- We acknowledge the longstanding and pervasive harm across all aspects of life caused by the delusion of white supremacy and the institutions of white dominance. This harm directly diminishes the safety and wellbeing of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the US.
- We assert that most people in the US are socialized and conditioned through education, media, family culture, and institutional interactions to exist within and protect a racist system.
- We see how this racist oppressive system disconnects all of us from our empathy and humanity, and is deeply damaging to people of all races, orientations, identities and socio-economic backgrounds.
- We commit to taking an active role in dismantling all the various forms of oppression, and vow to reimagine and co-create a fully liberated future for everyone.
We extend this invitation to ourselves, our loved ones, our students, and supporters to step into an evolving, ongoing, committed, pro-active, anti-racist practice. The massive changes needed to restore our collective humanity and affirm the worth and sacredness of all life requires endurance and shared vision. In order to be effective, our efforts must be sustainable and our strategies coordinated.
Our priority is to create a brave space for honest reckoning and mutually supported accountability rooted in love. We know that transformation involves loss, growth includes pain, and learning requires humility and patience. The process of creating space for internal reflection and personal transformation embodies the practice we will need to enact a large scale societal paradigm shift.
We invite you to engage with us in the following journal prompts and thought experiments as we collaborate on this shared journey to liberation. You can use these prompts however you like, as conversation starters, social media posts, artistic inspiration, meditation guides or all of the above. We are inviting open, authentic, vulnerable dialogue and we hope you’ll accept.
Resources
Racial Equity Tools Glossary is a comprehensive list of definitions with sources cited.
Background Information – a list of links to provide context and guidance for racial justice work
- Can you imagine and describe a world free from all forms of discrimination and oppression?
- Do you truly believe that world is possible? How does your commitment to anti-racist work relate to your belief in what is possible?
- Why is anti-racist work important to you, personally and professionally?
- How have you felt stifled or held back in anti-racist work?
- How have you felt empowered and encouraged in anti-racist work?
- How do you relate to your racial identity? How do you feel when thinking or talking about your race and how it’s impacted your life?
- What do you like about your racial heritage and racial identity? What do you dislike?
- How have you benefited from racial inequality? How have you contributed to racial inequality?
Persimmon Herb School is committed to directing the healing powers of yoga, meditation, and herbalism toward the common goal of liberation, defined in Critical Liberation Theory by Barbara Love and Keri Dejong as “the creation of relationships, societies, communities and collective spaces …that support the full participation of each human and the promotion of their full humanness.” We recognize the inherent interconnectedness of all living beings, therefore as Maya Angelou said “No one of us can be free until everybody is free.”