Valuing Personal Growth and its Important Place in Anti-Racism

I don’t want to stay silent.

But what do I have to offer you other than the basic platitude of having said something and anything.

I can amplify Black voices and give money to great causes and the wonderful people who are doing the work I don’t yet know how to do. I can call out racism when I see it. I can teach my kids openly. I can support Black-owned businesses. This is all so important. Yet, I have a platform here and wonder, what can I offer you, my readers?

But I keep getting scared.

What if I say something wrong?

What about the racism I don’t see?

Am I simply a keyboard warrior?

Can I contribute anything that would be both useful and not center myself?

Is even the act of worrying about centering myself, inherently centering myself? Is worrying about worrying about centering myself… you get it, it’s an infinity mirror that provides a way to win gold in the mental gymnastics of standing in the place where you are. Fear of the pain of growth so easily becomes complacency and an excuse for stagnation — because anxiety feeds on avoidance and avoidance feeds on anxiety.

Luckily, I have plenty of experience in emotional funhouse mirrors.

And I think that is what I have to offer.

I recognize that not everything launches internal growth into external action — so take what feels useful here, store away what feels as though it has potential, and leave the rest.

I’m not going to tell you what to do about racism or how to do it, but I can offer insight into my experience with the conscious action of personal growth. I can tell you that it is slow. It is uncomfortable. Sometimes it hurts. I can promise you that there is no end. No final moment where you get to sit back and say, “There. I have fixed myself,” and then sip your mojito in confidence.

It’s admirable that you want to figure it all out right now, but you have to figure out how to live the fact that you won’t. I definitely want to leap past the hard steps and go straight to my speech as Ally Valedictorian — to rage against the machine and align myself perfectly with the allies I most look up to. But treating it like a sprint is only going to land you face down on the concrete like all those confederate statues as of late. Treat it like the marathon it is. It does not matter how deeply sincere your intentions or how desperate you feel — you cannot skip to the podium. In fact, there is no podium because there are no Woke Olympics (Karen already called the manager and had them canceled, sorry).

There is no shortcut to understanding

I’m not trying to conflate the path towards being less racist and more attuned with the path of any other struggle to better your understanding of yourself or the world. But I am pretty sure that we can extrapolate some important lessons from the template.

We grew and still we grow. – The Nields

When I first started therapy, I wanted a shortcut through the scary woods. But, after nearly seven years of weekly appointments, I am at a point where I can acknowledge that shortcuts are cheap attempts to avoid the hard stuff (and I can also acknowledge sometimes I still look for that hidden easy path).

Anti-racism and allyship is overflowing with hard stuff

First, we have to learn to recognize all forms of racism when we see, hear, or feel it. Many of us hold the deep belief that we are not directly racist – and all of us are painfully incorrect. It’s easier to ignore less-blatant forms of racism because it holds up our personal narrative of “being not racist.” It only makes us more racist.

Believe me, I get it, It’s scary when the bedrock of your core beliefs is shaken, especially when you’re the one holding the jackhammer. But it’s also so much more fulfilling if you put on your hard hat and dig.

Call yourself in, not out

Calling someone in rather than out, generally means having a private – hopefully healthy – conversation rather than reacting to shame them publicly. Calling out is more appropriate in some cases of course, but sometimes you can make a bigger impact by calling in. I also think of calling in as being more gentle, more nuanced, more open. It invites conversation and compassion. So how about we call ourselves in, too?

Treat yourself with that same compassion.

When confronted with difficult truths or visceral feelings of emotional discomfort around social justice issues – which are frequently, but not always, interwoven with defensiveness – I now try to start from a gentle assumption of wrongness on my part and work backward with curiosity. Generally speaking, I find one of two things: I was wrong, or the situation is more complicated than right/wrong in the first place. There are exceptions, but it holds true for the most part.

