“How You Gonna Win When You Ain’t Right Within?” Wellness, White Women and Defensiveness
In an embarrassing faux pas last week, the pop star Sia confused a picture of Cardi B. with Nicki Minaj, and in her apology managed not to really apologize but to deflect, defend and trivialize her comment. Oops and double oops. As a major (white) figure in pop music, mixing up the two most famous black goddesses of rap music is not a great look. It’s a mistake. But the bigger mistake, as evidenced by the fact that she took the comments down, was the defensiveness she so quickly resorted to in saying that it was “petty” to focus on a “silly feud” instead of “real news.”
As fun as it would be, I am not here to vilify Sia (at least not for this, the bangs are a different story), or to call her out in hopes that in comparison I will seem more woke, aware, or without bias. Instead, I’d like to explore the ways in which white people (particularly women for the sake of this post) often react to mistakes made while on the path to waking up to the deep running racial bias in this country. The healing for ourselves and for our society lies partly in how we react to our mistakes.
“It is white people’s responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility
The inherent challenge of being an imperfect being is made easier or harder based on the degree to which we learn and grow from failure. The perspective we take on our own lack of perfection is what threatens to build or break the chance of an equitable society moving forward. If we have the insight to meet our defensiveness with humility, then it’s possible that our reaction to mistakes won’t continue to inflict even more harm.
Interrupting defensiveness takes a sophisticated level of self-awareness, humility and ego checking. This is where the “wellness” comes in.
As a white woman, I’m amongst a demographic within which, I am increasingly aware, there is deep seated implicit bias mixed with a societally sanctioned passive approach to accountability when it comes to race. I’ve noticed that white women (myself included!) are often apt to focus on their own feelings and to find ways to seek validation left and right to make sure that they and everyone else knows that it feels “unfair” to point fingers at them. This is a human reaction to being high on the hierarchy of systemic oppression and the irony is that constantly turning the lens back around continues to refocus the argument away from the feelings of black people. Talking about white feelings centers the conversation back on white people, which is exactly what we should be practicing avoiding.
White people, are you feeling defensive yet?
Below is a quote from the incredible Alishia McCullough M.S., LCMHCA, NCC on her @blackandembodied instagram account. In the post, this caption is accompanied by various screenshots of comments from white women seeking sympathy for their feelings of victimization because of “reverse racism” amongst other things. Their responses are in reaction to a tool she created for learning called The 7 Circles of Whiteness. McCullough responds with valuable insight on what it is like to be on the receiving end of so many white feelings.
McCullough says:
In the last two weeks we have seen an outpouring of “progressive” white women upset about the deaths of black people murdered at the hands of white supremacy and police brutality.
• We have witnessed your shock, disbelief and tears, and many Black people have held space and allowed you to use them as emotional containers to process your response to our trauma. The same trauma that we endure at the hands of the oppressive systems designed and upheld by your ancestors, which you currently benefit from. You have come to us seeking support and guidance around liberating you from your white guilt, you want us to teach you how to not be racist, and you want us to “practice” patience. You want us to sit through all of your defensiveness at the expense of our emotional wellness, all while coddling and telling you that “it will be okay”.
• Your awakening to our lived reality is sickening because your privilege allowed you to be apathetic up until now. We have been saying the same things for years, you chose not to listen. We are exhausted from taking care of white people, who only see our worthiness as human beings at the extent of what we can provide/offer them.
• Your privilege has allowed you to exist in a bubble and see what you want to see. Once you turn off the TV, once you leave the protest, once you have made your performative social media post, you get go right back to harming Black people in your real life, and more specifically Black women. Some of the most “woke” white women on social media are the main ones out here harming Black women. We are done with it, and we are calling it out!”
Thank you Alicia, for calling this out.
Of course not everyone fits this description, but I certainly want to take responsibility for my role in a system that privileges white women when it comes to race (and one that makes it cool to take copious selfies at protests). If white women are going to find a role that centers on responsibility and action, then we must resist the urge to diffuse and deflect out of discomfort.
White women are also disproportionately the leaders, arbiters and influencers of this wacky movement we call “wellness,” so how can we challenge ourselves to do better when it comes to the intersection of equity and feeling good? As a first step, let’s accept that defensiveness won’t get us closer to healing.
In her book, White Fragility, Robin Diangelo explains the danger of centering conversations around the feelings of white people when we are talking about race:
“We (white people) consider a challenge to our racial worldview as a challenge to our very identities as good, moral people. Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as an unsettling and unfair moral offense. The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable-the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. Though white fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement. It is a powerful means of white racial control and the protection of white advantage.
I am not perfect. I have been that person, defending and validating and asking everyone around me to agree to make sure I don’t have to start seeing myself as “bad.” I’ve done it in all walks of life at varying points throughout my own trajectory of growth. The fact remains though that there is no external court of peers that can absolve us of responsibility for our own actions. The only way we can truly get “right” with what’s right is by looking within and doing the hard work. We cannot ask the world around us, and especially not black people, to do that for us.
Discomfort is my/our problem to deal with. (Just like jealousy when your ex starts seeing someone else. Nobody owes you an explanation, but damnit why the fuck wasn’t I consulted and who is this troll?! What problem? I don’t have a problem? Who’s defensive? I’M FINE!!)
Looking inward is the only direction we can go to assess whether we are living with integrity. Committing to being honest with oneself and cultivating inner resources leads to mental AND physical health and well-being. It’s the vulnerability that Brene Brown talks about, it’s the Super Soul that Oprah refers to, it’s the waking up that Eckhart Tolle teaches us, it’s the “When they go low, we go high” that Michelle Obama heralded. Taking the easiest path may be a temporary fix, but getting to “well” and reaping its benefits is not easy at all.
Wellness is about inquiry. Wellness is about deep self-reflection, uncovering our shadows, excavating for all the tough stuff that’s lodging in our bodies, sitting with pain and discomfort and healing it through healthy practices and internal resources. Leveling the fuck up. All. The. Time. It’s synonymous with mindfulness in the deepest sense of the term and should always be focused on the non-harming of self and others.
The “tools” of wellness may be yoga, therapy, meditation, herbs, exercise, cbd, etc...but the common end of these practices is often the striving towards a less imprisoned self. If we want to be expansive, if we want to be truly well, we must do this work. Catch that defensiveness when it crops up and see it as an opportunity. In that way, you can put your wellness to work for you in the world, why else are we doing this?
Lastly, I have noticed over the last couple of weeks that white women are drawn to the Candace Owens Youtube video (not linked here intentionally as she already got her 7 million views). White women who aren’t particularly engaged in the race conversation tend to be drawn to this video for what I can only imagine is the way in which it lets them “off the hook”. Dave Chappelle calls it out in his Youtube special 8:46 when he says, “I seen Candace Owens try to convince white America, ‘Don’t worry about it. He’s a criminal anyway.”
If something we’re reading, watching, hearing right now is making us feel better about our place in the systemic order of oppression, then it is worth considering why. Just like we are practicing meditation and mindfulness in order to get more comfortable with the inevitable sadness, confusion, loss, emotions and suffering of our personal lives, with the sticky stuff. We must challenge ourselves to learn to sit with the discomfort of our place in the story of racial injustice. Our discomfort does not always need to be seen, held, validated, responded to or appeased by the world around us.
How can we find that dialogue within?
“How you gonna win when you ain’t right within?” -Lauryn Hill
Be well.
