A year ago, systematic racism was something I had heard once or twice. It wasn’t discussed in my social circles, within my family, or at work or church. It was “out there.” Because the term includes the word racism, I largely ignored it. I wasn’t a racist. I had Black friends and other Black people in my life whom I loved and cared for.

I was wrong. I was ignorant.

I am racist.

As a white woman living in America, I have benefitted from systems and structures that protect my whiteness and reinforce my place in society. Wikipedia defines systemic racism as the “formalization of a set of institutional, historical, cultural and interpersonal practices within a society that more often than not puts one social or ethnic group in a better position to succeed, and at the same time disadvantages other groups in a consistent and constant manner that disparities develop between the groups over a period of time.”

I am part of the social fabric that has oppressed people of color. While not intentionally causing the oppression, I believe my participation and position within the current social infrastructure create a personal level of responsibility. Saying it aloud causes movement within myself. I sense a responsibility to explore my ancestral roots, my family history, my nation’s history. As someone who celebrates and creates sacred spaces and restoration through storytelling, asking Seneca Wills, a Black man living in America, to tell me more of his story was the the closest invitation and way I knew how to contribute towards healing this deep, collective wound and as I’m learning - personal wound.

Same era

Wills is 38 years old. I am 39. Even though we both grew up in Dallas during the same era, much of our experiences are worlds apart. Wills and I initially met through Retreat House Spirituality Center’s Conversation on Racism series. After prayerfully wondering for at least six months on how to explore and highlight the racial reconciliation work being done at Retreat House, the Holy Spirit finally got through to me - I needed to talk to Wills.

The conversations that followed with Wills were not what I expected, and as I’ve come to learn, most good conversations - the ones that move us forward, outside of ourselves and into and onto something larger, more whole, take intentionality, and they’re not necessarily easy.

I’m noticing and experiencing conversations like this as transformation.

An Invitation to Heal: Racism in America Part I is the first iteration produced by Retreat House in a series exploring racial reconciliation. This initial article highlights the first visit Wills and I had around our experiences of racism in our country.

While it feels good to get “unstuck” through these types of conversations, it can also be painful. It can cause discomfort, so largely, we avoid it. This second article is the second iteration in the racism in America series and looks at some of the unexpected discomfort that occurred while embarking on this project and work.

Our bodies teach us

At first, I didn’t feel any energy around the Conversations on Racism hosted at Retreat House. In these spaces, Rev. Dr. Clay Brantley facilitates dialogue around questions that help participants look inward in an effort to reconcile old wounds, with the intent to heal, to bring reconciliation to our families, communities, to ourselves.

Where do you feel tension in your body? What was your grandparents, your great-grandparents life experiences like? How do you feel when you see a Black person on the street? What is your earliest memory of interacting with people of color? What was your education like? Were their Blacks and whites in your classrooms, or just whites?

After attending a couple of sessions with Brantley and other participants, I started to notice a trend. I began to notice my body responding to these questions. While my head was telling me I had no business in a conversation on racism, that it didn’t pertain to me or my family, my body was telling me a different story.

In one of the sessions, participants were led in an embodied practice/meditation focused on one’s family history as it related to racism. We were invited to stand and to move as reflective questions were brought into the experience circle: Did your family members have slaves? How did they speak about Black people? Do you feel shame? What is your role within your family infrastructure? Where do you feel called?

My body felt tired, fatigued even. Heavy. This lasted through the next morning. In his book My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, author Resmaa Menakem says “white-body supremacy doesn’t live in our thinking brains. It lives and breathes in our bodies.”

The heaviness and fatigue I felt after this somatic practice exercise, is what Menakem calls clean pain. This is the pain we experience when we work through an issue. Dirty pain is the opposite. It is the type of pain that exists when we avoid an issue. Clean pain leads to transformation. Dirty pain keeps us living in old patterns and cycles.

In my case, the pain, or fatique, was showing me - I did have work to do. I am not sure what the pain was from or what it had to say. I am still uncovering its meaning.

Blind spots

Wills was gracious enough to review the first article I wrote on racial healing. I didn’t know much about the issue, but I felt I was being invited into this space. While my ego self wanted to publish the article and check it off of my list, my true self was telling me Emily, it would be pretty hypocritical to publish this without getting feedback from Wills.

Even though we had already engaged in substantial discussion so I could write the first article, Wills and I ended up connecting via phone to discuss his reaction to the draft I sent him.

“There were just some things that pushed my buttons reading this as a Black person,” he said. “I know it wasn’t intentional, but I feel responsible to represent the Black community accurately, and there are a few blind spots from your article I would like to bring up.”

I felt tired. I could also sense the tiredness Wills was feeling. His voice sounded fatigued. The feeling of heaviness I was feeling wasn’t dissimilar to the tiredness I felt after attending the somatic practice hosted by Retreat House, the one where we considered and explored potential history racism within our family lineage.

