Lets human together
Photo by Clay Banks
Intention of love
I’ve been wanting to say something about Black lives matter and I just wasn’t sure what to say. It’s so BIG and IMPORTANT an issue that I just didn’t know where to start. Wanting to say the right thing, do it perfectly. Which of course can’t be done. This issue is so important to me that I must let go of doing it perfectly. This issue deserves my courage to fail up. I will fail sometime somewhere. That is an essential part of learning. I’m willing to fail up for equality. I ask myself to let go of perfection and all I ask is to be true and loving.
The fake story of Race
My husband, who loves to deliver interesting facts, said this to me somewhere last year or so: Scientists discovered that race doesn’t exist in humans. I literally said, What are you saying?! I was a bit shocked. And he repeated it. And I replied: so it is a STORY! It is made up. All of the pain that race has created, was because of a story???!!! Of course it always was a story. And it’s not even based on a true fact of race. Along the way it was just decided that some “races” are of more value than others. We made it up. Completely. I was taken aback there. WOW. That fucking sucks.
This is the power of story, be conscious of what stories you repeat to yourself or others by your thoughts, feelings and actions. A story that gets repeated over and over gains in power and momentum. Lets tell a new story. One of equality and love. Lets human together.
I am not doing my part
The turmoil of the last few weeks about racism made me realize that I am not doing my part. It’s been, as for so many, emotional and painful. Although in my life, as a woman of Chinese heritage living in a western country (The Netherlands), I experience racism in my life, I’ve not stopped and thought about: How I can make it better? What is my part in creating a more equal world?
I realized I sort of resigned to the way things are. When people call me racial names on the street, which happens (bi)monthly, it always takes me by surprise and of course it hurts. I do and say nothing, shake it off and think to myself you will always have these people. Nothing to be done about.
We had all sorts of incidents in my family. From egg throwing on our windows, to a man coming into our take out restaurant and threatening to throw our own chair at us because “we were taking all the jobs and should go back to our own country”. We always just accepted it, although we of course did so not like it, shook it off and went back to business. Although you never really shake it off being dismissed so easily for so little.
Black lives matter
I have always known that although I have racisme in my life, that what I experience is sort of racism ‘light’, for lack of a better word. I recognize that different ethnicities are treated way worse, experience a much deeper level of racism. Among those are unfortunately black people and (here in the Netherlands, where I live) Moroccan people.
They have to deal with the deep negative image and blame that is projected on them, through news, media, racial name calling, violence, prejudice, given the villain/ bad guy roles in movies, in the workforce, politics, it’s everywhere. In so many places we get these unconscious and some conscious messaging about the worth of black and Morrocan people. I can only imagine how it makes them feel. The pain and impact it has on their day to day life.
What can I do better?
I am just a fellow human, part of this human family, trying to make sense of this and figure out how I can do better. I barely know what to do when I get called racial names. But I want to do my part and I’m figuring out what that looks like for me. Because I want a more equal world. One where we acknowledge and behave knowing we are all the same. We are one human family.
I’ve been having all these conversations with my friends and family trying to understand where I can do better. Presenting them with situations I come across in my own life and how I can be more positively proactive in contributing to a more equal world.
I’m asking myself a lot of questions. I want to face it head on, although somewhere of course I wish that it and I were already perfect. It’s hard to see where I could have done better and didn’t. That is always the hard part of learning, seeing the ‘mistakes’. Or actually seeing what you didn’t see before. And now that you can see, you don’t really like what you see. So I have to accept that I didn’t know any better and now that I do know better, I shall seek to do better. I want to be open to learn to be a better contributor to equality.
This is of course a marathon process, it’s not a sprint. Although we all wish it were. There is learning and relearning to do, which has already taken place for so many generations. So much care and love has been put in by so many before us. Each generation has this desire to make the world better and more loving than we found it. It’s been an evolution and we are still evolving. And I will do my part.
The root cause
The root cause is in the inherited prejudice of certain races. We inherited this story of devaluing black people and other people of color. We inherited the behavior of this as well. It’s enveloped in our cultures and societies. Inherited thoughts and behavior are often not challenged or questioned, in my experience. It’s like a sort of programming. We do things because we are used to them, they feel “normal”, it’s “always” been done like that. To get to the root cause we can start to look at the stories we consciously and unconsciously tell ourselves and others by what we do and say or don’t do or say.
To me the essence of racism is not seeing each other as the same.
And that definitely happens to me too. Judging happens so quickly. It is programmed in us by society, nurture, culture, movies, the news, magazines, stories. Everywhere we are told: what is good or bad. Who is good or bad. Who is more or less.
