Day 156: Caring About Racism

Once in a while, you have a conversation that shines a light on your unexamined beliefs in such a way that you change your mind.

It happened in my call with one of my closest friends, Shiva. We were discussing the recent events involving police violence and racial injustice.

In general, I’ve felt difficulty engaging with what’s happening. I support the fight for racial equality and police reform and have spent some time and money learning about the issues and donating, and yet — I haven’t felt a strong pull towards taking these up as long-term causes or spending lots of energy working to further them.

It’s not that I don’t think they’re important; I just haven’t felt a strong connection with them. I have this relationship with other causes as well, like climate change — it happens when I intellectually understand the issue and acknowledge its importance, but emotionally, there’s something missing.

Normally, I’d just accept this as is and move on. But with Shiva’s gentle prodding, I’ve started to see ways where in the case of racial justice, this emotional distance may be hiding some underlying attitudes that deserve closer inspection.

The first turning point in the conversation happened when I talked about how I sometimes feel the desire to shut everything out and focus on my life. He responded by asking a simple question: “Would you feel this way if the issue were about veganism?”

For context, I’ve been vegan for the past 3 years because animal welfare is a cause that I care deeply about. I’ve written posts, made videos, built visualizations, and spoken to many friends about the issue.

I of course knew what the answer was. If there were a national conversation about the way we torture and slaughter animals, I’d be all up on Twitter posting videos and raising funds to dismantle the factory farming system and move towards a world that’s more compassionate to them. I’d be thrilled to see people have a collective awakening about how absurd our current system is.

And with that realization came the cognitive dissonance. If I can feel so strongly about reducing the suffering of cows, pigs, and chickens, why not about dismantling the systems that oppress people of color?

I noticed myself starting to feel defensive, and this is where I’m grateful for the level of trust in my friendship with Shiva. I knew that he wasn’t trying to make me feel bad or confess that I’m a hypocrite or anything like that — he was simply trying to help me reflect on myself.

I talked for a while about why I didn’t feel particularly connected to the cause of racial justice. In the past, I’ve had conversations with people who seemed to take the issue too far and demonize white people to an extent that I didn’t agree with. I was reluctant to lend my support to a cause that seemed to disregard people’s voices based on their whiteness. I understand that privilege and systemic racism makes it difficult for white people to understand racial issues, but the common practice of dismissing their perspective not based on the merit of their reasoning but simply due to their skin color seems unjustified. Isn’t that sort of approach how we created systems that oppress people of color in the first place?

Then came the second turning point in the conversation. Shiva mentioned that in the past, he’d also had moments where he wasn’t sure he agreed with a lot of the narratives he came across, but that seeing the video of George Floyd made it crystal clear that there is still so much that is unacceptable about the way black people are treated in this country.

He suggested that perhaps the resistance to the most extreme arguments was affecting evaluations of what was happening now, and I immediately knew that was exactly what was happening for me. My skepticism had subtly extended to everything under the race umbrella, and in doing so, I had become insensitive to even the most obvious cases of injustice.

I’m discovering that there’s still a lot I need to uncover in my attitudes towards race. While I’d recognized some of my internalized racism and made strides in accepting my own racial identity, I clearly have much more work to do here. From my meditation practice, it’s still clear to me that there is great freedom to be found in recognizing that our true identity as awareness goes beyond race, gender, sexual orientation, and many other attributes we normally identify with, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t also dismantle systems that oppress people based on those factors.

Today’s conversation helped me recognize the ways that my heart was closed. I can feel a move towards dissolving those barriers, and I’m tremendously grateful to Shiva for the way he created space for me to do that. There were several things that helped this conversation be successful:

• We started from a high level of trust in our friendship so it was easier to have high-stakes conversations without getting defensive because we trust each other’s intentions
• Shiva simply asked questions and shared his experience. At no point did I feel like he was trying to convince or persuade me, and that made it easier to question my perspective. I wasn’t “losing” an argument by doing so.
• He really listened. I felt like I spoke for most of our conversation, and his responses often served as a mirror for me to hear myself better. He didn’t need to call me out in order for me to identify the errors in my own thought patterns.

While I don’t agree with all the arguments made under the name of racial justice, I do know that this is a cause worth fighting for and that it’s important to dismantle the barriers in my own heart that create indifference to others’ suffering. Thanks, Shiva.

P.S. Shiva and Ben still have ~$1500 left for matching donations. I’ve donated an additional $500 and will provide an additional match for $500 more, meaning that every dollar you donate will end up being $3. If you’d like to give, we’re supporting the Equal Justice Initiative. Send me a receipt either by DMing me @dk_the_human or sending me an email at dk@dkthehuman.com. 🖤