“When it comes to defending my kids, my husband, my community, my family members—even if I don’t like you and I thought it was unjust—I could really step in and kick some ass. But when it comes to myself, the shutdown is so strong. I almost want to fall asleep.”

Rebecca

“There’s a reason why you can be so passionate about justice—because you know what unjust feels like and looks like and sounds like. Whatever we have to do to survive that stays with us. And we can simultaneously say, ‘I won’t ever stand by and watch somebody I love feel what I felt.’”

Jenny

“I think part of it is how I’ve been socialized as a white woman—you are supposed to be demure and look out for the betterment of other people. And even when women speak up about harm, they say, ‘I didn’t want this to happen to another woman.’ And that’s good—but why isn’t it enough to say, ‘This happened to me, and it’s not okay?’ It’s like we need a surrogate to make it permissible to tell the truth.”

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Trigger Warning: We should mention that parts of this story might be disturbing for some of our listeners.

Dolores Huerta reminds us of the risk still carried in speaking: “I think that women when they do come forward with their stories, that they instead of getting the kind of support that they need, to get attacked, I mean, or they're not believed that we've seen this happen throughout history, and so I think we'll just have to deal with that if it does happen. Hopefully it won't, but if it does, we'll just have to deal with it… have you spoken to the two women who were girls when they were assaulted by Cesar Chavez?” From Latino USA Podcast

In this episode, the hosts move from a light, relatable moment—caring for an anxious rescue cat—into a deeply layered conversation about power, harm, and the complexities of accountability in both personal and societal contexts.

Prompted by emerging allegations surrounding civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, the conversation explores a painful and recurring question: how do we reconcile meaningful social contributions with personal harm, particularly when those in power abuse their position? The hosts reflect on the exhaustion of witnessing repeated patterns of powerful men causing harm, and consider how systems of power themselves may shape or even encourage these dynamics.

Drawing on psychological frameworks like the Stanford Prison Experiment, the discussion examines how dominance, hierarchy, and culturally defined leadership traits may predispose individuals toward harmful behavior. Danielle introduces her theory of “white attachment” as a hierarchical rather than relational system—one that prioritizes proximity to power over mutual connection—resulting in cycles of exclusion, trauma, and disconnection from belonging.

The conversation expands into a broader critique of Western constructs of identity and belonging, particularly the idea that access to power and resources defines inclusion. Rebecca frames “whiteness” not as an inherent trait, but as a system organized around who is granted access and who is denied it—often requiring individuals to sacrifice parts of themselves to belong.

From there, the hosts explore the instability of belonging in American systems—where invitations (to citizenship, safety, or care) are often paired with betrayal. This tension is linked to intergenerational trauma, migration, and the lived reality that safety is never guaranteed, even when promised.

A central theme emerges around accountability: what it is, who enforces it, and whether current systems are capable of holding harm in meaningful ways. The group critiques institutional failures—from government to churches—and wrestles with the limitations of both punitive and individualistic approaches.

In contrast, they reflect on community-based models of accountability, including restorative practices observed in Ugandan communities, where harm is understood as collective and healing involves ritual, reintegration, and shared responsibility. This raises a core tension between individual justice and communal repair—especially in cases of sexual violence, where harm is both deeply personal and socially embedded.

The episode also highlights:

The cost of silence for survivors, particularly when speaking out threatens community stability

The lack of accountability for perpetrators, even when evidence is public (e.g., Epstein cases)

The need to shift cultural responsibility from protecting victims to shaping the behavior and accountability of men

The failure of communities to address early warning signs of harm

Throughout, the hosts resist easy answers. Instead, they hold the complexity of these issues—acknowledging the difficulty of balancing justice, safety, belonging, and repair in a world where harm is both systemic and deeply human.

The episode closes with a recognition that while no clear solutions were reached, the conversation itself reflects an ongoing search for more honest, collective, and humane ways of addressing harm and accountability.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

I think is actually thought provoking. I've seen some conversation around the idea that there was this intentional move to make white women the face of this administration and to do it in a way that is you're woefully unprepared. You maybe even are intentionally ill prepared to take the fall and that that is not a new dynamic for white men.

Rebecca (01:03):

She really can't talk.

Jenny (01:06):

Okay. I'm sorry. We had just talked, so I was not prepared for your voice to sound like that. It sounds great. It sounds great. Yeah.

(01:28):

I know. I know, but I still wasn't ready. I'm sorry, friend. That sucks.

You sound really sorry.

(01:53):

Yeah. No, I like this, Rebecca. I feel like this is so much about what I've been researching and writing for my book is what I'm calling the anatomy of a missionary and looking at how white women were set up as soft power for imperialism and the gender social role that white women serve abroad. I think we're experiencing now what Emma says calls the boomerang of imperialism. And so the roles that white women have taken on in the global south for 50 years plus, we're now seeing those higher levels of power, but it's not actually ... It is levels of power, but it's mostly levels in proximity to male power that are still above those women. So they're always going to be on the sacrificial block whenever they need to be more than the white males in those positions would be, is what I think.

(03:05):

I would call it a position of power so long as the performance is enacted to suit power. And I just read this really great article from Carrie Twigg about how Christine Nome essentially got fired because she couldn't perform on TV well. And Trump is looking to continue to build his media empire and use propaganda to get people to continue to stand behind him, and she didn't perform well. And so it is power so long as you don't mess up, but the second that you don't align yourself with the way that power wants you to. So it's a really precarious power, I would say.

Rebecca (03:56):

See, I would even say, I don't think that's why she got fired. I would say that- And there was no move to find someone that's actually qualified, who had a snowball's chance of performing well on the world stage. So that's why I'm like, I don't think it is as simple as she didn't perform well. She was never going to perform well. And you knew that when you picked her. And so to me, I'm like, what's that choice actually about? It's the same thing now. I heard on the news recently that

(05:09):

Erica Kirk just got appointed to be the chair of the Air Force. I don't know. Some committee, some task force that has something to do with the running of something to do with the Air Force. And all of my apologies for not getting this particular thing specifically right. But my thing is, what do you know about armed forces? Nothing. It's not like you're a former retired Air Force, whatever. You're not. You know nothing about any of this. So again, you're picking someone from jump, blonde-haired, blue-eyed female who is ill-prepared from the very beginning for this very public face of a very armed forces in the middle of a war and your pick is Erica Kirk. Really? What's that set up about?

(06:25):

I'm just saying when it goes left and it will, just like what happened with ICE, it's going to take this turn for the worst that you won't actually recover from. Now you have a sacrificial lamb. You can say that somebody lost their job over this and it makes it look like you are doing something to address a grave wrong and you're not.

(07:12):

And the sad part is that I saw something recently where Stephen Smith, that sports news guy has made this comment about Kamala Harris, like if I hear her say one more time, she told you so. And the thing that I think is interesting is like, you do have these women, in this case, a black woman, who actually has the credentials to weigh in on something in proximity or juxtaposition to these white women who don't have the credentials. And what is that about?

Jenny (07:56):

Well, again, I think it's part of that world and the role that white women have taken on, where it's this double bind where I would say it is privileged and power, or maybe privileged without the power, but it is still sacrificial and it always will be. And I think of like the qualifications, the men, many of them aren't qualified for the roles that they're taking on, but they're likely not going to be sacrificed in the same way that the women will. And I think part of that structure is the cult of domesticity, that white women represent this demure, trad wife aesthetic. So if you get these purity culture-esque white women up there, it's going to make sense in the psyche of people that have been conditioned in Christian nationalism to see this as innocent and pure and good and not question the impacts that those women are actually having in the decisions and the actions that they're doing.

Rebecca (09:14):

That makes a lot of sense in the case of Pam Bonding particularly and Danielle's going Epstein, Epstein, Epstein in chat. It's about the third time. Now it's in all caps, right?

(09:38):

Yeah. I think it makes a lot of sense in the case of Pam Bondi in the role she took on in the Epstein hearing and her just like, "No, I won't turn around and look at these women. No, I will not acknowledge." And if in the American psyche, that face, that voice, that body saying there's nothing to see here is acceptable, then we don't have to have this conversation anymore.

Rebecca (10:16):

Yeah. And I'm not sure anymore quite what to do with the Epstein files. There's a lot of energy around all of this is a distraction from that. And I have a hard time in my mind trying to figure out what is in it that is so bad that you would start a war so the story doesn't come out. What I can imagine is like, "Yeah, well, that isn't new and it won't surprise anybody." So what is there that I can't imagine if that's even a fair sort of frame for this?

(11:08):

I think people are getting lost in the binary of it's the Epstein Files or it's something else. I think it's absolutely that in part. And what is happening right now has been a fever dream of the Christian right since at least the 1970s and apocalyptic readings of the Book of Revelation and certain interpretations that have said, "If Israel takes over all of this land, then Jesus is going to come back," was the rhetoric I grew up with. After nine eleven, it was like most exciting that war was breaking out in the Middle East because this meant that we were ushering in the kingdom of God. And so that is not, not part of it, right? When the military gets sent these letters saying that God has ordained Trump and that 

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Lindsay Graham: https://abcnews4.com/news/local/after-laying-out-a-similar-plan-11-years-ago-lindsey-graham-hails-trumps-iran-operation

https://youtu.be/wjGgrU8g30c?si=Bly_wZswHLJr8gpw

Danielle (00:04):

I saw this thing from Lindsay Graham, this clip, and he was saying what we're doing in Iran now is going to ... And Lindsay Grand is a senator here in the United States. And he said he's going to ... What we're doing in Iran, quote, doing, because they're not calling it a war, they're calling it a special operation. He said is going to set the tone in the Middle East for the next 1000 years. And so you can go into your eschatology and your theology after this, Jenny, but he also then proceeded to say that this is a matter of which religion is going to be predominant in the planet. And they talked about Islam and they spoke about Christianity in those terms. And yeah, I wonder what comes up for you as I even just say those brief few sentences about theologically how we grew up or the frame you come from.

Jenny (01:03):

So much. I mean, so much. I think about how skewed and biased the interpretation of Revelation was in the world that I grew up in. And it was always like fear mongering, like barcodes were the mark of the beast. And then I know people in that same world that said that COVID vaccines were the mark of the beast and just like all of these things. And the mark of the beast was literally the numerical definition of Caesar Nero. It's nothing like we say it is. It was apocalyptic literature that was speaking to the time for a very specific purpose. And yet it has been co-opted. And I really appreciate this book from Bart Erman called Armageddon, and he breaks down the entire historical context for the Book of Revelation and then what has happened to it. And I was thinking about, I was nine, 10 years old when I watched the movie Left Behind with Kirk Cameron and I was terrified that the rapture was going to happen.

(02:16):

And it was only a year or so, maybe it was even in that same year that I watched the two planes hit the world Trade Center buildings on my family's television. And it was the same television I had just watched Left Behind on that year. And so in my little nine, 10, 11 year old brain, I was like, oh my God, those pilots got raptured and me and my mom are here in our living room and that's what happened.That's how quickly and how much that was associated with my consciousness and what I had been conditioned to. There's many more things that come to mind, but those are some of my first thoughts.

Danielle (03:00):

Well, even into my young adulthood, and maybe even now, it's been so ... We had to watch when I was little, we went to church and we watched these scenes of the United ... The rapture had happened. And then if you were left behind, then what would happen to you? And the only image I remember from these movies, and I should look them up, is people confessing Jesus because they wouldn't take the mark of the beast. And then they ... I wasn't even in kindergarten, so they put their heads through this guillotine and then they snapped down and people were beheaded. So I remember watching that at church and then at some point coming home and dreaming that the devil was in my room and then running outside and no one was in the garage. So I thought I'd been left behind. And oddly enough, even though I have moved away from that belief entirely about the rapture, if I wake up and everybody's gone or I'm not expecting it, even to this day, something flashes in my mind, "Oh, I wonder if that happened.

(04:11):

I wonder if I got left. I wonder if I didn't make it. " So those things have a lasting impact.

Jenny (04:18):

They do. They really do. I mean, I often think about ... So nine eleven happened and then that following summer, me and my mostly white dance studio from Colorado Springs was dancing at the Colorado State Fair to the song Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. That's literally about bombing and destroying lives and people. And we were doing punches and kicks in these old Navy American flag t-shirts. And it was, again, this fusion of fear of the rapture with this belief in if Israel takes over all of the land around Palestine, then Jesus is going to come back. And I was so conditioned to be excited about the death and decimation of hundreds of thousands and millions of lives of people. And it is so devastating and infuriating to me to think about the rhetoric of those jihad terrorists over there conditioning children for war.

(05:31):

When I was literally being conditioned for war and the holy war and believing that I was on the side of God and these other people were on the side of Satan, it leads to so much dehumanization and harm. I hate it so much.

Danielle (05:50):

Yeah. It's almost like apocalyptic or ... I come back to the Handmaid's Tale and it ... Have you watched much of it or any of it? Okay. Well, a lot of people, I won't tell you, but it starts off with like, you don't really know what's happening, but they're escaping in their car, this family of three. And over the series, it flashes back so you get more of the story. But as it flashes back, I began to feel like, "Well, why didn't they get out sooner? What stopped them from leaving sooner? What was it? " And you see this progression both of this story about our Congress losing its powers or seeding its authority to a leader. And when I watched the movie, it was before this elect ... Well, watched the show. It was before this election and kind of during last year a bit.

(06:54):

But in my mind, I'm like, "Well, how did that happen?" And then as you watch the Senate vote, literally, and they don't vote to reign in war powers for Trump, you wonder what is happening? It's like not every president, but for this large scale of attack, there's no precedent for a president bypassing Congress and shooting the shit out of something, some other person in this scale and not having Congress involved. I mean, for all of Bush's faults and failures and horrors and lies, I mean, he did try to pitch it to Congress.

(07:33):

And so I'm not a Bush fan anyway, but sometimes I'm like, "Well, that was even better." But then you mix that with Doug Wilson of CREC and Pete Hegseth talking about Armageddon and we're doing this for Jesus. And then it just becomes almost impossible to untangle with people who believe that way. Yeah,

Jenny (07:59):

It does. It does. And the more I learn about Christian nationalism, the more this has been in the works for the last 50, 60, 70 years. And so we're seeing it in a huge, drastic way, but Bush and others that were elected from the moral majority were all part of that really long game plan to get America back to this very white, patriarchal, heteronormative view of Christianity, which in my mind isn't actually Christianity. It's not a historical version that the brown Jewish man from Palestine promoted. It was the bastardization of that when Constantine created this marriage between military and state and Christianity. And I think since 300s, AD, there's been this snowball that's just continued to grow and grow and grow and we're seeing it play out right now.

(09:25):

Yeah. I noticed that it puts me in quite a dissociated state, which is very familiar to me. And I think that's largely what my childhood was, was being dissociated and actually thinking that that was a good thing because this life meant nothing.This was all a means to an end until heaven. And so then even as I say that, I feel grief because I've come to feel that this life is really, really significant. I just watched this beautiful documentary called Come See Me in the Good Light about the poet, Andrea Gibson's Journey with Cancer. And it was such a profound image of how meaningful relationships and love and life are. And I didn't know that in this Christian nationalist world. Relationships were always a means to an end to something. My own body was a means to an end to something. And so it takes a lot of work for me to drop back into my body because of this conversation and because of what's playing out in our world.

(11:21):

And that's really real.

Danielle (11:23):

Yeah. I just went through that first module of SE training. So I'm all over the language, Jenny. I know what you're talking about. Well, talk to me a little bit about an escapable threat then. When you say that, I think most people think, oh, and then their minds are twirling. I know my mind was when I first started learning about it, and it resonated a lot for me, but walk me through how you think of that for you.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

I have been thinking about conversations that I've been having and things that I've been seeing lately about this new found anger and rage for MAGA friends and family members. And I think this facade of hope for a long time that I had been called Hyperbolic and I'd been saying I was overreacting or I was paranoid, and then when things continued to escalate, there was the sense of, okay, now they'll see. Now they'll see. And really feeling like there's pretty much not more that could happen that would lift the veil of where we are in this current moment. And so then to still have family members not rejecting Trump, not rejecting Christian nationalism, not rejecting white supremacy, it has been really challenging to think through what does relationship mean right now? What does it mean from a privileged body too? I'm really hesitant, and Danielle and I have talked a lot about this, that it's a very white thing to be like, ah, I'm just going to not talk to you and I don't feel like that's necessary. And if people are saying, you just need to not talk about politics with me, what does it look like to hold my own integrity and be in relationship with people in this moment? I am struggling to know what that looks like and how to do that.

Rebecca (04:20):

It makes me think I'm getting ready to do, you guys probably saw this, but I'm going to do starting Monday, a group with Jen Murphy, and the name of it is Rebuilding Hope. And I think Hope has something to do with what you just said, Jenny. I am not sure how it plugs in, but I do think there's, what I hear is what do I do? Do I just give into the, they're never going to get there, and what does that mean for our capacity to stay connected in any way? Or do I still hold something of this hope that might even feel foolish in this moment of someday? Maybe somebody's going to get there.

(05:18):

And it reminds me a little bit of, I probably said this before in here too, there's a podcast between a conversation between Tahi cos and Ezra Klein, and in some ways they end up talking about this question of hope, although I don't think they use the word necessarily, but one of the questions that Ezra Klein it keeps asking is like, why do you keep putting everything in this long historical arc? Every single thing that we're talking about in this moment is sort of this question to Tanya. She comes like, why do you keep putting it in this long arc of history? Because that feels too heavy. It's too much, right? That's too dark. And in part I think at least the way I interpret coats as an answer is because that's where you access this kind of hope that over the long arc of history, something will shift and bend towards something that feels like justice. And that's sort of bringing Martin Luther King into this conversation about the long arc of justice. But I think Coates's answer is something of that's where we gather the capacity and the strength from the past in order to actually stay in the present with the kind of insistence for something good to come out of all of this. So I don't know, there's something in that sort of narrative and that history that I want to borrow from to say, unfortunately, this is not a new conversation in this country.

(07:13):

It feels that way because it's new in my lifetime. It's new in our lifetime, it's new in our generation, but it's not actually new to the country. And when you look over time, there has always forever been this strain of Christian nationalism and white supremacy, and yet we are still here and we are still here with moments like Bad Bunny in the Super Bowl still happening. And so I think, at least for me, in part, the answer to your question is I have to borrow from that space in order to have the capacity to stay in this one. And it occurs to me that I was born in the seventies post civil rights legislation by the time I was in high school applying to college, affirmative action was the law of the land

(08:21):

I have lived in. We have lived in the harvest of someone else's labor. We have lived in a time when rights were continually being added to the conversation in our lifetime, women could vote in our lifetime. Women can own property, they can have credit cards, they can hold all of these things. And this is the first time in my lifetime I have lived through a retraction of rights, a retraction of oxygen, a retraction of space, and it feels excruciating, but it's not the first time this country has been through that kind of rhythm and our ancestors survived and we will survive, right? At least for me, that's maybe not an answer to the question of how do you relate to your family? But it's the only way I have to go with it is to just say, somehow we will actually survive this. I don't know how, and I dunno what will be left when we start the process of rebuilding, but I have to borrow from that history to feel like I can breathe on a Thursday morning.

Jenny (10:08):

Yeah. I think that's part of what I am thinking of, and it's almost this existential, what is relationship if we can't see reality, if we can't acknowledge reality, if you're asking me to swallow my own reality and this collective reality, and I think it feels connected even to what you were sharing, Rebecca is like, there's something I feel particular in this moment where as far as I know, I don't have personal ancestry of resistance. I have ancestry of complicity. And so what does it look like to draw from the past with white ancestors who chose to assimilate to adopt whiteness rather than work against it and resist how we got here? Because it is like I don't want to appropriate the civil rights movement and I don't want to appropriate these resistances that I have so much respect for, and they weren't my collective or my ancestral resistance. And so I feel that even in this moment where there's this tension with my white community, my white family, the white spaces, I know it feels like there's so much tension there. I think

Rebecca (11:45):

Mean, the thing that I would say is that when I say the word ancestor as a black American person, I don't actually mean bloodline. And even if I did, I likely couldn't prove it because the records are either lost or weren't created. You can only go so far back before lineage because of the slave trade is not reported as people is reported as property. And so you can't track it past, once you run into slave owner, you can no longer track bloodline. I think what's true in collective cultures is this very broad collective tissue that means blood or not.

(12:53):

You are family that means blood or not. There is a recognition of some connective tissue between us because of our shared collective experience. And so I have no freaking idea if I'm related to Rosa Parks, I'm probably not right. But when I say that I'm borrowing from the strength of my ancestry, I'm still borrowing from her narrative and from what her contribution to our collective narrative. And so I think one of the things that I have noticed in my sort of limited lifespan is that when I say the word ancestry to someone who is white, they hear something very different than what I hear when I say that word. And so I don't feel the restriction of only being able to borrow from the story of people in my bloodline. I feel permission to borrow from the larger, wider collective that is the black American experience, that is the African Diasphoric experience.

(14:08):

And I would say I even feel permission to borrow things from other cultures. And I say this to Daniel all the time, I'm going to steal that from you, right? I'm going to borrow that, right? And I will give credit where credit is due. I will say, I'm borrowing something from the Latinx experience. If you watch the black interpretation of Bad Bunny, literally there's stuff on social media that's like, why do you care? We're not Latinx. And then it cuts to this clip of this, I don't know what it's, it looks like Bad Bunny in a tiny desk concert, but behind him is this black African drummer who's going off. And then the answer is, because I feel this music in my soul. So you can hear that we are intentionally borrowing something that feels familiar to us because we feel permission to borrow it.

(15:13):

And then there's a lot of conversations in the black community about Bad Bunny that's like, I don't need to understand Spanish to feel what cultural pride looks like, and I'm down for that all day long. But you can feel that sense of, I feel permission to borrow something that feels familiar. I won't name it as borrowing, so I won't appropriate it, but I do feel that permission. And so that's probably what I would say to you, not as a pass for what might be true in your actual blood lineage, but I think that there's a strong strain of resistance for people of European descent around race and racism in this country. It's buried and it's untold for probably really intentional reasons, but it's there. And what does it mean to actually be given permission to give yourself permission to borrow from that and to name it as, I'm actually going to pull something from someone else and I'm going to borrow their collective strength. I'm going to add it to mine so that we could go in a different direction.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

At Solid Foundation Story Coaching, we believe that stories shape our lives. Our experiences—both joyful and painful—define how we see ourselves and interact with the world. Story Coaching offers a unique space to explore your personal journey, uncover patterns of hurt and resilience, and gain clarity on how your past shapes your present. Unlike therapy, Story Coaching is not about diagnosis or treatment. Instead, it’s about having someone truly listen—without judgment or advice—so you can process your story in a safe and supportive space. Whether you choose one-on-one coaching or small group sessions, you’ll have the opportunity to share, reflect, and grow at your own pace.

Jenny McGrath: https://www.indwellcounseling.com

I am Jenny! (She/Her) MACP, LMHC I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, Certified Yoga Teacher, and an Approved Supervisor in the state of Washington.  have spent over a decade researching the ways in which the body can heal from trauma through movement and connection. I have come to see that our bodies know what they need.  By approaching our body with curiosity we can begin to listen to the innate wisdom our body has to teach us.  And that is where the magic happens! 

Danielle S. Rueb Castillejo: www.wayfindingtherapy.com

Danielle (00:06):

Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, spirituality. We're jumping here and talking about this current moment. We just can't get away from it. There's so much going on, protest kids, walking out of schools, navigating the moment of trauma. Is that really trauma? So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Danielle, Jenny and Rebecca,

Rebecca (00:28):

A sentence that probably I'm going to record us. Maybe it's fair, maybe it's not. But I feel like everyone is, is traumatized, and I'm only using the word traumatized because I don't have a better word to say. I think there's very little time and space to give this well reasoned, well thought out, grounded reaction to everything because there's the threat level is too high. So trying to ground yourself in this kind of environment and feel like you're surefooted about the choices that you're making feels really hard. It is just hard. And I don't say that to invalidate anybody's choice. I say that just to say everything feels like it's just difficult and most things feel like there are impossible choices. I don't know. It just, yeah, it's a crazy maker.

Jenny (01:45):

I agree with you. And I also feel like it's like we need a new word other than trauma, because Bessel Vander Kott kind of came up with this idea of trauma working with veterans who had gone through the war. We are actively in the war right now. And so what is the impact of our nervous system when we're not going, oh, that's a trauma that happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, but every single day we're in a nervous system. Overwhelmed. Is there a word for that? What is that that we're experiencing? And maybe trauma works, but it's almost like it doesn't even capture what we're trying to survive right now.

Rebecca (02:31):

Yes. And even when you just said the idea of nervous system overwhelmed, I wanted to go, is that word even accurate? I have lots of questions for which I don't have any answers, like minute to minute, am I overwhelmed individually? Is my people group overwhelmed? I don't know. But I feel that same sense of, it's hard to put your finger on vocabulary that actually taps into what may or may not be happening minute by minute, hour by hour for someone. Right? There might be this circumstance where you feel, you don't feel overwhelmed. You feel like you could see with startling clarity exactly what is happening and exactly the move you want to make in that space. And 30 seconds later you might feel overwhelmed.

Danielle (03:35):

I agree. It's such a hot kettle for conflict too. It's like a hot, hot kettle. Anytime it feels like you might be at odds with someone you didn't even know it was coming. You know what I mean? Jude, which just amplifies the moment because then you have, we were talking about you got your nervous system, you got trauma, whatever it is, and then you're trying to get along with people in a hot situation and make decisions. And also you don't want to do things collectively. You just want to, and also then sometimes it needs to be all about this long process, but if ice is banging at your door, you don't have time to have a group talk about whistles. It's just like you can't have a group meeting about it. You know what I'm saying? Right, right.

Speaker 2 (04:37):

I think if you, and I remember us having this conversation in a total other setting about what's the definition of trauma? Is trauma this event that happens or is it the feeling of your system being overwhelmed or any other host of things? But I think if we think about it from the frame of, are the support systems that I have in place either individually or collectively overwhelmed by a particular moment in time or in history, maybe that's a decent place to start. And what I think is interesting about that is that the black community is having this conversation. We are not overwhelmed. This is not new to us. This whether it's true or fair or not. There's a lot of dialogue in the black community about, we've been here before, and so there is this sense of we may not be overwhelmed in the way that someone else might be. And I still don't know what I think about that, what I feel about that, if that feels true or right or fair or honest. It just feels like that is the reaction that we are having as a collective culture right now. So yeah.

It means to be resisting in this moment or taking care of yourself in this moment? Just for you, just for Rebecca. Not for anybody else. Honestly,

Rebecca (06:25):

I have been in a space of very guarded, very curated information gathering since the night of the election back in November of 2024. So part of my selfcare sort of for the last, I don't know what is that, 18 months or something like that, 15 months or something has been, I take in very little information and I take it in very intentionally and very short burst of amount of time. I'm still scanning headlines, not watching the news, not taking in any information that's probably in any more than about 32nd, 62nd clips because I cannot, I can't do this.

(07:38):

Someone, Roland Martin who is this sort of member of the Independent Black Press, said this generation is about to get a very up close and personal taste of what it feels like and looks like to live under Jim Crow. And I was scrolling to the puppies, I cannot absorb that sentence seriously, scroll on the Instagram clip because that sentence was, that was it. I was done. I don't even want to hear, I don't want to know what he meant by that. I know what he meant by that, but I don't want to know what he meant by that.

(08:36):

I a lovely neutral grass cloth, textured, right? The way the light lights off of it be the very little imperfections. It does something to make a space feel really special, but it's still very ated it. Yes. And I would say this is like if you want to try wallpaper, if you don't want the commitment of a large scale pattern just is a great way to go. I think if there's here the jaguar off the top.

Danielle (09:16):

It's interesting when you pose a question, Rebecca in our chat this morning about white America waking up. The people that I've noticed that have been the most aware for me outside of folks of color have been some of my queer elders, white folks that have been through the marches, have fought for marriage equality, have fought for human dignity, have fought as well, and they're just like, oh shit, we're going, this is all happening again.

Rebecca (09:59):

I think that that comes, again, a lot of my information these days is coming from social media, but I saw a clip of a podcast, I don't even know what it was, but the podcast was a black male talking to someone who appeared to me to be a white female, but she could have been something else. She didn't exactly name it, but whatever it was they were discussing like the dynamic between men and women in general. And the male who is the host of the podcast asked the female, what gives you the authority as a woman to speak about men and how they do what they do. And her answer was, and I'm going to paraphrase it, the same thing that gives you the authority as a black person to talk about white people, if you are the marginalized or the oppressed, everything there is to know about the oppressor, things about the oppressor that they don't know about themselves because you need to in order to survive. And so that is what qualifies. That was her answer. That's what qualifies me as a woman to speak about men. And when the sentence that you just gave Danielle, that's what I thought about. If you've ever had to actually live on the margins, something about what is happening and about what is coming from experience, you've seen it. You've heard it, you've heard about it. And

Danielle (12:00):

I was just thinking about, I was just talking about this yesterday with my editor, how for Latinx community, there was this huge farm workers movement that ran parallel to the what Martin Luther King was doing, the civil rights movement and how they wrote letters and solidarity and Dolores Huta, these people in 90, they're in their nineties. And then there was this period where things I think got a little better and Latinos made, it's like all of that memory in large pockets of the United States, all that movement got erased and traded in for whiteness. And then that's my parents' generation. So my mom not speaking Spanish, raised not to speak Spanish, all these layers of forgetting. And then it's me and my generation and my kids we're like, holy shit, we can't tolerate this shit. That's not okay. And then it's trying to find the memory, where did it go? Why is there a big gap in this historical narrative, in recent memory? Because says Cesar Chavez and all those people, they started doing something because bad things were happening for centuries to our people. But then there's this gap and now we're living, I think post that gap. And I think you see that with the two murderers of Alex Preti were Latinos from the Texas border that had come up from Texas and they're the actual murderers and they unli him. And people are like, what happened? What happened?

Are they perpetrating this crime? What does all of this mean? So I think when we talk about this current moment, it just feels so hard to untangle. Just

Rebecca (14:01):

I think you said, I think you said that there was this period where there's all this activism that's parallel to the civil rights movement and then all that disappeared in exchange for whiteness, I think is what you said.

(14:23):

And if I said, if I heard that incorrectly through my cultural lens, please let me know that. But I think that that phrase is actually really important. I think this notion of what whiteness requires of us and what it requires us to exchange or give up or erase it, is something that we need to meander through real slow. And in this moment, we're talking about people of Latino descent in the United States, but we could easily be talking about any other number of cultural groups. And I have to ask that same question and wrestle with those same answers. And I think I saw recently that, again, this probably could have happened anywhere of a dozen places, some part, somewhere in the country, there's some museum that has to do with African-American history and the markers were being taken down.

(15:52):

But you can watch it in real actual time, the required eraser of the story. You can watch it in actual time. If you lay a clip of Alex Pertti's murder up against the Play-by-play that came out of the Department of Homeland Security, and you can watch in real time the rewriting of what actually happened. So your sense of there's this gap where the story kind of disappears. What has it been 60 years since the timeframe and history that you're talking about 1960s. It makes me wonder what was on the news in 1960? Where were they? Where and how did they intentionally rewrite the story? Did they erase markers? Did they bury information?

Jenny (17:16):

Where I have a few thoughts. I'm thinking about my Polish great-grandfather who had an engineering degree, and to my understanding of the family's story, because it's not often told, and he worked in a box factory, not because he wanted to or that's what he was trained for, but in the time that my great grandfather was here, Polish people were not considered white. And even my dad spent most, he spent his childhood, his early childhood, his family was the only not black family in his community. And his nickname was Spooks growing up for his first few years in life because he was the only light-skinned kid in his neighborhood. And then with the GI Bill, Polish people got adopted into whiteness. And that story of culture and community and lineage was also erased. And just the precarity of whiteness that it's like this Overton window that shifts and allows or disallows primarily based on melanin, but not just melanin based on these performances of aligning with white supremacy. And we don't tell these stories because I think going back to nervous systems, I do think,

And I don't think a lot of white bodies want to contend with them. And so then we align more with the privileges that being adopted into whiteness floor to ceiling.

Rebecca (19:47):

You had just finished telling the story with the GI Bill that Polish people got adopted in to whiteness. And that story and that sort of culture, that origin story disappeared off the landscape. And you might not have said the word disappear. That might be my paraphrase.

Jenny (20:07):

Yeah. And I think on a visceral level, on a nervous system level, white bodies, whatever that means, know that story, whether that story is told or not. And so I think white bodies know we could be Renee, Nicole Goode or Alex Prety any day if we choose not to fall in line with what whiteness expects of us. And I think there are many examples through abolition, through civil rights, through current history, it is not the same magnitude of bodies of color being killed. And white bodies know if I actually give up my white privilege, I'm giving up my white privilege. And that the precarity that whiteness gives or takes away is so flimsy, I think. Or the safety that it gives is so flimsy.

Rebecca (21:15):

I mean, I agree with you times a thousand about the flimsy ness and the precariousness of whiteness. Say more about the sentence, white bodies know this because if the me wants to go, I don't think they do. So yeah, say more.

Jenny (21:41):

Well, I will say I don't think it's conscious. I don't think white people are conscious of this, but I think the epigenetic story of what is given up and what is gained by being adopted into whiteness is in our bodies. And I think that that's part of what makes white people so skittish and disembodied and dissociated, is that the ability to fully be human means giving up the supposed safety that we're given in whiteness. And I think our bodies are really wise and there is some self-preservation in that, and that comes to the detriment and further harm because we are then more complicit with the systems of white supremacy.

(22:46):

That's what I think. I could be wrong. Obviously I'm not every white body, but I know that the first time I heard someone say that to me in my body, I was like, yep, I know that fear. It's never been named, but having someone say white bodies probably know, I was like, yep. I think my body does know. And that's why I've been so complicit and agreeable to whiteness because that gives me safety. What do you think, Rebecca?

Rebecca (23:32):

I am probably I'm that am the ambivalent about the whole thing, right? Partly I get the framework that you're talking about. I've used the framework myself, this idea that what your body knows and how that forms and shapes how you move in the world and how that can move from one generation to the next epigenetically without you or spiritually without you necessarily having the details of the story. And also, I'm super nervous about this narrative that I'm nervous that the narrative that you're painting will be used as an excuse to step away from accountability and responsibility. And because I think this sort of narcissistic kind of collapse is what tends to happen around whiteness, where you're so buried under the weight of everything that we can't continue the conversation anymore. And this is the whole why we cannot teach actual American history because some white kids somewhere is going to be uncomfortable.

(25:04):

And so I get it. I got it. And it makes me super nervous about what will be done with that information. And I think I also think that, and this could be that my frame is limited, so I don't want this comment to come off a, but I think there's not enough work around perpetrator categories and buckets. And so where we tend to go with this is that we go, that harm moves you to victim status and then victims get a pass for what they did because they were hurt. There's not enough to me work, there's not enough vocabulary in the public discourse for when that harm made you become a perpetrator of harm as a collective group and as a consistent collective narrative for hundreds of years. And so that makes me nervous too. What I don't want is, and this is I guess part of the same sort of narcissistic collapse is that we go from cows harmed, and I do believe there's significant harm that happens to a person and to a people when they are required to be complicit in their own eraser in order to survive that. I absolutely believe there's massive harm in that. But how do we talk about then that the reaction to that is to become the perpetrator of harm versus the reaction to that is to learn to move through it and heal from it and not become the group that systematically harms someone else. And there's some nuance in there. There's probably all kinds of complexities there, but that's what my head is around all that, what I just said.

Danielle (27:18):

I have a lot of thoughts about that. I think I would argue that it's a moral injury, meaning? Meaning that the conditioning over time of attachment instead of what I wrote to y'all, the attachment isn't built as an attachment to one another. It was reframed as an attachment to hierarchy or system. And therefore for a long time, you have a general population of people that don't have a secure attachment to a caregiver, to people that it's been outsourced to power, basically a church system or a government system that's protecting them versus a family and a community, their culture. And in that you have a lot of ruptures and it leaves a lot of space. If your attachment is to power versus belonging to one another, you're going to do a lot of violent damage. And I would argue that that's a repeating perpetrating wound in the collective white society, that attachment to power versus attachment to community.

(28:48):

That's what I think. I could be wrong, but that's what I've been writing about.

Rebecca (28:56):

That's a pretty brilliant application of individual attachment theory to collective identity and yeah, that's pretty brilliant actually.

(29:09):

That's a very nuanced way to talk about what happens in that exchange of a cultural identity for access to the category. White is to say that you advertise to community and family and you tether and attach yourself to power structures, and then you hold on for dear life.

Danielle (29:32):

You can see it playing out across the nation. It's not that republicans and evangelicals aren't, they're actually arguing against an attachment to community and belonging and saying, we can do these things because we have power now and we're attached to that power. Jesus. They're not attached, I would argue. They're not attached to Jesus either.

Rebecca (30:00):

Now you want to start a whole fight. How is that attachment structure that you're identifying? And I'm going to steal that by the way, and I will quote you when I steal it. How is that a moral injury?

Danielle (30:18):

Well, for me, immoral injury is like someone who goes to war or goes into a battle or goes into a situation and you, at some point, someone consciously violates what they know is right or wrong. And so someone took a whole boat over here, a whole journey to do that. So even the journey itself, there's no way, it doesn't matter if they didn't have social media. It doesn't matter if the pilgrims of whatever we want to call them, colonizers didn't know what was here. They know that on lands there are people, and in that journey, they had a decision that was separating themselves saying, when I get there, I deserve that land no matter what's there. So they had all, I don't know how many months it takes to sail across the sea. It was like a month or a couple months or something. You have all that time of a people becoming another kind of people. I think

(31:25):

That's what I think. You talk about the transatlantic slave trade and that crossing of the water. I think in some ways white people put themselves through that and there's no way, I don't know a lot of ways to explain a complete detachment from morality, but there's something in that passageway that does it for Yeah,

Rebecca (31:51):

I get it. I mean, you're talking about maybe even on the pilgrim ship that landed in Jamestown passage. But

(32:02):

If you read, I saw this in a book written by an author by the name of Jamar Tis. He's talking about the earlier colonial days in the United States, and he's talking about how there's a series of letters that he recounts in the book. And so there's this man that is making the journey from England to the colonies, and he professes to be a missionary of Christianity. And what he's discussing in these letters is sort of the crisis of faith that if I get here and I proselytize someone that I encounter a Native American or an enslaved African I do in their conversion to Christianity, am I compelled to grant them their freedom

(33:04):

And the series of letters that are back and forth between this man and whoever he's conversing with on the con, and you'll have to read his book to get all the historical details. They basically have this open debate in the governing days of the colony. And the answer to the question that they arrive at both legally and religiously or spiritually is, no, I do not. Right? And whatever it is that you had to do to yourself, your faith, your understanding of people to arrive at the answer no to that question feels to me like that moral injury that you're talking about.

(34:07):

Cardiovascular system powers, everything we do.

Jenny (34:10):

I mean, it makes me think, Danielle knows that this is one of the few Bible verses that I will always quote nowadays is Jesus saying, what good is it for someone to gain the world and lose their soul? And I see that as a journey of forfeiting. Whatever this thing we want to call the soul might be for power and privilege.

Rebecca (34:42):

It reminds me of my kids were young and we were having a conversation at the dinner table and something had happened. I think there might've been a discussion about something in the history class that opened my kids' eyes to the nature of racism in the United States. And one of my children asked me, doesn't that mean that we're better than them?

(35:17):

And as vehemently as I could answer him, I was like, absolutely not. No, it does not. It does not mean that, right? Because you feel that line and that edge for a kid, a fourth grader who's learning history for the first time and that edge that would push them over into this place of dehumanizing someone else, even if it's the proverbial they and my insistence as his mother, we don't do that and we're not going to do that. And no, it does not mean that. And my whole thing was just, I cannot have you dehumanize an entire group of people. I can't, I'm not raising kids who do that. We're not doing that. Right. Which is back to Michelle Obama saying when they go low, right?

Rebecca (36:37):

It is that sense of that invitation to a moral injury, that invitation to violate the inherent value of another human being that you have to say, I'm not doing that. I refuse to do that

Jenny (37:18):

I know I'm a few years late and watching this movie, but I just watched the Shape of Water. Have you ever seen it

(37:26):

And there's this line in it where they're debating whether or not to save this being, and the man says it's not even human. And she says, if we don't do something, then neither are we. And this really does feel like a fight for my humanity for what does it look like to reject dehumanization of entire people groups as much as I even want to do that with ice agents right now, and things like that that make it so hard to not put people in these buckets. And how do I fight for my own humanity and willingness to see people as harmful and difficult as they may be as sovereign beings, and what potentials can come if we work to create a world that doesn't split people into binaries of victim or perpetrator, but make space for reparative justice? I don't know.

Rebecca (38:58):

You used the phrase reparative justice, and my thought was like, I don't even know what that is. Trying to even conceptualize any sense of that in this moment is, I mean, again, I heard a podcast of this some white man who I think is probably famous, but it's not in a cultural circle that I run in, not this race, but however he is major Trump supporter publicly in his celebrity is a Trump supporter. And he's talking on the podcast about how watching what has happened with ICE the last couple weeks has changed his perspective that he feels like it's this tipping point in his sentiment that I didn't think things like this were possible in America. And now they are. And the person that he's talking to is a black man who's pissed that you even are saying the sentence, I didn't think this was possible.

(40:04):

Pissed in a way of, we've been telling you this shit for 400 years, excuse my French, you can edit that out and you didn't listen. And if you had listened, we might not actually be here in this moment. And so even that conversation to me feels like attempting to do something of repair in some capacity. And you can feel the two people that are trying to engage each other just be like, I mean, you can feel how they're trying. They're sitting in the room, they're talking, they're leaving space for each other to finish their sentence and finish their thought. And you still just want to go, I want to beat the shit out of you. And I am sure they both felt that way at different moments in the conversation. So yeah,

Danielle (41:12):

We were in the I know. Because it's all like, I know there's all that we talk about, and then when we walk off the screen, when we get into the world, I know Rebecca, you mentioned someone got stopped at a checkpoint or my kids marching around town or Jenny, I know you're out in the wilds of Florida or wherever. I just

(41:38):

Yeah. Yeah. I just think there's all of this we talk about, and then there's the live daily reality too, of how it actually plays out for us in different ways. Yeah. Now I saw you take a breath. Yeah.

Rebecca (41:59):

Do they feel like really disconnected?

(42:19):

I actually think this conversation, I think, and I don't mean this one, I mean this sort of ongoing space that we inhabit in each other's lives is actually a pretty defiant response. I think there's every invitation for us to be like, see, when I see you,

(43:03):

I know that you some stuff going on personally, and you picked up the phone and called me the other night, Danielle, just to say, I'm just checking on you. And I was like, crap. Right. I mean, with everything that I know that you have going on both collectively and personally for you to pick up the phone and call me and go like, I'm just checking on you.

(43:41):

Right? But there's this swirl of, there's a whole conversation the black community is having with the Latino community right now that is some version of, screw this. And you, we not we're, it's not entirely adversarial, but it's not entirely we're doing this dance around each other right now that you could have easily just have been like, I'll talk to you in 27. You could easily have been like, I have too much going on that can't actually tend to this. Whatever it is that you heard in my voice or read on my face that made you call me, you could have chosen not to and you didn't. And that's not small.

Danielle (44:49):

Yeah. Thanks for saying that. I really do believe love is bigger than all of what we say is the hate and the crimes against us. I really do believe every day we wake up and we get to be the best. We get to do the best we can. Jenny,

Jenny (45:26):

I just feel very grateful to know you both. Yeah. I think this to me is part of what fighting for our humanity looks like and feels like in the midst of systems, creating separation of who we should or shouldn't commune with and be with. And I just feel very grateful that I get to commune and be with both of you.

Danielle (46:18):

Oh, good question. Do you ever feel like you're your own coach? So I have the Danielle that's like sometimes I get into trouble that Danielle, and then there's also the part of me that's like, you can do it. You got this, you got it. You can do it, so you're going to make it. So I got the coach. I had to bring her out a little bit more later lately. Also, just like I just got back from watching my kids do this walkout and man, just hearing them scream the F word and jumping around town, blowing whistles and being wild, it just made me, I feel so happy. I'm like, oh, we're doing something right. The kids, they're going to be okay. They know. So I think just I've really tried to just focus on my family and my off time. Yeah, that's kept me going. What about you two?

Jenny (47:31):

I have been doing standup comedy, open mic nights in Pensacola.

(47:40):

And it has been a very nice place for me to release my healthy aggression. Aside from the hosts, I've pretty much been the only woman there. And most of the comedians are racist and sexist, and I get up and give lectures basically. And I've been really enjoying that. It has been a good way of off-gassing and being defiant and giving me some sense of fight, which I've liked to, that has been self-care for me.

Rebecca (48:30):

I would probably say, actually I had to, I have this elliptical, one of those under the desk kind of pedal thingies that, and the other night I had to get on it. I feel like my whole inside was just racing, but then on the outside, I'm just sitting here, all right. And I was like, I have got to get whatever this is out of me. So there was this moment where, and it took probably 15 minutes for my body to actually start to exhale and for my breathing to kind of normalize. And that isn't because I was exerting so much energy. It took that long of just moving to get whatever it is out of me. And then also, I had this really, really great moment with my son, how you're saying, Danielle, that your kids, and then you feel like, oh, they're going to be fine. He was watching a documentary or he is watching a movie, some movie about black history, what he does. And the movie referenced this written communication between two slave traitors, one of whom was in the United States and the other one who was in the Caribbean. And they were discussing how to basically break the psyche of a person so they would remain in slavery,

(50:15):

Which is a crazy sentence to say, but literally they're discussing it back and forth. They're talking about how you bake a cake. And my son read it, and then he came and sat next to me and he was like, did you know about this? Not about the letter itself, the letters, but about the content in them. He was like, did you know this is what they think about us? Did. These are the things that they say and do that are purposely designed to mess with our psyche. And it just spawned this really great conversation for an hour about all kinds of things that made me go, he's going to be all right. In the sense of where I ended up, where I ended up going as his mom was like, yes, I knew. And now the fact that I raised you to do this, or I raised you to do that, or I taught you this or that, or I kept you from this or that. Does that make sense now? And then, yeah, it was just actually a very sweet conversation actually.

Danielle (51:38):

I love that. I do too. It's been real.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Subverting Supremacy Culture in our Practice: Part 2

Friday, January 30, 2026

2:00 PM  4:00 PM

VIRTUAL

https://www.shelterwoodcollective.com/events/subverting-supremacy-culture-in-our-practice-part-2

Working with people means navigating power, race, and trauma.

This workshop will help you notice supremacy culture in the room and resist it. Due to the way Christian nationalism works in the US we create space to engage Christian supremacy and its manifestations of racialized heteronormativity that affects all bodies — regardless of religious or non-religious status. You will learn embodied, relational tools to strengthen your practice and reduce harm. Danielle S. Rueb Castillejo (she/her), Psychotherapist, Activist, Community Organizer; Jenny McGrath (she/her), Psychotherapist Writer, Author, Body Movement Worker; Abby Wong-Heffter, (she/her), Psychotherapist Teacher, Attachment Specialist; Tamice Spencer-Helms, (she/they), Author, Theoactivist, Non-Profit Leader are collaborating to create a generative learning space for therapists, social workers, educators, organizers, spiritual leaders, healthcare providers, and community practitioners. Together we will work with the ways supremacy culture shows up somatically, relationally, and structurally in helping professions. We will examine how dissociation, fragmentation, and inherited oppression narratives shape our work, and develop practices to interrupt these patterns.

This workshop addresses diversity and cultural competence by:

Examining how supremacy culture impacts Black, Indigenous, and People of Color differently than white-bodied practitioners. Naming cultural, historical, and intergenerational forces that shape power dynamics in clinical and community settings. Offering embodied, relational, and trauma-informed tools to practitioners working across racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic differences. Developing the capacity to recognize and intervene in oppression harm while maintaining therapeutic integrity and accountability. Participants will engage in reflective dialogue, somatic exercises, case-based examples, and guided exploration of their own positionality. The intent is not perfection but deepening collective responsibility and expanding our capacity to resist supremacy culture inside our practice and in ourselves. The workshop is designed to meet the Washington Department of Health requirement for two hours of health equity continuing education (WAC 246-12-820).

The Blackfoot Wisdom that Inspired Maslow’s Hierarchy

By Teju Ravilochan, originally published by Esperanza Project

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-06-18/the-blackfoot-wisdom-that-inspired-maslows-hierarchy/

Danielle (00:05):

Be with you. Yeah. Well, it seems like from week to week, something drastically changes or some new trauma happens. It reminds me a lot of 2020.

Jenny  (00:15):

Yeah. Yeah, it really does. I do feel like the positive in that is that similar to 2020, it seems like people are really looking for points of connection with one another, and I feel like there was this lull on Zoom calls or trainings or things like that for a while. People were just burned out and now people are like, okay, where in the world can I connect with people that are similar to me? And sometimes that means neighbors, but sadly, I think a lot of times that means people in other states, a lot of people that can feel kind of siloed in where they are and how they're doing right now.

Danielle (00:56):

Yeah, I was just thinking about how even I have become resistant to zoom or kind of tired and fed up and then all of a sudden meeting online or texting or whatever feels safer. Okay. Again.

About? Just all the shit and then you go out in the real world and do I messed that up? I messed that up. I messed that up. I think that's part of it though, not living in perfection, being willing to be really messy. And how does that play out? How does that play out in our therapeutic practices?

Jenny (01:50):

Yeah, totally. I've been thinking a lot about messiness lately and how we actually come into the world. I think reveling often in messiness for anyone that's tried to feed a young child or a toddler and they just have spaghetti in their hair and everything's everywhere. And then we work so hard to tell kids, don't be messy. Don't be messy. And I'm like, how much of this is this infusion of purity culture and this idea that things should be clean and tidy? That's really actually antithetical to the human experience, which is really messy and nuanced and complicated. But we've tried to force these really binary, rigid, clean systems or ways of relating so that when things inevitably become messy, it feels like relationships just snap, rather than having the fluidity to move through and navigate,

Danielle (02:57):

It becomes points of stop or I can't be in contact with you. And of course, there's situations where that is appropriate and there might be ways I can connect with this person in this way, but maybe not on social media for instance. That's a way that there's a number of people I don't connect with on social media intentionally, but am willing to connect with them offline. So yeah, so I think there's a number of ways to think about that. I think just in subverting supremacy, Abby and I talked a lot about consent and how also bringing your own agency and acknowledging your yeses and your nos and being forthcoming. Yeah, those are some of the things, but what are you and Tamis going to touch on?

Jenny (03:47):

I'd be curious to hear what you think inhibits somebody's agency and why? Because I thought that was so great. How much you talked about consent and if you were to talk about why you think that that is absent or missing or not as robust as it could be, what are your thoughts on that?

Danielle (04:06):

Well, sometimes I think we look in our society to people in power to kind of play out fantasies. So we look for them to keep checking in with us and it, it goes along with maybe just the way the country was formed. I talked a little bit about that this week. It was formed for white men in power, so there was obviously going to be hierarchical caste system down from there. And in each cast you're checking with the powerful person up. So I think we forget that that plays out in our day-to-day relationships too.

(04:44):

And I think it's a hard thing to acknowledge like, oh, I might have power as a professional in this realm, but I might enter this other realm where then I don't have power and I'm deferring to someone else. And in some ways those differences and those hierarchies serve what we're doing and they're good. And in other ways I think it inhibits us actually bringing our own agency. It's like a social conditioning against it, along with there's trauma and there's a lot of childhood sexual abuse in our country a lot. And it's odd that it gets pinned on immigrants when where's the pedophiles? We know where some of them are, but they're not being pursued. So I think all of these dynamics are at play. What do you think about that

Jenny (05:32):

When you talk? It makes me think about something I've just learned in the last couple years, which is like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which has been turned into this pyramid that says you need all of these things before you can be self-actualizing. What is actually interesting is that Mazo sort of misappropriated that way of thinking from the Blackfoot nation that he had been living and researching, and the Blackfoot people were saying and have been saying and do say that they believe we come into the world as self-actualized. And so the culture and the community is designed to help that sovereign being come into their full selves.

(06:20):

And so actually the way that the pyramid was created was sort of the antithesis of what the Blackfoot people were trying to communicate and how they were living. But unfortunately, white psychology said, well, we can't acknowledge that this was from indigenous people, so we're going to whitewash it. We're going to say that Maslow created it and it's going to be wrong, basically. And I'm just thinking about the shift of if we view people and water and plants and animals and planets as sovereign, as beings that have self-actualizing agency, then of course we're going to probably want to practice consent and honoring them. Whereas if we view the world and people as these extractive things and objects, we're going to feel entitled to take what we want or what we feel like we deserve.

Danielle (07:32):

I'm not surprised though that we've extracted that hierarchy of needs from somewhere because as I write about, I've been writing a lot as I think about moral injury and what's happened to our society and how trauma's become a weapon, like a tool of empire in white bodies to use them as machinery, as weapons. One of the things I've thought a lot about is just this idea that we're not bodies, we're just part of the machine.

(08:03):

So then it would make sense to make a form, here's your needs, get this shit done so you can keep moving.

Jenny (08:12):

Totally. We just started watching Pluribus last night. Do you know what this is?

(08:24):

Is this really interesting show where there's this virus that comes from outer space and it makes everyone in the world basically a hive mind. And so there's immediately no wars, no genocide, nothing bad is going on,

(08:43):

Nobody is thinking for themselves except for this one woman who for whatever reason was not infected with the virus.

(08:52):

And it's so interesting and it's kind of playing with this idea of she is this white woman from America that's like, well, we should be able to think for ourselves. And everyone else is like, but wars are gone. And it's really interesting. I don't know where the show's going to actually go, but it's playing with this idea of this capitalistic individuation. I'm my own self, so I should be able to do that. And I know this, it's this place of tension with I am a sovereign being and I am deeply interconnected to all other beings. And so what does agency look like with being responsible to the people I'm in relationship with, whether I know them or not,

Danielle (09:42):

What is agency? I think we honor other people by keeping short accounts. I don't think I've done a good job of that much in my life. I think it's more recent that I've done that. I think we honor other people by letting them know when we're actually find something joyful about what our encounter with them or pointing out something loving. And I think we honor our community when we make a clear yes or clear no or say I can't say yes or no. Why can I tell you yes or no at a later date when we speak for ourselves, I think we give into our community, we build a pattern of agency. And I think as therapists, I think sometimes we build the system where instead of promoting agency, we've taken it away.

Jenny (10:35):

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think I was just having a conversation with a supervisee about this recently. I who has heard a lot of people say, you shouldn't give your clients psychoeducation. You shouldn't give them these moments of information. And I was like, well, how gatekeeping is that? And they were having a hard time with, I've heard this, but this doesn't actually feel right. And I do think a lot of times this therapist, it's like this idea that I'm the professional, and so I'm going to keep all of this information siloed from you where I think it's ethical responsibility if we have information that would help things make more sense for our clients to educate them. And I often tell my clients in our first session, my job is to work myself out of a job. And unfortunately, I think that there's a lot in a lot of people in the therapy world who think it's their job to be someone's therapist forever. And I think I'm like, how do we start with, again, believing in someone's agency and ability to self-actualize and we just get to sort of steward that process and then let them go do whatever they're going to do.

Danielle (11:54):

I think that also speaks to can therapy change? I think the model I learned in graduate school has revolved a lot around childhood trauma, which is good. So glad I've been able to grow and learn some of those skills that might help me engage someone. I also think there's aspects I think of our society that are just missing in general, that feel necessary in a therapeutic relationship like coaching or talking from your own personal experience, being clear about it, but also saying like, Hey, in these years this has happened. I'm not prescribing this for you, but this is another experience. I think on one hand in grad school, you're invited to tell your story and know your story and deal with counter transference and transference and try to disseminate that in some sort of a blank way. That's not possible. We're coming in with our entire identity front and center. Yeah, those are just thoughts I have.

Jenny (12:59):

Yeah, I think that's so good. And it makes me think about what whiteness does to people, and I think a lot of times it puts on this cloak or this veneer of not our fullest truest selves. And I don't even think that white people are often conscious that that's what we're doing. I remember I am in this group where we're practicing what does it look like to be in our bodies in cross-racial experiences? And there's a black woman in my cohort that said, do you ever feel separate from your whiteness? Can you ever get a little bit of space from your whiteness? And I was like, honestly, I don't feel like I can. I feel like I'm like Jim Carrey in the mask, where the more I try to pull it off, the more it snaps back and it's like this crustacean that has encapsulated us. And so how do we break through with our humanity, with our messiness to these constraints that whiteness has put on us?

(14:20):

Oh, tomorrow. Oh my gosh. So I'm going to do a little bit of a timeline of Jenny's timeline, my emotional support timeline. I told Tamis, I was like, I can get rid of this if you don't think it's important, but I will tell you these are my emotional support timelines. And they were like, no, you can talk about 'em. So I'm just doing two slides on the timeline. I have dozens of slides as Danielle, but I'm just going to do two really looking at post civil rights movement through the early two thousands and what purity culture and Christian nationalism did to continue. What I'm talking about is the trope of white womanhood and how disembodied that is from this visceral self and organism that is our body. And to me is going to talk about essentially how hatred and fear and disgust of the black queer body is this projection of those feelings of fear, of shame, of guilt, of all of those things that are ugly or disavowed within the system of Christian nationalism, that it gets projected and put on to black bodies. And so how do we then engage the impact of our bodies from these systems in our different gendered and sexual and racial locations and socioeconomic locations and a million other intersectional ways? As you and Abby talked about the power flower and how many different parts of our identity are touched by systems of oppression and power

(16:11):

And how when we learn to move beyond binary and really make space for our own anger, our own fear, our own disgust, our own fill in the blank, then we are less likely to enable systems that project that on to other bodies. That's what we're going to be talking about, and I'm so excited.

Danielle (16:32):

Just that, just that NBD, how do you think about being in your body then on a screen? There's been a lot of debate about it after the pandemic. How do you think about that? Talking about something that's so intimate on a screen? How are you thinking about it?

Jenny (16:52):

Totally. I mean, we are on a screen, but we're never not in our bodies. And so I do think that there is something that is different about being in a room with other bodies. And I'm not going to pretend I know anything about energy or the relational field, but I know that I have had somatic work done on the screen where literally my practitioner will be like, okay, I'm touching your kidney right now and I will feel a hand on my kidney. And it's so wild. That probably sounds so bizarre, and I get it. It sounds bizarre to me too, but I've experienced that time and space really are relative, I think. And so there is something that we can still do in our shared relational space even if we're not in the same physical space.

(17:48):

I do think that for some bodies, that actually creates a little bit more safety where I can be with you, but I'm not with you. And so I know I can slam my computer shut, I can walk out of the room, I can do whatever I need to do, whether I actually do that or not. I think there sometimes can be a little bit of mobility that being on the screen gives us that our bodies might not feel if we are in a shared physical space together. And so I think there's value and there's difference to both. What about you?

Danielle (18:25):

Well, I used it a lot because I started working during the pandemic. So it was a lifeline to get clients and to work with clients. I have to remind myself to slow down a lot when I'm on the screen. I think it's easier to be more talkative or say more, et cetera, et cetera. So I think pacing, sometimes I take breaks to breathe. I used to have self-hate for that or self-criticism or the super ego SmackDown get body slammed. But no, I mean, I try to be down to earth who I would prefer to be and not to be different on screen. I don't know that that's a strategy, but it's the way I'm thinking about it.

Jenny (19:20):

As someone who has co-lead therapy spaces with you in person, I can say, I really appreciate your, and these things that feel unrushed and you just in the moment for me, a lot of times I'm like, oh yeah, we're just here. We don't have to rush to what's next. I think that's been such a really powerful thing I've gleaned from co-facilitating and holding space with you.

Danielle (19:51):

Oh, that's a sweet thing to say. So when you think about subverting supremacy in our practices, us as therapists or just in the world we are in, what's an area that you find yourself stuck in often if you're willing to share?

Jenny (20:12):

I think for me and a lot of the clients that I work with, it is that place of individualism. And this is, I think again, the therapy model is you come in, you talk about your story, talk about your family of origin, talk about your current relationships, and it becomes so insular. And there is of course things that we can talk about in our relationships, in our family, in our story. And it's not like those things happen in a, and I think it does a disservice, and especially for white female clients, I think it enables a real sense of agency when it's like, I'm going through the hardest thing that anyone's ever gone through. And it's like, open your eyes. Look at what the world is going through you, and we and us are so much more capable than white womanhood would want you to assume that you are. And so I think that a lot of times for white women, for a lot of my work is growing their capacity to feel their agency because I think that white patriarchal Christian capitalistic supremacy only progresses so long as white women perform being these damsels that need rescue and need help. And if we really truly owned our self-actualizing power, it would really topple the system, I believe.

Danielle (21:53):

Yeah, I mean, you see the shaking of the system with Renee, Nicole Goode. People don't know what to do with her. Of course, some people want to make her all bad, or the contortions they do to try to manipulate that video to say what they wanted to say. But the rattling for people that I've heard everywhere around her death and her murder, I think she was murdered in defense of her neighbors. And that's both terror inducing. And it's also like, wow, she believed in that she died for something she actually believed in.

Jenny (22:54):

Yeah. And I were talking about this as well in that of course we don't know, but I don't know that things would've played out the same way they played out if she wasn't clearly with a female partner. And I do think that heteronormativity had a part to play in that she was already subverting what she should be doing as a white woman by being with another woman. And I think that that is a really important conversation as well as where is queerness playing into these systems of oppression and these binary heteronormative systems. And this is my own theory with Renee, Nicole. Good. And with Alex, there is something about their final words where Nicole says, I'm not mad at you. And Alex says, are you okay? And my theory is that that is actually the moment where something snapped for these ice agents because they had their own projection on what these race traders were, and they probably dehumanized them. And so in this moment of their humanity intersecting with the projection that these agents had, I think that induced violence, not that they caused it or it was their

(24:33):

But I think that when our dehumanizing projections of people are interrupted with their humanity, we have a choice where we go, wait, you are not what I thought you were. Or we double down on the dehumanization. And I think that these were two examples of that collision of humanity and projection, and then the doubling down of violence and dehumanization

(25:07):

Yeah. It makes me think of, have you seen the sound of music?

(25:13):

So the young girl, she has this boyfriend that turns into a Nazi. There's this interaction towards the end of the film where he sees the family. He has this moment facing the dad, and he hasn't yet called in the other Nazis. And the dad says to him, you'll never be one of them.

(25:36):

And that was the moment that he snapped. And he called in the other guards. And I think it's making a point that there's something in these moments of humanity, calling to humanity is a really pivotal moment of are you going to let yourself be a human or are you going to double down in your allegiance to the systems of oppression? And so I think that what we're trying to invite with subverting supremacy is when we come to those moments, how do we choose humanity? How do we choose empathy? How do we choose kindness? And wait, I had this all wrong rather than a doubling down of violence. I don't know. Those are my thoughts. What do you think? Well,

Danielle (26:27):

I hadn't thought about that, but I do know that moment in sound of music, and that feels true to me, or it feels like, where do you belong? A question of where do you belong? And in the case of Alex and Nicole, I mean, in some sense the agents already knew they didn't belong with them, but to change this. But on the other hand, it feels like, yeah, maybe it is true. It just set off those alarm bells or just said like, oh, they're not one of us. Something like that.

(27:19):

It's a pretty intense thought. Yeah. My friend that's a pastor there in Minneapolis put out a video with Jen Hatmaker yesterday, and I watched the Instagram live of it this morning, and she talked about how she came home from the protest, and there were men all over her yard, in the neighbor's yard with machine guns. And she said they were trying to block her in, and they came up to her car and they had taken a picture of her license plate, and they're like, roll down your window. And she's like, why? And they're like, I gave you an order. She's like, but why? And then they took a picture of her face and they're like, now you have us in your database. And she's like, I'm not rolling down my window. Because when the last person did that, you shot him in the face

(28:03):

And she said they got out of their car and parked. And the neighbor who, I dunno why they were harassing her neighbor, she described him as a white male, but he was standing there and he was yelling at them to leave. And she said, at this time, there was like 50 neighbors out, like 50 people out on the street. And the ice van stopped, ran back, tackled him, slammed his face into the ice, beat him up, and then threw him in the back of the car and then dropped him off at the hospital or released him or something. And he had to go get wound care. And I guess just thinking about that, just the mere presence of white people that don't fit. I wonder if it's just the mere presence.

Jenny (28:59):

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think part of it is exposing the illusion of whiteness and this counterfeit collaboration that is supposed to mean based on melanin, that if you have this lack of melanin, this is how you're supposed to perform. And I'm really grateful that we have people with less melanin going, no, I would not that we want to die, but if my choice is to die or to give up my soul, I don't want to give up my soul.

(29:50):

I feel my heart pounding. It's scary. And I think there's also grief in the people I love that are choosing to not have a soul right now, to not allow space for their soul that are choosing to go into numbness and to bearing their head in the sand and to saying, we just need to have law and order. And I believe that they were made for so much more than that.

(30:46):

It is painful. I mean, it doesn't go

(30:55):

No, no. I've been watching a lot of sad movies lately because they helped me cry. One of the things that I loved when I was in Uganda was there was people who were professional whalers

(31:12):

They would be hired to come into funerals or ceremonies and just wail and grieve and move the group into a collective catharsis. And I really think our bodies need catharsis right now because there's so much we're taking in. There's so much we're moving through. And I think this is part of the system of white Christian supremacy, is that it has removed us from cultural practices of making guttural sounds together, of riving together, of dancing and shaking and screaming, and these things that I think our bodies really need individually and collectively. What are you doing in your body that feels even like 2% supportive with what we're navigating?

Danielle (32:08):

I don't know. I honestly, I've had a bad week or bad couple weeks, but I think I try to eat food that I know will taste good. That seems really silly, but I'm not eating anything I don't like.

(32:27):

That. Yeah, that's one thing. Yesterday I had a chance to go work out at 12 like I do every day, and I just noticed I was too fatigued, and so I just canceled. I called it in and ate lunch with someone and just, I didn't talk much, but they had a lot to say. So that was fine with me, hung out with someone. So I think, I don't know, I guess it was a hitting two needs for me, human face-to-face connection and also just actual food that tastes good to me.

(33:09):

Yeah. Well, so you're going to put that Maslow resource need in the chat or in the comments. Are you going to send it to me so I can put it in the

(33:21):

And then if people want to sign up for tomorrow and listen to you and Tamis, is that still a possibility?

Jenny (33:26):

It is, yeah. They can sign up, I think, until it's starting. So I don't know for sure. You should sign up for today, just by today, just in case. Yeah, I'll send you that link too.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a five-year-old Minnesota boy on Tuesday as he returned home from school and transported him and his father to a Texas detention center, according to school officials.

Liam Ramos, a preschooler, and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, said at a press conference on Wednesday. Liam, who had recently turned five, is one of four children in the school district who have been detained by federal immigration agents during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in the region over the last two weeks, the district said. portrait of child wearing black polo

Liam Ramos. Photograph: Courtesy of Columbia Heights Public Schools

Liam and his father had just arrived home when they were detained, according to Zena Stenvik, the superintendent, who said she drove to the home when she learned of the detentions.

When she arrived, Stenvik said the father’s car was still running and the father and son had already been apprehended. An agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in, “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”, the superintendent said in a statement.

Danielle (00:02):

Well, Hey, Jenny, how you doing? I'm hanging in there. How you doing? Same hanging in there a part. I think of it as trying to get in or out of a space and hanging by my fingernails on an edge. That's how I think of it sometimes.

(00:27):

One time I told a friend, Hey man, I can do a pull up off a door jam. And they were like, really? And I was just like, yeah. And then they tried to do it repeatedly. Their hands were so sore. I was like, I didn't really mean it. I was just joking, but maybe it's like that doing a pull up off a door jam or something. Yeah,

Jenny (00:46):

I can't even do a normal pull up. I'm working on it. I'm working on my strength.

Yeah. I'm trying.

Danielle (00:53):

Good for you. That's our power.

Jenny (00:55):

That's right.

I am currently in Florida, and so I'm a little worried about this ice storm that's coming through. I think I'm a little bit south of it, so we should hopefully be in the clear, but it's still, you can feel Winter's, the Bruin here.

I know. It's a little scary. We're going to just thankfully be parked somewhere where we don't have to drive for at least a few days just in case.

Danielle (01:33):

Okay, cool. Cool. Will you stay in Florida or what's your trajectory right now?

Jenny (01:38):

Yeah, we're going to be here probably a couple months, and then we'll probably head over to New Orleans. There's a New Orleans book festival. It's a giant book event, so we're excited for that. And then we'll start probably heading back up to the northeast when it starts to warm up again in late spring, early summer.

