Human Ecology of Racism
Photo Description & Credit: Jeremy Bishop via Unsplash. Photo of older tree, as sunshine bursts through green, leafy branches and exposed roots gripping into the earth.
HU·MAN
relating to or characteristic of people or human beings; of or characteristic of people's better qualities, such as kindness or sensitivity.
E·COL·O·GY
the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another.
Human Ecology of Racism
The Human Ecology of Racism (H.E.R.) is a living ecosystem, curated for humans who benefit from whiteness in the U.S., to collectively create, heal, and practice toward a world beyond white supremacy.
H.E.R. invites a community of practice for willful adaptation to reside within it, organized around the values of collaboration, collectivism, and connection with each other and all other living beings. As an ecosystem, it is embodied, dynamic, intersectional, artistic, rigorous and inter/multidisciplinary.
This year’s ecosystem is curated for 9 movements. The first four movements are curated for deep shadow work, and the remaining five movements are curated for healing through the shadows.
H.E.R. is curated by Richael Faithful. They are joined by facilitators: Rebecca Mintz, Jojo Donovan, Hiroki Keaveney, Julia Metz-Traber, Jennifer Lentfer, and Ascala Sisk. H.E.R.’s support team includes Adiel Suarez-Murias, Caitlin Duffy, & Edith Lopez Estrada.
H.E.R. awakes after two years of gestation. H.E.R. came to life in 2018 for six months, after three years of growth, with over 80 participants. It welcomes returning and new participants this fall.
“What has this year revealed to you about the shadow parts of whiteness and what needs tending? ... Resistance to facing our own mortality; resistance to death.
— Question by R. Faithful, Responses from Rebecca Mintz & Jojo Donovan
Your Invitation: Join Us.
Who: H.E.R. is designed for people who identify as white, or directly benefit from, whiteness, except for Movement 5 with Hiroki Keaveney, which invites trans-racial adoptees and others.
How: Join us for the entire series or for specific movements. We ask that every participant either join or watch replay of Movement 0. Cost is a pay-what-you-can sliding scale, $10-$50. Register for series below or under each movement description. Space will be limited to preserve intimacy within the movements.
Accessibility: Movements will be closed captioned, and other accessibility needs will be gladly made upon request.
Recording & Replays: Movement 0 will be recorded, livestreamed, and available to the public. All other movement replays will be available to participants who register in advance, and series’ participants.
Our Movements
DIVING INTO SHADOWS
FOUR MOVEMENTS DEDICATED TO ENTERING INTO EMOTIONAL-PSYCHIC-MORAL DEPTHS OF WOUNDED WHITENESS.
MOVEMENT 0: WHY HEALING FOR WHITE FOLKS? A THEORY OF CHANGE WITH RICHAEL FAITHFUL & REBECCA MINTZ
SEPTEMBER 26, 4 - 6PM ET
It can be controversial to claim that white people need to heal from whiteness and white supremacy. Hearing this statement, many questions and concerns can come up, among white people and people of color alike.
"What kind of healing do white people need to do, exactly?"
"How is healing for white folks going to actually contribute to collective liberation?"
"Isn't that just naval-gazing?"
And yet, for many of us, we have a deep-seated, intuitive sense that there is something incredibly powerful, profound, and sorely needed about healing work for white people.
We wonder whether this work could be a key to unlock a very particular door that has been nailed shut for a long time, and that opening that door could release incredible energy for collective liberation.
What would it mean for white people ourselves to heal the parts of us that hold onto white supremacy (yes, even us white progressives :)?
How much space could be created in white people to truly trust and support the leadership of people of color? How would that offer healing energy to our movements as a whole?
In this movement, we will build shared understanding in our heads, hearts, and bodies of why the work of healing is so important for people who identify as white.
MOVEMENT 1: GUILT & SHAME WITH RICHAEL FAITHFUL
OCTOBER 3, 4 - 6PM ET
Guilt and shame are natural responses to owning white supremacy. They are beliefs and emotions that are likely to surface if, as a beneficiary, you feel white supremacy’s innumerable degradation, devastation, and depravity.
Is your relationship to guilt and shame corrosive to your emotional landscape?
Is your guilt and shame fueling unhelpful doubt?
Is how you carry guilt and shame blocking you from consistently acting on your values?
In this movement we’ll do a deep dive into the shadows of guilt and shame, and locate their roots, to open pathways through.
MOVEMENT 2: FRAGILITY & FEAR WITH RICHAEL FAITHFUL
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 4 - 6PM ET
White people, at this moment in the U.S., are collectively afraid. Of what?
Confronting their own shame?
Entering new levels of vulnerability?
Losing an entire system, for centuries, designed for white comfort and well-being?
Being subjected to material power as they and their ancestors have stewarded it?
In this movement, we explore depths of fear to which white fragility and white resentment are reacting, and we more honestly ask and listen to the responses, “afraid of what?”
MOVEMENT 3: PERFECTIONISM & PARALYSIS WITH RICHAEL FAITHFUL
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 4 - 6PM ET
Perfectionism is an emotional trap designed for paralysis. It is an illusionary state of being that engineers unhealthy doubt, endless labor, and life-depleting standards. Internalized perfectionism, when unattended, also undermines racial justice efforts because it prioritizes unattainable outcomes within an impossible process.
