CIIS Public Programs Podcast

Transcript

[Cheerful theme music begins] 

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

In a society where unconscious bias, microaggressions, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustices are deeply ingrained, healing is an ongoing process. Author, meditation teacher, and law professor Rhonda Magee teaches that in order to have the difficult conversations required for working toward racial justice, inner work is essential. In this episode, CIIS Assistant Director of Diversity and Inclusion Damali Robertson has a conversation with Rhonda about her life and work, as well as her latest book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, in which Rhonda shares ways mindfulness can heal ourselves, and transform our communities. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 22nd, 2021. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 

[Theme music concludes] 

Damali: I am so excited to be here and in conversation with you tonight, Rhonda, how are you?  

Rhonda: Hello. Hello, and the excitement is mutual. I'm so glad to be here with you and I'm doing alright. I'm here in San Francisco and thanks so much for being in conversation with me.  

Damali: Absolutely. I am just so grateful for you, your body of work, all the contributions you've made to the field of mindfulness, racial justice, and so we're going to dig into your book, the Inner Work of Racial Justice. We're going to talk about mindfulness and the ways that people we can support one another with that inner work. That's so foundational. So, I have tons of questions for you, and I feel like I really want to jump in to ask you. [Rhonda: Yes.] When did you begin a formal mindfulness practice. And what got you started? 

Rhonda: Hmm. So I guess I began my formal mindfulness practice...1993 is the year that comes to mind as one important date because that was the year that I finished law school, the year that I moved permanently from Virginia to California, you know, studied for, took the bar and then had a period of time where I was waiting for my results, but also waiting for the date for my job to start. In other words, I had a period of time where I actually could relax, and I [Damali laughs softly] the first thing I realized was I was completely unable to. I was not practiced. I did not know how to relax. I've been like on the go, you know, studying and trying to achieve, and right? Trying to take advantage of the opportunities that prior generations of people who look like me, by the way, who grew up in the South as I did- taking advantage of the opportunities that prior generations didn't have.  

So really, I was finding myself in need of support for being able to you know, reclaim my attention and calm my you know, my nerves a little bit. And so, I started reading books and happened to find a book that opened up a doorway into formal meditation practice. And so, it was first, for me, it was first as reading and really practicing at home. Like many people who are on this listening to my voice might have done themselves. Just reading something, hearing something. At that time there were not a lot of podcasts or other things like that. But so, I just read and put the book down and tried to practice and even that felt a little bit like a relief.  

And so I continued to pursue other opportunities to experiment with meditation from there, but, you know what, when I think about that question, I also think about the fact that I had informal training in some sort of practice for centering that I observed in the life of my grandmother who many of you may have, if you read my book, may have heard me tell this story before, but my grandmother was a person who had been called to the ministry. So that every day of the time that I spent as a little girl in her presence, I saw her get up before dawn and spend time in her room in a what I later learned was like a centering prayer practice. Prayer and then studying scripture, and really just getting clear on her purpose and value before going out and doing hard work in the world. You know, she cleaned houses for other people. She didn't have a glamorous job like I do by comparison, right?  

So those, when I think about both the entry to what I call mindfulness meditation, I think of those trainings that I read about, which by the way, were coming from a Hindu tradition, I will just name. It was a book I remember reading was called The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living and I say that to name that a lot of these things that we call mindfulness are as we know, translations of practices that have been lovingly delivered in this multicultural context that we call the United States of America right now, right- by people who have inherited and carried these practices over generations. And so, I owe, I feel…I'm just naming the debt of gratitude that I think I know I owe to people who from Asian heritages, South Asian, Indian heritage in particular, the first book that I read. But I know that a lot of the things that I've been privileged to study have been delivered to this context from different parts of Asia, so I- so that and then, you know, Kingston North Carolina, my grandmother’s, you know, own centering practice. Those are the roots for me. 

Damali: Yeah, and you know what? I love that you bring your grandmother in because I think, you know, we look at meditation and we think that's this particular practice. But what you just talked about, her prayer was centering, people journaling is centering. Walking can be centering. There's so many things that we do on a daily basis, that if we do it with a certain amount of intention is centering, [Rhonda: Yes, yes.] so I just love that you brought your grandmother into the room with us. [Rhonda:Yeah.] Because I remember watching my grandmother pray too before she would start her day as a teacher. And I thought to myself as you said that, yeah, we- more of us are practicing something mindful then we probably know. 

Rhonda: Exactly. And so, becoming aware, right? That meta. That knowing what we know is I think an important insight, you know, it isn't necessarily about engaging in a brand-new practice. It may be about just becoming more clear about what you have seen, observed, been exposed to, that looks like if engaged in on a regular basis, and in your experience, you know, from having done it or having witnessed it, it actually can help calm you, center you, support you in accessing your inherent power and inherent sense of belonging. Whatever can deliver you to that—in my estimation—it can be a support for you know, really moving more skillfully in the world. Including addressing issues of race and racism more skillfully.  

Damali: Yeah. Thank you so much Rhonda. I mean, the truth is, and I was reading your book I was just nodding, you know, along the way as I was saying to myself, you had me at hello, Rhonda. Yes, because I can-I can make the connection in the ways that mindfulness clearly advances and supports racial justice work. I just wondered though, as I was reading it. What about the folks who, you know, may not see themselves there, yet? Like they're people who are probably, like, I don't know how this, how these two to go together and I wondered if you could maybe say a little bit more to what to someone, who doesn't quite make the connection.  