Yeah. Yeah. So my manuscript is complete and I have sent it to my ideal publisher and they like it and they're going to pitch it by the end of February. So I'm just crossing all my fingers and toes that they all feel like it's a really good fit, and hopefully in about a month from now I'll have a definitive answer, but I have a really good feeling about it. I really value this publisher and yeah, it feels really in alignment with what I'm trying to do with my book.

I am trying to help folks understand that their individual body, specifically white cis women in the United States that has been positioned and conditioned within Christian nationalism is just that it is conditioned and positioned by Christian nationalism. And the more that we become aware of that and conscious of that, the more mobility and freedom we can find in our bodies and hopefully in our country and in our world, so that we can move and breathe and have our being in more free sovereign ways.

Danielle (03:26):

That feels like a little bit of a dream right now, but hey, I'm a dreamer. I'm all over it. Yeah, I'm all over it. I'm all over it. Well, every time we hop on here, I'm always like, oh, what should we talk about? And there's always something really fucked up in the world to dive into, right? Yes.

Jenny (03:44):

Yeah. Yeah. I think what feels so loud is just in the last 24, 48 hours, I don't know exactly the date five-year-old boy was taken with his dad from Minnesota just immediately basically swept away to another state, and so the family and their lawyer, or even just trying to track down where they are, and I am thinking of four and five-year-olds I know in my life and just how young and how tender and how dependent a child is at that age, and I find myself feeling a lot of rage and a lot of grief and a lot of helplessness, a sense of I want to do something and how do we do something? How about,

Danielle (04:40):

Let me just read this to us or to us, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ice detained a five-year-old Minnesota boy. On Tuesdays, he returned home from school and transported him and later his father to a Texas detention center. According to school officials, Liam Ramos, a preschooler and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, said at a press conference on Wednesday, Liam who had recently turned five is one of four children in the school district who have been detained by federal immigration agents during the Trump administration's enforcement surge in the region over the last two weeks. The district said Liam and his father had just arrived home when they were detained. According to Zena Sten, the superintendent who said she drove to the home when she learned of the detentions. Wow.

(05:31):

When she arrived, SVI said the father's car was still running and the father and son had already been apprehended. An agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock on the door, asking to be let in order to see if anyone else was home, essentially using a five-year-old as bait. The superintendent said in a statement, Stenbeck said Another adult living in the home was outside during the encounter and had pleaded to take care of Liam so the boy could avoid detention but was denied. Liam's older brother, a middle schooler came home 20 minutes later to find his father and brother missing. Stenbeck said two school principals from the district also arrived at the home to offer support. Mark Osh, an attorney representing the family, said the family had an active asylum case and shared paperwork showing the father and son had arrived at the US at a port of entry, meaning an official crossing point.

(06:22):

The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out. He said they did not come here illegally. They're not criminals. He said there was no order of deportation against them, and he believes the father and son have remained together. In detention, school officials released two photos of the encounter, one showing Liam in a blue knit hat outside his front door with a masked agent at his side and another showing Liam standing by a car with a man holding onto his backpack. Why did tain a five-year-old, you could not tell me this child is going to be classified as violent criminal. Stevi said. Tricia McLaughlin, director Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, said in a statement on Wednesday night that ICE was conducting a targeted operation to arrest Liam's father, who she called an illegal alien. Ice did not target a child, she said McLaughlin also alleged the father fled on foot, abandoning his child, saying, for the child's safety, one of our ice officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended.

(07:21):

His father. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person. The parent designates. She added the school district provided a statement from Liam's teacher who expressed shock over the boy's attention. Liam is a bright young student. He's so kind and loving, and his classmates miss him. He comes into class every day and just brightens the room. All I want for him is to be back here and safe. The detention of a young child will have ripple effects at Prakash. Once his classmates learned, the government took him away. I'm not qualified to talk about how much damage that is going to cause. It's not just the family. It's the entire community and all those kids who are now going to be facing secondary trauma. Also, on Tuesday, a 17-year-old Columbia Heights student was taken armed by armed and masked agents without parents present.

(08:12):

Stevi said that student was removed from their car. She said in another case, on the 14th of January, ICE agents pushed their way into an apartment and detained a 17-year-old high school girl. And her mother, Stevi said in a fourth case on January 6th, a 10-year-old fourth grade student was allegedly taken by ice on her way to elementary school with her mother. The superintendent said the 10-year-old called her father during the arrest and said the ICE agents would bring her to school. But when the father arrived at the school, he discovered his daughter and wife had been taken. By the end of that school day, the mother and daughter were in detention center in Texas.

(08:48):

Vic reported that as school officials are preparing for a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, an ice vehicle drove to the property of the district's school and we're told by administrators to leave ice agents have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming onto our parking lots and taking our kids stem said the DHS did not respond to inquiries about other arrests and the Port of ICE's arrival on campus. In an interview after the press conference, the superintendent said The arrests and looming presence of vice had taken an enormous toll on students, parents, and school staff. Our children are traumatized. The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken. Stenbeck said, I can speak on behalf of all school staff when I say our hearts are shattered, and our fourth student was taken yesterday. I just thought someone has to hear the story they're taking children. School officials said, some families are choosing to stay home out of fear of ice. Stevi said, school leaders we're working to aid families affected by ice. Our role is to educate children during the school day, but now we're trying to help people navigate this legal system. She added our main priority is to keep children safe. They're children. They're not violent criminals. They're little kids.

(10:01):

Hey, Rebecca. I was just reading the story of little Liam who was used as bait to get his father and other family members arrested, and I hadn't read the story before, but he had apparently they walked this boy up to the door and asked him to knock on the door so they could see if anybody else was home. So yeah, thoughts Jenny, Rebecca,

I think the word ringing in my head is asylum and that this young boy and his family, so many others have already tried to seek out a safer place only to be met with such violence and harm

I think I feel this kind of disbelief that we live in a country where this is what happens in broad daylight and that the conversation we're having as a country is all these ways to justify that any of this is legitimate or humane. And then I feel like I shouldn't be surprised, and I wonder if this is what my ancestors felt like in the 1950s or the 1920s or the 1860s. This kind of way that this is woven into the fabric of American life in a way that it never actually disappears. It just keeps reinventing it and reimagining itself and that every generation falls for that every time. And I don't know how to metabolize that. I can access it academically. I know enough history to know that. And if I try to think about what that felt like and why are we here again, why are we repeating this again? Why are we still doing this?

Danielle (14:04):

Yeah, I guess I used to think, and I think I've said this many times, I just keep repeating it, that some of this would disrupt the MAGA base. And we've even talked a bit together about Marjorie Taylor Green, but I saw a piece on the Atlantic, let me see if I can find the guy's name done by Yer Rosenberg, and it said, the biggest myth about Trump's base and why many believe it, the magma faithful, the MAGA faithful aren't deserting their leader. And it said in fact that it's like over 80% of the same Republican does support this immigration enforcement. They support what the action that happened in Venezuela, they support the hostile takeover, potential hostile takeover of Greenland.

(15:07):

And that some of the pushback we're hearing, but maybe you've heard it by Tucker Carlson or Marjorie Taylor Green is really politically motivated. So these folks can position themselves as successors to Trump because Trump has such a, they're saying Trump has a firm grip on the Republican party. And I think I want to push back and be like, well, we're all individuals making choices at the same time. And if you have 85% of an entire voting block saying, I'm okay with this, then why would it stop? Like you said, Rebecca, there's no reason this is going to stop. We can't wait. These people are not changing their minds now. They can see the violence. If you grew up in California and someone was in Alabama and there was a lynching in Alabama or vice versa, or the Chinese were attacked in California, et cetera, you might not know about it. That's not what's happening right now. There's freedom of information. There's social media. We can see the images and with the images, people are still saying, yeah, I'm okay with that. I think that's what strikes me.

Rebecca (16:27):

And again, I think if you look back historically, it's like we've been okay with this as a country for a very long time, since at the inception of the country, there is a category of people that are three fifths a human, and therefore not entitled to the rights listed under the constitution. We've been okay with this since there was such a thing as the United States of America. And that means that Donald Trump is not the problem. He is the symptom of a problem. He's the current forward face of a problem that has been with us since the very beginning, and that the church in America has sanctioned as biblically acceptable from the very beginning.

Which is crazy, right? But the notion that somehow God or any version of him, it is on the side of this, it is absurd. It just is. Yeah. But again, that's the argument the church has put forth the inception since the colonies, since before there was a United States. The church has put forward the notion that God is on the side of this. And it was a lie then and it is a lie now, but it's one that this country is used to swallowing.

Jenny (19:36):

I am thinking about how almost a year ago now, Sean and I were doing sort of a civil rights circuit. We did Memphis and Birmingham and Montgomery and I, Selma, and then we just so happened as we kind of went through that circuit, we just so happened to be in the major cities that ice rates were happening in Nashville, in Houston, in San Antonio, and we were on the same street the day that children were being ziptied and taken from their court hearings in San Antonio. And we went from there to go visit family who grew me up in a Christian tradition to follow a man who proclaimed good news for the immigrant and for the poor. And I was crying talking about what we had witnessed, what we had physically experienced, not what we had just seen on social media, on news, what we had tangibly seen, the people we talked to and one of these family members.

(21:07):

The next thing they said was, I think I just saw a raindrop and they were so dissociated and disconnected from themselves, from me, from our relational field, from what was going on that I was just like, if we cannot have this conversation, what hope is there? Where do we put our hope in? How, again, I think a big part of why I am so passionate about this is because of the person that I grew up learning Jesus was and trying to emulate that. And then to see this fracture in those that call themselves Christians and Jesus followers unwilling to even engage what's going on right now. It is so distressing. And I honestly, yeah, like you're saying, I don't think it's new though. I think that somehow this marriage of Christianity and militarization and conquest has been a powerful force, I think really since Constantine and there's, I dunno what it will take to reckon with that.

Danielle (22:37):

I mean, clearly I think Jenny, you point, information is not enough for people to change even what we could call facts. We can't agree on those facts. So if you take the church scene, I watched it. I actually watched it live last weekend. I was interested in it and I saw him say, we don't know where we're going. His car, his jeep actually got caught in a lot of snow and they were pushing it out. They got in, they were very clear like, Hey, we're just here observing this protest. We're here watching. And they watched and they went, and he has it on Instagram and TikTok, I think Don goes up to the pastor that's there, not the pastor that's associated with ice. And the pastor puts his hand on Don and starts to push him and Don says, do not touch me. Don't touch me.

(23:34):

Don't push me. I'm not invading your space. But I think that's the visceral response. It's like, let me push away this reality. In my mind, that's the actual thing happening. It is not that Don is seen as a person in that moment. I don't believe that. I don't believe he saw him as a person. I think it was more as I thought about it and I got the chills thinking about it. It's like, let me just push away whatever reality you're walking in with, I want nothing to do with it. And I mean, what really struck me about that too was it was black clergymen in there protesting for Renee. Good. I'm like, oh, this is what it is. It's black independent media showing up and doing this reporting. Yeah, it was very interesting. Rebecca, did you watch any of that?

Rebecca 24:34):

I did. And I saw a clip of a prisoner walking out of the building saying, I just came here to worship God, and that got disrupted and I'm upset about It was the gist. I mean, that's my paraphrase. But again, I don't know what has to happen to a person, to a people theologically, psychologically, emotionally, physiologically for you to not see, not believe, not metabolize, not feel what you're actually witnessing. And the answer to that is rather scary to me. What you have to believe is true about the God that you claim to serve what you have to believe is true about the people that he created in order to turn a blind eye to what you're not only witnessing but actually participating in to the extent that omission or silence or inaction is actually participation. It is a little scary to me what that means about the American church in this moment. I don't know what to say about that.

Jenny (27:52):

I was going to say last Sunday we had the opportunity to go to Ebenezer Baptist, which was the church that MLK was a pastor of. Did we talk about that on here? Not really,

(28:07):

Yeah. And Warnock gave the sermon for the day and it ended with Renee good's face up on the screen where the worship music usually shows and him talking about what it means to account the cost in this moment and to stay the course in this battle that we're in. That's very real and very serious. And to be in that place in MLK's old church on the week that Renee Goode was murdered, it just was both kind of just a reality check, but also encouraging to just be as scary and loud and big and gaslighting as all of this is. We've been to 44 states in the last two years, and there are amazing people in every single one of them doing incredible things and looking at the community in Minneapolis with their whistles, with their defiance, with their sledding competitions, just to see the various ways in which defiance and resistance is taking place. I feel like that has been something that has been giving me a thread of hope in the midst of everything.

Danielle (29:51):

Yeah, I think I was thinking that yesterday. There's so much piled up trauma and so many people that are disrupted by it, as they should be, and so much, I was talking to someone the other day and they're like, I'm anxious. I'm like, I'm anxious too. How could you not be anxious even if you're kind of oblivious? I feel like the waves just travel. But I mean, not to be trite, but I think I listen to Jamar Tse a lot and he was talking about one way to combat despair is building your community has to hold hope. You can't do it by yourself. So taking action or reflection or being with other people or talking it out or showing emotion. I think those are real things. And I dunno, I guess coming back to therapy, just kind of that ingrained sense of you can't take an action to get out of your situation or change things, but I don't know where I learned that or picked that up, but I think that taking an action when you feel like shit actually does help. It's going on a walk or going for a run, and I don't know the chemistry to this, maybe you know it more than me, but something starts busting loose in the chemistry, and even if it doesn't last forever, it changes for a minute.

Don't know. Do you know what changes or what the chemistry is for that?

Jenny (31:30):

Yeah. Well, I think that there are few things more distressing for our nervous system than immobility. So at least when we are protesting or we're running or we're lifting weights or we're doing something, it's letting our body feel that sympathetic fight flight energy that's like, well, at least I can do something and I might not be able to escape this situation. I might not be able to change it, but I can feel a little bit more movement in my own body to figure out how I can maneuver in and through it.

(32:14):

And so even that, as we do that, when we do move or exercise, we're releasing a lot of adrenaline and cortisol. We're working that through our system, and we're also producing a lot of natural opiates and feel good chemicals. So there is something very real and physiological to lately I've been just needing to go do the stairs machine at the gym, and I've just been like, I need to walk up a mountain and feel my body be able to do that. And yeah, it doesn't last forever, but maybe for a couple hours afterwards I'm like, okay, I feel good enough to stay in this and not check out. And I had a friend send me something today that was talking about how a lot of people think they're overwhelmed and we are going through something that's overwhelming. And a lot of that overwhelm is actually that we're taking in so much and we're not doing anything with it.

(33:21):

And so whether or not what you do changes or fixes it, you actually need some way to let your body process the adrenaline, the stress, the cortisol, and all of those things. And that, I think helps our body. If we look at cultures across the globe when they've been preparing for war, look at the haka and these dances that are like, they're not in it. They're not fighting the war, but they're doing something to let their bodies feel in connection with other bodies to feel their strength and to get prepared for whatever they need to be prepared for.

Danielle (33:59):

Right. Yeah. That's so cool. Every time I watch that dance, I'm like, oh, I wish I had that. But I feel like the Seahawks kind of provide that, just that yelling or screaming or whatever.

Jenny (34:18):

Totally. Or going on a roller coaster. There's not a lot of places we have permission to just scream. I do in the car a lot while I'm driving. I'll just be like, and it really helped a lot.

Danielle (34:34):

It's so interesting how we can go from that intense story though, hit the church stuff and then the conversation can come back to here. But I do think that's a reflection of how we kind of have to approach the moment too. There's no way to metabolize all the stuff in the article. It's deeply overwhelming. One aspect probably couldn't be metabolized in a day. I dunno. Does that make sense?

Yeah. How are you looking at the next week then, Jenny, as you think of that, even that kind of structure we went through, how do you imagine even the next week? It's hard to imagine the next week. I feel like we never know what's going to happen.

Jenny (35:15):

I know I feel very grateful that we're in a place where we have really good friends and community and support. So this week looks like dinners with our friends, engaging what's going on. We're very close to this really local bookstore that gets letters from folks in prison about what kind of book they want. And then you go find the book and you pack it and you mail it to them. What

(35:52):

So we're going to volunteer in there and send some books to folks in prison and just do things. And it's not changing everything, but I believe that if everybody focused on doing the right thing that was right in front of them, we would have a much different world and a less associated apathetic world. I plan on going to the gym a lot and working out, getting buff, working out my running may or may not be disrupting some more standup open mic comedy nights. We'll see. Post

Speaker 1 (36:31):

What about you? What's your week look like?

Danielle (36:39):

I tend to set, I tell myself I love the weekends because Saturdays and Sundays are my days full days off. So I tend to tell myself, oh, I can't wait for that. But then in the week I tell myself, these might seem silly, but I say, oh man, there's so much hard stuff. But then I tell myself, I don't want to rush a day because I really like to see my kids. So then each day I think, well, I have work that's cool. I have these other tasks. And then when I get outside of work, I look forward, I try to tell myself, oh, I'm going to eat something I really like. I'm going to give my kid a hug. I'm going to hear about their day.

(37:16):

I like to lay flat on my back after work, even before I eat, just to kind of reset. I look forward to that moment. Seems silly. I like that at noon every day. Usually reserve my time to work out. And even if I don't push myself hard, I go just to hug the people. And sometimes I get there early and I sit in a corner and they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm mentally warming up. So those are the kind of things, it sounds mundane, but I need really basic, dependable rhythms. I know I can execute.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guess what? I really have to go to the bathroom.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Season 6 episode 18 rebecca  j...and therapy - 1_8_26, 10.27 AM

Thu, Jan 08, 2026 10:40AM • 57:28

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

emotional metabolization, existential threat, destabilizing changes, social media, information overload, Venezuela crisis, racial identity, colonization, anti-blackness, white privilege, immigration policies, historical context, white supremacy, interdependence, narrative control

SPEAKERS

Speaker 3, Speaker 1, Speaker 2

Jenny  00:30

I think something I'm sitting with is the impossibility and the necessity of trying to metabolize what's going on in our bodies. Yeah, and it feels like this double bind where I feel like we need to do it. We need to feel rage and grief and fear and everything else that we feel, and I don't think our nervous systems have evolved to deal with this level of overwhelm and existential threat that we're experiencing, but I do believe our bodies, Yeah, need space to try to do that, yeah,yesterday, I was sitting at, I don't know what's gonna happen to people anyway,

Rebecca  01:45

Pretty good. I'm okay. It like everyone. I think there's just a lot of crazy like and a lot of shifting to like, things that we could normally depend on as consistent and constant are not constant anymore. And that is like, it's very,

02:11

I don't even have a word I want to say, disconcerting, but that's too light. There's, it's very destabilizing to to watch things that were constants and norms just be ripped out from underneath. People on like, every day there's something new that used to be illegal and now it's legal, or vice versa. Every day there's like, this new thing, and then you're having to think, like, how is that going to impact me? Is it going to impact me? How is it going to impact the people that I care about and love? Yeah,

Danielle  02:52

Jenny and I were just saying, like, maybe we could talk about just what's going on in the world right now, in this moment. And Jenny, I forgot how you were saying it like you were saying that we need to give our bodies space, but we also need to find a way to metabolize it so we can take action. I'm paraphrasing, but yeah,

Rebecca  03:30

And I would agree, and something else that I was thinking about too is like, what do you metabolize? And how do you metabolize it? Right? Like, in terms of what's happening in Venezuela, I have people that I count very dear to me who feel like it was a very appropriate action, and and people who are very dear to me who feel like absolutely not. That's ridiculous, right? And so, and I'm aware on that particular conversation, I'm not Venezuelan. I'm not I'm very aware that I stand on the outside of that community and I'm looking in on it, going, what do I need to know in order to metabolize this? What do I not know or not understand about the people who are directly impacted by this. And so I, like, I have questions even you know about some of the stuff that I'm watching. Like, what do you metabolize and how do you come to understand it? And in a place where it's very difficult to trust your information sources and know if the source that you're you're have is reliable or accurate or or complete in it, in its detail, it feels those are reasons why, to me, it feels really hard to metabolize things i.

Jenny  05:06

There's this like rule or like theory thing. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it's essentially like this, this graph that falls off, and it's like, the less you know about something, the more you think you know about it, and the more confident you are. And the more you know, the less confident you are. And it just explains so well our social media moment, and people that read like one headline and then put all these reels together and things talking about it. And on one hand, I'm grateful that we live in an age where we can get information about what's going on. And at the other end, like, you know, I know there, there's somewhere, some professor that's spent 15 years researching this and being like it is. There's so much here that people don't know and understand. And yeah, it feels like the sense of urgency is on purpose. Like that we just have to like it feels like people almost need to stay up to date with everything. But then I also wonder how much of that is whiteness and this idea of like, saviorism and like, if I'm just informed, then I'm doing my duty and like what I need to do and and what does it look like to slow down and be with things that are right in front of US and immediate, without ignoring these larger, transnational and global issues. Yeah, it feels so complicated.

Rebecca  06:55

I do think the sense of urgency is on purpose. I think that the overwhelming flood of information at this time is not just a function of like social media, but I think, I think the release of things and the timing of things is intentional, I think, and so I think there's a lot of Let's throw this one thing in front of you, and while you everybody's paying attention to that, let's do 10 other things behind closed doors that are equally, if not more, dangerous and harmful than the thing that we're letting You see up front. And so I think some of that is intentional. So I think that that sense of almost flooding is both about social media, yes, but it's also about, I think some of this is intentional, on purpose, flooding

Jenny  08:01

I think it's wise to ask those questions and try to sort of be paying attention to both what is being said and what is not being said.

Rebecca  08:16

Yeah, it may makes me think, even as you named Venezuela like my understanding is that that happened either the day of or the day before Congress was supposed to explain why they had redacted the Epstein files, and it just the lengths that they will go to to distract from actually releasing the files and showing the truth about Trump and Epstein and everyone else that was involved is,

Speaker 2  08:52

well, yeah, yeah, yes. And there's something in me that also wants to say, like it what happened around Venezuela might be

09:32

and its natural resources is not a small thing. And then I was reminded today by someone else, this is also not the first time this country has done that. It might be the first time it was televised to the world, but so I don't Yes on the distraction. And I agree with you times 1000

10:09

hard about this moment, is that there's all this stuff that's happening that's like absolutely we would be looking at, how do you possibly put any of that in any sense of order that it makes any sense? Because, yes, the FC, I mean, it's horrific. What we're talking about is likely in those files, and if they are that intent on them not coming out, if it's worse than what we already know, that's actually scary.

Danielle  10:44

Yeah, I agree that this isn't new, because this is it feels like, you know, Ibram X kendi was like, talking about, hey, like, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about. And it feels as though, when we talk, I'm just going to back up, there's been this fight over what history are we teaching, you know, like, this is dei history, or this is, you know, critical race history. But in the end, I think we actually agree on the history more than we think. We just don't disagree on where we should take it. Now, what I think is happening is that, and you hear Donald J Trump talk about the Monroe Doctrine, or Vance talk about Manifest Destiny, or Stephen Miller, these guys talk about these historical things. They're talking about the history of colonization, but from a lens of like, this was good, this was not a mistake. Quote, slavery was not necessarily a bad thing. You have like Doug Wilson and these other Christian nationalists like unapologetically saying there was slavery. It's been throughout all time. This was, quote, a benefit people, you know, you have Charlie Kirk saying, you know, in the 1940s like pre civil rights movement, quote, I think he said, quote, black people were happier. He has said these things. So in my, in my mind, yes, they, they're they're saying, like, we don't want X taught in schools. But at the same time, they actually, we actually kind of agree on history. What we don't agree on is what we should do with it, or or who's in com, who's in control. Now, I think what they're saying is, this was history. We liked it, and we don't like the change in it, and we're just gonna keep doing it. I mean, they literally have reinstated the Monroe Doctrine, which is so racist, it's like, and manifest destiny is like, so fucked up to, like, put that back in place, like Rebecca said, I'm not, I'm not negating the murder that just happened in Minneapolis, but this concept that you you can tell who's human and that these resources belong to us, the only person human in the room, then, is the White man. I don't know. Does that make sense? It

Rebecca  13:24

makes me think of you know, when you talk about sort of identity formation, or racial identity formation, when you are talking about members of the majority culture and their story is, is this manifest destiny? Is this colonization and and the havoc and the harm that that they engaged in against whole people groups in order to gain the power? Do they, sort of, on a human level, metabolize the their membership in that group, and what that group has done the heart the and that it's come by its power by harming other people, right? And so in order to sort of metabolize that you can minimize it and dismiss it as not harmful. So that's the story, that slavery is not a bad thing, and that black people are happier under slavery, right? You can deny it and say that it didn't happen, or if it did, it wasn't me. That's Holocaust deniers, right? That didn't happen. I think what we're looking at now is the choice that some of the powers that be are making in order to metabolize this is to just call what is evil good, to just rewrite. Not the facts, but the meaning that that we draw from those facts. And then to declare, I have the right to do this, and when I do this, it makes me more powerful, it makes me a better leader, and it establishes rules and norms about right versus wrong. I think they're rewriting the meaning making as a way to kind of come to terms with what what they've done. And so I think that statement by the Vice President about you no longer have to apologize for being white in this country is actually about more than an apology. That was that is now, a couple of weeks later, after watching what happened in Venezuela, watching what happened in Minneapolis, watching what they're doing about Greenland, you go like, that's just a statement that we're going to do whatever the heck we want, and you cannot stop us, and we will do it without apology, and we will make you believe. We will craft a narrative that what is wrong is actually right,

Jenny  16:43

it just, it's, it's wild to me that our last time, or two times ago that we were talking, I was talking about Viola liozo, who was the white woman who drove black people during the bus boycott and was murdered, and the what feels like is being exposed is the precarity of white privilege, like it is Real. It exists, and so long as white people stay within the bounds of what is expected of them, and Renee good did not and I think that that is it

Rebecca  17:36

exposes what's already true, that I think racism and race are constructs to protect the system, and so if, no matter what your melanin is, if you start to move against the system, you immediately are at risk in a different way, and yet still not in the same way. You know, like there are already plenty of people who have died and been disappeared at the hands of ice. What happened is not new. What is new is that it did happen to a white woman, and it reveals something about where we are in the fulcrum, tip, I think, of of power and what's happening?

18:30

because I think the same, like you said, is true during the Civil Rights Movement, right that in there, they're really they're most of their stories we don't know. There's a handful of them that we know about these, these white the people who believe themselves to be white, to quote on history codes, who were allies and who acted on behalf of the Civil Rights Movement and who lost their life because of it. There's probably way more than we know, because, again, those are stories that are not allowed to be told. But it makes me wonder if, if the exposure that you're talking about Jenny is because we were at some sort of tipping point right, in a certain sense, by the time you elect Obama in oh eight, you could make the argument that something of racial equality is beginning to be institutionalized in the country, right? I'm not saying that he solved everything and he was this panacea, but I'm saying when the system, when the people in the system, find a way to bring equilibrium. That's the beginning of something being institutionalized, right? And, and, and did that set off this sort of mass panic in the majority culture to say that that cannot happen? Mm. Yeah, and and, so there is this backlash to make sure that it doesn't happen, right? And to the extent that it's beginning to be institutionalized, that means that some members of the majority culture have begun to agree with the institutionalism of some kind of equilibrium, some type of equity, otherwise you wouldn't see it start to seep into the system itself, right? And it means that there are people who open doors, there are people who left Windows cracked open there, you know, there are, right? I mean, somebody somewhere that had the key to the door, left it unlocked, so, so that, so that a marginalized community could find an entrance, right? And and so it does make me think about, are we? Are we looking at this sort of historical tipping point? And what's being exposed is all these people are the majority culture who are on the wrong side of this argument. We need you to get back in line. I mean, if you read ta nehisi Coates book, eight years in power, he makes a sort of similar argument that that's what happened around reconstruction, right? You have the Emancipation Proclamation being signed, slavery is now illegal in the United States, and there's this period during reconstruction where there's mass sort of accomplishment that happens in the newly freed slave community. And then you see the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the very violent backlash. This is not going to happen. We're not. We're not. And when, when I say what happened during Reconstruction, is like again, the beginning of the institutionalizing of that kind of equilibrium and equity that came out of the Emancipation Proclamation. Right? My kids were part of a genealogy project a few years back, and one of the things that they uncovered is they have a ancestor who was elected to this

22:27

and while he was in office, he was instrumental in some of the initial funding that went to Hampton to establish Hampton University, right? And so that's the kind of institutionalized equity that starts to happen in this moment, and then this massive violent backlash, the rise of the Ku Klux, Klan, the black codes. We this is not going to happen. We're not doing this right. And so it does make me wonder if what we're actually looking at the exposure that you're talking about, Jenny is like the beginning of the this sort of equilibrium that could happen when you when things start to get institutionalized and and the powers that be going No way, no How, no dice, not doing that.

Danielle  23:21

I think that's true, and especially among immigrant communities. I don't know if you know, at the beginning, they were saying, like, we're just going after the violent criminals, right? And this morning, I watched on a news source I really trust, a video of a Somali citizen, a US citizen, but as a Somali background, man pulled over by ice like he's an Uber driver in Minneapolis. And they like, surrounded him, and he's like, wait a minute, I thought you were going after the violent criminals. And they're like, Well, you know, like, Are you a US citizen? He's like, Well, where's your warrant? And they're like, we're checking your license plate. He's like, well, then you know who I am. And then they want him to answer, and they keep provoking and they're like, Oh, you have a video on us. And he's like, Oh, you have a GoPro. He's like, I thought you were just going after violent criminals, you know? And they're like, no, we want to know if you're a US citizen. So in a sense, you know, there was all this rhetoric at the beginning that said, we you have to do it the right way. And I remember at the very beginning feeling afraid for Luis like, oh, man, shit, we did this the right way. I don't know if that's really guarantee. I don't think that's a guarantee of any guarantee of anything. And it's not doing well paying all the bills like it's expensive to become a citizen. It is not easy. Paying all the bills, going to the fingerprints, get in the test, hiring a lawyer, making sure you did it. Like cross, all your T's dot, all your eyes, just to get there and do it. And then they're saying, you know, and then they're saying, Well, prove it. Well, what do you have on your record? Or people showing up after having done all that work? They're showing up to their swearing in to be US citizens. And they're saying, Sorry, nope. And they're like, taken by ice. So you can see what you're saying. Rebecca first, it says violent criminals. Yeah, and you know, you have to have like, an FBI fingerprint background check. You had to do this, like, 10 years ago. Whenever Luis became a citizen, that's like, serious shit, you get your background check. So by the time you're into that swearing in, they know who you are, like you're on record, they know who you are, so they've done all that work. So this is not about being a criminal. This is about there's somebody successful that's possibly not white, that has done all the right things, paid all the fees, has the paperwork, and you don't like them because they're not white. And I think that's directly related to anti blackness.

Rebecca  25:40

Yeah. Say more about the anti blackness, because we started this conversation talking about Somalis and and Somalis are only the latest target of ice, right? It started with people of Latino descent. So how does that for you come down to anti blackness? Oh, for me,

Danielle  26:02

I see it as a as a projection. I can't tolerate my feelings about, quote, people of color, but let's be more specific about black people, and I can't tolerate those feelings. And for a time, I think we were in this sliver of time where it was not quite it was still like gaining social momentum to target black folks, but it was still a little bit off limits, like we were still like, oh, it's the criminals. Oh, it's these bad, bad guys. I know it's just the Latinos or, Oh, it's just this, this and this and this. But then if you notice, you start watching these videos, you start noticing they're like, they're grabbing, like, Afro Latinos. They're like, they're like, pushing into that limit, right? Or Puerto Rican folks they've grabbed, who are US citizens? So now you see the hate very clearly moving towards black folks. Like, how does an untrained $50,000 bonus ice agent know if, quote, a black person, quote, you know, if we're talking in the racial construct, has a Somali background or not, right? Right? It actually feels a little bit to me like grooming, right?

Rebecca  27:24

I I've asked myself this question several times in the past couple of years, like, and if, and I think some of the stuff that I've read like about the Holocaust, similar question, right? Was like, is racism really the thing that is that is driving this or is it something else, like at the at the heart of it, at the end of the day, are you really driven by racialized hate of someone that is different than you? Or is that just the smoke screen that the architects of this moment are using because you'll fall for it, right? And so I do think like you start with the criminals, because that's socially acceptable, and then you move very quickly from the criminals to everybody in that ethnic group, right? And so you see the supreme court now saying that you can stop and frisk somebody on the basis of a surname

28:22

or an accent,

Rebecca  28:26

right? And it feels very much like grooming, because what was socially acceptable was first this very small subset, and now we've expanded to a whole people group, and now we've jumped from one country to another, which is why I think you know MLK is quote about injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. If you're going to come for one subset, you will eventually come for everyone, until the only subset is those in power versus those that aren't.

Danielle  29:05

Or just, let me just ask you this question then, so you got he's enforcing immigration bans on certain countries. Guess who the where the majority of those countries are located, Africa. Now, why didn't he do that with Latin the Latin America? It's very interesting,

Rebecca  29:29

and my fear is that it's coming right again. It's socially acceptable in this country to be anti black. Everyone understands that, and then you move from anti black to anti everybody else. And what you say is this, this people group is closer to black than white, and for that reason, they're out too, which is also not a new argument in this country.

Jenny  29:58

It makes me think of someone you. To this illustration, then I will not get it probably exactly how it is, but it was basically like if I have a room of 10 people, and I need to control those 10 people, I don't need to control those 10 people. I need to make a scapegoat out of three of them, and then the other seven will be afraid to be that scapegoat. And I feel like that is a part of what's going on, where, viscerally, I think that, again, like white bodies know, like it is about race and it's not about race, like race is the justification of hatred and tyrannical control. And I really love the book by Walter Rodney, how Europe underdeveloped Africa. And he traces like what Europe, and I would include the US now has done to the continent of what is so called Africa, and it didn't in the end, that it was used to create race and racism in order to justify exploitation and of people and resources. And so it's like, yeah, I think at the end of the day, it's really not about race, and it is because of the way in which that's been used to marginalize and separate even from the construction of whiteness, was to try to keep lower socioeconomic whites from joining with formerly enslaved black people and indigenous people to revolt against the very few people that actually hold power, like there are way more people that lack power. But if, if those in power can keep everyone siloed and divided and afraid, then they get to stay in power.

Danielle  32:01

That's where I come back to history. And I feel like, I feel like these guys like JD Vance and Stephen Miller love our history and hate the parts of it that are leading towards liberation. For people, they love that they love the colonization. They talk about it. They've there's a fantasy. They're living in, this fantasy of what could be, of what was for one set of people, and that was white men. And they're enacting their fantasy on us in some ways, you know, I think the question of, you know, Jenny, you always deal with bodies, and, you know, you're kind of known for that shit, I think, I think, just like, but the question of, like, who has a body when, when? Like, when does the body count? You know, like, when does it matter? And it feels like that's where race becomes really useful,

33:09

because it gets to say, like, you know, like, that white lady, that's not really, that's not really a murder, you know. Or, you know, George Floyd, like, Nah, that's not really it, you know, just com, and they knew there's so many other lynchings and murders. Like, we can't cover them all. I just think it's just speaks to, like, who, you know, another way to say it'd be like, who's human and who's not.

Jenny  33:42

And like I sent you. Danielle, there was a post yesterday that someone said, those white lives matter. People seem to be really silent right now. And it just exposes, like the the hypocrisy, even in that and the, I think, the end of not the end, because racial privilege is still there, but, but this moment is exposing something, I think, as you're naming Rebecca, like it feels like this really scary tipping, and maybe hopeful tipping, where it's like there's enough, maybe fear or grasping of power, that there's enough desperation to execute a white woman, which historically and now, I think it says something about where we are in this moment. And I don't know exactly what yet, but I think it's, it's very exposing.

Rebecca  34:43

Yeah, but my what floats across my mind when you say that is really what has been the narrative or trajectory for white women? Because I think if you start to pull on stories like Emmett Till.

35:01

Soul, and you realize what has been done in the name of protecting white women that doesn't actually feel like protection, right, right? And so, so again, you almost have this sense of like white femininity being this pawn, right? And you and you can have this narrative that that sounds like it's protection, sounds like it's value, but really it's not right. I only pull that out and use it when it when it gives me permission to do what I really want to do, right?

35:43

And so in this moment. Now, you know, I mean, Emmett Till died because he was accused of looking inappropriately at a white woman, right? More recently, that incident with the the bird watcher in Central Park, right? I mean, his freedom is is under threat because of a white woman and, and then how do we go from that to ice killing a white woman and, and what like you said? What does that actually say about the value of white women, Was it, was it ever really recognized by the powers that be, right? Or is that like a straw man that I put up so I can have permission to do whatever I want?

Jenny  36:36

Absolutely, yeah, I think the trope of protecting white womanhood. It's it's always given women privilege and power, but that is only in proximity to white men and performing white womanhood. And you know, as you were talking about, the rise of lynchings, it did begin after reconstruction, and it really coincided with the first movie ever shown in theaters, which was Birth of a Nation they showed, yeah, white men in blackface, sexually assaulting a white woman, and the absolute frenzy and justification that that evoked was, we're protecting our white women, which was really always about protecting racial and class privilege, not the sovereignty of the bodies of white women,

Rebecca  37:33

right, right? And so we're back to your original thought, that what now is exposed, you know, with what happened in Minnesota is it's not really about protecting her and she's expendable. She is, quote, a domestic terrorist

37:56

now so that we can justify what we're doing,

Jenny  38:15

which I think subconsciously at least white bodies have always known like there is something of I am safe and I am protected and I am privileged, so long as I keep performing whiteness.

Rebecca  38:39

I mean, the thing that scares me about that moment is that now we've gone Danielle from the criminals to the brown skinned citizens to white women who can be reclassified and recast as Domestic Terrorists if you don't toe the line, right? They're coming for everybody, because, because now we have a new category of people that ice has permission to go after, right? And again, it reminds me, if you look back at the black codes, which, again, got established during that same time period as you're talking about Birth of a Nation, Jenny, it became illegal for black people to do a whole host of things, to congregate, to read all kinds of things, right to vote, and in some states, it became illegal for white people to assist them in accomplishing any of those tasks. I Yeah,

Danielle  39:53

I mean, it's just the obliteration of humanity like the. Literal like, let me any humanity that can you can connect with your neighbor on let me take that away. Let me make it illegal for you to have that human share point with your neighbor. I really, that really struck me. I think it was talking about the the Minnesota mayor saying they're trying to get you to see your neighbor as like, less than human. He's like, don't fall for it. Don't fall for it. And I agree, like, we can't fall for it. I'm mean, it's like that. I

Jenny  40:45

don't know if you know that famous quote from Nazi Germany that was, like, they came for the Jews. And I didn't say anything because I wasn't a Jew. They, you know? And we've seen this, and we've all grown up with this, and the fact that so many people collectively have been like, well, you know, I'm not a criminal, well, I'm not an immigrant, well, I'm not, and it's like it this beast is coming for everybody,

Rebecca  41:13

yeah, well, and I, you know, I think That as long as we have this notion of individualism that I only have to look out for me and mine, and it doesn't matter what happens to anyone else. That is allowed the dynamic that you're talking about Jenny is allowed to flourish and until we come to some sense of interdependence until we come to some sense of the value of the person sitting next to me, and until we come to some sense of, if it isn't well with them, it cannot possibly be well with me. That sort of sense of, Well, I'm not a criminal, I'm not a Jew, so I don't have to worry about it is gonna flourish.

42:09

Yesterday, I jumped

42:12

on Facebook for a second, and somebody that I would consider a dear friend had a lengthy Facebook post about how in favor he was of the President's actions in Venezuela, and most of his rationale was how this person, this dictator, was such a horrible person and did all of these horrible things. And my first reaction was, like, very visceral. I don't, I can't even finish this post like, I just, I mean, this is very visceral, like, and, and I don't want to talk to you anymore, and I'm not sure that our 20 plus years of friendship is sufficient to overcome how, how viscerally I am against the viewpoint that you just articulated, and I find myself, you know, a day later, beginning to wonder, Where is there some value in his perspective as a Latino man, what, what is his experience like that, that he feels so strongly about the viewpoint that he feels? And I'm not saying that he's right. I'm saying that if we don't learn to pause for a second and try to sit in the shoes of the other person before dismissing their value as a human. We will forever be stuck in the loop that we're in, right? I don't you know, I don't know that I will change my opinion about how much as an American, I have problems with the US president, snatching another leader and stealing the resources of their country. But I'm trying to find the capacity to hear from a man of Latino descent the harm that has been done to the people of Venezuela under this dictator, right? And I have to make myself push past that visceral reaction and try to hear something of what he's saying. And I would hope that he would do the same. I.

Danielle  45:06

I don't have words for it. You know, it just feels so deep, like it feels like somewhere deep inside the dissonance and also the want to understand, I think we're all being called, you know, Rebecca, this moment is, you know, this government, this moment, the violence, it's, it's, it's extracting our ability to stay with people like and it's such a high cost to stay with people. And I get that, I'm not saying it isn't, but I think what you're talking about is really important.

Rebecca  45:57

like you said, Jenny earlier, when you were talking about like, the more you know about something, the less confident you are, right? It's like, I can name, I am not Venezuelan, right? I can name I don't even think I know anybody who's from Venezuela, and if I do, I haven't taken the time to learn that you're actually from Venezuela, right, right? And I don't know anything about the history or culture of that country or the dictator that that was taken out of power. But I have seen, I can see in my friend's Facebook post that that's, it's a very painful history that he feels very strongly about. I so mostly that makes me as a black American, pause on how, on how much I want To dismiss his perspective because it's different than mine.

Jenny  47:22

I yeah, it also makes me think of how we're so conditioned to think in binaries and like, can there be space to hold the impossible both and where it's like, who am I to say whether or not people feel and are liberated or not in another country? I guess time will tell to see what happens. But for those that are Venezuelan and that are celebrating the removal of Maduro like can that coexist with the dangerous precedent of kidnapping a leader of a foreign country and starting immediately to steal their resources and and how do we Do this impossible dance of holding how complex these these experiences are that we're trying to navigate

Rebecca  48:29

and to self declare on national TV that like you're the self appointed leader of the country until, until whenever right some arbitrary line that you have drawn that you will undoubtedly change six times. I mean the danger of that precedent. It is I don't have vocabulary for how problematic that is.

Danielle  48:57

I don't mean to laugh, but if you didn't believe in white supremacy before, I would be giving you a lesson, and this is how it works, and it's awesome.

Jenny  49:10

And like you're saying, Rebecca, like I love books are coming to me today. There's another one called How to hide an empire and it Chase. It tracks from western expansion in what is now known as the United States to imperialism in the Philippines, in Puerto Rico, like in all of these places where we have established Dominion as a nation, as an empire, and what feels new is how televised and public this is, that people are being forced to confront it, hopefully in a different way, and maybe there can be more of this collective like way to psych it. This isn't what I'm supporting, because. I think for so long, this two party system that we've been force fed has a lot of difference when it comes to internal politics in the United States, but when it comes to transnational and international politics, it's been pretty much very similar for Democrats and Republicans in terms of what our nation is willing to do to other nations that we are conditioned not to think about. And so I think there's a hope. There's a desire for a hope for me to be like, Okay, can we see these other nations as humans and what the US has always done since the beginning.

Rebecca  50:45

you know, there's what actually happened, and then there's the history book story that we tell about what happened, right? And it like, it like what Danielle said. It appears to me that white supremacy is just blatantly at play, right? Like they're not hiding it at all. They're literally telling you, I can walk I can walk into another country, kidnap its leader and steal its resources. And I will tell you, that's what I'm doing. I will show you video footage of me intercepting oil tankers. I right like, and I will televise the time, place and location of my meeting with all the oil executives to get the oil um and and I'd like to be able to say that that is a new moment in history, and that what feels different is that we've never been so blatant about it, but I'm not sure that's true, right? I would love to have a time machine and be able to go back in some other point in time in American history and find out what they printed on the front page of the newspaper while they were stealing Africans from Africa or all the other while they were committing genocide against all the Native American tribes and all the other places and countries and people groups that the United States has basically taken their people and their resources. And so I don't know if this is different. I don't because, because the history books that I read would suggest that it is that right, but I don't. You can't always trust the narrative that we've been taught. Right? When I think there's an African proverb but as long as history is told by the lion, it will always favor the lion.

Jenny  52:55

I love you. Really good to be with you. Love you. Bye. Bye. See You

Bio: Jenny - Co-Host Podcast (er):

I am Jenny! (She/Her) MACP, LMHC

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, Certified Yoga Teacher, and an Approved Supervisor in the state of Washington.

I have spent over a decade researching the ways in which the body can heal from trauma through movement and connection. I have come to see that our bodies know what they need. By approaching our body with curiosity we can begin to listen to the innate wisdom our body has to teach us. And that is where the magic happens!

I was raised within fundamentalist Christianity. I have been, and am still on my own journey of healing from religious trauma and religious sexual shame (as well as consistently engaging my entanglement with white saviorism). I am a white, straight, able-bodied, cis woman. I recognize the power and privilege this affords me socially, and I am committed to understanding my bias’ and privilege in the work that I do. I am LGBTQIA+ affirming and actively engage critical race theory and consultation to see a better way forward that honors all bodies of various sizes, races, ability, religion, gender, and sexuality.

I am immensely grateful for the teachers, healers, therapists, and friends (and of course my husband and dog!) for the healing I have been offered. I strive to pay it forward with my clients and students. Few things make me happier than seeing people live freely in their bodies from the inside out!

Rebecca A. Wheeler Walston, J.D., Master of Arts in Counseling

Email: asolidfoundationcoaching@gmail.com

Phone:  +1.5104686137

Website: Rebuildingmyfoundation.com

I have been doing story work for nearly a decade. I earned a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and trained in story work at The Allender Center at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I have served as a story facilitator and trainer at both The Allender Center and the Art of Living Counseling Center. I currently see clients for one-on-one story coaching and work as a speaker and facilitator with Hope & Anchor, an initiative of The Impact Movement, Inc., bringing the power of story work to college students.

By all accounts, I should not be the person that I am today. I should not have survived the difficulties and the struggles that I have faced. At best, I should be beaten down by life‘s struggles, perhaps bitter. I should have given in and given up long ago. But I was invited to do the good work of (re)building a solid foundation. More than once in my life, I have witnessed God send someone my way at just the right moment to help me understand my own story, and to find the strength to step away from the seemingly inevitable ending of living life in defeat. More than once I have been invited and challenged to find the resilience that lies within me to overcome the difficult moment. To trust in the goodness and the power of a kind gesture. What follows is a snapshot of a pivotal invitation to trust the kindness of another in my own story. May it invite you to receive to the pivotal invitation of kindness in your own story. Listen with me…

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Rebecca A. Wheeler Walston, J.D., Master of Arts in Counseling

Email: asolidfoundationcoaching@gmail.com

Phone:  +1.5104686137

Website: Rebuildingmyfoundation.com

I have been doing story work for nearly a decade. I earned a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and trained in story work at The Allender Center at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I have served as a story facilitator and trainer at both The Allender Center and the Art of Living Counseling Center. I currently see clients for one-on-one story coaching and work as a speaker and facilitator with Hope & Anchor, an initiative of The Impact Movement, Inc., bringing the power of story work to college students.

By all accounts, I should not be the person that I am today. I should not have survived the difficulties and the struggles that I have faced. At best, I should be beaten down by life‘s struggles, perhaps bitter. I should have given in and given up long ago. But I was invited to do the good work of (re)building a solid foundation. More than once in my life, I have witnessed God send someone my way at just the right moment to help me understand my own story, and to find the strength to step away from the seemingly inevitable ending of living life in defeat. More than once I have been invited and challenged to find the resilience that lies within me to overcome the difficult moment. To trust in the goodness and the power of a kind gesture. What follows is a snapshot of a pivotal invitation to trust the kindness of another in my own story. May it invite you to receive to the pivotal invitation of kindness in your own story. Listen with me…

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Danielle (00:10):

Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, the church, and what are we seeing in reality right now? So Jenny and I dive in a little bit about therapy. The holidays, I would don't say the words collective liberation, but it feels like that's what we're really touching on and what does that mean in this day and age? What are we finding with one another? How are we seeking help? What does it look like and what about healing? What does that mean to us? This isn't like a tell all or the answer to all the problems. We don't have any secret knowledge. Jenny and I are just talking out some of the thoughts and feeling and talking through what does it mean for us as we engage one another, engage healing spaces, what do we want for ourselves? And I think we're still figuring that out. You're just going to hear us going back and forth talking and thank you for joining. Download, subscribe. So Jenny, we were just talking about therapy because we're therapists and all. And what were you saying about it?

Jenny (01:17):

I was saying that I'm actually pretty disillusioned with therapy and the therapy model as it stands currently and everything. I don't want to put it in the all bad bucket and say it's only bad because obviously I do it and I, I've done it myself. I am a therapist and I think there is a lot of benefit that can come from it, and I think it eventually meets this rub where it is so individualistic and it is one person usually talking to one person. And I don't think we are going to dismantle the collective systems that we need to dismantle if we are only doing individual therapy. I think we really need to reimagine what healing looks like in a collective space.

Danielle (02:15):

Yeah, I agree. And it's odd to talk about it both as therapists. You and I have done a lot of groups together. Has that been different? I know for me as I've reflected on groups. Yeah. I'll just say this before you answer that. As I've reflected on groups, when I first started and joined groups, it was really based on a model of there's an expert teacher, which I accepted willingly because I was used to a church or patriarchal format. There's expert teacher or teachers like plural. And then after that there's a group, and in your group there's an expert. And I viewed that person as a guru, a professional, of course, they were professional, they are professionals, but someone that might have insider knowledge about me or people in my group that would bring that to light and that knowledge alone would change me or being witnessed, which I think is important in a group setting would change me. But I think part of the linchpin was having that expert guide and now I don't know what I think about that.

(03:36):

I think I really appreciate the somatic experiencing model that would say my client's body is the wisest person in the room.

(03:46):

And so I have shifted over the years from a more directive model where I'm the wisest person in the room and I'm going to name these things and I'm going to call these things out in your story to how do I just hold a space for your body to do what your body knows how to do? And I really ascribe to the idea that trauma is not about an event. It's about not having a safe place to go in the midst of or after an event. And so I think we need safe enough places to let our bodies do what our bodies have really evolved to do. And I really trust that more and more that less is more, and actually the more that I get out of the way and my clients can metabolize what they need to, that actually I think centers their agency more. Because if I'm always needing to defer my story to someone else to see things, I'm never going to be able to come into my own and say, no, I actually maybe disagree with you, or I see that differently, or I'm okay not figuring that out or whatever it might be. I get to stay centered in my own agency. And I think a professional model disavow someone of their own agency and their own ability to live their story from the inside out

Danielle (05:19):

To live their story from the inside out. I think maybe I associate a lot of grief with that because as you talk about it, you talk about maybe seeking healing in this frame, going to school for this frame, and I'm not dismissing all of the good parts of that or the things that I discovered through those insights, but sometimes I think even years later I'm like, why didn't they stick? If I know that? Why didn't they stick? Or why do I still think about that and go through my own mental gymnastics to think what is actually healing? What does it have to look like if that thing didn't stick and I'm still thinking about it or feeling it, what does that say about me? What does that say about the therapy? I think for me, the lack of ongoing collective places to engage those kinds of feelings have allowed things to just bumble on or not really get lodged in me as an alternative truth. Does that make sense?

Jenny (06:34):

Yeah. But one of the things I wonder is healing a lie? I have yet to meet someone I know that I get to know really well and I go, yeah, this person is healed regardless of the amount of money they've spent in therapy, the types of body work they've done. What if we were all just more honest about the fact that we're all messy and imperfect and beautiful and everything in between and we stopped trying to chase this imagined reality of healing that I don't actually think exists?

(07:30):

Well, I think I've said it before on here. I used to think it was somewhere I was going to get to where I wouldn't feel X, y, Z. So maybe it meant I got to a space where on the holidays I often feel sad. I have my whole life and I feel sad this year. So does that mean somehow the work that I've put in to understand that sadness, that I'm not healed because I still feel sadness? And I think at the beginning I felt like if I'm still feeling sadness, if there are triggers that come around the holidays, then that means that I'm not healed or I haven't done enough work or there's something wrong with me for needing more support. So now I'm wondering if healing more, and I think we talked about this a little bit before too, is more the growing awareness. How does it increase connection versus create isolation for me when I feel sad? That's one example I think of. What about you?

Jenny (08:31):

I think about the last time I went to Uganda and there's so much complexity with my role in Uganda as a white woman that was stepping into a context to bring healing. And my final time in Uganda, I was co-facilitating a workshop for Ugandan psychotherapists and I had these big pieces of parchment paper around the room with different questions because I thought that they would be able to be more honest if it was anonymous. And so one of the pieces of paper said, what would you want westerners to know who were coming to Uganda to do healing work? And it was basically 100% learn what healing means to us.

(09:26):

Bring your own ideas of healing, stop, try, stop basically. And for whatever reason, that time was actually able to really hear that and go, I'd actually have no place trying to bring my form of healing and implement that. You all have your own form of healing. And one of the things that they also said on that trip was for you, healing is about the individual. For us, healing is about reintegrating that person into the community. And that might mean that they still have trauma and they still have these issues, but if they are accepted and welcomed in, then the community gets to support them through that. It's not about bringing this person out and fixing them over here and then plucking them back. It's how does the community care for bodies that have been injured? And I think about how I broke my foot in dance class when I was 14 and I had to have reconstructive surgery and my foot and my ankle and my knee and my hip and my whole body have never been the same. I will never go back to a pre broken foot body. So why would we emotionally, psychologically, spiritually be any different? And I think some of it comes from this Christian cosmology of Eden that we're just keep trying to find ourselves back in Eden. And this is something I feel like I've learned from our dear friend, Rebecca Wheeler Walston, which is like, no, we're not going back to Eden. How do we then live in this post perfect pre-injury world that is messy and unhealed, but also how can we find meaning and connection in that?

(11:28):

That was a lot of thoughts, but that's kind of what comes up for me.

Danielle (11:31):

Oh man, there's a couple of things you said and I was like, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. I think you said healing is how do we as a community integrate people who have experienced trauma into our spaces? I think if you think back to Freud, it's plucking people out and then he reintroduced trauma and abuse them in the process. But somehow despite those things, he got to be an expert. I mean, so if you wonder how we got to Donald Trump, if you wonder how we get to all these leaders in our country getting to rape, abuse, sexually assault people, and then still maintain their leader position of power, even in our healing realm, we based a lot of our western ideologies on someone that was abusive and we're okay with that. Let's read them, let's learn from them. Okay, so that's one thing.

(12:32):

And Freud, he did not reintegrate these people back into the community. In fact, their process took them further away. So I often think about that too with therapy. I dunno, I think I told you this, Jenny, that sometimes I feel like people are trying their therapeutic learning out on me just in the community. Wax a boundary on you or I'll tell you no, and I'm just like, wait, what have you been learning? Or what have you been growing in and why aren't we having a conversation in the moment versus holding onto something and creating these spinoffs? But I do think that part of it is that healing hasn't been a way of how to reconnect with your community despite their own imperfections and maybe even places of harm. It's been like, how do you get away from that? And then they're like, give your family. Who's your chosen family? That's so hard. Does that actually work?

Jenny (13:42):

Yeah, it makes me think of this meme I saw that was so brutal that said, I treat my trauma. Trump treats tariffs, implementing boundaries arbitrarily that hurt everyone. And I've, we've talked a lot about this and I think it is a very white idea to be like, no, that's my boundary. You can't do that. No, that's my boundary. No, that's my boundary. No, that's my boundary. And it's like, are you actually healing or are you just isolating yourself from everything that makes you uncomfortable or triggered or frustrated and hear me? I do think there is a time and a place and a role for boundaries and everything in capitalism. I think it gets bastardized and turned into something that only reproduces whiteness and privilege and isolation and individuation individualism because capitalism needs those things. And so how do we hold the boundaries, have the time and a place and a purpose, and how do we work to grow relation with people that might not feel good all the time?

(15:02):

And I'm not talking about putting ourselves in positions of harm, but what about positions of discomfort and positions of being frustrated and triggered and parts of the human emotion? Because I agree with what you shared about, I thought healing was like, I'm not going to feel these things, but who decided that and who said those are unhealed emotions? What if those are just part of the human experience and healing is actually growing our capacity to feel all of it, to feel the sadness that you're feeling over the holidays, to feel my frustration when I'm around certain people and to know that that gets to be okay and there gets to be space for that.

Danielle (15:49):

I mean, it goes without saying, but in our capitalistic system, and in a way it's a benefit for us not to have a sad feeling is you can still go to work and be productive. It's a benefit for us not to have a depressed feeling. It's a benefit for us to be like, well, you hurt me. I can cut you off and I can keep on moving. The goal isn't healing. And my husband often says this about our medical care system. It's just how do we get you back out the door if anybody's ever been to the ER or you've ever been ill or you need something? I think of even recently, I think, I don't dunno if I told you this, but I got a letter in the mail, I've been taking thyroid medicine, which I need, and they're like, no, you can't take that thyroid medicine.

(16:34):

It's not covered anymore. Well, who decided that according it's Republicans in the big beautiful bill, it's beautiful for them to give permission to insurance companies, not to pay for my thyroid medicine when actually I think of you and I out here in community trying to work with folks and help folks actually participate in our world and live a life maybe they love, that's not perfect, but so how are you going to take away my thyroid medicine as I'm not special though, and you're not special to a system. So I think it is beneficial for healing to be like, how do you do this thing by yourself and get better by yourself, impact the least amount of people as possible with your bad feelings. Bad feelings. Yeah. That's kind of how I think of it when you talked about that.

(17:50):

So if our job is this and we know we're in this quote system and we imagine more collective community care, I know you're touring the country, you're seeing a lot of different things. What are you seeing when you meet with people? Are you connect with people? Are there any themes or what are you noticing?

Jenny (18:09):

Yeah, Sean and I joked, not joked before we moved into the van that this was our We Hate America tour and we were very jaded and we had a lot of stereotypes and we were talking at one point with our friend from the south and talking shit about the south and our friend was like, have you even ever been to the south? And we were like, no. And Rick Steves has this phrase that says it's hard to hate up close. And the last two years have really been a disruption in our stereotypes, in our fears, in our assumptions about entire groups of people or entire places that the theme has really felt like people are really trying their best to make the world a more beautiful place all over in a million different ways. And I think there are as many ways to bring life and beauty and resistance into the world as there are bodies on the planet.

(19:21):

And one of my mentors would say anti-racism about something you do. It's about a consciousness and how you are aware of the world. And that has been tricky for me as a recovering white savior who's like, no, okay, what do I do? How do I do the right thing? And I think I've been exposed to more and more people being aware whether that awareness is the whole globe or the nation or even just their neighbors and what does it mean to go drop off food for their neighbor or different ways in which people are showing up for each other. And sometimes I think that if we're only ever taught, which is often the case in therapy to focus on the trauma or the difficult parts, I think we're missing another part of reality, which is the beauty and the goodness and the somatic experiencing language would be the trauma vortex or your counter vortex.

(20:28):

And I think we can condition ourselves to look at one or focus on one. And so while I'm hesitant to say everything is love and light, I don't think that's true. And I don't think everything is doom and gloom either. And so I think I'm very grateful to be able to be in places where talking to people from Asheville who experienced the insane flooding last year talking about how they don't even know would just drop off a cooler of spring water every morning for them to flush their toilets and just this person is anonymous. They'll never get praise or gratitude. It was just like, this is my community. This is one thing I can do is bring coolers of water. And so I think it's just being able to hear and tell those stories of community gives us more of an imagination for how we can continue to be there for community.

Danielle (21:38):

Yeah, I like that. I like that. I like that you had this idea that you were willing to challenge it or this bias or this at the beginning just talking about it that you're willing to challenge.

Jenny (21:59):

Yeah, we said I think I know two things about every state, and they're probably both wrong. And that's been true. There's so much we don't know until we get out and experience it.

Danielle (22:14):

I think that's also symptom of, I think even here, I know people, but I don't know them. And often even just going someplace feeling like, oh, I don't have the time for that, or I can't do that, and the barriers, maybe my own exhaustion is true. I have that exhaustion or someone else has that exhaustion. But even the times I've avoided saying hi to someone or the times I've avoided small connections, I just think a lot, and maybe what is tiring is that the therapeutic model has reinforced isolation without having this other. You're talking about the counter vortex when we talk about healing is done in community, healing is done by witnessing, and somehow the assumption is that the therapist can be all of that witnessing and healing and community, and you're paying us and we're there and we're able to offer insight and we've studied and we have a professional job and we're not enough.

(23:33):

I often find myself in a state of madness and I can't do everything and I can speak to what I've chosen to do recently, but how do I function as a therapist in a system? I want people to feel less anxious. I want to be there, offer insights around depression or pay attention to their body with them. All of these really good, there aren't bad. They're good things. But yet when I walk out my door, if kids are hungry, that burden also affects my clients. So how do I not somehow become involved as an active member of my community as a therapist? And I think that's frustrated me the most about the therapy world. If we see the way the system is hurting people, how is our professional, it seems like almost an elite profession sometimes where we're not dug in the community. It's such a complicated mix. I don't know. What are you hearing me say? Yeah,

Jenny (24:40):

Yeah. I'm thinking about, I recently read this really beautiful book by Susan Rao called Liberated to the Bone, and Susan is a craniosacral therapist, so different than talk therapy, but in it, there was a chapter talking about just equity in even what we're charging. Very, very, very, very few people can afford 160 plus dollars a week

(25:13):

Extra just to go to therapy. And so who gets the privileges? Who gets the benefits from the therapy? And yet how do we look at how those privileges in themselves come at the expense of humanity and what is and what privileged bodies miss out on because of the social location of privilege? And yeah, I think it's a symptom that we even need therapy that we don't have communities where we can go to and say, Hey, this thing happened. It was really hard. Can we talk about it? And that is devastating. And so for me it's this both. And I do think we live in a world right now where therapy is necessary and I feel very privileged and grateful to be a therapist. I love my clients, I love the work I get to do. And I say this with many of my new clients.

(26:22):

My job is to work myself out of a job. And my hope is that eventually, eventually I want you to be able to recreate what we're growing here outside of here. And I do mean that individually. And I also mean that collectively, how do I work towards a world where maybe therapy isn't even necessary? And I don't know that that will ever actually happen, but if that gets to be my orientation, how does that shift how I challenge clients, how I invite them to bring what they're bringing to me to their community? And have you tried talking to that person about that? Have you tried? And so that it doesn't just become only ever this echo chamber, but maybe it's an incubator for a while, and then they get to grow their muscles of confrontation or vulnerability or the things that they've been practicing in therapy. Outside of therapy.

Danielle (27:29):

And I know I'm always amazed, but I do consistently meet people in different professions and different life circumstances. If you just sit down and listen, they offer a lot of wisdom filled words or just sometimes it feels like a balm to me. To hear how someone is navigating a tough situation may not even relate to mine at all, but just how they're thinking about suffering or how they're thinking about pain or how they're thinking about feeling sad. I don't always agree with it. It's not always something I would do. But also hearing a different way of doing things feels kind of reverberates in me, feels refreshing. So I think those conversations, it's not about finding a total agreement with someone or saying that you have to navigate things the same. I think it is about I finding ways where you can hear someone and hearing someone that's different isn't a threat to the way you want to think about the world.

Jenny (28:42):

As you say that, it makes me think about art. And something Sean often says is that artists are interpreters and their interpreting a human experience in a way that maybe is very, very specific, but in their specificity it gets to highlight something universal. And I think more and more I see the value in using art to talk about the reality of being unhealed. And that in itself maybe gets to move us closer towards whatever it is that we're moving closer towards or even it just allows us to be more fully present with what is. And maybe part of the issue is this idea that we're going to move towards something rather than how do we just keep practicing being with the current moment more honestly, more authentically?

Danielle (29:51):

I like my kids' art, honestly. I like to see what they interpret. I have a daughter who makes political art and I love it. I'll be like, what do you think about this? And she'll draw something. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Recently she drew a picture of the nativity, and I didn't really understand it at first, but then she told me it was like glass, broken glass and half of Mary's face was like a Palestinian, and the other half was Mexican, and Joseph was split too. And then the Roman soldiers looking for them were split between ice vests and Roman soldiers. And Herod had the face part of Trump, part of an ancient king. I was like, damn, that's amazing. It was cool. I should send it to you.

(30:41):

Yeah, I was, whoa. I was like, whoa. And then another picture, she drew had Donald Trump invading the nativity scene and holding a gun, and the man drew was empty and Joseph and Mary were running down the road. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. It is just interesting to me how she can tell the truth through art. Very, if you met this child of mine, she's very calm, very quiet, very kind, laid back, very sweet. But she has all these powerful emotions and interpretations, and I love hearing my kids play music. I love music. I love live music. Yeah. What about you? What kind of art do you enjoy?

Jenny (31:28):

I love dance. I love movement. I think there's so many things that when I don't have words for just letting my body move or watching other bodies move, it lets me settle something in me that I'm not trying to find words for. I can actually know that there's much more to being human than our little language center of our brain. I really love movies and cinema. I really love a lot of Polish films that are very artistic and speak to power in really beautiful ways. I just recently watched Hamnet in the theater and it was so beautiful. I just sobbed the entire time. Have you seen it?

(32:27):

I won't say anything about it other than I just find it to be, it was one of the most, what I would say is artistic films I've seen in a long time, and it was really, really moving and touching.

Danielle (32:43):

Well, what do you recommend for folks? Or what do you think about when you're thinking through the holiday season and all the complications of it?

Jenny (32:57):

I think my hope is that there gets to be more room for humanity. And at least what I've seen is a lot of times people making it through the holidays usually means I'm not going to get angry. I'm not going to get frustrated. I'm not going to get sad or I'm not going to show those things. And again, I'm like, well, who decided that we shouldn't be showing our emotions to people? And what if actually we get to create a little bit more space for what we're feeling? And that might be really disruptive to systems where we are not supposed to feel or think differently. And so I like this idea of 5%. What if you got to show up 5% more authentically? Maybe you say one sentence you wouldn't have said last year, or maybe you make one facial expression that wouldn't have been okay, or different things like that. How can you let yourself play in a little bit more mobility in your body and in your relational base? That would be my hope for folks. And yeah.

Jenny (34:26):

What would you want to tell people as they're entering into holiday season? Or maybe they feel like they're already just in the thick of the holidays?

Danielle (34:35):

I would say that more than likely, 90% of the people you see that you're rubbing shoulders with that aren't talking to you even are probably feeling some kind of way right now. And probably having some kind of emotional experience that's hard to make sense of. And so I know as we talk people, you might be like, I don't have that community. I don't have that. I don't have that. And I think that's true. I think a lot of us don't have it. So I think we talked about last week just taking one inch or one centimeter step towards connecting with someone else can feel really big. But I think it can also hold us back if we feel like, oh, we didn't do the whole thing at once. So I would say if people can tolerate even just one tiny inch towards connection or a tiny bit more honesty, when someone you notice is how you are and you're like, yeah, I feel kind of shitty. Or I had this amazing thing happen and I'm still sad. You don't have to go into details, but I wonder what it's like just to introduce a tiny a sentence, more of honesty into the conversation.

Jenny (35:51):

I like that. A sentence more of honesty.

Danielle (35:54):

Yeah. Thanks Jenny. I love being with you.

Jenny (35:57):

Thank you, friend. Same. Love you.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Danielle (01:03):

Well, I mean, what's not going on? Just, I don't know. I think the government feels more and more extreme. So that's one thing I feel people are like, why is your practice so busy? I'm like, have you seen the government? It's traumatizing all my clients. Hey Jeremy. Hey Jenny.

Jenny (01:33):

I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia. So close to Rebecca. We're going to soon.

Rebecca (01:48):

Yeah, she is. Yeah, she is. And before you pull up in my driveway, I need you to doorbell dish everybody with the Trump flag and then you can come. I'm so ready

That's a good question. That's a good question. I think that, I don't know that I know anybody that's ready to just say out loud. I am not a Trump supporter anymore, but I do know there's a lot of dissonance with individual policies or practices that impact somebody specifically. There's a lot of conversation about either he doesn't know what he's doing or somebody in his cabinet is incompetent in their job and their incompetency is making other people's lives harder and more difficult. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that.