It dawned on me.

This was a conversation on racism. After months of attending the formal Conversation on Racism hosted through Retreat House as well as reading My Grandmother’s Hands, I still didn’t feel much movement or new understanding into the work I might need to do in this space. Perhaps it was because I was still living in white circles. How could I really understand racism in America if I was only talking to white people? Also, I think I was still living in my head. I hadn’t noticed the knowing yet in my body.

And, even after interviewing Wills about his experience as a Black man, much of the article emerged as some of my story of oppression as a woman. This also taught me much about where I was in my own journey of healing. I was still needing to process areas of my own life where I had felt marginalized and unheard before I could spend time better understanding the oppression of others - and in this case, Black people.

The overused saying of hurt people, hurt people, took on fuller meaning.

It took Wills and I going line by line to look at some of the nuances to peel back a new layer of understanding.

Conversation on racism

On a sunny day, outside on the deck at Retreat House, Wills, together, explored further the themes and complexities of racism in our land. We are not theologians, or PhDs. We speak only from our experience in an attempt to better understand ourselves, God and the world around us. Wills first led us in a short yoga and meditation, creating a sense of peace and calm in both of our nervous systems.

I’m grateful for the new learning and transformation that occurred:

Retreat House - You’ve attended several of the Conversations on Racism discussions through Retreat House. Rev. Dr. Clay Brantley invites participants to sit with racism, not fix it? You’ve explained that this resonates with you and is one of the reasons you continue to engage with these conversations. From your perspective, as a Black man, what does it mean to “sit with racism?” I think the reason I continue to identify with what Clay invites us to do is that racism is a symptom, not a root problem. It is a system of a deeper-rooted issue. Racism is a symptom of many other spiritual and social problems like fear, insecurity and ignorance. It is so deep and challenging. It is so much bigger than all of us, so that’s why understanding that we can’t fix racism is so important. The journey to work on the root causes of racism requires energy, time, compassion, so many things. To really get to the heart of this problem, we really have to get to the heart of fear.

Retreat House - The first time we talked, I had a preconceived notion that you, being a Black man living in America, could help me identify areas of my life where I might contribute to systemic racism and then I could somehow fix this areas in my life. Thank you for being generous towards me as I worked through this process with some naivety. I’ve learned that you see racism as more of a spiritual problem, and I’ve come to believe and understand this more as well. Will you expound on what you mean by this (racism) being a spiritual issue? I do think it is a spiritual issue or ailment if you will. When an individual comes into a practice of true spirituality, when they’re at home with themselves, they more closely come to understand, experience and respect the oneness of everything. Whether that be humans, or nature or planet. I can easily say - I’m from Dallas. I work here I live here, etc., but the reality is I’m water, I’m iron, potassium, bacteria, proteins, and all of these different elements will decompose when my physical body dies. We are literally part of Earth. This helps me to have compassion for all of us. When we start thinking in this way, it is easier to think beyond gender, race, socio-economic class. When we’re closer to considering all things as part of the whole, we become closer to our own divinity and Source and spirituality, and we are less likely to see people as separate than us. It is much easier to do social justice work when we have a holistic perspective of humanity. It allows us to not demonize the “other” side.

Retreat House - I’m learning you have the art of cognitive dissonance down pretty well. It comes pretty naturally to you for you to hold and consider opposites points of view, or both sides of a story. This strikes me as significant as our country begins to tend to the racialized trauma we are starting to discover - through police brutality against people of color and other forms of trauma. And, you’ve told me you believe this is important as we start down this path of healing. Why? Because nobody has it all figured out.

Retreat House - I have held our conversations with reverence and have felt they are marked by a willingness to listen and respect the other. You use the term, “human to human” often. Will you explain what this means to you as well as the collective invitation that this term represents? I’m starting to use this more and more. A few years ago, someone sent me an email and used the the term “Human” to greet me. It made me really happy. To me, it strips down barriers and walls and sets the table for us to both be vulnerable. We all cry, sweat, defecate - being human is all very humbling.

Retreat House - The second time we talked to review the first article, I could tell that we were both pretty heavy. I could hear it in our voices. It was like it was work to talk. It was so interesting to notice how we were communicating human to human as you say, yet the trauma we both carry in our bodies from racism and our family histories seemed to really emerge that day. It felt like we were wading through the pain but kept wading, because we had such a desire to respect the other. Yes, totally. I was pleasantly surprised that you asked me my opinion on the article. Typically, when I’ve done these types of things before - like talk to a white person about the Black experience, they never ask for my feedback on the final product. So the fact that you sought my input was different. And, yes, it was sort of exhausting to talk through it. I didn’t realize the article would end up being more from your perspective of experience as a woman but then I realized that was part of your exploration into this space of racism and oppression. It makes sense that talking to me would bring up feelings and recollections of your own experiences. Racism in our country is such a big topic, so yeah, even two people like us who are peaceful and wanting to connect are going to feel burdened. And it is almost like our bodies carry this stuff. But talking like we did, and are doing now, I believe, is part of the work. How else are we going to reconcile unless we do so in these small, micro ways?

