digital course created by Aminata Sol Plantwalker Firewoman (formerly Dr. Amanda Kemp). For a limited time, if you purchase this course and want extra support from me as you go through it, I’m offering free support through Voxer or Whatsapp during your 90 days of course access.
In the midst of it all the leaves shine and dance with spectacular beauty. This is life today too.