(03:08):

Would she had my attention for about two minutes in the space where she was saying, okay, I need to rethink some of this. But then as soon as she says she was quitting Congress, I have a problem with that because you are part of the reason why we have the infrastructure that we have. You help build it and it isn't enough to me for you to build it and then say there's something wrong with it and then exit the building. You're not equally responsible for dismantling what you helped to put in place. So after that I was like, yeah, I don't know that there's any authenticity to your current set of objections,

I'm not a fan of particularly when you are a person that in your public platform built something that is problematic and then you figure out that it's problematic and then you just leave. That's not sufficient for me, for you to just put on Twitter or Facebook. Oh yeah, sorry. That was a mistake. And then exit stage left

Jenny (04:25):

And I watched just a portion of an interview she was on recently and she was essentially called in to accountability and you are part of creating this. And she immediately lashed out at the interviewer and was like, you do this too. You're accusing me. And just went straight into defensive white lady mode and I'm just like, oh, you haven't actually learned anything from this. You're just trying to optically still look pure. That's what it seems like to me that she's wanting to do without actually admitting she has been. And she is complicit in the system that she was a really powerful force in building.

Rebecca (05:12):

Yeah, it reminds me of, remember that story, excuse me, a few years ago about that black guy that was birdwatching in Central Park and this white woman called the cops on him. And I watched a political analyst do some analysis of that whole engagement. And one of the things that he said, and I hate, I don't know the person name, whoever you are, if you said this and you hear this, I'm giving you credit for having said it, but one of the things that he was talking about is nobody wants you to actually give away your privilege. You actually couldn't if you tried. What I want you to do is learn how to leverage the privilege that you have for something that is good. And I think that example of that bird watching thing was like you could see, if you see the clip, you can see this woman, think about the fact that she has power in this moment and think about what she's going to do with that power.

(06:20):

And so she picks up her phone and calls the cops, and she's standing in front of this black guy lying, saying like, I'm in fear for my life. And as if they're doing anything except standing several feet apart, he is not yelling at you. He hasn't taken a step towards you, he doesn't have a weapon, any of that. And so you can see her figure out what her privilege looks like and feels like and sounds like in that moment. And you can see her use it to her own advantage. And so I've never forgotten that analysis of we're not trying to take that from you. We couldn't if we tried, we're not asking you to surrender it because you, if you tried, if you are in a place of privilege in a system, you can't actually give it up because you're not the person that granted it to yourself. The system gave it to you. We just want you to learn how to leverage it. So I would love to see Marjorie Taylor Greene actually leverage the platform that she has to do something good with it. And just exiting stays left is not helpful.

Danielle (07:33):

And to that point, even at that though, I've been struck by even she seems to have more, there's on the continuum of moral awareness, she seems to have inch her way in one direction, but I'm always flabbergasted by people close to me that can't even get there. They can't even move a millimeter. To me, it's wild.

Well, I think about it. If I become aware of a certain part of my ignorance and I realize that in my ignorance I've been harming someone or something, I believe we all function on some kind of continuum. It's not that I don't think we all wake up and know right and wrong all the time. I think there's a lot of nuance to the wrongs we do to people, honestly. And some things feel really obvious to me, and I've observed that they don't feel obvious to other people. And if you're in any kind of human relationship, sometimes what you feel is someone feels as obvious to them, you're stepping all over them.

(08:59):

And I'm not talking about just hurting someone's feelings. I'm talking about, yeah, maybe you hurt their feelings, but maybe you violated them in that ignorance or I am talking about violations. So it seems to me that when Marjorie Taylor Green got on CN and said, I've been a part of this system kind of like Rebecca you're talking about. And I realized that ignoring chomp hyping up this rhetoric, it gets people out there that I can't see highly activated. And there's a group of those people that want to go to concrete action and inflict physical pain based on what's being said on another human being. And we see that, right? So whatever you got Charlie Kirk's murderer, you got assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King all throughout history we've seen these, the rhetoric and the violence turns into these physical actions. And so it seems to me like she had some awareness of what her contributing to that, along with the good old orange guy was doing contributes to violence. It seems to me like she inched in that direction.

Rebecca (10:27):

Yeah, like I said, I think you're right in that inching, she had my attention. And so then I'm waiting for her to actually do something substantive more than just the acknowledgement that I have been in error. And and I think part of that is that I think we have a way of thinking that the acknowledgement or the, I'm sorry, is the work, and it is not the, I'm sorry, is the acknowledgement that work needs to be done. So after you say, I'm sorry, now let's go do the work.

Danielle (11:10):

I mean our own therapeutic thing that we all went through that we have in common didn't have a concept for repair. So people are coming to therapy looking for a way to understand. And what I like to say is there's a theory of something, but there's no practical application of it that makes your theory useless in some sense to me or your theology, even if your ology has a theology of X, Y, Z, but you can't actually apply that. What is the use of it?

Jenny (11:43):

And I think that's best case scenario, and I think I'm a more cynical person than you are Danielle, but I see what's happening with Taylor Green and I'm like, this actually feels like when a very toxic, dangerous man goes to therapy and learns the therapy language and then is like it's my boundaries that you can't wear that dress. And it's like, no, no, that's not what we're doing. It's just it's my boundary that when there isn't that actual sense of, okay, I'm going to be a part of the work, to me it actually somehow feels potentially more dangerous because it's like I'm using the language and the optics of what will keep me innocent right now without actually putting any skin in the game.

(12:51):

Yeah, I would say it's an enactment of white womanhood. I would say it's intentional, but probably not fully conscious that it is her body moving in the way that she's been racially and gendered

(13:07):

Tradition to move. That goes in some ways maybe I can see that I've enacted harm, but I'm actually going to replicate the same thing in stepping into now a new position of performing white womanhood and saying the right things and doing the right things. But then the second an interviewee calls me out into accountability, I'm going to go into potentially white psychosis moment because I don't actually know how to metabolize the ways in which I am still complicit in the system. And to me, I think that's the impossibility of how do we work through the ways that these systems live in our bodies that isn't clean. It isn't pure, but I think the simplicity of I was blind now I see. I am very skeptical of,

Rebecca (14:03):

Yeah, I think it's interesting the notion that, and I'm going to misquote you so then you fix it. But something of like, I don't actually know how to metabolize these things and work them through. I only know this kind of performative space where I say what I'm expected to say.

Jenny (14:33):

Yeah, I think I see it as a both, and I don't totally disagree with the fact of there's not something you can do to get rid of your privilege. And I do think that we have examples of, oh goodness, I wish I could remember her name. Viola Davis. No, she was a white woman who drove, I was just at the African-American History Museum yesterday and was reminded of her face, but it's like Viola ela, I want to say she's a white woman from Detroit who drove down to the south during the bus boycotts to carpool black folks, and she was shot in the head and killed in her car because she stepped out of the bounds of performing white womanhood. And I do think that white bodies know at a certain level we can maintain our privilege and there is a real threat and a real cost to actually doing what needs to be done to not that we totally can abdicate our privilege. I think it is there, and I do think there are ways of stepping out of the bondage of our racial and gendered positions that then come with a very real threat.

Rebecca (16:03):

Yes. But I think I would say that this person that you're referring to, and again, I feel some kind of way about the fact that we can't name her name accurately. And there's probably something to that, right? She's not the only one. She's not the first one. She's not the last one who stepped outside of the bounds of what was expected of her on behalf of the Civil Rights Movement, on behalf of justice. And those are stories that we don't know and faces and names we cannot, that don't roll off the tip of our tongue like a Rosa Parks or a Medgar Evers or a Merley Evers or whoever. So that being said, I would say that her driving down to the South, that she had a car that she could drive, that she had the resources to do that is a leveraging of some of her privilege in a very real way, a very substantive way. And so I do think that I hear what you're saying that she gave up something of her privilege to do that, and she did so with a threat that for her was realizing a very violent way. And I would also say she leveraged what privilege she had in a way that for her felt like I want to offer something of the privilege that I have and the power that I have on behalf of someone who doesn't have it.

(17:44):

It kind of reminds me this question of is the apology enough or is the acknowledgement enough? It reminds me of what we did in the eighties and nineties around the racial reconciliation movement and the Promise Keepers thing and all those big conferences where the notion that the work of reconciliation was to stand on the stage and say, I realize I'm white and you're black, and I'm sorry. And we really thought that that was the work and that was sufficient to clear everything that needed to be cleared, and that was enough to allow people to move forward in proximity and connection to each other. And I think some of what we're living through 40, 45 years later is because that was not enough.

(18:53):

It barely scratched the surface to the extent that you can say that Donald Trump is not the problem. He is a symptom of the problem. To the extent that you could say that his success is about him stoking the fires that lie just beneath the surface in the realization that what happened with reconciliation in the nineties was not actually repair, it was not actually reconciliation. It was, I think what you're saying, Jenny, the sort of performative space where I'm speaking the language of repair and reconciliation, but I haven't actually done the work or paid the cost that is there in order to be reconciled.

Danielle (19:40):

That's in my line though. That's the continuum of moral awareness. You arrive to a spot, you address it to a certain point. And in that realm of awareness, what we've been told we can manage to think about, which is also goes back to Jenny's point of what the system has said. It's almost like under our system we have to push the system. It's so slow. And as we push the system out and we gain more awareness, then I think we realize we're not okay. I mean, clearly Latinos are not okay. They're a freaking mess. I think Mother Fers, half of us voted for Trump. The men, the women are pissed. You have some people that are like, you have to stay quiet right now, go hide. Other people are like, you got to be in the streets. It's a clear mess. But I don't necessarily think that's bad because we need to have, as a large group of people, a push of our own moral awareness.

(20:52):

What did we do that hurt ourselves? What were we willing to put up with to recolonize ourselves to agree to it, to agree to the fact that you could recolonize yourself. So I mean, just as a people group, if you can lump us all in together, and then the fact that he's going after countries of origin, destabilizing Honduras telling Mexico to release water, there is no water to release into Texas and California. There isn't the water to do it, but he can rant and rave or flying drones over Venezuela or shooting down all these ships. How far have we allowed ourselves in the system you're describing Rebecca, to actually say our moral awareness was actually very low. I would say that for my people group, very, very low, at least my experience in the states,

Rebecca (21:53):

I think, and this is a working theory of mine, I think like what you're talking about, Danielle, specifically in Latino cultures, my question has been when I look at that, what I see as someone who's not part of Latino culture is that the invitation from whiteness to Latino cultures is to be complicit in their own erasure in order to have access to America. So you have to voluntarily drop your language, drop your accent, change your name, whatever that long list is. And I think when whiteness shows up in a culture in that way where the request or the demand is that you join in your own eraser, I think it leads to a certain kind of moral ignorance, if you will.

(23:10):

And I say that as somebody coming from a black American experience where I think the demand from whiteness was actually different. We weren't actually asked to participate in our own eraser. We were simply told that there's no version of your existence where you will have access to what whiteness offers to the extent that a drop is a drop is a drop. And by that I mean you could be one 16th black and be enslaved in the United States, whereas, so I think I have lots of questions and curiosities around that, about how whiteness shows up in a particular culture, what does it demand or require, and then what's the trajectory that it puts that culture on? And I'm not suggesting that we don't have ways of self-sabotage in black America. Of course we do. I just think our ways of self-sabotage are nuanced or different from what you're talking about because the way that whiteness has showed up in our culture has required something different of us. And so our sabotage shows up in a different way.

(24:40):

To me. I don't know. I still don't know what to do with the 20% of black men that voted for Trump. I haven't figured that one out yet. Perhaps I don't have enough moral awareness about that space. But when I look at what happened in Latino culture, at least my theory as someone from the outside looking in is like there's always been this demand or this temptation that you buy the narrative that if you assimilate, then you can have access to power. And so I get it. It's not that far of a leap from that to course I'll vote for you because if I vote for you, then you'll take care of us. You'll be good and kind and generous to me and mine. I get that that's not the deal that was made with black Americans. And so we do something different. Yeah, I don't know. So I'm open to thoughts, rebuttals, rebukes,

Jenny (25:54):

My mind is going to someone I quote often, Rosa Luxembourg, who was a democratic socialist revolutionary who was assassinated over a hundred years ago, and she wrote a book called Reform or Revolution arguing that the more capitalism is a system built on collapse because every time the system collapse, those who are at the top get to sweep the monopoly board and collect more houses, more land, more people. And so her argument was actually against things like unions and reforms to capitalism because it would only prolong the collapse, which would make the collapse that much more devastating. And her argument was, we actually have to have a revolution because that's the only way we're going to be able to redo this system. And I think that for the folks that I knew that voted for Trump, in my opinion, against their own wellness and what it would bring, it was the sense of, well, hopefully he'll help the economy.

(27:09):

And it was this idea that he was just running on and telling people he was going to fix the economy. And that's a very real thing for a lot of people that are really struggling. And I think it's easier for us to imagine this paternalistic force that's going to come in and make capitalism better. And yet I think capitalism will only continue to get worse on purpose. If we look at literally yesterday we were at the Department of Environmental Protections and we saw that there was black bags over it and the building was empty. And the things that are happening to our country that the richest of the ridge don't care that people's water and food and land is going to be poisoned in exponential rates because they will not be affected. And until we can get, I think the mass amount of people that are disproportionately impacted to recognize this system will never work for us, I don't know. I don't know what it will take. I know we've used this word coalition. What will it take for us to have a coalition strong enough to actually bring about the type of revolution that would be necessary? I

Rebecca (28:33):

Think it's in part in something that you said, Jenny, the premise that if this doesn't affect me, then I don't have any skin in this game and I don't really care. I think that is what will have to change. I think we have to come to a sense of if it is not well with the person sitting next to me, then it isn't well with me because as long as we have this mindset that if it doesn't directly affect me that it doesn't matter, then I think we're always sort of crabs in a barrel. And so maybe that's idealistic. Maybe that sounds a little pollyannaish, but I do think we have to come to this sense of, and this maybe goes along with what Danielle was saying about the continuum of moral awareness. Can I do the work of becoming aware of people whose existence and life is different than mine? And can that awareness come from this place of compassion and care for things that are harmful and hurtful and difficult and painful for them, even if it's not that way? For me, I think if we can get there with this sense of we rise and fall together, then maybe we have a shot at doing something better.

(30:14):

I think I just heard on the news the other day that I think it used to be a policy that on MLK Day, certain federal parks and things were free admission, and I think the president signed an executive order that's no longer true, but you could go free if you go on Trump's birthday. The invitation and the demand that is there to care only about yourself and be utterly dismissive of anyone and everyone else is sickening.

Jenny (30:51):

And it's one of the things that just makes me go insane around Christian nationalism and the rhetoric that people are living biblically just because they don't want gay marriage. But then we'll say literally, I'm just voting for my bank account, or I'm voting so that my taxes don't go to feed people. And I had someone say that to me and they're like, do you really want to vote for your taxes to feed people? I said, absolutely. I would much rather my tax money go to feed people than to go to bombs for other countries. I would do that any day. And as a Christian, should you not vote for the least of these, should you not vote for the people that are going to be most affected? And that dissonance that's there is so crazy making to me because it's really the antithesis of, I think the message of Jesus that's like whatever you do to the least of these, you are doing to me. And instead it's somehow flipped where it's like, I just need to get mine. And that's biblical,

Rebecca (31:58):

Which I think I agree wholeheartedly as somebody who identifies as a Christian who seeks to live my life as someone that follows the tenets of scripture. I think part of that problem is the introduction of this idea that there are hierarchies to sin or hierarchies to sort of biblical priorities. And so this notion that somehow the question of abortion or gay rights, transgendered rights is somehow more offensive to scripture than not taking care of the least of these, the notion that there's such a thing as a hierarchy there that would give me permission to value one over the other in a way that is completely dismissive of everything except the one or two things that I have deemed the most important is deeply problematic to me.

Danielle (33:12):

I think just coming back to this concept of I do think there was a sense among the larger community, especially among Latino men, Hispanic men, that range of people that there's high percentage join the military, high percentage have tried to engage in law enforcement and a sense of, well, that made me belong or that gave my family an inn. Or for instance, my grandfather served in World War II and the Korean War and the other side of my family, the German side, were conscientious objectors. They didn't want to fight the Nazis, but then this side worked so hard to assimilate lost language, didn't teach my mom's generation the language. And then we're reintroducing all of that in our generation. And what I noticed is there was a lot of buy-in of we got it, we made it, we made it. And so I think when homeboy was like, Hey, I'm going to do this. They're like, not to me,

To me, not to me. It's not going to happen to me. I want my taxes lowered. And the thing is, it is happening to us now. It was always going to, and I think those of us that spoke out or there was a loss of the memory of the old school guys that were advocating for justice. There was a loss there, but I think it's come back with fury and a lot of communities and they're like, oh, crap, this is true. We're not in, you see the videos, people are screaming, I'm an American citizen. They're like, we don't care. Let me just break your arm. Let me run over your legs. Let me take, you're a US service member with a naval id. That's not real. Just pure absurdity is insane. And I think he said he was going to do it, he's doing it. And then a lot of people in our community were speaking out and saying, this is going to happen. And people were like, no, no, no, no, no. Well, guess what?

Rebecca (35:37):

Right? Which goes back to Martin Luther King's words about injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The notion that if you're willing to take rights and opportunities and privileges from one, you are willing to take them from all. And so again, back to what Jenny said earlier, this notion that we rise our fall together, and as long as we have this mindset that I can get mine, and it doesn't matter if you don't get yours, there will always be a vulnerability there. And what you're saying is interesting to me, Danielle, talking about the military service in Latino communities or other whatever it is that we believed was the ticket in. And I don't think it's an accident or a coincidence that just around the time that black women are named the most educated and the fastest rising group for graduate and doctoral degrees, you see the dismantling of affirmative action by the Supreme Court.

(36:49):

You see now, the latest thing is that the Department of Education has come out and declassified a list of degrees as professional degrees. And overwhelmingly the degrees that are named on that list that are no longer considered professional are ones that are inhabited primarily by women and people of color. And I don't think that that is a coincidence, nor do I think it's a coincidence that in the mass firings of the federal government, 300,000 black women lost their jobs. And a lot of that is because in the nineties when we were graduated from college and getting our degrees, corporate America was not a welcome place for people of color, for black people, for black women. So we went into the government sector because that was the place where there was a bit more of a playing field that would allow you to succeed. And I don't think it is a coincidence that the dismantling intentionally of the on-ramps that we thought were there, that would give us a sense of belonging. Like you're in now, right? You have arrived, so to speak. And I am only naming the ones that I see from my vantage point. I hear you naming some things that you see from your vantage point, right? I'm sure, Jenny, you have thoughts about how those things have impacted white women.

Jenny (38:20):

Yeah, yeah. And I'm thinking about, we also went yesterday to the Native American Museum and I learned, I did not realize this, that there was something called, I want to say, the Pocahontas exception. And if a native person claimed up to one 14th of Pocahontas, DNA, they were then deemed white. What? And it just flabbergasted to me, and it was so evident just this, I was thinking about that when you were talking, Danielle, just like this moving target and this false promise of if you just do enough, if you just, you'll get two. But it's always a lie. It's always been a lie from literally the very first settlers in Jamestown. It has been a lie,

Rebecca (39:27):

Which is why it's sort of narcissistic and its sort of energy and movement, right? Because narcissism always moves the goalpost. It always changes the roles of the game to advantage the narcissist. And whiteness is good for that. This is where the goalpost is. You step up and meet it, and whiteness moves the goalpost.

Danielle (40:00):

I think it's funny that Texas redistricted based on how Latinos thought pre pre-migration crackdown, and they did it in Miami and Miami, Miami's democratic mayor won in a landslide just flipped. And I think they're like, oh, shit, what are we going to do? I think it's also interesting. I didn't realize that Steven Miller, who's the architect of this crap, did you know his wife is brown

Hell. That's creepy shit,

Rebecca (40:41):

Right? I mean headset. No, no. Vance is married to a brown woman. I'm sure in Trump's mind. Melania is from some Norwegian country, but she's an immigrant. She's not a US citizen. And the Supreme Court just granted cert on the birthright citizenship case, which means we're in trouble.

(41:12):

Well, I'm worried about everybody because once you start messing with that definition of citizenship, they can massage it any kind of way they want to. And so I don't think anybody's safe. I really don't. I think the low hanging fruit to speak, and I apologize for that language, is going to be people who are deemed undocumented, but they're not going to stop there. They're coming for everybody and anybody they can find any reason whatsoever to decide that you're not, if being born on US soil is not sufficient, then the sky's the limit. And just like they did at the turn of the century when they decided who was white and who wasn't and therefore who could vote and who could own property or who couldn't, we're going to watch the total and reimagining of who has access to power.

Danielle (42:14):

I just am worried because when you go back and you read stories about the Nazis or you read about genocide and other places in the world, you get inklings or World War I or even more ancient wars, you see these leads up in these telltale signs or you see a lead up to a complete ethnic cleansing, which is what it feels like we're gearing up for.

I mean, and now with the requirement to come into the United States, even as a tourist, when you enter the border, you have to give access to five years of your social media history. I don't know. I think some people think, oh, you're futurizing too much. You're catastrophizing too much. But I'm like, wait a minute. That's why we studied history, so we didn't do this again. Right?

Jenny (43:13):

Yeah. I saw this really moving interview with this man who was 74 years old protesting outside of an nice facility, and they were talking to him and one of the things he said was like, Trump knows immigrants are not an issue. He's not concerned about that at all. He is using this most vulnerable population to desensitize us to masked men, stealing people off the streets.

Rebecca (43:46):

I agree. I agree. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think it's desensitizing us. And I don't actually think that that is Trump. I don't know that he is cunning enough to get that whoever's masterminding, project 2025 and all that, you can ask the question in some ways, was Hitler actually antisemitic or did he just utilize the language of antisemitism to mask what he was really doing? And I don't mean that to sort of sound flippant or deny what happened in the Holocaust. I'm suggesting that same thing. In some ways it's like because America is vulnerable to racialized language and because racialized rhetoric moves masses of people, there's a sense in which, let me use that. So you won't be paying attention to the fact that I just stole billions of dollars out of the US economy so that you won't notice the massive redistribution of wealth and the shutting off of avenues to upward social mobility.

(45:12):

And the masses will follow you because they think it's about race, when in actuality it's not. Because if they're successful in undoing birthright citizenship, you can come after anybody you want because all of our citizenship is based on the fact that we were born on US soil. I don't care what color you are, I do not care what lineage you have. Every person in this country or every person that claims to be a US citizen, it's largely based on the fact that you were born on US soil. And it's easy to say, oh, we're only talking about the immigrants. But so far since he took office, we've worked our way through various Latin cultures, Somali people, he's gone after Asian people. I mean, so if you go after birthright citizenship and you tell everyone, we're only talking about people from brown countries, no, he's not, and it isn't going to matter. They will find some arbitrary line to decide you have power to vote to own property. And they will decide, and this is not new in US history. They took whole businesses, land property, they've seized property and wealth from so many different cultures in US history during Japanese internment during the Tulsa massacre. And those are only the couple that I could name. I'm sure Jenny and Danielle, you guys could name several, right? So it's coming and it's coming for everybody.

Jenny (47:17):

So what are you guys doing to, I know that you're both doing a lot to resist, and we talk a lot about that. What are you doing to care for yourself in the resistance knowing that things will get worse and this is going to be a long battle? What does helping take care of yourself look like in that for you?

Danielle (47:55):

I dunno, I thought about this a lot actually, because I got a notification from my health insurance that they're no longer covering thyroid medication that I take. So I have to go back to my doctor and find an alternative brand, hopefully one they would cover or provide more blood work to prove that that thyroid medication is necessary. And if you know anything about thyroids, it doesn't get better. You just take that medicine to balance yourself. So for me, my commitment and part of me would just want to let that go whenever it runs out at the end of December. But for me, one way I'm trying to take care of myself is one, stocking up on it, and two, I've made an appointment to go see my doctor. So I think just trying to do regular things because I could feel myself say, you know what?

(48:53):

Just screw it. I could live with this. I know I can't. I know I can technically maybe live, but it will cause a lot of trouble for me. So I think there's going to be probably not just for me, but for a lot of people, like invitations as care changes, like actual healthcare or whatever. And sometimes those decisions financially will dictate what we can do for ourselves, but I think as much as I can, I want to pursue staying healthy. And it's not just that just eating and exercising. So that's one way I'm thinking about it.

Rebecca (49:37):

I think I'm still in the phase of really curating my access to information and data. There's so much that happens every day and I cannot take it all in. And so I still largely don't watch the news. I may scan a headline once every couple days just to kind of get the general gist of what is happening because I can't, I just cannot take all of that in. Yeah, it will be way too overwhelming, I think. So that still has been a place of that feels like care. And I also think trying to move a little bit more, get a little bit of, and I actually wrote a blog post this month about chocolate because when I grew up in California seas, chocolate was a whole thing, and you cannot get it on the east coast. And so I actually ordered myself a box of seas chocolate, and I'm waiting for it to arrive at my house costs way too much money. But for me, that piece of chocolate represents something that makes me smile about my childhood. And plus, who doesn't think chocolate is care? And if you live a life where chocolate does not care, I humbly implore you to change your definition of care. But yeah, so I mean it is something small, but these days, small things that feel like there's something to smile about or actually big things.

Jenny (51:30):

I have been trying to allow myself to take dance classes. It's my therapy and it just helps me. A lot of the things that we're talking about, I don't have words for, I can only express through movement now. And so being able to be in a space where my body is held and I don't have to think about how to move my body and I can just have someone be like, put your hand here. That has been really supportive for me. And just feeling my body move with other bodies has been really supportive for me.

Rebecca (52:17):

Yeah. The other thing I would just add is that we started this conversation talking about Marjorie Taylor Green and the ways in which I feel like her response is insufficient, but there is a part of me that feels like it is a response, it however small it is, an acknowledgement that something isn't right. And I do think you're starting to see a little bit of that seep through. And I saw an interview recently where someone suggested it's going to take more than just Trump out of office to actually repair what has been broken over the last several years. I think that's true. So I want to say that putting a little bit of weight in the cracks in the surface feels a little bit like care to me, but it still feels risky. I don't know. I'm hopeful that something good will come of the cracks that are starting to surface the people that are starting to say, actually, this isn't what I meant when I voted. This isn't what I wanted when I voted. That cities like Miami are electing democratic mayors for the first time in 30 years, but I feel that it's a little bit risky. I am a little nervous about how far it will go and what will that mean. But I think that I can feel the beginnings of a seedling of hope that maybe this won't be as bad as maybe we'll stop it before we go off the edge of a cliff. We'll see.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Rebecca A. Wheeler Walston, J.D., Master of Arts in Counseling

Email: asolidfoundationcoaching@gmail.com

Phone:  +1.5104686137

Website: Rebuildingmyfoundation.com

I have been doing story work for nearly a decade. I earned a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and trained in story work at The Allender Center at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I have served as a story facilitator and trainer at both The Allender Center and the Art of Living Counseling Center. I currently see clients for one-on-one story coaching and work as a speaker and facilitator with Hope & Anchor, an initiative of The Impact Movement, Inc., bringing the power of story work to college students.

By all accounts, I should not be the person that I am today. I should not have survived the difficulties and the struggles that I have faced. At best, I should be beaten down by life‘s struggles, perhaps bitter. I should have given in and given up long ago. But I was invited to do the good work of (re)building a solid foundation. More than once in my life, I have witnessed God send someone my way at just the right moment to help me understand my own story, and to find the strength to step away from the seemingly inevitable ending of living life in defeat. More than once I have been invited and challenged to find the resilience that lies within me to overcome the difficult moment. To trust in the goodness and the power of a kind gesture. What follows is a snapshot of a pivotal invitation to trust the kindness of another in my own story. May it invite you to receive to the pivotal invitation of kindness in your own story. Listen with me…

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Hey, Jenny, you and I usually hop on here and you're like, what's happening today? Is there a guest today? Isn't that what you told me at the beginning?

And then I sent you this Instagram reel that was talking about, I feel like I've had this, my own therapeutic journey of landing with someone that was very unhelpful, going to someone that I thought was more helpful. And then coming out of that and doing some somatic work and different kind of therapeutic tools, but all in the effort for me at least, it's been like, I want to feel better. I want my body to have less pain. I want to have less PTSD. I want to have a richer life, stay present with my kids and my family. So those are the places pursuit of healing came from for me. What about you? Why did you enter therapy?

Jenny (00:53):

I entered therapy because of chronic state of dissociation and not feeling real, coupled with pretty incessant intrusive thoughts, kind of OCD tendencies and just fixating and paranoid about so many things that I knew even before I did therapy. I needed therapy. And I came from a world where therapy wasn't really considered very Christian. It was like, you should just pray and if you pray, God will take it away. So I actually remember I went to the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, partly because I knew it was a requirement to get therapy. And so for the first three years I was like, yeah, yeah, my school requires me to go to therapy. And then even after I graduated, I was like, well, I'm just staying in therapy to talk about what's coming up for my clients. And then it was probably five years, six years into therapy when I was finally like, no, I've gone through some really tough things and I just actually need a space to talk about it and process it. And so trying to develop a healthier relationship with my own body and figuring out how I wanted to move with integrity through the world is a big part of my healing journey.

Danielle (02:23):

I remember when I went to therapy as a kid and well, it was a psychologist and him just kind of asking really direct questions and because they were so direct and pointed, just me just saying like, nah, never happened, never did that, never felt that way, et cetera, et cetera. So I feel like as I've progressed through life, I've had even a better understanding of what's healing for me, what is love life like my imagination for what things could be. But also I think I was very trusting and taught to trust authority figures, even though at the same time my own trauma kept me very distrusting, if that makes sense. So my first recommendations when I went, I was skeptical, but I was also very hopeful. This is going to help.

Jenny (03:13):

Yeah, totally. Yep. Yeah. And sometimes it's hard for me to know what is my homeschool brain and what is just my brain, because I always think everyone else knows more than me about pretty much everything. And so then I will do crazy amount of research about something and then Sean will be like, yeah, most people don't even know that much about that subject. And I'm like, dang it, I wasted so much effort again. But I think especially in the therapy world, when I first started therapy, and I've seen different therapists over the years, some better experiences than others, and I think I often had that same dissonance where I was like, I think more than me, but I don't want you to know more than me. And so I would feel like this wrestling of you don't know me actually. And so it created a lot of tension in my earlier days of therapy, I think.

Danielle (04:16):

Yeah, I didn't know too with my faith background how therapy and my faith or theological beliefs might impact therapy. So along the lines of stereotypes for race or stereotypes for gender or what do you do? I am a spiritual person, so what do I do with the thought of I do believe in angels and spiritual beings and evil and good in the world, and what do I do? How does that mix into therapy? And I grew up evangelical. And so there was always this story, I don't know if you watched Heaven's Gates, Hells Flames at your church Ever? No. But it was this play that they came and they did, and you were supposed to invite your friends. And the story was some people came and at the end of their life, they had this choice to choose Jesus or not. And the story of some people choosing Jesus and making it into heaven and some people not choosing Jesus and being sent to hell, and then there was these pictures of these demons and the devil and stuff. So I had a lot of fear around how evil spirits were even just interacting with us on a daily basis.

Jenny (05:35):

Yeah, I grew up evangelical, but not in a Pentecostal charismatic world at all. And so in my family, things like spiritual warfare or things like that were not often talked about in my faith tradition in my family. But I grew up in Colorado Springs, and so by the time I was in sixth, seventh grade, maybe seventh or eighth grade, I was spending a lot of time at Ted Haggard's New Life Church, which was this huge mega, very charismatic church. And every year they would do this play called The Thorn, and it would have these terrifying hell scenes. It was very common for people to throw up in the audience. They were so freaked out and they'd have demons repelling down from the ceiling. And so I had a lot of fear earlier than that. I always had a fear of hell. I remember on my probably 10th or 11th birthday, I was at Chuck E Cheese and my birthday Wish was that I could live to be a thousand because I thought then I would be good enough to not go to hell.

(06:52):

I was always so afraid that I would just make the simplest mistake and then I would end up in hell. And even when I went to bed at night, I would tell my parents goodnight and they'd say, see you tomorrow. And I wouldn't say it because I thought as a 9-year-old, what if I die and I don't see them tomorrow? Then the last thing I said was a lie, and then I'm going to go to hell. And so it was always policing everything I did or said to try to avoid this scary, like a fire that I thought awaited me.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I am currently in New York right now, and I remember seeing nine 11 happen on the news, and it was the same year I had watched Left Behind on that same TV with my family. So as I was watching it, my very first thought was, well, these planes ran into these buildings because the pilots were raptured and I was left behind.

Danielle (08:09):

And so I know we were like, we get to grad school, you're studying therapy. It's mixed with psychology. I remember some people saying to me, Hey, you're going to lose your faith. And I was like, what does that mean? I'm like 40, do you assume because I learned something about my brain that's going to alter my faith. So even then I felt the flavor of that, but at the time I was with seeing a Christian therapist, a therapist that was a Christian and engaging in therapy through that lens. And I think I was grateful for that at the time, but also there were things that just didn't feel right to me or fell off or racially motivated, and I didn't know what to say because when I brought them into the session, that became part of the work as my resistance or my UNC cooperation in therapy. So that was hard for me. I don't know if you noticed similar things in your own therapy journey.

Jenny (09:06):

I feel sick as you say, that I can feel my stomach clenching and yeah, I think for there to be a sense of this is how I think, and therefore if you as the client don't agree, that's your resistance

(09:27):

Is itself whiteness being enacted because it's this, I think about Tema, Koon's, white supremacy, cultural norms, and one of them is objectivity and the belief that there is this one capital T objective truth, and it just so happens that white bodies have it apparently. And so then if you differ with that than there is something you aren't seeing, rather than how do I stay in relation to you knowing that we might see this in a very different way and how do we practice being together or not being together because of how our experiences in our worldviews differ? But I can honor that and honor you as a sovereign being to choose your own journey and your self-actualization on that journey.

Danielle(10:22):

So what are you saying is that a lot of our therapeutic lens, even though maybe it's not Christian, has been developed in this, I think you used the word before we got on here like dominion or capital T. I do believe there is truth, but almost a truth that overrides any experience you might have. How would you describe that? Yeah. Well,

Jenny (10:49):

When I think about a specific type of saying that things are demonic or they're spiritual, a lot of that language comes from the very charismatic movement of dominion and it uses a lot of spiritual warfare language to justify dominion. And it's saying there's a stronghold of Buddhism in Thailand and that's why we have to go and bring Jesus. And what that means is bring white capitalistic Jesus. And so I think that that plays out on mass scales. And a big part of dominion is that the idea that there's seven spheres of society, it's like family culture, I don't remember all of them education, and the idea is that Christians should be leaders in each those seven spheres of society. And so a lot of the language in that is that there are demons or demonic strongholds. And a lot of that language I think is also racialized because a lot of it is colorism. We are going into this very dark place and the association with darkness always seems to coincide with melanin,

You don't often hear that language as much when you're talking about white communities.

Danielle (12:29):

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about nuts and bolts and you're in therapy, then it becomes almost to me, if a trauma happens to you and let's say then the theory is that alongside of that trauma and evil entity or a spirit comes in and places itself in that weak spot, then it feels like we're placing the victim as sharing the blame for what happened to them or how they're impacted by that trauma. I'm not sure if I'm saying it right, but I dunno, maybe you can say it better.

 (13:25):

Well, I think that it's a way of making even the case of sexual assault, for instance, I've been in scenarios where or heard stories where someone shared a story of sexual assault or sexual violence and then their life has been impacted by that trauma in certain patterned ways and in the patterns of how that's been impacted. The lens that's additionally added to that is saying an evil entity or an evil spirit has taken a stronghold or a footing in their life, or it's related to a generational curse. This happened to your mother or your grandma too. And so therefore to even get free of the trauma that happened to you, you also have to take responsibility for your mom or your grandma or for exiting an evil entity out of your life then to get better. Does that make sense or what are you hearing me say?

Jenny (14:27):

Well, I think I am hearing it on a few different levels. One, there's not really any justification for that. Even if we were to talk about biblical counseling, there's not a sense of in the Bible, a demon came into you because this thing happened or darkness came into you or whatever problematic language you want to use. Those are actually pretty relatively new constructs and ideas. And it makes me think about how it also feels like whiteness because I think about whiteness as a system that disables agency. And so of course there may be symptoms of trauma that will always be with us. And I really like the framework of thinking of trauma more like diabetes where it's something you learn to moderate, it's something you learn to take care of, but it's probably never going to totally leave you. And I think, sorry, there's loud music playing, but even in that, it's like if I know I have diabetes, I know what I can do. If there's some other entity somewhere in me, whatever that means, that is so disempowering to my own agency and my own choice to be able to say, how do I make meaning out of these symptoms and how do I continue living a meaningful life even if I might have difficulties? It's a very victimizing and victim blaming language is what I'm hearing in that.

Danielle (16:15):

And it also is this idea that somehow, for instance, I hate the word Christian, but people that have faith in Jesus that somewhere wrapped up in his world and his work and his walk on earth, there's some implication that if you do the right things, your life will be pain-free or you can get to a place where you love your life and the life that you're loving no longer has that same struggle. I find that exactly opposite of what Jesus actually said, but in the moment, of course, when you're engaged in that kind of work, whether it's with a spiritual counselor or another kind of counselor, the idea that you could be pain-free is, I mean, who doesn't want to be? Not a lot of people I know that were just consciously bring it on. I love waking up every day and feeling slightly ungrounded, doesn't everyone, or I like having friends and feeling alone who wakes up and consciously says that, but somehow this idea has gotten mixed in that if we live or make enough money, whether it's inside of therapy or outside of healing, looks like the idea of absence of whether I'm not trying to glorify suffering, but I am saying that to have an ongoing struggle feels very normal and very in step with Jesus rather than out of step.

Jenny  (17:53):

It makes me think of this term I love, and I can't remember who coined it at the moment, but it's the word, and it's the idea that your health and that could kind of be encompassing a lot of different things, relational health, spiritual health, physical health is co-opted by this neoliberal capitalistic idea that you are just this lone island responsible for your health and that your health isn't impacted by colonialism and white supremacy and capitalism and all of these things that are going to be detrimental to the wellness and health of all the different parts of you. And so I think that that's it or hyper spiritualizing it. Not to say there's not a spiritual component, but to say, yes, I've reduced this down to know that this is a stronghold or a demon. I think it abdicates responsibility for the shared relational field and how am I currently contributing and benefiting from those systems that may be harming you or someone else that I'm in relationship with. And so I think about spiritual warfare. Language often is an abdication for holding the tension of that relational field.

Danielle  (19:18):

Yeah, that's really powerful. It reminds me of, I often think of this because I grew up in these wild, charismatic religion spaces, but people getting prayed for and then them miraculously being healed. I remember one person being healed from healed from marijuana and alcohol, and as a kid I was like, wow. So they just left the church and this person had gotten up in front of the entire church and confessed their struggle or their addiction that they said it was and confessed it out loud with their family standing by them and then left a stage. And sometime later I ran into one of their kids and they're like, yeah, dad didn't drink any alcohol again, but he still hit my mom. He still yelled at us, but at church it was this huge success. It was like you didn't have any other alcohol, but was such a narrow view of what healing actually is or capacity they missed. The bigger what I feel like is the important stuff, whatever that

But that's how I think about it. I think I felt in that type of therapy as I've reflected that it was a problem to be fixed. Whatever I had going on was a problem to be fixed, and my lack of progress or maybe persistent pain sometimes became this symbol that I somehow wasn't engaging in the therapeutic process of showing up, or I somehow have bought in and wanted that pain longterm. And so I think as I've reflected on that viewpoint from therapy, I've had to back out even from my own way of working with clients, I think there are times when we do engage in things and we're choosing, but I do think there's a lot of times when we're not, it's just happening.

Jenny (21:29):

Yeah, I feel like for me, I was trained in a model that was very aggressive therapy. It was like, you got to go after the hardest part in the story. You have to go dig out the trauma. And it was like this very intense way of being with people. And unfortunately, I caused a lot of harm in that world and have had to do repair with folks will probably have to do more repair with folks in the future. And through somatic experiencing training and learning different nervous system modalities, I've come to believe that it's actually about being receptive and really believing that my client's body is the widest person in the room. And so how do I create a container to just be with and listen and observe and trust that whatever shifts need to happen will come from that and not from whatever I'm trying to project or put into the space.

Danielle (22:45):

I mean, it's such a wild area of work that it feels now in my job, it feels so profoundly dangerous to bring in spirituality in any sense that says there's an unseen stronghold on you that it takes secret knowledge to get rid of a secret prayer or a specific prayer written down in a certain order or a specific group of people to pray for you, or you have to know, I mean, a part of this frame, I heard there's contracts in heaven that have agreed with whatever spirit might be in you, and you have to break those contracts in order for your therapy to keep moving forward. Now, I think that's so wild. How could I ever bring that to a client in a vulnerable?

And so it's just like, where are these ideas coming from? I'm going to take a wild hair of a guest to say some white guy, maybe a white lady. It's probably going to be one or the other. And how has their own psychology and theology formed how they think about that? And if they want to make meaning out of that and that is their thing, great. But I think the problem is whenever we create a dogma around something and then go, and then this is a universal truth that is going to apply to my clients, and if it doesn't apply to my clients, then my clients are doing it wrong. I think that's incredibly harmful.

Yeah, I know. I think the audacity and the level of privilege it would be to even bring that up with a client and make that assumption that that could be it. I think it'd be another thing if a client comes and says, Hey, I think this is it, then that's something you can talk about. But to bring it up as a possible reason someone is stuck, that there's demonic in their life, I think, well, I have, I've read recently some studies that actually increases suicidality. It increases self-harming behaviors because it's not the evil spirit, but it's that feeling of I'm powerless. Yeah,

Jenny (25:30):

Yeah. And I ascribed to that in my early years of therapy and in my own experience I had, I had these very intensive prayer sessions when therapy wasn't cutting it, so I needed to somehow have something even more vigorously digging out whatever it was. And it's kind of this weird both, and some of those experiences were actually very healing for me. But I actually think what was more healing was having attuned kind faces and maybe even hands on me sometimes and these very visceral experiences that my body needed, but then it was ascribed to something ethereal rather than how much power is in ritual and coming together and doing something that we can still acknowledge we are creating this,

That we get to put on the meaning that we're making. We don't have to. Yeah, I don't know. I think we can do that. And I think there are gentler ways to do that that still center a sense of agency and less of this kind of paternalistic thinking too, which I think is historical through the field of psychology from Freud onwards, it was this idea that I'm the professional and I know what's best for you. And I think that there's been much work and still as much work to do around decolonizing what healing professions look like. And I find myself honestly more and more skeptical of individual work is this not only, and again, it's of this both, and I think it can be very helpful. And if individual work is all that we're ever doing, how are we then disabling ourselves from stepping into more of those places of our own agency and ability?

Danielle (27:48):

Man, I feel so many conflicts as you talk. I feel that so much of what we need in therapy is what we don't get from community and friendships, and that if we had people, when we have people and if we have people that can just hold our story for bits at a time, I think often that can really be healing or just as healing is meaning with the therapist. I also feel like getting to talk one-on-one with someone is such a relief at times to just be able to spill everything. And as you know, Jenny, we both have partners that can talk a lot, so having someone else that we can just go to also feels good. And then I think the group setting, I love it when I'm in a trusted place like that, however it looks, and because of so many ethics violations like the ones we're talking about, especially in the spiritual realm, that's one reason I've hung onto my license. But at the same time, I also feel like the license is a hindrance at sometimes that it doesn't allow us to do everything that we could do just as how do you frame groups within that? It just gets more complicated. I'm not saying that's wrong, it's just thoughts I have.

Jenny (29:12):

Totally. Yeah, and I think it's intentionally complicated. I think that's part of the problem I'm thinking about. I just spent a week with a very, very dear 4-year-old in my life, and Amari, my dog was whining, and the 4-year-old asked Is Amari and Amari just wanted to eat whatever we were eating, and she was tied to the couch so she wouldn't eat a cat. And Sean goes, Amari doesn't think she's okay. And the four-year-old goes, well, if Amari doesn't think she's okay, she's not okay. And it was just like this most precious, empathetic response that was so simple. I was like, yeah, if you don't think you're okay, you're not okay. And just her concern was just being with Amari because she didn't feel okay. And I really think that that's what we need, and yet we live in a world that is so disconnected because we're all grinding just to try to get food and healthcare and water and all of the things that have been commodified. It's really hard to take that time to be in those hospitable environments where those more vulnerable parts of us get to show up

Danielle (30:34):

And it can't be rushed. Even with good friends sometimes you just can't sit down and just talk about the inner things. Sometimes you need all that warmup time of just having fun, remembering what it's like to be in a space with someone. So I think we underestimate how much contact we actually need with people.

Yeah. What are your recommendations then for folks? Say someone's coming out of that therapeutic space or they're wondering about it. What do you tell people?

Jenny (31:06):

Go to dance class.

I do. And I went to a dance class last night, last I cried multiple times. And one of the times the teacher was like, this is $25. This is the cheapest therapy you're ever going to have. And it's very true. And I think it is so therapeutic to be in a space where you can move your body in a way that feels safe and good. And I recognize that shared movement spaces may not feel safe for all bodies. And so that's what I would say from my embodied experience, but I also want to hold that dance spaces are not void of whiteness and all of these other things that we're talking about too. And so I would say find what can feel like a safe enough community for you, because I don't think any community is 100% safe,

I think we can hopefully find places of shared interest where we get to bring the parts of us that are alive and passionate. And the more we get to share those, then I think like you're saying, we might have enough space that maybe one day in between classes we start talking about something meaningful or things like that. And so I'm a big fan of people trying to figure out what makes them excited to do what activity makes them excited to do, and is there a way you can invite, maybe it's one, maybe it's two, three people into that. It doesn't have to be this giant group, but how can we practice sharing space and moving through the world in a way that we would want to?

Danielle (32:55):

Yeah, that's good. I like that. I think for me, while I'm not living in a warm place, I mean, it's not as cold as New York probably, but it's not a warm place Washington state. But when I am in a warm place, I like to float in saltwater. I don't like to do cold plunges to cold for me, but I enjoy that when I feel like in warm salt water, I feel suddenly released and so happy. That's one thing for me, but it's not accessible here. So cooking with my kids, and honestly my regular contact with the same core people at my gym at a class most days of the week, I will go and I arrive 20 minutes early and I'll sit there and people are like, what are you doing? If they don't know me, I'm like, I'm warming up. And they're like, yeah.

(33:48):

And so now there's a couple other people that are arrive early and they just hang and sit there, and we're all just, I just need to warm up my energy to even be social in a different spot. But once I am, it's not deep convo. Sometimes it is. I showed up, I don't know, last week and cried at class or two weeks ago. So there's the possibility for that. No one judges you in the space that I'm in. So that, for me, that feels good. A little bit of movement and also just being able to sit or be somewhere where I'm with people, but I'm maybe not demanded to say anything. So yeah,

Jenny (34:28):

It makes me think about, and this may be offensive for some people, so I will give a caveat that this resonates with me. It's not dogma, but I love this podcast called Search for the Slavic Soul, and it is this Polish woman who talks about pre-Christian Slavic religion and tradition. And one of the things that she talks about is that there wasn't a lot of praying, and she's like, in Slavic tradition, you didn't want to bother the gods. The Gods would just tell you, get off your knees and go do something useful. And I'm not against prayer, but I do think in some ways it seems related to what we're talking about, about these hyper spiritualizing things, where it's like, at what point do we actually just get up and go live the life that we want? And it's not going to be void of these symptoms and the difficult things that we have with us, but what if we actually let our emphasis be more on joy and life and pleasure and fulfillment and trust that we will continue metabolizing these things as we do so rather than I have to always focus on the most negative, the most painful, the most traumatic thing ever.

(35:47):

I think that that's only going to put us more and more in that vortex to use somatic experiencing language rather than how do I grow my counter vortex of pleasure and joy and X, y, Z?

Danielle (35:59):

Oh yeah, you got all those awards and I know what they are now. Yeah. Yeah. We're wrapping up, but I just wanted to say, if you're listening in, we're not prescribing anything or saying that you can't have a spiritual experience, but we are describing and we are describing instances where it can be harmful or ways that it could be problematic for many, many people. So yeah. Any final thoughts, Jenny? I

Jenny (36:32):

Embrace the mess. Life is messy and it's alright. Buckle up.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

https://my.liberaforms.org/solidarity-kitchen-2

Cash Pledges (100 percent goes to families)

https://my.liberaforms.org/solidarity-kitchen-3

Here is our plan: December 2, 2025 (Tuesday), 2:30 p.m. - 7 p.m., North Point Church

Serve up to 400 to go meals for students, parents and/or family members in our school district who have experienced the government shut down, food insecurity, or just plain tight times, with inflation and the job market.

We will cook and pack to-go containers of meals, and be ready to send those off with students and/or families and/or caregivers. We will also have cash donations to put into envelopes, gift card donations to give away to those families that need additional support recovering from the shutdown or SNAP break. If folks would like to give to this, we are in process of setting up a secure format for it, in collaboration.

TRANSCRIPTS

Danielle (00:00):

Cut it off. I just is so swamped with trying to respond to people's texts and calls. We have the whole system going, but I can explain more when we talk. It's just

Jenny (00:12):

Okay. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We can do kind of a short one if that helps, or whatever feels supportive for you.

I'm doing good. I'm thinking about the American Academy of Religions Conference this weekend. It kicks off tonight and I'll be presenting on my panel tomorrow, so I've been thinking about that.

Yeah, I feel nervous, but I feel good. I feel really supported by the Purity Culture Research Collective and the colleagues and friends that I have there. So I mostly excited just to see folks coming in from all over, so I think it'll be a fun time.

Danielle (01:02):

Do you feel like you're going to be able to say what you want to say in the way you want to say it?

Jenny (01:08):

I think so. I keep reading over it again and again and tweaking it. It's hard to say what you want to say in five minutes, but,

Oh goodness. I think there's eight of us. Eight or nine, I can't remember exactly. So we each get five minutes, but then it opens up into a q and a and sort of a discussion, so I'll have more time to expand on what I'm trying to say and it'll be fun to weave it together with other people.

Danielle (01:42):

It's interesting. I feel like we're all in these different places. We are physically sometimes, but even if we're in the same city and we're doing different things towards similar goals, that really strikes me. It's one reason I get excited about what you're doing.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, I think I wrote in an email to friends to get it started. Basically what happened is we were at a band concert a month ago and it was the government shutdown, and my kids were talking about it and some of their classmates not having paychecks, their parents not having paychecks because we live in Kitsap County, and so there are two military, well, maybe there's three military bases in the area, so a lot of government funded work employees, the military obviously. And then also in our school district, I became aware that almost 30% of our students are either on SNAP or free and reduced lunch. So if you add that plus the level of the population of kids in our schools, either with parents in the military or in government position jobs, that's a lot of kids. And so I was like, oh, shit, what are we going to do? And I thought to myself, I was like, how can you not get on board with feeding kids? Really? They're innocent, they're young. I mean, we have plenty of riches in our county, in our country actually to do this should not be a thing. So that's kind of how it got started.

Well, now it's called the Solidarity Kitchen. I'm like one member. There's many members of the Solidarity Kitchen, and we try to make decisions collaboratively. Some of us are better at some things like I'm not going to, I did take my food handlers permit test and passed it, by the way, today. Good job. I'm not going to be in charge. I'm not the expert at that. I like cooking for masses. So although I give input, there's other people that know more than me. There's also other people that know more about organizing volunteers or creating forms, and I dabbled a little bit in the art, but there's people that know more about how art should look and the words that need to go on art. I'm out here telling people, Hey, this is what we're about.

(04:07):

Would you like to join us? And trying to make space that's big enough for a lot of people to join in. It really felt like this collective consciousness movement. I go and I talk to someone, they're like, oh, we would love to do that. And it's like they've already thought of it. So it's not me trying to convince anybody to do anything or any of us, it's just like, oh, this is a need. This is something we can do. And we don't have to agree on a thousand things to get it done because I don't know. I know there are people in our government right now that are just wicked enough not to feed kids. We saw that as evidence, and I won't say any names. And also the new budget that's coming out in the big bill is going to cut snap benefits massively. So this is probably going to be an ongoing issue for kids, but it seems like a slam dunk to me. If you don't have food, if you don't have water, if you don't have shelter, if you don't have safety, how are you supposed to learn?

Jenny (05:09):

Yeah, right. I'm thinking about kids too and just how much their brains, their bodies are just burning through calories as they're growing, as they're learning, as they're developing. And of course every body needs food, but I think especially kids need a lot of food because their bodies are going through a lot of metabolism and a lot of change.

Danielle (05:35):

I think the collective messaging of the government saying basically, I've heard a lot of political pundits say, if you're on snap, if you're on free and reduced lunch, you're lazy. Your parents are lazy. Well, that's just not true. My kids have been on free and reduced lunch, and I remember the times when I was in grad school and we were living on one check, and I'm trying to go back to school to get paid, and you're literally short on money. Making lunches is expensive. And so to have that as an option increases capacity in other areas of your life. It's not that parents are lazy. It's not that parents aren't working jobs. So if that's the collective message, but what it does is it takes food out of the mouths of kids and kids, no matter what we say or think or believe, they are receiving that messaging that your parent might be lazy or your parent is leaching off the government or whatever these horrible tropes are that are spread by certain politicians. I won't say their names. I mean, do we think kids are really that dumb that they don't understand that, right? I mean, they get it. Yeah.

Jenny (06:47):

Right. When really the issue is hoarding, and I was thinking it's really actually pretty recent in human history that most people have even had to buy food. Food comes from the land, from the earth, from animals, from all of these things. And yet we have privatized and subsidized and commodified everything to make it so that you have to be able to have money to be able to afford food, which is just to me, I made this post recently where I just said, I cannot think of anything more opposite than Jesus' message of don't worry about what you'll eat, what you'll wear. Even the sparrows don't fret and the flowers bloom. And then this message from the government and from honestly, a lot of Christians is you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And Martin Luther King Jr. Said, if someone does not have boots, what a cruel thing to tell them. And if we live in a system that is intentionally hamstringing people's ability by not paying them what their labor is worth, by not providing childcare, by giving them crippling medical bills, of course something as simple as food should be becomes so complicated.

Danielle (08:20):

When I was in this theological and also, sorry, political discussion with family members, and I actually heard this verse preached in a sermon referenced Second Thessalonians three 10, which says, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. And in the context I heard it in was interpreted to mean, if you're not working tough, go get a job. So that's kind of the context and some of the theological foundation of what I've heard for why let's not do Snap, let's not do free and reduced lunch, et cetera, et cetera. But I think a more holistic approach would be to focus on what was the historical impression of that time? What did community accountability mean? What did it mean to do resource sharing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think what I would call today, or not me friends and more wise people than me, and I'm using the term of mutual aid, and I don't know if they use mutual aid back then, but that's kind of what I think they're talking about. I don't know that it means showing up at a job and doing nine to five work, is what they were saying in that verse. I think it's contributing to your community.

(09:41):

And a lot of people that don't make hundred, 200 million, like a million dollars a year, they're contributing to our society and they don't get paid what they need to eat. That is also a sin.

Jenny (09:58):

Yes. Yeah. Sorry. It sure seems to me that Jesus spent a lot of time walking around talking and not a lot of time working. From what I read, gospel

Danielle (10:10):

Bro, Jesus relied on mutual aid too. He went fishing, he showed up people's houses, they fed him. There was a lot of trading going on.

Jenny (10:20):

Absolutely. Absolutely. So if someone wants to get involved in what you're doing and provide what they have towards a mutual aid and in service of what you're already doing, is that possible? Should they just go start their own thing? Is there a way they can get involved with what you're doing? What would you tell someone who's listening and is like, yeah, I want to get involved and help?

Danielle (10:48):

They definitely could give cash or a donation. We partnered with the Kitsap Immigrant Assistance Center Kayak here in Kitsap County, and they're like a fiscal partner. They're not a sponsor, but they're like adjacent to us help with Mutual aid. So there is the opportunity to donate through them and market for Solidarity Kitchen December 2nd. And I can put the link in the notes, but I think more importantly, if you're not here, yeah, please, I am not going to say, no, don't give us some cash or don't send us some menstrual supplies or whatnot. You can't donate food from that far away because we have to follow, be compliant with Washington Food law and standards. See, I know this now I took my test, but who in your community needs a gas card? Who needs a grocery card? Who could just use an envelope with a hundred bucks, a hundred bucks? What does that get you? Two bags of groceries or a hundred bucks to just shoot the breeze somewhere, sit down and have a coffee and a drink and go buy your groceries. I think there's this misconception if you give out cash, oh, they're just going to use it on booze and drugs. That's what I heard as a kid.

(12:00):

And now as an adult, I know that's rarely true. And why would we begrudge someone a little bit of cash to go out and have a coffee or have a drink or maybe get a date with their partner or enjoy a little bit better meat at the grocery store? That just seems so selfish and judgmental,

Jenny (12:24):

Totally. No, it makes me think of Tema, O K's, white supremacy, cultural norms, and it's so paternalistic that's like, I should decide how this other person spends their money when it's like that other person is a sovereign being living in their own body. And what if they get to decide what they eat and what they do with their body? What a concept that might be.

Danielle (12:50):

How do you see that kind of, I talk about this here and I know you're very supportive of me too, but how do you see that playing out in your day-to-day life? What does mutual aid look like for you?

Jenny (13:01):

Yeah, it does feel a little more complicated because my community is so broad right now. We're rarely in a place more than a week. And so it really is trying to be open to what's right in front of us. So a week ago, we were at this beautiful cafe in northern Maine that was doing a food drive and was collecting food, but the cafe was going to open itself up to make meals for everyone that was houseless for the holidays. And so we just gave them some cash and we're like, we're not going to be around anymore, but can you use this for the meals that you're going to be making? And they were like, absolutely.

(13:50):

We also look around, we end up picking up a fair amount of hitchhikers when we see someone along the road. And a ride is something we can try to do. So we look out for that. I consider you part of my community, even though you're literally on the other part of the country right now. And so those are some things I like to do. And I like what you said, there's some people that know how to cook. There's some people that know how to do art. I consider one of my gifts is networking and connecting people and saying, Hey, you need this other person has this. Let me connect you. And then also just trying to educate folks, because I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there about, since Reagan and the quote welfare queen and these racialized stereotypes and tropes of who needs money and who needs assistance.

(14:53):

One, white people need snap and assistance as well. And two, it doesn't do justice to the wealth disparity that exists because of hundreds of years of systemic racism and xenophobic rhetoric in our country, that there is a reality to the necessity of these systems right now to support bodies. And so I find myself trying to have difficult, frustrating conversations with family members or people I know that have maybe seen different news sources or things like that, that I have or have a very homogenous community where they don't often understand some of the source of suffering.

Danielle (15:45):

So if you could summarize for someone saying, well, I don't know anybody. I don't have anything. What I kind of hear you saying is that's okay. One, you can continue to reach out for that community and try to make efforts, but you can also, oh, no, are you paused? Oh, no. You can also reach out for those people and you can get started with what's present right in front of you. You can donate some cash to a friend. You can pick up what's safe for you, for you and Sean, you've decided it's actually safe to pick up a hitchhiker and you can get involved locally when you're around something. It doesn't have to be limited to what I'm talking about. The importance is to jump in and communicate love to people through different ways of giving. Where do we go from here? It feels like every day there's something hopeless happening. Yeah,

Well, I think this is one way working and organizing and finding solidarity with friends in my area, but also just I have a family. I'm blessed with a family and just enjoying them, not trying to change anything about them, sitting with them, trying to meet them where they're at, reaching out to friends, calling, texting, saying, Hey. I mean, those are little ways. What about you?

Jenny (17:33):

Yeah, very similar. This conference feels hopeful to me that people are still trying to get together and understand how we can navigate hopefully a more ethical, equitable world. I've had the opportunity to just have some really sweet times connecting with friends who live around here recently and just sharing meals and catching up and just remembering how most people I think are really good and are really trying to do their best. And I need to be able to see that because I think the algorithm wants us to believe that people are mostly scary and bad and dangerous, and certainly there are scary and bad and dangerous people in the world. And I would say the majority of people that I tend to come into contact with in the flesh give me hope for the type of world that is possible.

It is been mostly cold because we're in Boston and it's real cold, but it's also made me appreciate moments of sweet warmth even more. If we go to the YMCA and take a hot shower once every few days or sit in the sauna, it feels like it's a tiny little example of what we're talking about where it's like there are moments of goodness and hope breaking through even when things feel like they're really difficult. And in some ways that actually makes me savor those moments even more because I have honestly lived a very privileged life where most of my life, I didn't have to acknowledge a sense of hopelessness that I'm finding myself reckoning with now in a different way.

Yeah. I'm giving my dog lots of snuggles. She sprained her paw on the beach the other day, and it's been very sad. She did limp around.

Danielle (20:19):

Well, how do you see yourself moving through then a time of Thanksgiving and a time when we, technically this is a time of being together and dah, dah, dah, and I know Thanksgiving has a lot of different meanings for a lot of different people, but just curious how you're thinking of that for yourself this year.

Jenny (20:44):

Yeah, I think I'm thinking about nuance and complexity and knowing that I will be sharing time with people who see the world very differently than I do and who are some of the most generous people I know. And it's not in my opinion, because they're terrible people that they see the world they do. It's because they've had certain influences. And I really appreciate the attempt to not split the world into all or nothing good or bad. That's very hard for me. I have a very strong tendency to just go, Nope, you're in the bad bucket now. And I would say in the last couple years, living in the van has taught me more about nuance and complexity and that you can never really pin someone down. I think people will always surprise you. And so I'm trying to go into the holiday and being open to hold nuance and also trying to grow my ability to not stay silent when I witness violence spoken.

Danielle(22:19):

Like I said, my family's everything to me. So we have some traditions that were started when the kids were little. One is making the favorite pie of everyone in the family. And so I'm in pie phase today. I wrote up a list of the pies I want to make, and really this week is an excuse to do it.

So I'm looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to being with one of my dear friends, one of my forever people, and it's an excuse for us to be together, and we're just going to sit likely and laugh and do nothing and take advantage of the time off. So I think those two things like connection and food feel good to me often, and they feel really good to me right now.

Jenny (23:05):

Yes. And connection and food sounds like so much a part of this day that you're organizing and that you're planning. What are your hopes for December 2nd?

Danielle (23:18):

Is it Yeah, December 2nd, just a Tuesday. Yeah. My hopes is that one that some people were, and this is a valid question, why not just get meal packages ready and then people can cook them and take them home? And I think one of the things was is there's so much love that goes into preparing a meal, and that felt like a ritual for me when I was thinking about doing it that I didn't want to forego. So one, I want to feel like this was cooked, this had intention, this had thought behind it, and it was a lot of work, and that's okay. It's because they love you. And I know that kids go around and often feel like can feel lonely or outcast, and I know adults are feeling that way too. And I just wanted this to be, this is one moment where you can bet someone thought of you and loved you.

(24:09):

That was one thing. So love is a main thing. Second, I wanted it to taste good. That's what I hope it tastes good to people. And third is that there's an imagination in our community that there's so many things against us forming and working and collaborating together, but I hope it gives imagination. There's the political world out there, and there's the practical way of it affects us in one way. I think it affects us, is separating us from our bodies and from each other. And I think to combat that or for any change to happen, we have to find common themes to gather around. And I mean, like I said, there's very few people that can say no to feeding kids, and I just think it's an easy Yes. Let's do it. Yeah. Sorry to talk so much. I have so much to say about it.

Jenny (24:59):

No, I think it's important, and honestly, it's inspiring and challenging in a good way of, I think it's almost easier sometimes to be like, oh, there's so much I don't know what I can do. And you're just like, yeah, you can make food for someone. It doesn't have to be as complicated as we tend to make it. And I have witnessed that be a part of who you are for many, many years now, and I always am inspired to do better in my own way when I see you living into that.

What's your favorite pie?

Danielle (25:43):

It was my favorite pie. Well, I started making homemade pumpkin, and that's when I realized I really like pumpkin pie. You bake the pumpkins. Have you done this? You cut

Dude, you got to do it. You cut them in half, you clean out the seeds, you save that for later, and you don't want the hair in there. I don't know what it's called in English, that string stuff, and then you salt it with the big salts and you bake it. That to me, that is like, oh, it's so good. So I like homemade pumpkin pie, but I also like chocolate pecan pie. I do like pecan pie. I like pie.

What about you? What's your favorite?

Jenny (26:27):

I love so many pies too. I like strawberry rhubarb pie. That's probably my favorite.

Danielle (26:34):

Oh, I didn't know that about you.

Jenny (26:36):

Yeah. I do love pumpkin pie. I do love a really cinnamony apple pie. I had a Mexican chocolate pie once that was spicy. It was so good. Yeah, we actually had it at our wedding. We don't really like cake, so we did just a bunch of pies and it was so good. That

Man. Okay. Okay. Now I really want some pie. Our oven in doesn't work, sadly, so we can't make pie.

Danielle (27:08):

You need to get another way of doing that, then you cannot not have pie.

Jenny (27:14):

I know. We'll be at some families next week, so I'm going to make them make a pie. Well,

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

I am Jenny! (She/Her) MACP, LMHC

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, Certified Yoga Teacher, and an Approved Supervisor in the state of Washington.

I have spent over a decade researching the ways in which the body can heal from trauma through movement and connection. I have come to see that our bodies know what they need. By approaching our body with curiosity we can begin to listen to the innate wisdom our body has to teach us. And that is where the magic happens!

I was raised within fundamentalist Christianity. I have been, and am still on my own journey of healing from religious trauma and religious sexual shame (as well as consistently engaging my entanglement with white saviorism). I am a white, straight, able-bodied, cis woman. I recognize the power and privilege this affords me socially, and I am committed to understanding my bias’ and privilege in the work that I do. I am LGBTQIA+ affirming and actively engage critical race theory and consultation to see a better way forward that honors all bodies of various sizes, races, ability, religion, gender, and sexuality.

I am immensely grateful for the teachers, healers, therapists, and friends (and of course my husband and dog!) for the healing I have been offered. I strive to pay it forward with my clients and students. Few things make me happier than seeing people live freely in their bodies from the inside out!

Danielle (00:10):

Welcome to the Arise Podcast with my colleague Jenny McGrath and I today Jenny's going to read a part of a presentation she's giving in a week, and I hope you really listen in The political times are heavy and the news about Epstein has been triggering for so many, including Jenny and myself. I hope as you listen, you find yourself somewhere in the conversation and if you don't, I hope that you can find yourself with someone else in your close sphere of influence. These conversations aren't perfect. We can't resolve it at the end. We don't often know what we need, so I hope as you listen along that you join us, you join us and you reach out for connection in your community with friends, people that you trust, people that you know can hold your story. And if you don't have any of those people that maybe you can find the energy and the time and the internal resources to reach out. You also may find yourself activated during this conversation. You may find yourself triggered and so this is a notice that if you feel that that is a possibility and you need to take a break and not listen to this episode, that's okay. Be gentle and kind with yourself and if you feel like you want to keep listening, have some self-care and some ways of connecting with others in place, go ahead and listen in. Hey Jenny, I'd love to hear a bit about your presentation if you don't even mind giving us what you got.

Jenny (01:41):

Yeah, absolutely. I am very honored. I am going to be on a panel entitled Beyond Abstinence Only Purity Culture in Today's Political Moment, and this is for the American Academy of Religion. And so I am talking about, well, yeah, I think I'll just read a very rough draft version of my remarks. I will give a disclaimer, I've only gone over it once so far, maybe twice, so it will shift before I present it, but I'm actually looking forward to talking about it with you because I think that will help me figure out how I want to change it. I think it'll probably just be a three to five minute read if that even

Okay. Alright. I to look at the current political moment in the US and try to extract meaning and orientation from purity culture is essential, but if we only focus on purity culture in the us, we are naval gazing and missing a vital aspect of the project that is purity culture. It is no doubt an imperialist project. White women serving as missionaries have been foot soldiers for since Manifest Destiny and the creation of residential schools in North America and even before this, yet the wave of white women as a force of white Christian nationalism reached its white cap in the early two thousands manifest by the power of purity culture. In the early 1990s, a generation of young white women were groomed to be agents of empire unwittingly. We were told that our value and worth was in our good pure motives and responsibility to others.

(03:31):

We were trained that our racial and gender roles were pivotal in upholding the white, straight, heteronormative, capitalistic family that God designed and we understood that this would come at us martyring our own body. White women therefore learned to transmute the healthy erotic vitality that comes from an awakening body into forms of service. The transnational cast of white Christian supremacy taught us that there were none more deserving more in need than black and brown bodies in the global south pay no attention to black and brown bodies suffering within the us. We were told they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but not in the bodies of color. Outside the membrane of the US white women believed ourselves to be called and furthermore trusted that God would qualify us for the professional roles of philanthropists, medical service providers, nonprofit starters and adoptive mothers of black and brown children in the global south.