Rhonda: Right! Well, you know, it's so interesting, Damali, that you know, one of the aspects of my journey that I'm going to reflect on in response to this question is just having had conversations with people about the intersections between racial justice and activism work on the one hand…anti-racist, you know managing bias, even DEI work. Diversity, equity, inclusion on one hand and mindfulness on the other, you know, nowadays people are hearing a little bit about this here or there, but when I started this, this, these, the connection had not been made. And even today, I'm surprised by how often I'll have someone hear a conversation of mine and contact me or say to me, you know, I” have studied mindfulness for many years I have been trying to do anti-racism work or reading about it or trying to wake up to it or reckoning in the last couple years…it never occurred to me to bring these two together.”  

So, yeah, I think that when, I think that when I'm thinking about people who don't see the connection, I'm always curious about what part of this does resonate. Because for some people, I understand mindfulness, but I don't see how it relates like, I've been practicing mindfulness, I've been doing this, but I haven't seen racial justice work as part and parcel of my work in mindfulness. Or for other people, it could be, I've been doing racial- I've been living with the consequences of being in a racist society for all my life. Or I've been doing activism work and I'm not sure how mindfulness connects. So, I'm always curious, really what doorway people are coming in through. And from that place, you know, what I like to do is invite people to-from the place that they are entering the conversation, think about any difficulty that they've experienced along the way. Where is that difficulty? And when reflecting on a particular story or particular experience, then to ask in particular, if there is a way in which your identity, your social identity, is something that you have suffered in, right? You felt some, you know, targeted by bias, or you've witnessed people suffering through a form of their identities. And so, when we start looking at how people have felt and experienced harm through identity, then I can open up a conversation about, you know, how my practices that allow you to pause. Notice the thoughts, emotions, and sensations that travel with that story or that experience. And notice the sensation of breathing, as you take maybe a conscious deep breath and just sense into how just the breath can support us in accessing again, a capacity to inwardly restore or access a calm within a storm. And might that be a skill that we, or just an ability that we-any one of us might benefit from as we navigate a world in which identity-based harm is a feature. Not a bug, it's a feature of our society. So how might we draw on that? I often invite people to just do a breath and imagine experience.  

Unfortunately, sometimes I can pull it out of the news. I remember doing a podcast with someone some years ago actually, and there had been a shooting in the news that day and there was a race aspect to it. And we talked about it. She hadn't heard about it. It came up in the conversation and-and I said, let's pause and right here, right now. Imagine using a portable mindfulness practice to support us in being able to get back on track with this interview, because I could feel the way in which she was getting emotionally challenged by this news. And so that's that, you know, these, we have experiences all the time that give us a little bit to practice, and I always do. I often believe that it's less about convincing people, intellectually and being evangelical about it, but it is an opportunity to ask people well, let's experiment with it. What is it like? And what might pausing and breathing practice right here right now offer as a support.  

Damali: Wow, and you know what? There's a couple things you said they're A) I feel like people are so busy and you mentioned busyness at the top of our conversation and that pause just sounds like it is the like- the connector. The ability to stop and pause. And then there's a curiosity that you bring to the examples that you’ve given that I think also facilitate these types of mindful conversations, but also the relationship, the trust building, the safety necessary for some of these conversations, at least that's what I'm hearing you say.  

Rhonda: Yeah, exactly. And also, the kind of underlying care because I do think an ethic of care is for me at the root of mindfulness. It's not always the first thing that people hear when they hear something about mindfulness, right? People hear about breathing and becoming more clear- clearing the mind and, you know, reclaiming attention, focusing. But, underlying all of it, I think, from all of that, all that I've been fortunate to learn about it, is this invitation to kind of become more intimate with our own life experience and more caring, right? Because as you know, the desire to minimize suffering. Starting with ourselves and then from there, maybe we can also- right? Maximize our ability to minimize suffering for other people. But yeah, so there is that caring quality that I think is also a big part of it for me.  

Damali: Yeah, and you know, I heard you say, in an interview, justice for me, is what love looks like in public. And I love the saying- heard you say it and I was like, yes, right? I mean, and so that takes us back to caring. And I wonder with this view of justice. If there is anything you could offer us. Any insights you could offer as to how we get there. How do we, as this highly racialized society, get to a place where we can see justice as love? 

Rhonda: Hmm. Thank you so much for this question. And because it's a profound one and it invites me to say a couple things just by way of acknowledgement. You know, I think again, we are all so privileged to inherit- to have inherited so much that supports us or that might support us in this kind of work. We just start turning more to it. And so that literal definition of justice being what love looks like in public is one I've borrowed, learned, inherited from a philosopher and teacher, Cornel West who was one of our teachers, in our public discourse these days. [Damali: Yes.]  But also, it resonated for me because another one of I’m sure, our mutual teachers mine and Cornell and maybe others, you know, you maybe Martin Luther King Jr. Who also when talking about justice often, right? He spoke so eloquently and beautifully in a lot of less well reported speeches and writings about, you know, the sort of the sort of fierce quality of love that undergirds efforts to resist oppression, you know? Well, always about love as a kind of a way of thinking about justice insofar as it's about accessing a kind of a love power to come into confrontation with that which stands against the impulse we have to take care of each other. In other words, you know, a lot of what he was talking to or speaking to is that which in that within each of us that actually does care when we see somebody suffering and that we can be trained and trained out of responding to that altruistic impulse, you know, that sort of non-transactional care and concern for other fellow human beings that that many of us know, we're in touch with and some of us are kind of out of touch with.  

And so, I think the invitation of a lot of people like Martin Luther King like-like even Colin Kaepernick. Now he's quoted recently as saying we resist out of love, right? The invitation to really understand that at the root of a lot of these efforts to fight oppression is this desire to see us all treated with the care and respect and dignity that we deserve. Underlying the idea of human rights is this idea of innate, inherent entitlement to a kind of basic dignity in terms of how we are met in the world. And so, you know, of course, when we think about justice often, we're not what we're fighting is for that kind of dignity or respect, public caring treatment. And, you know, it's not something that comes naturally to a lot of us or even if it had at one point. We've been sort of trained out of it. I think almost coarsened to live in today's society. It's like everybody is so busy, as you mentioned. We've all been struggling so much with so much, everybody.  

