Time to Reflect - Black Lives Matter (10 min read)
The Intensity of Hurt and Pain Can Be Felt
If you live in America it is likely that no matter where you live you can feel, sense, or see the outpouring of pain that began in response to George Floyd’s public killing as a result of police brutality. If you live in another country you may sense the growing depth of what is happening here. This is a conscious and wide awakening to the systemic racist policies (in policing, healthcare, justice, prisons, rehabilitation, education, and beyond) that exist in the U.S. and actively discriminate against the Black community. The States has an opportunity to shift and a new vision can be created. Enough is enough.
From Pain and Struggle Comes Growth
Healing is being sought, yet before that, anger, rage, sadness, fear, and confusion of such magnitude can show up. It is palpable. In homes, in businesses, as individuals, as families, as communities, the volume and display of emotion is immense, and being in America we see this right outside our windows, on TV, and across the internet.
When someone is in pain we have two responses: 1) we want to draw in alongside that person to comfort them, or 2) we recoil and create distance because we don’t know how to respond and we are uncomfortable. In many cases when we choose to come in alongside someone oftentimes we can have the tendency to jump in and want to fix the pain and solve the issue. The intention may be pure, but the action can be misguided and result in more pain. It takes a level of consciousness, self-awareness and courage to draw alongside someone and be present. To sit with them, stand with them, be there in support and not offer advice, or speak, and not tell them what to do.
How to Respond?
George Floyd’s death was shocking and traumatic. We recognized it was a time to grieve, and to share together consciously in mourning the loss of a soul. We chose to be quiet for 7 days in respect and to stand together alongside the Black community experiencing deep pain and hurt, mourning and grieving for George Floyd. Then witnessing insurmountable pain as wounds reopened from the loss of so many other Black individuals throughout decades of American life and history. As Michael B. Beckwith says this is the “conscious evolution” of waking up to the reality of what has been going on.
This was not our time to speak, to have an opinion or direct. It was our time to be present and quiet, to be with the intensity and magnitude of what was happening, not to distract from it, not to turn our backs on it, not to run away from the discomfort of such giant pain, but to sit and be immersed with it. As protests grew, our action came in the form of reflection, learning, reading, and listening to stories and experiences from the Black community. We found voices that challenged us to think, reflect, and consider consciously our own behaviors, our own values, to explore where we contribute and where we do not. We did not form opinions, we remained open to learning and listening. As individuals, parents, family members, friends, colleagues, and strangers to each other - no matter who we are, we all have a role to play.
10,000+ people watched a live webinar on Monday 8th June with Michael B. Beckwith, Dr. Bruce Lipton, Arndrea King, and Kelly Gores as they discussed healing systematic racism in America and Worldwide. Michael outlined four stages in this conscious awakening:
Protests - these peaceful acts and others push the needle to help us become conscious to the issues.
Vision - this describes the stage where the new vision emerges, the steps to reform in policing, healthcare, justice, prison system, rehabilitation, education, and beyond.
Strategy - this helps outline how we will get there, and that we all have a role to play.
Implementation - the active and real shift into a living consciously together.
Arndrea King, wife of Martin Luther King III, reflected on Martin Luther King’s last book, written in 1968, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”, Arndrea highlighted that chaos can look like complete chaos, and yet it is a restructuring to get us to community.
Dr. Bruce Lipton explained that chaos, often seen as random, is actually a pattern. Chaos is watching something come down, but the other side of that is what is building up. The building up is what we want to focus on. A conscious evolution is that we are changing the way we think.
Each and every individual in America and around the world has the opportunity to be part of the shift and to consciously recognize why Black Lives Matter, what White Privilege is, and why reforms are needed to remove racist policies from our societies. We are different from yesterday, and we will be different tomorrow to that of today.
Antiracism & Self Awareness
Racism is real, and so is antiracism. We choose antiracism. As Ibram X. Kendi writes in his book “How to Be an Anti-Racist” that these labels flip flop easily, one day we can act from a point of racism, and the next from the point of antiracism. Ibram helps us understand that:
Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produce and normalize racial inequalities… There is no such thing as nonracist or race-neutral policies. Every policy produces or sustains racial inequity or equity between racial groups.
A racist is one that supports a racist policy through their actions, inaction, or expresses a racist idea, and
An antiracist is one who supports an antiracist policy through their actions, or expresses an antiracist idea.
When we choose antiracism, as White people, in the global community we hold our hand up and say enough is enough. We only know a little, but we want to know more, and we want to act consciously from an antiracist standpoint - every single day.
Excerpt from Ibram X Kendi’s book “How to Be an Antiracist.”
Our emotions affect our thoughts, which affect our behaviors and our choices, and this creates our reality. So then, to be an antiracist, we must commit and be willing to spend time with ourselves, to understand who we are, to challenge the deepest parts of us, to explore what contributes to antiracism and what doesn’t.
We must develop a new sense of self-awareness that we might previously have shied away from because we found it hard and uncomfortable.
For Businesses
Organizations the world over are responding to what is happening here in the U.S. with clear statements of solidarity, intent, and antiracism action. Action is critical: Vote (and find ways to help individuals obtain their voter IDs so they can vote too, hundreds of thousands of Americans, while they have the right to vote, can’t afford to obtain copies of documents that are now required to get a voter ID, or they live in rural areas and the cost of traveling hundreds of miles to an official ID office is prohibitive), ensure team members can take time to vote, create, support, and encourage learning and education opportunities, disrupt and change racist micro and macro policies, invest in Black owned businesses, engage in Black communities, support individuals in identifying how they can help and act, create voice platforms, and choose to be conscious to what is happening on a daily basis.
Organizations must also recognize and accept that for action statements to be become reality, businesses need to give everyone the opportunity to learn how to be self-reflective, and understand why it is critically important. For any business, this is not a short-term initiative, this is life going forward.
Your action then becomes productive and constructive, to make a positive difference together with the Black community, and the world you live in.
It takes studying to learn, reflection to understand, and continual daily practice to make progress. And this is an infinite loop for our entire lives.
Going forward being antiracist is a conscious choice and must come from the heart, first in connection with yourself, and then understanding how you connect with others. An organization is only as capable as the individuals that are part of it (team members and clients alike), and we all have work to do, we are accountable to and for ourselves first, and then to others.
We stand together with the Black community.
During our time of reflection we found a series of articles, books, podcasts, videos, and businesses that helped us learn. We share them with you here.