(04:30):

We did not blanc that often. We did not actually have the proper training, much less accountability for such tasks and neither did our white Christian communities. We were taking on roles of power we would have never been given in white spaces in the US and in doing so we were remaining compliant to our racial and gendered expectations. This meant among many other things, giving tacit approval to international states that were being used as pawns by the US Christian. Right among these states, the most prominent could arguably be Uganda. Uganda was in the zeitgeist of white Christian youth, the same white Christian youth that experienced life altering commitments given in emotionally evocative abstinence rituals. We were primed for the documentary style film turned organization invisible Children, which found its way into colleges, youth groups, and worship services all over the country. Many young white women watched these erotically charged films, felt a compulsion to do something without recognizing that compulsion came from the same tendrils of expectations, purity, culture placed on our bodies.

(05:43):

Invisible children's film was first released in 2004 and in their release of Kony 2012 reached an audience of a hundred million in its first week of release. Within these same eight years, Ugandan President Veni who had a long entangled relationship with the US Christian right signed into law a bill that made homosexuality the death penalty in certain cases, which was later overturned. He also had been responsible for the forced removal of primarily acho people in Northern Uganda from their lands and placed them into internally displaced people's camps where their death T tolls far exceeded those lost by Coney who musevini claimed to be fighting against as justification for the violent displacement of Acho people. Muny Musevini also changed the Ugandan constitution to get reelected despite concerns that these elections were not truly democratic and has remained president of Uganda for the last 39 years. Uganda was the Petri dish of American conservative laboratory of Christo fascism where whiteness and heteronormative racialized systems of purity culture were embalmed. On November 5th, 2, 20, 24, we experienced what am termed the boomerang of imperialism. Those who have had an eye on purity cultures influence in countries like Uganda are not surprised by this political moment. In fact, this political moment is not new. The only thing new about it is that perhaps for the first time the effects are starting to come more thoroughly to white bodies and white communities. The snake has begun to eat its own tail.

Scary. Okay. It feels like poking an already very angry hornet's nest and speaking to things that are very alive and well in our country right now. So I feel that and I also feel a sense of resolve, you might say that I feel like because of that it feels imperative to speak to my experience and my research and this current political moment. Do you mind if I ask what it was like to hear it?

Danielle (08:30):

It is interesting. Right before I hopped on this call, I was doing mobility at my gym and at the end when my dear friend and I were looking at our DNA, and so I guess I'm thinking of it through the context of my body, so I was thinking about that as you're reading it, Jenny, you said poking the bear and before we shift too fast to what I think, what's the bear you believe you're poking?

Jenny (09:08):

I see it as the far right Christian nationalist ideology and talking about these things in the way that I'm talking about them, I am stepping out of my gender and racial expectations as a white cis woman where I am meant to be demure and compliant and submissive and not calling out abuse of power. And so I see that as concerning and how the religious right, the alt religious right Christian, religious right in the US and thankfully it was not taken on, but even this week was the potential of the Supreme Court seeing a case that would overturn the legalization of gay marriage federally and that comes out of the nuclear focus of the family that James stops and heralded was supposed to be the family. It's one man and it's one woman and you have very specific roles that you're supposed to play in those families.

Danielle (10:35):

Yeah, I mean my mind is just going a thousand miles a minute. I keep thinking of the frame. It's interesting, the frame of the election was built on economy, but after that it feels like there are a few other things like the border, which I'm including immigration and migrants and thoughts about how to work with that issue, not issue, I don't want to say it's an issue, but with that part of the picture of what makes up our country. The second thing that comes to mind after those two things is there was a huge push by MAGA podcasters and church leaders across the country, and I know I've read Cat Armas and a bunch of other people, I've heard you talking about it. There's this juxtaposition of these people talking about returning to some purity, the fantasy of purity, which you're saying you're talking about past and present in your talk while also saying, Hey, let's release the Epstein files while voting for this particular person, Donald Trump, and I am caught. If you look at the statistics, the amount of folks perpetrating violent crime that are so-called migrants or immigrants is so low compared to white men.

(12:16):

I am caught in all those swirling things and I'm also aware that there's been so many things that have happened in the last presidency. There was January 6th and now we have, we've watched ICE in some cases they've killed people in detention centers and I keep thinking, is sexual purity or the idea of the fantasy that this is actually a value of the Christian? Right? Is that going to be something that moves people? I don't know. What do you think?

Jenny (12:54):

I think it's a fair question. I think it is what moved bodies like mine to be complicit in the systems of white supremacy without knowing that's what I was doing. And at the same time that I myself went to Uganda as a missionary and spent the better part of four years there while saying and hearing very hateful and derogatory things about migrants and the fact that signs in Walmart were in Spanish in Colorado, and these things that I was taught like, no, we need to remain pure IE white and heteronormative in here, and then we take our good deeds to other countries. People from Mexico shouldn't be coming up here. We should go on Christmas break and build houses for them there, which I did and it's this weird, we talk a lot about reality. It is this weird pseudo reality where it's like everything is upside down and makes sense within its own system.

(14:13):

I had a therapist at one point say, it's like you had the opposite of a psychotic break when I decided to step out of these worlds and do a lot of work to come into reality because it is hard to explain how does talking about sexual purity lead to what we're seeing with ice and what we're seeing with detention. And I think in reality part of that is the ideology that the body of the US is supposed to primarily be white, straight Christian heteronormative. And so if we have other bodies coming in, you don't see that cry of immigrants in the same way for people that came over from Ukraine. And I don't mean that anything disparagingly about people that needed to come over from Ukraine, but you see that it's a very different mindset from white bodies entering the US than it is black and brown bodies within this ideological framework of what the family or the body of individuals and the country is supposed to look like.

I've been pretty dissociated lately. I think yesterday was very tough as we're seeing just trickles of emails from Epstein and that world and confirmation of what any of us who listened to and believed any of the women that came forward already knew. But it just exposes the falseness that it's actually about protecting anyone because these are stories of young children, of youth being sexually exploited and yet the machine keeps powering on and just keeps trying to ignore that the man they elected to fight the rapists that were coming into our country or the liberals that were sex child trafficking. It turns out every accusation was just a confession.

Danielle (16:43):

Oh man. Every accusation was a confession. In psychological terms, I think of it as projection, like the bad parts I hate about me, the story that criminals are just entering our country nonstop. Well, the truth is we elected criminals. Why are we surprised that by the behavior of our government when we voted for criminality and I say we because I'm a participant in this democracy or what I like to think of as a democracy and I'm a participant in the political system and capitalism and I'm a participant here. How do you participate then from that abstinence, from that purity aspect that you see? The thread just goes all the way through? Yeah,

Jenny (17:48):

I see it as a lifelong untangling. I don't think I'm ever going to be untangled unfortunately from purity culture and white supremacy and heteronormative supremacy and the ways in which these doctrines have formed the way that I have seen the world and that I'm constantly needing to try to unlearn and relearn and underwrite and rewrite these ways that I have internalized. And I think what's hard is I, a lot of times I think even in good intentions to undo these things in activist spaces, we tend to recreate whiteness and we tend to go, okay, I've got it now I'm going to charge ahead and everyone follow me. And part of what I think we need to deconstruct is this idea of a savior or even that an idea is going to save us. How do we actually slow down even when things are so perilous and so immediate? How do we kind of disentangle the way whiteness and capitalism have taught us to just constantly be churning and going and get clearer and clearer about how we got here and where we are now so that hopefully we can figure out how to leave less people behind as we move towards whatever it looks like to move out of this whiteness thing that I don't even honestly have yet an imagination for.

(19:26):

I have a hope for it, but I can't say this is what I think it's going to look like.

Danielle (20:10):

I'm just really struck by, well, maybe it was just after you spoke, I can't remember if it was part of your talk or part of your elaboration on it, but you were talking about Well, I think it was afterwards it was about Mexicans can't come here, but we can take this to Mexico.

Yeah. And I wonder if that, do you feel like that was the same for Uganda?

Jenny (20:45):

Absolutely. Yeah. Which I think it allows that cast to remain in place. One of the professors that I've been deeply influenced by is Ose Manji, and he's a Kenyan professor who lives in Canada who's spent many years researching development work. And he challenges the idea that saviors need victims and the privilege that I had to live in communities where I could fundraise thousands of dollars for a two week or a two month trip is not separate from a world where I'm stepping into communities that have been exploited because of the privileges that I have,

(21:33):

But I can launder my conscience by going and saying I helped people that needed it rather than how are the things that I am benefiting from causing the oppression and how is the government that I'm a part of that has been meddling with countries in Central America and Africa and all over the globe creating a refugee crisis? And how do I deal with that and figure out how to look up, not that I want to ignore people that are suffering or struggling, but I don't want to get tunnel vision on all these little projects I could do at some point. I think we need to look up and say, well, why are these people struggling?

Speaker 1 (22:26):

Yeah, I don't know. I don't have fully formed thoughts. So just in the back, I was thinking, what if you reversed that and you said, well, why is the American church struggling?

(22:55):

I was just thinking about what if you reversed it and I think why is the American church struggling? And we have to look up, we have to look at what are the causes? What systems have we put in place? What corruption have we traded in? How have we laundered our own conscience? I mean, dude, I don't know what's going on with my internet. I need a portable one. I just dunno. I think that comment about laundering your own conscience is really beautiful and brilliant. And I mean, it was no secret that Epstein had done this. It's not a secret. I mean, they're release the list, but they know. And clearly those senators that are releasing those emails drip by drip, they've already seen them. So why did they hang onto them?

Jenny (24:04):

Yeah. Yeah. I am sad, I can't remember who this was. Sean was having me listen to a podcast the other day, just a part of it talking about billionaires. But I think it could be the same for politicians or presidents or the people that are at the top of these systems we've created. That's like in any other sphere, if we look at someone that has an unsatiable need for something, we would probably call that an addiction and say that that person needs help. And actually we need to tend to that and not just keep feeding it. And I think that's been a helpful framework for me to think about these people that are addicted to power that will do anything to try to keep climbing that ladder or get the next ring that's just like, that is an unwell person. That's a very unwell person.

Speaker Danielle

I mean, I'm not surprised, I think, did you say you felt very dissociated this past week? I think I've felt the same way because there's no way to take in that someone, this person is one of the kings of human trafficking. The all time, I mean great at their job. And we're hearing Ghislaine Maxwell is at this minimum security prison and trading for favors and all of these details that are just really gross. And then to hear the Republican senator or the speaker of the house say, well, we haven't done this because we're thinking of the victims. And literally the victims are putting out statements saying, get the damn files out. So the gaslighting is so intense to stay present to all of that gaslighting to stay present to not just the first harm that's happened, but to stay present to the constant gaslighting of victims in real time is just, it is a level of madness. I don't think we can rightfully stay present in all of it.

(26:47):

I don't know. I don't know what we can do, but Well, if anybody's seen the Handmaid's Tale, she is like, I can't remember how you say it in Latin, but she always says, don't let the bastards grind you down. I keep thinking of that line. I think of it all the time. I think connecting to people in your community keep speaking truth, it matters. Keep telling the truth, keep affirming that it is a real thing. Whether it was something at church or like you talked about, it was a missionary experience or abstinence experience, or whether you've been on the end of conversion therapy or you've been a witness to that and the harm it's done in your community. All of that truth telling matters, even if you're not saying Epstein's name, it all matters because there's been such an environment created in our country where we've normalized all of this harm. I mean, for Pete's sake, this man made it all the way to the presidency of the United States, and he's the effing best friend of Epstein. It's like, that was okay. That was okay. And even getting out the emails. So we have to find some way to just keep telling truth in our own communities. That's my opinion. What about yours?

Jenny (28:17):

Yeah, I love that telling The truth matters. I feel that, and I think trying to stay committed to being a safe person for others to tell the truth too, because I think the level, as you use the word gaslighting, the level of gaslighting and denial and dismissal is so huge. And I think, I can't speak for every survivor, but I think I take a guess to say at least most survivors know what it's like to not be believed, to be minimized, to be dismissed. And so I get it when people are like, I'm not going to tell the truth because I'm not going to be believed, or I'm just going to get gaslit again and I can respect that. And so I think for me, it's also how do I keep trying to posture myself as someone that listens and believes people when they tell of the harm that they've experienced? How do I grow my capacity to believe myself for the harm that I've experienced? And who are the people that are safe for me to go to say, do you think I'm crazy? And they say, no, you're not. I need those checkpoints still.

First, I would just want to validate how shit that is and unfortunately how common that is. I think that it's actually, in my experience, both personally and professionally, it is way more rare to have safe places to go than not. And so I would just say, yeah, that makes sense for me. Memoirs have been a safe place. Even though I'm not putting something in the memoir, if I read someone sharing their story, that helps me feel empowered to be like, I believe what they went through. And so maybe that can help me believe what I've gone through. And then don't give up looking, even if that's an online community, even if that's a community you see once a month, it's worth investing in people that you can trust and that can trust you.

Danielle (30:59):

I agree. A thousand percent don't give up because I think a lot of us go through the experience of when we first talk about it, we get alienated from friends or family or people that we thought were close to us, and if that's happened to you, you didn't do anything wrong. That sadly is something very common when you start telling the truth. So just one to know that that's common. It doesn't make it any less painful. And two, to not give up, to keep searching, keep trying, keep trying to connect, and it is not a perfect path. Anyway. Jenny, if we want to hear your talk when you give it, how could we hear it or how could we access it?

Jenny (31:52):

That's a great question. I dunno, I'm not sure if it's live streamed or not. I think it's just in person. So if you can come to Boston next week, it's at the American Academy of Religion. If not, you basically heard it. I will be tweaking things. But this is essentially what I'm talking about is that I think in order to understand what's going on in this current political moment, it is so essential that we understand the socialization of young white women in purity culture and what we're talking about with Epstein, it pulls back the veil that it's really never about purity. It's about using white women as tropes for Empire. And that doesn't mean, and we weren't given immense privilege and power in this world because of our proximity to white men, but it also means that we were harmed. We did both. We were harmed and we caused harm in our own complicity to these systems. I think it is just as important to hold and grow responsibility for how we caused harm as it is to work on the healing of the harm that was caused to us.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Welcome to the Arise podcast. This is episode 12, conversations on Reality. And today we're touching on organizing and what does it mean to organize? How do we organize? And we talk to a seasoned organizer, Mary Lavelle. And so Mary is a queer, grassroots organizer, visual artist and activist who has been fighting oil and gas infrastructure and fighting for social justice in their adult life. Living in the Kitsap Peninsula. They're working on their first book and love working with people to build power in their communities. Join us. I hope you stay curious and we continue the dialogue.

Danielle (00:02):

Okay, Mary, it's so great to have you today. Just want to hear a little bit about who you are, where you come from, how did you land? I know I met you in Kitsap County. Are you originally from here? Yeah. Just take it

Mary (00:15):

Away. Yeah. So my name is Mary Lovel. I use she or they pronouns and I live in Washington State in Kitsap County. And then I have been organizing, I met Danielle through organizing, but I've spent most of my life organizing against oil and gas pipelines. I grew up in Washington state and then I moved up to Canada where there was a major oil pipeline crossing through where I was living. And so that got me engaged in social justice movements. That's the Transmountain pipeline, which it was eventually built, but we delayed it by a decade through a ton of different organizing, combination of lawsuits and direct action and all sorts of different tactics. And so I got to try and learn a lot of different things through that. And then now I'm living in Washington state and do a lot of different social justice bits and bobs of organizing, but mostly I'm focused on stopping. There's a major gas build out in Texas and Louisiana, and so I've been working with communities down there on pressuring financiers behind those oil and gas pipelines and major gas export. But all that to say, it's also like everyone is getting attacked on all sides. So I see it as a very intersectional fight of so many communities are being impacted by ice and the rise of the police state becoming even more prolific and surveillance becoming more prolific and all the things. So I see it as one little niche in a much larger fight. Yeah,

Yeah, totally. I think when I moved up to Canada, I was just finished high school, was moving up for college, had been going to some of the anti-war marches that were happening at the time, but was very much along for the ride, was like, oh, I'll go to big stuff. But it was more like if there was a student walkout or someone else was organizing people. And then when I moved up to Canada, I just saw the history of the nation state there in a totally different way. I started learning about colonialism and understanding that the land that I had moved to was unseated Tu Squamish and Musqueam land, and started learning also about how resource extraction and indigenous rights went hand in hand. I think in general, in the Pacific Northwest and Coast Salish territories, the presence of indigenous communities is really a lot more visible than other parts of North America because of the timelines of colonization.

(03:29):

But basically when I moved and had a fresh set of eyes, I was seeing the major marginalization of indigenous communities in Canada and the way that racism was showing up against indigenous communities there and just the racial demographics are really different in Canada. And so then I was just seeing the impacts of that in just a new way, and it was just frankly really startling. It's the sheer number of people that are forced to be houseless and the disproportionate impacts on especially indigenous communities in Canada, where in the US it's just different demographics of folks that are facing houselessness. And it made me realize that the racial context is so different place to place. But anyways, so all that to say is that I started learning about the combination there was the rise of the idle, no more movement was happening. And so people were doing a lot of really large marches and public demonstrations and hunger strikes and all these different things around it, indigenous rights in Canada and in bc there was a major pipeline that people were fighting too.

(04:48):

And that was the first time that I understood that my general concerns about climate and air and water were one in the same with racial justice. And I think that that really motivated me, but I also think I started learning about it from an academic standpoint and then I was like, this is incredibly dumb. It's like all these people are just writing about this. Why is not anyone doing anything about it? I was going to Simon Fraser University and there was all these people writing whole entire books, and I was like, that's amazing that there's this writing and study and knowledge, but also people are prioritizing this academic lens when it's so disconnected from people's lived realities. I was just like, what the fuck is going on? So then I got involved in organizing and there was already a really robust organizing community that I plugged into there, but I just helped with a lot of different art stuff or a lot of different mass mobilizations and trainings and stuff like that. But yeah, then I just stuck with it. I kept learning so many cool things and meeting so many interesting people that, yeah, it's just inspiring.

Jenny (06:14):

No, that's okay. I obviously feel free to get into as much or as little of your own personal story as you want to, but I was thinking we talk a lot about reality on here, and I'm hearing that there was introduction to your reality based on your education and your experience. And for me, I grew up in a very evangelical world where the rapture was going to happen anytime and I wasn't supposed to be concerned with ecological things because this world was going to end and a new one was going to come. And I'm just curious, and you can speak again as broadly or specifically if the things you were learning were a reality shift for you or if it just felt like it was more in alignment with how you'd experienced being in a body on a planet already.

Mary (07:08):

Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting question. I think. So I grew up between Renton and Issaquah, which is not, it was rural when I was growing up. Now it's become suburban sprawl, but I spent almost all of my summers just playing outside and very hermit ish in a very kind of farm valley vibe. But then I would go into the city for cool punk art shows or whatever. When you're a teenager and you're like, this is the hippest thing ever. I would be like, wow, Seattle. And so when I moved up to Vancouver, it was a very big culture shock for me because of it just being an urban environment too, even though I think I was seeing a lot of the racial impacts and all of the, but also a lot of just that class division that's visible in a different way in an urban environment because you just have more folks living on the streets rather than living in precarious places, more dispersed the way that you see in rural environments.

(08:21):

And so I think that that was a real physical shift for me where it was walking around and seeing the realities people were living in and the environment that I was living in. It's like many, many different people were living in trailers or buses or a lot of different, it wasn't like a wealthy suburban environment, it was a more just sprawling farm environment. But I do think that that moving in my body from being so much of my time outside and so much of my time in really all of the stimulation coming from the natural world to then going to an urban environment and seeing that the crowding of people and pushing people into these weird living situations I felt like was a big wake up call for me. But yeah, I mean my parents are sort of a mixed bag. I feel like my mom is very lefty, she is very spiritual, and so I was exposed to a lot of different face growing up.

(09:33):

She is been deep in studying Buddhism for most of her life, but then also was raised Catholic. So it was one of those things where my parents were like, you have to go to Catholic school because that's how you get morals, even though both of them rejected Catholicism in different ways and had a lot of different forms of abuse through those systems, but then they're like, you have to do this because we had to do it anyways. So all that to say is that I feel like I got exposed to a lot of different religious forms of thought and spirituality, but I didn't really take that too far into organizing world. But I wasn't really forced into a box the same way. It wasn't like I was fighting against the idea of rapture or something like that. I was more, I think my mom especially is very open-minded about religion.

(10:30):

And then my dad, I had a really hard time with me getting involved in activism because he just sees it as really high risk talk to me for after I did a blockade for a couple months or different things like that. Over the course of our relationship, he's now understands why I'm doing what I'm doing. He's learned a lot about climate and I think the way that this social movements can create change, he's been able to see that because of learning through the news and being more curious about it over time. But definitely that was more of the dynamic is a lot of you shouldn't do that because you should keep yourself safe and that won't create change. It's a lot of the, anyways,

I imagine too getting involved, even how Jenny named, oh, I came from this space, and Mary, you came from this space. I came from a different space as well, just thinking. So you meet all these different kinds of people with all these different kinds of ideas about how things might work. And obviously there's just three of us here, and if we were to try to organize something, we would have three distinct perspectives with three distinct family origins and three distinct ways of coming at it. But when you talk about a grander scale, can you give any examples or what you've seen works and doesn't work in your own experience, and how do you personally navigate different personalities, maybe even different motivations for getting something done? Yeah,

Mary (12:30):

Yeah. I think that's one of the things that's constantly intention, I feel like in all social movements is some people believe, oh, you should run for mayor in order to create the city environment that you want. Or some people are like, oh, if only we did lawsuits. Why don't we just sue the bastards? We can win that way. And then the other people are like, why spend the money and the time running for these institutions that are set up to create harm? And we should just blockade them and shift them through enough pressure, which is sort of where I fall in the political scheme I guess. But to me, it's really valuable to have a mix where I'm like, okay, when you have both inside and outside negotiation and pressure, I feel like that's what can create the most change because basically whoever your target is then understands your demands.

(13:35):

And so if you aren't actually clearly making your demands seen and heard and understood, then all the outside pressure in the world, they'll just dismiss you as being weird wing nuts. So I think that's where I fall is that you have to have both and that those will always be in disagreement because anyone doing inside negotiation with any kind of company or government is always going to be awkwardly in the middle between your outside pressure and what the target demand is. And so they'll always be trying to be wishy-washy and water down your demands or water down the, yeah. So anyways, all that to say is so I feel like there's a real range there, and I find myself in the most disagreements with the folks that are doing inside negotiations unless they're actually accountable to the communities. I think that my main thing that I've seen over the years as people that are doing negotiations with either corporations or with the government often wind up not including the most directly impacted voices and shooing them out of the room or not actually being willing to cede power, agreeing to terms that are just not actually what the folks on the ground want and celebrating really small victories.

(15:06):

So yeah, I don't know. That's where a lot of the tension is, I think. But I really just believe in the power of direct action and arts and shifting culture. I feel like the most effective things that I've seen is honestly spaghetti on the wall strategy where you just try everything. You don't actually know what's going to move these billionaires.

(15:32):

They have huge budgets and huge strategies, but it's also if you can create, bring enough people with enough diverse skill sets into the room and then empower them to use their skillsets and cause chaos for whoever the target is, where it's like they are stressed out by your existence, then they wind up seeding to your demands because they're just like, we need this problem to go away. So I'm like, how do we become a problem that's really hard to ignore? It's basically my main strategy, which sounds silly. A lot of people hate it when I answer this way too. So at work or in other places, people think that I should have a sharper strategy and I'm like, okay, but actually does anyone know the answer to this question? No, let's just keep rolling anyways. But I do really going after the financiers or SubT targets too.

(16:34):

That's one of the things that just because sometimes it's like, okay, if you're going to go after Geo Corp or Geo Group, I mean, or one of the other major freaking giant weapons manufacturers or whatever, it just fully goes against their business, and so they aren't going to blink even at a lot of the campaigns, they will get startled by it versus the people that are the next layer below them that are pillars of support in the community, they'll waffle like, oh, I don't want to actually be associated with all those war crimes or things like that. So I like sub targets, but those can also be weird distractions too, depending on what it is. So yeah, really long. I

Danielle (17:24):

Dunno how you felt, Jenny, but I feel all those tensions around organizing that you just said, I felt myself go like this as you went through it because you didn't. Exactly. I mean nothing. I agree it takes a broad strategy. I think I agree with you on that, but sitting in the room with people with broad perspectives and that disagree is so freaking uncomfortable. It's so much just to soothe myself in that environment and then how to know to balance that conversation when those people don't even really like each other maybe.

Mary (17:57):

Oh yeah. And you're just trying to avoid having people get in an actual fight. Some of the organizing against the banger base, for instance, I find really inspiring because of them having ex submarine captains and I'm like, okay, I'm afraid of talking to folks that have this intense military perspective, but then when they walk away from their jobs and actually want to help a movement, then you're like, okay, we have to organize across difference. But it's also to what end, it's like are you going to pull the folks that are coming from really diverse perspectives further left through your organizing or are you just trying to accomplish a goal with them to shift one major entity or I dunno. But yeah, it's very stressful. I feel like trying to avoid getting people in a fight is also a role myself or trying to avoid getting invites myself.

Jenny (19:09):

That was part of what I was wondering is if you've over time found that there are certain practices or I hate this word protocols or ways of engaging folks, that feels like intentional chaos and how do you kind of steward that chaos rather than it just erupting in a million different places or maybe that is part of the process even. But just curious how you've found that kind of

Mary (19:39):

Yeah, I love doing calendaring with people so that people can see one another's work and see the value of both inside and outside pressure and actually map it out together so that they aren't feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of one sort of train of thought leading. Do you know what I mean? Where it's like if people see all of this DC based blobbing happening, that's very much less so during the current administration, but for example, then they might be frustrated and feel like, where is our pressure campaign or where is our movement building work versus if you actually just map out those moments together and then see how they can be in concert. I feel like that's my real, and it's a bit harder to do with lawsuit stuff because it's just so much not up to social movements about when that happens because the courts are just long ass processes that are just five years later they announced something and you're like, what?

(20:53):

But for the things that you can pace internally, I feel like that is a big part of it. And I find that when people are working together in coalition, there's a lot of communities that I work with that don't get along, but they navigate even actively disliking each other in order to share space, in order to build a stronger coalition. And so that's to me is really inspiring. And sometimes that will blow up and become a frustrating source of drama where it's like you have two frontline leaders that are coming from a very different social movement analysis if one is coming from economic justice and is coming from the working class white former oil worker line of thinking. And then you have a community organizer that's been grown up in the civil rights movement and is coming from a black feminism and is a black organizer with a big family. Some of those tensions will brew up where it's like, well, I've organized 200 oil workers and then you've organized a whole big family, and at the end of the day, a lot of the former oil workers are Trumpers and then a lot of the black fam is we have generations of beef with y'all.

(22:25):

We have real lived history of you actually sorting our social progress. So then you wind up in this coalition dynamic where you're like, oh fuck. But it's also if they both give each other space to organize and see when you're organizing a march or something like that, even having contingent of people coming or things like that, that can be really powerful. And I feel like that's the challenge and the beauty of the moment that we're in where you're like you have extreme social chaos in so many different levels and even people on the right are feeling it.

Danielle (23:12):

Yeah, I agree. I kind of wonder what you would say to this current moment and the coalition, well, the people affected is broadening, and so I think the opportunity for the Coalition for Change is broadening and how do we do that? How do we work? Exactly. I think you pinned it. You have the oil person versus this other kind of family, but I feel that, and I see that especially around snap benefits or food, it's really hard when you're at the government level, it's easy to say, well, those people don't deserve that dah, dah, dah, right? But then you're in your own community and you ask anybody, Hey, let's get some food for a kid. They're like, yeah, almost no one wants to say no to that. So I don't know, what are you kind of hearing? What are you feeling as I say that?

Mary (24:11):

Yeah, I definitely feel like we're in a moment of great social upheaval where I feel like the class analysis that people have is really growing when have people actually outright called the government fascist and an oligarchy for years that was just a very niche group of lefties saying that. And then now we have a broad swath of people actually explicitly calling out the classism and the fascism that we're seeing rising. And you're seeing a lot of people that are really just wanting to support their communities because they're feeling the impacts of cost of living and feeling the impacts of all these social programs being cut. And also I think having a lot more visibility into the violence of the police state too. And I think, but yeah, it's hard to know exactly what to do with all that momentum. It feels like there's a huge amount of momentum that's possible right now.

(25:24):

And there's also not a lot of really solid places for people to pour their energy into of multiracial coalitions with a specific demand set that can shift something, whether it be at the state level or city level or federal level. It feels like there's a lot of dispersed energy and you have these mass mobilizations, but then that I feel excited about the prospect of actually bringing people together across difference. I feel like it really is. A lot of people are really demystified so many people going out to protests. My stepmom started going out to a lot of the no kings protests when she hasn't been to any protest over the whole course of her life. And so it's like people being newly activated and feeling a sense of community in the resistance to the state, and that's just really inspiring. You can't take that moment back away from people when they've actually gone out to a protest.

(26:36):

Then when they see protests, they know what it feels like to be there. But yeah, I feel like I'm not really sure honestly what to do with all of the energy. And I think I also have been, and I know a lot of other organizers are in this space of grieving and reflecting and trying to get by and they aren't necessarily stepping up into a, I have a strategy, please follow me role that could be really helpful for mentorship for people. And instead it feels like there's a bit of a vacuum, but that's also me calling from my living room in Kitsap County. I don't have a sense of what's going on in urban environments really or other places. There are some really cool things going on in Seattle for people that are organizing around the city's funding of Tesla or building coalitions that are both around defunding the police and also implementing climate demands or things like that. And then I also feel like I'm like, people are celebrating that Dick Cheney died. Fuck yes. I'm like, people are a lot more just out there with being honest about how they feel about war criminals and then you have that major win in New York and yeah, there's some little beacons of hope. Yeah. What do you all think?

Jenny (28:16):

I just find myself really appreciating the word coalition. I think a lot of times I use the word collective, and I think it was our dear friend Rebecca a couple of weeks ago was like, what do you mean by collective? What are you saying by that? And I was struggling to figure that out, and I think coalition feels a lot more honest. It feels like it has space for the diversity and the tensions and the conflicts within trying to perhaps pursue a similar goal. And so I just find myself really appreciating that language. And I was thinking about several years ago I did an embodied social justice certificate and one of the teachers was talking about white supremacy and is a professor in a university. I was like, I'm aware of representing white supremacy in a university and speaking against it, and I'm a really big believer in termites, and I just loved that idea of I myself, I think it's perhaps because I think I am neurodivergent and I don't do well in any type of system, and so I consider myself as one of those that will be on the outside doing things and I've grown my appreciation for those that have the brains or stamina or whatever is required to be one of those people that works on it from the inside.

(29:53):

So those are some of my thoughts. What about you, Danielle?

Danielle (30:03):

I think a lot about how we move where it feels like this, Mary, you're talking about people are just quiet and I know I spent weeks just basically being with my family at home and the food thing came up and I've been motivated for that again, and I also just find myself wanting to be at home like cocoon. I've been out to some of the marches and stuff, said hi to people or did different things when I have energy, but they're like short bursts and I don't feel like I have a very clear direction myself on what is the long-term action, except I was telling friends recently art and food, if I can help people make art and we can eat together, that feels good to me right now. And those are the only two things that have really resonated enough for me to have creative energy, and maybe that's something to the exhaustion you're speaking about and I don't know, I mean Mary A. Little bit, and I know Jenny knows, I spent a group of us spent years trying to advocate for English language learners here at North and in a nanosecond, Trump comes along and just Fs it all, Fs up the law, violates the law, violates funding all of this stuff in a nanosecond, and you're like, well, what do you do about that?

(31:41):

It doesn't mean you stop organizing at the local level, but there is something of a punch to the gut about it.

Mary (31:48):

Oh yeah, no, people are just getting punched in the gut all over the place and then you're expected to just keep on rolling and moving and you're like, alright, well I need time to process. But then it feels like you can just be stuck in this pattern of just processing because they just keep throwing more and more shit at you and you're like, ah, let us hide and heal for a little bit, and then you're like, wait, that's not what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Yeah. Yeah. It's intense. And yeah, I feel that the sense of need for art and food is a great call. Those things are restorative too, where you're like, okay, how can I actually create a space that feels healthy and generative when so much of that's getting taken away? I also speaking to your somatic stuff, Jenny, I recently started doing yoga and stretching stuff again after just years of not because I was like, oh, I have all this shit all locked up in my body and I'm not even able to process when I'm all locked up. Wild. Yeah.

Danielle (33:04):

Yeah. I fell in a hole almost two weeks ago, a literal concrete hole, and I think the hole was meant for my husband Luis. He actually has the worst luck than me. I don't usually do that shit meant I was walking beside him, I was walking beside of him. He is like, you disappeared. I was like, it's because I stepped in and I was in the moment. My body was like, oh, just roll. And then I went to roll and I was like, well, I should put my hand out. I think it's concrete. So I sprained my right ankle, I sprained my right hand, I smashed my knees on the concrete. They're finally feeling better, but that's how I feel when you talk about all of this. I felt like the literal both sides of my body and I told a friend at the gym is like, I don't think I can be mortal combat because when my knees hurt, it's really hard for me to do anything. So if I go into any, I'm conscripted or anything happens to me, I need to wear knee pads.

Jenny (34:48):

Yeah. I literally Googled today what does it mean if you just keep craving cinnamon? And Google was like, you probably need sweets, which means you're probably very stressed. I was like, oh, yeah. It's just interesting to me all the ways that our bodies speak to us, whether it's through that tension or our cravings, it's like how do we hold that tension of the fact that we are animal bodies that have very real needs and the needs of our communities, of our coalitions are exceeding what it feels like we have individual capacity for, which I think is part of the point. It's like let's make everything so unbelievably shitty that people have a hard time just even keeping up. And so it feels at times difficult to tend to my body, and I'm trying to remember, I have to tend to my body in order to keep the longevity that is necessary for this fight, this reconstruction that's going to take probably longer than my life will be around, and so how do I keep just playing my part in it while I'm here?

Mary (36:10):

Yeah. That's very wise, Jenny. I feel like the thing that I've been thinking about a lot as winter settles in is that I've been like, right, okay, trees lose their leaves and just go dormant. It's okay for me to just go dormant and that doesn't mean that I'm dead. I think that's been something that I've been thinking about too, where it's like, yeah, it's frustrating to see the urgency of this time and know that you're supposed to be rising to the occasion and then also be in your dormancy or winter, but I do feel like there is something to that, the nurturing of the roots that happens when plants aren't focused on growing upwards. I think that that's also one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about in organizing, especially for some of the folks that are wanting to organize but aren't sure a lot of the blockade tactics that they were interested in pursuing now feel just off the table for the amount of criminalization or problems that they would face for it. So then it's like, okay, but how do we go back and nurture our roots to be stronger in the long run and not just disappear into the ether too?

Danielle (37:31):

I do feel that, especially being in Washington, I feel like this is the hibernation zone. It's when my body feels cozy at night and I don't want to be out, and it means I want to just be with my family more for me, and I've just given myself permission for that for weeks now because it's really what I wanted to do and I could tell my kids craved it too, and my husband and I just could tell they needed it, and so I was surprised I needed it too. I like to be out and I like to be with people, but I agree, Mary, I think we get caught up in trying to grow out that we forget that we do need to really take care of our bodies. And I know you were saying that too, Jenny. I mean, Jenny Jenny's the one that got me into somatic therapy pretty much, so if I roll out of this telephone booth, you can blame Jenny. That's great.

Mary (38:39):

That's perfect. Yeah, somatics are real. Oh, the cinnamon thing, because cinnamon is used to regulate your blood sugar. I don't know if you realize that a lot of people that have diabetes or insulin resistant stuff, it's like cinnamon helps see your body with sugar regulation, so that's probably why Google was telling you that too.

Jenny (39:04):

That is really interesting. I do have to say it was one of those things, I got to Vermont and got maple syrup and I was like, I don't think I've ever actually tasted maple syrup before, so now I feel like I've just been drinking it all day. So good. Wait,

Mary (39:29):

That's amazing. Also, it's no coincidence that those are the fall flavors, right? Like maple and cinnamon and all the Totally, yeah. Cool.

Danielle (39:42):

So Mary, what wisdom would you give to folks at whatever stage they're in organizing right now? If you could say, Hey, this is something I didn't know even last week, but I know now. Is there something you'd want to impart or give away?

Mary (39:59):

I think the main thing is really just to use your own skills. Don't feel like you have to follow along with whatever structure someone is giving you for organizing. It's like if you're an artist, use that. If you're a writer, use that. If you make film, use that, don't pigeonhole yourself into that. You have to be a letter writer because that's the only organized thing around you. I think that's the main thing that I always feel like is really exciting to me is people, if you're a coder, there's definitely activists that need help with websites or if you're an accountant, there are so many organizations that are ready to just get audited and then get erased from this world and they desperately need you. I feel like there's a lot of the things that I feel like when you're getting involved in social movements. The other thing that I want to say right now is that people have power.

(40:55):

It's like, yes, we're talking about falling in holes and being fucking exhausted, but also even in the midst of this, a community down in Corpus Christi just won a major fight against a desalination plant where they were planning on taking a bunch of water out of their local bay and then removing the salt from it in order to then use the water for the oil and gas industry. And that community won a campaign through city level organizing, which is just major because basically they have been in a multi-year intense drought, and so their water supply is really, really critical for the whole community around them. And so the fact that they won against this desal plant is just going to be really important for decades to come, and that was one under the Trump administration. They were able to win it because it was a city level fight.

(42:05):

Also, the De Express pipeline got canceled down in Texas and Louisiana, which is a major pipeline expansion that was going to feed basically be a feeder pipeline to a whole pipeline system in Mexico and LNG export there. There's like, and that was just two weeks ago maybe, but it feels like there's hardly any news about it because people are so focused on fighting a lot of these larger fights, but I just feel like it's possible to win still, and people are very much feeling, obviously we aren't going to win a lot of major things under fascism, but it's also still possible to create change at a local level and not the state can't take everything from us. They're trying to, and also it's a fucking gigantic country, so thinking about them trying to manage all of us is just actually impossible for them to do it. They're having to offer, yes, the sheer number of people that are working for ICE is horrific, and also they're offering $50,000 signing bonuses because no one actually wants to work for ice.

(43:26):

They're desperately recruiting, and it's like they're causing all of this economic imbalance and uncertainty and chaos in order to create a military state. They're taking away the SNAP benefits so that people are hungry enough and desperate enough to need to steal food so that they can criminalize people, so that they can build more jails so that they can hire more police. They're doing all of these things strategically, but also they can't actually stop all of the different social movement organizers or all of the communities that are coming together because it's just too big of a region that they're trying to govern. So I feel like that's important to recognize all of the ways that we can win little bits and bobs, and it doesn't feel like, it's not like this moment feels good, but it also doesn't, people I think, are letting themselves believe what the government is telling them that they can't resist and that they can't win. And so it's just to me important to add a little bit more nuance of that. What the government's doing is strategic and also we can also still win things and that, I don't know, it's like we outnumber them, but yeah, that's my pep talk, pep Ted talk.

Mary (45:18):

And just the number of Canadians that texted me being like, mom, Donny, they're just like, everyone is seeing that it's, having the first Muslim be in a major political leadership role in New York is just fucking awesome, wild, and I'm also skeptical of all levels of government, but I do feel like that's just an amazing win for the people. Also, Trump trying to get in with an endorsement as if that would help. It's hilarious. Honestly,

Mary (46:41):

Yeah. I also feel like the snap benefits thing is really going to be, it reminds me of that quote, they tried to bury us, but we were seeds quote where I'm just like, oh, this is going to actually bite you so hard. You're now creating an entire generation of people that's discontent with the government, which I'm like, okay, maybe this is going to have a real negative impact on children that are going hungry. And also it's like to remember that they're spending billions on weapons instead of feeding people. That is so radicalizing for so many people that I just am like, man, I hope this bites them in the long term. I just am like, it's strategic for them for trying to get people into prisons and terrible things like that, but it's also just woefully unstrategic when you think about it long term where you're like, okay, have whole families just hating you.

Jenny (47:57):

It makes me think of James Baldwin saying not everything that's faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced. And I feel like so many of these things are forcing folks who have had privilege to deny the class wars and the oligarchy and all of these things that have been here forever, but now that it's primarily affecting white bodies, it's actually forcing some of those white bodies to confront how we've gotten here in the first place. And that gives me a sense of hope.

Mary (48:48):

Oh, great. Thank you so much for having me. It was so nice to talk to y'all. I hope that you have a really good rest of your day, and yeah, really appreciate you hosting these important convos.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Good morning. It's October 30th, 2025. Can you believe it? So I'm releasing these videos. Today's videos on resilience. Four distinct cultures coming at you. Jenny McGrath. Me, Danielle, my friend Renee Begay from New Mexico and Rebecca Wheeler, Walston. Tune in, listen to the distinctly different places we're coming from and how we're each thinking about resilience. And then find a way that that impacts you and your own community and you can create more resilience, more generosity, more connection to one another. It's what we need in this moment. Oh, and this is The Arise Podcast, and it's online. If you want to download, listen to it. There you can as well.

Renee Begay (00:14):

Okay, cool. Okay, so for those watching my introduction, I'll do it in my language. So my name is Renee Bega. I just spoke in my language, which is I'm from the Pueblo of Zuni tribe in Southwest New Mexico, and I shared the way that we relate to one another. So you share the clan system that you're from. So being a matrilineal society, we belong to our, there's lineage and then we are a child of our father's side of the family. And so I belong to the Sandhill Crane clan as my mom is my grandma. And then my daughters are Sandhill Crane, and then I'm a child of the Eagle Clan, which is my dad's side. So if I do introduce myself in Zuni and I say these clans, then people know, oh, okay, you're from this family, or I'm, or if I meet others that are probably Child of Crane, then I know that I have responsibility toward them. We figure out responsibility toward each other in the community and stuff, who's related to all those things. Yeah. And here in New Mexico, there are 19 Pueblo tribes, two to three Apache tribes, and then one Navajo nation tribe. So there's a large population of indigenous tribes here in New Mexico. So grateful and glad to be here.

(02:22):

Yeah. I guess I can answer your question about what comes to mind with just the word resilience, but even you saying a d Los Muertos, for me that was like, oh, that's self-determination, something that you practice to keep it going, to remember all those things. And then when you mentioned the family, Jenny, I was like, I think I did watch it and I looked on my phone to go look for it, and I was like, oh yeah, I remember watching that. I have a really short-term memory with books or things that I watch. I don't remember exactly details, but I know how I felt. And I know when I was watching that show, I was just like, whoa, this is crazy.

(03:12):

So yes, I remember watching that docuseries. And then I think Rebecca, when you're talking about, I was thinking through resilience feels like this vacillation between different levels, levels of the individual in relation to the community, how much do we participate in self discovery, self-determination, all those things, but then also connect it to community. How do we continue to do that as a community to stay resilient or keep practicing what we've been taught? But then also generationally too, I think that every generation has to figure out based on their experience in this modern world, what to do with the information and the knowledge that is given to us, and then how to kind of encourage the next generation too. So I was just thinking of all those scenes when I was listening to you guys.

Rebecca (04:25):

Yeah, when you said the generational thing that each generation has to decide what to do with the information given to them. This past weekend in the last week or so was that second New Kings march, and there's some conversation about the fact that it was overwhelmingly white and in my community that conversation has been, we weren't there. And what does that mean, right? Or the noticing that typically in this country when there are protests around human rights, typically there's a pretty solid black contingency that's part of that conversation. And so I just have been aware internally the conversation has been, we're not coming to this one. We're tired. And when I say I say black women specifically in some instances, the larger black community, we are tired.

(05:28):

We are tapping out after what happened in the last election. And I have a lot of ambivalence about that tapping out. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it does make me think about what you said that in this moment my community is taking the information given to them and making a conscious choice to do something different than what we have done historically. So that's what I thought about when you were mentioning the generational sort of space that's there. What do we do with that and what does that mean about what we pass to the next generation?

Danielle (06:09):

Through this moment. So I think it's interesting to say, I think Rebecca said something about does your resilience, what does it feel grounded in or does it feel solid? I can't remember exactly how she put it. And yeah, she's frozen a bit on my screen, so I'll check in with her when she gets back. And I would say I felt like this week when I was thinking about my ancestors, I felt in having conversations in my family of origin around race and assimilation, just that there was this in-between generation. And I mean like you mentioned the voting, you saw it in our voting block, the Latino voting block pretty clearly represented.

(07:09):

There was this hard push for assimilation, really hard push and the in-between. And I feel like my generation is saying that didn't work. And so we know the stories of our ancestors, but how did we interpret those stories to mean many of us, I would say in our community to mean that we don't fight for justice? How did we reinterpret those stories to mean the best course was silence or forgetting why people migrated. The reason for migration was not because there was a hate for our land. That's very clear to me. The reason for migration was what we see now happening with Venezuela. It was ongoing oppression of our people through the, well, in my case, through the Mexican government and collaboration with the United States government that exacerbated poverty and hunger, which then led to migration. So do we forget that? It seems like we did. And in some, I wondered to myself, well, how did a guy like Cesar Chavez or I, how did they not forget that? How did they remember that? So I think resilience for me is thinking Los was like, who were my ancestors remembering why they moved and remembering what this moment is asking me to do. Is it asking me to move somewhere and maybe physically move or mentally move or I don't know what the movement means, but it's some kind of movement. So that's kind of what I think

Renee (09:07):

I'm seeing the importance of, even just in this conversation, kind of the idea of the trans narrative across all communities, the importance of storytelling amongst each other, sharing stories with each other of these things. Like even just hearing you Danielle of origins of reasons for migration or things like that, I'm sure very relatable. And we have migration stories too, even within indigenous on this continent and everything. So I think even just the importance of storytelling amongst each other to be able to remember together what these things are. I think even just when we had the opportunity to go to Montgomery and go to the Rosa Parks Museum, it, you hear the macro story of what happened, but when you actually walk through the museum and read every exhibition, every paragraph, you start learning the micro stuff of the story there. Maybe it wasn't everyone was a hundred percent, there was still this wrestling within the community of what to do, how to do it, trying to figure out the best way to do good amongst each other, to do right by each other and stuff like that. So I just think about the importance of that too. I think Danielle, when you mentioned resilience, a lot of times it doesn't feel good to practice resilience.

(11:06):

For me, there's a lot of confusion. What do I do? How do I do this? Well, a lot of consultation with my elders, and then every elder has a different, well, we did this, and then you go to the next elder, oh, well we did this. And so one of my friends said three people in the room and you get four ideas and all these things. So it's just like a lot of times it doesn't feel good, but then the practice of it, of just like, okay, how do we live in a good way with each other, with ourselves, with what faith you have, the spiritual beliefs that you hold all those, and with the land, all that stuff, it's just, yeah, it's difficult to practice resilience.

Rebecca (12:03):

I think that that's a good point. This idea, the reminder that it doesn't always feel good. When you said it, it's like, well, duh. But then you sit for a minute and you go like, holy crap, it doesn't feel good. And so that means I have to be mindful of the ways in which I want to step away from it, take a step back from it, and not actually enter that resilience. And it makes me think about, in order to kind of be resilient, there has to be this moment of lament or grief for the fact that something has happened, some type of wounding or injury or threat or danger that is forcing you to be resilient is requiring that of you. And that's a moment I always want to bypass. Who has time to, no, I don't have time to grieve. I got stuff I got to do, right?

(13:06):

I need to make it to the next moment. I need to finish my task. I need to keep it together. Whatever the things are. There are a thousand reasons for which I don't want to have that moment, even if I can't have it in the moment, but I need to circle back to it. Once the chaos sort of settles a little bit, it's very difficult to actually step into that space, at least for me personally, probably somewhat out of the cultural wider narratives that I inhabit. There's not a lot of invitation to grief element or if I'm very skilled at sidestepping that invitation. So for me, that's what comes to mind when I think about it doesn't feel good. And part of what doesn't feel good for me is that what there is to grieve, what there is to process there to lament. Who wants to do that?

(14:10):

I think I told you guys outside of the recording that my son had a very scary car incident this week, and several people have asked me in the last 48 hours, are you how? Somebody said to me, how is your mother heart? Nothing in me wants to answer that question. Not yesterday, not today. I'm almost to the point, the next person that asked me that, I might smack you because I don't have time to talk about that. Ask me about my kid. Then we maybe could ask me about myself and I would deflect to my kid really fast.

Jenny (14:59):

I'm thinking about, for me, resilience feels so connected to resistance. And as you were sharing stories of migration, I was thinking about my great great grandparents who migrated from Poland to the States. And a few years ago we went to Poland and did an ancestry trip and we went to a World War II museum. I really traced World War I through World War ii, but it really actually felt like a museum to resistance and seeing resistance in every tier of society from people who were Nazis soldiers smuggling out letters that were written in urine to people making papers for people to be able to get out.

(16:05):

And I found myself clinging to those stories right now as ice continues to disappear people every day and trying to stay situated in where and how can I resist and where and how can I trust that there are other people resisting even if I don't know how they are, and where can I lean into the relationships and the connections that are fostering collective resistance? And that's how I'm finding it as I am sitting with the reality of how similar what we are experiencing in the US is to early days of Nazi Germany and how can I learn from the resistance that has already taken place in former atrocities that are now being implemented by the country that I live in.

Rebecca (17:41):

That makes me think, Jenny of a couple of things. One, it's hard to breathe through this that we are perilously close to Nazi Germany. That feels like there's not a lot of vocabulary that I have for that. But it also makes me think of something that Renee said about going to the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, and stepping really close to the details of that story, because I don't know if you remember this, Renee, but there's one exhibit that talks about this white law firm that was the money behind the Montgomery bus boycott and was the legal underpinning behind that. And I don't think I knew until I went to that museum and saw that it's like one picture on one poster in the middle of this big exhibit. And I don't think I knew that. I know a lot of things about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Busboy.

(18:53):

I've taught them to my kids. We know about her and the bus and all of that, but the details and to know that there was this group of white people in 1950 something that stepped forward to be resistant in that moment. And it's like, gosh, I didn't know that. And it makes me, Jenny have the question, how many more times has that happened in history? And we don't actually have that information. And so the only larger narrative that I have access to is how white people were the oppressors and the aggressors in that. And that's true. I'm not trying to take anything away from that. But also there was this remnant of people who said, not me, not my house, not my family, not today, not tomorrow, not at any time in my lifetime. Am I going to be on the wrong side of history on this conversation? And I think that that's probably true in many places and spaces that we don't have access to the detail of the stories of resistance and alliance that is there across people groups, and we don't have that information.

Jenny (20:21):

It makes me think of something that's front of mind just because we were in Detroit last week as we talk about Rosa Parks, she lived the end of her days in Detroit in a home that the CEO of Little Caesar's spot for her,

Wow. Where it's like one, it's tragic to me that such a heroine had had to need some financial assistance from some white CEO, and that was what that CEO decided to use his money towards is really beautiful for me. And you can go to her house in Detroit. It's just a house now. But it is, it's like how many of these stories we know that actually are probably for good reason if they're happening right now, because it's not always safe to resist. And we were just having breakfast with a friend today talking about, and or what a brilliant show it is and how resistance probably needs to be underground in a lot of ways in this current moment.

Danielle (21:54):

Do you know the animal for Los Martos, Renee? Maybe it, it's the Libre. It's the spirit animals from Mexican folklore, and they come out and they have to, traditionally they represent three of the four elements like air, water, earth, and fire. And so they put them on the altars and they're like spiritual protectors or whatever. And they highlighted during this time, and I don't know if any of y'all have seen some of the videos of, there's a couple videos where there's a couple of these more racist folks trying to chase after a person of color, and they just trip and they fall out their face on the pavement and talking with a couple of friends, some Mexican friends, they're like, oh, Libre has got that. They just bam flat, just the idea that the earth tripped them up or something. I love that. Something in the spirit wall brought them to their knees. So yesterday I took Luis is like, what are you doing? I made him go get me all this spray paint. And I put these wood panels together and partly we had at home and I was using his wood. He's like, don't paint all of it, but I was painting this panel of this que and I'm going to put it in downtown, and it's not something I'm doing and I'm thwarting the government. But it did feel resilient to paint it or to think about the spirit world tripping up these guys. It gave me some joy

Rebecca (23:42):

But I actually think, and I've talked to you about this a little bit, Danielle, I think what I love about that is that there's something in the collective story of Mexican people that you can borrow from, that you can pull from to find this moment of resilience, of resistance, of joy, of relief release. And I think we need to do more of that. So often when we step into our collective narratives, it's at the pain points, it is at the wounding points. And I think that I love that there's something of something that you can borrow that is a moment of strength out of our collective narrative. I think that that's actually how you grow resilience. I think it is how you learn to recognize it is you borrow from this collective narrative, this moment of strength so that you can bring it with you in this moment. I think that that's who Rosa Parks has been in my community to me in my family, I think I've told you guys this before, but I have a daughter who's now in college, but when she was in elementary school, we had a whole thing for a semester with a bus driver that just had it out for black and brown kids on her bus route to the point that all the white kids in our little suburban neighborhood were like, what the heck is wrong with a bus driver coming after all the brown people?

(25:13):

And I remember actually borrowing from the story of Rosa Parks to say to my daughter, this is how we're going to handle this. What does it look like for you with dignity, but really firmly say, you cannot mistreat me. You will not mistreat me on this bus route. And so to me, the story, what you're telling Danielle, is that same sort of, let me borrow from this folklore, from this narrative, something to give to myself, to my family, to my people in this moment. I love that. I'm going to borrow it. I'm going to steal it. So send me a picture of the painting.

Renee (26:03):

Yeah. Have you guys talked about, I guess expressions or epigenetics, I guess with resilience with epigenetics, when we do experience hardship, there's a certain way of taking that hardship in and either it alters our expression or our reaction, our behavior and how we carry that through across generations. But I was thinking of that word even with Jenny when you were talking about resilience to you, you remember it maybe probably in your body as resistance because of your great grandparents. My question was, or even just with D Los MTOs, the spirits that help that are kind of like protectors, did you guys sense that as information first or did you feel it first kind like that there's this feeling inside, you can't really quite pinpoint it, but you feel it as a practice and then when you do get that information, you're like, ah, that's what it was. Or is it the other way? I need information first. And then you're like, okay, it confirms this. I dunno. I don't know if that's a clear question, but I was just kind of curious about that. Even with the Rosa Parks, this is how we're going to do it, this is how we remember it, that was successful in its ways. Yeah.

Jenny (27:54):

I think for me personally, the more stories I learn, the more of me makes sense. And the same great grandparents were farmers and from where they lived to the port sold vegetables along the way to pay for their travels. And then when they got to the port, sold their wagon to pay for their ship tickets and then just arrived in the states with practically nothing. And there's so much of a determined hope in that, that I have felt in myself that is willing to just go, I don't know where this is going to lead to, but I'm going to do it. And then when I hear these stories, I'm like, oh yeah, and it's cool to be with my husband as I'm hearing these family stories, and he'll just look at me like, oh, that sounds familiar.

Danielle (29:07):

I think there's a lot of humor in our family's resistance that I've discovered. So it's not surprising. I felt giddy watching the videos, not just because I enjoyed seeing them fall, but it did feel like the earth was just catching their foot. When I used to run in basketball in college, sometimes people would say, oh, I tripped on the lines. The lines of the basketball court grabbed them and just fell down. And I think for a moment, I don't know, in my faith, like God or the earth has its own way of saying, I'm not today. I've had enough today and you need to stop. And so that's one way. I don't know. I feel it in my body first. Yeah. What about you? Okay.

Renee (30:00):

Yeah, humor, definitely A lot of one elder that I knew just with crack jokes all the time, but had the most painful story, I think, of boarding school and stuff. And then we had the younger generation kind of just ask him questions, but one of the questions for him to him was, you joke a lot, how did you become so funny? And then he was just like, well, I got to do this, or else I'll like, I'll cry. So there's just the tragic behind it. But then also, yeah, humor really does carry us. I was thinking about that one guy that was heckling the lady that was saying free Palestine, and then he tripped. He tripped backwards. And you're like, oh.

(31:00):

So just those, I think those captures of those mini stories that we're watching, you're like, okay, that's pretty funny. But I think for us in not speaking for all indigenous, but even just within my community, there's a lot of humor for just answering to some of the things that are just too, it's out of our realm to even just, it's so unbelievable. We don't even know what to do with this pain, but we can find the humor in it and laugh about the absurdity of what's happening and And I think even just our cultural practices, a lot of times my husband Donnie and I talk about just living. I don't necessarily like to say that I live in two worlds. I am part of both. I am. We are very present in both of just this westernized society perspective, but we do see stark differences when we're within our indigenous perspective, our worldview, all those things that it's just very like, whoa, this is really different.

(32:27):

There's such a huge contrast. We don't know if it's a tangent line that never crosses, but then there are moments where when communities cross that there is this possibility that there's an understanding amongst each other and stuff. But I think even just with our cultural practice, the timeline of things that are happening in current news, it's so crazy. But then you look to, if you turn your head and you look toward the indigenous communities, they're fully into their cultural practices right now, like harvest dances and ceremonies and all those things. And it's just kind of like, okay, that's got grounding us right now. We're continuing on as it feels like the side is burning. So it's just this huge contrast that we're constantly trying to hold together, living in the modern world and in our cultural traditions, we're constantly looking at both and we're like, okay, how do we live and integrate the two?

(33:41):

But I think even just those cultural practices, seeing my girls dance, seeing them wear their traditional clothing, seeing them learning their language, that just my heart swells, gives me hope that we're continuing on even when it feels like things are falling and coming apart and all those things. But yeah, real quick story. Last week we had our school feast day. So the kids get to kind of showcase their culture, they wear their traditional clothes, and kids are from all different tribes, so everybody dresses differently. We had a family that was dancing their Aztec dances and Pueblo tribes in their Pueblo regalia, Navajo students wearing their Navajo traditional clothes and all those things. So all these different tribes, everyone's showcasing, not just showcasing, but presenting their cultural things that they've been learning. And at the very end, my daughter, her moccasin fell off and we were like, oh, no, what's happening? But thankfully it was the end of the day. So we were like, okay. So I took apart her leggings and then took off her moccasin and stuff. Then so we started walking back to the car, and then my other daughter, her moccasin leggings were unwrapping.

(35:17):

We were laughing, just walking all the way because everyone, their leggings were coming apart too as they were walking to their car. And everyone's just laughing all like, okay, it's the end of the day. It's okay. We're falling apart here, but it's all right. But it was just good to kind of have that day to just be reminded of who we are, that we remain, we're still here, we're still thriving, and all those things.

Rebecca (35:56):

Yeah, I think the epigenetics question is interesting for the story arc that belongs to black American people because of the severing of those bloodlines in the transatlantic slave trade. And you may have gotten on the ship as different tribes and different peoples, and by the time you arrive on US soil, what was many has merged into one in response to the trauma that is the trans glamorous slave trade. So that question always throws me for a loop a little bit, because I never really know where to go with the epigenetics piece. And it also makes me understand how it is that Rosa Parks is not my ancestor, at least not that I know of. And yet she is my ancestor because the way that I've been taught out of my Black American experience to understand ancestry is if you look like me in any way, shape or form, if there's any thread, if there is a drop of African blood in, you count as an ancestor.

(37:13):

And that means I get permission to borrow from Rosa Parks. She was in my bloodline, and I teach that to my kids. She's an elder that you need to respect that. You need to learn all of those things. And so I don't usually think about it until I'm around another culture that doesn't feel permission to do that. And then I want to go, how do you not catch that? This, in my mind, it all collapses. And so I want to say to you, Renee, okay, every native person, but when I hear you talk, it is very clear that for you ancestry means that tracing through the clans and the lines that you can identify from your mother and your father. So again, not just naming and noticing the distinction and the differences about how we even understand the word ancestor from whatever our story arcs are, to listen to Jenny talk about, okay, great grandfather, and to know that you can only go so far in black life before you hit a white slave owner and you lose any connection to bloodline. In terms of the records, I have a friend who describes it as I look into my lineage, black, black, white, nothing. And the owner and the listing there is under his property, not his bloodline. So just noticing and naming the expansiveness that needs to be there, at least for me to enter my ancestry.

Rebecca (38:56):

Yeah, that's a good, so the question would be how do generations confront disruption in their lineage? How do you confront disruption? And what do you work with when there is that disruption? And how does, even with Rosa Parks, any drop of African-American blood, that's my auntie, that's my uncle. How do I adopt the knowledge and the practices and traditions that have kept us going? Whereas being here where there's very distinct tribes that are very different from one another, there's a way in which we know how to relate through our lineage. But then also across pan-Indian that there's this very familiar practice of respect of one another's traditions, knowing where those boundaries are, even though I am Zuni and if I do visit another tribe, there's a way that I know how to conduct myself and respect so that I'm honoring them and not trying to center myself because it's not the time. So just the appropriateness of relationships and stuff like that. So yeah, that's pretty cool conversation.

Danielle (40:40):

It was talking from a fisherman from Puerto Vallarta who'd lived there his whole life, and he was talking, he was like, wink, wink. People are moving here and they're taking all the fish. And we were like, wait, is it Americans? Is it Canadians? He is like, well, and it was people from other states in Mexico that were kind of forced migration within Mexico that had moved to the coast. And he's like, they're forgetting when we go out and fish, we don't take the little fish. We put 'em back and we have to put 'em back because if we don't put 'em back, then we won't have fish next year. And he actually told us that he had had conversations. This is how close the world seems with people up in Washington state about how tribal members in Washington state on the coast had restored coastline and fish populations. And I thought, that is so cool. And so his whole thing was, we got to take care of our environment. I'm not radical. He kept telling us, I'm not radical in Spanish. I want my kid to be able to fish. We have so much demand for tourism that I'm worried we're going to run out, so we have to make this. How do we make it sustainable? I don't know. It just came to mind as how stories intersect and how people see the value of the land and how we are much more connected, like you said, Renee, because of even the times we can connect with people across thousands of miles,

(42:25):

It was really beautiful to hear him talk about how much he loved these little fish. He's like, they're little and they squirm around and you're not supposed to eat. He is like, they need to go back. They need to have their life, and when it's ready, then we'll eat them. And he said that in Spanish, it sounded different, but sounded way better. Yeah. Yeah. In Spanish, it was like emotional. It was connected. The words were like, there's a word in Spanish in Gancho is like a hook, but it also can mean you're deceived. And he is like, we can't deceive ourselves. He used that word. We can't deceive ourselves that the fish will be here next year. We can't hook. And with the play on words, because you use hook to catch fish, right?

That's like a play on words to think about how do we preserve for the next generation? And it felt really hopeful to hear his story because we're living in an environment in our government that's high consumer oriented, no matter who's in charge. And his slowing down and thinking about the baby fish, just like you said, Renee is still dancing. We're still fishing, felt good.

Renee (43:59):

I remember just even going to Juno, Alaska for celebration when all the Alaskan tribes make that journey by canoe to Juneau. And even that, I was just so amazed that all the elders were on the side on the shore, and the people in the canoe did this whole ceremony of asking for permission to come on the land. And I was like, dang, even within, they're on their own land. They can do what they want, but yet they honor and respect the land and the elders to ask for permission first to get out, to step out. So it's just like, man, there's this really cool practice of reciprocity even that I am learning. I was taught that day. I was like, man, that's pretty cool. Where are those places that will help me be a good human being in practicing reciprocity, in relationship with others and with the land? Where do I do that? And of course, I remember those things like, okay, you don't take more than you need. You always are mindful of others. That's kind of the teachings that come from my tribe, constantly being mindful of others, mindful of what you're saying, mindful of the way you treat others, all those things against. So yeah. So I think even just this conversation crossing stories and everything, it's generative. It reminds us of all these ways that we are practicing resilience.

(45:38):

I was going to tell you, Danielle, about humor in resilience, maybe a little humble bragging, but Randy Woodley and Edith were here last week, and Donnie and I got to hang out with them. And I was telling them about this Facebook group called, it's like a Pueblo Southwest group. And people started noticing that there were these really intimate questions being asked on the page. And then people started realizing that it's ai, it's like a AI generated questions. So with Facebook, it's kind of maybe automatically implemented into, it was already implemented into these groups. And so this ai, it's called, I forget the name, but it will ask really sensitive questions like cultural questions. And people started, why are you asking this question? They thought it was the administrator, but then people were like, oh, they caught on like, oh, this is ai. And then people who kind of knew four steps ahead, what was happening, they were like, don't answer the questions. Some people started answering earnestly these really culturally sensitive questions, but people were like, no, don't answer the questions. Because they're mining for information. They're mining for knowledge from our ways. Don't give it to them.

(47:30):

So now every time this AI robot or whatever asks a question that's very sensitive, they just answer the craziest. That's a good one of them was one of 'em was like, what did you learn during a ceremonial dance? And no one would ask that question to each other. You don't ask that question. So people were like, oh, every time I hear any man of mine, a country song, they just throw out the crazies. And I'm sitting there laughing, just reading. I'm like, good. Oh man, this is us. Have you ever had that feeling of like, this is us. Yes, we caught on. We know what you're doing. This is so good. And then just thinking of all these answers that are being generated and what AI will spit out based off of these answers. And so I was telling Randy about this, and he just like, well, this is just what used to happen when settlers used to first come and interact with indigenous people. Or even the ethnographers would come and mind for information, and they gather all this knowledge from indigenous communities. And then these communities started catching on and would just give them these wild answers. And then these ethnographers would gather up this information and then take it to the school, and the teachers would teach this information. So maybe that's why the school system has some crazy out there information about indigenous peoples. But that's probably part of what's happened here. But I just thought that was so funny. I was like, oh, I love us.

Rebecca (49:19):

Yeah, that's going to show up in some fourth graders history report or social studies report something about, right. And I can't wait to see that. Yeah, that's a good idea. So good. That feels like resistance and resilience, Renee.

Renee (49:40):

Yeah. Yeah. Humorous resistance. It just, yeah. So one of the questions is, have you ever harvested traditional pueblo crops?

(49:52):

And then some puts, my plastic plants have lasted generations with traditional care.

So unserious just very, yeah, it's just so funny. So anytime I want to laugh, I go to, oh, what did this ai, what's this AI question for today? Yeah. People have the funniest, funniest answers. It gives

Yeah, yeah. Jenny's comment about it kind of has to go underground. Yeah. What's underneath the surface?

Danielle (50:36):

I have to pause this, but I'd love to have you back. Rebecca knows I'm invited every week. May invited. I have a client coming. But it is been a joy. 

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER OF CHASING JUSTICE

Sandra Maria Van Opstal, a second-generation Latina, is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Chasing Justice, a movement led by people of color to mobilize a lifestyle of faith and justice . She is an international speaker, author, and activist, recognized for her courageous work in pursuing justice and disrupting oppressive systems within the church. As a global prophetic voice and an active community member on the west-side of Chicago, Sandra’s initiatives in holistic justice equip communities around the world to practice biblical solidarity and mutuality within various social and cultural locations.

https://chasingjustice.com/sandra-van-opstal/

Giving in Chicago: 

https://newlifecenters.org/

Ordg to follow in chicago

https://www.icirr.org/

Tshirt 

https://secure.qgiv.com/for/peoplearenotillegalt-shirt/

Danielle (00:09):

good afternoon, y'all. I have a second video coming to you from my dear friend and colleague in Chicago, Humboldt Park area, a faith leader there that collaborates with the different faith communities in the area. And she's going to talk about some ways she's personally affected by what's happening by the invasion there and how you can think about things, how you might get involved. I hope you'll join me in this conversation and honor yourself. Stay curious, honor, humanity, get involved. Take collective action. Talk to your own neighbor. Let's start caring really well for one another.

Oh wow. Sandra, you know me. This is Jenny McGrath. This is my colleague. She's a bible nut. She wrote out the Bible How many times?

Like scripture nut and a researcher, a therapist and purity culture, kind of like Survivor, but did a lot of work with women around that. And we talk a lot about race and current events. And I restarted my podcast and I asked Jenny if she'd want to join me. She has a great love for justice and humans and making a difference. So that's kind of how Jenny joined up with me. Right. Anything else you want to say?

Sandra, I saw your post on social media and I was like, I could do that. I could contribute to that. And so that's what I'm here to do. Want to hear about your experience. What does resilience look like for you all over there? What do you need from us? How can we be a part of what's happening in Chicago from wherever we are? And if there's practical needs or things you want to share here, we can also send those out.

Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, where you're located in Chicago, and just a little bit even about your family, if you're willing?