Our struggles aren't the same but I'm just going to say it seems to me that there's a lot of woundedness in all of us and-and yet, you know part of our dominant culture is about patterns of dominance. That's what we've inherited. That's what slavery, enslavement was about. That's what you know, patterns of exclusion were about that Asian American heritage folks experience. That's what, you know, settler colonialism was about. We've inherited a lot of the energy of domination, which makes it hard to have your soft-bellied, carbon-based…you know, your heart right out on your sleeve as they as they say, but so, so it's not easy to bring the sort of quality of love and care as justice into public discourse, but I think we just have to name it and keep claiming it. I think part of what, how we fight, any kind of oppression is to say, yeah, be that amen choir. Because we need to hear each other affirm things that we actually do feel but we don't hear lifted up enough. It's not going to happen overnight. But, you know, we do what we can. We do what can where we are.  

Damali: Yes, and I just appreciate you mentioning Dr. King, and I want to just bring him in one more time because I read, I heard your quote, and then I went back to his Letter from a Birmingham Jail and read where he talked about justice being intentional. It's persistent, you know, I don't want to misquote him, but he, asked, you know how much- how devoted are we to justice, you know, in that letter and he- I thought he felt a real urgency. So, I really appreciate that you mentioned Dr. King again, because I really was there reading that letter again inspired by your quotes.  

Rhonda: It’s so powerful. Right? And so current in a way because he's really, in a way, saying what I really need is for people who would say they stand with me but are kind of silent to stand up. [Damali: Yes.] Yeah, again speak and call forth, you know, and stand with don't just be silent like silent or send me an email after. Stand up with me, take a stand, right? Because silence is complicity. [Damali: Yeah.] We really need that message as well. So many of his messages are just so resonant for today.  

Damali: Exactly. Thank you so much for that because I just think. Yes. Anyway, in your book, you also speak about racism and discrimination having a double edge. So, it's hurting people on all sides. Ultimately, anyone who's impacted, whether that is someone who was feeling the brunt or someone who is probably experiencing it from a more privileged place. So, could you say some more about the ways that you see this double edge of how racism hurts us all? 

Rhonda: Yeah, and you know, it's so, you know, thank you for this question. It's reminding me that yeah, number one. I've been trying to make this point and having conversations with folk to invite us to reflect on this because again, I will say that the way that I embrace the role of teaching about all of these things. There is this piece that's about me sharing my insight, but really, it's very invitational. It's very much about like, let us look deeply and closely at our own lives. Let us have the courage. Let us have space. Let us find right places and spaces where we can be supported. And just looking at what we already know. Because I think when we do that, we can see so many different stories, you know, a story that I tell, one of the first stories I tell in my book is about, you know, my first it is the first story really about my being a young girl in love with someone who was from a family, white Southern family, racialized white, as I say it to underscore the way that it's a social construct. But this particular family, when they found out that the two of us were together- this son of theirs who was their beloved son, let me just say, like their apple of the family eye, right? When this came out, suddenly he was in- under internal attack in the family for his decision to date me across the racial line and it led to him literally being thrown out of the house, rendered homeless. [Damali: Wow.] You know, for a time, I don't know if I share this in the book, my family actually took him in. [Damali: Oh, wow.] But that's just an example that we can be driven by some idea about, you know, sort of policing the love line, if you will. Where somebody's affection can really go- some idea about that can lead us to such an act as making our own kin our own, you know, children homeless. Like that to me was one of the experiences that led me to really be curious about how and what are the other ways.  

Heather McGhee to just name another author, who's been writing about this, published a book recently called The Sum of Us, which takes as its thesis this very point. Like, when we look at what's happening, right? The need to then, explain and invite reflection on how racism is harming everybody. And from her perspective, as a public policy maker, right. She was looking at what is happening with help healthcare? Why is it that we see people or how do we see people voting against their own personal interests, against taking up, you know, some sort of more publicly supported and available health care that which we all as human beings again in recognition of the basic core needs of humanity for care and support for flourishing and healing when we are ill. We all need health care and yet we see people voting against it disproportionately in Southern states with high proportions of brown and Black people. We, so we see these correlations that seem to be related to our historical patterns of racial divide. Same thing with education, we under invest in education, public education. We have been pulling money out of public education since desegregation. So, this-these are just some of the ways. So, we have these systemic and public ways that are really, really voting rights. We're seeing it again. All of our voting rights are being threatened because the dominant- his- you know, sort of the dominant forces that that kind of resist multiracial and Multicultural democracy are reacting to the past generations, post-civil rights gains facilitated by the Voting Rights Act and all sorts of different things. But we're seeing a backlash to the gains that have been accomplished in the direction of greater participation in voting and more positive—from my perspective—outcomes for more free and fair elections. And so now all of us are vulnerable to having folks tossing our votes because our signature doesn't match our version of what it should be.  

