Ep. 118: Attention as a Tool for a Racial and Social Justice Practice (Reprise 94)

As we’re hosting our Roadmap to Resilience workshop, we’re feeling reflective and appreciative about where we are and where we’ve been. So, we’re sharing a conversation from last spring inspired by a session of Grounded & Growing, the program on which Roadmap to Resilience is based. April and Tracie recently realized they have different practices in response to injustices. Though their actual behaviors diverge, what they have in common is that they are using intentional and strategic attention as a form of a social and racial justice practice. Because of our many different identities and experiences, our social justice practices are not one-size-fits-all. Some of us need to protect ourselves from re-traumatization. Others need to counter the numbness and dehumanization that has become default reactions to injustice. All of us can contribute to a world of justice, wholeness, and healing.

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Learn more about the police killing of Stephon Clark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Stephon_Clark

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Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

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Transcript

Tracie: 0:22

This week, April and I are hosting our roadmap to resilience workshop. And we're feeling reflective and appreciative of where we've been over the past year. So we're resharing a conversation from last spring, inspired by our pilot cohort of grounded and growing, which is also the basis of roadmap to resilience. If you're interested in roadmap to resilience, these are ongoing. Make sure you register so you have access to the recordings, and can join us live on Zoom every day at noon.

April Baskin: 1:04

You're listening to the joyous justice podcast,

Tracie: 1:07

a weekly show hosted by April Baskin with Tracy Decker, in a

April Baskin: 1:11

complex world in which systemic oppression conditions us to deny others and our own humanity. let's dedicate ourselves to the pursuit and embodiment of wholeness, love and thriving in the world and in our own lives. It's time to heal and flourish our way to a more joyous and just future. Hi, Tracy. Hey, April. So by this time, we will have both observed our Juneteenth celebrations and or acknowledgments as an assault Solstice is here it is officially summer drums please, I'm not gonna do it again. But let's dive in. So you had a good idea of a theme that came up recently in one of our grounded and growing sessions that we had recently and interesting discussion in juxtaposition between how I navigate something versus how you navigate it. And especially since I think overall, the program is going really well. And we are having a great time piloting it. Our participants are getting so much out of it and reflecting back so much insight and key takeaways that I think it's fun to share a little bit of a glimpse of one of the things that unscripted sort of organically arose from the collective conversation we were having in the midst of one of our more recent sessions toward the end of our six week journey together. Yeah,

Tracie: 2:49

yeah. Yeah, so we were talking about the sort of managing our minds and managing our emotions and, and a big throughline for grounded and growing is kind of interrupting or disrupting numbness or inattention. And you were talking about caring for yourself and sort of boundaries that you were setting up. And it was really interesting to see around the same sort of thing. How are different boundaries came out? I think we you should start though, I think,

April Baskin: 3:26

yeah. And for me, in that case, it was around as opposed to interrupting, which is a key part I think of navigating and working and detoxing from whiteness is is contradicting numbness and what was the other word you used in attention and attention, thank you. And for me, part of how I healthfully counter that and move in the direction of liberation at times is also minimize continued retraumatization and harm and suffering. And so, and also, how to figure out how I navigate the world and the news and different stimuli in a way that both honors what's happening tends and cares for myself, and my needs as a person of color navigating it and positions me to continually be as powerful and effective as I can be. And so what came up which I shared at a certain point in our whiteness hub router program and some other programs we've done is that I believe that our focus and attention is power and that it's incredibly important wherever we are, that we'd be mindful. I think I think the theme overall between both of us it's shared and how we do it as differently that we be mindful about what we are ingesting and and we fear that goes within our system and how we tend to ourselves as it reverberates through parts of our self that may be harmed by it and or that that input may touch upon unhealed parts of us in particular ways that may be helpful or harmful depending. And so basically, I forget, it was, you know, I, it was a little bit of a,

Tracie: 5:25

it was a bit of a tangent for what from where we thank you. That's that's the word I was looking for directing. But I think it's it's very relevant. I don't actually remember the specific comment or circumstance that led you to share

