Combat Racism: It's time to do the work

IMG_8556+(1).jpg — When I’m 60 I want to be able to tell my daughter, that I tried. If she is living in a world as hateful, ignorant and racist as this country is today, I want to be able to look her in the eyes and honestly tell her that I did my part, that I did the hard work required to make a better world for her.
***Now’s the time. Let’s get to work.***

“How can I help… What can I do?”

Many of you asked me this question in some form or another when responding to my story. Here is my answer:

Let us all self-reflect on how we have All been a part of the problem.

The obvious to do’s are important. Let us continue to protest, donate, sit on that board, call our mayors, write letters, sign petitions and post on our social media feeds. Vote for anti - racist officials. Donate to organizations doing this work for us all everyday and support black owned businesses. Become an activist.

Let’s continue to have conversations with our families and friends, educate our children to be anti- racist and see how we can start making changes in our professional sectors. I believe all of these things matter and help to drive change.

This outward action is important, however I do not think any of it will matter if we are unwilling to take a good, hard look in the mirror and know that the most important work comes from within.

This “structural and institutional racism” everyone is talking about today, is made up of people, individual people, like you and like me, making bad decisions over and over again out of ignorance and lack of self-awareness. I do not believe there are bad people. Only people that don’t know how to do better.

I love this quote by Maya Angelou,

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

So, now we know better. We cannot un-know. It is the time to do better. I believe in equality, love, justice, connection, belonging, peace, and a better world for all beings, and I know you do too, otherwise you would have stopped reading by now.

So here is where we begin…

The Work

This work, is not for some other person over there who is more racist than I am. It’s about me and it’s about you. It’s about all of us doing the hard work required to leave a better world for our children and their children. It’s about liberating ourselves. It’s about feeling good about the world we live in, the communities we are a part of and how we contribute everyday. It’s about doing our part, and if nothing else, being able to tell our children, and the next generation, that we tried. That we gave a damn.

We must all actively educate ourselves, which means:

to continue to learn and self- reflect, knowing we will never arrive at perfection. This is the work!

This work is uncomfortable, it’s heartbreaking and hard. I don’t want to do it either. But we must do it anyway! Becoming more conscious about the role I play and continuing to educate myself will be a life long journey. This is not a sprint or even a marathon, it’s a journey. Let’s not rush any step along the way. Let’s take our time, be patient with ourselves and each other and keep digging deeper.

Racism will continue to exist in my lifetime. I do not have any lofty ideas of things changing overnight. I will get pulled over by another cop, knowing I did nothing wrong, as soon as I start teaching classes in Marin again. Another black man will get killed in broad day light on camera. Sadly, just because we all decided to jump on board this anti-racism train does not mean racism will disappear over night… but we must try.

My father who is black, was recently a guest speaker discussing anti-racism, to viewers who were mostly white. There were two interviewers; one middle aged male and one older woman in her late 80s or early 90s, both were white. They asked him questions about his work and how to be, anti-racist. It was a typical interview, but I was fuming the whole time, because the elderly lady was falling asleep during the interview.

Literally, she was falling asleep. Her eyes closed multiple times and she was having a hard time staying awake throughout the entire interview. For a painful 45 minutes, I watched as my father answered questions calmly and politely, doing his best to get his message across, all while watching his host fall asleep to his answers.

At first, I felt sad for her situation. She seems really tired, she is old, why is the organization having her do these calls? But then, my sympathy shifted to hurt and anger, when the first thing that came out of her mouth was a defensive remark to my father’s word “we”. He was talking about how “we” all need to look at our biases and prejudices that “we” hold. She interrupted to correct him, to say, “Some people…” She wanted this problem of racism to be placed on some ‘other’ people, with different political views than her, not HER problem to deal with.

This defensiveness in combination with her falling asleep really did me in.

The audacity. How dare she fall asleep right now. Doesn’t she care? Doesn’t she know that another black man was recently lynched on camera?

Her white privilege allows her to fall asleep during this interview. While my father must be endearing, relatable, and well spoken.

She, can be defensive to his answers and speak out of ignorance knowing that she will not face any repercussions for these actions. While he, cannot make one wrong move or speak out of turn. His performance needs to be perfect.

His margin for error is a tight rope he must balance over treacherous waters, while she, is swimming in her pool of privilege below, oblivious, comfy, watching to see if he falls.

In this moment he cannot be annoyed or frustrated. He cannot laugh at the irony; at the fact that he is talking to this white audience about how to be less racist, while the person interviewing him is playing out her white privilege perfectly for the scene.

The call was on Zoom and the interview opens with both interviewees making critiques to my father’s background that can be seen on camera behind him. They wanted him to adjust his home, his space, to make the view, ‘nicer’. He starts making adjustments and moving things around, then they all realize the background is what it is, and they are all going to just need to accept it. I have to admit. I was already annoyed before it started.

This is the problem. When a black person or any person who is not white, is speaking to a group that is mostly white, we have to constantly do what we call “the song and dance.” I too, must do this all the time. We all have to do it in places and spaces and in company, where we hold ‘less privilege’. I know this…

But, to watch my dad in his 60s do this ‘song and dance’ around anti- racist issues to a white crowd, broke my forkin’ heart.

I realize my own shortcomings. Here I am fuming at this 90 year old lady for 45 minutes. She was probably just tired, she’s old. I’m sure she’s a nice lady. Obviously, I have my own work to do.

If she passed away this week, would I feel guilty for having this reaction to her, in her last week of life? Would I have had the same reaction if that elderly lady was hispanic, asian or black? Would I have given her a pass and felt more empathy during the interview if she was anything but a white woman?

