Healing without compassion: An oxymoron of coexistence
A few years ago a friend said to me, “We as Black folks have to ask ourselves, ‘What is our identity beyond fighting white supremacy?’”
That question has stuck with me through the years, and arose in my mind recently in a conversation where folks were asked to ponder the shortcomings of identity politics.
I offered my perception, which was something like the famous Zora Neale Hurston quote, “Not all skinfolk are kinfolk.” Or the more recent quote from Ruha Benjamin, “Black faces in high places won’t save us.”
One person shared that they don’t own any “labels” that could be put onto their existence, in terms of race or any other aspect of their identity. They said that they live in complete harmony with the earth, with no expectations of any person or any day.
I resonated with all these concepts, particularly in the ways that my study of various mindfulness and meditation practices has taught me to endeavor to live in the moment, existing as more of a “witness” to emotions I hold as well as those projected onto me by others, watching them pass by instead of being led by them. This concept has helped me to heal and regulate my emotional self.
I love the fact that this person seems to be inhabiting a truly peaceful existence. They have accessed the fullness of their humanity, in a way that feels fully decolonized, with no relationship to whiteness or any other racial construct — despite being a person this society would categorize as a “POC.” I understand race is a social construct, not a biological reality, and so it feels to me that this person is simultaneously living in the ancient past and the liberated future.
I like that.
And then this person went on to share that they feel that people are, “Looking for a reason to be offended,” these days, and that’s where all the “labels” and identities come into play. And this is where our viewpoints diverged.
Living beyond race vs. living in connection
I understand that race is a construct. I also know from experience that racial oppression is real. And I was raised to believe that all human destinies are deeply intertwined, and that, as MLK put it, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
So even though I live a life of relative privilege, and my life has moved away from the poverty and desperation of my youth towards something that looks like the “American Dream” in terms of stability, my sense of my ancestry, my family and community constantly calls me to reckon with the condition of others.
It’s the sort of concern, a compassion or sense of interconnectedness, that perhaps drove Harriet Tubman and others to make the dangerous trip back down South so many times; the spirit that spurs people to migrate thousands of miles away from their loved ones, in pursuit of safety and opportunities, taking on back-breaking labor yet steadfastly sending home nearly every dime they earn. It’s easy to say, “I don’t see color,” but much harder to find a part of this world that hasn’t been touched by racial capitalism run amok, devastating human lives and desecrating this entire ecology.
I find individual stories to be powerful because they can represent systemic truths. And for me, though this individual’s ability to carve out a beautiful existence feels inspiring, I find myself more compelled by the larger reality conveyed by the millions of people who look like them, and like me, and the truths they testify each day when it comes to the true impacts of climate change, mineral extraction, deforestation, warming and extreme weather. The displacement, violence, disease and desperation our folks experience at the hands of the global colonial project aren’t just complaints.
Kwame Toure once said: “You can never make an analysis of the oppressed in any aspect of their lives and leave out the oppressor. If you do so, you’ll blame the oppressed for their condition.”
So what do we call ourselves, then?
I watched a comedy show recently where the comedian said they hated the term “gender non-binary” because it’s a classification based on what they are not. This reminded me of W.E.B. Dubois’ double-consciousness theory, and the ways that people of color are forced to constantly see ouselves through others’ eyes. In other words, I have been categorized as Black here in the U.S., and though I resent the creation of the white-to-Black caste system, I treasure the culture we have created to sustain ourselves as Black people. And, I constantly have to calculate what my Blackness means to other people, for my safety and survival.
Like the person in my discussion group, I have carved out a stable existence, but I see that as me hitting a kind of lottery as opposed to “achieving” anything in particular. Yes, I found a winning ticket, but I know the system is designed so that millions of others are still desperately playing the numbers, like millions before them. And so until we are all free, I can never have true peace.
Each day I carry a keen awareness that my healing and liberation are incomplete as long as systemic oppression if my people, and any other people, continues to exist. My liberation is tied up in that of all oppressed peoples, from the Gullah Geechee lowcountry of my birth, to the folks in Flint, Michigan, or Jackson, Missippi, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Tigray region of Ethiopia, or Sudan, or the privatized beaches of Jamaica, or the Ethiopian Jewish communities experiencing police brutality inside Israel, or the Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza. The Africans and Caribbeans stuck in Tijuana and other border areas, or adrift in the Mediterranean, seemingly invisible to imperial governments yet hypervisible to human traffickers and other perpetrators of harm. I see us, and I feel us in every cell of my body, no matter how educated or healed I might get to be.
As we talked about labels and identity, I pondered my groupmate’s beautiful and serene face, and I listened to them talk about how they’ve never had to see a doctor in their entire life. I felt in awe of this person— but in the sense that they represent the healing that’s possible for the future, not the ways that I choose to move through the world in the present.
I want to be healthy and transcendent, too. I want my identity to be far away from and above the construct of whiteness. I want white supremacy to be a distant memory.
And yet, in the present time, I hope that the journey of healing never takes me out of community with those who are suffering. May I never rise so high above the limitations of the current imagination, that I lose my ability to be a comrade and co-conspirator in demolishing injustice and constructing abundant futures.
My covenant and prayer
I want to exist like the Sankofa, an Akan term that literally means, “to go back and get it.” One of the Adinkra symbols for Sankofa depicts a mythical bird flying forward with its head turned backward, embodying the spirit and attitude of reverence for the past, reverence for one’s history, and reverence for one’s elders.
According to adinkrasymbols.org: “Sankofa is a gentle admonition that if even in our arrogance we overlook the gems from the past, when we come to our senses we should be humble enough to retrace our steps and make amends.”
I pray that I never outgrow the spirit of sankofa. May I never lose sight of the people, my people, our people. May I always enter every space as a student, with childlike wonder and humble curiosity, yearning to be led by those closer to the margins than I. And may I carry ancient wisdom and knowing with me into the future, leaving behind all the ways we’ve been called to be something other than our inherently precious selves.
May my pursuit of healing not be a descent into numbness, but an ascent into the highest calling we have: the call to care. And may my care not be a passive judgemental savioristic observational care that deigns to throw a few coins of gratuity to the oppressed, but an active tangible and consequential care that compels me to help abolish systems of oppression and build futures ripe with collectivism and mutual aid, bringing my strongest gifts — the wisdom I’ve gained in becoming my own medicine — to our communal table.
May remembrance, repair and regeneration be real. May I always predicate my healing on our collective ability to get free. May interconnectedness always be my identity.