April Baskin: 5:38

that lead you just Yeah, but something about it basically, was that one of their one of the takeaways of one of the participants, was that one of the practices that we teach and grounded and growing, helps them access, greater insight and awareness and honor, you know, honor different feelings that arose in a circumstance and what was the default experience and then starting to think about honoring that and moving through and recognizing different things that may need ongoing work and support? What was the intentional framework that they wanted to start to apply around that dynamic. And anyway, something about what they were sharing, prompted me to want to share briefly about some of the arc of my ongoing leadership and spiritual journey and becoming around being incredibly mindful about how I use an experience, attention. And, and, and we talked about this before a little bit in certain ways about this idea that I think it's incredibly important and strategic. I think it's important to both and that I think it's incredibly important that we this is what I was talking about, this is how I started to get there that we have as thorough as we can a really solid understanding of how oppression operates. But that also that we don't get stuck in it and continue to anchor in that and that and that I believe what we focus on grows in the energy of the problem is nearly always very different than the energy of the solution. And, and we can access the problem. This is how it came up with this person, the person the participant was sharing that one of the questions and I can't remember whether they generated it or if they heard it from one of us, as they were navigating through a default, a default version of their understanding and analysis and experience of a given circumstance before they started to move into their intentional mindful, self coaching framework around it was a key question they asked themselves of what do I want from the situation was a prompt that they were responding to? And I was speaking to. And so I went on a bit of a tangent about how potent I think that question is, that helps us and we've covered this a bit before in our episode, we talked about pivoting and joy, about it's a similar it's a variation or a similar or an earlier iteration of a question around how does whatever this negative experiences, how does this further clarify what I want. And I shared that during the and that in some ways, I was resistant to this idea, and that I thought it was important, as I think often still in a number of different spaces, that that exist in the world, that people really focus on the oppression, an anchor in that and I thought, yeah, we need to do that. Like that's really important. And I started to understand the spiritual and leadership and practical principle more, particularly during one of the peak moments during the Black Lives Matter movement around 2016 or so 2016 17 Were the there was a combination of different variables, but where the activism was strong enough that the news, different news outlets locally and nationally, were regularly covering the shootings of unarmed black people. It's not that they were happening more per se, it's just that it was actually being given attention, and probably not even the full attention of all the desks, but more of the desks were being covered. And I noticed I started noticing over time as I clung to my belief that focusing on that was helpful, that it was continuing to weigh me down. And, and I have pre traumatized as a strong word, but it was tricky. It was touching upon my trauma, it was re stimulating. It was activating old trauma and then parts of it that were still unhealed for me about fearing for the safety of people in my life. And I started to notice over time as I was staying like valiantly like I need to focus on this, that I felt myself contracting and getting smaller and smaller. And that my efficacy and my leadership Up in subtle things, and day to day, my ability to follow through and do certain things that I wasn't able to show up in the ways I wanted to show up. So I took this principle that I'd heard in different spaces at different times off of the shelf where I had, like, I'm not really feeling that but, but this was coming from a teacher I respect, so I'm not going to throw it out, but I'm not buying it. And I started to play with it for a little bit. And I remembered saying this much longer than I did at the time, but I'm wanting to make sure because in our in our in grounded and growing, there's broader context and a container that's holding these insights, and connective tissue that we've established. And so basically, what I started doing is noticing, like noticing within myself, for me, given that I already like I literally have a degree in sociology with an emphasis on social inequality, like, I'm already well aware of these issues. And this is also mirroring what my family has navigated and, and sources of scarring and trauma that my family still valiantly navigates through and manages but you know, things long term impacts of harm that racism and racial terrorism has had on my family and broader extended family and social circles, that I started to admit to myself, for me in this moment, it's not, it actually isn't helpful for me to get caught in the undertow of this re stimulation of my trauma and, and this pain. And I began thinking back to this principle, how does this further clarify what I want, and basically what happened over a period of days and weeks as I started to kind of organically develop a process for me, as an African heritage woman, as a mixed race or African heritage woman to navigate moments like this, where I established some criteria, three, I don't know if I can remember them offhand. But essentially, it was like, as I would see the news come up, if hopefully, and this was around the time, or shortly thereafter, when a number of Black Lives Matter and movement for black lives activist started saying, we are not happy with this display of black trauma, right, that when other people die their bodies, that there's a specific way that this that there's theater, around the brutality against black people. So so there were so there were all servation Yeah, and so