Uncovering White Privilege Through Self Care
Photo by Kayvan Mazhar on Unsplash
Making the case for building a self care practice as a way to examine problematic beliefs.
A few days after George Floyd was killed, I, a white woman, emailed a girlfriend, who is black, to check in. We both identify with being introverts and I was worried about how she was doing. She responded and I could feeling the heaviness through her words. She reminded me that this was nothing new. She talked about seeing her own young children through the eyes of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
Her words stirred some thoughts up for me that I hadn’t fully considered before. While I had always thought that this friend and I shared a lot of similarities, the difference between how I view these events compared to the way that my friend does is a stark contrast.
First, in the black community, people being killed by police is nothing new. I should know this, but because I don’t have to think about race every day as I brush my teeth and head out the door to start my day, it’s not in my everyday consciousness.
Second, I questioned whether I have ever read about the loss of life of a black person at the hands of white person and thought about my own kids being in the place of the black person? I don’t think so.
Self care acts as protection from the shame spiral
It didn’t feel good to uncover these thoughts within myself. It feels pretty awful to write them down for anyone to read. But, because I have created space in my life for self-reflection, I did not look at my blind spots and go into a shame spiral for days. I did not notice them, then turn to Instagram for distraction. Instead, I sat with them.
For the next three days, I kept these two thoughts top of mind. I tried on empathy for my friend and I attempted to see the protests unfolding through her eyes. I know that I can’t ever really know what it’s like to be black in America, but I focused more of my attention on trying to understand.
How did I get curious about my privileged thoughts and process them? Through self care.
Self care helps us access our innermost thoughts
Society wants women to think that self care is about treating yourself with things like bubble baths, pedicures, and a glass of rosé after a long day. I am trying to convince women that self care is about making space in your life to examine your thoughts. Some might call this mindfulness, but I prefer self care because I like the idea of taking on the onus of caring for oneself. Let me figure out how to care for myself, thankyouverymuch.
I like to refer to our inner thoughts as the stories we have about ourselves. Some of them are beautiful and generous. Others, like the two I’ve spelled out for you here; not so much. I think this is what turns people away from doing this work - we may uncover self thoughts that are harmful to ourselves and to other people.
To me, this is exactly why I encourage women to do this work - because it’s an opportunity. It takes time and it’s not always comfortable and that there is the very definition of growth. On the other side of examining our stories lies transformation. When we transform ourselves first, we have the opportunity to transform our families, our communities.
Like so many other important things, It is a process. These two thoughts I disclose here led me to uncover another big one. I had been debating whether or not to talk to my kids, ages 9 and 11, about what happened to George Floyd. As I went on walks and wrote in my journal and talked to my husband and sat in silence (some of my own self care practices), it dawned on me that my black friend never had a choice about whether to discuss police brutality with her kids. It was always a matter of when, not if. Whereas for me it was a matter of if, not when. Oof. Another blind spot.
I certainly don’t believe that self care is the only thing I need to do in my anti-racist work. I know that activism is much more than the recognition and acknowledgement of my white privilege. Even so, it’s a good place to start.
Need some resources for your anti-racist work? Here’s a great list from Jen Fry of JenFryTalks.com. Thank you Jen!
Ready to finally start your self care practice and get over being stuck? Click here to sign up to get my free, on demand webinar to walk you through the steps 💌.