Retreat House - I agree with you, and thank you for engaging with me in this kind of talk. It is almost like working out and stretching. No pain, no gain. But seriously - when we had our initial follow up visit after you read the first draft of my article, you outlined three places in the article that did not sit well with you. Let’s review the lines in the first article that were triggers for you as a Black person.

• The first aspect to the article that didn’t sit well with me was the header image you originally used depicting a Black man from the back holding a tattered American flag. When I saw that, something just sort of felt on alert - like here’s another white person trying to depict a Black person in a place below them so that the white person can help them. Even though I don’t think this was your intent, that image perpetuates the white savior complex and still keeps the Black person in a position of needing to be helped, of behind or below the white person. It still gives the white person power.

• You initially used the phrase place at the table in your first piece. You mentioned this in the context of me giving the white guys a chance or a place at the table to share their perspective when I organized the gathering on the basketball court in prison. As you know, me organizing this gathering was inspired by the Micah Johnson event in Dallas. Soon after this event, I felt inspired to open up some conversation around the topic of racism. You made it seem like I was standing up for the white person, as if they’ve never had a place at the table. I can see how you interpreted it like that. You've described white men in your family and life feeling like their voices are censored, like they don’t have freedom to speak their truth without someone judging them. I get that, but that’s not what I was trying to say. I was just trying to give all races an equitable place in the conversation, but by using the term place at the table has such a negative connotation for Blacks. We’ve eaten scraps from the table for years. Literally, as slaves, we ate scraps, and we waited on white people at their tables so initially describing me as wanting to give whites a place at the table felt offensive and also not something I would want my Black friends to associate with me. White people have always had a place at the table in this country.

• The other blind spot was a question you posed to yourself within the article - “I’ve started to wonder if my life has been easier because I’m white. I probably don’t even know how the systems have benefitted me. Does that make me racist?” A Black person reads this and thinks - of course your life has been easier because your white. You don’t even realize how the systems have benefitted you. This is white privileged.

Retreat House - I sensed the photo was a little off, but I was totally unaware that using the term place at the table as well as my question about whether or not being white has made my life easier might come across as offensive. I’m really grateful for your insights. I’m not sure how else we humans can learn unless we have these types of conversations. What is your hope and desire around racial reconciliation in our country? I would say I have a desire for all of us to get closer to God, because getting closer to God gets us closer to the truth. This can be done through spiritual practices and intentionality, and then the Spirit or the Holy Spirit will show you. I believe moving in this direction can help dissipate racism. Of course, it’ll never been gone. We are on this side of death so it’ll never been fully healed, but we can still begin the journey. Racism is basically the fear of one group of people losing power over another.

Cost

Engaging in conversations on racisms is most likely going to come with a cost. This has been my experience. We might have to die to our illusions. We might experience fear of losing relationships with family or friends or life partners. We might feel the desire to leave our church congregation if we feel racial reconciliation isn’t a priority. Perhaps we feel called to bring racism up in church small groups and Bible studies. Will this rock the boat? Will I be seen as challenging the status quo? In my case, I feared hurting my dad for questioning his experience as a white man in America. The first article I wrote caused an uncomfortable yet transformative conversation within a romantic relationship. In retrospect, this was a clean pain moment, because new truths were discovered through deep listening.

This work has also caused me to have arguments with relatives, also known as dirty pain. I am not sure why I am being called into the space of racial reconciliation. I do not have to know. I do know I have a desire to understand the world around me and I have a new desire to honor those who went before me - to be a good ancestor.

What if I’m the one in my family responsible for healing wounds of the past? What if I’m the one responsible in parts of my communities to bring new perspectives to the layers of racism in America?

Here I am Lord.

Hear my prayer.

An Invitation to Heal: Racism in America, Part II was written by Emily Turner, a writer and trained spiritual spiritual director. She is currently working through a 24-week somatic practice and discussion group based on My Grandmother’s Hands. She will explore questions like what type of traumas did my mother endure, my grandmother, my father? How do I feel when I see a Black person at night? And others through this Retreat House offering. Retreat House hosts three ways to engage in conversations on racism including their Grandmother’s Hands group. You can register and learn more here. In October 2021, Retreat House will publish the third piece in this series Invitation to Heal: Racism in America, Part III based on Emily’s somatic practice experience. You can read Invitation to Heal: Racism in America, Part I here.

Seneca Wills is currently living in Dallas and works as a personal trainer and yoga teacher in Deep Ellum. He is also the co-founder of Social Medialess, a movement encouraging society to spend time away from social media. To learn more or get involved, email Seneca.