there was also, I was also comforted and noticing that other people in this movement I was a part of, were also other black folks, were also saying, we want to be present with this. And we are actively working, working, to fight for justice, and to fight for this to end. And something about this needs to change because it is not in service of our healing and our liberation. And so similarly, I started to develop some criteria around noticing. And I had to go through a similar process where it were in general for me with my, with how I operate, which I know a number of like my parents, and I disagree about this. But in college, I'd already done a similar version of this where I stopped paying, I started sort of paying less attention to the news, because I started noticing in college, but there is particularly around oil spills, when there would be oil spills, I would literally wouldn't necessarily tell anyone, but I would wear all black for a few days, like I would be in a state of mourning. And I started noticing like I am incredibly sensitive. So it's interesting to me now. And no, I'm getting them taking a long winded route. But we'll get there in a moment. It's interesting bit to me now around some of these conversations more broadly, about when certain things happen, because of someone who's deep, who already in general, my baseline is already very sensitive to multiple things happening all the world around the world all the time constantly, in a very deep way. So I've had to reconcile that in order to continue to function in this world and work for justice. And so I developed in this specific case, around this 2016 17 period to have some criteria. Where is this? Is this in an area? Is this in a region? Is this in my region of the country or in a region where I'm from where my voice and or my specific activism can be particularly potent? Is there some other way it within my sphere where I can be particularly helpful around this? And there was one other criteria? It's been a while that I can't remember offhand. I'd have to think about it and circle back and potentially put it in the show notes at some point. And I started using that criteria. And then based upon that criteria, I would determine how much I would expose myself to the brutality and the specifics of the circumstance. How much did I want to go into that and have to do the work that I would know I would need to do have multiple days and or weeks of healing to get Back to my full baseline at full capacity, and if not, if it didn't meet the criteria, so like, so for instance, you know, so I paid a bit more attention with Stephon Clark and but I was still mindful about what was my intervention. And I found since my mom, then and remember, it's official assumption. At the time, she was on the board of the NAACP and was working directly with the Clark family and with the NAACP around that, I found that my best role was to be a support to my mother, as she was navigating that on the ground. Right. So so that's what it looked like in some of those cases, where if something was happening in St. Louis, I would think about how am I resourcing, and helping some of my friends and allies who are on the ground in that city doing work. And if none of those things applied, and it wasn't a space, because I found I also noticed another element that I noticed is as I was advocating for these things. On social media, I noticed it was largely an echo chamber that I was basically like it wasn't getting any response from or getting very little response from the Jewish community, other than a few dedicated activists, and that people were still in their distress and fear and shut down space, and my advocacy are expressing my pain didn't seem to be helping me actually heal, it just actually seemed to be inflaming my hurt more so than healing me, and also not getting the external result I wanted. So instead, I opted to do a process where I would do an internal review around is this an issue and in this case around racial justice, it is, you know, where I that's a specific element of a larger body of work of mine. And so anytime these moments would happen, I would often opt if it didn't meet the criteria for me to go deeper in and expose myself to that retraumatization, I would then do a review of my body of work and ask myself, Am I being as brave as I can be right now? How am I being as brave as I could be? And also how effective How can I be more effective? So how does this further clarify what I want this is clarifying that I want there to be greater racial justice, and I want there to be stronger social consciousness around these issues. So I would then look over my body of work through that lens and interrogate and investigate and analyze and assess literally down to the program level. Are there places here where I am being to coddling some of my white students where I can mindfully in a way that also doesn't traumatize them or I can push them more into a stretch zone and help move this issue forward with some greater speed without forsaking the quality of the work. And then I would make subtle or more explicit pivots strategically in my body of work. And as this was happening, often it would often me just be checking back in, am I at the right calibration right now? In terms of supporting other people, are there other ways I can be helpful? Can I be looking on social media? For folks who might be trying to get involved? Can I help connect them when I have time? What are the things I can be doing to be moving us toward greater racial justice and healing and wholeness and honesty and courage around truth and reconciliation in this country. And then after sharing all of this, later, you shared a counter that I so appreciated, because after I shared this in a much more concise way that I just shared it now. I was feeling some tension internally of both feeling comfortable that I shared the piece I wanted to share and also being aware that at that point in time, everyone who was attending that session, were white Ashkenazi Jews and that their racialization and their experience about issue is different and that there's an issue around racial and white conditioning around numbing and the invisibility of suffering. And I can see people go ahead.