Sandra (01:40):

Yeah, sure. So it's great to be with you guys. I'm Sandra Van Opal and I'm here on the west side of Chicago in a neighborhood called Humble Park. It's if you see in the news with all that's happening, it's the humble Hermosa, Avondale kind of zone of the ice crackdown. Well, let's not call it a crackdown. The ice invasion

(02:06):

Here in Chicago. I am the daughter of immigrants, so my mom is from Columbia. My father was from Argentina. They came to live in Chicago when they were in their twenties and thirties. They met in English class, so they were taking TOEFL exams, which is an exam you take in order to enter into college and schooling here in the US to show your language proficiency. And so they met learning English and the rest is history. I grew up here. I've lived here my whole life. I'm raising my family here. I'm married. I have two kids that just turned 11, so they're in fifth grade and sixth grade. And the school that they go to is a primarily immigrant school immersion, Spanish immersion. So it's a school where you take classes basically 90% in Spanish when you start and you move every year a little bit more English until you graduate when you're 50 50.

(03:03):

And so the school context they've been in has been receiving a lot of new neighbors, a lot of new classmates. And for that reason, actually most of their classes are still almost fully in Spanish, so they should probably be 60 40 right now. But I think a lot of their curriculum is still in Spanish, or the children have the option of having the math book in Spanish or English if they want it. If they're supposed to be English Spanish, or sorry, English math this year, then they might choose to have a Spanish book even if the instruction is in English. So that's the context I live in. I am here. I live in a home. I have chickens and a garden, and I love to be outside watching my neighbors and connecting with people. And we have a black club in our community, so a lot of our information that we're sharing with each other is through our email list and our signal group. Yeah. Oh, also what I do, I run an organization called Chasing Justice, which is focused on the intersection of faith and making the world a better place. And I am a local pastor and author on issues of worship and justice. So that's my function in this world.

Danielle (04:31):

I think we talk about what's happening in one sense, it seems like social media and other ways like Zoom, we're on a screen with Zoom and we're all in three different locations right now. We think of ourselves as really connected. But then when tragedy strikes or trauma or an invasion, for instance, strikes, we're connected, but it seems like we're also disconnected from one another and the practical needs and storytelling on the ground, and what does resilience look like for one person versus another? Or what does survival versus thriving look like for one person versus another? And how do we kind of join together and form a collective bond in that? I've been thinking a lot about that after I read your post Sandra on Instagram and what does that mean for me? And just as I'm talking, what does that mean for you or what are thoughts that come to mind for you?

Sandra (05:27):

Yeah, I am think I remember what posts you're referring to, but I think part of it is whenever something happens in our world, I believe that because of the highly digitally connected world that we're in, it feels like we are all supposed to say something. That's how we respond. Something happens and we all go, that's not right, which I think is good, we should say that, but I think the frustration, I'm sure people in LA and DC felt that, but it's like something is happening in your real life every day to your neighbors and everybody all around the country is commenting on it and commenting with such confidence and commenting with such expertise, and you're like, wait a minute. That's not how I would say that. And I think the reason that maybe that post came up for me as a kind of, it was less frustration and more sorrow, I think it felt more, more sorrow that the people that are most impacted by the issues are not the ones that are given the voice to talk about how those systems of oppression are impacting them. And I think the reason I think about things like that is I remember when I first started pastoring locally here. I mean, I had been working for a parachurch organization doing national and international work. I really felt like it was time for me to become a local pastor to understand, hey, if I'm going to be writing to pastors and speaking to pastors and challenging pastors, I should probably know what it's like to be one. And so I was supposed to be a five year stint, which ended up being 12 years pastoring locally.

(07:08):

And in my discussions with my staff team, I would often have one of them very respectfully, I was the executive pastors in a community with hierarchy. So they would very respectfully say, Hey, your friends that are out there blogging and writing articles and books, they're talking about stuff in ways we would never talk about it. They're talking about it in a tone that we would never use to talk about our situation and with words we would never use to describe our situation. And it's not that my friends maybe didn't have a perspective, it's that it didn't reflect their perspective. And so I think I became very sensitive to that, paying attention to, oh, how do expert justice people talk about issues of justice versus the people that are most impacted by those issues of injustice? Or how do people from within a community express their journey in ways that maybe even have a different tone than mostly anger that was coming out from the justice space?

(08:10):

And they're like, we wouldn't say it that way. We wouldn't talk about it that way. So I think because of that, it's really important when something happens in a local space and it is impacting us all nationally, national news, that we ask the question, how can I hear the voices of the people that this is most impacting? And so that's why I think I wrote that post. I was like, A lot of y'all have a lot to say about Chicago who don't live here and thank you, but no thank you. Invite us to talk for ourselves, invite us to speak for ourselves because there are local pastors and priests and imams and mental health providers who are experiencing this in a very real way that they probably could shed some light on what would be helpful to us. I called a bunch of friends in Los Angeles when things were happening there, and I was like, oh, how are you guys doing?

(09:05):

What's really happening? How can we help? If you don't have time to reply back, just know that I'm here praying for you, and I'm like with you and I'm sending money to the orgs. I see you posting and don't know what else to do. Obviously, the ice raids are impacting all of us across the country, but they're impacting each city in very different ways. Each city is a very different city with a very different ethos and a way of handling things. And as you guys know, Chicago is the best. I'm so proud of us right now. I'm so proud of us. We're like, no, you can't talk to us like that. No, you can't have our streets. But it also gets us into trouble because it's rooted in our philosophy of community organizing, though the linsky method, which is agitation, agitation, agitation. So we have stuff to learn too. But that's what you're seeing in Chicago is a lot of agitation. But yeah, that's why I wrote it. I wrote it like, I know 20 community leaders you could talk to here in Chicago that would give you a good idea of what we're experiencing and what would be best for us if you wanted to come alongside of us and help in prayer. So yeah.

Jenny (10:27):

Yeah, I think just a sense of wanting to hear more, whatever you feel. Well, and whatever feels safe to share in this podcast setting of just what it has been like for you to be on the ground in the community that you're in, in the roles that you're in with the family you're in. I just find myself curious about your experience.

Sandra (10:52):

Yeah. Okay. So I think about this in three different areas. One is, how is this impacting me as a parent, the other in my family and connected to family members. The other one is how is this impacting me as a neighbor? And then the other is, how is this impacting me as a civic leader, as a faith leader here? And so the hardest one has actually been, as a parent, if I could be honest with you, it's really been hard. Those of us that have raised kids, especially younger children or well all children, they each have their own season of development. But raising kids and being a village for children right now I think is really hard. They've gone through lockdown, George Floyd protests, watching multiple genocides, a war in Ukraine, and now this locally. And I believe in talking to your kids about what's happening and talking to them about it in ways that is appropriate for their age. So that has changed for me since my children were five when the pandemic started and now they're 11. That has changed for me what that looks like.

(12:32):

But there are many families, dozens of families in their school that have not returned since the ice raids have started. Their friends are missing from class. Ice has repeatedly been around their school. Ice has been on our corner where we grocery shop, get tacos, go to therapy. My son asked me the other day, will they throw me on the ground? If they see me, will they throw me on the ground? And this is one of my sons already struggles a lot with anxiety and he has anxiety, and he's also a black child. And so he's already been processing being black in the context of law enforcement in our city and what's happened. And so I think he kind of went through that season and he's like, so will they throw me on the ground if they see me? And I'm like, no, buddy. They're not going to. Hopefully there's enough cameras around that they'll throw you on the ground.

(13:42):

And so I think trying to figure out how to answer those kinds of questions. How can we think about our friends? How can we pray for our friends? We've done a lot more prayer in the 15 minute commutes to and from school, I think just for very specific needs that our neighbors are going through. And neighbor that I live in close proximity to the other day was running an errand and was detained by ice and was let go on the spot in the parking lot of the Home Depot, but its someone our kids know really well and helping them to process that. Their friend, a neighbor has gone through this, I think requires a different set of parenting skills and I believe are in most parenting books.

(14:48):

And so I find myself almost, man, I wish there was a resource for that man. I wish there was a place to talk about that. Let me talk to my neighbor about how they talk to their kids about that. And for those of us that come from Latino cultures, we don't really talk about hard things a lot. We're not really taught to talk about them. It's like we endure them and we go through them, but we don't give them space for processing. And so both of my children are in therapy. I don't know what they talk about in therapy, probably girls and love interests and bullying and all the rest of the things that kids talk about, but I think they probably unpack some of what they're going through with their friends. They are also wanting to make a difference. So we're trying to figure out what does that look for them to make things good in the community they live in.

(15:42):

So that's the first area is parenting. I don't know if you guys have anything to add advice to give me on that, but I think the hardest thing for me is what do we do with our children? What do we do with a generation that is growing up, watching their government step over so many boundaries, doing things that are completely illegal or unethical or dangerous for our society and feeling like, Hey, we're living in a time, I know a lot of people posted the quote from Ann Frank talking about what was happening in their streets. And I'm like, yeah, my kids are watching that. And I don't know how they're processing it or where they see their faith in the midst of that. I mean, luckily we have an amazing church. We talk about stuff like that all the time. So I mean, yeah, the mayor goes to our church and the pastor's an amazing person, and we have lots of civic leaders and law enforcement in our church. So I think they're watching, they're able to have some mentorship in that area, I think because spoken about from the pulpit, but man, being little must be really hard right now.

Danielle (17:09):

Maybe we don't need to press too fast, even though we're in a podcast right now. I think it bears the weight of just a little bit of space to just hang with that comment. I have older kids than you. As recently, I told my 20-year-old son who we are not suffering yet, the street raids. For some reason, Seattle hasn't been the focus point yet, but he did lose his federal aid and his Pell grants and everything for college this year. And so him and a lot of other kids had a significant do have a significant college tuition to make up. And we were talking about it and I was like, well, this will be the normal for you. This will be what's normal. This will be what's normal for our family. And my husband actually stepped in and said to me in a moment of despair and lament, because my son wants to be a music teacher.

(18:21):

He said to me, he's like, but you always tell me nothing's impossible. We can figure it out. And I was like, yeah, I do say that, but I don't believe it right now. He is like, well, he's like, I believe it right now. So I don't know what it looks like to come up with an extra for us. It's an extra $6,000, so we don't have the money yet, but what does it look like? But I think it goes back to that sense of finding some balance with our kids of what's real, what's not giving. What I hear for you, Sandra, and I'm kind of fumbling through my words, so maybe Jenny can step in, but offering our kids the validation of their reality that's so important in age appropriate and the different steps we're in the validation of reality. But I also find myself searching and grasping for where's the hope? Where are the strands of faith for our family? Where are the strands of hope searching for? Like you said, what are the practical actions your boys can do that also kind of I think plant seeds and generate hope in their hearts when we can step out and do actions?

Sandra (19:43):

Yeah. No, I think the hard part is I can't promise them things will get better. I can't promise them there's going to be an end to genocide in Palestine. I can't promise them. I keep telling everyone, when we pray at night and we talk about our days and stuff, and I just tell 'em, we, my husband and I tell 'em, and the only thing we can promise you is that God is with us. And I think the reality is when you've had proximity to our global siblings, that suffering didn't just start two Octobers ago or even for our own families. The suffering as my African brother once told me at a conference, he said, what do you mean when we suffer? Life is suffering and suffering is life. Or if we suffer, someone said, yeah, if we suffer, it's like some pretty from the west if we suffer.

(20:35):

It's like no, life is suffering and suffering is life. So I think part of it is we have within our story as people who follow the Jesus way, we have a story of people who have really always suffered. The story of scripture is a story of marginalized, persecuted, displaced people that are wandering in a land looking for home. And in those stories, you find God's presence with them. You find the worship of their creator. You find moments of joy, rhythms of feasting and fasting. You find all the traditions we do now that come out of the story of the people. So I can tell them, baby, I can only promise you that God is with us the same way that God was with, we go through the stories and the same way that God has always been with the black church in America, the same way that God has always been with our Latino community, the same way that God is with our siblings in Gaza, God is with us.

(21:35):

And so it doesn't take the pain away, but we can know that God is there. I try to teach my kids, lemme tell you, this is so bad parenting. Sorry, you can cut this out if you need to. But the other day we were praying for our country and I said, God, I just pray. Pray for Trump. I pray God, either you would change his heart or you would help him to go to sleep and just not wake up tomorrow. And then my son was like, I can't believe you prayed that prayer. Mom, I can't believe you said that. That's such a bad prayer. I was like, have you read the Psalms?

(22:12):

I was like, tonight, let's read a psalm. I'm going to read to you what David prayed for his enemies. And just because the Bible calls us to love our enemies and to see them as human does not mean we cannot pray that they will fall asleep. And so I said, I'm not saying I'm going to do anything bad. I know my phone's listening to me right now. I'm not saying I'm going to take matters into my own hands. I'm just saying I wouldn't be sad. That's all. And he's like, he just could not get over it because, and he just kept digging. Papa, Papa would never pray a prayer like that. He would never, I said, Papa hasn't read the Psalms. I read the Psalms. I know exactly what the Psalms say. And I was like, and the thing is because God is for good, because God is against evil and because God knows my heart, he knows God knows how much I love him, and I'm asking him to please take this evil away from our neighborhood.

(23:04):

Please take this evil away from our country. Please take this evil away. We're living in evil times, Terry. These are bad times. And this is not only a bad person. This is somebody that's raising up all of the badness to be allowed. And so I'm going to pray that prayer every day. And I know that you think it's not good, and I'm so sorry, but tonight we'll read the Psalms. Then that night we read some Psalms. I was like, see what David prays for his enemy. I said, and the thing is, God is there with us in our prayers. He's not like, what? I can't believe she cussed. I can't believe she said that bad. I can't believe she want to be friends with this guy that's too evil. And so I think part of it's processing faith with them. It's like, I don't know what kind of, let's just talk about Jesus and what he said. Let's talk about what the Bible models for us and prayer. Let's talk about It's okay to be mad. It's okay. It's okay to want evil to end. It doesn't mean we take things into our own hands, but it's okay to want the evil to end. And so those are the kinds of conversations where I go home, I'm like, okay, let me just look at my stuff. Is that wrong? Is that theologically correct? I called my husband. Do you think this is theologically okay? Am I mal forming our children? But I feel like it's an okay prayer, isn't it an okay prayer? Those are the kinds of things that are happening. I don't know,

Jenny (24:37):

I mean, I am not a theologian, but I think it's an okay prayer to pray. And I'm just thinking about, I've had two thoughts going through my mind, and one of course I couldn't and wouldn't want to put on some type of silver lining and be like, kids are going to be fine. They're resilient. And something that we say in the somatic trauma world a lot is that trauma isn't about an event. It's often about not having a safe place to go in the midst of or after an event. And what I just keep hearing is you making yourself available to be a safe place for your kids to process and reimagine what moving through this moment looks like. And also holding that in families that are being torn apart, that don't have those safe places to go in this moment. And I think part of what we're experiencing is this term, the boomerang of imperialism, as you said, these are not new things happening to families all over the world. And the ricochet of how we are now experiencing that in the heart of the empire, where I find my sense of hope is that that is the sign that the snake is eating its head and it will collapse. And I believe in rebirth and regrowth and hope that we can create a world that is different than a world that builds empires that do this to families. And as where my mind goes.

Sandra (26:39):

Yeah. And I think for ourselves, for our children, for in the work that I do with chasing justice with activists, it's like the only thing I can do, I'm not going to be able to change the world. The only thing I can do is change the little world that I'm in. So what can I do to make a difference and make things good in the world that I'm in? And so it boils down to very, very practical, tangible, embodied unfancy. Things like calling your neighbors and checking in on them to see if they need you to take their kids to school, finding out if everybody got home, okay. When there was a raid in a particular area, asking, or not even asking, but dropping food off for people and saying, Hey, we made a grocery room. We just thought we'd pick up some essentials for everybody.

(27:27):

Because part of it too is how do you do that without asking your, how do you help your neighbor without asking your neighbor their status? And that's not appropriate. And how do you help your neighbor without assuming they don't have money or making them feel like some kind of project? And so I think part of it is figuring out how to practice mutual aid in ways that are communal that just says, Hey, we picked up this. We figured this week we'd drop it off to five different families, and next week we'll do five other families. Who knows if they need it or not, but at least they know you're thinking of them. I think something you said about trauma, which I think is really important when you work in communities where you have communal, collective, complex generational trauma, which is we're just always living in this.

(28:19):

I have status, so I don't worry about leaving my home. I also am white. I'm a white Latina, so I'm not like, well, maybe they'll pull me over. Well, I don't know. But I know if I was browner my other family members that would definitely be like, please carry a copy of your passport and your ID at all times. But now I don't leave the house without, I used to leave the house with my keys and my phone, maybe a wallet. I don't know where a wallet is. Now I'm like, oh, I better have my ID on me

(28:48):

Mostly because if I intervene, I'm afraid if I get arrested, I won't have ID on me. But I think about all the ways that you have to leave the house differently now. And this is for people that they already felt vulnerable in their TPS, in their temporary protective status status or in their undocumented status or in their green card holder status or whatever status they had, that they already felt vulnerable in some way. And now if they don't go to work, their family doesn't eat, so they leave the house. But how do they leave the house? If you go to school every day and you're wondering if your parents are going to pick you up because now you're aware you have this emergency family plan, what does that feel like day in and day out, decade after decade to feel vulnerable? That kind of trauma is something I don't understand in my body, though I understand it as a concept.

(29:47):

It's the trauma of feeling vulnerable at all times of sending your kids out into the world. And because our US Supreme Court and because our government has decided it's okay to racially profile people, so I keep telling my mom, you better not be speaking Spanish at Target. She's bilingual. I'm like, please do not speak Spanish at Target. Do not open your mouth. And I would never have said that ever in the past, super proud of being a Latina and being bilingual, but I'm scared for my mom. And so I'm checking in on family members who have vulnerable status. I'm trying to find out if everybody's okay. So I think there are, it's like I told my husband the other day, and the car was like, can you imagine having this kind of fear day in and day out for decades at a time in a country and building a life?

(30:44):

And all of a sudden, many of our DACA recipients or young undocumented folks that are in college, all of a sudden they're not going to finish their degree. They're now in a country they don't even know. They didn't grow up there in a language they don't understand or their spouse is missing. And now they don't know if they're in Swatee, they don't know if they're in Mexico. They don't know where they are. And so I think that, I don't know that I fully understand what to do about that as a neighbor or as a pastor, but to say there must be something within the community like some gift or strength or accessing that helps them endure that kind of trauma when they cannot reach out for help.

(31:44):

My brother also told me the other day, he's an ER doctor. He's like, man, the county ER is so empty right now because people go to the county hospital for services when they don't have insurance. And many, many of them are Asian, south Asian, Latino, and African immigrants, and now they're not going or Ukrainian or Russian or whatever. So now it's emptiness and churches. Some of our churches are used to be 300 people now. There's like 40 people on a Sunday. So the reporting that I'm hearing from, whether it's the hospitals or just the stores, if you drive down our street, it's like empty nest. It is never empty. There's always people walking around on the street, whole family is going grocery shopping now. There's just nobody out. It's like a ghost town. Nobody's leaving unless they have to leave. And so it changes the feel of a community. It changes the environment. People that need access to healthcare aren't going for their follow-up appointments or their treatments because they're afraid to go to the hospital. People that would normally go to law enforcement if there's domestic violence or something happening, which already would feel very, very difficult to do, are unwilling to do it because they're afraid to leave and afraid to report to any law enforcement. Even in a sanctuary city.

(33:18):

I don't know what's happening to these families that aren't going to school. I'm assuming that the school has some kind of e-learning doing for them or some kind of packets they're making for the kids in the meantime while they're missing school. But there's all these things that daily rhythms of life that aren't happening. And so for many of us are like, I don't feel like going to church today. Oh, well, I feel like I'm many Sundays. I don't feel like going to church for other people, the privilege of attending worship in a congregational setting is something they'd love to have that they just can't access anymore. And so there's all these things that have changed about our daily reality that I don't know if we're going to fully understand how that's impacted us until years from now. We just don't see an end to it. We're not sure when this is going to end.

Danielle (34:13):

I have a flurry of thoughts going through my mind as you're speaking. One is when I did a consult with my analyst that I consult with, and we were talking about anxiety around different things with clients, and she was like, well, that's not anxiety, that's terror. And this person should feel terror because that's the reality.

(34:45):

That's not a pathology. So that's number one just in the therapy world, we don't want to pathologize people for feeling this terror in their bodies when that's actually the appropriate response. When immigration is sitting outside on your street, you should feel terror. Your body's giving you the appropriate warning signal. So I think about just even the shortcomings of Western psychological frameworks to address what's happening. We can't pathologize. It's not about prescribing enough medication. It's not about that. I do think you're right. I think there's some sense of, I've even felt it in my own body as you talk, a sense of, I'm going to engage what Sandra's saying and I'm also going to separate myself just enough in case that happens in Seattle so I can be just distant enough. So I got to get up, I got to eat. I got to feed my kids, I got to make sure everything's happening, got to go to work.

(35:40):

So I can almost feel it happening. As you describe it, we call it dissociation in psychology world, but in my analyst world, she would call it a psychic retreat, which I really like. Your psyche is kind of in a battle. You might come back from the front line to preserve yourself. And that's kind of how I think of the collective mentality a bit come back from the front lines in certain ways. So you could preserve, I need to eat, I need to sleep, I need to drink some water. I need to breathe air. So that's one thing I'm thinking about that's maybe collectively happening on multiple levels. The other thing I'm thinking about is if you're listening to this and you're in a body, even mine, a same as you, like a light-skinned Latina, white Latina, and our family has a lot of mixed identities and statuses, but if you're not in one of these situations, you can help mental health by going out and getting shit done.

Sandra (36:50):

Yes, absolutely. Get it done, get it done, get it done. It's like show up, put yourself. I think that's half the battle is how do we show up in spaces? I think white folks have to ask themselves. That's why all the protests, it's like, yes, it's diverse, but it's a whole lot of white people.

The reason is because a lot of black folks, brown folks, vulnerable folks, we're not going to put ourselves in a position where we can have an encounter with law enforcement. So one of the things I have to say, talking about church, one of the things our pastor said the Sunday before, not the No Kings, but the immigration protest, it was like maybe a month ago, he said, listen, some of us should not be at that protest because we have a record, because we are prone to be maybe, what is it called? Oh my gosh, we're prone to be singled out by the police. We should not be there. We should pray. We should stay at home. We should host people when they come back and feed them. We should not be there. Others of us, we should be there. And you know who you are.

(37:55):

And so I think that's part of the discernment, which I think that's literally, it's half the conversations I'm having with people is should my children go to this protest? I fully intended to go to the No Kings protest with my full family, all of us. And I also saw these amazing alternatives like a rally for families and children. And so all these parks all over the city of Chicago, which again, were an amazing city, they had all these alternatives for if your child, someone in your family does not do crowds well, right? You're immunocompromised or you have anxiety, or I thought about, oh, maybe we shouldn't take my son to this protest. Maybe he's going to actually get an anxiety attack. Maybe we should go to this. So we had all those options till the very last minute we're decided to go to Kids Rally, but there were options for us to show up.

(38:43):

So when you can show up, show up if your neighborhood, there's a ton of activities in, I hope other cities are doing this too, but they're packing these little zines and these little whistles and they're telling people what to do. It's like, okay, now there's this Instagram blast about, oh, the ice is over here, and everyone shows up in their cars and they all honk their horn. You can show up in a neighborhood, honk your horn, you can blow a whistle. And we're fully intending to give away free whistles for every person that buys. The people are not a legal t-shirt for chasing justice. We're like, have a whistle. Get ready. If anything, even if you never blow that whistle, no ice in your town, you're trying to show people that I'm prepared. I'm prepared to raise my voice for you. I'm prepared to show up for you.

(39:34):

And so it ends up being maybe an artifact or a symbol of our willingness to ally if the time should come. But yeah, some of us, we have more privilege and showing up because I definitely have two lawyers in my speed dial right now because my husband knows that I'm prone to show up in spaces and say things that maybe will get me in trouble. So we had a meeting with a lawyer three weeks ago. He's like, please tell me what to do if my wife gets arrested or if something happens to a neighbor or he's just prepared our community block club emails and texts and signal threads. We have rapid response ready things that are rapid response. So it's like, Hey, where do you see something? I see this is the license plate. Here's a video. I saw just even informing people and praying alongside of one another.

(40:29):

So we have this group of pastors we gather called Pastors Rabbis and Imams called Faith Over Fear. And so in this group, someone posted like, look at Ice was heavily in our neighborhood. They said arrests that were made or the people that were detained. This is the situation, let people know. So we're just letting people know this is what's happening. Teaching people to use their phones to record everything and anything they can always being ready to show up. So I'm the type of neighbor that would anyway, if I would see law enforcement pulling over a young black or brown man, I would pull the car over and I would get out of my car and I would say, hi, I am Reverend Sandra and I'm here. I live down the street. I'm wondering if everything's okay. Here is everything. And the reason is just to show them that I'm watching. They said, no, everything's fine. I said, okay, I'm just going to sit in my car. Let me know if you need something because I'm letting them know that I'm watching.

(41:37):

And so I think part of it is the accountability of a community. And I love to see the walking school buses, the ride shares that parents are doing the grocery dropoffs because you can't stand in the food pantry line anymore. The GoFundMe's for particular legal fees, the trying to utilize your networks to find out if you can figure out what district or what holding location you, your loved one would be in offering mental health services. Like, Hey, here are the three organizations that do group therapy or circles or there's going to be a meditation and yoga thing offered at this center. A lot of them have a lot of embodied practices too. So I think those things are great. But yeah, we still have to, we're still living life. We're still submitting book reports for school, we're still having birthday parties and christenings, we're we still black and brown communities have been living through trauma for so long, they can't stop living.

(42:53):

So the question is how do we invite one another to more wholeness in our living, within our own communities, and then how do we help one another? This is affecting everybody. It's affecting not only Latino communities and not only Asian immigrant communities, but it's also affecting black communities because there's more enforcement and they're not more law enforcement and they're not necessarily targeting black communities, but where there are brown communities, sometimes there are black folks also. And so it's impacting them in just the militarization of our city. I mean, everywhere you go, there's just people marching with weapons and it could be Michigan Avenue in the shopping area downtown near the Bean, or it could be in our communities. And so I think how people are trying to, I think a city like Chicago, because it's got such a rich tradition of community organizing and community development and advocacy, I think it's very set up for what can I do in my world for my neighbors?

(44:08):

And then for those of you that aren't in Chicago, I think knowing which organizations are doing fantastic things, I think that's really helpful. Within the faith and justice space, I think organizations like New Life Centers that are kind of spearheading some of the new neighbors initiatives already, but they're doing this whole care system for, they're already new neighbors from Venezuela, Ecuador, and Central America who are now more vulnerable. And so they have systems in place for that. There are organizations live free Illinois who are doing more of the advocacy, raising awareness stuff. I can give you a couple, I can put in the show notes, but I think there's organizations that are doing fantastic work. Some people are just, I have a friend who's in Houston who's just like, there's a refugee family who's vulnerable right now and I need to take them groceries. Who wants to give Venmo?

(45:06):

Me? I think you have to trust your friends aren't going to go out for a nice rooftop beverage and 300, $400 later. Then there's groceries for this. So it's like you may not know anyone, but you may know someone who knows someone who's vulnerable. And so maybe you just are giving money to, or maybe you, I've had people send me money and be like, Hey, maybe someone who needs something. And I'm like, great. And we little, we put it cash and we put it in our car and when we need it, we help a neighbor who's in need. I think I'm calling our friends to, another one I thought of was calling our friend, inviting our friends to action. So sometimes I don't think it's that we don't want to do anything or that we're unwilling to do something. It's that we just feel so stunned. So that news that came out this week in Houston about the 15-year-old autistic boy who was taken by ICE and who has the capacity of a 4-year-old, and I was thinking about him all day long. So I just started pinging all of my friends in Houston and Austin and Dallas. I was like, anybody in Texas? I have a lot of friends in Texas. I'm like, not just, Hey Texas, do something directly. Sending it to them and saying, what have you done?

(46:28):

Is there a number you can call? Can you gather your small group? They're always asking, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to, I'm like, so I was like, I have something for you to do, and it's in Texas. I'm like, do you know what's happened to this kid? Is he back at home? Can you do something? Is there a GoFundMe for the parents? So I think when we're activated in small things, we develop the discipline of just being activated in general. So it's like if there's a thing that somebody invites you to give to and you give to it, then you get into the practice of giving.

(47:06):

If you don't start well, then where is it going to happen? So we're thinking right now, I dunno about you guys, but there's nothing in me that wants to do anything fancy right now. I rest for sure. We went to Michigan, we walked around, we took hikes. It was great. It was super free because we stayed with a friend. But there's nothing in me that's like, let me just plan a fancy vacation right now. It's not in me. And I think part of it is, it's almost like a detoxing from an American consumeristic way of seeing celebration and rests. I don't need fancy things to have rest. I don't need, doesn't have to be expensive. I don't know who came up with this. And I think it's a sensibility in us right now, and I've talked to a couple of friends about it, but it's like it's a sensibility in us that feels like it's really tone deaf to start spending a whole lot of money right now when there are so many needs in the world. And no, we can't give away our whole salaries, but we might be able to give more. For example, I don't think our friend should be saying, Hey, my son can't go to college this year. He needs $6,000. I think somebody in our friend groups could be like, actually, I am getting a bonus of $12,000. I'm going to give you three. We should be able to do that for those of us that have access.

(48:27):

And there are many people who have access, many other people who think they don't have money, but they do. And I think if we invite each other to say, Hey, I want to give to this person's legal fees, or I want to give to this person's college fund, or I want to give to will you give with me? And we are practicing then the kind of mutual aid that's collective that I know our grandparents did for the Latino culture, it's like the RIA system where y'all put the money in every month and every Monday the month. So it's like Koreans do it too. It's like everybody gives a hundred dollars a month and all goes into this pile and every month that pile of money moves around. So it's like our way of providing, I think there's a lot more we could be doing with our money that would give integrity to our voice. And I see a lot of talking and not a lot of sharing.

Danielle (49:34):

It's so true. It's a lot of talking and it's like, I think we have to get over that old white supremacy norm. If you see somebody on the street, you got to buy them food. You can't ever give them cash. That story rings through my mind as a child and just sometimes you just got to load up the cash, send someone cash for dinner and send someone cash for, I don't know, whatever they need, a bus fare or an airplane ticket or find the miles in your community if someone needs to fly somewhere. Just all these things you're talking about, we kind of have to just get over the hump and just say, Hey, people need help. Let's just go help.

Sandra (50:12):

And for some of us, I think it's particularly of those of us within our community that are no longer congregating at a local church. I don't know. Did you think the tithe just

I think the call to generosity is still there. Whether you want to call your church a local formal traditional church or not, I would hate, I would've hated in our season that we were churchless to have stopped giving out would've been a significant amount of money that would've stopped going out. We still got salaries that year. Well, at least Carl did. Carl got a salary. So I'm like that invitation to generosity, at least at the bare minimum, at the bare minimum, 10% at the bare minimum that should be going out. And so the question is, what did all of us that left churches do with our 10% not to be legalistic because really we should be giving more. The question is, what am I allowed to keep? And for people making six figures, you need to be asking yourselves, why do you need six figures if you don't? Because most of the people, even in places like Seattle and Chicago, are living off of $50,000 a year. So I think as much as we need to ask our government to do well and be integrous in their budget, I think we need to think about that as a place of, and I say that not because I think it's going to solve the problems in Chicago, but I think that money does actually sharing does actually help some people. They haven't eaten.

(52:06):

They just haven't eaten. We know families whose kids don't eat.

Jenny (52:19):

Just thank you. It's been really important and meaningful to have your voice and your call to action and to community. I don't take lightly sharing your story and how it's specifically showing up in your community and in your own body and in your own mothering. So thank you for speaking to how you are practicing resilience and how we can think more about how to practice that collectively. It's been really, really good to be here. I am sorry I have to jump off, but thank you Danielle. I'll see you all soon.

Sandra (53:23):

Yeah, I mean even if you were to think about, you may not be able to provide for anyone, but is there someone in your ecosystem, in your friend group that could really use four sessions of therapy that doesn't have the finances to do so? Or that could really use sessions of acupuncture or massage therapy that doesn't have the money for it, it doesn't have insurance, and of someone who's willing to work with you on that as far as providing that for them. So I think even at that level, it's like if we had to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and say, well, what I want for someone, how would I want for someone to help me without me asking them? I think that is the biggest thing is we cannot, I don't believe we can rely on a person's ability to say what they need.

(54:27):

I mean, you've had stuff happen in your life. I've had health issues in my own family and problems with my family, and when people are like, oh, how can I help? I'm like, I can't think about that right now. But if a plant shows up at my house that is bringing me joy. Someone just sent me a prayer plant the other day. It's literally called a red prayer plant or something. I was like, yes, I love this. Or if someone buys dinner for my family so I don't have to cook for them, I can't stand up right now. Or if someone said, looks in on me and says, Hey, I know you guys can't be out and about much, so I just wanted to give you some funding for a streaming service. Here you go. Whatever they use it for, that's up to them. But I think to let someone know that you're thinking about them, I think is easy to do with baking something for them, sharing something with them, taking their kids for a few hours.

(55:31):

Because what if they just need a break from their children and maybe you could just watch their kids for a little bit, pick them up, take them to your house, watch them for a little bit. So I think there are ways that we can practically help each other that again, will make a world of difference to the person that's there next to you. And as always, calling your senators, writing letters, joining in on different campaigns that organizations are doing for around advocacy, checking in with your local city officials and your parent teacher and your schools, and figuring out what are we doing for the kids in our school even to be informed as a neighbor, what is it that our school's doing to protect our families and children? I think those are all good questions that we should always be doing and praying for people and praying specifically. We do that as a family. I think sometimes I don't know what else to do, but to say God to help.

Danielle (56:35):

Yeah, I mean, I have to go now, but I do think that's kind of key is not that God isn't going to intervene at some point practically, I think we are that active prayer answer for other people we're that answer. I'm not saying we're God, but we're the right. Yeah. Yeah. And just to step into that, be that answer, step into loving when it says, love your neighbor actually doing it and actually showing up and maybe loving your neighbor isn't bringing them dinner. Maybe it's just sitting down and listening to how their day went. Maybe you're not a therapist, maybe you're just a friend. Maybe you're just a community member, but you can sit in and you can hear how rough it was for that day and not take up your own space emotionally, but just be there to listen and then give them a hug and hang or leave. There's a lot of ways to show up and yeah, I'm challenged and want to do this more, so thank you. You're

Sandra (57:36):

Welcome. Thanks for having me.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

SPECIALTIES:

Trauma

Couples Communication

Identity/Self Acceptance

https://www.dcctherapy.com/vanessa-ogaldez-lamft

From Her website: 

Maybe you have said something like, “What else can I do?” and it is possible you feel stuck or heartbroken because you can’t seem to connect with your partner as you want or used to. Whether or not you’re in a relationship and you have experienced trauma, hurtful arguments, or life changes that have brought on disconnection in your relationships, there is a sense of loss and heartache. You may find yourself in “robot mode” just going through your daily tasks, causing you to eventually disconnect from others, only to continue the cycle of miscommunication and loneliness. Perhaps you feel misunderstood, and you compensate by being helpful to everyone else while you yearn for true intimacy and friendships. Sometimes you feel there are so many experiences that have contributed to your pain and suffering that you don’t know where to start. There are Cultural norms you may feel that not everyone can understand and therapy is not one of those Cultural norms. I believe therapy can be a place of safety, healing, and self-discovery. As a therapist, my focus is to support you and your goals in life and relationships. I am committed to you building deep communications, connections and feeling secure in the ability to share your emotions.

Danielle (00:06):

Good morning. I just had the privilege and honor of interviewing my colleague, another therapist and mental health counselor in Chicago, Vanessa Les, and she is located right in the midst of Chicago with an eye and a view out of her office towards what's happening with ICE and immigration raids. I want to encourage you to listen into this episode of the Arise Podcast, firsthand witness accounts and what is it actually like to try to engage in a healing process when the trauma may be committed right before someone comes in the office. We know that's a possibility and right after they leave the office, not suggesting that it's right outside the door, but essentially that the world in which we are living is not as hopeful and as Mary as we would like to think, I am sad and deeply disturbed and also very hopeful that we share this power inside of ourselves.

(01:10):

It's based on nonviolence and care and love for neighbor, and that is why Vanessa and I connected. It's not because we're neighbors in the sense of I live next door to her in Chicago and she lives next door to me in Washington. We're neighbors because as Latinas in this world, we have a sense of great solidarity in this fight for ourselves, for our families, for our clients, to live in a world where there's freedom, expression, liberation, and a movement towards justice and away from systems and oppression that want to literally drag us into the pit of hell. We're here to say no. We're here to stand beside one another in solidarity and do that together. I hope you join us in this conversation and I hope you find your way to jump in and offer your actual physical resources, whether it's money, whether it's walking, whether it's calling a friend, whether it's paying for someone's mental health therapy, whether it's sharing a meal with someone, sharing a coffee with someone. All these things, they're just different kinds of things that we can do, and that's not an exhaustive list.

(02:28):

I love my neighbor. I even want to talk to the people that don't agree with me, and I believe Vanessa feels the same way. And so this episode means a lot to me. It's very important that we pay attention to what's happening and we ground ourselves in the reality and the experiences of black and brown bodies, and we don't attempt to make them prove over and over and over what we can actually see and investigate with our own eyes. Join in. Hey, welcome Vanessa. I've only met you once in person and we follow each other online, but part of the instigation for the conversation is a conversation about what is reality. So there's so many messages being thrown at us, so many things happening in the world regarding immigration, law enforcement, even mental health fields, and I've just been having conversations with different community members and activists and finding out how do you find yourself in reality what's happening. I just first would love to hear who you are, where you're at, where you're coming from, and then we can go from there.

Vanessa (03:41):

Okay. Well, my name is Vanessa Valez. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. Before becoming a therapist five years ago through my license, I worked in nonprofit for over 20 years, working with families and community and addressing what is the need and what is the problem and how can we all get together. Been involved with different movements and nonprofit organizations focusing on the community in Humbolt Park and Logan Square in the inner city of Chicago. My parents are longtime activists and they've been instrumental in teaching me how to work in community and be part of community and to be empathetic and thoughtful and caring and feeling like what happens to me happens to us and what happens to us happens to me. So that's kind of the values that I come from and have always felt that were true. I'm a mom of three and my husband and I have been together for 29 years, so since we were teenagers.

Thank you. But yeah, so that's a lot of just in general who I am and culturally, I come from an Afro Latina culture. I am a Puerto Rican born here, well born in New York where my family was from and they migrated from Puerto Rico, my grandparents did. And in our culture, we are African, we are indigenous, and my dad is Puerto Rican and Native American. So there's a lot in here that I am a hundred percent all of it. So I think that's the view and experience that I come from is knowing who I am and my ancestors who are very important to me.

Danielle (06:04):

I mean, that encompasses so much of what I think the battle is over who gets to be American and who doesn't. Right? Yeah, definitely. From your position in your job and you're in Chicago right on the ground, I think a lot of people are wondering what's really happening? What are you seeing? What's true? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Vanessa (06:32):

Yeah. What's really happening here is, I don't know, it's like what's really happening here? People are really scared. People are really scared. Families that are black and brown, families that are in low income situations, families that have visas, families that have green cards, families that are undocumented, all of us are really scared and concerned, and the reason is because we feel that there is power being taken from us without any kind of accountability. So I see my friends and family saying ICE is in our neighborhood, and I mean a block away from where I live, ICE is in our neighborhood, in our schools. We have to watch out. ICE is in front of our church or ICE is patrolling our neighborhood, and we have to all come together and start throwing whistles and we have to know what it is that we're supposed to do if we get interact, if we interact with ice or any kind of federal agent, which is just in itself disturbing, and we're supposed to just get up in our day and send our kids to school, and we're supposed to go to work and do the things that we're supposed to do.

(08:07):

So it's traumatic. This is a trauma that we are going through, and I think that it only triggers the traumas that a lot of us, black and brown people and community have been trying to get the world to listen and recognize this isn't new for us. It's just now very aggressive and very violent and going backwards instead of forward.

(08:39):

I think that's how I would describe what is really happening in Chicago. On the other side, I think there's this other place of, I'm kind of really proud of a lot of our people where I think it is understandable to say, you know what? It's not me or mine, or I got my papers all together, so that's really unfortunate, but it's not something that's happening in front of me. I could understand that there are some of some people who feel that way because it does feel like a survival situation. I think though there are others who are saying, no, what happens to you is happening to me too, I'm going to keep accountable to my power. And there's a lot of allies out there. There are a lot of people who are moving and saying, I'm afraid, but I'm still going to act in my fear.

(09:37):

And I think that's really brave. So in that way, I feel like there's this movement of bravery and a movement of we've had enough and we're going to reinvent what it is that is our response. It's not this or that. It's not extreme to extreme, but I'm going to do it in the way that I feel is right and that I feel that it's good for me to do and I can be truthful in that. And so today I'm really proud because my kids are going to be protesting and walking out of their school and I'm super, super proud and I was like, send pictures because I'm so proud of them. And so someone could say, is that doing anything? I'm like, hell yeah, doing something. It's doing something. The kids are saying, what power do we have? Not much, but whatever I have, I'm going to put that out there and I'm going to be brave and do it.

(10:34):

And it's important for us to support them. I feel their school does a really good job of supporting them and guiding them through this and letting us parents know, Hey, talk to your kids about this shadow to Belmont Intrinsic Charter School. But they really are doing something. And I find that in a lot of the schools around Chicago, around the Hermosa, Logan Square, Humbold Park area where I live in Humboldt Park, I find that a lot of the schools are stepping up and saying, we are on the community side of taking care of our kids and what's best for our families. So there's that happening and I want to make sure to give that. We have to see that too.

Danielle (11:15):

One thing you really said at the beginning really struck me. You said power without accountability. And two things I think of you see a truck, you see a law enforcement person acting without accountability. Not only does that affect you in the moment and that trauma particularly maybe even chase you, but I think it activates all the other sense and remembrances of when you didn't have power and there was no accountability. So I thought of that, but I also thought of the people perpetrating these crimes and the way it's reinforcing for inside their own body that they can do whatever they want and not have to pay attention to their own soul, not have to pay attention to their own humanity. And there's something extremely dehumanizing about repeating and repeating and normalizing that for them too. So I was, those are the two things that kind of struck me at the beginning of what you said.

Vanessa (12:14):

Yeah, I think what you're saying right now is I think the shock factor of it all of how could you do this and do these things and say these things and not only feel that there won't be any accountability, and I think all of us are kind of going like, who's going to keep this accountable? But I think also, how can you do that and feel okay about it? And so I think about the president that just is, I think a person who I will always shock me all the things that he's doing and saying, it shocks me and I'm glad it shocks me. It should never be normal, and I think that's important. I think sometimes with a lot of supporters of his, there's this normalcy of that's just him. He's just really meaning what he's saying or he's just kind of blunt and I like that about him. That should never be normalized. So that's shocking that you can do that. He can do that and it not be held accountable to the extent that it should be. And then for there to be this huge impact on the rest of us that he's supposed to be supporting, he's supposed to be protecting and looking out for, and then it's permissible, then it's almost supported. It's okay. This is a point of view that other people are like, I'm in supportive.

(13:47):

I think that sounds evil. It sounds just evil and really hard to contend with,

Danielle (13:58):

Which actually makes what the students do to walk out of their schools so much so profoundly resistant, so profoundly different. Walking itself is not violent kids themselves against man and masks fully. I've seen the pictures and I'm assuming they're true, fully geared up weapons at their side, tear gas, all this, and you just have kids walking. Just the stark contrast in the way they're expressing their humanity,

Vanessa (14:30):

Right? Yes. I think, yeah, I see that too, and I think it's shocking and to not recognize that, I think that's shocking for me when people don't recognize that what is going on with I think the cognitive process, what is going on with people in society, in American society where they look at children or people walking and they demonize it, but then they see the things and hear the things that this administration is doing and that they're seeing the things that our military is being forced to do and seeing the things that are happening with ice agents and they don't feel like there's anything wrong with it. That's just something that I'm trying to grapple with. I don't. I see it and you see it. Well, it is kind of like I don't know what to do with it.

Danielle (15:34):

So what do you do then when you hear what happens in your own body when you hear, oh, there's ice agents at my kid's school or we're things are on lockdown. What even happens for you in your body?

Vanessa (15:48):

I think what happens for me is what probably a lot of people are experiencing, which is immediate fear, immediate sorrow, immediate. I think I froze a few times thinking about it when it started happening here in Chicago more so I have a 17-year-old little brown boy, and we're tall people, so he is a big guy. He might look like a man. He is six something, six three maybe, but this is my little boy, this is my baby, and I have to send him out there every day immediately after feeling the shock and the sorrow of there's so many people in our generations. I could think of my parents, I could think of my grandparents that have fought so that my son can be in a better place and I feel like we're reverting. And so now he's going to experience something that I never want him to experience. And I feel like my husband and I have done a really great job of trying to prepare him for life with the fact that people are going to, some of them are going to see him in a different way or treat him in a different way. This is so different. The risk is so much greater because it's permissible now,

(17:19):

And so shock a freeze, and then I feel like life and vision for the future has halted for everybody here.

(17:29):

We can't have the conversation of where are we going? What is the vision of the future and how can I grow as a person? We're trying to just say, how can I get from A to Z today without getting stopped, without disappearing, without the fear completely changing my brain and changing my nervous system, and how can I find joy today? That is the big thing right now. So immediately there's this negative effect of this experience, and then there is the how can we recover and how can we stay safe? That's the big next step for us is I think people mentioned the word resilience and I feel like more people are very resilient and have historically been resilient, but it's become this four letter word. I don't want to be resilient anymore. I want to thrive. And I feel like that for my people. My community is like, why do we have to feel like we, our existence has to be surviving and this what's happening now with immigration and it's more than immigration. We know that it's not about just, oh, let's get the criminals. We know that this is targeted. There's proof out there, and the fact that we have to keep on bringing the proof up, it makes no sense. It just means if you don't believe it, then you've made a decision that you're not going to believe it. So it doesn't matter if we repeat it or not. It doesn't matter if you're right there and see it. So the fact that we have to even do the put out the energy of trying to get this message out and get people to be aware of it

(19:24):

Is a lot of energy on top of the fact that we're trying to survive this and there's no thriving right now. And that's the truth.

Danielle (19:38):

And the fact that people can say, oh, well, that's Chicago, that's not here, or that's Portland, that's not here. And the truth is it's here under the surface, the same hate, the same bigotry, the same racism, the same extreme violence. You can feel it bubbling under the surface. And we've had our own experiences here in town with that. I think. I know they've shut off funding for Pell grants.

And I know that's happened. It happened to my family. So you even feel the squeeze. You feel the squeeze of you may get arrest. I've had the same talk with my very brown, curly hair, dark sun. I'm like, you can't make the mistakes other kids make. You can't walk in this place. You can't show up in this way. This is not a time where you can be you everywhere you go. You have to be careful.

Vanessa (20:38):

I think that's the big thing about our neighborhoods is that's the one place that maybe we could do that. That's the one place I could put my loud music on. That's the one place I could put my flags up. My Puerto Rican flags up and this is the one place that we could be. So for that to now be taken from us is a violence.

Danielle (21:01):

Yeah, it is a violence. I think the fact, I love that you said at the very beginning you said this, I was raised to think of what happens to me is happening to you. What happens to you is happening to me. What happens to them is happening to me and this idea of collective, but we live in a society that is forced separation, that wants to think of it separate. What enables you to stay connected to the people that love you and that are in your community? What inside of you drives that connection? What keeps you moving? I know you're not thriving, but what keeps you

Vanessa (21:37):

Surviving? That's a good question. What keeps us surviving is I think it's honestly, I'll be really honest. It's the knowledge that I feel like I'm worth it.

(21:53):

I'm worth it. And I've done the work to get there. I've done the work to know my healing and to know my worth and to know my value. And in that, I feel like then I can make it My, and I have made it. My duty to do that for others is to say, you are worth it. You are so valuable. I need you and I know that you need me. And so I need to be well in order to be there for you. And that's important. I think. I see my kids, and of course they're a big motivator for me of getting up every day and trying to persevere and trying to find happiness with them and monitor their wellbeing and their mental health. And so that's a motivation. But that's me being connected with others. And so then there's family and friends that I'm connected with talking to my New York family all the time, and they're talking to me about what's going on there and them asking them what's going on there. And then we're contending with it. But then, so there's a process of crying about it, process of holding each other's hands and then process of reminding each other, we're not alone

(23:12):

And then processing another level of, and we can't give up. There's just too much to give up here. And so if it's going to be taken, we're going to take back our power and we're going to make it the narrative of what it's going to be, of how this fight is going to be fought. And that feels motivating. Something to do. There's just so much we've done, so much we've built

(23:35):

These communities have, I mean, sometimes they show the videos of ice agents and I'm like, wow, behind the scenes of the violence happening, you could see these beautiful murals. And I'm like, that's why we fight. That's why every day we get up, that's why we persevere is because we have been here. It wasn't like we just got here. We've been here and we've been doing the work and we've been building our communities. They are taking what we've grown. They're taking research from these universities. They're taking research from these young students who are out here trying to get more information so that it could better this community. So we've built so much. It's worth it. It's valuable and it's not going to be easily given.

Danielle (24:29):

Yeah, we have built so much. I mean, whether it's actually physically building the buildings to being involved in our schools and advocating because when we advocate just not for our rights, but in the past when we advocate for rights, I love what Cesar Chavez talks about when you're advocating for yourself, you're advocating for the other person. And so much of our advocacy is so inclusive of other people. And so I do think that there's some underestimation of our power or a lot, and I think that drives the other side mad. Literally insane.

Vanessa (25:14):

I think so too. I think this Saturdays protest is a big indicator of that. I know. Which you'll see me right there because what are we going to do? I mean, what are the things we can do things and we can do. And I feel like even in the moments when I am in session with a family or if I'm on a conversation with a friend, sometimes I post a lot of just what I see that I think is information that needs to get out there. And I am like somebody's going to see it and go like, oh, I didn't see that on my algorithm. And I get conversations from friends and family of, I need to talk about this. What are your thoughts about it? And I feel like that's a protest of we are going to join together in this experience and remind each other who we are in this moment and in this time. And then in that power, we can then make this narrative what we want it to be. And so it's a lot of work though. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of energy. So then it's a job right now. And I think that's why the word resilience is kind of a four letter word. Can we talk about the after effect? Because the after effect is depleted. There's just, I'm hungry. My nervous system is shot. How do I sleep? How do I eat? How do I take care and sell? soThe

(26:54):

A lot of work and we got to do it, but it's the truth of it. So both can exist, right? It's like how great and then how hard.

Danielle (27:08):

I love it that you said it's a job. It is an effing job, literally. It's like take care of your family, take care of yourself, whatever else you got going on. And then also how do you fight for your community? Because that's not something we're just going to stop doing.

Literally all these extra work, all this extra work, all this extra job. And it's not like you would stop doing it, but it is extra.

What do you think as jumping in back into the mental health field? And I told someone recently, they're like, oh, how's business going? I'm like, what do you mean? How's your client load? And I was like, well, sadly, the government has increased my caseload and the mental distress has actually in my profession, adds work to my plate.

And I'm wondering for you what that's like. And it almost feels gross to me. Like someone out there is committing traumas that we all see, I see in the news I'm experiencing with my family, and then people need to come in more to get therapy, which is great. I'm glad we can have that process. But also, it's really gross to say your business has changed because the government is making more trauma on your people,

Vanessa (28:29):

Right? And I don't know if you experienced this, but I'm also feeling like there's this shift in what the sessions look like and what therapy looks like. Because it's one thing to work on past traumas or one thing to say, let's work on some of the cognitive distortions that these traumas have created and then move into vision and like, okay, well then without that, who are you and what are you and how can you move? And what would be your ideal future that you can work towards that has all halted? That's not available right now. I can't say you're not at risk. What happened to you way back is not something that's happening to you right now that it's not true. I can't tell those who are scientists and going into research, you're fine. You don't have to think about the world ending or your life as you know it ending because the life as people, their livelihoods are ending, have ended abruptly without any accountability, without any protection. It has halted. And a lot of these families I'm working with is we can't go into future that would serve me as let's go into the future. Let's do a vision board that would serve my agenda. But I'm going to be very honest with you, I have to validate the fact that there is a risk. My office is not far from Michigan Avenue. I could see it from here. My window's there, it's right out the window. I have families coming in and going, I'm afraid to come to session

(30:25):

Because they just grabbed somebody two years ago and no one said anything that was around them. I have no one that I can say in this environment that is going to protect me, but they come anyway because they freaking need it. And so then the sessions are that the sessions are the safe place. The only semblance of safety for them. And that's a big undertaking I think emotionally for us as therapists is how do I sit and this is happening. I don't have an answer for you on how to view this differently. It is what it is. And also this is the only safe place. I need to make sure that you're safe with the awareness. You're going to leave my office and I'm going to sit with that knowledge. So it's so different. I feel it's changed what's happening.

Danielle (31:27):

Oh man, I just stopped my breath thinking of that. I was consulting with a supervisor. I still meet with supervision and get consult on my cases, and I was talking about quote anxiety, and my supervisor halted me and she's like, that's not anxiety. That's the body actually saying there's a real danger right now. This is not what we talk about in class, what you studied in grad school. This is like of court. That body needs to have that level of panic to actually protect themselves from a real threat right now. And my job isn't to try to take that away.

Vanessa (32:04):

Right? Right. Yeah. And sometimes before that was our job, right? Of how can I bring the adult online because the child when they were powerless and felt unsafe, went through this thing. Now it's like, no, this adult is very much at risk right now when they leave this room and I have to let them say that right now and let them say whatever it is that they need to say, and I have to address it and recognize what it is that they need. How can I be supportive? It is completely mind blowing how immediate this has changed. And that in itself is also a trauma. There had not been any preparing for, we were not prepared,

Danielle (32:57):

Vanessa. Then even what is your nervous system? I'm assuming it goes up and it comes down and it goes, what is it like for your own nervous system to have the experience of sitting in your office see shit some bad shit then with the client, that's okay. And then you don't know what's happening. What's happening even for you in your own nervous system if you're willing to share?

Vanessa (33:24):

Yeah, I'm willing to share. I'm going through it with everybody else. I really am. I'm having my breakdowns and I have my therapist who's amazing and I've increased my sessions with her. My husband and I are trying to figure out how do we hold space and also keep our life going in a positive way. How do we exemplify how to deal with this thing? We're literally writing the book for our kids as we go. But for me, I find it important to let my, I feel like it's my intuition and my gut and my spirit lead more so in my sessions. There have been moments where I find it completely proper to cry with my clients, to let my tears show.

(34:34):

I find that healing for them to see that I am moved by what they are sharing with me, that they are not wrong to cry. They're not wrong. That this is legitimate. And so for me, that is also healing for me to let my natural disposition of connection and of care below more, and then I need to sleep and then I need to eat as healthy as possible in between sessions, food in my mouth. I need to see beauty. And so sometimes I love to see art especially. So I have a membership to the art museum, a hundred bucks a month, I mean a year. And that's my birthday gift to me every year around March. I'm like, that's for me, that's my present. And I'll go there to see the historical art and go to the Mexican art museum, which is be beautiful. I mean, I love it. And that one, they don't even charge you admission. You give a donation to see the art feels like I am connecting with those who've come before me and that have in the midst of their hardships, they've created and built,

(36:06):

And then I feel more grounded. But it isn't every day. There are days and I am not well, and I'll be really honest with that. And then I have to tell my beautiful aunt in New York, I'm not doing good today. And then she pours into me and she does that. She'll do that with me too. Hey, I'm the little niece. I ain't doing all right. Then I pour into her. So it's a lot of back and forth. But like I said before, I've done the work. I remember someone, I think it was Sandra, in fact, I think Sandra, she said to me one time, Vanessa sleeping is holy.

Like, what? Completely changed my mind. Yeah, you don't have to go into zero. You don't have to get all the way depleted. It's wholly for you to recover. So I'm trying to keep that in mind in the midst of all of this. And I feel like it's done me well. It's done me really good So far. I've been really working hard on it.

Danielle (37:19):

I just take a big breath because it isn't, I think what you highlight, and that's what's good for people to know is even as therapists, even as leaders in our communities, we have to still do all these little things that are necessary for our bodies to keep moving. You said sleep, eat the first one. Yeah, 1 0 1. And I just remember someone inviting me to do something recently and I was just like, no, I'm busy. But really I just needed to go to bed and that was my busy, just having to put my head down. And that feeling of when I have that feeling like I can put my head down and close my eyes and I know there's no immediate responsibility for me at my house. That's when I feel the day kind of shed a bit, the burden kind of lessens or the heightened activity lessens. Even if something comes up, it's just less in that moment.

Vanessa (38:28):

Yes, I agree. Yeah, I think those weekends are holy for me. And keeping boundaries around all of this has been helpful. What you're saying, and no thank you. Next, I'll get you next time. And not having to explain, but taking care of yourself. Yeah. So important

Danielle (38:51):

Vanessa. So we're out here in Washington, you're over there in Chicago, and there's a lot of folks, I think in different places in this United States and maybe elsewhere that listen and they want to know what can they do to support, what can they do to jump on board? Is there practical things that we can do for folks that have been invaded? Are there ways we can help from here? I'm assuming prayers necessary, but I tell people lately, I'm like, prayer better also be an action or I don't want it. So what in your imagination are the options? And I know they might be infinity, but just from your perspective.

Vanessa (39:36):

Yeah, what comes to mind I think is pray before you act. Like you just said, for guidance and honestly, calling every nonprofit organization that's within the black and brown community right now and saying, what is it that you need? I think that would be a no-brainer for me. And providing that. So if they're like, we need money. Give that money. We need bodies, we need people, volunteers to do this work, then doing that. And if they need anything that you can provide, then you're doing that. But I think a lot of times we ask the question, what do you need? And that makes the other person have to do work to figure out to help you to get somewhere. And so even though it comes from a very thoughtful

I would say maybe go into your coffers and say, what can I give before you ask the question? Because maybe just offering without even there being a need might be what you just got to do. So go into your coffers and say, what do I have that I can give? What is it that I want to do? How do I want to show up? Asking that question is the first thing to then lead to connecting in action. So I think that that might be my suggestion and moving forward.

Danielle (41:05):

One thing I was thinking of, if people have spare money, sometimes I think you can go to someone and just pay for their therapy.

Vanessa (41:23):

Agree. Yeah. Offer free therapy. If you are a licensed therapist in another city, you have colleagues that are in the cities that you want to connect with and maybe saying, can I pay for people that want therapy and may not be able to afford it? Maybe people who their insurance has been cut, or maybe people who have lost income. If there's anybody, please let me know. And I want to send that money to them to pay for that, and they don't have to know who I am. I think that's a beautiful way of community stepping up for each other.

Danielle (41:59):

The other thing I think of never underestimate the power of cash. And I know it's kind of demonized sometimes, like, oh, you got to give resources. But I find just sending people when you can, 20, 15, 30, 40 bucks of people on the ground, those people that really love and care about their community will put that money to good use. And you don't actually need a receipt on what it went for.

So Vanessa, how can people get ahold of you or find out more about you? Do you write? Do you do talks? Tell me.

Vanessa (42:39):

Yeah, like I said, I am busy, so I want to do all of those things where I'm not doing those things now, but people can contact me through the practice that I work in the website, and that is deeper connections counseling. And my email is vanessa@dcctherapy.com. And in any way that anybody wants to connect with me, they can do that there.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

The Reverend Dr. Starlette Thomas is a poet, practical theologian, and itinerant prophet for a coming undivided “kin-dom.” She is the director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, named for her work and witness and an associate editor at Good Faith Media. Starlette regularly writes on the sociopolitical construct of race and its longstanding membership in the North American church. Her writings have been featured in Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, Free Black Thought, Word & Way, Plough, Baptist News Global and Nurturing Faith Journal among others. She is a frequent guest on podcasts and has her own. The Raceless Gospel podcast takes her listeners to a virtual church service where she and her guests tackle that taboo trinity— race, religion, and politics. 

Starlette is also an activist who bears witness against police brutality and most recently the cultural erasure of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. It was erected in memory of the 2020 protests that brought the world together through this shared declaration of somebodiness after the gruesome murder of George Perry Floyd, Jr. Her act of resistance caught the attention of the Associated Press. An image of her reclaiming the rubble went viral and in May, she was featured in a CNN article.

Starlette has spoken before the World Council of Churches North America and the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops on the color- coded caste system of race and its abolition. She has also authored and presented papers to the members of the Baptist World Alliance in Zurich, Switzerland and Nassau, Bahamas to this end. She has cast a vision for the future of religion at the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s “Forward Conference: Religions Envisioning Change.” Her paper was titled “Press Forward: A Raceless Gospel for Ex- Colored People Who Have Lost Faith in White Supremacy.” She has lectured at The Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham, U.K. on a baptismal pedagogy for antiracist theological education, leadership and ministries. 

Starlette’s research interests have been supported by the Louisville Institute and the Lilly Foundation. Examining the work of the Reverend Dr. Clarence Jordan, whose farm turned “demonstration plot” in Americus, Georgia refused to agree to the social arrangements of segregation because of his Christian convictions, Starlette now takes this dirt to the church. Her thesis is titled, “Afraid of Koinonia: How life on this farm reveals the fear of Christian community.” A full circle moment, she was recently invited to write the introduction to Jordan’s newest collection of writings, The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race and Religion.

Starlette is a member of the Christian Community Development Association, the Peace & Justice Studies Association, and the Koinonia Advisory Council. A womanist in ministry, she has served as a pastor as well as a denominational leader. An unrepentant academician and bibliophile, Starlette holds degrees from Buffalo State College, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and Wesley Theological Seminary. Last year, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Sacred Theology for her work and witness as a public theologian from Wayland Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of 

"Take Me to the Water": The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church

 and a contributing author of the book 

Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth & a New Kind of Christianity.

Jenny

I was just saying that I've been thinking a lot about the distinction between Christianity and Christian supremacy and Christian nationalism, and I have been researching Christian nationalism for probably about five or six years now. And one of my introductions to the concept of it was a book that's based on a documentary that's based on a book called Constantine Sword. And it talked about how prior to Constantine, Christians had the image of fish and life and fertility, and that is what they lived by. And then Constantine supposedly had this vision of a cross and it said, with this sign, you shall reign. And he married the church and the state. And ever since then, there's been this snowball effect of Christian empire through the Crusades, through manifest destiny, through all of these things that we're seeing play out in the United States now that aren't new. But I think there's something new about how it's playing out right now.

Danielle (02:15):

I was thinking about the doctrine of discovery and how that was the creation of that legal framework and ideology to justify the seizure of indigenous lands and the subjugation of indigenous peoples. And just how part of that doctrine you have to necessarily make the quote, humans that exist there, you have to make them vacant. Or even though they're a body, you have to see them as internally maybe empty or lacking or less. And that really becomes this frame. Well, a repeated frame.

Jenny (03:08):

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And it feels like that's so much source to that when that dehumanization is ordained by God. If God is saying these people who we're not even going to look at as people, we're going to look at as objects, how do we get out of that?

Danielle (03:39):

I don't know. Well, definitely still in it. You can hear folks like Charlie Kirk talk about it and unabashedly, unashamedly turning point USA talk about doctrine of discovery brings me currently to these fishing boats that have been jetting around Venezuela. And regardless of what they're doing, the idea that you could just kill them regardless of international law, regardless of the United States law, which supposedly we have the right to a process, the right to due process, the right to show up in a court and we're presumed innocent. But this doctrine applies to people manifest destiny, this doctrine of discovery. It applies to others that we don't see as human and therefore can snuff out life. And I think now they're saying on that first boat, I think they've blown up four boats total. And on the first boat, one of the ladies is speaking out, saying they were out fishing and the size of the boat. I think that's where you get into reality. The size of the boat doesn't indicate a large drug seizure anyway. It's outside reality. And again, what do you do if they're smuggling humans? Did you just destroy all that human life? Or maybe they're just fishing. So I guess that doctrine and that destiny, it covers all of these immoral acts, it kind of washes them clean. And I guess that talking about Constantine, it feels like the empire needed a way to do that, to absolve themselves.

Danielle (05:40):

I know it gives me both comfort and makes me feel depressed when I think about people in 300 ad being, they're freaking throwing people into the lion's den again and people are cheering. And I have to believe that there were humans at that time that saw the barbarism for what it was. And that gives me hope that there have always been a few people in a system of tyranny and oppression that are like, what the heck is going on? And it makes me feel like, ugh. When does that get to be more than just the few people in a society kind of society? Or what does a society need to not need such violence? Because I think it's so baked in now to these white and Christian supremacy, and I don't know, in my mind, I don't think I can separate white supremacy from Christian supremacy because even before White was used as a legal term to own people and be able to vote, the legal term was Christian. And then when enslaved folks started converting to Christianity, they pivoted and said, well, no, not all Christians. It has to be white Christians. And so I think white supremacy was birthed out of a long history of Christian supremacy.

Danielle (07:21):

Yeah, it's weird. I remember growing up, and maybe you had this experience too, I remember when Schindler's List hit the theaters and you were probably too young, but Schindler's listed the theaters, and I remember sitting in a living room and having to convince my parents of why I wanted to see it. And I think I was 16, I don't remember. I was young and it was rated R and of course that was against our values to see rated R movies. But I really wanted to see this movie. And I talked and talked and talked and got to see this movie if anybody's watched Schindler's List, it's a story of a man who is out to make money, sees this opportunity to get free labor basically as part of the Nazi regime. And so he starts making trades to access free labor, meanwhile, still has women, enjoys a fine life, goes to church, has a pseudo faith, and as time goes along, I'm shortening the story, but he gets this accountant who he discovers he loves because his accountant makes him rich. He makes him rich off the labor. But the accountant is thinking, how do I save more lives and get them into this business with Schindler? Well, eventually they get captured, they get found out. All these things happen, right, that we know. And it becomes clear to Schindler that they're exterminating, they're wiping out an entire population.

(09:01):

I guess I come to that and just think about, as a young child, I remember watching that thinking, there's no way this would ever happen again because there's film, there's documentation. At the time, there were people alive from the Great war, the greatest generation like my grandfather who fought in World War ii. There were other people, we had the live stories. But now just a decade, 12, 13 years removed, it hasn't actually been that long. And the memory of watching a movie like Schindler's List, the impact of seeing what it costs a soul to take the life of other souls like that, that feels so far removed now. And that's what the malaise of the doctrine of Discovery and manifest destiny, I think have been doing since Constantine and Christianity. They've been able to wipe the memory, the historical memory of the evil done with their blessing.

(10:06):

And I feel like even this huge thing like the Holocaust, the memories being wiped, you can almost feel it. And in fact, people are saying, I don't know if they actually did that. I don't know if they killed all these Jewish peoples. Now you hear more denial even of the Holocaust now that those storytellers aren't passed on to the next life. So I think we are watching in real time how Christianity and Constantine were able to just wipe use empire to wipe the memory of the people so they can continue to gain riches or continue to commit atrocities without impunity just at any level. I guess that's what comes to mind.

Jenny (10:55):

Yeah, it makes me think of, I saw this video yesterday and I can't remember what representative it was in a hearing and she had written down a long speech or something that she was going to give, and then she heard during the trial the case what was happening was someone shared that there have been children whose parents have been abducted and disappeared because the children were asked at school, are your parents undocumented? And she said, I can't share what I had prepared because I'm caught with that because my grandfather was killed in the Holocaust because his children were asked at school, are your parents Jewish?

(11:53):

And my aunt took that guilt with her to her grave. And the amount of intergenerational transgenerational trauma that is happening right now, that never again is now what we are doing to families, what we are doing to people, what we are doing to children, the atrocities that are taking place in our country. Yeah, it's here. And I think it's that malaise has come over not only the past, but even current. I think people don't even know how to sit with the reality of the horror of what's happening. And so they just dissociate and they just check out and they don't engage the substance of what's happening.

Danielle (13:08):

Yeah. I tell a friend sometimes when I talk to her, I just say, I need you to tap in. Can you just tap in? Can you just carry the conversation or can you just understand? And I don't mean understand, believe a story. I mean feel the story. It's one thing to say the words, but it's another thing to feel them. And I think Constantine is a brilliant guy. He took a peaceful religion. He took a peaceful faith practice, people that literally the prior guy was throwing to the lions for sport. He took a people that had been mocked, a religious group that had been mocked, and he elevated them and then reunified them with that sword that you're talking about. And so what did those Christians have to give up then to marry themselves to empire? I don't know, but it seems like they kind of effed us over for eternity, right?

Jenny (14:12):

Yeah. Well, and I think that that's part of it. I think part of the malaise is the infatuation with eternity and with heaven. And I know for myself, when I was a missionary for many years, I didn't care about my body because this body, this light and momentary suffering paled in comparison to what was awaiting me. And so no matter what happened, it was a means to an end to spend eternity with Jesus. And so I think of empathy as us being able to feel something of ourselves in someone else. If I don't have grief and joy and sorrow and value for this body, I'm certainly not going to have it for other bodies. And I think the disembodiment of white Christian supremacy is what enables bodies to just tolerate and not consider the brutality of what we're seeing in the United States. What we're seeing in Congo, what we're seeing in Palestine, what we're seeing everywhere is still this sense of, oh, the ends are going to justify the means we're all going to, at least I'll be in heaven and everyone else can kind of figure out what they're going to do.