So those are just some of the ways that we do all suffer systemically publicly on the one hand. Personally, interpersonally, maybe even in our families on the other, within our own selves, we can just invite inquiry. How have we suffered? No matter what our background. And I just want to also add that when it comes to the part that people of color suffer, you know, I've been looking at these issues for many years and student of our history, you know, growing up in the South and going to school at University of Virginia. I mean, writing about reparations way back in the day. My first public paper, you know back in 92 whenever, right? I've been looking at these issues for a long time, but I am coming back to a deep consideration of the trauma that people of color have internalized and often are tempted and do play out within our own communities, you know? My own experience as I write about in my book, I am a child of what, you know, now, we call these adult, you know, survivors of childhood traumas, right? I had multiple childhood traumas in my own personal experience. Not just those that are legacies in a systemic way of the history that were talking about, right? My family growing being comprised of people who were working class poor living in, you know, my father was from Mississippi. My mom from, North Carolina. Struggling to get a decent education and working-class job. My dad goes in the military and suffers, as a result of that, stepdad, suffer- suffered as a result of that, became alcoholics, right? So, alcoholism, abuse in the household. Domestic violence against my mom and then abuse of the children in the household. Myself included.  

So, there are so many ways that we play out these traumatic legacies in our own lives and our own communities in our own homes, and I want to just name that because I think an important part of what I hope is a take away of bringing mindfulness to bear in the service of racial justice is what I often refer to as the personal justice call. [Damali: Yes, yes.] The part that's about let's take care of this person, not in a selfish way. Understand the difference between selfishness and self-care and really seeing caring. You know, as Audre Lorde has said as Angela Davis have said, it is an act of resistance and really the first approximation of what justice looks like to me. How do I love this body? And these bodies that I'm with in ways that can really help disrupt all of the messages that have come handed down to us through the generations that our lives don't matter.  

Damali: Yes. Yes, and, you know, it's interesting because you said so much that I was like, yes. Yes, and I- it made me think of another book we're going to talk about all these books! [Rhonda: Yeah!]  My Grandmother's Hands, where there's a- it's devoted to trauma, racialized trauma, and metabolizing, right? Yeah. Yeah. And metabolizing that trauma, right? It's the importance of- and using mindfulness practices, but just being in tune with the trauma because, you know, you had a quote in your book from Thích Nhất Hạnh, where he talked about the fact that, you know, there is a lot to be done in society, he says. “Work against war, social injustice” and so on. But first, we have to come back to our own territory and make sure that peace and harmony are reigning there, our own territory, which I think is exactly what you were talking about. [Rhonda: Yes!] Because we can't do anything for anyone! Unless we're actually attuned to what's happening within, which I think is like the mic drop of the entire- [both laugh]  

Rhonda: Isn’t it? You know, I mean, we can't- we can barely do anything, and we run the risk of the things that we try to do at our highest and best. If we haven't done our own work. Right, if we haven't done our own, you know, coming home to making peace within this territory. We do run the risk of working for some version of justice or, you know, you- the good that has embedded in it, you know, some of these ways that we can transmit our unhealed woundedness out and allow it to infuse whatever we might be trying to offer in the world. And so, for me, it's like, it's also- I'll say a little bit, there is a little bit of selfishness in this. I said, it's not so much a little bit which is about like, you know, you don't want to have to wait until whatever that distant day. Like we're fighting for new laws and new policies and this and our neighborhood and we're going to keep organizing, building coalitions, and working for change. And some of us, we've been able to see some of the benefits of some of those things and then we see the backlash and we get frustrated, and we have to keep at it. I think the- one of the important aspects of personal justice and self-care, what it does for me is it's about saying, as Alice Walker, to mention another author and teacher says, “don't miss the color purple,” right? She really meant that as a mindful, social justice in a way kind of message. Like no matter what we are going through, no matter how much we have suffered, I mean know her heroine in that book, Celie, was, you know, right in that intersectional way suffering all kinds of abuse, legacies of the interlocking patriarchy, racist, capitalist- all that, right. And yet that basic message, even as we are healing and working to make the world a better place, make room for joy. Don't miss the color purple, right? Don't miss the gift of being alive. And to me, if as we are doing our justice work, we are, you know, burning the candle at both ends and, like, getting ourselves completely flat-out exhausted and burned out. And, and, and in conflict in arguing with everybody. You know, our relationships are faltering. Something is amiss, right? Something profound is amiss. So, bringing justice home first and foremost is really, really, really, I think important. And it is not to say, therefore we don't have to do the other work. [Damali: Right.] It's the both, and. 

Damali: Yes. And, you know, it's interesting because I'm thinking about teachers, like adrienne maree brown, who does a lot around pleasure. And I can just tell you for myself, Black woman, single parent, lots of things and I thought, my job was survival for many years. Like I just need to get through the day. But really what I've learned in my most kind of last five years. It's so important to have joy. It's so important to aim for thriving, the intention to be thriving, joy, purpose, following your bliss. [Rhonda: Yes!]  And that's my mantra now. And activism, it's still a priority for me, but I do recognize I'm not able to really be there for anyone if I can't be there for myself and have some joy.  

Rhonda: So true. And joy can come in the activism! 

Damali: Yes!  

Rhonda: If we are, if this is our orientation, right? Then we realize, like working side by side towards something, even when we don't always win. But we learned that you can see from, I know from my own experience, working with people to try to make a positive difference somewhere. There's joy in that and we need to see that. Don't miss that.  

Damali: Yes. Yes. I love that. And there's something you said, you keep saying these remarkable things. And so, I wanted to just stop for a second on another what I call “mic drop moment” is this idea of race as a social construct and I'll say why, because I am pretty, I'm pretty grown. I've been around for a while, and I've only just in the last few years and really gotten that race is a social construct. I've just really gotten that there isn't anything scientific or biological or physiological about being racialized Black, being racialized white. We have different cultures. We have different cultures, cultural experiences for sure. And I lift that up, and there is nothing that separates us truly. [Rhonda: No.] And I wanted you to say something more about that because when I got that my whole life changed, I was like, oh so I actually can walk in the world in a different way. So, I wanted to just have your comment. 