Tracie: 19:08

Yeah, invisibility or fetishization so that so that black folks are defined entirely by their oppression and their trauma.

April Baskin: 19:17

And that thing that I did an AMA dynamic that I talked about a times of, like, racial of, like racial injustice, s&m of like, oh, yeah, like, oh, that's painful, but not actually doing like, yeah, right. There's also this weird sort of dynamic that plays out at times.

Tracie: 19:32

There was also some of the tension that I was feeling in that moment was like you were talking about boundaries you put up to protect yourself. And those criteria that you put up, like, does it cross the threshold that makes it worth it for me to do it makes it worth it is the wrong phrase, but strategic, if it's strategic, you know, activating of that trauma and Um, for those

April Baskin: 20:02

that won't be healing and or in service of justice going forward in this mobile that's helped me in this, but nap right for the white

Tracie: 20:09

folks in the room like they're very there's no resonance there, that's not the same sort of, they don't have the same sort of trauma to be stimulated

April Baskin: 20:20

right around specifically around their identity around racialization.

Tracie: 20:24

Right. And so I named that, whereas you sort of made these criteria to protect yourself and in service of the work. What I did in service of the work was actually in some ways the opposite where it was important, not the opposite. But yeah, it is a converse, which makes sense. Yeah. It became important to me to actually to counter the numbing and the inattention and, and also the fetishization of pain, to learn the names and faces of those who had been lost to racial racist violence, not in the photo of their corpse, but in their, in the moments of their joy prior to that, to really re humanize or fully humanize the folks of color, who, because of the nature of our society, something about them, their their dignity, and humanity was trying to be stolen. And so my attention was my personal effort to counter that. And the way I described it to our participants was that whereas when I was first activated, in 2015, by the uprising in Baltimore, after Freddie Gray's murder, there was this urgency like, Okay, I see my privilege now, what do I do about it? And I needed to, like do something which totally makes sense, based on how I've been socialized, and based on, you know, ancestral trauma that I've inherited, and there was, there was no service there. So rather than intervening to fix things, I found the space to bear witness. And that has felt like a really important part of my racial and social justice practice as a Krause. So and in fact, I think we've talked about this. We talked about this on the podcast, about my wanting to adopt the bracha MCI, how my team blessed it is God who resurrects or revives or enlivens the dead as a moment of pause when another headline comes across, and I had adopted that as my first cup of coffee bracha. And I did not want to demean that moment of, of providing dignity, with coffee. And so I actually have adopted a different bra for coffee. So that may have a team when I say it, outside of Shabbat liturgy, has that specific meaning of you know, let this dead cats not be in in vain, let this death be like for let loose by for a revolution Exactly. And let my thing revolution, attention and love enliven the dead, whatever that means. It's not too bad. Right? Right. You know, their memory, their humanity, their dignity, all of those things. So, it was it was a really interesting in the moment with our participants. And I was

April Baskin: 23:43

so relieved when you did this, because I and that's this isn't one of those moments where I love co facilitation, because I wanted that counter balance. And I felt like people, I felt like they were appreciating what I was saying. And they were also like, that doesn't apply to me. And I also and I was thinking it also doesn't apply to you. But I also still want to say this. So I was so happy when you share that I was like Thank you. It was so for bringing it full circle

Tracie: 24:07

to I think for us, we white folks in the room to sort of bear witness to you and the effect that this ongoing injustice has on you. And also find our own way to acknowledge and read

April Baskin: 24:25

holds a nuance of understanding the core principle and how it can manifest which is something that I find with racial justice, people get very attached people can get confused with us about a lot of things, but especially given the trauma and the complexity of this issue. It feels extra confusing. And this felt like a lovely moment where even though we didn't fully unpack it, I feel like people got the core message of being mindful about our attention. And depending upon our socialization and placement and power and privilege, in a given dynamic that we need to modulate and decide, right so there are Are other ways in which I have more of your practice. And it's a little bit around moments relating to American imperialism and the impact, even as I'm hurt by the American state. But it's important to me as someone who in that role, I am in a non target, oppressor, passive, but still, as usually is the case role. And I don't want that to be passive. And so how am I when it when it actually is messaged? How am I paying attention to the impact the global impact at times my country is having in my name. Right. And I remember when this was first raised with me, but I think I've talked about this before with a really funny, wonderful roommate, I had asthma, who was an Iraqi refugee and at times, I was resistant. The first few times she said it, and then I was like, Oh, this is totally like, like, what I learned in college about like sexism and whiteness, you know, where she was, like, your people had, I should use very explicit language, you know, but I will, I will censor it, your people mess up my country. You know, or you mess up my country. I was like, I didn't do it. But then I started being like, wait, I'm sounding what I'm saying is sounding familiar. This isn't sounding and then I was like, Oh, right. No, no, it's just no, she's what she's saying is like, has validity. And I am a part of that. Right. So. So I think it was helpful to give people a sense of the agility and the flexibility as we continue to strengthen our analysis that we need to apply and start to understand some core principles and then look at the circumstances of our positioning and why is happening and figure out what is the generative laboratory and or counter oppressive intervention or action that is of the greatest service in this moment for me to be taking with regard to me and or who I am With whom I am working in this moment and to hold those different pieces. And I agree with you that that played out really, organically very nicely. Is there anything else you want to add? Tracy?

Tracie: 27:21

I don't think so. I think that that compliment of each of us coming at a similar phenomenon that we were trying to process and use and be strategic about our attention and our different identities and lived experiences, making it not one size fits all. That's what I wanted to kind of get at.

April Baskin: 27:43

Yeah, and that seemingly opposite things can be profoundly aligned. Even though on the surface. It's like, oh, these things are very different, but they're both in service and racial justice and moving us toward a revolution of healing and wholeness. Which is the kind of revolution I want.

Tracie: 28:01

Amen. Thanks for tuning in. To learn more about joyous justice LLC, our team and how you can get involved with our community. Check out the info in our show notes, or find us at joyousjustice.com

April Baskin: 28:16

If you enjoyed this episode, show us some love. Subscribe wherever you're listening. Tell your people share what you're learning and how your leadership is evolving. Stay humble, but not too humble. And keep going because the future is ours to co create