Thankyou Fran for your heartfelt and concise words. It really resonated with me that this is just part of the journey and we have to make this path yet unknown... forward. There is great healing yet to be done and these groups are paramount to this process. Personally, I have needed people through which I could relate to with similiar experiences in order to start healing and this is not possible in a group of those who have not had similiar experiences. I feel the benefit of this for me and others like me, and generations to come, far outweighs the potential impact and consequences on others. As a mixed race woman I have often felt the feeling of having to 'explain' myself, and this has often involved my left rational brain. The sheer feeling of being in a room of people who are similiar to you to whom you can relate after a lifetime of exclusion and non-belonging cannot be put into words and cannot be felt through rationality. Thankyou for honoring our feeling and humanness in this intellectualised, rationalised, reductionist western world. Thankyou for having the courage to step forward in this way. It feels that there is much more integrating here beyond the difference of race.. perhaps that of feeling / thinking... Masculine /feminine, rationality/ intuition. You have my upmost respect and support 🙏
Yes! Thank you so much for this Sarah, it's enriching and expanding me to read your words. So much in what you have said here resonates for me, and yes there is so much to integrate here as you say. Masculine, feminine being a huge one, but yes also, left / right brain, which for me can also be translated to heart / mind. We are in a time of needing to work towards bringing together the opposites. I hope you can find spaces where you don't need to explain yourself, and I'm happy to begin offering these for people so they can drop that burden. Thank you so much Sarah, it's great to be on this journey with you.
I hear your heart and feel the truth of what you've said. But you know what? I don't think white people could. I say that not to exclude, but as a result of my own personal experience in your groups. The impact of being part of a group that has been set up intentionally, for me, a woman of colour, was and is visceral - i.e. physically impactful. Now, if I....hadn't really bargained for that kind of reaction....if me, the thirsty one, only becomes aware of that thirst, after quenching it, then how could someone who drinks from a tap every day, ever know my world? When I took my husband to Nigeria, it took him less than a day to get angry about being called Oyinbo (white man) by everyone who saw him - in the markets, streets and shops. Even though they said it with a smile on their face. I felt his pain - and he knew I did. Being the 'only one'. We can only shape a new reality if we share our perceptions of it, with each other - that doesn't mean sharing all the spaces with each other, it means sharing all the meaning that we get from those spaces. I want white people to share in this enhanced understanding of human need, because it's interesting, important and insightful - not just because we are people of colour.
Joanna, thank you for this. I feel enriched by your response, and you articulate this so well. I just feel a big yes to this, yes to you and what you are sharing here. It is a deep human need to feel we belong and are welcome in our uniqueness.
Beautifully said Fran. Its so tiring having to explain these things... There are groups for all kinds of people and circumstances but when its people of colour wanting to have a space and a voice it is not welcomed... As women of colour and mixed heritage, we often have to play it small and adjust our personalities, so as not to be labelled as "the angry black woman". As a mixed heritage woman I have avoided doing the things I love, drumming, singing and dancing because the classes are not mixed, the white people dominate... Why does that matter...? Because it does... It matters to me. There are plenty of white only spaces, they are there by default. Its not about exclusion... If you don't get it, thats ok, you don't have to and I don't have to expend my energy trying to explain it. You did a great job of explaining it Fran, thank you 🙏🏽❤
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Thankyou Fran for your heartfelt and concise words.
It really resonated with me that this is just part of the journey and we have to make this path yet unknown... forward. There is great healing yet to be done and these groups are paramount to this process.
Personally, I have needed people through which I could relate to with similiar experiences in order to start healing and this is not possible in a group of those who have not had similiar experiences.
I feel the benefit of this for me and others like me, and generations to come, far outweighs the potential impact and consequences on others.
As a mixed race woman I have often felt the feeling of having to 'explain' myself, and this has often involved my left rational brain.
The sheer feeling of being in a room of people who are similiar to you to whom you can relate after a lifetime of exclusion and non-belonging cannot be put into words and cannot be felt through rationality.
Thankyou for honoring our feeling and humanness in this intellectualised, rationalised, reductionist western world.
Thankyou for having the courage to step forward in this way.
It feels that there is much more integrating here beyond the difference of race.. perhaps that of feeling / thinking... Masculine /feminine, rationality/ intuition.
You have my upmost respect and support 🙏
Yes! Thank you so much for this Sarah, it's enriching and expanding me to read your words. So much in what you have said here resonates for me, and yes there is so much to integrate here as you say. Masculine, feminine being a huge one, but yes also, left / right brain, which for me can also be translated to heart / mind. We are in a time of needing to work towards bringing together the opposites.
I hope you can find spaces where you don't need to explain yourself, and I'm happy to begin offering these for people so they can drop that burden.
Thank you so much Sarah, it's great to be on this journey with you.
I hear your heart and feel the truth of what you've said. But you know what? I don't think white people could. I say that not to exclude, but as a result of my own personal experience in your groups. The impact of being part of a group that has been set up intentionally, for me, a woman of colour, was and is visceral - i.e. physically impactful. Now, if I....hadn't really bargained for that kind of reaction....if me, the thirsty one, only becomes aware of that thirst, after quenching it, then how could someone who drinks from a tap every day, ever know my world? When I took my husband to Nigeria, it took him less than a day to get angry about being called Oyinbo (white man) by everyone who saw him - in the markets, streets and shops. Even though they said it with a smile on their face. I felt his pain - and he knew I did. Being the 'only one'. We can only shape a new reality if we share our perceptions of it, with each other - that doesn't mean sharing all the spaces with each other, it means sharing all the meaning that we get from those spaces. I want white people to share in this enhanced understanding of human need, because it's interesting, important and insightful - not just because we are people of colour.
Joanna, thank you for this. I feel enriched by your response, and you articulate this so well. I just feel a big yes to this, yes to you and what you are sharing here. It is a deep human need to feel we belong and are welcome in our uniqueness.
Beautifully said Fran. Its so tiring having to explain these things... There are groups for all kinds of people and circumstances but when its people of colour wanting to have a space and a voice it is not welcomed... As women of colour and mixed heritage, we often have to play it small and adjust our personalities, so as not to be labelled as "the angry black woman". As a mixed heritage woman I have avoided doing the things I love, drumming, singing and dancing because the classes are not mixed, the white people dominate... Why does that matter...? Because it does... It matters to me. There are plenty of white only spaces, they are there by default.
Its not about exclusion...
If you don't get it, thats ok, you don't have to and I don't have to expend my energy trying to explain it. You did a great job of explaining it Fran, thank you 🙏🏽❤
Louise it is gold what you have said here: "There are plenty of white only spaces, they are there by default."