Racism & White Supremacy
In the midst of a busy day of clients, a newsletter arrived in my inbox from Dick Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems.
Internal Family Systems is a kind of therapy that I use with clients to help listen to, support, and lead their internal family of parts. It really works well.
In this newsletter, Dick wrote about the 2 viruses that we in the United States are coping with right now.
The first one, COVID_19 is a recent one. It arrived suddenly and caused a complete change in life as we knew it.
The second is the coming to a head of the virus of racism. He wrote:
Racism is a legacy burden that has plagued the United States for over 400 years. The first one [COVID 19] pulled the curtain on the second such that the inequity at so many levels of our society was more exposed harder to deny. The disproportionate numbers of POC who get sick and die because of lack of access to health care or biased health care, because they have to work and take public transportation, who lost their job and are starving, etc. Then came the videos of the murders which ripped the curtain even further back and ripped at our heartstrings. As Will Smith said, “Racism is not getting worse. It’s getting filmed.”
As a social worker, I've pledged to work for social justice -- which is a deeply held value and one that I take action on.
Social justice is racial justice.
It’s not just something I look at every now and then.
Allow me to share one way I took action last year:
In March 2019, I did a deep dive into my own biases that I was confident were not there, when I read and worked through Layla F. Saad's Me and White Supremacy.
As I did, I noticed how uncomfortable I was.
Using one of the tools of Internal Family Systems, I became curious about my discomfort.
I sat with it, asked it questions, and gave it room to exist.
As I did this, I noticed that it turned into excitement that I was learning something new about myself and that there was potential to grow and show up in a new way in the world.
I encourage you -- as you watch what is happening in the world and sit with it -- to be curious about your body sensations, feelings, and thoughts.
I encourage you to take that curiosity further and do your own inner and outer work on dismantling racism and white supremacy.
If you're interested in growing and showing up differently, I also encourage you to check out Ms. Saad's work, as well as the work of Rachel Cargle and Resmaa Menakem.