I often see myself as lesser than, which of course in that instance makes the other more. Not just in terms of race, but also in terms of race I realise. (As a teen I thought to be pretty I had to be blond and blue eyed. Cause outside my family I never saw myself reflected in anything. Not in magazines or movies and such. In an attempt to dye my hair blond, it turned orange!)
Or sometimes I see myself as more. Which makes the other less.
I knew this for a while, outside the race issue, and have been working on it by working on myself. Heal my own pain to become equal and not need to feel like I am more than others to compensate for feeling I’m not good enough. This is a work in process and progress.
And I feel there is another dimension of practice here for me. I read, very recently The book of joy, in which the Dalai Lama described how he practices sameness. It is so very simple this idea yet at the same time groundbreaking! I’ve been trying it out for a month now and I love it!
Dalai Lama: Sameness practice
The Dalai Lama sees everybody all over the world as one human family. We are all brothers and sisters. We are the same. He sees himself as one of the 7 billion people on earth. The same as the other billions of human beings. So he described how he tries to embody this idea of sameness: When he meets with someone or has to give a talk, this is what he thinks to himself: WE ARE THE SAME. And connects with the person as a fellow human being. He creates this equal ground by imagining and actually remembering that equality.
He says we are all the same because in our core, we all want to have less suffering. We want peace and joy. We want to be safe and fed. We want to be happy. I know who you are, while not knowing who you are. You are human. I am human. We are the same.
As said I have tried this one out and it is remarkable! It puts all involved more at ease, cause creating equal ground puts me at ease, so I can be more compassionate to others, which puts them more at ease. Remembering that we are the same when I was connecting with someone, especially when I felt a bit of a disconnection, brought more peace, ease and more love to the relationship.
So I am going to practice sameness with the WE ARE THE SAME mantra. I hope to make it a habit until it becomes an automatic thought and response. (I sometimes feel like I’m a computer with all the reprogramming that I do to myself.)
Things I can do now
I wanted to find things to do to incorporate in my daily life. To make it relatable to my daily life. Otherwise racism stays this big topic that is untouchable and undoable. These are just a couple ideas to start as I learn more and can adjust as I try them out.
Learning is an evolution. We try ideas out and see what works and what doesn’t. We get new ideas along the way. We get inspired by others. We evolve.
I know there will be more or different things that I will learn and discover that I can do, going forwards. Here are some of the things that I now realise that I can do to do my part and allign with who I am:
Things that I recognize now that I can do is:
Practice sameness (see above).
Self scanning. Look at my thoughts, feelings and actions. Question where there are perhaps (inherited) inequal stories floating around, that create inequal behavior.
Speaking up more (when safe) for myself and others.
Try to go into dialogue where there is racism mentioned in conversation, in a contributing meaningful way. I’m trying out the phrase: I believe that we are all the same.
I want to be open to learn to be a better contributor to equality, instead of being resigned. See possibilities. Learn more on it and about what my part can be.
Have more conversations. Read about it. Tap others wisdom and experience.
Write about my process and progress in becoming a better contributor to equality.
Support black owned businesses or other colored businesses (I found this one on a lot of sites. I love the practicalness of it. It’s very actionable.)
Sign and support petitions for equality.
Support (my local) black lives matter organization or similar organizations.
Lets human together
These past weeks have felt emotionally overwhelming and honestly I didn’t know where to begin to “save the world” from racism. It felt so humongous a task. Until I read Desmond Tutu saying, “Start where you are, and realize that you are not meant on your own to resolve all of these massive problems. Do what you can. It seems so obvious. And you will be surprised, actually, at how it can get to be catching. There are very many, many people who care.”
We cannot save the whole world alone. We can only heal the world together. We each look in our own community and clean our part up. In our lives, the people we meet and connect with, the place we work or the business we own. That’s where you make the difference.
So if you are also wanting to do your part, look in your lives and start asking yourself some questions. Where can you integrate more equality? Have a look at your thoughts, feelings, your actions, your words, your circle of friends and family, your media intake, your place of business, your work: Where is equality reflected and integrated in your life and in which areas could there be more equality implemented? Lets human together.
I do believe we have power in this matter, even if it’s just starting with yourself. I know that everything we do, ripples. So we can all ripple humaneness, equality. I love you, which will cause you to love someone else, and so on and so on. Like when you throw a pebble into a lake. It creates endless ripples throughout the whole surface of the water. I see and treat you as the same and you will see and treat another as the same, and on and on it ripples.
I LOVE YOU. WE ARE THE SAME. WE ARE ONE HUMAN FAMILY.
So much love,
An