I don't know, man. Yeah, maybe. I guess when you think about Christian nationalism versus maybe a more authentic faith, what separates them for you

Abiding by the example that Jesus gave or not. I mean, Jesus was killed by the state because he had some very unpopular things to say about the state and the way in which he lived was very much like, how do I see those who are most oppressed and align myself with them? Whereas Christian nationalism is how do I see those who have the most power and align myselves with them?

(16:48):

And I think it is a question of alignment and orientation. And at the end of the day, who am I going to stand with even knowing and probably knowing that that may be to the detriment of my own body, but I do that not out of a sense of martyrdom, but out of a sense of integrity. I refuse. I think I really believe Jesus' words when he said, what good is it for a man to gain the world and lose his soul? And at the end of the day, what I'm fighting for is my own soul, and I don't want to give that up.

Danielle (17:31):

Hey, starlet, we're on to not giving up our souls to power.

The Reverend Dr.

Rev. Dr. Starlette (17:47):

I'm sorry I'm jumping from one call to the next. I do apologize for my tardiness now, where were we?

Danielle (17:53):

We got on the subject of Constantine and how he married the sword with Christianity when it had been fish and fertile ground and et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that's where we started. Yeah, that's where we started.

Starlette (18:12):

I'm going to get in where I fit in. Y'all keep going.

Danielle (18:14):

You get in. Yeah, you get in. I guess Jenny, for me and for you, starlet, the deep erasure of any sort of resemblance of I have to look back and I have to be willing to interrogate, I think, which is what a lot of people don't want to do. I grew up in a really conservative evangelical family and a household, and I have to interrogate, well, one, why did my mom get into that? Because Mexican, and number two, I watched so slowly as there was a celebration. I think it was after Bill Clinton had this Monica Lewinsky thing and all of this stuff happened. My Latino relatives were like, wait a minute, we don't like that. We don't like that. That doesn't match our values. And I remember this celebration of maybe now they're going to become Christians. I remember thinking that as a child, because for them to be a Democrat in my household and for them to hold different values around social issues meant that they weren't necessarily saved in my house and my way because they hadn't fully bought into empire in the way I know Jenny muted herself.

(19:31):

They hadn't fully bought into empire. And I slowly watched those family members in California kind of give way to conservatism the things that beckoned it. And honestly, a lot of it was married to religion and to what is going on today and not standing up for justice, not standing up for civil rights. I watched the movement go over, and it feels like at the expense of the memory of my grandfather and my great-grandfather who despised religion in some ways, my grandfather did not like going to church because he thought people were fake. He didn't believe them, and he didn't see what church had to do with being saved anyway. And so I think about him a lot and I think, oh, I got to hold onto that a little bit in the face of empire. But yeah, my mind just went off on that rabbit trail.

Starlette (20:38):

Oh, it's quite all right. My grandfather had similar convictions. My grandmother took the children to church with her and he stayed back. And after a while, the children were to decide that they didn't want to go anymore. And I remember him saying, that's enough. That's enough. You've done enough. They've heard enough. Don't make them go. But I think he drew some of the same conclusions, and I hold those as well, but I didn't grow up in a household where politics was even discussed. Folks were rapture ready, as they say, because they were kingdom minded is what they say now. And so there was no discussion of what was going on on the ground. They were really out of touch with, I'm sending right now. They were out of touch with reality. I have on pants, I have on full makeup, I have on earrings. I'm not dressed modestly in any way, shape, fashion or form.

(21:23):

It was a very externalized, visible, able to be observed kind of spirituality. And so I enter the spaces back at home and it's like going into a different world. I had to step back a bit and oftentimes I just don't say anything. I just let the room have it because you can't, in my experience, you can't talk 'em out of it. They have this future orientation where they live with their feet off the ground because Jesus is just around the corner. He's right in that next cloud. He's coming, and so none of this matters. And so that affected their political participation and discussion. There was certainly very minor activism, so I wasn't prepared by family members to show up in the streets like I do now. I feel sincerely called. I feel like it's a work of the spirit that I know where to put my feet at all, but I certainly resonate with what you would call a rant that led you down to a rabbit hole because it led me to a story about my grandfather, so I thank you for that. They were both right by the way,

Danielle (22:23):

I think so he had it right. He would sit in the very back of church sometimes to please my grandmother and to please my family, and he didn't have a cell phone, but he would sit there and go to sleep. He would take a nap. And I have to think of that now as resistance. And as a kid I was like, why does he do that? But his body didn't want to take it in.

Starlette (22:47):

That's rest as resistance from the Nat Bishop, Trisha Hersey, rest as act of defiance, rest as reparations and taking back my time that you're stealing from me by having me sit in the service. I see that.

Danielle (23:02):

I mean, Jenny, it seems like Constantine, he knew what to do. He gets Christians on his side, they knew how to gather organically. He then gets this mass megaphone for whatever he wants, right?

Jenny (23:21):

Yeah. I think about Adrian Marie Brown talks a lot about fractals and how what happens on a smaller scale is going to be replicated on larger scales. And so even though there's some sense of disjoint with denominations, I think generally in the United States, there is some common threads of that manifest destiny that have still found its way into these places of congregating. And so you're having these training wheels really even within to break it down into the nuclear family that James Dobson wanted everyone to focus on was a very, very narrow white, patriarchal Christian family. And so if you rehearse this on these smaller scales, then you can rehearse it in your community, then you can rehearse it, and it just bubbles and bubbles and balloons out into what we're seeing happen, I think.

Yeah, the nuclear family and then the youth movements, let us, give us your youth, give us your kids. Send us your kids and your youth to our camps.

Jenny (24:46):

Great. I grew up in Colorado and I was probably 10 or 11 when the Columbine shooting happened, and I remember that very viscerally. And the immediate conversation was not how do we protect kids in school? It was glorifying this one girl that maybe or maybe did not say yes when the shooters asked, do you still believe in God? And within a year her mom published a book about it. And that was the thing was let's use this to glorify martyrdom. And I think it is different. These were victims in school and I think any victim of the shooting is horrifying. And I think we're seeing a similar level of that martyrdom frenzy with Charlie Kirk right now. And what we're not talking about is how do we create a safer society? What we're talking about, I'm saying, but I dunno. What I'm hearing of the white Christian communities is how are we glorifying Charlie Kirk as a martyr and what power that wields when we have someone that we can call a martyr?

Starlette (26:27):

No, I just got triggered as soon as you said his name.

(26:31):

Just now. I think grieving a white supremacist is terrifying. Normalizing racist rhetoric is horrifying. And so I look online in disbelief. I unfollowed and blocked hundreds of people on social media based on their comments about what I didn't agree with. Everything he said, got a lot of that. I'm just not interested. I think they needed a martyr for the race war that they're amping for, and I would like to be delivered from the delusion that is white body supremacy. It is all exhausting. I don't want to be a part of the racial imagination that he represents. It is not a new narrative. We are not better for it. And he's not a better person because he's died. The great Biggie Smalls has a song that says you're nobody until somebody kills you. And I think it's appropriate. Most people did not know who he was. He was a podcaster. I'm also looking kind of cross-eyed at his wife because that's not, I served as a pastor for more than a decade. This is not an expression of grief. There's nothing like anything I've seen for someone who was assassinated, which I disagree with.

(28:00):

I've just not seen widows take the helm of organizations and given passion speeches and make veil threats to audiences days before the, as we would say in my community, before the body has cooled before there is a funeral that you'll go down and take pictures. That could be arguably photo ops. It's all very disturbing to me. This is a different measure of grief. I wrote about it. I don't know what, I've never heard of a sixth stage of grief that includes fighting. We're not fighting over anybody's dead body. We're not even supposed to do it with Jesus. And so I just find it all strange that before the man is buried, you've already concocted a story wherein opposing forces are at each other's throats. And it's all this intergalactic battle between good and bad and wrong, up and down, white and black. It's too much.

(28:51):

I think white body supremacy has gotten out of hand and it's incredibly theatrical. And for persons who have pulled back from who've decent whiteness, who've de racialize themselves, it's foolishness. Just nobody wants to be involved in this. It's a waste of time. White body supremacy and racism are wastes of time. Trying to prove that I'm a human being or you're looking right at is a waste of time. And people just want to do other things, which is why African-Americans have decided to go to sleep, to take a break. We're not getting ready to spin our wheels again, to defend our humanity, to march for rights that are innate, to demand a dignity that comes with being human. It's just asinine.

(29:40):

I think you would be giving more credence to the statements themselves by responding. And so I'd rather save my breath and do my makeup instead because trying to defend the fact that I'm a glorious human being made in the image of God is a waste of time. Look at me. My face is beat. It testifies for me. Who are you? Just tell me that I don't look good and that God didn't touch me. I'm with the finger of love as the people say, do you see this beat? Let me fall back. So you done got me started and I blame you. It's your fault for the question. So no, that's my response to things like that. African-American people have to insulate themselves with their senses of ness because he didn't have a kind word to say about African-American people, whether a African-American pilot who is racialized as black or an African-American woman calling us ignorance saying, we're incompetence. If there's no way we could have had these positions, when African-American women are the most agreed, we're the most educated, how dare you? And you think, I'm going to prove that I'm going to point to degrees. No, I'll just keep talking. It will make itself obvious and evident.

(30:45):

Is there a question in that? Just let's get out of that. It triggers me so bad. Like, oh, that he gets a holiday and it took, how many years did it take for Martin Luther King Junior to get a holiday? Oh, okay. So that's what I mean. The absurdity of it all. You're naming streets after him hasn't been dead a year. You have children coloring in sheets, doing reports on him. Hasn't been a few months yet. We couldn't do that for Martin Luther King. We couldn't do that for Rosa Parks. We couldn't do that for any other leader, this one in particular, and right now, find that to be

I just think it just takes a whole lot of delusion and pride to keep puffing yourself up and saying, you're better than other people. Shut up, pipe down. Or to assume that everybody wants to look like you or wants to be racialized as white. No, I'm very cool in who I'm, I don't want to change as the people say in every lifetime, and they use these racialized terms, and so I'll use them and every lifetime I want to come back as black. I don't apologize for my existence. I love it here. I don't want to be racialized as white. I'm cool. That's the delusion for me that you think everyone wants to look like. You think I would trade.

(32:13):

You think I would trade for that, and it looks great on you. I love what it's doing for you. But as for me in my house, we believe in melanin and we keep it real cute over here. I just don't have time. I think African-Americans minoritized and otherwise, communities should invest their time in each other and in ourselves as opposed to wasting our breath, debating people. We can't debate white supremacists. Anyway, I think I've talked about that the arguments are not rooted in reason. It's rooted in your dehumanization and equating you with three fifths of a human being who's in charge of measurements, the demonizing of whiteness. It's deeply problematic for me because it puts them in a space of creator. How can you say how much of a human being that's someone? This stuff is absurd. And so I've refuse to waste my breath, waste my life arguing with somebody who doesn't have the power, the authority.

(33:05):

You don't have the eyesight to tell me if I'm human or not. This is stupid. We're going to do our work and part of our work is going to sleep. We're taking naps, we're taking breaks, we're putting our feet up. I'm going to take a nap after this conversation. We're giving ourselves a break. We're hitting the snooze button while staying woke. There's a play there. But I think it's important that people who are attacked by white body supremacy, not give it their energy. Don't feed into the madness. Don't feed into the machine because it'll eat you alive. And I didn't get dressed for that. I didn't get on this call. Look at how I look for that. So that's what that brings up. Okay. It brings up the violence of white body supremacy, the absurdity of supremacy at all. The delusion of the racial imagination, reading a 17th century creation onto a 21st century. It's just all absurd to me that anyone would continue to walk around and say, I'm better than you. I'm better than you. And I'll prove it by killing you, lynching you, raping your people, stealing your people, enslaving your people. Oh, aren't you great? That's pretty great,

Jenny (34:30):

I think. Yeah, I think it is. I had a therapist once tell me, it's like you've had the opposite of a psychotic break because when that is your world and that's all, it's so easy to justify and it makes sense. And then as soon as you step out of it, you're like, what the what? And then it makes it that much harder to understand. And this is my own, we talked about this last week, but processing what is my own path in this of liberation and how do I engage people who are still in that world, who are still related to me, who are, and in a way that isn't exhausting for I'm okay being exhausted if it's going to actually bear something, if it's just me spinning my wheels, I don't actually see value in that. And for me, what began to put cracks in that was people challenging my sense of superiority and my sense of knowing what they should do with their bodies. Because essentially, I think a lot of how I grew up was similar maybe and different from how you were sharing Danielle, where it was like always vote Republican because they're going to be against abortion and they're going to be against gay marriage. And those were the two in my world that were the things that I was supposed to vote for no matter what. And now just seeing how far that no matter what is willing to go is really terrifying.

Danielle (36:25):

Yeah, I agree. Jenny. I mean, again, I keep talking about him, but he's so important to me. The idea that my great grandfather to escape religious oppression would literally walk 1,950 miles and would leave an oppressive system just in an attempt to get away. That walk has to mean something to me today. You can't forget. All of my family has to remember that he did a walk like that. How many of us have walked that far? I mean, I haven't ever walked that far in just one instance to escape something. And he was poor because he couldn't even pay for his mom's burial at the Catholic church. So he said, let me get out of this. And then of course he landed with the Methodist and he was back in the fire again. But I come back to him, and that's what people will do to get out of religious oppression. They will give it an effort and when they can. And so I think it's important to remember those stories. I'm off on my tangent again now because it feels so important. It's a good one.

Starlette (37:42):

I think it's important to highlight the walking away from, to putting one foot in front of the other, praying with your feet

(37:51):

That it's its own. You answer your own prayer by getting away from it. It is to say that he was done with it, and if no one else was going to move, he was going to move himself that he didn't wait for the change in the institution. Let's just change directions and get away from it. And I hate to even imagine what he was faced with and that he had to make that decision. And what propelled him to walk that long with that kind of energy to keep momentum and to create that amount of distance. So for me, it's very telling. I ran away at 12. I had had it, so I get it. This is the last time you're going to hit me.

Not going to beat me out of my sleep. I knew that at 12. This is no place for me. So I admire people who get up in the dead of night, get up without a warning, make it up in their mind and said, that's the last time, or This is not what I'm going to do. This is not the way that I want to be, and I'm leaving. I admire him. Sounds like a hero. I think we should have a holiday.

Danielle (38:44):

And then imagine telling that. Then you're going to tell me that people like my grandfather are just in it. This is where it leaves reality for me and leaves Christianity that he's just in it to steal someone's job. This man worked the lemon fields and then as a side job in his retired years, moved up to Sacramento, took in people off death row at Folsom Prison, took 'em to his home and nursed them until they passed. So this is the kind a person that will walk 1,950 miles. They'll do a lot of good in the world, and we're telling people that they can't come here. That's the kind of people that are walking here. That's the kind of people that are coming here. They're coming here to do whatever they can. And then they're nurturing families. They're actually living out in their families what supposed Christians are saying they want to be. Because people in these two parent households and these white families, they're actually raising the kind of people that will shoot Charlie Kirk. It's not people like my grandfather that walked almost 2000 miles to form a better life and take care of people out of prisons. Those aren't the people forming children that are, you're

Starlette (40:02):

Going to email for that. The deacons will you in the parking lot for that one. You you're going to get a nasty tweet for that one. Somebody's going to jump off in the comments and straighten you out at,

Danielle (40:17):

I can't help it. It's true. That's the reality. Someone that will put their feet and their faith to that kind of practice is not traveling just so they can assault someone or rob someone. I mean, yes, there are people that have done that, but there's so much intentionality about moving so far. It does not carry the weight of, can you imagine? Let me walk 2000 miles to Rob my neighbor. That doesn't make any sense.

Starlette (40:46):

Sounds like it's own kind of pilgrimage.

Jenny (40:59):

I have so many thoughts, but I think whiteness has just done such a number on people. And I'm hearing each of you and I'm thinking, I don't know that I could tell one story from any of my grandparents. I think that that is part of whiteness. And it's not that I didn't know them, but it's that the ways in which Transgenerational family lines are passed down are executed for people in considered white bodies where it's like my grandmother, I guess I can't tell some stories, but she went to Polish school and in the States and was part of a Polish community. And then very quickly on polls were grafted into whiteness so that they could partake in the GI Bill. And so that Polish heritage was then lost. And that was not that long ago, but it was a severing that happened. And some of my ancestors from England, that severing happened a long time ago where it's like, we are not going to tell the stories of our ancestors because that would actually reveal that this whole white thing is made up. And we actually have so much more to us than that. And so I feel like the social privilege that has come from that, but also the visceral grief of how I would want to know those stories of my ancestors that aren't there. Because in part of the way that whiteness operates,

Starlette (42:59):

I'm glad you told that story. Diane de Prima, she tells about that, about her parents giving up their Italian ness, giving up their heritage and being Italian at home and being white in public. So not changing their name, shortening their name, losing their accent, or dropping the accent. I'm glad that you said that. I think that's important. But like you said though, if you tell those stories and it shakes up the power dynamic for whiteness, it's like, oh, but there are books how the Irish became White, the Making of Whiteness working for Whiteness, read all the books by David Broer on Whiteness Studies. But I'm glad that you told us. I think it's important, and I love that you named it as a severing. Why did you choose that word in particular?

Jenny (43:55):

I had the privilege a few years ago of going to Poland and doing an ancestry trip. And weeks before I went, an extended cousin in the States had gotten connected with our fifth cousin in Poland. We share the fifth grandparents. And this cousin of mine took us around to the church where my fifth great grandparents got married and these just very visceral places. And I had never felt the land that my ancestors know in my body. And there was something really, really powerful of that. And so I think of severing as I have been cut off from that lineage and that heritage because of whiteness. And I feel very, very grateful for the ways in which that is beginning to heal and beginning to mend. And we can tell truer stories of our ancestry and where we come from and the practices of our people. And I think it is important to acknowledge the cost and the privilege that has come from that severing in order to get a job that was not reserved for people that weren't white. My family decided, okay, well we'll just play the part. We will take on that role of whiteness because that will then give us that class privilege and that socioeconomic privilege that reveals how much of a construct whiteness

Starlette (45:50):

A racial contract is what Charles W. Mills calls it, that there's a deal made in a back room somewhere that you'll trade your sense of self for another. And so that it doesn't, it just unravels all the ways in which white supremacy, white body supremacy, pos itself, oh, that we're better. I think people don't say anything because it unravels those lies, those tongue twisters that persons have spun over the centuries, that it's really just an agreement that we've decided that we'll make ourselves the majority so that we can bully everybody else. And nobody wants to be called that. Nobody wants to be labeled greedy. I'm just trying to provide for my family, but at what expense? At who else's expense. But I like to live in this neighborhood and I don't want to be stopped by police. But you're willing to sacrifice other people. And I think that's why it becomes problematic and troublesome because persons have to look at themselves.

(46:41):

White body supremacy doesn't offer that reflection. If it did, persons would see how monstrous it is that under the belly of the beast, seeing the underside of that would be my community. We know what it costs for other people to feel really, really important because that's what whiteness demands. In order to look down your nose on somebody, you got to stand on somebody's back. Meanwhile, our communities are teaching each other to stand. We stand on the shoulders of giants. It's very communal. It's a shared identity and way of being. Whereas whiteness demands allegiance by way of violence, violent taking and grabbing it is quite the undoing. We have a lot of work to do. But I am proud of you for telling that story.

Danielle (47:30):

I wanted to read this quote by Gloria, I don't know if you know her. Do you know her? She writes, the struggle is inner Chicano, Indio, American Indian, Molo, Mexicano, immigrant, Latino, Anglo and power working class Anglo black, Asian. Our psyches resemble the border towns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner and has played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before interchanges and which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the real world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.

(48:16):

So Jenny, when you're talking, you had some image in your head before you went to Poland, before it became reality. You had some, it didn't start with just knowing your cousin or whatever it happened before that. Or for me being confronted and having to confront things with my husband about ways we've been complicit or engaged in almost like the word comes gerrymandering our own future. That's kind of how it felt sometimes Luis and I and how to become aware of that and take away those scales off our own eyes and then just sit in the reality, oh no, we're really here and this is where we're really at. And so where are we going to go from here? And starlet, you've talked from your own position. That's just what comes to mind. It's something that happens inside. I mean, she talks about head, I think more in feelings in my chest. That's where it happens for me. But yeah, that's what comes to mind.

Starlette (49:48):

With. I feel like crying because of what we've done to our bodies and the bodies of other people. And we still can't see ourselves not as fully belonging to each other, not as beloved, not as holy.

It's deeply saddening that for all the time that we have here together for all the time that we'll share with each other, we'll spend much of it not seeing each other at all.

Danielle (50:57):

My mind's going back to, I think I might've shared this right before you joined Starla, where it was like, I really believe the words of Jesus that says, what good is it for someone to gain the world and lose their soul? And that's what I hear. And what I feel is this soul loss. And I don't know how to convince other people. And I don't know if that's the point that their soul is worth it, but I think I've, not that I do it perfectly, but I think I've gotten to the place where I'm like, I believe my interiority is worth more than what it would be traded in for.

(51:45):

And I think that will be a lifelong journey of trying to figure out how to wrestle with a system. I will always be implicated in because I am talking to you on a device that was made from cobalt, from Congo and wearing clothes that were made in other countries. And there's no way I can make any decision other than to just off myself immediately. And I'm not saying I'm doing that, but I'm saying the part of the wrestle is that this is, everything is unresolved. And how do I, like what you said, Danielle, what did you say? Can you tune into this conversation?

Jenny (52:45):

Yeah. And how do I keep tapping in even when it means engaging my own implication in this violence? It's easier to be like, oh, those people over there that are doing those things. And it's like, wait, now how do I stay situated and how I'm continually perpetuating it as well, and how do I try to figure out how to untangle myself in that? And I think that will be always I,

Danielle (53:29):

He says, the US Mexican border as like an open wound where the third world grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds. Two worlds merging to form a third country, a border culture. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary is it is in a constant state of transition. They're prohibited and forbidden arts inhabitants. And I think that as a Latina that really describes and mixed with who my father is and that side that I feel like I live like the border in me, it feels like it grates against me. So I hear you, Jenny, and I feel very like all the resonance, and I hear you star led, and I feel a lot of resonance there too. But to deny either thing would make me less human because I am human with both of those parts of me.

(54:45):

But also to engage them brings a lot of grief for both parts of me. And how does that mix together? It does feel like it's in a constant state of transition. And that's partly why Latinos, I think particularly Latino men bought into this lie of power and played along. And now they're getting shown that no, that part of you that's European, that part never counted at all. And so there is no way to buy into that racialized system. There's no way to put a down payment in and come out on the other side as human. As soon as we buy into it, we're less human. Yeah. Oh, Jenny has to go in a minute. Me too. But starlet, you're welcome to join us any Thursday. Okay.

Speaker 1 (55:51):

Afternoon. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

I am Jenny! (She/Her) MACP, LMHC

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, Certified Yoga Teacher, and an Approved Supervisor in the state of Washington.

I have spent over a decade researching the ways in which the body can heal from trauma through movement and connection. I have come to see that our bodies know what they need. By approaching our body with curiosity we can begin to listen to the innate wisdom our body has to teach us. And that is where the magic happens!

I was raised within fundamentalist Christianity. I have been, and am still on my own journey of healing from religious trauma and religious sexual shame (as well as consistently engaging my entanglement with white saviorism). I am a white, straight, able-bodied, cis woman. I recognize the power and privilege this affords me socially, and I am committed to understanding my bias’ and privilege in the work that I do. I am LGBTQIA+ affirming and actively engage critical race theory and consultation to see a better way forward that honors all bodies of various sizes, races, ability, religion, gender, and sexuality.

I am immensely grateful for the teachers, healers, therapists, and friends (and of course my husband and dog!) for the healing I have been offered. I strive to pay it forward with my clients and students. Few things make me happier than seeing people live freely in their bodies from the inside out!

Rebecca A. Wheeler Walston, J.D., Master of Arts in Counseling

Email: asolidfoundationcoaching@gmail.com

Phone:  +1.5104686137

Website: Rebuildingmyfoundation.com

I have been doing story work for nearly a decade. I earned a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and trained in story work at The Allender Center at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I have served as a story facilitator and trainer at both The Allender Center and the Art of Living Counseling Center. I currently see clients for one-on-one story coaching and work as a speaker and facilitator with Hope & Anchor, an initiative of The Impact Movement, Inc., bringing the power of story work to college students.

By all accounts, I should not be the person that I am today. I should not have survived the difficulties and the struggles that I have faced. At best, I should be beaten down by life‘s struggles, perhaps bitter. I should have given in and given up long ago. But I was invited to do the good work of (re)building a solid foundation. More than once in my life, I have witnessed God send someone my way at just the right moment to help me understand my own story, and to find the strength to step away from the seemingly inevitable ending of living life in defeat. More than once I have been invited and challenged to find the resilience that lies within me to overcome the difficult moment. To trust in the goodness and the power of a kind gesture. What follows is a snapshot of a pivotal invitation to trust the kindness of another in my own story. May it invite you to receive to the pivotal invitation of kindness in your own story. Listen with me… 

Danielle (00:17):

Welcome to the Arise podcast, and as you know, we're continuing on the intersection of where our reality meets and today it's where our reality meets our resilience. And how do we define that? A lovely conversation. It's actually just part one. I'm thinking it's going to be multiple conversations. Jenny McGrath, LMHC, and Rebecca Wheeler, Walston. Join me again, look for their bios in the notes and tag along with us. I thought we could start by talking about what do we see as resilience in this moment and what do we see, maybe like I'm saying a lot now, what do we see as the ideal of that resilience and what is actually accessible to us? Because I think there's these great quotes from philosophers and our ancestors, but we don't know all their day-to-day life. What did it look like day to day? So I'm wondering, just kind of posing that for you all, what do you think about resilience? How does it intersect with this moment and how do we kind of ground ourselves in reality?

Rebecca (01:33):

Rebecca? Coffee helps. Coffee definitely helps. It does. I have coffee here.

(01:42):

Me too. I would probably try to start with something of a working definition of the word. One of the things that I think makes this moment difficult in terms of a sense of what's real and what's not is the way that our vocabulary is being co-opted or redefined without our permission. And things are being defined in ways that are not accurate or not grounded in reality. And I think that that's part of what feels disorienting in this moment. So I would love for us to just start with a definition of the word, and I'm guessing the three of us will have different versions of that.

(02:25):

So if I had to start, I would say that I used to think about resilience as sort of springing back to a starting point. You started in this place and then something knocked you off of where you started. And resilience is about making it back to the place that you were before you got knocked off of your path. And my definition of that word has shifted in recent years to a sense of resilience that is more about having come through some difficulty. I don't actually bounce back to where I started. I actually adopt a new normal new starting place that has integrated the lessons learned or the strengths or the skills developed for having gone through the process of facing something difficult.

Jenny, I love that. I feel like it reminds me of a conversation you and I had many moons ago, Rebecca, around what is flourishing and kind of these maybe idealistic ideas around something that isn't actually rooted in reality. And I love that that definition of resistance feels so committed to being in reality. And I am not going to erase everything I went through to try to get back to something, but I'm actually going to, my word is compost or use what I've gone through to bring me to where I am. Now, this will not surprise either of you. I think when I think of resilience, I think somatically and how we talk about a nervous system or a body and what allows resilience. And so one of the ways that that is talked about is through heart rate variability and our ability for our heart to speed up and slow down is one of the defining factors of our body's ability to stay resilient.

(04:42):

Can I come to a state of rest and I think about how rest is a privilege that not all bodies have. And so when I think about resilience in that way, it makes me think about how do I actually zoom out of resilience being about an individual body and how do we form kind of more of a collective sense of resilience where we are coworking to create a world where all bodies get to return to that level of safety and rest and comfort and aren't having to stay in a mode of vigilance. And so I see resilience almost as one of the directions that I'm wanting to move and not a place that we're at yet collectively. Collectively meaning who

Jenny (05:41):

I say collectively, I'm hoping for a world that does not exist yet where it gets to be all bodies, human and non-human, and the ways in which we allow ecosystems to rest, we allow a night sky to rest. We allow ourselves to become more in rhythm with the activation and deactivation that I think nature teaches us of more summer and winter and day and night and these rhythms that I think we're meant to flow in. But in a productive capitalistic society where lights are never turned off and energy is only ever thought about and how do we produce more or different energy, I'm like, how do we just stop producing energy and just take a nap? I'm really inspired by the nat ministry of just like rest actually is a really important part of resistance. And so I have these lofty ideals of what collective means while being aware that we are coming to that collective from very different places in our unresolved historical relational field that we're in.

I would say there's a lot I'd love about that, all of that. And I, dear use of the word lofty, I feel that word in this moment that causes me to consider the things that feel like they're out of reach. I think the one thing that I would probably add to what you said is I think you used the phrase like returning to a state of rest when you were talking about heart rate and body. And if we're talking about an individual ability to catch my breath and slow it down, I can track with you through the returning to something. But when we go from that individual to this collective space where I live in the hyphenated existence of the African American story, I don't have the sense of returning to something because African hyphen American people were born as a people group out of this horrific traumatic space called the transatlantic slave trade.

(08:15):

And so I don't know that our bodies have ever known a sense of rest on us soil. And I don't know that I would feel that that sense of rest on the continent either having been there several times, that sense of something happened in the transition from Africa to America, that I lost my africanness in such a way that doesn't feel like a place of rest. And sometimes we talk about it in terms of for certain people groups, land is connected to that sense of rest for Native Americans, for indigenous people, for certain Latin cultures. But for the African American person, there's not a connection to land. There's only maybe a connection to the water of the transatlantic slave trade. And then water is never at rest. It's always moving, right? So I stay with you and then I lose you and then I come back to you.

Danielle (09:25):

That feels like a normal part of healing. I stay with you, I lose you and then I come back to you. I think resilience for me has meant living in this family with my partner who's a first generation immigrant and then having kids and having to remind myself that my kids were raised by both of us with two wildly different perspectives even though we share culture. And so there's things that are taught, there's things that are learned that are very different lessons that I cannot be surprised about what might be a form of resilience for my child and what might be a struggle where there isn't groundwork there.

(10:22):

I remember when Luis came to the United States, his parents said to him, we'll see you in a couple weeks. And I used to think my young self, I was like, what does that mean? They don't think we're going to stay married or whatever. But his dad also told him, be careful up there, be careful. And if Luis were here to tell this story, he said it many times. He's like, I didn't come to the United States because I thought it was the best thing that could happen to me. I came to marry you, I came to be with you, but I didn't come here because it was the best thing to happen to me. When his family came up for the wedding, they were very explicit. We didn't come here, we're not in awe. They wanted to make sure people knew we're okay. And I know there's wildly different experiences on the spectrum of this, but I think about that a lot. And so resilience has looked really different for us.

(11:23):

I think it is forming that bond with people that came here because they needed work or a different kind of setting or change to people that are already here. And I think as you witness our culture now, handle what's happening with kidnappings, what's happening with moms, what's happening with people on the street, snatching people off the street. You see that in the last election there was a wide range of voters on our side on the Latinx Latina side, and there was a spectrum of thoughts on what would actually help our community. But now you're seeing that quickly contract and basically like, oh shit, that wasn't helpful. So I think my challenge to myself has been how do I stay? Part of resilience for me is how do I stay in contact with people that I love that don't share in the same view as humanity as me? And I think that's an exercise that our people have done for a long time.

Rebecca (12:38):

Say that last sentence one more time, Danielle.

Danielle (12:42):

Just like, how do I stay in contact with people that I love that don't share my view of humanity, that don't share the valuation of humanity? How do I stay in contact with them because I actually see them as human too. And I think that's been a part of our resiliency over many years in Latin America just due to constant interference from European governmental powers.

Rebecca (13:16):

That partly why I think I asked you to repeat that last sentence is because I think I disconnected for a minute and I want to be mindful of disconnecting over a sentence that is about staying connected to people who don't value the same things that I value or don't value or see humanity in the way that I see in humanity. And I'm super aware, part of the conversation that's happening in the black community in this moment, particularly with black women, is the idea that we're not going to step to the forefront in this one. We are culturally, collectively, consciously making a decision to check out. And so if you see any of this on social media, there's a sense of like we're standing around learning line dances from Beyonce about boots on the ground instead of actively engaging in this moment. And so I have some ambivalence about whether or not does that count as resilience, right?

(14:28):

And is it resilient in a way that's actually kind to us as a people? And I'm not sure if I have an answer to that yet. In my mind the jury is still out, right? There are things about black women stepping to the side that make me really nervous because that's not who we are. It's not historically who we have been. And I am concerned that what we're doing is cutting off parts of ourself. And at the same time, I can tell you that I have not watched a news program. I have not watched a single news recording of anything since November 2nd, 2024.

Danielle (15:13):

I can just feel the tension of all of our different viewpoints, not that we're in conflict with one another, but we're not exactly on the same page either. And not that we're not on the same team, but I can feel that pull. Anybody else feel that?

Rebecca (15:35):

Does it feel like, I would agree we're not on the same page and in some ways I don't expect that we would be because we're so different. But does that pull feel like an invitation to clash or does it feel like it is actually okay to not necessarily be on the same page?

Danielle (16:06):

Well, I think it feels both things. I think I feel okay with it because I know you all and I'm trying to practice that. And I also think I feel annoyed that we can't all be on the same page some sense of annoyance. But I don't know if that annoyance is from you all. I feel the annoyance. It feels like noise from the outside to me a bit. It is not you or Jenny, it's just a general annoyance with how hard this shit is.

Rebecca (16:45):

And I definitely feel like one of the things I think that happens around supremacy and whiteness on us soil is the larger narrative that we have to be at odds with one another that there isn't a capacity or a way that would allow us to differentiate and not villainize or demonize the person that you are or the community that you are differentiated from. And I think we haven't always had the space collectively to think about what does it mean to walk alongside, what does it mean to lock arms? What does it mean to pull resources even with someone that we're on the same team, but maybe not at the same vantage point.

Jenny (17:47):

I have two thoughts. Three, I guess I'm aware even my continual work around internalized white saviorism, that part of my ambivalence is like where do you each need me? Are we aligning with people or are we saying f you to people? And I can feel that within me and it takes so much work to come back to, I might actually have a third way that's different than both of you, and that gets to be okay too. But I'm aware that there is that tendency to step into over alignment out of this savior movement and mentality. So just wanted to name that that is there.

(18:41):

And as you were sharing Rebecca, the word that came to mind for me was orthodoxy. And I don't often think of white supremacy without thinking of Christian supremacy because they've been so interlocked for so long. And the idea that there are many faith traditions including the Jewish tradition that has a mid rash. And it's like we actually come to scripture and we argue about it because we have different viewpoints and that's beautiful and lovely because the word of God is living in all of us. And when orthodoxy came around, it's like, no, we have to be in 100% agreement of these theologies or these doctrines and that's what it means to be Christian. And then eventually I think that's what it means to be a white Christian. So yeah, I think for folks like myself who were immersed in that world growing up, it feels existentially terrifying because it's like if I don't align with the orthodoxy of whiteness or Christianity or capitalism, it viscerally feels like I am risking eternity in hell. And so I better just play it safe and agree with whatever my pastor tells me or whatever the next white Republican male tells me. And so I feel that the weight of what this mindset of orthodoxy has done,

Rebecca (20:21):

I'm like, I got to take a breath on that one because I got a lot of stuff going on internally. And I think, so my faith tradition has these sort of two parallels. There's this space that I grew up in was rooted in the black church experience and then also in college that introduction into that white evangelical parachurch space where all of that orthodoxy was very, very loud and a version of Christianity that was there is but one way to do all of these things and that one way looks like this. And if you're doing anything other than that, there's something wrong with what you're doing. And so for me, there are parts of me that can walk with you right through that orthodoxy door. And there's also this part of me where the black church experience was actually birthed in opposition to that orthodoxy, that same orthodoxy that said I was three fifths of a person, that same orthodoxy that said that my conversion to Christianity on earth did not change my status as an enslaved person.

(21:39):

And so I have this other faith tradition that is built around the notion that that orthodoxy is actually a perversion of authentic Christian expression. And so I have both of those things in my body right now going, and so that's just my reaction I think to what you said. I feel both of those things and there are times when I will say to my husband, Ooh, my evangelical illness is showing because I can feel it, like want to push back on this flexibility and this oxygen that is in the room through the black church experience that says I get to come as I am with no apology and no explanation, and Jesus will meet me wherever that is end of conversation, end debate.

Danielle (22:46):

I don't know. I had a lot of thoughts. They're all kind of mumbled together. I think we have a lot of privilege to have a conversation like this because when you leave a space like this that's curated with people, you've had relationships over a long time maybe had disagreements with or rubbed scratchy edges with. When you get out into the world, you encounter a lot of big feelings that are unprocessed and they don't have words and they have a lot of room for interpretation. So you're just getting hit, hit, hit, hit and the choices to engage, how do you honor that person and engage? You don't want to name their feelings, you don't want to take over interpreting them, but it feels in this moment that we're being invited to interpret one another's feelings a lot. But here we're putting language to that. I mean Jenny and I talked about it recently, but it turns into a lot of relational cutoffs.

(23:55):

I can't talk to you because X, I can't talk to you because X, I don't want to read your news article. And a lot of times they're like, Danielle, why did you read Charlie Kirk? And I was like, because I have family that was interested in it. I've been watching his videos for years because I wanted to understand what are they hearing, what's going on. Yeah, did it make me mad sometimes? Absolutely. Did I turn it off? Yeah, I still engage and then I swing and listen to the Midas touch or whatever just like these opposite ends and it gives me great joy to listen to something like that. But when we're out and about, if we're saying resiliency comes through connection to our culture and to one another, but then with all the big feelings you can feel just the formidable splits anywhere you go, the danger of speaking of what's unspeakable and you get in a room with people you agree with and then suddenly you can talk. And I don't know how many of us are in rooms where resilience is actually even required in a conversation.

Rebecca (25:15):

It makes me think about the idea that we don't have good sort of rules of engagement around how to engage someone that thinks differently than we do and we have to kind of create them on the fly. When you were talking Danielle about the things you choosing to read Charlie Kirk, or not choosing to listen to something that reflects your values or not, and the invitation in this moment or the demand that if someone thinks differently than me, it is just a straight cutoff. I'm not even willing to consider that there's any kind of veracity in your viewpoint whatsoever. And I think we don't have good theology, we don't have good vocabulary, we don't have good rules of engagement about when is it okay to say, actually, I'm going to choose not to engage you. And what are the reasons why we would do that that are good reasons, that are wise reasons that are kind reasons? And I think the country is in a debate about that and we don't always get the answer to those questions and because we don't get it right then there's just relational debris all over the floor.

Jenny (26:47):

I'm just thinking about, I am far from skilled or perfect at this by any means, but I feel like these last couple years I live in a van and one of the reasons that we decided to do that was that we would say, I think I know two things about every state, and they're probably both wrong. And I think for our own reasons, my husband and I don't like other people telling us what is true. We like to learn and discover and feel it in our own bodies. And so it's been really important for us to literally physically go to places and talk to people. And I think it has been a giant lesson for me on nuance and that nobody is all one thing. And often there's people that are on the completely opposite side of the aisle, but we actually look at the same issues and we have a problem with the issues. We just have heard very, very different ways of fixing or tending to those issues. And so I think often if we can come down to what are we fearing, what is happening, what is going on, we can kind of wrestle there a little bit more than jumping to, so what's the solution? And staying more in that dirt level.

(28:22):

And not always perfectly of course, but I think that's been one of the things in an age of the algorithm and social media, it is easy for me to have very broad views of what certain states or certain people groups or certain voting demographics are like. And then when you are face to face, you have to wrestle. And I love that when you said, Daniel, I see them as human. And it's like, oh yeah, it's so much easier to see someone as not human when I'm learning about them from a TikTok reel or from a news segment than when I'm sharing a meal with them and hearing about their story and how they've come to believe the things they've believed or wrestle with the things they're wrestling with.

Rebecca (29:14):

Two things. One, I think what you're talking about Jenny, is the value of proximity. The idea that I've stepped close to someone into their space, into their world with a posture of I'm going to just listen. I'm going to learn, I'm going to be curious. And in that curiosity, open handed and open-minded about all kinds of assumptions and presuppositions. And you're right, we don't do that a lot. The second thing that I was thinking when you mentioned getting into the dirt, I think you used the phrase like staying in the darker sort of edges of some of those hard conversations. That feels like a choice towards resiliency. To me, the idea that I will choose of my will to stay in the room, in the relationship, in the conversation long enough to wrestle long enough to learn something long enough to have my perspective challenged in a real way that makes me rethink the way I see something or the lens that I have on that particular subject.

(30:33):

And I don't think we could use more of that in this moment. I think probably our friendship, what started as a professional connection that has over the years developed into this friendship is about the choice to stay connected and the choice to stay in the conversation. I know when I first met you, we were going to do a seminar together and someone said, oh yeah, Jenny's getting ready to talk on something about white people. And I had 8,000 assumptions about what you were going to say and all kinds of opinions about my assumptions about what you're going to say. And I was like, well, I want to talk to her. I want to know what is she going to say? And really it was because if she says anything crazy, we right, we all have problems, me and you, right? And the graciousness with which you actually entered that conversation to go like, okay, I'm listening. What is it that you want to ask me? I think as part of why we're still friends, why we're still colleagues, why we still work together, is that invitation from you, that acceptance of that invitation from me. Can we wrestle? Can we box over this and come out the other side having learned something about ourselves and each other?

Jenny (32:10):

And I think part of that for me, what I have to do is reach for my lineage pre whiteness. And I have this podcast series that I love called Search for the Slavic Soul that has made me make more sense to myself. And there's this entire episode on why do Slavic people love to argue? And I'm like, oh, yes. And I think part of that has been me working out that place of white woman fragility that says, if someone questions my ideas or my values or my views, I need to disintegrate and I need to crumple. And so I'm actually so grateful for that time and for how we've continued to be able to say, I don't agree with that, and we can still be okay and we can still kind of navigate because of course we're probably going to see things differently based on our experiences.

Danielle (33:16):

That is exactly the problem though is because there's a lot of, not everybody, but there's a lot of folks that don't really have a sense of self or have a sense of their own body. So there's so much enmeshment with whoever they're with. So when then confronted and mesh, I mean merging, we're the same self. It adds protection. Think about it. We all do it. Sometimes I need to be people just like me. It's not bad. But if that sense of merging will cost you the ability to connect to someone different than you or that sees very different than you, and when they confront that, if they're quote alone physically or alone emotionally in that moment, they'll disappear or they'll cut you off or they'll go away or it comes out as violence. I believe it comes out as shootings as we could go on with the list of violent outcomes that kind of cut, that kind of separation happens. So I mean, I'm not like Jenny, that's awesome. And it doesn't feel that typical to me.

Rebecca (34:36):

What you just described to me, Daniel, I have been going like, isn't that whiteness though, the whole point, and I'm talking about whiteness, not the people who believe themselves to be white, to quote taishi quotes. The whole point of whiteness is this enmeshment of all these individual European countries and cultures and people into this one big blob that has no real face on it. And maybe that's where the fragility comes from. So I love when Jenny said, it makes me reach back into my ancestry pre whiteness, and I'm going, that needs to be on a t-shirt. Please put it on a t-shirt, a coffee mug, a hat, something. And so that's sort of Taishi Coates concept of the people who believe themselves to be white is a way to put into words this idea that that's not actually your story. It's not actually your ancestry.

(35:43):

It's not actually your lineage. It's the disruption and the eraser and the stealing of your lineage in exchange for access to power and privilege. And I do think it is this enmeshment, this collective enmeshment of an entire European continent. And perhaps you're right that that's where the fragility comes from. So when you try to extract a person or a people group out of that, I don't know who I am, if absent this label of whiteness, I don't know what that means by who I am now I'm talking like I know what I'm talking about. I'm not white, so let me shut up. Maybe that means Jenny, you could say if I misunderstood you misquoted, you misrepresented all

Jenny (36:31):

The No, no, I think yeah, I'm like, yes, yes, yes. And it also makes me go back to what you said about proximity. And I think that that is part of the design of whiteness, and even what you were saying about faith, and you can correct me, but my understanding is that those who could vote and those who could own property were Christian. And then when enslaved black people started converting to Christianity and saying, I can actually take pieces of this and I can own this and I can have this white enslavers had a conundrum because then they couldn't use the word Christian in the way that they used to justify chattel slavery and wealth disparity. So they created the word white, and so then it was then white people that could own property and could vote. And so what that did was also disable a class solidarity between lower socioeconomic white bodies and newly emancipated black bodies to say, no, we're not in this together struggling against those that own the highest wealth. I have this pseudo connection with bodies that hold wealth because of the color of my skin. And so then it removes both my proximity to my own body and my proximity to bodies that are probably in a similar struggle, very disproportionate and different than my own because I have white privilege. But it also then makes white bodies align with the system instead of co-conspirator with bodies working towards liberation.

Rebecca (38:32):

I do think that that's true. I think there's a lot of data historically about the intentional division that was driven between poor people in the colonies and wealthy people in the colonies. And I say people because I think the class stratification included enslaved Africans, free Africans, poor whites, native American people that were there as well. And so I think that there was a kind of diversity there in terms of race and ethnicity and nationality that was intentionally split and then reorganize along racial lines. The only thing that I would add on the Christian or the faith spectrum is that there's a book by Jamar TBE called The Color of Compromise. And one of the things that he talks about in that book is the religious debate that was happening when the colonies were being organized around if you proselytize your slave and they convert, then do you have to emancipate them?

(39:43):

Because in England, the religious law was that you could not enslave or in put a believer into servitude in any form, whether that's indentured servitude or slavery. Well, I got a problem with the premise, the idea that if you were not a Christian in medieval England, I could do whatever I wanted to. The premise is wrong in the first place. The thought that you could own or indenture a human to another human is problematic on its face. So I just want to name that the theological frame that they brought from England was already jacked, and then they superimposed it in the colonies and made a conscious decision at the House of Burgess, which is about a mile from where I'm sitting, made a conscious decision to decide that your conversion to Christianity does not impact any part of your life on earth. It only impacts your eternity. So all you did was by fire insurance, meaning that your eternity is now in heaven and not in hell, but on earth I can do whatever I want. And that split that perversion of the gospel at that moment to decide that the kingdom of God has nothing to do with what is happening on earth is something we're still living with today. Right? It's the reason why you have 90 some odd percent of evangelicals voting for all kinds of policies that absolutely violate every tenant of scripture in the Bible and probably every other holy book on the planet, and then still standing in their pulpit on Sunday morning and preaching that they represent God. It's ridiculous. It's offensive.

Danielle (41:38):

I just feel like this is proving my point. So I feel like other people may have said this, but who's kept talking about this exchange for whiteness? Bro, we're in the timeline where Jesus, their Jesus said yes to the devil. He's like, give me the power, give me the money, give me the bread. And if you want to come into their religion, you have to trade in how God actually made you for to say yes to that same temptation for power and money and whatever, and erase your face's. One comment. Second comment is this whole thing about not giving healthcare to poor families.

(42:20):

I hesitate to say this word, but I'm reminded of the story of the people that first came here from England, and I'm aware that they were starving at one point, and I'm aware that they actually ate off their own people, and that's partly how they survived. And it feels the same way to me, here, give us the power, give us the control, give us the money. And we're like, the fact is, is that cutting off healthcare for millions of Americans doesn't affect immigrants at all. They're not on those plans. It affects most poor whites and they have no problem doing it and then saying, come, give me your bread. Come give me your cheese. Come give me your vote. It's like a self flesh eating virus, and

(43:20):

I am almost speechless from it. There's this rumor that migrants have all the health insurance, and I know that's not true because Luis legally came here. He had paperwork, he was documented, got his green card, then got his citizenship, and even after citizenship to prove we could get health insurance, when he got off his job, we had to not only submit his passport, but his certificate that was proof of citizenship through the state of Washington, a very liberal state to get him on health insurance. So I know there's not 25 million immigrants in the country falsifying those records. That's just not happening. So I know that that's a lie from personal experience, but I also know that the point is, the point is the lie. The point is to tell you the lie and actually stab the person in the back that you're lying to. That just feels dark to me. I went off, sorry, that's kind of off the subject of resilience.

Rebecca (44:36):

No, I have two reactions to that. The first one is when we were talking just a few minutes ago about the exchange for power and privilege, it's actually a false invitation to a table that doesn't actually exist. That's what, to me is darkest about it. It's the promise of this carrot that you have no intention of ever delivering. And people have so bought into the lie so completely that it's like you didn't even stop to consider that, let alone the ability to actually see this is not actually an invitation to anything. So that is partly what I think about. And if you read the book, the Sum of Us, it actually talks about Sum, SUM, the sum of us. It actually talks about the cost, the economic cost of racism, and each chapter is about a different industry and how there were racist policies set up in that industry.

(45:49):

And basically the point the author makes is that at every turn, in order to subjugate and oppress a community of color, white people had to sacrifice something for themselves and oppress themselves and disenfranchise themselves in order to pull it off. And they did it anyway because essentially it is wealthy white, it's affluent white male that ends up with the power and the privilege, and everybody else is subjugated and oppressed. And that's a conversation. I don't understand it. The gaslighting is got to be astronomical and brilliant to convince an entire community of people to vote against themselves. So I'm over there with you on the limb, Danielle,

Jenny (47:16):

Yeah, I am thinking about Fox News and how most impoverished white communities, that is the only source of information that they have because there isn't proximity and there isn't a lot of other conversations. It is exactly what Tucker Carlson or all of these people are spewing. And I think fear is such a powerful tool, and honestly, I don't see it as that different than early indoctrination around hell and using that to capitulate people into the roles that the church wanted them. And so it's like things might be bad now, but there are going to be so much worse quote because of the racial fear mongering of immigrants, of folks of color, of these people coming to take your jobs that if you can work, people who are already struggling into such a frenzy of fear, I think they're going to do things drastically vote for Trump because they think he's going to save the economy because that's what they're hearing, regardless of if that is even remotely true, and regardless of the fact that most white bodies are more likely to be climate refugees than they are to be billionaire friends with

Rebecca (48:59):

So then what does resilience look like in the face of that kind of fearmongering?

Jenny (49:24):

This is maybe my nihilistic side. I don't know that things are going to get better before they get far worse. And I think that's where the resilience piece comes in. I was like, how do we hold on to our own humanity? How do we hold onto our communities? How do we hold onto hope in the reality that things will likely get worse and worse and worse before some type of reckoning or shift happens,

Rebecca

(50:23):

Yeah. There's actually, I saw an Instagram post a couple months ago, and I want to say it was Bruce Springsteen and he was just lamenting the erosion of art and culture and music in this moment that there's not art in the Oval Office, that there's not, and just his sense that art and music and those kinds of expressions, actually, I don't think he used the word defiance, but that's the sentiment that I walked away with. That is a way to amplify our humanity in a way that invites proximity to cultures and people that are different than you. This whole argument that we're having right now about whether this election of Bad Bunny makes any sense and the different sort of arguments about what the different sides that people have taken on that, it's hilarious. And then there's something about it that feels very real.

Danielle (51:31):

Yeah, I had someone told me, I'm not watching it because he's a demonic Marxist. I was like, can you be a Marxist and be in the entertainment industry anyway? Clearly, we're going to have to talk about this again. I wrote an essay for good faith media and I was just, I couldn't wrap it up. And they're like, that's okay. Don't wrap it up. It's not meant to be wrapped up. So maybe that's how our conversation is too. I dunno. Jenny, what are you thinking?

Jenny (52:13):

I have many thoughts, mostly because I just watched one battle after another last night, and I don't want to give any spoilers away, but I feel like it was a really, it's a very million trigger warnings piece of art that I think encapsulates so much of what we're talking about and sort of this transgenerational story of resilience and what does it mean whether that is my own children or other children in this world to lean into, this probably isn't going to end with me. I'm probably not going to fix this. So how do we continue to maybe push the ball forward in the midst of the struggle for future generations? And I think I'm grateful for this space. I think this is one of the ways that we maybe begin to practice and model what proximity and difference and resilience can look like. And it's probably not always going to be easy or there's going to be struggles that probably come even as we work on engaging this together. And I'm grateful that we get to engage this together.

Danielle (53:35):

Well, we can always continue our thoughts next week. That's right. Yeah, Rebecca. Okay, I'll be locked in, especially because I said it in the podcast.

Rebecca (53:48):

I know. I do agree with that. Jenny, I particularly agree having this conversation, the three of us intentionally staying in each other's lives, checking on each other, checking in with each other, all that feels like this sort of defiant intentional resilience, particularly in a moment in history where things that have been our traditional expression of resilience have been cut off like it In recent US history, any major change happened, usually started on the college campus with public protests and public outcry, and those avenues have been cut off. It is no longer safe to speak out on a college campus. People are losing their degrees, they're getting kicked out of colleges, they're getting expelled from colleges for teachers are getting fired for expressing viewpoints that are not in line with the majority culture at this moment. And so those traditional avenues of resilience, I think it was an intentional move to go after those spaces first to shut down what we would normally do to rally collectively to survive a moment. And so I think part of what feels hard in this moment is we're having to reinvent them. And I think it's happening on a micro level because those are the avenues that we've been left with, is this sort of micro way to be resistant and to be resilient.

Danielle (55:31):

As you can see, we didn't finish our conversation this round, so check out the next episode. After this, we'll be wrapping up this conversation or at least continuing it. And at the end in the notes, their resources, I encourage you to connect with community, have conversations, give someone a hug that you trust and love and care for, and looking forward to having you join us.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations about reality and talking a lot about what that means in the context of church, faith, race, justice, religion, all the things. Today, I'm so honored to have Sarah Van Gelder, a community leader, an example of working and continuing to work on building solidarity and networks and communication skills and settling into her lane. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Hey, Sarah, it's so good to be with you. And these are just casual conversations, and I do actual minimal editing, but they do get a pretty good reach, so that's exciting. I would love to hear you introduce yourself. How do you introduce yourself these days? Tell me a little bit about who you are. Okay.

Sarah (01:14):

My name is Sarah Van Gelder and I live in Bremer and Washington. I just retired after working for the Suquamish Tribe for six years, so I'm still in the process of figuring out what it means to be retired, doing a lot of writing, a certain amount of activism, and of course, just trying to figure out day to day, how to deal with the latest, outrageous coming from the administration. But that's the most recent thing. I think what I'm most known for is the founding yes magazine and being the editor for many years. So I still think a lot about how do we understand that we're in an era that's essentially collapsing and something new may be emerging to take its place? How do we understand what this moment is and really give energy to the emergence of something new? So those are sort of the foundational questions that I think about.

Danielle (02:20):

Okay. Those are big questions. I hadn't actually imagined that something new is going to emerge, but I do agree there is something that's collapsing, that's disintegrating. As you know, I reached out about how are we thinking about what is reality and what is not? And you can kind of see throughout the political spectrum or community, depending on who you're with and at what time people are viewing the world through a specific lens. And of course, we always are. We have our own lens, and some people allow other inputs into that lens. Some people are very specific, what they allow, what they don't allow. And so what do we call as reality when it comes to reality and politics or reality and faith or gender, sexuality? It's feeling more and more separate. And so that's kind of why I reached out to you. I know you're a thinker. I know you're a writer, and so I was wondering, as you think about those topics, what do you think even just about what I've said or where does your mind go?

Sarah (03:32):

Yeah. Well, at first when you said that was the topic, I was a little intimidated by it because it sounded a little abstract. But then I started thinking about how it is so hard right now to know what's real, partly because there's this very conscious effort to distort reality and get people to accept lies. And I think actually part of totalitarian work is to get people to just in the Orwellian book 1984, the character had to agree that two plus two equals five. And only when he had fully embraced that idea could he be considered really part of society.

(04:14):

So there's this effort to get us to accept things that we actually know aren't true. And there's a deep betrayal that takes place when we do that, when we essentially gaslight ourselves to say something is true when we know it's not. And I think for a lot of people who have, I think that's one of the reasons the Republican party is in such trouble right now, is because so many people who in previous years might've had some integrity with their own belief system, have had to toss that aside to adopt the lies of the Trump administration, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen. And if they don't accept those lies, they get rejected from the party. And once you accept those lies, then from then on you have betrayed yourself. And in many ways, you've betrayed the people who trust you. So it's a really tough dilemma sort of at that political level, even for people who have not bought into the MAGA mindset, or I do think of it as many people have described as a cult.

(05:31):

Now, even for people who have not bought into that, I think it's just really hard to be in a world where so many fundamental aspects of reality are not shared with people in your own family, in your own workplace, in your own community. I think it's incredibly challenging and we don't really know, and I certainly don't know how to have conversations. In fact, this is a question I wanted to ask you to have conversations across that line of reality because there's so much places where feelings get hurt, but there's also hard to reference back to any shared understanding in order to start with some kind of common ground. It feels like the ground is just completely unreliable. But I'd love to hear your thoughts about how you think about that.

Danielle (06:33):

It's interesting. I have some family members that are on the far, far, including my parent, well, not my parents exactly, but my father, and I've known this for a while. So prior to what happened in a couple weeks ago with the murder of an activist, I had spent a lot of time actually listening to that activist and trying to understand what he stood for, what he said, why my family was so interested in it. I spent time reading. And then I also was listening to, I don't know if you're familiar with the Midas Touch podcast? Yeah. So I listened to the Midas Brothers, and they're exact opposites. They're like, one is saying, you idiot, and the other one is like, oh, you're an idiot. And so when I could do it, when I had space to do it, it was actually kind of funny to me.

(07:34):

Sometimes I'm like, oh, that's what they think of someone that thinks like me. And that's when that guy says, calls them an idiot. I feel some resonance with that. So I did that a lot. However, practically speaking, just recently in the last couple months, someone reached out to me from across the political ideology line and said, Hey, wouldn't it be fun if we got together and talked? We think really differently. We've known each other for 20 years. Could you do that? So I said, I thought about it and I was like, yeah, I say this, I should act on it. I should follow through. So I said, okay, yeah, let's meet. We set up a time. And when you get that feeling like that person's not going to show up, but you're also feeling like, I don't know if I want them to show up.

(08:24):

Am I really going to show up? But it's kind of like a game of chicken. Well, I hung in there longer, maybe not because I wanted to show up, but just because I got distracted by my four kids and whatnot, and it was summer, and the other person did say, oh, I sprained my ankle. I can't have a conversation with you. I was like, oh, okay. And they were like, well, let me reschedule. So I waited. I didn't hear back from them, and then they hopped onto one of my Facebook pages and said some stuff, and I responded and I said, Hey, wait a minute. I thought we were going to have a conversation in person. And it was crickets, it was silence, it was nothing. And then I was tagged in some other comments of people that I would consider even more extreme. And just like, this is an example of intolerance.

(09:13):

And I was like, whoa, how did I get here? How did I get here? And like I said, I'm not innocent. I associate some of the name calling and I have those explicit feelings. And I was struck by that. And then in my own personal family, we started a group chat and it did not go well. As soon as we jumped into talking about immigration and ice enforcement and stuff after there were two sides stated, and then the side that was on the far right side said, well, there's no point in talking anymore. We're not going to convince each other. And my brother and I were like, wait a minute, can we keep talking? We're not going to convince each other, but how can we just stop talking? And it's just been crickets. It's been silence. There's been nothing. So I think as you ask me that, I just feel like deep pain, how can we not have the things I think, or my perception of what the other side believes is extremely harmful to me and my family. But what feels even more harmful is the fact that we can't even talk about it. There's no tolerance to hear how hurtful that is to us or the real impact on our day-to-day life. And I think this, it's not just the ideology, but it's the inability to even just have some empathy there. And then again, if you heard a guy like Charlie Kirk, he didn't believe in empathy. So I have to remember, okay, maybe they don't even believe in empathy. Okay, so I don't have an answer. What about you?

Sarah (11:03):

No, I don't either. Except to say that I think efforts that are based on trying to convince someone of a rational argument don't work because this is not about analysis or about rationality, it's about identity, and it's about deep feelings of fear and questions of worthiness. And I think part of this moment we're in with the empire collapsing, the empire that has shorn up so much of our way of life, even people who've been at the margins of it, obviously not as much, but particularly people who are middle class or aspiring to be middle class or upper, that has been where we get our sense of security, where we get our sense of meaning. For a lot of white people, it's their sense of entitlement that they get to have. They're entitled to certain kinds of privileges and ways of life. So if that's collapsing and I believe it is, then that's a very scary time and it's not well understood. So then somebody comes along who's a strong man like Trump and says, not only can I explain it to you, but I can keep you safe. I can be your vengeance against all the insults that you've had to live with. And it's hard to give that up because of somebody coming at you with a rational discussion.

(12:36):

I think the only way to give that up is to have something better or more secure or more true to lean into. Now that's really hard to do because part of the safety on the right is by totally rejecting the other. And so my sense is, and I don't know if this can possibly work, but my sense is that the only thing that might work is creating nonpolitical spaces where people can just get to know each other as human beings and start feeling that yes, that person is there for me when things are hard and that community is there for me, and they also see me and appreciate who I am. And based on that kind of foundation, I think there's some hope. And so when I think about the kind of organizing to be doing right now, a lot of it really is about just saying, we really all care about our kids and how do we make sure they have good schools and we all need some good healthcare, and let's make sure that that's available to everybody. And just as much as possible keeps it within that other realm. And even maybe not even about issues, maybe it's just about having a potluck and enjoying food together.

Danielle (14:10):

What structures or how do you know then that you're in reality? And do you have an experience of actually being in a mixed group like that with people that think wildly different than you? And how did that experience inform you? And maybe it's recently, maybe it's in the past. Yeah,

Sarah (14:32):

So in some respects, I feel like I've lived that way all my life,

(14:44):

Partly because I spent enough time outside the United States that when I came home as a child, our family lived in India for a year. And so when I came home, I just had this sense that my life, my life and my perceptions of the world were really different than almost everybody else around me, but the exception of other people who'd also spent a lot of time outside the us. And somehow we understood each other pretty well. But most of my life, I felt like I was seeing things differently. And I don't feel like I've ever really particularly gained a lot of skill in crossing that I've tended to just for a lot of what I'm thinking about. I just don't really talk about it except with a few people who are really interested. I don't actually know a lot about how to bridge that gap, except again, to tell stories, to use language that is non-academic, to use language that is part of ordinary people's lives.

(16:01):

So yes, magazine, that was one of the things that I focused a lot on is we might do some pretty deep analysis, and some of it might include really drawing on some of the best academic work that we could find. But when it came to what we were going to actually produce in the magazine, we really focused in on how do we make this language such that anybody who picks this up who at least feels comfortable reading? And that is a barrier for some people, but anybody who feels comfortable reading can say, yeah, this is written with me in mind. This is not for another group of people. This is written for me. And then part of that strategy was to say, okay, if you can feel that way about it, can you also then feel comfortable sharing it with other people where you feel like they're going to feel invited in and they won't feel like, okay, I'm not your audience.

(16:57):

I'm not somebody you're trying to speak to. So that's pretty much, I mean, just that whole notion of language and telling stories and using the age old communication as human beings, we evolved to learn by stories. And you can tell now just because you try to tell a kid some lesson and their eyes will roll, but if you tell them a story, they will listen. They won't necessarily agree, but they will listen and it will at least be something they'll think about. So stories is just so essential. And I think that authentic storytelling from our own experience that feels like, okay, I'm not just trying to tell you how you should believe, but I'm trying to say something about my own experience and what's happened to me and where my strength comes from and where my weaknesses and my challenges come from as well.

Yeah, you mentioned that, and I was thinking about good stories. And so one of the stories I like to tell is that I moved to Suquamish, which is as an Indian reservation, without knowing really anything about the people I was going to be neighbors with. And there's many stories I could tell you about that. But one of them was that I heard that they were working to restore the ability to dig clams and dies inlet, which is right where silver Dial is located. And I remember thinking that place is a mess. You're never going to be able to have clean enough water because clams require really clean water. They're down filtering all the crap that comes into the water, into their bodies. And so you don't want to eat clams unless the water's very clean. But I remember just having this thought from my perspective, which is find a different place to dig clamps because that place is a mess.

(19:11):

And then years later, I found out it was now clean enough that they were digging clamps. And I realized that for them, spending years and years, getting the water cleaned up was the obvious thing to do because they think in terms of multiple generations, and they don't give up on parts of their water or their land. So it took years to do it, but they stayed with it. And so that was really a lesson for me in that kind of sense of reality, because my sense of reality is, no, you move on. You do what the pioneers did. One place gets the dust bowl and you move to a different place to farm. And learning to see from the perspective of not only other individuals, but other cultures that have that long millennia of experience in place and how that shifts things. It's almost like to me, it's like if you're looking at the world through one cultural lens, it's like being a one eyed person. You certainly see things, but when you open up your other eye and you can start seeing things in three dimensions, it becomes so much more alive and so much more rich with information and with possibilities.

Danielle (20:35):

Well, when you think about, and there's a lot probably, how do you apply that to today or even our political landscape? We're finding reality today.

Sarah (20:48):

Well, I think that the MAGA cult is very, very one eyed. And again, because that sense of safety and identity is so tied up in maintaining that they're not necessarily going to voluntarily open a second eye. But if they do, it would probably be because of stories. There's a story, and I think things like the Jimmy Kimmel thing is an example of that.

(21:21):

There's a story of someone who said what he believed and was almost completely shut down. And the reason that didn't happen is because people rose up and said, no, that's unacceptable. So I think there's a fundamental belief that's widespread enough that we don't shut down people for speech unless it's so violent that it's really dangerous. We don't shut people down for that. So I think when there's that kind of dissonance, I think there's sometimes an opening, and then it's really important to use that opening, not as a time to celebrate that other people were wrong and we were right, but to celebrate these values that free speech is really important and we're going to stand up for it, and that's who we are. So we get back to that identity. You can feel proud that you were part of this movement that helped make sure that free speech is maintained in the United States. Oh, that's

Danielle (22:26):

Very powerful. Yeah, because one side of my family is German, and they're the German Mennonites. They settled around the Black Sea region, and then the other side is Mexican. But these settlers were invited by Catherine the Great, and she was like, Hey, come over here. And Mennonites had a history of non-violence pacifist movement. They didn't want to be conscripted into the German army. And so this was also attractive for them because they were skilled farmers and they had a place to go and Russia and farm. And so that's why they left Germany, to go to Russia to want to seek freedom of their religion and use their farming skills till the soil as well as not be conscripted into violent political movements. That's the ancestry of the side of my family that is now far.

(23:29):

And I find, and of course, they came here and when they were eventually kicked out, and part of that them being kicked out was then them moving to the Dakotas and then kicking out the native tribes men that were there on offer from the US government. So you see the perpetuation of harm, and I guess I just wonder what all of that cost my ancestors, what it cost them to enact harm that they had received themselves. And then there was a shift. Some of them went to World War II as conscientious objectors, a couple went as fighters.

(24:18):

So then you start seeing that shift. I'm no longer, I'm not like a pacifist. You start seeing the shift and then we're to today, I don't know if those black sea farmers that moved to Russia would be looking down and being good job. Those weren't the values it seems like they were pursuing. So I even, I've been thinking a lot about that and just what does that reality mean here? What separations, what splitting has my family had to do to, they changed from these deeply. To move an entire country means you're very committed to your values, uproot your life, even if you're farming and you're going to be good at it somewhere else, it's a big deal.

Sarah (25:10):

Oh, yeah. So it also could be based on fear, right? Because I think so many of the people who immigrated here were certainly my Jewish heritage. There is this long history of pilgrims and people would get killed. And so it wasn't necessarily that for a lot of people that they really had an option to live where they were. And of course, today's refugees, a lot of 'em are here for the same reason. But I think one of the things that happened in the United States is the assimilation into whiteness.

(25:49):

So as white people, it's obviously different for different communities, but if you came in here and you Irish people and Italians and so forth were despised at certain times and Jews and Quakers even. But over time, if you were white, you could and many did assimilate. And what did assimilate into whiteness? First of all, whiteness is not a culture, and it's kind of bereft of real meaning because the real cultures were the original Irish and Italian. But the other thing is that how you make whiteness a community, if you will, is by excluding other people, is by saying, well, we're different than these other folks. So I don't know if this applies to your ancestors or not, but it is possible that part of what their assimilation to the United States was is to say, okay, we are white people and we are entitled to this land in North Dakota because we're not native. And so now our identity is people who are secure on the land, who have title to it and can have a livelihood and can raise our children in security. That is all wrapped up in us not being native and in our government, keeping native people from reclaiming that land.