Maybe… maybe not. But this is my work to do. I know that when I feel angry, annoyed, upset or defensive it is an opportunity for me to dig deeper. To sit with my discomfort. To breathe. My agitation is a message for me to look at my own biases and prejudices that I hold and become more aware of how I am making this problem of racism, worse.

Evolving and discovering my voice

I have personally experienced very little interpersonal racism in the last 3 months. I like many of you, have been working from home, having personal contact with only a handful of people that I love. It has taken a global pandemic for me to feel like a weight has been lifted. It has giving me time to find my truth and my voice without being traumatized by racism on a daily basis, just by walking out my front door.

Today, I received a gift in the mail from a friend. It’s Michelle Obama’s, guided journal that she released after writing her book, Becoming. The first page reads,

“Becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. It’s forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self.”

So here is my work.

I will practice self- care.

I will continue to journal and write.

I will continue to listen and learn.

I will continue to cry.

I will continue to self- reflect and sit in my discomfort.

I will continue to find my voice and speak my truth.

I will continue to evolve.

I called my dad later that night with the intention of checking in on him, and instead I went off on how upset I was about the interview. He was… not upset… to say the least. He laughed and said, “What would I have accomplished by degrading that elderly lady in her own community? No, your mission in life is not to get her to ‘step down’ from her position. Her actions have created an opportunity for us all to engage in conversations, including this one with you…I have opened a door.”

I know, it’s annoying, he actually talks like this…

The center will probably have him back on for another conversation and another. Because by the end of the interview, they loved him. As they always do. As I said in my letter, he’s a unicorn somehow able to survive this life with grace and without hate in his heart… at least most of the time.

My work as a biracial woman is going to be different than your work, unless you too are a biracial black woman with the same skin tone as mine. I have internalized white supremacy and white privilege because of my light complexion, but I am not white. So, I also carry the fear, anger and pain from being marginalized and dehumanized by a system that has oppressed me because of my darker complexion. All the while, when I am able to pass as white in certain places, groups or situations, I feel like I betrayed myself; feeling shame and guilt for passing at all.

So, here is my work…. What is yours?

Did I lose you?

After my last blog post and newsletter I received hundreds of emails, texts and messages on social media encouraging me to keep sharing my story and thanking me for my courage and vulnerability. For those of you who sent me these messages of love, I want to thank you for your support and encouragement. I hear many of you wanting to do this, HARD WORK with me and I am inspired by your commitment.

I sent out the letter knowing I would lose clients, followers and possibly friends in my attempt to break the silence and speak my truth, and as many of you wrote, “especially in Marin”. The choice was between my truth, or my decline, so to be honest I really had no choice. I could not sleep, I could not eat and I defiantly could not teach, one more class, without telling my story. I could not physically do anything else, until I wrote it. I was suffocating and felt sickened by my silence and passivity.

I had to act. You are my people, and I want to feel good about the community I am a part of. This is why I sent you my story. It’s time we all rise up.

~

Some of the messages I received were less than ideal:

“Are you still going to teach in Marin…?”

“Do you think you will still be a fitness instructor after this…?”

“Don’t all lives matter…?”

If I keep talking about racism, how many of you will want me to, “shut up and dribble”, like Laura Ingraham told LeBron James and Kevin Durant when they spoke their truth.

How many of you will think…

Okay, okay already , we get it… there is racism, we know, now back to fitness…this is what we pay you for.

I know these thoughts will arise because I have them too, about other injustices that do not directly affect me on a day to day basis. We are human after all. If you follow me on social media, you may have already felt this way; with post after post about the Black Lives Matter movement, my story, my tears. On and on and on.

I think to myself now…

How many Black Lives Matter posts would be too many? How many newsletters about racism would have to go out before they unsubscribe? How many times would I have to mention my daily suffering and trauma around race before they quietly disappear from my weekly schedule because, I made them uncomfortable?

Well, fear not… I will continue to teach exceptional classes. I will give you all of my love, expertise and attention. I will give it my all during each session, everyday, to each of you, like I always do, no matter what, because sharing my knowledge of health and fitness is my passion.

It’s what brings me joy in my day. It makes all the other shit I do, worth it. I would do it whether you paid me or not and whether I needed the money or not. This is what I do. It’s what I would be doing right now, if I didn’t have the additional burden of also doing THIS WORK.

So for those of you who want me to go back to my ‘regular scheduled program’. I’m here to tell you, I will continue to dribble, but I will not shut up!

I’m doing this work so my dad won’t have to work as hard. So that I can live with myself. So that when my daughter calls me in tears, I can at least tell her I tried.

The letter I sent was the start of my journey as I sit, cry and self- reflect. I will continue to write, I will continue to speak my truth, I will continue to talk to my family and friends and share my words and journey with you when I feel like it may help ‘open a door’ for conversation and connection.

I know these are long ass letters…Apparently, I have a lot to say. (This was the edited version). Thank you for reading… It’s time for me to get off my soap box and get to work.

May I sit with my discomfort, shame, guilt, pain and anger with a sense of curiosity, wonder, grace and self-love. May I sit with it, long enough to see my truth; to evolve and become a better self.

For those of you who want to continue to do this work with me below is a list of resources. This is by no means a complete list. Please do your homework. Find what works for you on this journey of self - exploration.

I see you, I love you,

- Liv

P.S. Here is a link to my previous blog post: I am a black biracial woman. Please feel free to share my story. Also here is my dad’s website if you want to learn more about his programs: Andre Salvage and Associates