Will you join me?

Here’s what I mean …. on this Friday June 19 let’s put our dollars consciously into Black (and Indiginous and People of Color) communities.

Juneteenth, June 19 (which this year falls on a Friday) is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States, when news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free, finally reached Galveston, Texas. (2.5 years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, but that’s another story).

The sobering truth is that in the USA, white people (mostly white men) own about 90% of everything.

It’s easy to support them; we do every day, every minute. Let’s consciously support the REST of our communities with our attention and money. Let’s do some leg-work and amplify the work of BIPOC-led businesses and organizations across our regions.

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I know you care.

I know you want to help.

Here’s how.

(Please read this to the end).

“Meet anguish with action.” President Barack Obama

I am shocked, shaky. Anguished.

And I know I’m feeling only a tiny fraction of what non-white, especially Black folks are feeling.

Wobbly though I may feel, I stand.

I stand with the protesters in the USA and now the world. I stand with Black people (and Brown, Indiginous, and People of Color) who have no choice but somehow survive through this shit every day, all day long (and for the last 400+ years) — and who are affected by and dying from COVID-19 at rates 2-4 times of white folks.

I stand with the families of those killed by law enforcement and other agents of racism. I stand with folks on the ground giving real aid and help where it is so needed.

I certainly am no expert, but I want to share where I am in action, and request that you look into these options to see what you can take a strong stand for. If not these, then find others and do them.

1. Get (more) educated.

If the world sees you as white (or non-Black), then you have privilege, bias, and are likely doing massive harm all day long despite your intentions. You also have a responsibility to do better.

Learn about this. Learn more about this. Do your inner work. Wherever possible, learn from Black anti-racism educators directly.

I recommend the following folks because I have read their books, done their trainings, or heard them speak (and am going to take part in them now) AND they have trainings upcoming ASAP.

She Talks, We Talk: Race Talks for Women
30-Day Course with Catrice M. Jackson
Starts June 8.

A crash course for white women to disarm their weapons of whiteness and create anti-oppressive relationships with Black women. Catrice is a Black woman and the author of “The Becky Code.”

Seeing the Racial Water
4-hour workshop with Robin DiAngelo
June 13.

In partnership with Education for Racial Equity (an organization I volunteer for), this is a concentrated training to identify your personal complicity and to understand White Supremacy, Whiteness, White Fragility, systemic racism and the specific ways racism manifests for white progressives. Robin is the author of “White Fragility” and a white woman.

Reparative Community Consultation for White People: A Fundraiser for Somatic Abolitionism with Resmaa Menakem
90-minute training with Resmaa Menaken
June 13.

This fundraiser will address how White Body Supremacy (and racialized trauma) lives in the bodies of white people and what our jobs are to heal from it as well as help create a new culture free from it.

In partnership with Education for Racial Equity, this event will raise funds for the creation of an anti-racist certification program for K-12 educators (as well as community members, parents, and law enforcement) who work directly with Black, Brown and Indigenous babies and children.

Resmaa is a Trauma Specialist and the author of “My Grandmother’s Hands,” a Black man based in Minneapolis (where George Floyd was killed) and often works with law enforcement.

2. Donate

So many places, so much need.

* Donations to Education For Racial Equity

ERE will be hosting two different events for communities of color led by Resmaa Menakem, Erin Trent Johnson and Dr. Ken Hardy (all Black anti-racist educators).

One event will be for all people of color to attend June 27 & 28th to grieve, heal, and be held in community, together. The second event will be a healing space for Black men held by Dr. Ken Hardy and Resmaa Menakem July 25th and August 1st.

ERE would like to make these events free to the communities of color they will be serving. Therefore ERE is looking to raise 50K in the next few weeks, to make this possible. If ERE cannot raise this amount they will have to charge something for these events, to cover the cost of these world-renowned facilitators, however all money raised will go to subsidize the cost for Bodies of Culture/People of Color.
To donate you can email: educationforracialequity@gmail.com or donate directly to their paypal link ERE@inquiringsystems.org

All donations are tax deductible

* NYU Local has collected a short list of local and national organizations where you can donate your money and time.

* Senator Bernie Sanders, in partnership with ActBlue is calling for donations which will be split between The Bail Project, Poor      People’s Campaign, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Mijente, Color of Change Education Fund, and The Citizenship Education Fund.

3. Pass this on, ASAP.

To your friends, mailing lists if you have them, family, communities. As many folks as you can think of. Request they do their version of what you are doing.

4. Breathe.

Settle your nervous system. Care for the beautiful animal of your body and soul. And then, when you’re able — because silence is complicity — stand back up and continue putting skin in the game (pun intended).

With love and care,

P.S. Thank you for all you ARE holding and currently doing, seen and unseen.

“I don’t trust anyone whose eyes have not been opened by The Dark.”

That is a quote from my friend/sister/colleague Vera de Chalambert, from a recent interview I had with her on the wisdom of the dark times we go through and the brokenness we carry.

I’m guessing you are dedicated to being ever-more conscious, woke, and not superficial. But still, it’s likely you’ve already swallowed (and digested) the poison pill that tricks you into believing there is some shiny plan, blueprint, proven program, script, or set of rules that — if you are a diligent devotee — will ensure things will be good, painless, and all fixed up for you.

Good, painless, fixed-up times exist, sure. They just don’t last forever — or for very long, at least in my experience.

And they don’t last for long because that’s the nature of things: to change, to ebb, to shift. It’s the nature of life to include joy AND pain, light AND dark, mending AND breaking. No one escapes this, no matter how shiny the plan.

However, that poison pill likely has you convinced that it’s YOUR FAULT those times don’t last forever, that you haven’t been a diligent-enough devotee to whatever plan, blueprint, proven program, script, or set of rules.

But you are NOT the problem. Really.

Can you remind me? I’ve forgotten. Why exactly should I get out of bed this morning?

Okay, it’s a little less dramatic than all that. I mean, I’m up and dressed and made tea and even eaten the eggs my son didn’t eat from his breakfast. I’m up. I’m at ’em.

But this morning I’m sad and tired and discouraged. Lonely AF.

I got an email from someone wonderful and very famous sharing a recent success in her writing career. I don’t begrudge her success, but the scope of it socked me in the gut and triggered a spiral down to nowhere good.

When it comes to my business and writing career, my “voice” is small. On a good day, the peace I’ve made with that fact shines bright. Not so much on days like today. I’ve been singing at the top of my lungs, giving it everything I’ve got, for nearly two decades. And my “voice” is still barely audible.

I call this my “WHY BOTHER” hole.

WHY BOTHER is what it sounds like when I howl from the bottom of familiar pit that I fall into sometimes, a fall that strangles me and obliterates the sky.

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I was in lower Manhattan a couple weeks ago, and saw something unbelievable.

I was in town on a whim, meeting some friends for lunch at a spot that happened to be a few blocks away from where I lived during my 12 year tenure in NYC as a professional dancer.

How many times in 12 years did I come up to that same street from that same subway platform to be greeted by a huge billboard, usually filled with some high fashion image from Prada or similar that made me feel like crap?

But this time as I looked up I saw something remarkable.

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