Unfiltered 3
Hey Reader.
When February comes around, our brain’s automatic default generally zooms in on one single and rather expensive event: Valentine’s day. First off, I would like to clear that I personally have never been super fond of Valentine’s day, especially because I was one of the unlucky elementary school kids that often felt left out of valentine’s day grahams. Also, I think in general people feel left out of the conversation because in many cases, people are single and feel lonely or triggered in some way by the holiday. I mean, in general, holidays tend to trigger people, period. But listen, if you’re reading this and Valentine’s day is your jam and what you look forward to all year, you go glen coco. I am not here to rain on your parade. However, the silver lining here is that year after year I have watched Valentine’s day evolve into a hallmark of self-love and self-worth rather than a hallmark holiday to spend boat loads of money on someone you “love”. Cue Lizzo here, duh.
The thing is, February doesn’t in my opinion revolve around Valentine’s Day at all. February is Black History Month. On my website, I include one of my all time favorite quotes that has shaped my personal relationship with making mistakes and commitment to growth. In addition, this quote time and time again continues to embody how I see my participation in systemic racism and furthermore how I can commit to unlearning all that that has benefited me while excluding BIPOC communities from the conversation :
“ Do the best you can until you know better. And when you know better, you do better.” - Maya Angelou.
Along side many of my close friends, family, and community members, I have chosen to zoom way the fuck out, take a knee and say “oh…..yes I have benefitted heavily from a system that continues to diminish, undervalue, and dismiss BIPOC people from areas of my life I have enjoyed….oh, and just basic human rights.” I have also watched a handful of people I know refuse to take any sort of accountability, and consequently become defensive and complacent. I cannot take back the years I spent benefiting without any sort of inquiry about my part in all of this. Guilt does not propel me forward. And while I have grown up with awareness of my privilege and additionally as a Jewish woman grew up with my own circumstances of adversity, prejudice, and exclusion (especially while attending an all Lutheran high school as its only jewish student), I still continue to choose to live by Maya’s words in the hope of transmuting the power of these words into the power of action.
So where does this leave us on the mat? In a world that so often highlights the luxury of exclusion similar to what we feel on holidays or everyday of our lives contingent on where we come from, we must commit to doing better and including EVERYONE in the conversation. I don’t believe it’s enough to say “we can’t help what we don’t know,” or “ignorance is bliss.” If we don’t know, we must seek. Yoga gives us the power to seek both inward and outside of ourselves. It can support our inquiries if we choose to ask the tough questions and conduct the hard, cringy conversations. So what can we do this Black History month? Educate ourselves. Engage in the hard conversations. Support BIPOC educators, yoga teachers, businesses. Learn from them. Share them. It’s not enough to just absorb all that “black girl magic.” or use Lizzo as a hallmark of self-love. Love is not just a feeling, it requires action and commitment. When we choose to know better, we choose to do better.
Until next time,
Dana A. Spitz
