Author: Julia

I read your post on “Privilege” and I took it as a chance to explore what I know about race and racism in America, and how this made me cringe while reading your words. You are my friend and are an intelligent person, and I believe your quest for knowledge is positive; but also that you should be seeking it without asking for others to do the work of explaining it all to you. In an effort to help begin your continued seeking and learning here is my response to your post:

— systematic exclusion and suppression of communities of color since the beginning of the American Colonies
— That social /public policies seemingly built for progress are explicitly designed to keep people of color from doing so (voter laws, predatory housing loans and denial of loans in areas minorities try to buy)
— How even after civil war and reparations Black people were criminalized (ex: states made vagrancy illegal, and then those with a record could not vote/ Poll taxes to vote/ Strict voter ID laws…the list goes on) and disenfranchised from participating in our democracy.
— (after 2012 election where more Black Voters than white…) 2013 US Supreme Court Ruling that ripped out section 5 of the Voter Rights Act (est. through the civil rights movement in the 1960s) – removing voter rights protection. Many states did not waste time putting old voter suppression tactics back in place. (same as above: strict ID laws, poll taxes, felony holders unable to vote. Don’t even get me started on the 1980s Reagan “War on Drugs” and how this criminalized drug use focused on Black Americans. and how this also plays into loss of voting rights for ostensibly low level drug related crimes; same as today for states who have not yet legalized Marijuana)
— Racism shapes everything for Black/minorities and for white people in america. from schools, to the quality of education at said school, what grocery stores are near you/what kind of fresh produce is available, etc.
–New Deal housing programs were to segregate/ “redlining” came from indicating where it was safe to insure mortgages, and you guessed it, Black and other minorities’ neighborhoods were not inside that line. Predatory practices still in place, like the average EIGHT percentage points higher a loan automatically gets raised if you’re trying to buy a home while black.
–Couldn’t buy suburban homes in the 40’s 50’s 60’s if black = no equity appreciation. So today, Black Americans may earn 60% of what Whites do, but they have only about 5% of the wealth. (i.e: unlike their White counterparts who used their home equity to send children to college or to have something to leave behind financially…black families could not progress this way)
— Despite Fair Housing Act in 1968, the inequalities and disparities continue, due to continued residential segregation and steering.
— Health disparities and access to care issues also very prevalent for Black and other minorities in the US
— Biases that establish white or fair as “nice” “good” and other positive attributes, and black or dark as “bad” and “dumb” and other negative attributes (Doll test for kids, in the 1940s and again in 2010 showed these results)

The Fucking “travesty is the inability or the unwillingness of White Americans to see clearly or understand fully this racist reality” – Joe Feagin

You cannot look at a mountain of evidence to the way our country was build around suppressing people, and still believe that everyone’s privilege is the same. Your ability to even think this, shows how privileged you are. This small but somewhat encompassing list I hastily threw together is merely several waves in the storm referenced in the tweet you want to know more about. We are not all in the same boat because we (white) people have not been affected by the systems in our country the same way as our black and other minorities have been. I hope this inspires you to read more articles, follow more people of color on social media, to listen more – and to learn. So the next time you talk about working hard to make changes in your life, you remember the context and the constructs people face who aren’t you. Everyone can work to make changes, but not everyone has the same freedom of movement or the same support (as black men and women and minorities face systemic inequalities, active oppression, or racism, or violence, or hell, even death by those who are sworn to serve and protect) along the way.

I’ve had a lot of clients come to me recently with feelings of being overwhelmed. Maybe they’re in grad school, or saving to buy a home, or working on a career change; and they’re juggling this, their daily lives, and their plans and hopes for the future. I find it is easy to stay trapped in your own head when you’re so busy and working so hard. That the doubt and negative self-judgment simultaneously push you to work harder and cast a dark feeling of insecurity over the whole process.

When you begin the process of thinking about your thinking, you’re able to see how much weight and validity we tend to automatically give our negative thoughts, while dismissing our positive thoughts and examples as a fluke, luck, or not enough to result in lasting change.

I try to encourage client’s to not just accepts the thoughts that guide you, but to really stop and check in on some of the content. Are you telling yourself you can’t do it? That people are judging you? That others have done it better? Just because these thoughts occur doesn’t make them true. Tapping into your thoughts helps you recognize negative pattern, question them, and replace them with more realistic thoughts that carry more truth.

For example, a client comes in and tells me that they are in school for a post-masters program and they’re feeling depressed and isolating from friends because they’re overwhelmed by the program. Together we examine the thoughts that are making the client feel this way, and identify that one particular thought is repeated often: “I am not as smart as everyone here, and what am I going to do with this degree if I am already feeling out of my league?” Next, the client is encouraged to process why they don’t feel as smart and whether there is any evidence to support this belief. Have they failed a test? Has someone in the program told them they are not smart? The client realizes there is no actual evidence for this thought, but they have been allowing it to be true simply because it’s in their head.

Then we explore the fears and insecurities the client carries relating to feeling less smart – and process the times in their life they’ve felt this way, which may have created this negative thinking in the first place. Finally, we work together to dismantle the negative thought with a more realistic and self-supporting thought. Instead of “I am not as smart as everyone here, and what am I going to do with this degree if I am already feeling out of my league?”, the client is able to re-frame the thought using evidence, to, “I am feeling that everyone here is as passionate as I am about this program and I am second guessing myself because it’s new and intense. I can do this, as my coursework and participation have shown me. And I can collaborate with the people in my program to gain insights into how this is going to help or shape my career.”

Over time the ability to examine a thought and to question its validity using evidence from your life, becomes easier. And in doing so, you stop allowing the negative thoughts to carry more weight or truth than the positive, or neutral thoughts. It’s a great exercise to try on your own, and would be even more effective with the help of a professional who can support you in processing the themes in your negative thinking, where they come from, and how to use reality to change them.

I feel like I am a pretty equitable person. I am stubborn but usually a good loser when proven wrong. I am also pretty down for anything that rattles the status quo when it comes to “traditions” with regards to women in society and minorities. Because traditions and systems so often include antiquated ways of operating, fraught with racism and sexism.

—So clearly, I’m here to talk about dance lessons.

I’m taking them with my fiance in preparation for our wedding (a gift from his family) and its surprisingly been a lot of fun. I went in to the lessons expecting to learn how to move around with my partner in a way that didn’t involve stepping on toes, looking at my feet, or feeling embarrassed when executing a simple slow dance. I kind of laughed it off when the instructor told me it was a great exercise in communication with your partner. But in the past five weeks I have recognized a lot about how my personality and my passions outlined above impact my communication in my relationship, and our dancing.

Turns out I am kind of bossy, and reacted poorly (internally) to being called the “follow” to his “lead” in dance. Queue internal monologue about women and being told to “follow” in oh so many settings. My struggle with the steps and the following bit forced me to talk to him about what I was having a hard time with as we rotated around the floor in a somewhat haphazard fashion. I laughed and let go a little and practiced letting him lead. And it worked!! We were dancing and it was fun, and it looked passable. I remembered I have trust in who I’m working with to not take advantage or let one dynamic set the tone for all dynamics. I realized I needed to practice that myself. I’m learning to trade off who leads and who follows. It’s helping me let go in other areas where my anxieties may “force” me to take the lead, and I’m liking the outcomes.

to dance!