(27:19):

So that starts shifting over generations. Certainly, it can certainly shift the politics. And I think that plus obviously the sense of entitlement that so many people felt to and feel to their slave holding ancestors, that was a defensible thing to do. And saying it's not is a real challenge to somebody's identity.

(27:51):

So in that respect, that whole business that Trump is doing or trying to restore the Confederate statues, those were not from the time of slavery. Those were from after reconstruction. Those were part of the south claiming that it had the moral authority and the moral right to do these centuries long atrocities against enslaved people. And so to me, that's still part of the fundamental identity struggle we're in right now, is people saying, if I identify as white, yes, I get all this safety and all these privileges, but I also have this burden of this history and history that's continuing today, and how do I reconcile those two? And Trump says, you don't have to. You can just be proud of what you have perpetrated or what your ancestors perpetrated on other people.

And I think there was some real too. I think there were people who honestly felt that they wanted to reconcile the, and people I think who are more willing to have complex thoughts about this country because there are things to be proud of, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the long history of protecting free speech and journalism and education for everyone and so forth. So there are definitely things to be proud of. And then there are things to recognize. We're incredibly violent and have had multiple generations of trauma resulting from it. And to live in this country in authenticity is to recognize that both are true and we're stuck with the history, but we're not stuck without being able to deal with that. We can do restitution and reparations and we can heal from that.

Danielle (30:15):

How do you stay connected even just to your own self in that dissonance that you just described?

Sarah (30:30):

Well, I think part of having compassion is to recognize that we're imperfect beings as individuals, but we're also imperfect as cultures. And so for me, I can live with, I mean, this is something I've lived with ever since I was in India, really. And I looked around and noticed that there were all these kids my own age who were impoverished and I was not. And that I knew I have enough to eat at the end of the day, and I knew that many of them would not have enough to eat. So it's always been a challenge for me. And so my response to that has been when I was a kid was, well, I don't understand how that happened. It's certainly not right. I don't understand how it could be, and I'm going to do my best to understand it, and then I'll do my part to try to change it. And I basically had the same view ever since then, which is there's only so much I can do, but I'll do everything I can, including examining my own complicity and working through issues that I might be carrying as somebody who grew up in a white supremacist culture, working on that internally, and then also working in community and working as an activist in a writer in any way I can think of that I can make a contribution.

(31:56):

But I really do believe that healing is possible. And so when I think about the people that are causing that I feel like are not dealing with the harm that they're creating, I still feel just somebody who goes to prison for doing a crime that's not the whole of who they are. And so they're going to have to ultimately make the choice about whether they're going to heal and reconcile and repair the damage they will have to make that choice. But for my part, I always want to keep that door open in my relationship with them and in my writing and in any other way, I want to keep the door open.

Danielle (32:43):

And I hear that, and I'm like, that's noble. And it's so hard to do to keep that door open. So what are some of the tools you use, even just on your own that help you keep that door open to conversation, even to feeling compassion for people maybe you don't agree with? What are some of the things, maybe their internal resources, external resources could be like, I don't know, somebody you read, go back to and read. Yeah. What helps you?

Sarah (33:16):

Well, the most important thing for me to keep my sanity is a combination of getting exercise and getting outside

(33:27):

And hanging out with my granddaughter and other people I love outside of political spaces because the political spaces get back into the stress. So yeah, I mean the exercise, I just feel like being grounded in our bodies is so important. And partly that the experience of fear and anxiety show up in our bodies, and we can also process them through being really active. So I'm kind of worried that if I get to the point where I'm too old to be able to really move, whether I'll be able to process as well. So there's that in terms of the natural world, this aliveness that I feel like transcends me and certainly humanity and just an aliveness that I just kind of open my senses to. And then it's sort, they call it forest bathing or don't have to be in a forest to do it, but just sort of allowing that aliveness to wash over me and to sort of celebrate it and to remember that we're all part of that aliveness. And then spending time with a 2-year-old is like, okay, anything that I may be hung up on, it becomes completely irrelevant to her experience.

Danielle (35:12):

I love that. Sarah, for you, even though I know you heard, you're still asking these questions yourself, what would you tell people to do if they're listening and they're like, and they're like, man, I don't know how to even start a conversation with someone that thinks different than me. I don't know how to even be in the same room them, and I'm not saying that your answers can apply to everybody. Mine certainly don't either, like you and me are just having a conversation. We're just talking it out. But what are some of the things you go to if you know you're going to be with people Yeah. That think differently than you, and how do you think about it?

Sarah (35:54):

Yeah, I mean, I don't feel particularly proud of this because I don't feel very capable of having a direct conversation with somebody who's, because I don't know how to get to a foundational level that we have in common, except sometimes we do. Sometimes it's like family, and sometimes it's like, what did you do for the weekend? And so it can feel like small talk, but it can also have an element of just recognizing that we're each in a body, in perhaps in a family living our lives struggling with how to live well. And so I usually don't try to get very far beyond that, honestly. And again, I'm not proud of that because I would love to have conversations that are enlightening for me and the other person. And my go-to is really much more basic than that.

Maybe it is. And maybe it creates enough sense of safety that someday that other level of conversation can happen, even if it can't happen right away.

Danielle (37:14):

Well, Sarah, tell me if people are looking for your writing and know you write a blog, tell me a little bit about that and where to find you. Okay.

Sarah (37:26):

Yeah, my blog is called How We Rise, and it's on Substack. And so I'm writing now and then, and I'm also writing somewhat for Truth Out Truth out.org has adopted the Yes Archive, which I'm very grateful to them for because they're going to keep it available so people can continue to research and find articles there that are still relevant. And they're going to be continuing to do a monthly newsletter where they're going to draw on Yes, archives to tell stories about what's going on now. Yes, archives that are specifically relevant. So I recommend that. And otherwise, I'm just right now working on a draft of an op-ed about Palestine, which I hope I can get published. So I'm sort of doing a little of this and a little of that, but I don't feel like I have a clear focus. The chaos of what's going on nationally is so overwhelming, and I keep wanting to come back to my own and my own focus of writing, but I can't say that I've gotten there yet.

Danielle (38:41):

I hear you. Well, I hope you'll be back, and hopefully we can have more conversations. And just thanks a lot for being willing to just talk about stuff we don't know everything about.

As always, thank you for joining us, and at the end of the podcast are notes and resources, and I encourage you to stay connected to those who are loving in your path and in your community. Stay tuned.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

I am Jenny! (She/Her) MACP, LMHC

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, Certified Yoga Teacher, and an Approved Supervisor in the state of Washington.

I have spent over a decade researching the ways in which the body can heal from trauma through movement and connection. I have come to see that our bodies know what they need. By approaching our body with curiosity we can begin to listen to the innate wisdom our body has to teach us. And that is where the magic happens!

I was raised within fundamentalist Christianity. I have been, and am still on my own journey of healing from religious trauma and religious sexual shame (as well as consistently engaging my entanglement with white saviorism). I am a white, straight, able-bodied, cis woman. I recognize the power and privilege this affords me socially, and I am committed to understanding my bias’ and privilege in the work that I do. I am LGBTQIA+ affirming and actively engage critical race theory and consultation to see a better way forward that honors all bodies of various sizes, races, ability, religion, gender, and sexuality.

I am immensely grateful for the teachers, healers, therapists, and friends (and of course my husband and dog!) for the healing I have been offered. I strive to pay it forward with my clients and students. Few things make me happier than seeing people live freely in their bodies from the inside out!

Danielle (00:28):

Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations based in what our reality is, faith, race, justice, gender in the church, therapy, all matter of things considered just exploring this topic of reality. Hey, I'm having this regular podcast co-host. Her name is Jenny McGrath. She's an M-A-C-P-L-M-H-C. She's dope. She's a licensed mental health counselor, a somatic experiencing practitioner, certified yoga teacher, and an approved supervisor in the state of Washington. She spent over a decade researching the ways in which the body can heal from trauma through movement and connection. And she's come to see that bodies are so important and she believes that by approaching the body with curiosity, we can begin to listen to the innate wisdom our body has to teach us. And that is where the magic happens. So I hope you're as thrilled as me to have such an amazing co-host join me. Yeah, we're going to talk about reality and therapy. We're just jumping in. Jenny and I are both writing books.

Jenny, I think it's funny that we are good friends and we see each other when we're around each other, but then if not, we're always trading reels and often they're like parodies on real life. Funny things about real life that are happening, which I've been, the theme of my book is called Splitting, and I know you write about purity culture, and a part of that I think really has to do with what is our reality and how is it formed? And then that shapes what we do, how we act, how we behave in the world, how we relate to each other. So any thoughts on that? On Thursday, September 25th,

Jenny (02:17):

I mean, as you named that, I think 10 minutes before this started, I sent you a reel. There was a comedian singing Why She Doesn't Go to Therapy, and it says, all my friends that go to therapy are mean to me, and you don't have boundaries. You're just being an asshole. And it was good, but it was also existential. This was what seems to me a white woman. And I do think as a white woman who's a therapist, I feel existential a lot about the work I do in therapy and in healing spaces, and how we do this in a way that doesn't promote this hyper individualistic reality. And this idea that everything I see and everything I think is the way that it is, how do I stay open to more of a communal or collective way of knowing? And I think that that's a challenging thing. So that's something that comes to mind for me as you bring up Instagram reels.

Danielle (03:26):

Oh man, I have so many thoughts on that that I wasn't thinking before you said it, but I think they were all locked in a vault, been unleashed. No, seriously. You come from your own position in the world. Talk about your position and how did you come to that point of seeing more of a collective mindset or reality point of view?

Jenny (03:47):

I mean, honestly, I think a big part has been knowing you and working with you and knowing that I think we've had conversations over the years of both the privilege and the detriment that happens in a lot of white therapeutic spaces that say you just need detach from your family, from your community, from those who have harmed you. And I want to be very, very clear and very careful that obviously I do think that there are situations we need to extract ourselves from and remove ourselves from. And I think that can become disabling for bodies to, I've been having this thing play in my head lately where I'm like, are you healed? Or have you just cut off everyone that triggers you?

Yeah, and I saw another, speaking of meme, it was like, I treat my trauma like Trump treats tariffs. I just implement boundaries arbitrarily, and they harm everyone.

And so I think it's, there is a certain privilege that comes with being able to say, I'm just going to step away. I'm going to do my own thing. I'm going to do my healing journey. And I think there is a detriment to that and there's a loss. And I think we have co-evolved to be in community and to tell stories and to share reality and to hold reality in the tension of our space. I think about it as we each have a different lens. There's no objective reality, but if I can be open to your lens and you can be open to my lens, then we actually have two lenses, and then if we have five lenses or 10 lenses, we can have a much fuller picture of where we are rather than seeing the world through the really monochromatic white, patriarchal, Christian nationalist lens that we've been maybe conditioned, or at least I was conditioned to see the world through.

Danielle (06:10):

Yeah. Whoa. Yeah, I know we've talked about this so many times, and I think it just feels so present right now, especially as every moment it feels like every day. If you watch the news, if you don't take a break, I think you can be jarred at any moment or dissociated at any moment, or traumatized at any moment, or maybe feel a bit of joy too when someone says a smack down on your side of the issue. And I think that when we get in that mode of constantly being jarred and then we try to come into a healing space, it's like how do we determine then what is actually healing for us? What is actually good? What is actually wise? And I agree, I think if we're in a rhythm of being on our own, and I'm not criticizing, I mean, I get lonely and I'm part of a group, so I'm not speaking to loneliness particularly, but I'm speaking to the idea that no one else has input in your life, even the kind of input you may not agree with, but no one else is allowed to speak to you.

(07:15):

When I get in those spaces, it's not that I just feel lonely, I don't feel any hope. I don't feel any movement or any possibility because let's say that this ends tomorrow, that authoritarian regime magically ends. It's healed tomorrow. We're going to have to look at all of our people in our lives and face them and decide what we're going to do. I mean, that's what I think about a lot. At the end of the day, I might sit next to someone that hates me or that I perhaps might have rage and anger towards them. What are we going to do? So I don't know, when you talk about the different lenses, I'm not sure how that all mixes together. I don't have an answer, basically. Shoot.

Jenny (08:05):

But I also think that that's part of maybe how we hold reality is maybe it is more about presence and being with what is, rather than having an answer, I think I become more and more skeptical of anyone who says they have an answer for anything.

Danielle (08:31):

So I mean, there was this guy that recently passed away, and there was, on one hand I wanted to really talk about it, and on the other hand, I didn't want to talk about it because it took up so much space. And I feel that even as we start to talk about how do we form healing spaces in therapy with that, I think, what did you call it that, what kind of lens did you say? It was like a monochromatic lens. How do we talk about that without centering it?

Jenny (09:08):

I think one thing that comes to mind is holding it in context of all of the other deaths that have not taken up that space. And the social studies phrase, what are the conditions of possibility that have enabled this death to create church services happening that have taken over people's social media, people who have been silent about lots of different deaths in the last year or five years, all of a sudden can't help but become really vigilant about talking about this. I think for me, it helps to zoom back and go, how come? Why is this so prevalent? Why is this so loud? What is this illuminating or what is this unearthing about? What's already been here?

So I grew up in very fundamentalist, white evangelical Christianity. And from the time I was eight, nine years old, I had in me messages instilled of martyrdom, whether that was a message that I should be a martyr, or whether that was a message that Christians were already being martyred, whether that was the war against Christmas with Starbucks cups or not having prayers happen at school. And these things where I grew up in this world where we were supposed to be prominent, we were supposed to be prevalent, we were supposed to be protected. And whenever there was any challenge to that from bodies that weren't white or straight or Christian or American, there became this very real frenzy around martyrdom. And I think on an interpersonal level and on a collective level, someone who plays the victim will always hold the most power in the relational dynamic. And so I think that this moment was a very useful moment to that psyche and that reality of seeing the world as a victim, as a martyr, as being persecuted, regardless of the fact that evangelical Christians are the strongest floating block in our nation. They have incredible privilege when it comes to a lot of education, marriage inequality, things like that, that are from the long lineage of Christian nationalism in our country.

Danielle (12:15):

So then how do you work with folks that are coming in with that lens, and what's the responsibility of our field? I know you and I can't answer that question necessarily, but we can just say from our own experience what that's like. Are you willing to share a little bit of that?

What would I say? My client load is mixed and so do a lot of work, but just because it's mixed doesn't mean that I'm not currently undoing that process in myself as well. So I think just as much as therapy is about whoever comes into my office or shows up in the zoom room or even a group or a teaching we've been a part of, I think it's, well, I mean we say this co-created, but I actually mean it means I have to keep learning. I have to keep trying to be in my body. And what I mean by that is I was talking to my friend Phil yesterday, and he was like, Danielle, are you tracking your body sensations? And he's like, I just challenge you to do that today. And I was like, man, that that's a good reminder. So I think one way I try to come with clients is from the perspective of I don't know it all.

(13:38):

I only know what I'm feeling and sensing in this moment, and I have that to offer along with other things I've studied, of course. But just because the person sitting with me doesn't have a degree or the group and the people, doesn't mean they don't know just as much as me. It's just another form of maybe learning or knowing or presence and healing. And then we're figuring that out together. I see that as one way of undoing, undoing this. I know everything point of view, which I kind of felt like I had to have when I came out of grad school. Yeah,

Jenny (14:14):

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I feel similar and I think often think in quotes. And so one of my favorite quotes is by Simone Devo, and she says, without a doubt, it is always more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one's liberation. And so I am consistently asking, where is my blind bondage? Who are the people in my life that will show me where my blind bondage is? Who are the people that will hold me accountable to my own liberation? And for me as a therapist, I work primarily with white folks who grew up in fundamental Christianity. And over 10 years of doing that work, I think that a primary part of my work is radical agency

(15:13):

Because I think that particularly white bodies maintain privilege by abdicating our agency and by being compliant with the systems that give us power and give us privilege. And so I think for me, my ethic is how do I help clients come into contact with their radical agency? And so a big part of that that I think is important is consent. And so if someone is coming to work with me, it's part of my disclosure form, it's part of my intake to say, I don't think our mental health concerns or our somatic concerns exist in a bubble. They are deeply impacted by the systems we move through. And so while we'll be engaging your individual body, we're also going to be engaging the collective structures. And I've had people say, no, I don't want to do that work. And I say, great, there are other lovely therapists that will work with you and be a better fit. That's just not the type of therapy I do. That's not within my scope of practice to only focus on the individual, because for me, that's unethical.

Danielle (16:23):

Oh, that's cool. I like that, Jenny. I think that a lot. I was consulting recently, and we're just talking about this current moment, and I'll just say from my point of view that even in my family, I noticed when something had gone on locally, we have some organizing that we do and we had some warnings go out. And I noticed even in my own family, the heightened anxiety, the alert, and one of the things we had to do was we took turns driving around just making sure everybody's safe and everybody was safe. And I came down and at the point where people began to lower anxiety, and we're talking about just regular business owners, regular people out there, we're not even talking about immigrants, quote migrants. We're just talking about people out there that don't want to encounter force. You could feel the anxiety just lower now that we went the parking lot's clear, no one's here, we're safe. This isn't happening, not today. I'm not saying it won't happen here in our area of the country, but it's not happening today. And I realized in consultation later about clients and stuff that things are going to, but the clinician I was consulting with just said to me, she said to me, just for your family, she's like, that anxiety is warranted. That's real. You're supposed to feel anxious. There's no way you can take that away for those people and you shouldn't.

(18:02):

And so just kind of learning, reminding myself, when you go to grad school, when you study therapy and psychology, there's pathological, there's diagnoses, all these things, but then there's some things like we just can't take away. They're part of the experience. They need to be there. They're part of the warning. And there's a reason why when you get out and do something practical for a community, the anxiety lowers. And I think that just gave me a lot of insight, not just for my client, but for my family and for myself. And there's some calm, not because I'm anxious, but because, oh, I'm not crazy. I'm not just making this up. And so I do think that speaks to how the system is creating trauma and it is powerless. What can we do against the big bad authorities? And we can do things, we can connect, we can be with people, but at some level, that baseline of anxiety is going to be there because it's warranted. That's how I think of it.

What do we do? Well, we sat at home, we watched sports. We went to Best Buy, and this is not every, we had some privilege. We bought an extra controller to play Mario World or whatever it was. I don't remember, but I was like, I'm not playing on that little controller. They wanted me to hold. I was like, I need a real controller. I'm old. I need to be able to feel it in my hands. Just silly stuff. Just didn't put pressure on the kids to do homework. Not a pressure to clean the house, just to just exist. Just be, yeah. What about you? What do you do when you encounter either anxiety from trauma like that or the systemic pressure maybe to even conform to whiteness or privilege in that moment?

Jenny (20:12):

I typically need to move my body in some way, whether that's to take my dog on a very long walk or whether that's just to roll around on a dance floor or maybe do a yoga practice. I become aware of how my body is holding that, and I think about how emotions are just energy in motion. And so if we don't give them motion and expression, it becomes like a battery pack in our nervous system. And so I can feel that if I haven't been able to move and to express whatever my body needs to express, and often I don't even know cognitively what my body needs to express, but I've grown in trust that my body knows, and I say, I think the sillier we look the better it usually feels. I just saw this lovely post the other day, a movement person did where they, we talk a lot about brainwashing, but we don't talk a lot about body washing, and we are so conditioned to only move our body in certain ways. And because our body is not different than our brain, I think that the more free we feel in our actual physical body to our own ability, the more that can actually create a little bit more mobility in how we see reality and how we engage with it.

Danielle (21:44):

So take that back to the beginning where you started talking about how when you have clients come in, you're like, yo, we're going to address this systemically and collectively. What do you do with folks when they have that kind of energy and you guys are working through it and it's like, oh, it's like maybe that's collective energy. What do you do? Yeah,

Jenny (22:02):

Yeah. I ask my clients probably annoying amount of times each session, what do you notice right now? And then I follow their body. So if their body says like, oh, I feel a lot of tension in my gut instead of alleviating that, I go, okay, great. Can you actually exaggerate that tension a little bit and see what happens? See if that tension wants to come out in a snarl or a growl, or maybe you want to curl up in a ball and I just follow whatever the impulses of their body are. Or if they say like, oh, I feel a lot in my shoulders. I'm like, great. Do you want to go push against a wall or push against the floor or punch a pillow and let your body actually get some movement into those spaces that you're sensing?

Well, as I said, I'm very skeptical about individual work, even though I do it, I don't think is all that. I think it is both necessary and not that helpful for the collective

(23:21):

Because it is individual. And so I actually do think we need collective spaces of moving and expressing and being in our bodies. I think our ancestors knew this for before Christian supremacy and then white supremacy and then capitalistic supremacy eradicated how we've evolved to move in our and collectively. That being said, I do think that the more we become aware of how our body is constrained and how we've been socialized, especially I think for anybody, but for me, I'll speak to white bodies, we aren't always conscious. We take for granted whiteness and how it affects our bodies. So the first time I'm asking a white person, especially maybe a white woman to look pissed, that's going to be probably really scary because socially we are not actually allowed to be pissed. We're allowed to be dams, souls, and we're allowed to freak out, but we're not actually allowed to be strong and be powerful and be angry. And so I do believe that in that work of individual liberation and freedom, it actually helps us resist those roles and those performances of white womanhood that then perpetuate collective harm.

Danielle (24:49):

I can see how that shift would really impact the way one person both connects with their neighbor or a different person, even same race or same culture, and would impact not only how they relate and connect to that person, but also just how they might love.

Jenny (25:10):

Yeah, because I think it is dangerous. It is disproportionately dangerous to oppressed bodies when white women aren't holding our own anger because I think that there is a deferral to the police, to governing bodies to different authorities when a white woman is actually pissed, rather than saying like, Hey, you did this and it pissed me off, let's work it out here. Oftentimes that ends up actually getting policed to authorities that then disproportionately harm oppressed bodies. And so I think it is essential for white women to grow our capacity to bear. No, I actually am pissed and I can acknowledge that and engage that and be with it in myself.

I do. I do actually. So I have been working on a book for the last six years in which I'm looking at the socialization of young white women in purity culture and this political moment of Invisible children, which was this documentary style film that manipulated an entire generation of young white women to get involved in missions or development. And so as part of my research, I interviewed many white women who grew up in purity culture and became missionaries. And there were some that maybe still had good relations with organizations such as invisible children and felt threatened or maybe pissed that I was inquiring into this. And so instead of engaging and talking about the emotions that were coming up, they went straight to interrogating my IRB and then went straight to is this research ethical? Even though I could tell they were really just angry and upset about what I was interrogating, and I would've much rather we could have that conversation than this quick sense of I'm going to go to the structures while I can maintain feeling like this demure pleasantness of white womanhood, even though I could feel the energy. And that's an example for me, and I have white privilege, and so there was still threat there, but it was not probably to the same degree that it could be if I didn't hold that same power and privilege that I do.

Scared. I felt really scared and I had done everything ethically. I had hired my own IRB to oversee my research. I did their protocol and still I felt the wielding of power and the sense of I can move the system to act against you if I don't like what you're doing. And so it was really, really scary. And then I had to move my anxiety and my body and I had to shake because what I do often when I get scared and I had to let my body discharge that adrenaline and that cortisol, and then I was able to back to myself and respond and say, it sounds like you have some concerns, and being interviewed is totally optional so you don't have to do it. And then I never heard back from 'em, and so it was just helpful for me to get to move that through. Even in part of that process,

Danielle (29:27):

Jenny, is that energy still in you now or is it gong?

Jenny (29:30):

Oh yeah, totally. I can feel my body vibrating and even there's that fear of like, oh shit, what's going to happen if I talk about this? I can feel the silencing

The demand to be small and not to expose it because then I'm open to fill in the blank. And so I can feel the sense of how power wants to keep us from speaking truth to power and to those that wield it.

Danielle (30:02):

Man, I want to swear so bad, motherfucker. I'm not surprised. But I do think I continue to allow myself to be shocked. And I think the thing is, I know this can happen. I know it will happen. I think both you and I are writing on topics that are very interrogate this moment in a very particular way that's threatening. And so although I'm not surprised, I am allowing myself to continually be shocked, not I want to re-traumatize myself, but I don't want to lose the feeling of there might be somebody good out there, this might be well received. And also I want to maintain that feeling of like, man, I really love my friend. I believe in her. And I think allowing myself to kind of hold all those things kind of just allows me to wake up for the moment versus just numbing out to it. Man,

So vicious. It's so vicious because you aren't taking their money, you aren't literally hurting them physically. You're not taking their power, and yet there's this full force. You've dedicated your life to this thing and they could take you out.

Jenny (31:19):

Yeah, and I think it's primarily because I am questioning white women's innocence and I think based on how race and gender work, a white woman's privilege and power comes from this presumed purity and innocence. And so if we start to disrupt that and go, actually, I'm human and I've done some shit and I've, I've caused harm and I will cause harm, and that's actually a really important part of me working out my humanity. Then I'm stepping out of the bounds of being protected under white patriarchy.

Danielle (32:06):

I feel like I learned, I feel like so much resonance with that. I've had many similar experiences, but one stands out where right after the election I talked with a friend of mine on the phone, and I don't remember if she is a white colleague from same grad school and said something like, oh, it's just a bummer. And we didn't really talk about it. And I was like, that's all you could say. I thought about that. And later I sent a really kind text saying, Hey, that really hurt my feelings. I don't know. It doesn't make sense why we haven't talked about it more. And then I didn't hear back. It just went silent. This is someone I'd known for seven years.

(32:45):

Then later I called and I was like, Hey, what's up? And they're like, I can't believe you would write that to me If I ever engage you again, I want to start here. Some other random place. I was just sat back and I was like, I'm not giving this any more energy at that time. I said that to myself and it was just like the complete collapse when I said, you hurt my feelings, the complete collapse. When I said, I don't understand this, can we talk about it? And then I went through this period this summer of just having this feeling. I don't want to be at odds with people. So I left this person a voicemail saying, Hey man, can we talk? I haven't heard back from them, but I feel like I did my part. But I'm just struck it even in down from the big view, like the 30,000 foot view or how that person wants to reign the system on you to even interpersonally, if I don't like what you said, I'm just going to remove my presence,

Jenny (33:51):

Which I think again, is so much of the epidemic of whiteness. And I think it then produces such a fragility that's like I don't actually know how to bear open conflict and disruption because I'm not practiced at it, and I just will escape every time someone calls me to accountability or says something I don't like. And we can't stay in that place of tension.

Yeah. Well, I think one is that I feel those tendencies so much in my own body, and I do think that we have capacity to metabolize them. And so I literally might say something like, great, could you let your body get up and run around the room or run in place? Or maybe you stay seated but you let your legs and your arms kick. And they think that if we even just let ourselves express I want to fight, or if I want to flee or I want to get away from this and we let our body do what we need to do, we can then come back to ourselves and have fuller access to our capacity. And again, sometimes I do think there are relationships or communities or things that we do need to step away from. And sometimes if we've only ever learned to say yes, we might go through a process where we swing to the other side and we just cut everyone out and then we get to learn how to have discernment and how to enter into relationships thoughtfully and how to know who are those people we will be investing in probably for a long time.

(35:43):

And so it's not denying that those impulses are there, but it's letting our bodies metabolize them and work through them. And it makes me think of res, menkin talks about dirty pain versus clean pain, and I think dirty pain is just like, this hurts. I'm going to avoid it. And just disconnect and dissociate clean pain is like this hurts and I'm going to press into it and I'm going to see what it can teach me and how I can grow into a stronger, more mature person through this process.

Danielle (36:16):

Man, that sounds like some good work you could do with somebody. I think the thing about therapy, coming back to what you said at the beginning is I think we want a quick answer. We want, we want to go to a retreat, we want to show up at the gym. In my case, I go to the gym often. We want to go somewhere, we want to feel like we did it, we accomplished it. And often at the gym, I can hear my coaches are saying just little steps. Every week and above doing lots of weight, it's showing up as much as you can, being consistent. And I kind of hear that in a little bit of what you're saying. It's not like getting to the end right away. It's tracking your body and the sensations and showing up for yourself even in that way.

Jenny (37:08):

And I think even like that, I love that analogy. I often say relationships are like muscles. They're only as strong as the ruptures that they can handle. And stronger muscles have had more and more and more and more ruptures. We build muscle through tearing and rebuilding. And I think that that's the same with relationship too. But if we've never torn, then we're so afraid of what's going to happen. If there is a rupture,

Danielle:

I don't know that we're going to heal that, but someone recently said the system is collapsing. It really is. It's coming down on itself. And I think really it's going to come down to the work that you talked about at the beginning, however people are choosing to see it. But one way you talked about it was that monochromatic lens and adding a lens, adding a lens. And I do think the challenge for all of us, even to form something new, whether that means new government, I don't know what it means, but just even a new way of being together set the government aside. It means really forming, adding lenses to ourselves. Jenny, I hope you're coming back to talk to me again.

It's okay. Where can they find your stuff? Tell me.

Jenny (38:42):

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at indwell movement, and then my website is indwell movement.com. So find me at either of those places, email me, reach out, send a message, would love to connect.

Danielle (38:59):

Okay, cool. Well, that's a wrap on this episode. If you can share, download, subscribe, tune into what we're talking about. But more important, have a conversation with a friend, a colleague, a neighbor, challenge your therapist, challenge your family. Don't forget to keep talking. And at the end of the show notes are resources, just some resources. They aren't the end all, be all of resources, but I'm putting 'em in there because I want you to know it's important to do resourcing for ourselves. As always, thank you for joining us, and at the end of the podcast are notes and resources, and I encourage you to stay connected to those who are loving in your path and in your community. Stay tuned.

Crisis Resources:

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.

This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

Resource Contact Info What They Offer

Salish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call Line Phone: 1‑888‑910‑0416

Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/ 24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.

KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach Team Emergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416

Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/ Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.

Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS) Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715

Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/ Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.

Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now” Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416

Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx 24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.

Crisis Clinic of the Peninsulas Phone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793

Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-Resources Local crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.

NAMI Kitsap County Website: https://namikitsap.org/ Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

Resource Contact Info What They Offer

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988) Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/ Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.

Washington Recovery Help Line 1‑866‑789‑1511

Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resources Help for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.

WA Warm Line 877‑500‑9276

Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/ Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.

Native & Strong Crisis Lifeline Dial 988 then press 4

Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resources Culturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx

• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.

• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Phil Allen, Jr., PhD is a theologian and ethicist whose research and writings include the intersections of social structure, race, culture, and theology and ethics of justice. He has authored two books: Open Wounds: A Story of Racial Tragedy, Trauma, and Redemption and The Prophetic Lens: The Camera and Black Moral Agency From MLK to Darnella Frazier. He is an affiliate assistant professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, a poet, and documentary filmmaker. Dr. Allen is also founder of the nonprofit Racial Solidarity Project based in Pasadena, CA. As a former Division 1 college basketball player, he has enjoyed opportunities as a guest chaplain for college and professional sports teams.

Phil Allen Jr., PhD

Affiliate Assistant Professor | Fuller Theological Seminary

President: Racial Solidarity Project (RSP)

Philallenjr.com | openwoundsdoc.com

Instagram: @philallenjrig | @the_rsp

Threads: @philallenjrig

Facebook: Phil Allen, Jr.

Substack: @philallenjr

LinkedIn: @philallenjr

Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations in Reality centered on our same themes, faith, race, justice, gender in the church. So happy to welcome my buddy and a colleague, just a phenomenal human being. Dr. Phil Allen, Jr. He has a PhD. He's a theologian and an ethicist whose research and writings include intersections of social structure, race, culture, and theology, and the ethics of justice. He has also authored two books, open Wounds, A Story of Racial Tragedy, trauma and Redemption, and the Prophetic Lens, the Camera and the Black Moral Agency from MLK to Dan Darnell Frazier. He's an affiliate assistant professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, a poet and a documentary filmmaker. Dr. Allen is also founder of the nonprofit Racial Solidarity Project based in Pasadena, California as a former division one college basketball player. Yes, he has enjoyed opportunities as a guest chaplain for college and professional sports. Hey, you're not going to be disappointed. You're going to find questions, curiosity ways to interact with the material here. Please just open up your mindset and your heart to what is shared today, and I encourage you to share and spread the word. Hey, Phil. Here we find ourselves back again talking about similar subjects.

Danielle (00:18):

Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations in Reality centered on our same themes, faith, race, justice, gender in the church. So happy to welcome my buddy and a colleague, just a phenomenal human being. Dr. Phil Allen, Jr. He has a PhD. He's a theologian and an ethicist whose research and writings include intersections of social structure, race, culture, and theology, and the ethics of justice. He has also authored two books, open Wounds, A Story of Racial Tragedy, trauma and Redemption, and the Prophetic Lens, the Camera and the Black Moral Agency from MLK to Dan Darnell Frazier. He's an affiliate assistant professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, a poet and a documentary filmmaker. Dr. Allen is also founder of the nonprofit Racial Solidarity Project based in Pasadena, California as a former division one college basketball player. Yes, he has enjoyed opportunities as a guest chaplain for college and professional sports. Hey, you're not going to be disappointed. You're going to find questions, curiosity ways to interact with the material here. Please just open up your mindset and your heart to what is shared today, and I encourage you to share and spread the word. Hey, Phil. Here we find ourselves back again talking about similar subjects.

Unfortunately. Well, how are you coming in today? How is your body? How's your mind? How are you coming in? Just first of all,

Phil Allen Jr. (01:51):

I am coming in probably in one of the best places, spaces in a long time. The last two days have been very, very encouraging and uplifting, having nothing to do with what's happening in the world. I turned 52, I told you I turned 52 yesterday. So whenever I see the happy birthdays and the messages, text messages, social media messages, literally it just lifts me up. But in that, I also had two people share something that I preached. Oh, 10 years ago, what? And one other person, it was 17 years ago, something I taught that came full circle. One person used it in a message for a group of people, and the other person was just saying, 10 years ago, about 10 years ago, you preached a message that was, it impacted me seriously. He didn't know who I was, and he the dots, and he realized, oh, that's the guy that preached when we went to that. And so that, to me, it was so encouraging to hear those

Because you never know where your messages land, how impactful they are, and for people to bring that up. That just had me light. Then I did 20 miles, so physically 20

I feel great after that. I'm not sore. I'm not tired. I could go run right now, another 10, but I'm not. Okay. Okay, good. Today is rest day good? Yes, I did a crim community resiliency model present workshop.

I dunno if you're familiar with, are you familiar with crim?

Crim was developed by Trauma Resource Institute here in Claremont, California by Elaine Miller Carra, and they go around the world. They have trainees and people around the world that go into places that just experienced traumatic events

The tsunami in Indonesia to school shootings around the country. So here, obviously we had the fires from January, and so we did a workshop to help. What it is is helping people develop the skills, practical skills. There are six skills to regulate the nervous systems, even in the moments. I was certified in 2020 to do that, and so I did a co-led presentation. It was great, very well received. I had fun doing it. So empowering to give people these skills. I use them every day, resourcing, just like when you asked me, how are you in your body? So for a moment, I have to track, I have to notice what's going on with my body. That's the first

So we teach people those skills and it is just the last few days, Monday, Tuesday, and today already. I just feel light and it's no coincidence I didn't watch the news at all yesterday.

Okay. Even on social media, there's no coincidence. I feel light not having engaged those things. So I feel good coming in this morning.

Danielle (05:32):

Okay, I like that. Well, I know I texted you, I texted you a couple months ago. I was like, let's record a podcast. And then as you alluded to, the world's kept moving at a rapid pace and we connected. And I've been doing a lot of thinking for a long time, and I know you and I have had conversations about what does it look like to stay in our bodies, be in our bodies in this time, and I've been thinking about it, how does that form our reality? And as you and I have talked about faith, I guess I'm coming back to that for you, for how you think about faith and how it informs your reality, how you're in reality, how you're grounding yourself, especially as you alluded to. We do know we can't be involved every second with what's happening, but we do know that things are happening. So yeah, just curious, just open up the conversation like that.

Phil Allen Jr. (06:28):

Yeah, I think I'm going to go back to your first question. I think your first question you asked me sets the tone for everything. And I actually answered this similarly to someone yesterday when you said, how are you in your body? And for me, that's the first I've learned, and a lot of it has to do with community resiliency model that I just talked about, to pay attention to what's going on in my body. That tells me a lot. That tells me if I'm good, I can't fake it. You can fake how you feel. You can fake and perform what you think, but you can't with the sensations and the response of your body to different circumstances, that's going to be as real, as tangible. So I pay attention first to that. That tells me how much I'm going to engage a subject matter. It tells me how much I want to stay in that space, whether it's the news, whether it's conversation with someone. My body tells me a lot now, and I don't separate that from my faith. We can go through biblical narrative and we can see where things that are going on physically with someone is addressed or is at least acknowledged. It is just not in the forefront emphasized. So we don't think that paying attention to what's going on in your body matters,

When you have that dualistic approach to faith where the soul is all that matters. Your body is just this flesh thing. No, God created all of it. Therefore, all of it's valuable and we need to pay attention to all of it. So that's the first place I start. And then in terms of faith, I'm a realist. I'm a Christian realist, so I put things in perspective. The love ethic of Jesus is an ideal. Scripture is an ideal. It's telling us when you look at Christ, Jesus is the son of God. Jesus is also called the son of man. And from my understanding and my learnings, son of man refers to the human one, the ideal human one, right? He is divinity, but he's deity, but he's also a human, and he's the human that we look to for the ideal way to live. And so this perfect ideal of love, the love ethic of Jesus, I believe it's unattainable on this side of heaven. I think we should always strive to love our enemies. But how many people actually love their enemies? Bless them. I saw what Eric, I think his name, first name is Erica Kirk forgave the

Okay? I'm not here to judge whether that's real or if she felt obligated because I know some Christians, they wrestle because they feel obligated to forgive almost immediately. I don't feel that obligation if my body is not in a place where I can just say, I forgive you. I need to get to a place where I can forgive. But let's just say it's very real. She is. I forgive this young man. How many people can do that? We admire it. How many Christians will just say, I forgive, genuinely say, I forgive the person who killed my children's father. So it's not that it can't be done, but sustained. There are few people who could do what in terms of relative to how many people in the world, what Mother Teresa did. There are few people who can do that. There are few people who could do what Martin Luther King did who could practice non-violence, risk, jail and life and limb for an extended period of time. So I'm not saying it can't be done, but sustained by many or the most of us. I just don't believe that's realistic. I believe it's always something we aspire to. And we're always challenged throughout life to live up to that ideal. But we're going to fall short probably more often than we want to admit.

(11:12):

So I don't try to put the pressure on myself to be this perfect Christian. I try to understand where I am in my maturity in this particular area. There's some things I can do better than others, and then I go from there. So I look at what's happening in the world through that lens. How would I really respond? There are people I don't want to deal with. They are toxic and harmful to me because here's the other part, there's also wisdom. That's faith too.

Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit comes, the Holy Spirit shall come upon you, shall lead you in. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but the Holy Spirit shall lead you. No, the spirit of wisdom is what I'm trying to get to in John. This Holy Spirit is called the spirit of wisdom. Holy Spirit is going to lead you into all truth, but it's also called the spirit of wisdom.

Is faith too. And it is there no one way of doing things.

It's where I feel the most settled, even if I don't want to do something.

I went through a divorce separated 10 years ago, divorce finalized a couple of years later. And I wanted so badly to share my story through people at my former church, family, friends. I wanted to tell, let me tell what happened. I never had peace about that in my body. My body never felt settled.

Settled, okay.

Because I knew I was doing it from a place of wanting to get vindication, maybe revenge. It wasn't just as innocent as, let me tell my side of the story, if I'm honest.

It was, I'm going to throw you under the bus.

But in that moment, I didn't because I didn't feel settled in my spirit. People say settled in my spirit. Really, it is also my body that I should do that wisdom says, let God handle it. Let God bring it to the surface. In due time, people will know who need to know. You don't have to take revenge. When they go low, you go high. In that moment, that's what I felt at peace to do. And I don't regret it to this day. I don't regret it. I'm glad I didn't because it would just been even more messy.

I have conversations with my grandmother who's no longer with us, or I recall conversations we had. So when I was young, and I tell people unapologetically, I'm a mama's boy and a grandmama's boy. Women played a significant role raising me. So I'm close to mom, grandma, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, my sisters, and I'm the oldest of all my siblings, but women. So my grandmother, rather than going out to parties a lot, I would prefer to go to her house. I lived in high school with one grandmother, but sometimes I would go to my other grandmother's house and just sit and she would have a glass of wine, and we would just talk for hours. And she would tell me stories When she was young,

Would ask her questions. I miss, and I loved those times. An external resource, if this can be an external no longer here, but she's a person. She was a real person. I think about what if I'm having a conversation with her, and she would never really be impulsive with me. She would just pause and just think, well, and I know she's going to drop some wisdom, right?

So that's one of my sources. My grandmother, both of them to a degree, but my mom's mom for sure is I would say her feet. So I'd have these conversations. I still don't want to embarrass them. I don't want to make them look bad. I want them to be proud of me to

Day. So that helps me make decisions. It helps me a lot of times on how I respond in the same way we believe that God is ever present and omniscient and knowing what we're doing and what we're thinking and feeling and watching, not watching in a surveillance type of way, but watching over us like a parent. If we believe that in those moments, I pretend because I don't know, but I pretend that my grandmother is, she's in heaven and she's watching over all right now, and I'm not offering a theological position that when they die and go to heaven, they're still present with us omnipresent. Now, I'm not saying any of that, just in my mind. I tell myself, grandma could be watching me. What will grandma do? Type of thing. So that becomes an external resource for me as well as mentors that I've had in my life. Even if I can't get in touch with them, I would recall conversations we've had, and they're still alive. I recall conversations we've had and how would they guide me in this? And so I remember their words. I remember more than I even realized.

Danielle (17:59):

And that feels so lovely and so profound that those roots, those, I want to say ancestors, but family, family connections, that they're resourcing us before they even know they're resourcing us.

So they're not unfamiliar with suffering and pain and love and joy. So they may not know exactly what we're going through in this moment, 2025, but they do know what it is to suffer. They do know what it is to walk through life. It's heavy sometimes.

Phil Allen Jr. (18:43):

Yes, yes, yes. They prepared me and my siblings well, and my mom is the encourager. My mom is the person that just says it's going to be okay. It's going to work out. And sometimes I don't want to hear that, but my grandparents would say a little bit more, they were more sagacious in their words, and they would share that wisdom from their life, 80 plus years. And even with my mom, sometimes I'll look back and be like, she was right. I knew she was right. I knew she was right because she'd been through so much and it is going to be okay. It's going to be okay. It always is. And so I don't take that lightly either.

Danielle (19:40):

When you come to this current moment with your ancestors, your faith, those kinds of things with you, how then do you form a picture of where we are at, maybe as a faith, and I'm speaking specifically to the United States, and you might speak more specifically to your own cultural context. I know for Latino, for Latinx folks, there was some belief that was fairly strong, especially among immigrant men. I would say that to vote for particular party could mean hope and access to power. And so now there's a backtrack of grappling with this has actually meant pain and hate and dissolve of my family. And so what did that mean for my faith? So I think we're having a different experience, but I'm wondering from your experience, how then are you forming a picture of today?

Phil Allen Jr. (20:47):

I knew where we were headed. Nothing surprises me because my faith teaches me to look at core underlying causes, root causes in an individual. When we talk about character, what are the patterns of this person that's going to tell us a lot about who this person is, they're in leadership, where they're going to lead us, what are the patterns of a particular group, the patterns that a lot of people don't pay attention to or are unaware of? What are those patterns? And even then, you may have to take a genealogical approach, historical approach, and track those patterns going back generations and coming to the current time to tell us where we're

And then do the same thing broadly with the United States. And if you pay attention to patterns, I'm a patterns person. If you pay attention to patterns, it'll tell you where you're going. It'll tell you where you're headed. So my faith has taught me to pay attention to even the scripture that says from the heart, the mouth speaks. So if I want to know a person, I just pay attention to what they're saying. I'm just going to listen. And if I listen intently, carefully, what they've said over time tells me how they will lead us, tells me how they will respond. It tells me everything about their ethics, their morality. It tells me what I need to know. If I pay attention, nothing surprises me where we are, the term MAGA is not just a campaign slogan, it's a vision statement. Make America great again. Each of these words, carry weight again, tells me, and it's not even a vision statement, it's nostalgic. It's not creative. It's not taking us into a new future with a new, something new and fresh. It is looking backwards. Again, let's take what we did. It might look a little differently. Let's take what we did and we're going to bring that to 2025. Great. What is great? That's a relative statement. That's a relative word.

(23:36):

I always ask people, give me one decade. In the last 400 plus years since Europeans encountered, 500 years since Europeans encountered indigenous people, give me one decade of greatness, moral greatness. Not just economic or militarily, but moral greatness where the society was just equitable, fair and loving. I can't find one.

Because the first 127 years with interaction with indigenous people was massacre violence, conquest of land, beginning with a narrative that said that they were savages. Then you got 246 years of slavery,

Years of reconstruction. And from 1877 to 19 68, 91 years of Jim Crow. So you can't start until you get to 1970.

And then you got mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex and racial profiling. So for black folks, especially seventies, and you had the crack of it, the war on drugs was really a war on the communities because it wasn't the same response of the opioid addiction just a few years ago in the suburbs, in the white suburbs, it was a war, whereas this was called a health crisis. So people were in prison, it was violence industry. So now we're in 1990s, and we still can start talking about police brutality, excessive force. And since 1989, you, it's been revealed 50 plus percent of exonerations are African-Americans. So that means throughout the seventies, eighties, and nineties, people who have been put in prison, who unjustly. And that affects an entire community that affects families. And you got school shootings starting with Columbine and mass shootings. So tell me one decade of America greatness.

So if I pay attention to the patterns, I should not be surprised with where we are. Make America great. Again, that's a vision statement, but it's nostalgic. It's not innovative. It's taking us back to a time when it was great for people, certain people, and also it was telegraphed. These ice raids were telegraphed.

2015, the campaign started with they're sending their rapists and their murder. So the narrative began to create a threat out of brown bodies. From the beginning, he told us,

Yeah, right. So project 2025, if you actually paid attention to it, said exactly what they were wanting to do. Nothing surprises me. Go back to the response to Obama as president first, black president, white supremacist group, hate groups rose and still cause more violence than any other group in the country. But they have an ally in the office. So nothing surprises me. My faith tells me, pay attention to the underlying, pay attention to the root causes. Pay attention to the patterns of what people ignore and what they don't pay attention to. And it'll tell you where you're headed. So nothing surprises me,

Danielle (27:39):

Phil, you'll know this better than me, but Matthew five, that's the beatitudes, right? And I think that's where Jesus hits on this, right? He's like, you said this and I'm saying this. He's saying, pay attention to what's underneath the surface. Don't just say you love someone. What will you do for them? What will you do for your enemy? What will you do for your neighbor? And the reward is opposite. So a lot of times I've been talking with friends and I'm like, it's almost, I love Marvel movies. And you know how they time travel to try to get all the reality stones back and endgame? I

A lot of movies. Okay, well, they time travel.

Following you. Yeah. They time travel. And I feel like we're in an alternate time, like an alternate, alternate time zone where Jesus is back, he's facing temptations with Satan. And instead of saying no, he's like, bring it on. Give me the world. And we're living in an alternate space where faith, where we're seeing a faith played out with the name of Jesus, but the Jesus being worshiped is this person that would've said yes to the devil that would've said, yes, give me all the kingdoms of the world. Let rule everything. Yes, I'm going to jump. I know you're going to catch me. I can be reckless with my power and my resources. That's what I feel like all the bread I want. Of course I'm hungry. I'm going to take it all for myself. I feel like we're living in that era. It just feels like there's this timeline where this is the Jesus that's being worshiped. Jesus.

That's how I feel. And so it's hard for me, and it's good for me to hear you talk about body. It's hard for me to then mix that reality. Because when I talk to someone, I'm like, man, I love Jesus. I love the faith you're talking about. And when I'm out there, I feel such bristle, such bristle and such angst in my body, anxiety like fear when I hear the name of Jesus, that Jesus, does that make sense?

Phil Allen Jr. (30:05):

Yes. Yeah. And that's so good. And I would you make me think about white Jesus?

Like the aesthetics of Jesus. And that was intentional. And so my question for you real quick, how do you feel? What do you sense happening in your body when you see a brown Jesus, when you see an unattractive Palestinian, maybe even Moroccan Ethiopian looking, Jesus, brown skin, darker skin, any shade of brown to depict what Jesus, let's say, someone trying to depict what Jesus might've looked like. I've seen some images that said Jesus would've looked like this. And I don't know if that's true or not, but he was brown. Very different than the European. Jesus with blue eyes, brought blonde hair. What do you sense in, have you ever seen a picture, an image like that? And what do you remember about your response, your bodily response to that?

Danielle (31:14):

Well, it makes me feel like crying, just to hear you talk about it. I feel relief. I think I feel like I could settle. I would be calm. Some sort of deep resonance. It's interesting you say, I lived in Morocco for two years with my husband, and he's Mexican. Mexican, born there Mexican. And everybody thought he was Moroccan or Egyptian or they were like, who are you? And then they would find out he was Mexican. And they're like, oh man, we're brothers. That's literally an Arabic. They was like, we're brothers. We're brothers. Like, oh yeah, that's the feeling I have. We would be welcomed in.

Phil Allen Jr. (32:00):

Wow. I asked that question because whenever I've taught, I used teach in my discipleship group a class before they were put into small mentoring groups. I'd have a six, seven week class that I taught on just foundational doctrine and stuff like that. And when I talked about the doctrine of get into Christology, I would present a black Jesus or a brown Jesus, Palestinian Jesus. And you could feel the tension in the room. And usually somebody would push back speaking on behalf of most of the people in the room would push back. And I would just engage in conversation.

(32:52):

And usually after I would speak to them about and get them to understand some things, then they would start to settle. When I would get them to think about when was the white Jesus, when was Jesus presented as white and by whom and why? And why would Jesus look this way? Everybody else in that era, that time and that spade, that region would've looked very differently. Why do you think this is okay? And then someone would inevitably say, well, his race doesn't matter. And I heard a professor of mine say it mattered enough to change it. Absolutely. Why not be historically accurate? And that was when the light switch came on for many of them. But initially they were disoriented. They were not settled in their bodies. And that to me tells a lot about that's that alternative. Jesus, the one who would've jumped, the one who would've saved himself, the one who would've fallen into the temptation. I would say that that's the white Jesus, that what we call Christian, lowercase c Christian nationalism or even American conservative evangelicalism, which has also been rooted in white supremacy historically. That's the Jesus that's being worshiped. I've said all along, we worship different gods.

(34:30):

We perceive Jesus very differently. That's why the debates with people who are far left, right or conservative, the debates are pointless because we worship different gods. We're not talking about the same Jesus. So I think your illustration is dead on. I'm seeing a movie already in my head.

Danielle (34:58):

I have tried to think, how can I have a picture of our world having been raised by one part of my family that's extremely conservative. And then the other part not how do I find a picture of what's happening, maybe even inside of me, like the invitation to the alternate reality, which we're talking about to what's comfortable, to what's the common narrative and also the reality of like, oh, wait, that's not how it worked for all of my family. It was struggle. It was like, what? So I think, but I do think that our faith, like you said, invites us to wrestle with that. Jesus asks questions all the time.

Phil Allen Jr. (35:46):

Yes, I am learning more and more to be comfortable setting a table rather than trying to figure out whose table I go to, whether it's in the family, friends, whomever. I'm comfortable setting a table that I believe is invitational, a table of grace as well as standards. I mean, I don't believe in just anything goes either. I'm not swinging a pendulum all the way to the other side, but I do believe it's a table of grace and truly, truly, rather than trying to make people believe and live out that faith the way I think they should, inviting them to a space where hopefully they can meet with God and let God do that work, whatever it is that they need to do. But I'm comfortable creating a table and saying, Hey, I'm going to be at this table that's toxic. That table over there is toxic. That table over there is unhealthy. I'm going to be at this table.

Danielle (37:05):

How practically do you see that working out? What does that look like in your everyday life or maybe in the discipleship settings you're in? How does that look?

Phil Allen Jr. (37:16):

I'm very careful in the company I keep. I'm very careful in who I give my time to. You might get me one time, you're not going to get me twice if there's toxicity and ignorance. And so for example, I'm in the coffee shop all the time. I rotate, but I have my favorites and I meet people all the time who want to have coffee. And I'm able to just yesterday three hours with someone and I'm able to put my pastoral hat on and just sit and be present with people. That's me creating a table. Had that conversation gone differently, I would say it certainly would not have lasted three hours. And I'm not making space and giving energy to them anymore because I know what they're bringing to do is toxic for me. It's unhealthy for me. Now, if we turned around and we had some conversations and can get on the same page, again, I'm not saying you have to agree with me on everything, but I'm also talking about tone. I'm talking about the energy, the spirit that person carries. I'm talking about their end goal. That's me giving an example. That's an example of me setting a table. The sacred spaces that I create, I'm willing to invite you in. And if we can maintain that peace and that joy, and it can be life-giving, and again, we don't even have to agree and we don't have to be in the same faith.

(39:03):

I have conversations all the time, people of other faiths or non-faith, and it's been life-giving for me, incredibly life-giving for me, for both of us I think. But I won't do that for, I've also had a couple of times when the person was far right, or in my dms on social media, someone appears to want to have a civil conversation, but really it was a bait. It was debate me into debate. And then next thing you know, insults and I block. And so I block because I'm not giving you space my space anymore. I'm not giving you access to do that to me anymore. So for me, it's creating a table is all the spaces I occupy that are mine, social media spaces, platform, a coffee shop. Where am I attend church,

Right now I don't. And my church is in that coffee shop When I have those, when Jesus says with two or more gathered, there I am in the midst. I take that very seriously.

When we gather, when me and someone or three of us are sitting and talking, and I'm trusting that God is present, God is in the space between us and it is been life-giving for us. So all that to say, wherever my body is, wherever I'm present, the table is present, the metaphorical table is there, and I'm careful about who I invite into that space because it's sacred for me. My health is at stake,

Time and energy is at stake. And so that's how I've been living my life in the last five years or so is again, I don't even accept every invitation to preach anymore because I have to ask myself, I have have to check in my body.

Right? No, I don't think this is what I'm supposed to do. And then there's sometimes I'm like, yeah, I want to preach there. I like that space. I trust them. And so that's me sharing a table. I'm going to their location, but I also bring in my table and I'm asking them to join me at the table.

Danielle (41:46):

I love that you check in with your body. I was even just about to ask you that. What do you notice in your body when you're setting up that table? Phil? What would you recommend? Someone's listening, they're like, these guys are crazy. I've never checked in my body once in my life. Can you share how you started doing that or what it was just at the beginning?

Phil Allen Jr. (42:13):

So community resiliency model, the first thing we teach is tracking,

Noticing and paying attention to the sensations that's going on in your body,

They're pleasant or unpleasant or neutral. And for me, one of the things I noticed long before I ever got connected to this was when something didn't feel right for me, I could sometimes feel a knot in my stomach. My heart rate would start increasing, and that's not always bad. So I had to wait. I had to learn to wait and see what that meant. Sometimes it just means nervousness, excitement, but I know God is calling me to it. So I had to wait to make sure it was that. Or was it like, I'm not supposed to do this thing.

So we use this term called body literacy, learning to read, paying attention to what's happening in the body. And that could mean sometimes palms get sweaty, your body temperature rises and muscles get tight. Maybe there's some twitching, right? All these little things that we just ignore, our bodies are telling us something. And I don't disconnect that from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knowing how to reach us, how to speak, not just a word of revelation, but in our bodies. And once I learned that, I trusted that God was in that. So I learned years ago when I was supposed to say something publicly, if I'm in a public space, I knew when I was supposed to say something. It took me a couple of years and I figured it out. And this is before ever learning, tracking and all this stuff.

My heart would start racing and it would not stop. And it'd be the sense of urgency, that thing that thought you have, you have to say it now.

I'm an introvert. I speak for a living. I present, but I don't like to say anything unless I have to. And I learned I could sit through something and be calm and comfortable and not have to say a word. But then I also learned that there were times when I'm supposed to say something here and I started listening to that. So paying attention to those sensations, those things that we ignore, that's happening in our bodies because our nervous system is activated for some reason.

Danielle (44:57):

I love to hear you say it. And also it's one of the things I think we naturally want to turn off when we're in a high trauma environment or come from a high trauma background. Or maybe you don't know what to do with the sensations, right?

Can you just say a couple things about what moved you over that hump? How did you step into that despite maybe even any kind of, I don't know, reservations or just difficulties

Tracking your body?

Phil Allen Jr. (45:33):

Getting language for what I was already doing, because with crim, one of the things that was revelatory for me was I was like, wait a minute. I already do a lot of these things. So for instance, touch and feel can settle out. Nervous systems, surfaces, you can put your hand, I have my hand on my armrest. It's smooth. If I'm nervous about something, I can literally just rub this smooth surface. It feels really good, and it can settle my nervous system, right? A sip of water, a drink of water can settle your nervous system. These are not just imaginations. This is literally how the body responds. You know this. So when they gave me language for things I had already been doing, so for instance, resourcing. And you had asked me earlier, and I mentioned my grandmother, if you paid attention to my face, I probably had a smile on my face talking about her.

Because that resource, it brings up sensations in my body that are pleasant.

My heart rate slows down. I could feel the warmth in my cheeks from smiling. So that's something that I tap into. And that's one of the ways that you can understand tracking when you think about a person, place, or thing that is pleasant, and then pay attention to what's going on in your body. And it might be neutral because it takes a while to be able to learn how to identify these things. And when I started doing that and I realized, wait a minute, my body, I feel settled. I feel at peace when I do this or do that. And that's when I said, okay, there's science behind this. And so that's when five years ago is when I started really like, I'm going to continue to do this and share this and practice this. I use it in my nonprofit racial solidarity project because this is how we stay engaged in the conversation about race. We get triggered, we get activated. A nervous system says threat. This person is threat, or this idea is a threat, especially when it disorients what we've been taught all our lives. And we get defensive, we get impulsive, and we argue and then we out.

(48:18):

So I use this as part of mentoring people to stay engaged by giving them the skills to regulate their nervous system when they're in those conversations, or if they're watching the news and they don't like what they see, they want to turn the news or they want to just shut it off. Some people hear the word critical race theory and it's already triggering for them,

Absolutely. And what do you do? You check out, you disengage. You get defensive. Well, that's not necessarily how they feel. It's what they're sensing in their body. Their nervous system is triggered. So if they had the skills to settle that regulate their nervous system, they could probably stay engaged enough to listen to what's actually being said. It might actually come to, oh, I didn't realize that.

Danielle (49:18):

It's so good to hear you talk about it though. It's so encouraging. It's like, oh man. Being in our bodies, I think is one way. We know our faith more, and I actually think it's one way we can start to step in and cross and understand one another. But I think if we're not in our bodies, I think if we maintain some sort of rigidity or separation that it's going to be even harder for us to come together.

Phil Allen Jr. (49:51):

I'm crazy a little bit, but I ran running, taught me how to breathe. No other practice in my faith taught me how to breathe. And I don't mean in a meditative kind of way, religious kind of way. I mean just literally breathing properly.

That's healthy.

Danielle (50:13):

It is healthy. Breathing is great. Yeah.

Phil Allen Jr. (50:16):

I want to be actually alive. But running forces you to have to pay attention to your body breathing. What type of pain is this in my knee? Is this the type of pain that says stop running? Or is this the type of pain that says this is minor and it's probably going to go away within the next half a mile?

Right. Which then teaches us lessons in life. This pain, this emotional pain that I'm feeling, does it say, stop doing the thing that I'm doing, or is this something I have to go through because God is trying to reveal something to me?

Running has taught me that. That's why running is a spiritual discipline for me. The spiritual discipline I didn't know I needed.

Danielle (51:07):

Yep. You're going to have to, yeah, keep going. Keep going.

Phil Allen Jr. (51:10):

Sorry. I was going to say, it taught me how to pay attention to my body, from my feet to my breathing. It taught me to pay attention to my body. When I dealt with AFib last year is because I pay attention to my body. When my heart wasn't beating the right way, it was like something ain't right. So I didn't try to push through it like I would have 10, 15, 20 years ago, paying attention to my body, said, stop. Go to urgent care. Next thing you know, I'm in an emergency room. I didn't know that with all this stuff attached to me. Next thing you know, I got these diagnoses. Next thing you know, I'm on medication. And fortunately the medication has everything stabilized. I still have some episodes of arrhythmia. I don't know if it's ever going to go away. Hopefully I can get off of these medications. I feel great. Matter of fact, I didn't take my medication this morning. I got to take 'em when we get done, brother. So all that to say, man, paying attention to what's happening in my body has helped me to deal with this current reality. It's helped me to stay grounded, helped me to make wise decisions. I trust that God, that though what I'm reading in my body, that the spirit of God is in that,

(52:46):

Is knowing how to speak to me, knowing what I'm going to pay attention to, what I'm going to respond to. Oh, that's how you read that. You're going to respond to that. Okay. That I'm going to urge you and prompt you through these bodily sensations, if you will.

Danielle (53:10):

Yeah. I don't really have a lot to say to answer that. It's just really beautiful and gorgeous. And also, please take your medicine. How can people reach you? How can they find out more about your work? How can they read what you're writing and what you're thinking? Where can they find you?

Phil Allen Jr. (53:33):

So on social media, everything is Phil Allen Jr. So whether that's Instagram. Instagram is actually Phil Allen Jr. PhD.

It. LinkedIn and Facebook. Phil Allen Jr. On Facebook, there's a regular page and there's an author page. I don't really use the author page. I'm trying to figure out how to delete that. But the regular page, Phil Allen, Jr. Threads, Phil Allen Jr. I don't do X, but LinkedIn, Phil Allen Jr. My book Open Wounds. You can either go to your local bookstore, I want to support local bookstores. You can ask them if they have it, open Wounds, the Story of Racial Trauma, racial Tragedy, trauma and Redemption. And my other book, the Prophetic Lens, the Camera and Black Moral Agency from MLK to Darnella Frazier. You can find those books on Amazon, or you can go to your local bookstore and ask them to order it for you because it supports your local bookstore. Or you can go directly to fortress press.com and order it. It goes directly. You're supporting the publisher that publish my books, which helps, which actually helps me most. But those are three ways you can get those books. And then hopefully in the next year or so, I have three book projects. I'm kind of in different stages of right now that I'm working on, and hopefully one comes out in the next year.

Yeah. Year and a half. We'll see.

Danielle (55:21):

That's exciting. Well, Phil, thank you so much. I'm going to stop recording. As always, thank you for joining us and at the end of the podcast, our notes and resources, and I encourage you to stay connected to those who are loving in your path and in your community. Stay tuned.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Email: asolidfoundationcoaching@gmail.com

Phone:  +1.5104686137

Website: Rebuildingmyfoundation.com

I have been doing story work for nearly a decade. I earned a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and trained in story work at The Allender Center at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I have served as a story facilitator and trainer at both The Allender Center and the Art of Living Counseling Center. I currently see clients for one-on-one story coaching and work as a speaker and facilitator with Hope & Anchor, an initiative of The Impact Movement, Inc., bringing the power of story work to college students.

By all accounts, I should not be the person that I am today. I should not have survived the difficulties and the struggles that I have faced. At best, I should be beaten down by life‘s struggles, perhaps bitter. I should have given in and given up long ago. But I was invited to do the good work of (re)building a solid foundation. More than once in my life, I have witnessed God send someone my way at just the right moment to help me understand my own story, and to find the strength to step away from the seemingly inevitable ending of living life in defeat. More than once I have been invited and challenged to find the resilience that lies within me to overcome the difficult moment. To trust in the goodness and the power of a kind gesture. What follows is a snapshot of a pivotal invitation to trust the kindness of another in my own story. May it invite you to receive to the pivotal invitation of kindness in your own story. Listen with me… 

Rebecca (01:12):

Say, oh, this is for black women, and then what? Because I quoted a couple of black people that count. I don't want to do that. And also I'm still trying to process. When you run a group like that for, and it's not embedded in something like a story workshop or a larger kind of thing, the balance of how do you give people the information and still leave room to process all of that. I'm still trying to figure out what does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? And I won't be able to figure, it's not like I can figure it out before the group and you know what I mean? You just have to roll with it. So yeah,

Danielle (02:01):

All those things. That's so hard, man. Man, dude, that's so hard. It's so hard to categorize it. Even What's the right time of day to hold this? What are the right words to say to tell people, this is how you can show up. And even when you say all those things and you think you've created some clarity or safety or space, they still show up in their own way, of course. And they may not have read your email. They may have signed all this stuff and it may not be what they want. Or maybe it changes and it becomes something even more beautiful. I don't know. That's how I've experienced it.

Rebecca (02:39):

It's all those things, and I think, and this is what I want to do, this is taking this work into a community and a space that is never going to show up in Seattle for all a thousand reasons. And so

Danielle (02:56):

Thousands of dollar reasons,

Rebecca (02:58):

Right? Thousands of dollar reasons. And so this is what I want to do. And so the million dollar question, how do you actually do that with some integrity? How do you do it in a way that actually, I don't even know if I could say I know that I want it to produce a particular result is just when I started doing this on my own, I had a lot of people reach out to me and go like, this is amazing. This is a brilliant, this is something I've been looking for without knowing that's what I've been looking for. Do you know what I mean? I think that that's true, sort of that evangelical refugee space. That's true right now. I think it's appealing on those levels. I think for people who would not necessarily go to therapy for the hundred of reasons why that's an uncomfortable thing. Culturally, this feels like it has a little more oxygen in the room,

Danielle  (04:20):

And I'll turn my screen off. I'll make the call and then yeah, then I want to hear a little bit about your business, more about your group, and I, I'd love to just, I want to focus this whole season on what is reality in the realm of faith, culture, life therapy, religion, if you're in a religion versus a faith. Yeah. Just those what is our reality? Because I think even as you talk about group, it's like what is the reality for that group of people for accessing care? So that's the overall season theme.

Speaker 2 (05:00):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (05:02):

How does that sound for you?

Speaker 2 (05:03):

That sounds great.

Speaker 1 (05:04):

Yeah. I know you have a lot of thoughts,

Speaker 2 (05:07):

But we do good bouncing off each other's thoughts. Me and you were good.

Speaker 1 (05:13):

So tell me how you started your own business.

Speaker 2 (05:16):

That's a good question. There's probably a long answer and a short answer. The long one is that I went and got a master's in marriage and family from a seminary 20 plus years ago, and by the time I finished my degree, I chose to go back to being a full-time attorney. And there's a story there, as there always is, that has to do with me almost being kicked out of the

Speaker 3 (05:55):

Program

Speaker 2 (05:56):

Because someone lodged a complaint against me as a person. The stated reason behind the claim was that my disability was a distraction to clients,

(06:09):

And I was absolutely undone and totally shredded, all just completely undone by the entire ordeal experience, all of it. It just really undid me in a way that I don't know if I could have put the pieces together then, but I think that played a huge part in me going, I'm going to go back to my original career, which was being an attorney, and I will put this down and I don't know. And so it's 20 plus years later, I still have that whatever was the inclination inside of me that made me say, this work is the kind of work I want to do is still there. And so I think this time around I felt empowered, I felt supported. I felt like I had people and community around me, people like you and lots of people that was like, I can actually do this, and I don't necessarily need the permission of an institution or the rubber stamp of another person to actually take what I have learned about living life and offer it to someone else. So I find myself now the owner and practitioner of solid foundation story Coaching, and we're going to see where the Lord leads and we're going to see where we end up.

Speaker 1 (07:38):

Okay. When in any moment, I might have to hop off here, you said nine 10 to nine 15, but what do you imagine then for your first offerings? I know you jumped in a little bit at the beginning and we kind of touched on it, but what are your first, what's your desire? What are you trying to offer?

Speaker 2 (08:00):

That's a good confusion too. I think a couple of things. I come from a very conservative evangelical Christian background that is also, there's these parallel roots in my background that are rooted in the black church. And every once in a while I can feel my evangelical why and what and why, and what I think the short answer is just care. You asked me what do you want to offer? And that I think my answer is care for a lot of reasons. When I look at my own story and my own life and my own path, there are lots of ways and places where I can identify. I didn't have the care that I needed. I didn't have the support that I needed to get where I wanted to go, sort of maybe unscathed, maybe in the shortest path possible with the least amount of obstacles as a woman, as a person of color, as a black American woman in the church, in as a person with a disability, all kinds of ways in which there were places in ways that I needed care that I didn't get. And even with all that being said, once, twice, maybe three times the exact right care at the exact right moment from the person who was capable and willing to give it, and it only takes one person at just the right time to offer just a few minutes of care and what is impossible becomes possible,

(10:01):

And what is too painful to breathe through becomes something that you can now face head on. So I think in some way, maybe it's paying forward what those people who offered me care gave to me, and now it's my chance to give it back.

