Centering Global South: Building racial literacy

How is your Black history month going?? What are you digesting, metabolizing, celebrating?? How are you building your racial literacy? Have you heard black influencers and activists talk about how they get more likes on social media when they talk about trauma rather than when they talk about joy??

The last year I have been using words like Global Majority and more recently using words like Global North and Global South.? Language matters. What we call a conflict, what we call a war, what we call a genocide.? There is power in the language we use, in who is centered and who is viewed as less than.? How much are we thinking about the quiet genocides happening in Africa?? How much pain can we hold and turn towards???

I have been taking in a variety of afrocentric talks that are helping me learn more about the quiet genocides happening in Africa, particularly Ethiopia, Congo and Sudan.? Some sources are ABPsi (Association of Black Psychologists) who do Zola Mondays twice a month on Facebook.? I listened to the conversation between Layla Saad and Tysir Salih (@red_maat on instagram).? I really appreciated the way they talked about anti-black racism and its connection to white supremacy, invisibility and neocolonialism.? Keep eyes on Sudan!

One of the things Afrocentric paradigms say is we are spiritual beings having a human experience.? Ubuntu philosophy says "i am because we are".? How do we reconnect to the ways we are interconnected? Do you notice how little our western media features what is happening in Africa? It fails to show the diversity of Africa.? Did you know that Ethiopia has 80 different ethnicities?? Do you think about Congo when you are thinking about buying a new cell phone?

I saw the movie "origin" again. So worth it. Everyone should see it.? I think what haunts me is the scenes of the middle passage.? The transatlantic slave trade went on for hundreds of years and so many African lives didn't survive or were traumatized for generations to come.? Why don't we as a Global North society center this enough.? Why do we dehumanize those of the Global South?

What else am I up to? Still reading. I have been trying to read more pleasure books to balance out all my nonfiction.? I also read "Israel: a simple guide to the most misunderstood country on earth" by Noa Tishby.? It was good to balance out the books I have read on Palestine such as "100 years war on palestine" by Rashid Khalidi. One of my takeaways was 3 D's of antisemitism: delegitimize, dehumanize, and double standards.? Seems like the 3 D's could be applied to most caste systems and what happens to people who are viewed as low on the caste system.? The ways we oppress and target minoritized groups tends to be similar which is why we must always center the most impacted, the lowest people on the hierarchy.??

There has been a lot of criticism of Brene Brown's blog post about "Israel-Hamas war" from those who care about antiracism, want to challenge anti-arab racism, and want to work towards collective liberation. Here is one?that does a power analysis.? It is by Bo Forbes. With great power comes great responsibility.? I don't think we need to cancel her.? I think her opinions represent huge demographic of white liberal women and there is much work to do.? I appreciate that she was open to comments and being held accountable.

I was asked to run a one hour workshop earlier this month that centered Arab and Jewish tensions with the goal of reducing the emotional charge and reducing antisemitism, anti-arab racism and islamophobia.? I have to say that I was scared to run it.? It is one thing to facilitate conversations in my Antiracism Revolution membership community where we have built the container of how we will show up with each other.? It went well and challenged the imposter in me.? I don't think I could have run that workshop 6 months ago.? I just didn't know enough, hadn't done enough of my own inner work, hadn't had enough embodied dialogues.? It is so easy to do harm even with good intentions. What I feel clear about:

• United States is part of Global North and is steeped in settler colonialism. Its systems and people who support its systems resist collective liberation
• I cannot make people care about all of humanity and work to explore and dismantle the caste systems
• Center anti-black racism across all social justice movements
• We have lots of grief, trauma, and rage to work through
• Centering minoritized groups doesn't make invisible those who aren't being centered even if it feels like that.
• I am grateful for my life and my ongoing process of awakening. I am riding the waves of being committed to antiracism, anti-oppression and liberation.?
• the average white person doesn't have meaningful relationships with Black and Brown people and can turn away from the work of antiracism whenever they want
• I am committed to being a good ancestor and that means what I do while I am alive matters.

Race talk spring series starts on 3/8/24 in Antiracism Revolution.? It is all in the spirit of building our racial literacy, fluency and agility, building community, building our somatic resources and working towards collective liberation.? That means being intersectional, continually doing a power analysis, and having embodied dialogues.? If you want more support on your antiracism journey it is a great time to start.? We are meeting in March, April, and May and there is a 3 hour CE event in June. Learn more https://www.drnatedmond.com/trainings.html