Rhonda: It is, you know, it is. Thank you so much. That is a- it’s a question. It's a- it is a statement that when I make and I write about it, you know, I'm often met on the one hand with people that are- sometimes it'll be like “what do you mean? Explain that more”. And- but often it'll be people who will say, “yes. I've heard that.” But really, they don't know what it means, and they don't really believe it. And now finally at some points, have the whatever it is to say “can we really talk about that part? Because I really don't know about that.” And I'll say that, you know, it is- it is a- so, you know, where what I'm drawing on when I make that statement is, you know, research the kind of human anthropological social science community is the majority. There are always detractors, right. There are always, there's always the kind of people who kind of want to go back to the- what I'm going to say, the pseudoscience of race that, that provided a basic, illusory, but appealing kind of hard science-seeming foundation for racism. Okay, we had, you know, many different pseudo-scientists of race from Europe who, starting in you know, that in earnest in the 17th and 18th centuries, you know, writing about these five different racial branches of humankind. Now, mind you, these scholars often had never traveled outside of Europe, but they had heard stories told about, you know, from the explorers and the early, you know, settlers and colonists coming back with tales of the types of humankind that they see. And, you know, these scholars often drawing on the work they were doing/looking at, you know, botany, looking at plant life, you know, took some of those ways of categorizing and describing life into descriptions about humankind that have been debunked by sciences. We know that we can share blood, we can mate across human, humankind of all kinds.  

And so, the genetic- geneticist, the DNA specialists of have also confirmed, right, the degree to which we are all really one human family. There is, you know, obviously we have genetic variation. That's the beauty of humanity. The, what I sometimes use, the phrase “the 10,000 flowers”, right? We are, we are all these beautifully unique creatures with all different shades and hair textures and eye shapes and this and that but fundamentally are we one species? Absolutely. And yet wherever we are and around the world. And in different cultures, we've constructed ways of grouping, categorizing folks and in the US and in other often, Western nations, we've made a lot of this idea of race, but other cultures haven't made as much of the idea of race, but they have often something else. Some other thing, that might be religion. It might be, you know, something about where people live. And, you know, so there, the sociologists tell us that, you know, we often categorize each other and use those categories to rank each other in terms of the value and worth somehow. And so, from a sociological standpoint, it's very common that we organize, and then rank. And we kind of make-up categories as necessary to support that in our culture. And the more fixed categories where we see this type of, by the way, this type of categorizing age and gender. But even gender we know is much more fluid than we've given to believe and age, of course, we are all going to go through a spectrum if we're lucky from young to old but those, but again, cross the world, you'll see different values being placed on people of different age groups and different genders. And then depending on where you are, you see something called race being described, defined, all of this ideological work being placed in, right, in service of what? Usually some form of oppression.  

In our culture, it was to justify the variations of oppression: slavery, land clearing, by which we, yes, ended up on places like right the formerly Ohlone land that I am on right now in San Francisco, right? So, to justify exclusionary policies against Asian American people, who for a time in the you know late 19th century, early 20th century were deemed to be a threat to the white working class in California. So much so that we ended up with all kinds of exclusionary policies and then the legacies of those were sort of at the foundation of what led to our being able to do internment against Japanese Americans in World War 2. So, the different- how race has led to kind of oppression varies, but if we don't understand that each society, culture, geographic moment that we’re in, we’re tempted to continue the work of creating and recreating and reifying, right, making more fixed than is true than is scientifically true, certainly. These ideas that we have about racial difference; when we become aware that there is this- that we're doing this, we are constructing these things. Then sometimes people say, well then, okay, then that means race isn't real then we really don't we always have to talk about racism. That is not right. Because we're- just because race is not biologically real doesn't mean it’s not- it's very social, right? Very, very much still a feature of our social lives. And so, we can both be looking at becoming more conscious of how we are participating or not in reifying the categories and how we can disrupt that a bit. We can recognize multiraciality in and amongst all of us much more than we have been given to do in the past without at the same- but at the same time, I think it's important for us to figure out how to recommit to doing the work of ending racial injustice, right? Looking at racism when it shows up looking at bias when it shows up, naming, looking at our demographics in our spaces. And from that place of like, you know, a little bit of an audit, like, where are we doing well, where could we be doing better, right? Looking at, you know, what's going on and what we might need to do differently to bring about more racial justice and equity where we are. So, it's that “both and”. It's like “both understand.” It's a construct. Let's minimize it. And let's minimize the temptation to organize our whole lives around it. And by minimize, I don't mean to you know, that we disavow that we have cultures that we respect or places in the world that we honor. It is that we want to minimize this sort of inherited notion that these are fixed ideas.  

And then we can choose how we want to be in relationship to projects of racial justice and equality. And because lastly, I just want to say, while the sociologists are clear all across the world, there's a temptation among humankind to categorize and rank, right? There is, at the same time across the world, a tendency, a countervailing tendency against this effort to rank and dominate, there are, there is this tendency I alluded to before toward altruism, toward egalitarianism, toward a narration about public love and human dignity that undergirds this idea of universal human rights. So, wherever we are, it's like this sort of struggle. How do we want to be a part of the egalitarian impulse to a world where we can all flourish and thrive actually or do we want to be a part of, you know, the old story of “some of us matter more than others.” And so, we're all, I think, called to choose how we want to be in relationship to these long-standing moral challenges that travel with the dynamics of racialization in our time.  