Rebecca (10:37):

Right? Yeah. I mean, if I were going to go for the obvious, the things that we are most comfortable talking about at this moment in our country's history, to women who have faced misogyny in its most simplistic and its most complex and twisted ways to black folks and all that we have faced and struggled through to people of color. There are all kinds of ways in which out of my own story, there are corners that I recognize. And what do I mean by that, right? I have lived my life as an African-American woman, and so there are corners in life that I have come to recognize. That moment when you recognize that somehow this moment, which should be simple and just human has become racialized, and you catch it by a glance, a look, a silence that lasts too long, and you go like, oh, I know exactly where I am.

(11:53):

I may not know the person in front of me, but I know people like them, and this experience begins to feel familiar, and I know what this corner looks like, and I know what it sounds like, and I know where the dip in the sidewalk is, and I know where there's this pothole that if you step in it the wrong way, you're going to twist your ankle. I know exactly how long you have to cross the street before that flashing red hand comes up. The ways in which, because you've been here before because you've struggled in a familiar moment, you know what it looks like and sounds like and feels like,

(12:33):

And because it is familiar, then perhaps you can offer something of wisdom or kindness to someone who's new to that corner who doesn't quite know how to navigate it. So I can say that about being black, about being a woman. There are all kinds of things in my own story that have made these corners familiar to me. So yes to all of those things, all of those kinds of people, that there's something I have in common with the parallels of their story that I can say, Hey, I know this corner and I have a flashlight and I can shine my light in front of your path so you can take another step.

Danielle (13:17):

How do you feel in your body as you say that?

Rebecca (13:22):

I feel good. It feels like me. You say, how do you feel in your body? Why would you ask that question? What do we mean by that? Which is part of this work, which is being able to recognize when I'm comfortable in my own skin and when I'm not, and being able to recognize why that might be true in any given moment. And so this part feels good to me. It feels like steps I was trying to take 20 years ago that got hijacked and sidetracked by what happened to me in grad school. And it feels like work that I was meant to do because of the corners that I know. So I feel good. I can breathe deep.

Danielle (14:12):

How do you know when you feel good? What tells you you're feeling good

Rebecca (14:16):

For me? That I can take a full deep breath. I have come to recognize that shallow breathing means I am not comfortable, so I can take a deep breath and it doesn't feel restricted to me that that's probably, for me, the most notable thing is to say that. And because I am not doing a lot of self editing, I feel okay saying what I have say. I don't have a lot of self-talk of like, Ooh, don't say that or don't say that. Yeah,

Danielle (14:57):

Which feels like something you can give your participants. I think I mentioned to you, I really wanted to hear about what you're up to business, but it really feels to me like a special kind of work in this season. And I know I mentioned, I was like, well, what's the reality of this season? Could you speak about the intersection of your work and what you see as the reality of our current climate?

Rebecca (15:29):

So when you first said that to me, my first reaction is go like, oh, I know what my reality is as a black woman, as a mother of two kids, as somebody that lives a mile from where the first enslaved Africans set foot on us soil. I have a very clear sense of my reality, but I'm also going like, and I'm sitting across from you, Danielle, who I know in this moment is living a very different reality as a Latino woman. And so the one thing, or sort of the second thought that comes to my mind after my first reaction, I know what my reality is, is something that I learned recently. I did a webinar and I moderated a panel, and one of the individuals on the panel is a Latino pastor. I'll call him Pastor Carlos. And one of the things that he said to me is that if my truth in any given moment is crafted at the expense of another human, my truth cannot be the absolute truth.

Yeah. Now I'm paraphrasing a little bit. So Pastor Carlos, if you hear this, and please forgive me for the paraphrase, but what settled in me from his remarks is that if my truth in any given moment comes at the expense of another person, my truth cannot stand as the absolute truth. And he went on to say something of truth must always be defined in the context of community that we cannot discern what is reality, if you will, in a given moment without having that discussion and framing those contours in the context of community and connectedness to other people. So I could tell you my truth as a black American woman in 2025, and I already know, I know my sense of what is true in my world is going to look and sound and feel different than what is true for you in this moment. Right?

Danielle (18:03):

Talking about reality, I feel that even despite our different truths, you and I find ourselves touching ground like physical ground, touching energy, spirituality in the same way, not thinking the same. I don't mean that, but living in a space where you and I can connect and affirm one another's actual experiences in the world, actual day to day. I can tell you about a neighbor, you could tell me about work or one of your kids, and there's a sense that you haven't lived that exact, you're not with me in my house, I'm not with your kid in their school, but there's a sense that we can touch into a reality. We're in the ground somewhere together. So I'm wondering, what do you think makes that possible for us to share that space?

Rebecca (18:57):

I mean, it might be I part the willingness to share, and I don't mean, well, maybe I mean that in both senses of the word, the willingness to be shared in terms of vulnerable, I'm willing to tell you. And so when you ask me, Hey, how are you? When I say, Hey, Danielle, what's up with you? It's more than just the flippant, oh, I'm good. I'm cool. Right? It is this intentional move to slow down for 60 seconds or 60 minutes and go like, here's really happening with me.

(19:38):

And the other sort of piece of that, when I say the word share, I mean the willingness for there to be a little wiggle room in what I understand to be true. And that's not to say that I will take your truth and replace it with mine and obliterate my experience, not suggesting that I'm saying that my truth and your truth are going to butt up against each other and in the place where they touch, what do we do with that friction? Does that friction become a point of contention, a point of disagreement, a point of anger, of judgment where I villainize you and demonize you and other you? Or does that place where my truth and your truth rub up against each other? Does that become a place of learning? Does that become a place of flexibility of saying like, huh, I never thought about it the way you thought about it. Say more. And my experience between you and I is that there has been a willingness for years to go. What do you know about the world that I don't know? What do you see that I don't see? And how does your perspective actually alter if even just a little bit what I believe or know to be true of the world?

Danielle (21:04):

Yes, I agree with you. I think we find ourselves in a time though where the sharing of our reality feels unique, where groups, even groups, we would call them bipoc or black, indigenous people of color. You even see skirmishes between groups. And so I think it's laid in one with so much fear. Number two, with so much hypervigilance. And again, I'm not saying none of those things aren't warranted, but I think a group like yours or therapy or somatic work hopefully opens us up to be able to see the humanity of another person.

That make sense or what do you thinking when I say

Rebecca (21:49):

No, it does. When you were talking about in this moment, it feels unique for groups to kind of share their experience. It caused me to kind of think about why is that right? And I don't think that's an accident. I don't think it is a coincidence. I think that there are powers that are crafting these sort of larger narratives that suggest that we have to be at odds with each other, that there isn't a way for us to see each other and recognize one another's humanity without there being this catastrophic threat to my own humanity. And I think part of why it feels so unique in this moment is because I think we're having to do some pretty significant work to fight against that larger narrative that would suggest that we can't be friends, that we must be enemies.

Danielle(22:49):

Yeah. What do you feel as you say that? I mean, when you say that I feel like I want to cry, I want to be angry, I want to be choked up, and those are all familiar for me. They're familiar for me.

Rebecca (23:08):

Well, mostly I feel a kind of loss. And what do I mean by that? I saw this clip on Instagram recently where it's a family. They're probably white, Caucasian American family sitting down to dinner at a table, the table's full of food,

(23:33):

And there's a bowl of strawberries on the table, which in my house during this time of year, there's forever. There's always strawberries in my house anyway. And so somebody says the blessing over the food, dear God, thank you for the food and the hands that prepared it, this sort of common blessing that is also an everyday occurrence at my house. Literally the words, God bless the food and the hands that prepared it. And then it cuts, the video cuts from the scene of this family, it tucked away safely in their kitchen to a migrant worker in a strawberry field who is being pursued by ice agents. And he says, you're welcome very much for the strawberries. And then the video ends that makes me want to cry, and it makes me think of you. And because that's not a thought I ever thought about when my kids pray, thank you for the hands that prepared it. The thought that went through my mind is like they're praying for me as the mom who cooked the food, who washed the strawberries and sliced them and put them in a bowl and set them on the table, never occurred to me until I saw that video I about the person who picked the strawberries and placed them in the container that found its way to my grocery store that found its way to my kitchen table.

(25:08):

And so now I wonder, what else do I not know? What else have I missed my entire life? What else did I not catch? And what does that mean for this moment in history when there are literally ice checkpoints in the city where I live?

Danielle (25:39):

I think to survive this moment and what I hear from my people, we have to take ourselves out of the reality of the moment somehow. You still had to get up and you had to make yourself some scrambled eggs. You have to eat your strawberry, you get to eat your strawberry. We're both at work today, et cetera. And whenever we touch into that other space, we have to let the energy process through us or we won't make it. And I think that process allows us to share a reality, the movement of energy allowing it. It's not like we can live in that state all the time, but I think there's certain segments of the population that don't allow anything in. They can't because otherwise it would contradict their view of faith or what's happened.

Rebecca (26:31):

Yes. Which I think is why I would do something like offer a group a story group, because it is the opportunity to intentionally take a few minutes to create the space to allow that to process through us.

Danielle (26:49):

So how do people then, Rebecca, find you? They're enjoying this conversation. I want to hear more from her. I,

Rebecca (27:01):

So I have a website. It's called Rebuilding my foundation.com. I have Instagram solid foundation Coach is my Instagram site. So two me an email, check out the website, join a group,

Danielle (27:26):

Join a group. What about people like, Hey, I want to hang out with Danielle and Rebecca. What does that look like? Oh,

Rebecca (27:35):

Yeah. I mean, we're good for at least once a year doing something together. So it sounds like maybe we need to pull a conversation together, maybe a group together, maybe like a two hour seminar workshop space, which we did last year. We did one with a few other of our friends and colleagues called Defiant Resilience. Again, to create this space where people could process what was happening in this moment in history with people who are safe ish, right? We can't ever really promise safety, but we create some sense of parameters that allow you to take a step or two.

Danielle (28:25):

Rebecca, what do you say to that person? I get these calls all the time. Well, I can't go to therapy. It's too much money. Or I don't know about group. I don't trust people. If people get stuck, what is one way you even got yourself unstuck to even start?

Rebecca  (28:40):

Oh, yeah, true. First thing I'd say is if group sounds too risky and not going to lie, you and I both know it's risky.

(28:55):

You're taking some risk. So if that feels too big of a step, guess what? You get to be where you are. And then I'd say try it one-on-one session. Try it once, see how it feels. It is definitely something that I do. I know it's something you do too, where before you would recommend even that somebody step into a group that you might meet with them 2, 3, 4 times one-on-one once or twice to kind of see, this is what it would feel like to talk to another person about things that we have been taught you're not supposed to talk about. And slowly give a person the opportunity to decide for themselves what good care.

You're allowed to say, this doesn't feel like good care to me, so I'm not going to do it today or tomorrow. And how amazing it can be to have somebody go, I love that you advocated for yourself, and I absolutely intend to respect that boundary because for so many of us, we either were taught not to set boundaries or when they were set, we have the common experience of them just being obliterated on a regular basis. So even that opportunity to reach out once, try and decide it's not for you, can actually be a moment of empowerment.

Danielle (30:25):

Yeah, I guess I think when I'm stuck, it's usually like we call some of those sticky points, like trauma points even. So I wouldn't say it doesn't always have to be major, some huge event, but I think there's often been, for me, there's a fear of getting help, whether it's a medical doctor or a therapist or a group or whatever it may be. Or if I have to call the county for something, I'm like, are they going to listen me? Are they going to believe me in all these kinds of situations and will they care what I have to say?

Rebecca (30:58):

Yeah. I think too, when you say fear of getting help, I go like, oh yeah, ding, ding. Right? I mean, some of that, at least for me, the narrative that can be around black women is that we have it all together at all times. We got it under control. And so the notion that I wouldn't have it under control all by myself, like 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the notion that I would have to request that someone else step in and assist means admitting something about myself that I don't feel comfortable admitting that I've been taught is not where I'm allowed to live. And so that also I think can be part of this fear. I don't know if that's true for you. Tell me how does that land?

Danielle (31:49):

Yeah, absolutely true. But it goes across so many realms where sometimes advocating for yourself, whether it's getting a question answered at a shoe store, to buying paint, to getting, I don't know, going to the er, the common themes I had my gallbladder recently removed, and two nurses told me that if I had been a man, I would've been seen faster. Because men, they believe men more about abdominal pain, and I think it's because there's maybe more expression by men of what pain is. And I don't know this for sure. I don't have a scientific research behind it, but part of me wondered, is it because my pain was indicated by my blood pressure, not by me telling them that's how they knew it. So I think that's one reason we have to really pay attention to our bodies, and I think wherever we are, we're not used to being believed, or even if someone knows, if they care, again, whether it's from going to pay a parking ticket, so going to the doctor, I just think across the board, people that are female are generally not as welcome to express how they're feeling and what's going on. Just some thoughts.

Rebecca (33:11):

Yeah. Again, right. It is that part where there's this larger story at play that impacts how we move individually and what we feel like we're permitted to do or not do, say or not say. You and I have talked about this before, that question of will they believe me is a kind of anticipatory intelligence

You're trying to anticipate how you will be received, how your words will be believed, how your story will be read in any given context, and who has time, your gallbladder. And so I would imagine you're in this excruciating pain and you're having to not only tend to that, but are you going to believe me? Right? And what if the blood pressure indicator had not been there, right?

Danielle (34:07):

Yeah. Yeah. All of us are different. Okay. Rebecca, I'm going to put all your info in the notes. People are going to light up your phone. They're going to light up your email, and I do believe we'll be doing something collaborative in the future. Absolutely. Yeah. With other co-conspirators.

Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening to the raw conversations we're having, and I just encourage you to get in conversations with your friends, your family, people around you, people you really disagree with, maybe even people you don't like. Try to hold yourself there. Try to have those conversations. Try to be able to receive the difficult comments. Try to be able to say the difficult things. Let's keep working on moving towards one another.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715
Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416
Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793
Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

ResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276
Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4
Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

1. What are the formations or structures for how you know you are in reality in regards to your faith? Do you have indicators? Internal senses? External resources? 

2. Who are you in active dialogue with in regards to your faith? Who that is living and who that is passed on? 

3. When you encounter dissonance with your reality of faith, how do you stay grounded in your experience?

Transcripts

Danielle (00:00):

To my computer. So thank you Starlet. Thank you Tamis for being with me. I've given already full introductions. I've recorded those separately. So the theme of the conversation and kind of what we're getting into on this podcast this season is I had this vision for talking about the themes have been race, faith, culture, church in the past on my podcast. But what I really think the question is, where is our reality and where are our touchpoints in those different realms? And so today there's going to be more info on this in the future, but where do we find reality and how do we form our reality when we integrate faith? So one of the questions I was asking Tamis and Starlet was what are the formations or structures for how you know are in reality in regards to your faith? Do you have indicators? Do you have internal senses? Do you have external resources? And so that's where I want to jump off from and it's free flow. I don't do a whole lot of editing, but yeah, just curious where your mind goes when you hear that, what comes to mind and we'll jump from there.

Starlette (01:12):

I immediately thought of baptism, baptismal waters. My baptismal identity forms and shapes me. It keeps me in touch with my body. It keeps me from being disembodied. Also, it keeps me from being swindled out of authority over my body due to the dangerous irrationalism of white body supremacy. So that's one thing. Protest also keeps me grounded. I have found that acts of defiance, minor personal rebellions, they do well for me. They keep me spiritually that I feel like it keeps me in step with Jesus. And I always feel like I'm catching up that I'm almost stepping on his feet. So for me, baptismal identity and protesting, those are the two things come to me immediately.

Tamice (02:04):

Whoa, that's so deep. Wow, I never thought about that. But I never thought about protests being a thing that grounds

Because I mean I've just been, for me I would say I've been working on the right so, and y'all know me, so I got acronyms for days. But I mean I think that the radical ethical spirituality that's tethered to my tradition, that's a rule of life, but it's also a litmus test. So for me, if you can't tell the truth, we don't have conversations about non-violence and loving enemies. I don't get to ethical spirituality unless you come through the front door of truth telling and truth telling in that sense of the r. And the rest arrest mix tape is radical. Angela Davis says radical and that's grasping stuff at the root. So before we have conversations about forgiveness for instance, or Jesus or scripture or what is right and what is moral, it's very important that we first tell the truth about the foundations of those realities and what we even mean by those terms and whose those terms serve and where they come from. I talk about it asking to see the manager. We need see the manager

(03:24):

Me that grounds me is now if something comes in and it calls me to move in a different way or corrects me or checks me in a certain way, I say yes to it if it comes through the door of truth telling because it means I also got to be true and tell the truth to myself. So that keeps me grounded. That kind of acronym is kind of how I move, but it's also how I keep toxic ways of doing religion out. And I also have come back into relationship with trees and grass and the waters and that's been really powerful for moving down into different types of intelligence. For me, the earth has been pulling me into a different way of knowing and being in that part brings me to ancestors. Just like you starlet my ancestors, I keep finding them in the trees and in the water and in the wind. So it's like, well I need them real bad right now. So that's where I'm kind of grounding myself these days.

But to your point about grounding and protest, I feel most compelled to show up in spaces where the ground is crying out screaming. I feel like it beckons me there. And we talked about the most recent news of Trey being found and you talked about truth telling and what resonated immediately. And it didn't sit right with me that African-American people, people of African descent know not to take their lives in that way because of the traumatic history that when you say things like you don't suspect any foul play, it sounds like what has historically been named as at the hands of persons unknown where that no one is held responsible for the death of African-American people. That's what ties it in for me. And I feel like it's an ancestral pool that they didn't leave this way, they didn't leave in the way that they were supposed to, that something stinks and that they're crying out to say, can you hear me? Come over here Terry a while here. Don't leave him here. Don't let up on it because we didn't call him here somebody. So I love that you said that you are, feel yourself being grounded in and call back to the earth because I do feel like it speaks to us,

But there are telltale signs in it and that the trees will tell us too. And so I didn't have a hand in this. It was forced on me and I saw it all come and talk to me. Put your hand here, put your head here and you can hear me scream and then you can hear me scream, you can hear him scream. He was calling out the whole time. That's what I believe in. That's how I test reality. I tested against what the earth is saying like you said, but I think we have to walk the ground a bit. We have to pace the ground a bit. We can't just go off of what people are saying. Back to your point about truth telling, don't trust nobody I don't trust. I don't trust anybody that's going to stop because you can't fix a lie. So if you're going to come in with deception, there's not much else I can do with you. There's not much I can say to you. And I find that white body supremacy is a supreme deception. So if we can't start there in a conversation, there's nothing that I can say to you

Tamice (06:46):

That's facts. It's interesting that you talked about baptism, you talked about grounding and I had this story pop up and while you were talking again it popped up again. So I'm going to tell it. So we are not going to talk about who and all the things that happened recently, but I had made some comments online around that and around just the choice to be blind. So I've been talking a lot about John nine and this passage where it is very clear to everyone else what's happening, but the people who refuse to see, refuse to see.

So in that, I was kind of pulled into that. I was in Mississippi, I was doing some stuff for the book and this lady, a chaplain, her name is Sally Bevin, actually Sally Bevel, she walked up to me, she kept calling me, she was like, Tam me, she want to come. I have my whole family there. We were at the Mississippi Book Fair and she kept saying, Tam me, she want to come join, dah, dah, dah. Then my family walked off and they started to peruse and then she asked me again and I was like, no, I'm good. And I was screaming. I mean I'm looking in the screen and the third time she did it, it pulled me out and I was like, this woman is trying to pull me into being present. And she said to me, this is funny, starlet. I said, I feel like I need to be washed and I need a baptism because this phone feels like so on right now and the wickedness is pulling me. So she poured, she got some ice, cold water, it was 95 degrees, poured cold water on my hands, had me wash my hands and she took the cold water. She put a cross on my forehead. And you know what she said to me? She said, remember your baptism?

She said, remember your baptism? And when I was baptized, even though it was by a man who will not also be named, when I was baptized the wind, there was a whirlwind at my baptism. It was in 2004, that same wind hit in Mississippi and then I felt like I was supposed to take my shoes off. So I walked around the Mississippi Festival with no shoes on, not knowing that the earth was about to receive two people who did not deserve to be hung from trees. And there's something very, I feel real talk, I feel afraid for white supremacy right now in the name of my ancestors and I feel like I'm calling on everything right now. And that's also grounding me.

Starlette (09:36):

I was with Mother Moses last week. I went to Dorchester County just to be with her because the people were here. Take me. I said, I'll leave them all here. I know you said there are a few here, but give me the names, give me the last names of the people because I don't have time for this. I see why she left people. I see why she was packing. So to your point, I think it's important that we talk to the ancestors faithfully, religiously. We sit down at their feet and listen for a bit about how they got over and how they got through it and let them bear witness to us. And she does it for me every time, every single time she grounds, she grounds me

Danielle (10:23):

Listening to you all. I was like, oh wait. It is like Luke 19 where Jesus is coming in on the show and he didn't ride in on the fanciest plane on a donkey. And if you're familiar with that culture that is not the most elevated animal, not the elevated animal to ride, it's not the elevated animal. You don't eat it. Not saying that it isn't eaten at times, but it's not right. So he rides in on that and then people are saying glory to God in the highest and they're praising him and the Pharisees are like, don't do that because it's shameful and I don't remember the exact words, but he's basically be quiet. The rocks are going to tell the story of what happened here. He's walking his way. It kind of reminds me to me. So what you're saying, he's walking away, he's going to walk and he's going to walk that way and he's going to walk to his death. He's walking it in two scenarios that Jesus goes in to talk about. Your eyes are going to be blind to peace, to the real way to peace. It's going to be a wall put around you and you're going to miss out. People are going to destroy you because you missed your chance.

Starlette (11:50):

Point again creation. And if you're going to be a rock headed people, then I'll recruit this rock choir. They get ready to rock out on you. If there's nothing you're going to say. So even then he says that creation will bear witness against you. You ain't got to do it. You ain't got to do it. I can call these rock. You can be rock headed if you want to. You can be stony hearted if you want to. I can recruit choir members from the ground,

Tamice (12:16):

But not even that because y'all know I'm into the quantum and metaphysics. Not even that they actually do speak of course, like words are frequencies. So when you hold a certain type of element in your hand, that thing has a frequency to it. That's alright that they said whatever, I don't need it from you. Everything else is tapped into this.

Starlette (12:39):

Right. In fact, it's the rocks are tapped into a reality. The same reality that me and this donkey and these people throwing stuff at my feet are tapped into.

You are not tapped into reality. And so that's why he makes the left and not the right because typically when a person is coming to Saka city, they head towards the temple. He went the other direction because he is like it was a big fuck. I don't use power like this. And actually what I'm about to do is raise you on power. This is a whole different type of power. And that's what I feel like our ancestors, the realities that the alternative intelligence in the world you're talking about ai, the alternative intelligence in the world is what gives me every bit of confidence to look this beast in the face and call it what it is. This is

Tamice (13:52):

And not going to bow to it. And I will go down proclaiming it what it is. I will not call wickedness good.

And Jesus said, Jesus was so when he talks about the kingdom of heaven suffering violence and the violence taken it by force, it's that it's like there's something so much more violent about being right and righteous. Y'all have to use violence because you can't tell the truth.

Danielle (14:29):

Do you see the split two? There's two entirely different realities happening. Two different kingdoms, two entirely different ways of living in this era and they're using quote J, but it's not the same person. It can't be, you cannot mix white Jesus and brown Jesus. They don't go together. They

Starlette (15:00):

Don't, what is it? Michael O. Emerson and Glenn e Bracy. The second they have this new book called The Religion of Whiteness, and they talk about the fact that European Americans who are racialized as white Tahi says those who believe they are white. He says that there's a group of people, the European Americans who are racialized as white, who turn to scripture to enforce their supremacy. And then there's another group of people who turn to scripture to support and affirm our sibling.

It is two different kingdoms. It's funny, it came to me the other day because we talk about, I've talked about how for whiteness, the perception of goodness is more important than the possession of it.

You know what I mean? So mostly what they do is seek to be absolved. Right? So it's just, and usually with the being absolved means I'm less bad than that, so make that thing more bad than me and it's a really terrible way to live a life, but it is how whiteness functions, and I'm thinking about this in the context of all that is happening in the world because it's like you cannot be good and racist period. And that's as clear as you cannot love God and mammon you will end up hating one and loving the other. You cannot love God. You cannot

Starlette (16:29):

Love God and hate your next of kin your sibling. Dr. Angela Parker says something really important During the Wild Goose Festival, she asked the participants there predominantly European American people, those racialized as white. She said, do you all Terry, do you Terry, do you wait for the Holy Spirit? Do you sit with yourself and wait for God to move? And it talked, it spoke to me about power dynamic. Do you feel like God is doing the moving and you wait for the spirit to anoint you, to fill you, to inspire you, to baptize you with fire? You Terry, do you wait a while or do you just the other end of that that she doesn't say, do you just get up? I gave my life to Jesus and it's done right handed fellowship, give me my certificate and walk out the door. You have to sit with yourself and I don't know what your tradition is.

I was raised Pentecostal holiness and I had to tear all night long. I was on my knees calling on the name of Jesus and I swear that Baba couldn't hear me. Which octave do you want me to go in? I lost my voice. You know them people, them mothers circled me with a sheet and told me I didn't get it that night that I had to come back the next day after I sweat out my down, I sweat out my press. Okay. I pressed my way trying to get to that man and they told me he didn't hear me. He not coming to get you today. I don't hear a change. They were looking for an evidence of tongues. They didn't hear an evidence, a change speech. You still sound the way that you did when you came in here. And I think that white body supremacy, that's where the problem lies with me. There's no difference. I don't hear a change in speech. You're still talking to people as if you can look down your nose with them. You have not been submerged in the water. You did not go down in the water. White supremacy, white body supremacy has not been drowned out.

Terry, you need to Terry A. Little while longer. I'll let you know when you've gotten free. When you've been lifted, there's a cloud of witnesses. Those mothers rubbing your back, snapping your back and saying, call on him. Call him like you want him. Call him like you need him and they'll tell you when they see evidence, they'll let you, you know when you've been tied up, tangled up. That's what we would say. Wrapped up in Jesus and I had to come back a second night and call on the Lord and then they waited a while. They looked, they said, don't touch her, leave her alone. He got her now, leave her alone. But there was an affirmation, there was a process. You couldn't just get up there and confess these ABCs and salvation, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Why do you think they'll let you know when you got it?

Danielle (18:56):

Why do you think that happened? Why? I have a question for You'all. Why do you think that became the reality of the prayer in that moment? And we're talking about Africans that have been brought here and enslaved. Why do you think that happened on our soil that way? Why question?

Tamice (19:12):

I mean I'm wondering about it because when stylists talk and I keep thinking the Terry in and of itself is a refusal. It says what I see is not real. What's in front of me is not right. I'm going to wait for something else.

I'm saying, the slave Bible, them taking stuff out of the Bible and it's like, but I feel like the ground, there was something about the ground that indigenous people, that indigenous people were able to help them tap into over here. It was waiting on that.

Starlette (19:49):

We didn't have punishment. We had a percussion session. So they ring shouted me. I didn't know what it was at the time. We didn't have all the fancy stuff. Everybody had put me in key. We didn't have, we had this and feet them people circled around me. We don't do that no more.

Danielle (20:06):

We don't do that no more. But don't you think if you're a person that is, and I believe Africans came here with faith already. Oh yes, there's evidence of that. So put that aside, but don't you think then even if you have that faith and it's not so different than our time and you're confronted with slave owners and plantation owners also preaching quote the same faith that you're going to have to test it out on your neighbor when they're getting saved. You're going to have to make sure they didn't catch that bug.

Don't you think there's something in there? Block it. Don't you think if you know faith internally already like we do and run into someone that's white that's preaching the same thing, we have to wait it out with them. Don't you think our ancestors knew that when they were here they were waiting it out. I just noticed my spirit match that spirit. We have to wait it out. Yes, because and let's say they didn't know Jesus. Some people didn't know Jesus and they met Jesus here for whatever reason, and your example is still the white man. You have to wait it out to make sure you're not reflecting that evilness. I mean that's what I'm thinking. That's it's the absolutely

Starlette (21:20):

Truth. There's a book titled Slave Testimony, and I know this because I just read about it. There's a testimony of an enslaved African-American, he's unnamed. It was written on June 26th, 1821. He's talking to Master John. He said, I want permission to speak to you if you please. He talked about, he said, where is it? Where is it? A few words. I hope that you will not think Me too bull. Sir, I make my wants known to you because you are, I believe the oldest and most experienced that I know of. He says in the first place, I want you to tell me the reason why you always preach to the white folks and keep your back to us is because they sit up on the hill. We have no chance among them there. We must be forgotten because we are near enough. We are not near enough without getting in the edge of the swamp behind you. He was calling him to account. He said, when you sell me, do you make sure that I'm sold to a Christian or heathen?

He said, we are charged with inattention because of where their position. He said it's impossible for us to pay good attention with this chance. In fact, some of us scarce think that we are preached to it all. He says, money appears to be the object. We are carried to market and sold to the highest bidder. Never once inquired whether you sold to a heathen or a Christian. If the question was put, did you sell to a Christian, what would the answer be? I can tell you, I can tell what he was, gave me my price. That's all I was interested in. So I don't want people to believe that Africans who were enslaved did not talk back, did not speak back. They took him to task. He said, everybody's not literate. There's about one in 50 people who are, and I'm one of them and I may not be able to speak very well, but this is what I want to tell you. I can tell the difference. I know that you're not preaching to me the same. I know that when you talk about salvation, you're not extending it to me.

Yikes. You need to know that our people, these ancestors, not only were they having come to Jesus meetings, but they were having come to your senses, meeting with their oppressor and they wrote it down. They wrote it down. I get sick of the narratives that we are not our answer. Yes we are. Yes I am. I'm here because of them. I think they called me. I think they call me here. I think the fussing that I make, the anger that I possess this need to resist every damn thing. I think they make me do that

Tamice (23:35):

Indeed, I think. But I didn't get my voice until they took the MLE off, had an honor with my ancestors and they came and they told me it's time. Take that mle off, MLE off. Shoot. Why Jesus ain't tell me to take no muzzle off. I'm going to tell you that now.

Danielle (23:52):

That's why I mean many indigenous people said, Jesus didn't come back for me because if that guy's bringing me Jesus, then now Jesus didn't come back for me.

Starlette (24:07):

Come on.

Make it plain. Danielle, go ahead. Go ahead. Walk heavy today. Yeah, I mean

Danielle (24:17):

I like this conversation. Why Jesus, why Jesus didn't come back for us, the three of us. He didn't come back for us. It didn't come back from kids. He didn't come back for my husband. Nope. And so then therefore that we're not going to find a freedom through that. No, that's no desire to be in that.

Tamice (24:33):

None. And that's what I mean and making it very, very plain to people like, listen, I actually don't want to be in heaven with your Jesus heaven. With your Jesus would be hell. I actually have one,

Starlette (24:47):

The one that they had for us, they had an N word heaven for us where they would continue to be served and they wrote it down. It's bad for people who are blio foes who like to read those testimonies. It is bad for people who like to read white body supremacy For Phil. Yeah, they had one for us. They had separate creation narratives known as polygenetic, but they also had separate alon whereby they thought that there was a white heaven and an inward heaven.

I didn't even know that. Starla, I didn't even know that because they said they want to make sure their favorite slave was there to serve them. Oh yes, the delusion. People tell me that they're white. I really do push back for a reason. What do you mean by that? I disagree with all of it. What part of it do you find agreeable? The relationship of ruling that you maintain over me? The privilege. White power. Which part of it? Which part of it is good for you and for me? How does it help us maintain relationship as Christians?

Danielle (25:47):

I think that's the reality and the dissonance we live in. Right?

Starlette (25:51):

That's it. But I think there needs to be a separation.

Are you a white supremacist or not?

Tamice (26:03):

That's what I'm saying. That's why I keep saying, listen, at this point, you can't be good and racist. Let me just say that. Oh no, you got to pick

Starlette (26:12):

And I need to hear it

Tamice (26:13):

Both. Yeah. I need you to public confession of it.

Starlette (26:19):

Someone sent me a dm. I just want to thank you for your work and I completely agree. I quickly turned back around. I said, say it publicly. Get out of my dms. Say it publicly. Put it on your page. Don't congratulate me. Within two minutes or so. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. You are right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Did he post anything? No. Say it publicly. Denounce them. Come out from among them.

Very, very plain. As a white supremacist or na, as a kid, as children. How

Danielle (26:56):

Hard is it? I think that's what made this moment so real and it's a kind of a reality. Fresher actually for everybody to be honest, because it's a reality. All certain things have been said. All manner of things have been said by people. This is just one example of many people that have said these things. Not the only person that's lived and died and said these things. And then when you say, Hey, this was said, someone's like, they didn't say that. You're like, no, some people put all their content on the internet receipts. They did it themselves. That's not true. And I went to a prayer vigil. I didn't go. I sat outside a prayer vigil this weekend and I listened in and they were praying for the resurrection like Jesus of certain people that have passed on. I kid you, I sat there in the car with a friend of mine and then my youngest daughter had come with me just to hang out. She's like, what are they praying for? I was like, they're like, they were praying for a certain person to be resurrected from the dead just like Jesus. And I was so confused. I'm so confused how we got that far, honestly. But I told my kid, I said, this is a moment of reality for you. This is a moment to know. People think like this.

Starlette (28:13):

Also, white body

Danielle (28:14):

Supremacy is heresy. Yes. It's not even related to the Bible. Not at all.

Why I steal away. This is why even the mistranslated Bible, even the Bible that you could take,

Starlette (28:33):

This

The version Danielle started. If you wouldn't have said that, I wouldn't have said that. This is exactly why I steal away. This is exactly why I leave. Because you can't argue with people like that. Now we're resurrected. I

All I need, it's like away. This is exactly why, because I can't hear what Howard Thurman calls the sound of the genuine in that. It's just not going to happen.

Danielle (29:01):

Can you imagine what would've happened if we would've prayed for George Floyd to be resurrected? Listen, what would've happened

Starlette (29:08):

That he called the scumbag.

Danielle (29:10):

Yeah, but what would've happened if we would've played for their resurrection? Adam, Adam Polito. That

Starlette (29:19):

Was found

Tamice (29:19):

Psychosis.

Starlette (29:21):

Yeah. What would've happened? See, don't push me now. I feel like I need to pack. As soon as I said fill away, it's like people keep saying, what are you going to do if gets worse? I'm going to leave my, I'll sell all this crap

About this stuff. This booby trap of capitalism. I'll it all don't about none of it. What matters most to me is my sense of ness. And when you get to talking, I almost said talking out the side of your neck. Jesus God, today, lemme God Jesus of your neck. You just need to know that's a cultural thing. That's going to have to be reevaluated. God. It just came right on out. Oh Lord. When you start saying things that go against my sense of ness that you think that I have to defend my personhood, that you want to tell me that I don't exist as a person. I don't exist as a human. Back to your reality testament. It's time for me to leave. I'm not staying here and fighting a race war or a civil war. You mamas are just violent. It's what you've always been.

Tamice (30:28):

Why would I stand in the middle? Why would I stand in the middle of what I know is a confrontation with yourself?

Starlette (30:36):

Oh, okay. Alright. I'm going to just

Tamice (30:38):

You all. What happened last week is it, it is a confrontation with a really disturbed self and they're trying to flip it. Oh yes. They're trying to make it. Yes. But this is like, I'm trying to tell people out here, this is beyond you, Jack, that was a prophetic witness against you because now you see that what you're fighting is the mirror. Keep me out of it. I won't fight your wars. Keep me out of it. Look, James Baldwin said, y'all have to decide and figure out why you needed a nigger in the first place.

I'm not a nigger. I'm a man. But you, the white people need to figure out why you created the nigger in the first place. Fuck, this is not my problem. This is a y'all and I don't have anything invested in this. All I'm trying to do is raise my kids, man. Come on. Get out of here with that. I'm sorry.

Danielle (31:48):

No, you keep going and then go back to starlet. Why do you think then they made her Terry? They had to make sure she doesn't buy into that. That's my opinion.

Tamice (32:00):

It's funny too because I see, I mean, I wasn't Pentecostal. I feel like who's coming to mind as soon as you said that de y'all know I'm hip hop. Right? So KRS one.

Starlette (32:12):

Yes. Consciousness.

Tamice (32:14):

The mind. Oh yes, the mind, the imagination. He was, I mean from day one, trying to embed that in the youth. Like, Hey, the battlefield is the mind. Are you going to internalize this bullshit?

Are you going to let them name you?

Starlette (32:34):

This is the word.

Tamice (32:34):

Are you going to let them tell you what is real for the people of God? That's That's what I'm saying, man. Hip hop, hip hop's, refusal has been refusal from day one. That's why I trust it.

Because in seen it, it came from the bottom of this place. It's from the bottom of your shoe. It tells the truth about all of this. So when I listen to hip hop, I know I'm getting the truth.

Starlette (32:57):

Yeah. Enemy

Objection. What did public enemy say? Can't trust it. Can't trust it. No, no, no, no. You got to play it back. We got to run all that back.

Danielle (33:11):

I just think how it's so weaponized, the dirt, the bottom of the shoe, all of that stuff. But that's where we actually, that's what got it. Our bodies hitting the road, hitting the pavement, hitting the grass, hitting the dirt. That's how we know we're in reality because we've been forced to in many ways and have a mindset that we are familiar with despite socioeconomic changes. We're familiar with that bottom place.

Tamice (33:38):

Yeah. I mean, bottom place is where God is at. That's what y'all don't understand. God comes from black, dark dirt, like God is coming from darkness and hiddenness and mystery. You don't love darkness. You don't love God

Starlette (33:56):

Talk. Now this bottom place is not to be confused with the sunken place that some of y'all are in. I just want to be clear. I just want to be clear and I'm not coming to get you. Fall was the wrong day. Today

I think it's good though because there's so much intimidation in other communities at times. I'm not saying there's not through the lynchings, ongoing lynchings and violence too and the threats against colleges. But it's good for us to be reminded of our different cultural perspectives and hear people talk with power. Why do you think Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez wrote letters to each other? They knew something about that and knew something about it. They knew something about it. They knew something about why it's important to maintain the bonds. Why we're different, why we're similar. They knew something about it. So I see it as a benefit and a growth in our reality. That is actually what threatens that, that relationship, that bond, that connection, that speaking life into one another. That's what threatens that kingdom that you're talking about. Yeah.

You just can't fake an encounter either.

When I was tear, no matter what I've decolonized and divested from and decentered, I cannot deny that experience. I know that God was present. I know that God touched me. So when mother even made sister, even made, my grandmother would call me when I was in college, first person to go to college. In our family, she would say before she asked about classes or anything else, and she really didn't know what to ask. She only had a sixth grade education. But her first question was always you yet holding on?

Right. She holding on. And I said, yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Then she would, because it didn't matter if you couldn't keep the faith. There really wasn't nothing else for her to talk to you about. She was going to get ready to evangelize and get you back because you backslid. But that was her first thing. But what I've learned since then is that I can let go.

The amazing thing is that the spirit is guiding me. I didn't let go all together. You got it. You got it. If it's real, if you're real, prove it. Demonstrate it. I'm getting chills now talk to me without me saying anything, touch me. I shouldn't have to do anything. Eugene Peterson says that prayer is answering speech. In fact, the only reason why I'm praying is because you said something to me first. It's not really on me to do anything. Even with the tear. I was already touched. I was already called. The reason why I was on my knees and pleading is because I'd already been compelled. Something had had already touched me. First

They called Holy Spirit. The hound of heaven. Damn right was already on my heels. I was already filled before I could even refuse. I was like, I don't want this. I'm going to always be star Jonah, get your people. I prefer fish guts. Throw me overboard. I don't like these people. Certified prophet because I don't want to do it. I never want to do it. I'm not interested at all. I have no too much history. I've had to deal with too much white body supremacy and prejudice and racism to want anything to do with the church. I see it for what? It's I'll never join one. By the way, are we recording? Is it on? I'm never joining a church ever. Until you all desegregate.

You desegregate. Then we can talk about your ministry of reconciliation. Until then, you don't have one. Don't talk to me about a community day or a pulpit swap. I don't want to hear it. All Your praise. What did he say? A clinging, stumble, put away from me. Your conferences, all your multiracial. I don't want to hear none of it. Desegregate that part desegregate you, hypocrites, woe unto all of you white supremacists. If nobody ever told you that's not God. It's not of God. So I don't, for me, my reality is so above me, I know that Paul, because when I don't want to say anything, somebody is in my ear. Somebody was talking to me this morning. Somebody was writing a note in my ear. I had to get up. I said, please. I'm like, now I'm not even awake all the way. Stop talking to me. You can't fake that as much as I push against the Holy Spirit. You can't fake that. I don't want to do it. I don't want to say it. I'm of saying it. And yet I get up in the morning and it's like, say this, that post that. Write that. Somebody else is doing that. That's not me.

As the mothers say, my flesh is weak. My flesh is not willing at all. I want to, all of y'all can go on. I'll pack this up and move somewhere else. Let them fight it to the death. I'm not going to, this is just my flesh speaking. Forgive me. Okay. This Raceless gospel is a calling friends. It's a calling. It's a calling, which means you coming into it. I'm an itinerant prophet. I'm heavy into the Hebrew scriptures. I come up with every excuse. My throat hurts. I got a speech impediment. The people don't like me. I'm not educated. It don't work. You need to know when people come to you and say, y'all need to get together, God speaking to you, the Pendo is coming. That's not like an invitation. That's kind of like a threat whether you want it or not. You're getting together.

Everybody up. There's a meal ready, there's a banquet that is set and the food is getting cold and you are the reason why the drinks are watered down. That's go. You don't hear me calling you. Come

What I keep hearing. You have to know that God is speaking to people and saying that there's an invitation coming and you better get right. You better get washed up. Tam me said, you better let somebody pour that water over your hands. You better get washed up and get ready for dinner. I'm calling you. Come on in this house. Come on in this house. And this house is for everybody. Martin Luther King called it the world house. Everybody's coming in and you ain't got to like it doesn't matter. Get somewhere and sit down. That's that old church mother coming out of me and lemme just confess. I didn't even want to be on here this morning. I told God I didn't feel like talking. I told the Lord and you see what happened.

Promise you. I'm a child. I'm full of disobedience.

I was not in the mood. I said, I don't want to talk to nobody. I'm an introvert. I don't want to deal with none of this. Get somebody else to do it and look at it.

Tamice (40:39):

Yeah. It's funny because I woke up this morning, I was like, I'm not, I forgot. And then after all of the news today, I was like, I just don't have it in you, but this is, wait a minute. And it was three minutes past the time. Come on. And I was like, oh, well shoot. The house is empty. Nobody's here right now. I was like, well, lemme just log on. So this is definitely, it feels like definitely our calling do feel. I feel that way. I don't have time to bullshit

So I can't get out of it. I can't go to bed. I might as well say something. It won't let me go. I cannot do deceit. I can't do it. I can't sit idly by while people lie on God. I can't do that. I can't do it. It won't let up. And I'm trying to get in my body, get in this grass and get a little space. But I'm telling you, it won't let me go. And I feel it's important, Dee, you can't stop doing what you're doing. That's right. I mean is this thing of it is beyond me. It is living out of me. It's coming through me. And there has to be a reason for this. There's got to be a reason for this. And I don't know what it is because I know my eschatology is different, but I feel like, buddy, we got to manifest this kingdom. We have to manifest it until it pushes all that shit back. Come on. I'm telling you. Till it scurries it away or renders it and null and void, I'm talking. I mean, I want the type of light and glory on my being. That wicked logic disintegrate, wicked people drop dead. I mean that just in the Bible. In the Bible where Hert falls, headlong and worms eat em. Y'all celebrate that. Why can't I think about that? It's in your scriptures or daykin and the thing breaks and the legs of this false God break. I want that. I'm here for that. I'm going after that.

Danielle (43:14):

You think that this is what the definition of Terry is? That we're all Terry serious. I'm rocking the whole time. I'm serious. Right. That's what I told my kids. I said, in one sense, this is a one person of many that thinks this way. So we can't devote all our conversation in our house to this man. And I said in the other sense, because Starlet was asking me before he got here, how you doing? I said, we got up and I took calls from this person and that person and I told my kids, we're still advocating and doing what we can for the neighbors that need papers. And so we're going to continue doing that. That is the right thing to do. No matter what anybody else is doing in the world, we can do this.

Tamice (43:56):

Yeah, that's a good call. I mean, I'm headed to, I ain't going to say where I'm going no more, but I'm headed somewhere and going to be with people who are doing some innovation, right. Thinking how do we build a different world? How do our skillsets and passions coalesce and become something other than this? So I'm excited about that. And it's like that fire, it doesn't just drive me to want to rebuke. It does drive me to want to rebuild and rethink how we do everything. And I'm willing, I mean, I know that I don't know about y'all, but I feel like this, I'm getting out of dodge, but also I'm seeking the piece of the city. I feel both. I feel like I'm not holding hands with ridiculousness and I'm not moving in foolishness. But also I'm finna seek the piece of the city. My G I'm not running from delusion. Why would I? I'm in the truth. So I don't know how that maps onto a practical life, but we're finna figure it out. Out in it. I mean, the response of leadership to what has happened is a very clear sign where we are in terms of fascism. That's a very clear sign.

What else y'all are looking for To tell you what it is.

Danielle (45:36):

But also we're the leaders. We are, we're the leaders. They're a leader of something, but they're not the leader of us. We're the leaders. We're the leaders. So no matter what they say, no matter what hate they spew, I really love Cesar Chavez. He's like, I still go out and feed the farm worker and I don't make them get on the boycott line because if they're pushed under the dirt, then they can't see hope. So people that have more economic power, a little more privilege than the other guy, we're the leaders. We're the ones that keep showing up in love. And love is a dangerous thing for these folks. They can't understand it. They can't grasp it. It is violent for them to feel love. Bodies actually reject it. And the more we show up, you're innovating. You're speaking Starla, you're preaching. We're the leaders. They're leaders of something. They're not leaders of us. We're leaders of freedom.

Tamice (46:31):

Come on now. D, we're leaders of give us this

Starlette (46:34):

Bomb. We're leaders of compassion. You coming in here with the Holy Ghosts, acting like one of them church mothers. We were in the room together. She put our hand on us. You

Danielle (46:43):

We're the ones that can remember Trey. We're the ones that can call for justice. We don't need them to do it. They've never done it. Right. Anyway. They have never showed up for a Mexican kid. They've never showed up for a black kid. They've never done it. Right. Anyway, we're the ones that can do it now. We have access to technology. We have access to our neighbors. We can bring a meal to a friend. We can give dollars to someone that needs gas. We're the the one doing it. We're the one that doing it

Tamice (47:11):

Fill us

Danielle (47:12):

Up. They cannot take away our love.

Starlette (47:15):

Receive the benediction.

Danielle: Yeah. They can't take it away. I'm telling you, if I saw someone shooting someone I hate, I would try to save that person. I don't own guns. I don't believe in guns, period. My family, that's my personal family's belief.

And I would do that. I've thought about it many times. I thought would I do it? And I think I would because I actually believe that. I believe that people should not be shot dead. I believe that for the white kid. I believe that for the Mexican kid. I believe that for the black kid, we're the people that can show up. They're not going to come out here. They're inviting us to different kind of war. We're not in that war. That's right. We have love on our side and you cannot defeat love, kill love. You can't

Tamice (48:04):

Kill love and you can't kill life. That's the only reason somebody would ask you to be nonviolent. That's the only way somebody would've the audacity to ask that of you. Especially if you're oppressed. If the true is truth is that you can't kill love or life, damn man. It's hard out here for a pimp.

Starlette (48:38):

Really. Really? Yeah. Because what I really want to say is

Tamice (49:27):

I can't. Your testimony a lie. No. Your testimony. That would be a lie. And like I said, truth telling is important. But there are days where I could be that I could go there, but I witnessed what happened that day. I watched the video. It's just not normal to watch that happen to anybody. And I don't care who you are. And the fact that we're there is just objectively just wow. And the fact that all of the spin and do y'all not realize what just happened? Just as a actual event. Right. What? You know, I'm saying how has this turned into diatribes? Right? We need reform. I, which

Danielle (50:29):

Which, okay, so I have to cut us off. I have a client coming, but I want to hear from you, given all the nuance and complexity, how are you going to take care of your body this week or even just today? It doesn't have to be genius. Just one or two things you're going to do. Oh, I'm going to

Tamice (50:51):

Take a nap. Yeah, you taking a nap? Y'all be so proud of me. I literally just said no to five things. I was like, I'm not coming to this. I'm not doing that. I won't be at this. I'm grieving. I'm go sit in the grass. Yeah, that's what I'm doing today. And I have stuff coming up. I'm like, Nope, I'm not available.

Starlette (51:14):

What about you Danielle? What are you going to do?

Danielle (51:16):

I'm going to eat scrambled eggs with no salt. I love that. I've grown my liver back so I have to have no salt. But I do love scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs. That's the truth. Four. Four scrambled eggs.

Starlette (51:31):

And we thank you for your truth.

BIO:

The Reverend Dr. Starlette Thomas is a poet, practical theologian, and itinerant prophet for a coming undivided “kin-dom.” She is the director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, named for her work and witness and an associate editor at Good Faith Media. Starlette regularly writes on the sociopolitical construct of race and its longstanding membership in the North American church. Her writings have been featured in Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, Free Black Thought, Word & Way, Plough, Baptist News Global and Nurturing Faith Journal among others. She is a frequent guest on podcasts and has her own. The Raceless Gospel podcast takes her listeners to a virtual church service where she and her guests tackle that taboo trinity— race, religion, and politics. 

Starlette is also an activist who bears witness against police brutality and most recently the cultural erasure of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. It was erected in memory of the 2020 protests that brought the world together through this shared declaration of somebodiness after the gruesome murder of George Perry Floyd, Jr. Her act of resistance caught the attention of the Associated Press. An image of her reclaiming the rubble went viral and in May, she was featured in a CNN article.

Starlette has spoken before the World Council of Churches North America and the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops on the color- coded caste system of race and its abolition. She has also authored and presented papers to the members of the Baptist World Alliance in Zurich, Switzerland and Nassau, Bahamas to this end. She has cast a vision for the future of religion at the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s “Forward Conference: Religions Envisioning Change.” Her paper was titled “Press Forward: A Raceless Gospel for Ex- Colored People Who Have Lost Faith in White Supremacy.” She has lectured at The Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham, U.K. on a baptismal pedagogy for antiracist theological education, leadership and ministries. 

Starlette’s research interests have been supported by the Louisville Institute and the Lilly Foundation. Examining the work of the Reverend Dr. Clarence Jordan, whose farm turned “demonstration plot” in Americus, Georgia refused to agree to the social arrangements of segregation because of his Christian convictions, Starlette now takes this dirt to the church. Her thesis is titled, “Afraid of Koinonia: How life on this farm reveals the fear of Christian community.” A full circle moment, she was recently invited to write the introduction to Jordan’s newest collection of writings, The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race and Religion.

Starlette is a member of the Christian Community Development Association, the Peace & Justice Studies Association, and the Koinonia Advisory Council. A womanist in ministry, she has served as a pastor as well as a denominational leader. An unrepentant academician and bibliophile, Starlette holds degrees from Buffalo State College, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and Wesley Theological Seminary. Last year, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Sacred Theology for her work and witness as a public theologian from Wayland Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of 

"Take Me to the Water": The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church

 and a contributing author of the book 

Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth & a New Kind of Christianity.

 Dr. Tamice Spencer - Helms

God is not a weapon.  Authenticity is not a phase.

Meet  Tamice Spencer-Helms (they/she). Tamice is a nonprofit leader, scholar-practitioner, pastor, and theoactivist based in Richmond, Virginia. For decades, Tamice has been guided by a singular purpose: to confront and heal what they call “diseased imagination”—the spiritual and social dis-ease that stifles agency, creativity, and collective flourishing. As a pastor for spiritual fugitives,  Tamice grounds their work at the intersection of social transformation, soulful leadership, womanist and queer liberation theologies, and cultural critique.

A recognized voice in theoactivism, Tamice’s work bridges the intellectual and the embodied, infusing rigorous scholarship with lived experience and spiritual practice. They hold two master’s degrees (theology and leadership) and a doctorate in Social Transformation. Their frameworks, such as R.E.S.T. Mixtape and Soulful Leadership, which are research and evidence-based interventions that invite others into courageous truth-telling, radical belonging, and the kind of liberating leadership our times demand.​

Whether facilitating retreats, speaking from the stage, consulting for organizations, or curating digital sanctuaries, Tamice’s presence is both refuge and revolution. Their commitment is to help individuals and communities heal, reimagine, and build spaces where every person is seen, known, and liberated—where diseased imagination gives way to new possibilities.

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx
• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.
• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Speaker 1 (00:29):

Welcome to the Rise Podcast. As part of this process, we're going to talk about what reality is—how to find it, and how to ground yourself in it. I’ll have some regular co-hosts with me, as I mentioned earlier, and we’ll continue to explore faith, gender, race, sex, the church—all in the context of discovering reality.

Today is September 10, 2025. As I pushed to get this episode out, plans shifted and things got canceled. I was busy with the kids, checking the news, scrolling Instagram, running errands, picking up sandwiches—just an ordinary day. Then I saw the headline: Charlie Kirk had been shot.

Interestingly, Charlie Kirk and I disagree on almost everything, but I’ve occasionally listened to his podcast. I also listen to the Midas Touch podcast and others across the spectrum to understand what people are thinking and believing.

(01:47)

I ask myself: what reality am I living in, and whose voices am I letting in? When I have the capacity, I listen to people like Charlie Kirk, sometimes tune in to Fox News, check X/Twitter, or look at Truth Social—just to gauge different perspectives.

I live on Squamish land—land of cedar and clear salt water—here in Poulsbo, Washington. Kitsap County is an interesting rural mix. We’re near Seattle, often labeled “ultra-liberal,” but that doesn’t exempt us from racism, elitism, or entrenched power structures. And our rural neighbors may identify as fiscally or socially conservative. You might meet someone who voted very differently from you—someone who will happily bring you cookies, or someone who might actually despise you.

(02:48)

This mix, I think, is closer to reality than living in silos. We may choose echo chambers for news, but we still rub shoulders at coffee shops, restaurants, gyms, and schools with people who think differently.

I keep asking: how do we find a shared space to even talk? How do we locate common reality?

Back in 2020, when George Floyd was murdered, I saw deep fractures emerge. I was just starting therapy groups on race and whiteness. Our diverse group gathered to talk about racism at a time when the country seemed ready for those conversations.

(04:54)

But quickly I noticed what I call splitting—fracturing when someone said something others couldn’t accept or even register in their bodies. It sometimes caused silence or confusion, and often led to sharp, even violent words meant to wound. And often the person speaking didn’t realize the harm.

This fascinated me as a therapist. From a psychological perspective, I began to wonder: which part of ourselves shows up in everyday interactions? At a store, maybe just a polite hello. With a friend, maybe a brief check-in that still doesn’t touch the day’s deeper feelings.

(07:07)

Sometimes those layers of relationship reveal unspoken emotions—feelings inside that remain hidden. Healthy boundaries are normal, but there’s no guarantee that with those we love we suddenly share every vulnerable part of ourselves.

Now add politics, faith, love, gender, culture: more layers. Many of these parts trace back to childhood—traumas, arguments, experiences at school or with caregivers.

(08:15)

So when I see splitting—what some call polarization, black-and-white or binary thinking, or even “boundaries as weapons”—I see people wrestling with what it means to be a neighbor and to engage someone who thinks radically differently.

I feel the temptation myself to label everything all good or all bad. Children need that kind of distinction to learn what’s safe and unsafe, but adults must grow beyond it. Two things can be true at the same time: you hurt me, and I still love you and will show up. Yet our world increasingly tells us that can’t be true.

(11:05)

This pressure to split is intense—internally, from media, from social circles, from family. Sometimes I want to run away into the woods, start a farm, keep my kids home, just stay safe. Today, after news of a school shooting and Charlie Kirk’s murder, that desire feels even stronger.

There are days I simply cannot engage with people who think differently. Other days, I have more capacity.

So where is reality? For me, it’s grounding in faith—literally planting my feet on the earth, hugging a tree, touching grass.

(13:30)

I ask: who is God? Who is Jesus? And who have I been told God and Jesus are? I grew up in a rigid evangelical structure—shaped by purity culture and fear of punishment. I remember hearing, “If God calls you and you don’t act, He’ll move on and you’ll be left behind.” Even now, at 47, that idea haunts me.

When I meet people from that tradition, I feel the urge to split—making my perspective all right and theirs all wrong. I have to remind myself of their humanity and of God’s love for them.

Earlier this year, I chose to resist those splits. I called people where relationships felt scratchy or unresolved, inviting conversation. Not everyone responded, but the practice helped loosen old binds.

(16:55)

I also keep listening to multiple viewpoints. I never “followed” Charlie Kirk, but I’d check his posts and sometimes feel genuine tenderness when he shared about his family. That’s part of loving your enemies—remembering their humanity, even when you feel anger or rage.

I grew up surrounded by conservative media. I even remember the early days of Fox News. As a teen reading Time magazine, I once told my parents that Michael Dukakis’s policies aligned more with my faith than his opponent’s. Over time I drifted toward trickle-down economics, but that early instinct still stands out.

(21:22)

All of us are socialized into certain beliefs. I went from conservative evangelical spaces to a conservative liberal-arts college. People warned I might “lose my faith,” yet those history classes deepened it.

Today many claim that consuming certain media will “distort your reality.” Political violence is rising. I listen to both progressive and conservative podcasts to understand different lives. Yet when I cite something I’ve heard, I’m often told it’s “AI-generated” or “fake,” even when it’s a direct quote. Liberals do this too, around issues like Palestine, policing, or healthcare.

(24:47)

It’s painful to be around people who think differently. The question is: how do we converse without devolving into hate or shouting?

Today is September 11. Between Charlie Kirk’s assassination, yesterday’s school shooting, and attempted political killings, it’s clear our nation is split into competing realities that shape everything—from how we see safety to how we practice faith and empathy.

This podcast is about examining those realities and how we process them.

(26:44)

Sometimes we retreat inward to cope with trauma—what psychology might call dissociation or a psychic retreat. I understand the instinct to step back for safety.

Maybe these divisions always existed, and I just see them more clearly now while raising my children. That responsibility feels heavy.

(29:12)

I often turn to elders and their words—Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” They remind me others have endured violence and hatred and still held onto hope and faith.

I fight for that same hope now.

(30:04)

To ground ourselves we can:

- Connect with the earth: literally touch the ground, trees, water.

- Stay in community: share meals, exchange help, build fences together.

- Nourish faith: draw on spiritual wisdom.

- Cherish family: use loved ones as emotional barometers.

- Engage work and service: notice how they shape and sustain us.

- Face issues of race and justice: ask if we contribute to harm or to healing.

Your grounding pillars may differ, but these guide me.

(32:40)

I invite you to this journey. You may agree or disagree—that’s okay. We need space to coexist when it feels like only one side can survive.

Violence won’t change hearts. Bullets cannot replace ballots. Money cannot buy joy or transformation. Only sustained dialogue and care can.

(34:05)

I’ll share some quotes from Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez in the show notes. Please stay curious and seek the mental-health support you need. Don’t be alone in your grief or fear. If you feel triggered or overwhelmed, reach out—to a therapist, pastor, trusted friend, or crisis helpline.

A special guest and new co-host will join me next week. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Crisis Resources:

Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health Resources

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.

This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.

Kitsap County / Local Resources

Resource Contact Info What They Offer

Salish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call Line Phone: 1‑888‑910‑0416

Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/ 24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.

KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach Team Emergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416

Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/ Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.

Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS) Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715

Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/ Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.

Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now” Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416

Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx 24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.

Crisis Clinic of the Peninsulas Phone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793

Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-Resources Local crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.

NAMI Kitsap County Website: https://namikitsap.org/ Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.

Statewide & National Crisis Resources

Resource Contact Info What They Offer

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988) Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/ Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.

Washington Recovery Help Line 1‑866‑789‑1511

Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resources Help for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.

WA Warm Line 877‑500‑9276

Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/ Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.

Native & Strong Crisis Lifeline Dial 988 then press 4

Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resources Culturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.

Additional Helpful Tools & Tips

• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx

• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.

• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Christian Nationalism and Spiritual Abuse: A 90 minute workshop with Jenny McGrath (click here to register)

w/Danielle S. Castillejo and Jenny McGrath

Are you confused about what is going on in the US? Do you feel triggered about past spiritual abuse when you see certain elected officials and faith leaders using harmful rhetoric? Are you wanting understanding and tools to navigate this present moment? You are not alone!  

Danielle Castillejo and I have been researching the various tributaries of white supremacy via Christian nationalism and spiritual abuse for years now. We are devastated to see what is playing out post Trump’s election, but we are not surprised.

In early 2025 Danielle and I will be beginning groups for individuals who are wanting to process, grieve, and learn more about spiritual abuse and it’s various intersections with race. For now we are offering an introductory workshop to help individuals feel empowered to know what is going on. This workshop is hybrid- you can join online or in person in Poulsbo, Washington.

We will not be giving all of the answers, but we will be giving a framework of “purity culture” and how that has fostered violence based on race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality since the inception of the US. What is going on right now is not new, but many people are awakening to it for the first time.

Stay awake. Come learn with us how we can resist, together. Note: This workshop will be recorded and made available for future purchase. 

Speaker 1 (00:13):

Welcome to the ARise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and the church. And tune in and listen to this conversation today. Hey, thanks for joining me today. We've been talking about getting together, I think, in this format on a podcast since before the election, but obviously the election happened. It was a hectic season. I know for me, and I know for you, I want to hear about how that has been as well. But even just as we were kind of saying hello, we're leading in, I could tell like, oh man, shit, there's so many emotions that possibly come up. So we talked about talking about spiritual abuse, the election, and the role of Christianity in that. And for me, it's been so confusing. I grew up a really strict evangelical church. When Fox News appeared on the scene, my dad was watching Fox News and I was watching Fox News, and I've been trying to trace back, did I ever have any dissonance with this?

(01:22):

And I remember some of the first things when I was a kid, like reading a Time magazine about the election and wondering to myself, why do Christians, the Christians I was with, why do they support Republicans? Why are they against social programs? And then when the Iraq war was going on, it felt very clear to me that SDA Hus saying that they were lying about what was happening in the Middle East. But I didn't understand how all of the Republicans that were kind of pushing this narrative about Iraq, why didn't anybody even ask just simple history majors because

Speaker 2 (02:02):

It's

Speaker 1 (02:02):

Obvious. So those are kind of some of the origins. I remember kind of questioning my roots and questioning the narrative of say, Fox News. And now I know there's, there's Charlie Kirk, there's all these other podcast out there kind of rebranding Fox News talking points. But I mean, where that intersected with faith for me is just like, well, how do I even talk about a character like Jesus with someone from that old place when I don't really know if we're talking about the same person anymore? In fact, it's fairly clear to me that it's not the same guy. And who's that guy in the Bible? It's been very confusing for me, but I'm just curious, how do you even open up to think about those questions and kind of the topics?

Speaker 2 (02:51):

Yeah, I mean, I resonate with the confusion and definitely feel that too. And I think it's one of those things where when I try to pull it apart and get some footing on where I'm at and what I think about it, it is hard to know where to start. Even your words about, okay, Fox News came out, my dad's watching this. I'm watching this. I'm a little confused, but also not quite sure what to make of it or how to even approach the dissonance that I'm experiencing. It goes back so far and so in the air water that it feels hard to disentangle. But I mean, I'm with you and feel so much of that same confusion. And I think even being in a red state, very red state, very conservative, very evangelical area, it's almost as if the Jesus and the political views are not for many.

(04:09):

And I am sure this is not limited to this area, but one of the things I experienced is it's not even, you can't even question, you can't even ask the question, the question of, wait, what's actually happening here? What is someone who actually has a degree in history in Middle Eastern politics? You can't even ask those questions because those questions are a sign that you're doubting or that you've moved to the other side. And so there's such a blindness, and if you go away from us, you're wrong. So much fear. And to pull Jesus apart from that, it very much does feel like a different, we're talking about a different Jesus, which is super disorienting, right? Because we might use the same verses or verses from the same Bible or we celebrate the same holidays, or it feels very disorienting and very confusing.

Speaker 1 (05:21):

Yeah. I think this idea that Jesus was about love or is something of love, that he was defiant towards religious Pharisees and the people that were persecuting others in the name of religion, it's very interesting then to see one part of my family feel like they're being persecuted and in response to that persecution, they're asking for a king. Or maybe the thing that came to me was the crowd chanting when Jesus was getting ready to be crucified. And the crowd, they're like, the Romans are like, well, who do you want? And they're like, of course we want Barbi. We want the insurrectionist. We want the murderer, the cheater. That's the person we want. Let's kill Jesus. I'm not equating our political figures to Jesus and Barbi, but the idea that we will take even hearkening back to the Old Testament times that we'll take, we need a king, give us a king that somehow the politics, we need politics to save us that Jesus isn't enough anymore. And I don't know when that kind of gets mixed together, the power almost becomes unbearable to fight against, especially if you're on your own.

Speaker 2 (06:40):

Yeah. Yes. I was actually thinking about this morning how much I think, and I don't know enough about international politics to speak to anything outside of the us, but it feels like our spirituality, especially within the evangelical church in the US, has gotten. So I, I don't know that I would necessarily call myself an evangelical anymore, but that body, which carries a lot of weight, a lot of numbers, a lot of passion in our country, the spirituality has been so fused with politics that it does feel like we need a certain political movement to save us. And I think that could be said on the other side too, in some ways, and I guess in my own, as I've tried to parse out where am I at, where is my spirituality, politics are important, and I feel that we need to vote in line with how we feel, where we find ourselves in terms of our spirituality. And yet Jesus is the rescuer, not a certain political party. And what does that mean? I don't even know how to exist in the midst of where we're at today with that being true, and then it feels so hard to pull apart.

Speaker 1 (08:23):

Yeah, I mean, for me, I know it hearkens back to so many other places in my life, I've felt powerless against a huge system, or I think specifically in churches where the goal is to has often, well, my experience or the churches that I've been in, the goal has been to preserve the power of a particular pastor or a particular set of pastors and to shield them from any consequences of any ways they might act in the community or individually one-on-one for instance with women. And then I've had the feeling in these circumstances where I just have to take it. I have to take it. I have to move on. I have to accept that God works in this way, that all things work together for good. And that's the same feeling I have right now post-election, that feeling like, okay, this is what's meant to be. This is what God has ordained. You should just take it. And I'm having that similar feeling,

Speaker 2 (09:32):

Which is not right. That's not, of course, I mean, I'm resonating with what you're saying and feel that deeply, and that is a deep part of my story as well. And of course our bodies go to that. Our bodies are going to go to that story of, okay, this is how we function in the midst of this powerlessness of being within this system or up against this thing that we don't have any, what's a response to it? It feels insurmountable. So yeah, there's so much in me that's like, okay, God's still in control, but even though that feels very familiar in my body, I think as I've done work, and it also doesn't like no, no, something in me is saying, no, no, no, that's not, can't just kind of in a Christian coded scripture, coded way, settle and be okay with what is happening, even though I don't know what to do in a lot of ways, in the midst of that tension, I'm not settled, and I'm not that old pad answer, padded answer of, yeah, God's in control. Everything is going to be okay. Everything works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

(11:13):

It's not settling me,

Speaker 1 (11:16):

Right? Because it's not the same scripture if you're white as if you're black or brown or that's true, that scripture means very different things. If you're from white majority power and you say that scripture, you might have the finances and whatnot to deal with coming or the access to education, for instance. But if you're brown, you actually have to give up access to resources that can help your family, like literal, physical, pragmatic resources and be asked to be okay with that for that verse. That's a very different theology than for two sets of people.

Speaker 2 (11:53):

And it's why as I'm sitting with my clients and the work I do as a therapist, often it is the black and brown clients who are not, they haven't been able to digest this and just move on. It still, it's right here. This is the reality that we're in the middle of, and that is coming, and it is so much easier as a white person to just call on that verse, call on that scriptural ideal because we're not being cost things that those with less privilege are. And

Speaker 1 (12:44):

At the same time, what does it ask you? I can think of some examples for me, but for you in your location, what does this movement ask you to normalize or to make? Okay. Can you name specific things or general things that you can think

Speaker 2 (13:03):

The movement of the election outcome and what's coming? What's happening?

Speaker 3 (13:08):