Being wrong is not the same as failure as long as you are learning and working

It is ok to be wrong. It just confirms you’ve got more work to do and you cannot do it standing comfortably still. It is ok to be scared. It’s ok to feel that tight ball in the center of your stomach that radiates outward like tiny bolts of anxiety moving through your limbs. It’s ok to be embarrassed when you mess up.

The important bit is how we react when faced with all those feelings.

I think the first rule of planting seeds of understanding is fertilizing them with curiosity, rather than defensiveness. Of accepting that you might be wrong, rather than doubling down. It’s ok to say, “I’ve never thought of it that way, and I need to take some time to let that settle before I give my thoughts,” rather than immediately giving your off-the-cuff opinion.

This all tracks with my various analogies — with the idea that this is an evolution, not a seismic shift. That it’s a marathon, not a sprint. That we are growing the tree to be strong, which sometimes takes a little extra time.

I hate seeing well-meaning people let defensiveness get in the way of where they want to be (calling myself out, here).

It should be easy though, right? I mean, if you find yourself thinking something racist just tell yourself to stop having that thought.

It’s simple! Let’s try this exercise:

Do not think of a pink elephant. Do not imagine the wrinkles of its skin or the dirt intermingled with the gloss of its toenails. Stop imagining the velcro texture of the small pink hairs rising from its back. Definitely don’t let the sounds of large ears flapping lazily at small grey gnats into your head. There’s no reason for you to know that the long thin trunk is holding up the cotton-candy puff of the last Truffula tree.

Stop thinking about it.

Stop.

You cannot force yourself to not have particular thoughts

So. Anyhow. What color Truffula tree were you picturing?

The more doggedly you try to avoid a thought, the more it’s going to hang around. This is especially true for me and my fellow OCD-sufferers, but even the most neurotypical person cannot just will themselves into changing those deeply ingrained racist thoughts any more than you can avoid thinking about the pink elephant while I’m describing it.

Shaming yourself isn’t going to work either. Beating yourself down only crushes the curiosity you need to grow.

You are going to have to dig deeper to make space for new seeds of understanding. There will be thorns along the way as you confront yourself.  Sometimes you will have to pull apart the invasive vines of anxiety as you go. Notice the anxiety and keep yanking. If you’re not getting dirty, ask yourself if you’re really open and curious.

The goal is to let those little seeds of understanding take root without forcing them

Scaffolding is a concept used in education to move students towards understanding and independence in steps rather than leaps. The idea of stages of growth in understanding feels legit. It what I’ve had to learn to expect in life in general. For me, to even get to this point was a long, meta adventure in slow maturation.

When I first started therapy I beat myself up for not getting “it” right away. For not going to therapy once or twice and then suddenly having all the answers. For needing more help. For imagining the elephant.

I had to learn how to internalize moving towards values vs letting myself fall into the shame pit. It took a long time and every time I tried to shame myself into “getting it quicker” I took several steps back. Interestingly, once I tried to let go of the need for speed and came at myself with curiosity, it all sped up.

Insert any Brene Brown quote

Like I said earlier, you cannot move towards a single endpoint, you can only keep training your vine to grow towards what you value. And if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you value Black lives.

So yes, keep the seeds growing but don’t drown them in an attempt to skip over the hard stuff by moving too far, too fast.

And yet…

You can’t grow seeds you don’t water

Self-care is important but cannot be an excuse to avoid growth. Yes, we have to take things slowly rather than trying to leap to the non-existent end. But it can’t be at the expense of evolution.

You cannot stand still and hope the rest of the world pulls you forward. You’re going to have to do the work, even when it hurts.

Check-in with yourself and think about what you have learned in the last week, month, or year. Then, make a list of the things you’d like to do in the coming days.

That’s usually when I realize how far I have (or have not) come in whatever growth it is I’m looking for. It’s also what gives me the energy and motivation to keep growing. And like with everything else, once I gave myself the grace to make mistakes and learn from them, I started moving faster.