Damali: Yeah, I mean, and again so much there to unpack and to discuss. One thing that, as you are talking about race being a social construct, and as we were talking about- this doesn't mean that we don't deal with race, like even though we understand this and know this, some of us, you know, it doesn't mean that our society doesn't have this racialized underpinning tone. It's not everywhere around us, right? And so one of the things that struck me too in the book is when you talked about the fact that the mindfulness practices alone are not enough to support the work of racial justice, that there is an importance of learning the history of understanding, you know, what, who and what came before us in order to create something different going forward and it made me think of what I perceive as an attack on critical race theory. It made me think of recent legislation that has passed in eight states and new legislation being introduced in twenty states and I wondered what your thoughts might be on the fact that I think the legislation is trying to write the discomfort out of our history? And is asking and everything in your book feels to me like being with the discomfort, being with the pain, being even with, you know, as someone who's racialized Black, you know, being with my own- the trauma that has been part of my own legacy. So, all of us being with the discomfort takes us further is my kind of take away and wondered if you had any thoughts about that.  

Rhonda: Oh, Damali. I mean, there's so much. Yes. Absolutely. I do think we are due as a culture and maybe humanity, humankind is due for this kind of adulting process. Whereby we can more deeply stay with difficult things and do hard things together, you know, and yeah, my book is very much about finding that within myself that the kind of leaning into mindfulness practices as a support for looking at what I need to do. That's difficult, right? And sort of, staying, you know, turning toward- this is where my term of color insight comes in, right- rather than being colorblind and turning away from these issues, but actually saying, I want to know, I want to understand. I want to see. I want to be able to sit with, I want to work with race and racism as it’s showing up in my life, right? I don't want to give it more attention or more air than it needs, but I also don't want to ignore it when it does need to be addressed. How can I develop within myself the wherewithal to do that? And you know, it isn't easy and you're absolutely right. I think one of the ways we're seeing this backlash that I alluded to before is, you know, currently showing up in a kind of a backlash against what is called critical race theory, which as a law professor, one of the people who studied and was so inspired by the original critical race theory writings that emerged from law in the late 1980s, 1990s. And then were picked up and masters of education, graduate programs and education. And then became, you know, this other thing, I guess what I'm trying to say is I have an understanding of critical race theory that dates back to and draws on the originators of it. And, of course, I know from all of that that the effort there was simply to provide support for learning about the aspects of our history and including our legal history that help us understand why we are still so caught up in politics and practices of racialization and racial hierarchy. Why are we- why is racism still a feature of our lives? How are we going to understand that problem better? And don't we need to understand that problem better, if we're going to do law and policy that disrupts it, rather than enacting law and policy that simply- as one of the early critical race theorists, a white racialized woman, her name is Riva Siegel, writes, “we want to avoid preserving the status quo of racial hierarchy by transforming it,” right? Which is a pattern she saw. We seem to be preserving it by transforming. You transform from slavery to, you know, peonage and then, you know, and Black codes and segregation. But what stayed the same: the basic outlines of the hierarchy in the way they feed racial capitalists; like that's been our history since enslavement, right? How do we use the ideology of race to amass wealth here, disadvantaged people there, maintain an ability to move capitalism, and then move the political economy. The particular kind of democracy infused with a lot of autocratic leanings for certain people that we don't want to vote, right? How do we- this thing that this kind of democracy that has accommodated racism since our- since the founding, since the Constitution. Critical race theorists have been saying, we need to understand that better and we need to wake up to some of the ways that now, in this era of supposed race neutrality, right? That followed the “disestablishment,” I’m quoting, air quoting, “of segregation.” Like, we feel like we went through a period- Martin Luther King came. We marched. We had the Voting Rights Act. Ended segregation and yet I have my students come to me and say, “wait, when did we end segregation? I went to an entirely segregated school.”  

Damali: Wow. 

Rhonda: Right? We look at the data that show us that schools are more segregated across the country in the South today, actually, than they were during the Civil Rights Movement. We look at the data that shows that our neighborhoods remain segregated and wealth, the accumulation of wealth continues to be disparate in terms of, you know, racial groups. So, we have, in other words, a lot of evidence if we look at the history of what the critical race scholars are pointing to that suggest, we need to be skeptical of claims that race neutrality that we just say, we're not talking about race, right? That means we're not racist. They're like, no, look at your history. Obviously, there is this tendency in law and policy to actually preserve the status quo hierarchies by transforming. And so, let's look at how that happened in the law and how the law allowed it. When we move from slavery to debt, peonages, peonage and Black codes and segregation. Let's look at how the law accommodated the hierarchy all through that. And now, let's look at how the law might be accommodating the hierarchy right now, even though we're in the race neutral period, technically. That's what critical race theory was all about, and it required that you look at history. Like it just said, how can you understand any of this if you're not willing to at least know how we got here and know the history that's often not taught. And there's so much of that. [Damali: Oh, yeah.] Yes, it's meditation. And it's study. [Damali: Oh, yeah.] And it’s being in communities where you can have conversations like this. These are all components of color insight and working well, I think, to disrupt injustice. 

Damali: And you know, something popped up for me as you were talking too, is that I think the fact that we don't learn about this history can be so- we can have this idea that racism is something that is just an issue in the South. We can have this idea that, you know, in California, we're so progressive and liberal. And I remember years ago, learning about, for example, the ways certain neighborhoods were constructed like Palo Alto versus East Palo Alto and that, you know, literally, Black people were not allowed to purchase homes in Palo Alto, which is something that when we look around today, things didn't just happen, you know, like race, they were constructed. It was a design. And I feel like learning about that helps us undo that. It's the learning and getting close to that, that helps us say, well we won't do that again.  

