A Call to Breathe

Until now, I’ve been silent on social media in regards to the protests and uprisings across the country. It hasn’t been out of apathy or concern about my grid aesthetics either… I’ve just really been taking time to process. 

I’ve been processing my own emotions. I’ve been processing being inside (and safe) from COVID-19 while grieving the deaths of the family members of friends who’ve passed either as a direct result of COVID-19 or who have happened to have transitioned during this time. I’ve been processing the way in which we value life, as my brother has and is currently (and victoriously) fighting for his own. I’ve been processing what it means to hold space for myself through meditation and self-care. By doing so I’ve realized that self-care can be both milk baths and revisiting painful traumas. It’s treating yourself and unpacking toxic habits and behaviors. I’ve come to know that holding space means meditating and sitting right next to the shit that upsets you and that hurts the most and then still choosing to press on whether you’ve unpacked those things, resolved them, or just acknowledged that they’re there. I’ve been processing that mindfulness and self-care are far more than buzz words to help you find your “good vibe tribe” or escapism in the form of macrame plant holders and “namaste in bed” t-shirts. I’ve been processing that right now, mindfulness is my form of preservation. It is a cool salve used to treat the wounds caused by racism and transphobia. It’s a deep breath covered by a face mask literally protecting my body and spirit from both the pandemic and the lethal psychosis of whiteness. Mindfulness brings my attention to the fact that a Black woman was murdered inside of her home, while asleep, and yet Breonna Taylor’s name is sandwiched between Ahmaud and George’s if mentioned at all (while her killer still remains free); and, it’s saying Tony McDade’s name and researching the names of countless other trans folks who have been murdered without public outcry or news coverage. Mindfulness compels me to sit quietly with my thoughts in an online and real world full of noise so that I can choose my words carefully in hopes to say some shit that actually matters. 

So what do I post? What do I say? 

I’ll say I’m hurting. I’m worried. I’m tired. I’m sad. I’m angry. I’m optimistic. I’m depressed. I SEE COLOR. I’m over it. Some days I minimize my interactions with the white people in my life because I’m just not ready and some days are harder than others--this includes the amazing white folks that I know are aligned in this work.

I also say, y’all just breathe. 

Black sisters, brothers, & non-binary siblings in the struggle take a deep breath. Other people of color, y’all get in here and breathe. Sit up straight. Put your feet flat on the floor or sit down on the ground. Close your eyes. Inhale deeply through your nose and exhale from your mouth. Do it right now. At least three times. Let your shoulders relax from your ears. Unclench your jaw. Smooth your fingers across your brow line. Keep going until you feel better. Do it as many times as you need to. Will breathing solve our current crisis? Maybe not alone. However, it will help to create the necessary conditions inside your body and mind to keep fighting.

Breathing centers our minds and bodies. It can calm us and help us to make more grounded decisions when emotions and tensions are both high. It could save a life. It could change the outcome of a decision. Whether you’re protesting on the street, or scrolling at home, baby breathe. Before engaging with that person online, breathe. Decide if it’s worth your energy and if it ain’t then cancel it. Breathe before reposting. That breath is just enough time for you to ask yourself “how will this impact my followers? Does my audience actually need to see this right now?” Breathe as a form of resistance. Breathe for those who used their last words to tell us that they couldn’t. Breathe before you cuss they ass out, and maybe you won’t want to anymore. Maybe you will, and if you do, you’ll have done it with intention instead of an out of control emotional reaction--reclaim that power. 

Starting the day with yourself practicing mindfulness calls all of that power back to you. The news cycle is 24 hours and I guarantee that there will be new headlines waiting for you when you open your eyes in the morning. The Corona virus is still very real. Bills still need to be paid, and you may still be triggered on your next work zoom call. Start your day intentionally with breathing or journaling or meditation and watch what that does for you.

For the white folks talking all loud online right now take a deep breath. Hush.

Please. 

Hush. Still your fingers from typing. Hush.

Inhale empathy, and exhale defensiveness. Inhale understanding, and exhale the desire to co-opt conversations about LIVED experiences. If you don’t believe that could be someone’s reality because it sounds so crazy, then just accept it as so. Inhale humanity, and exhale entitlement. Inhale cooperation, and exhale the debate. Let go of anything that may be oppositional to Black Lives Mattering right now and forevermore. We know your lives matter--it’s never been a question. I offer that meditation to you. 

Mindfulness and breathing can calm our minds and lower our defenses. When we are able to listen and hear (not listening to refute to respond but to hear) then we increase our chances of understanding. For y’all who love to quote what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have said, wanted, and done had he not been assassinated by the FBI’s COINTELPRO, I offer you these words from his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, a scathing critique of the white moderate and white faith leaders. Let me remind you that he wrote this letter in jail, as he was arrested for leading a non-violent protest.

Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"...Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Later in the letter he says, “...Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained…” 

And before y’all start saying, “yEah BuT, tHat’s BEen tAkeN oUt oF coNTeXt...:” it hasn’t. Those words are just as relevant and ring just as true today as they did 57 years ago. Mindfulness will allow you to process your own shit and can potentially change and bless your life. It may allow you the opportunity to lift up a person of color’s voice over your own (see the hashtag #amplifymelanatedvoices). Practicing intentional breaths may even save both your immediate and distant future by allowing processing time to prevent rash Amy Cooper type decisions that could cost you your privacy, job, or worse--your pet. 

And for the Black folk who find yourself attacking other Black folk online--whether it be a critique of our expression of pain, ill-advising folks on what they should be doing instead/ withholding the Black vote, or minimizing the experiences of others because you too participate in this collective oppression, just breathe. Allow this breath to usher you into a place of peace. A place where you can sit and process whether your beliefs are a result of your own critical thinking and lived experience, or if they are a result of internalized racism and respectability politics. Are you too being informed by the media cycle, quotes posted out of context, and flawed logic? If so, that’s okay, beloved… Let your breath bring you into a new awareness.

I’m finding myself here in this place now. Breathing to liberate my sorrows. Breathing to find my connection with myself. Breathing as an act of radical self-care--as a way to love myself when it is clear that the world does not. The now ancestor Toni Morrison describes the radical and practical way in which we should go about loving our Black selves inside and out in Beloved, when she writes: 

And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. and all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver--love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”

Let your breath be the vessel for and symbol of the love that you give yourself. Let it be the proverbial hand you place over yourself to grace and hold up. Let it be the expression of love--for “this is the prize.”

Is this whole post to say that breathing alone is the antidote for institutionalized racism, police brutality, ignorance, homophobia, transphobia, misogynoir, all of the other “phobias” that result in the loss of lives? No. It isn’t. It would be naive and insulting to suggest so. 

And what if it did? What if the breaths that preceded tragedy gave enough time for the aggressor to pause and change course? What if the deep breath at the 7 minute mark resulted in the officer hearing and listening to George’s screams prompting him to lift his knee off of George Floyd’s neck. What if the occupant in the white house … I’m not looking for a what if for him, but the practice can include him too. 

What if mindfulness practices created the conditions in each of us to accept, strategize, and heal? 

What do I say? …I say, breathe.