In this movement, we let “perfect” die, compost binaries, and start learning to live with the choices we make within our complex realities.
“What are we called to do at this moment? ...Working in alignment with the force of life… getting to do this sacred work.
— Julia Metzger-Traber
HEALING THROUGH SHADOWS
FIVE SESSIONS DEDICATED TO HEALING THROUGH SHADOWS OF WHITENESS’ WOUNDS WITH OTHERS WHO HAVE EMBODIED EXPERIENCE HEALING THEMSELVES.
MOVEMENT 4: NOURISHING OURSELVES FOR DEEP COMMITMENT WITH JOJO DONOVAN
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 4 - 6PM ET
How can we cultivate and nourish a relationship with our courage?
How can we bring our rational understanding of racial oppression more fully into our bodies and allow ourselves to be moved by what we know to be true?
How can our capacity for deep feeling and truth-telling nourish, sustain, and clarify our commitments rather than leading to overwhelm or despair?
Even as multiple intersecting global crises unfold and intensify, we are called to remember that the work of liberation extends through our entire lifetimes and across generations. In this space, we will seek out ways to respond with integrity to the urgency of the moment while cultivating a longer view of time.
Together, we will develop practices and guideposts to bring our work into closer alignment with our own bodies’ rhythms and with the seasons, cycles, and shifts occurring around us, so that we can sustain our commitment through all the layers of unveiling and unfolding to come.
MOVEMENT 5: WHITE ANCESTRAL HEALING SUPPORTS WITH HIROKI KEAVENEY
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 4 - 6PM ET
Were you raised by white people?
Have you wanted to heal through ancestral medicine but have no clue where to begin?
Whether you're white or BIPOC this session will offer you tools for how to build relationships with your white ancestors in a decolonial way. A decolonial approach directly confronts the legacies of colonization, slavery and genocide our families participated in.
Not ignoring these histories but directly confronting them through working with our ancestral medicine--learning our ancestors' healing traditions pre-whiteness.
Using these traditions to connect with ancestors who want to help us heal both as individuals and as a collective towards racial justice and healing.
MOVEMENT 6: SOMATIC SUPPORT TO HEAL THE RACE BODY WITH JULIA METZGER-TRABER
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 4 - 6PM ET
White Supremacy Culture lives in our nervous systems. This means it holds the very muscles of our hearts and lungs hostage. But as we return with awareness to our bodies, we claim more space for choice, so that we can move from our hearts, with spirit and with alignment toward the justice and liberation we yearn for.
How can we as white folks slow down and engage intentionally in this repatterning work, so that our bodies learn to act differently moment to moment?
How can we shift from a purely cognitive approach to anti-racism into a whole body investment in change?
What does it look like to re-imagine our anti-racist learning as a life-long, embodied healing practice?
What new ways of being become possible when we reclaim our agency from the conditioning of whiteness? How would our life force flow through us if it were unleashed from these habituated patterns?
In this movement, we will bring our awareness to patterns of reactivity that live in our bodies but often go unknown and unnamed. We will explore practices to compassionately release binding patterns of white supremacy culture from our muscles, our fascia, and our nervous systems; connect to our hearts to create space for the grief and love that comes from facing whole-heartedly the violent realities of racialized capitalism; and to access the spiritual and embodied resources that allow us to experience center, ground, alignment, and aliveness in our work toward racial justice.
If we connect to the power of life, we don’t need to cling to power. If we connect to our centers of life energy, we don’t need to center ourselves in the world.
MOVEMENT 7: LIVING INTO RISK, CULTIVATING COURAGE & LIVING WITH RISK WITH JENNIFER LENTFER
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 4 - 6PM ET
Discomfort alerts us to an injustice that is occurring or has occurred. We can trust our discomfort as harm is happening (in big and small ways). In this session, participants will practice being braver together, to build the skills needed to speak up and have the "tough conversations" about systemic racism in real life.
We don’t always have to be polite or professional. We don’t have to follow rules/work within parameters of unjust systems to dismantle them. Pissing people off is needed too.
The "risks" white people take in showing up in deeper solidarity with Black folks are nothing compared to inescapable experience of living in a Black body and having to constantly navigate overlapping systems of oppression.
As participants practice transforming our own discomfort, putting so-called "confrontational" words in their mouths, and cultivating courage together, they will also learn how to spot and avoid white saviorism in their anti-racism work.
MOVEMENT 8: THE PRACTICE OF REDEFINING
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 4 - 6PM ET
What would be if we strip away all that exists that denies our common humanity?
Who would we each be if we transcend that which has defined us that has limited us?
The path towards liberation asks that we do just that, that we redefine self and systems, that we vision and manifest a new reality.
What does it take to redefine, to nurture a liberated vision of self and community?
How do we heal and transmute the wounds of our racialized experiences?
What sustains us as we rewire the conscious and unconscious thought patterns and beliefs that constrain our creativity and keep us from expressing the truly great parts of our spirit? As we evolve, how do we integrate into our daily lives?
Through visioning and reflection we will explore the practice of redefining. We will check in to make visible new areas of growth, wrestle with fears and constraints, and tap into the infinite expansiveness of imagination as we continue to shape our path toward freedom.