Rhonda: Absolutely! Yeah, exactly. Learning is an ally discipline of meditation. That's the phrase that I learned, inherited, and use here. So, becoming more aware of how history is repeating itself. How our neighborhoods were constructed around racism. Palo Alto. Heck, the house I live in here in San Francisco, right? You know this neighborhood was a neighborhood where those restrictive, racially restrictive covenants, that you talked about having been necessary to form Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. Racially restrictive covenants were a feature of San Francisco and most places in the US and were, you know, were a feature running with the deeds of our homes. And even through sales and transactions, even after the Supreme Court disallowed them, and disavowed them. Neighborhoods wanted segregation for a long time. It was true of this very neighborhood where I am in San Francisco. Where people like, Willie Mays, not far from here actually, was one of the first people to desegregate. And then had neighbors, you know, really harassing him until he and his wife moved out.  

So, you know, our neighborhoods, the lives we live today are infused by these histories more than we realize. So yes, developing a commitment to, you know, pausing, bringing in the ability to stop, notice what's happening in our bodies to help us heal from all of the ways we can be feeling challenged by the pain of these histories, triggered by the legacies of oppression that we see right around us right now. Microaggressions impacting us in our schools and our workplaces. Bringing mindfulness to bear to help us work through all of that. And to find our people that we want to work with, whatever they look like, whatever their background. Because there are people, there have always been people of all racialized backgrounds trying to fight to disrupt oppression. We need to find each other, and we need to be able to work together. So, meditation can help us with the difficulty of that. But we do also need the commitment to study, to learn, and to be in conversations like this, building communities of learning and practice is really another piece of this as well.  

Damali: Thank you. And you know what, this reminds me. I really want to ask a question that takes us kind of from the macro down into the micro with you as a professor in a classroom. In your book, you share a couple, really for me, eye-opening stories about the ways that you make mistakes, the ways that you navigate the challenges that you might be met with. And so, they're a couple stories, one in which you call one of your Latina students by someone else's name and you kind of, in what I felt when I read it was like you kind of doubled down and did it again and then realize, oh, I've made this mistake and I thought to myself, as you described, how you took that in, where you grounded, you acknowledged, you apologized. It made me think of all the faculty members that we have, all the teachers that we have in our community and, you know, moments that they may misstep. And I just thought that was so relatable and vulnerable, actually, for you to share. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about how you navigate your potential to harm in moments like that.  

Rhonda: Yeah. Thank you. That, you know, again. It's a challenge for all of us to try to, you know, minimize the harm that any one of us might do. Because again, we've all imbibed, not just you know, stories of who matters and doesn’t and limited histories, right? Histories that have like, you know, kind of made certain people the victors and the exceptions and then other people constantly denigrated, but we've been miseducated. So, we're working from miseducation, let’s name that. And then our brains as human brains, right? We know, right, the social psychologists tell us we all develop these schemas, stereotypes, right? We move through the world, placing things in categories, based on our experiences, based on information we've been told to kind of give us shortcuts so that we can navigate the world more quickly. I have a scheme in my head we all do for a chair. All right. And I talked about this quite often because that's a kind of a common thing. It's like, you know what a chair is, you don’t every time you see something that looks like a chair you have to stop, recon it, figure out what is that? You know, it's a chair. If you're tired, you can sit in it. The problem is we have schemas for people too that are not unlike this. And in, whereas it works for a chair, we don't want to over invest in investigating what a chair is. We with human beings, we do damage when we put them in categories and then treat them from that place, but the thing is our brains do this, you know?  

So, in the story that I shared, me, having called, yes, a Latinx female student by one name is, you know, I did not use the actual names in the book, but I think I used- maybe the student's name was Rosarita, but I called her Maria. And I, in the book, I talk about how yes, I called her Maria, then I called her Maria again. I'm like, why is she not responding? And she was like, “because that's not my name.” And we had been in conversations in class for months, by that point. So it wasn't that we just met, right? And she and I had many one-on-one conversations. And so, it was very kind of embarrassing- number one, you never want to mess up anybody's name, but it was obvious to me that it wasn't like I had called her Mary, right or some other name. It was a name that had a kind of Latina spin to it, which in- to my own mind, if I am honest in a way that is embarrassing to admit, you know, kind of revealed a little bit of the way, my brain was, like, reaching for stuff, like, with in other words, recognizing that she was of this category that I have. And while I hope and pray that my category for Latina has nothing but beautiful, wonderful things, the risk is that all of us when we have these categories, we imbibe all the kinds of stereotypes and the trainings we have. And the risk is that it can impact how we interact, receive, valorize, respect, uplift, listen to people in these different categories. So, of course, therefore, you know, like everybody else, I want to work to look at the content of my categories, as, you know, was the title of a kind of an important article on this very thing. This very thing that would like we're all walking around operating from these often underappreciated hidden cognitive dynamics. We're all, we're all moving through the world having to work with this.  

So, we all need to work to disrupt our biases as a means of demonstrating how we want to bring mindfulness to bear on minimizing racial harm in the world. So yeah, I pause, notice that this was at stake. Notice that other people were watching. My students were watching. They were being impacted by this and apologized, right? And I've told the story before, and some people have said, why, what, people are too sensitive, you know, we're getting older. We are going to mess up. It's like, well maybe that is true. It's not you know- it is true that it's hard sometimes to remember names and we meet hundreds of students, and we could say all those things and refuse to acknowledge that actually somebody has been wounded by what we said. And so, the invitation is to say, yeah, you might have a way of understanding your intent, my intent, but I also understand the impact and I want to mind that gap between my intention and the impact. And that's what mindfulness means to me.  

Damali: Thank you so much. I do have one more I have to ask you- you know, this thing of trigger, of being- feeling triggered. I think it's so real in this work as well. And in the book, you talk about down-regulating your reactivity when feeling triggered. And I thought to myself, I have practiced mindfulness for a while now and still struggle sometimes with this. And so, I wondered, if you could even give us a high level, a sense of what the steps are when you find yourself in that trigger moment to manage the reactivity.  

Rhonda: Yes. I can. So, I would say one acronym to use here that I use in my book too and talk about is RAIN. It's a teaching acronym that summarizes what mindfulness is meant to offer, right? R, A, I, N. So, somebody says something that's triggering: recognizing, R, the first letter of the RAIN. acronym, just recognize. Oh, my goodness. I can feel the tightness in my chest. The something, you know, the stone in my belly or the, you know, the flush of heat as I'm getting like really angry. Just that this person said this, I'm looking for somebody to look at to be like, did we just hear this? So, recognize that we're feeling some triggering response.  

A, accept for the moment. That's what's happening. The story that I wrote about, it was when you know, an example from my classroom, a student said when talking about writing a paper for a class, I'm going to write about the Rodney King beating and I'm going to write that I think it was deserved. And the student happened actually an AAPI, an Asian American Pacific- Asian American Heritage student, born and raised in California, Southern Cal. And really just put out there that he was going to take this, make this argument and when it was said, it really hit me and I could feel like, you know, part of me wanted to react. But I was able to draw on my mindfulness and notice, “wow, you're at risk here of acting out of alignment with your values as a professor, as a person privileged to hold that responsibility on behalf of everybody, including this one student.” I, you know, felt myself drawing on mindfulness to accept. All right, I'm feeling triggered. But I want to investigate this. I'm feeling a lot of different things. But how can I- but I'm also able to see and then choose how to respond rather than react and so R, recognize. A, accept.  

I, investigate. Well, what's happening? And what can I choose if I'm at my highest and best, in terms of how to respond right here and now. Then N, RAIN, do all of that with as little attachment or identification. Non-attachment, non-identification, you're not trying to tell a story of life. I'm this way, that student’s that way. It's like that was happening in the moment. I've moved through it. I might have subsequent conversations with that student. I might do something else. But in that moment, I navigated it drawing on my influence.  

Damali: Hmm. Wow, I love that story in particular because I’m like, what does she do? How does she handle it? [laughing] Thank you for the example…um…[Rhonda laughs] I do want to close this out with one final- well, a thank you to you. Deep bows of gratitude to you because this has been such- for me, an illuminating conversation. I'm sure for everyone in our audience. They have learned something, there has been a gift in this conversation for each and every person and I wanted to just close out on the principle of Ubuntu. And I hope I said that right. [Rhonda: Yes.] The kinship, the connection; because I think when we delve into such sensitive territory, it can be hard to see that kinship, but I wondered, if you could, just share something about those principles and if there's a practice that you want to connect with that, so that we can just be in the space of mindful connection.  

Rhonda: Thank you. So, Ubuntu, some of you may be familiar with it. And if you're just hearing that word for the first time, you know, I learned this through immigrants from South Africa and I visited South Africa and talked to people there about it. It's a particular philosophy that translates as best as we might in English to recognizing our common humanity with this phrase: “I am because you are. And because you are, I am.” In other words, it's really recognizing our interdependence as human beings.  

And so, in my book, I offer a practice inspired by Ubuntu consciousness, right? This practice which starts with a kind of willingness to turn toward other human beings and we can do this whether someone knows we're doing it or not. We might find ourselves- this is a practice, you can draw on silently if you're having a difficult moment with someone who you feel like you're going to disagree with, but you're trying to find common ground, right? This isn't like somebody's trying to bring out violence against you, but that you’re just disagreeing and around these issues and you’re trying to find common ground. You might pause and just reflect, like, just like me, this person wants to be understood and sometimes is misunderstood. Right? And that's a way of saying we all as human beings go through the world sometimes, trying to be connecting, trying to have someone or something being missed. And so, it's looking in the eyes of a person and saying- and sometimes we do this, as a practice, we pause, we say it out loud- just like me, this person has been misunderstood in life. And you look at the person, you know, it's true and you look into each other's eyes. It's like, oh my gosh, tears could come to your eyes. Just like me, this person struggles sometimes to be the best they can be, and just feels themselves missing their mark, right? We all struggle.  

So, these kinds of- this is just like me is another kind of compassion building practice. Just like me, this person has known discrimination. Just like me, this person has also known love, right? So that's a piece of it. But also, I am because you are and because you are, I am. Literally, we're in this conversation because you all showed up. I'm here with Damali and able to have this conversation because of the questions you ask, the beautiful energy you brought. We are all benefiting, whether here in this conversation live or listening to this later, because we have been here together and we have been shaped in some way, touched in some way by what has arisen only because we happen to be here together.  

So, that is something that is really, really beautiful to remember. For me, breathing reminds me. Taking a conscious breath. I didn't create the air that I breathe, but I depend on many human beings that I know, and don't know for a quality of air that's safe enough that I can breathe it without dying of air pollution today, right? In other words, we live in an environment which as we live and breathe is constantly reminding us of who picked the beans that made the coffee that we drink to wake up this morning, right? We are always relying on human beings' efforts in ways that we don't realize. So, bringing compassion to the awareness that we are all struggling. We're all in a- working together in a world where we are actually cooperating more than we realize. Think of the many ways that just in driving through a town, you avoided accidents because everybody did just enough. I mean, sometimes there are accidents. But most often, right? Right? So, we are much more cooperating than we realize. Remember that. And we are impacting another- each other in ways seen and not seen. So, thank you in the spirit of Ubuntu. “I see you” is another piece of that practice. Rather than just goodbye or hello. “I see you” and I see you, Damali. And I thank you so much for your presence. 

Damali: I see you, Rhonda. Thank you so much. I really have enjoyed this conversation with you again, and it's been rich and generative. So, thank you.  

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Jason McArthur, and Patty Pforte. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
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