BLACK LIVES MATTER

Image of a group of protesters wearing masks. One is wearing a t-shirt with Black Lives Matter across the front. Another holds a paper sign in one hand that reads No Justice No Peace; the other hand is raised in a fist.

I stand in full support of all who are protesting systemic white supremacy and police brutality and I support the necessary right to protest the gross injustices enacted on human lives.

I am committed to supporting the work of organizations and individual leaders who work to eradicate white supremacy and police violence while centering BIPOC and women leadership and focusing on community-based solutions and restorative justice.


It's been one week since George Floyd was murdered by a violent police officer while three other officers looked on and did nothing to stop it. This needs to be said:

BLACK LIVES MATTER.
POLICE VIOLENCE NEEDS TO END NOW.
AND SYSTEMIC RACISM NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED.

You might think these words don't belong in the context of a yoga, meditation, or spirituality practice, but you'd be dead wrong. The greatest humanitarian and spiritual leaders of our time have fought against brutal oppression and used their voices and their teachings to inspire real change for the masses.

You might think it's a better approach to lead with the idea that we are all "one" and that we should be focusing on "love" and "peace" instead of validating the collective anger, frustration, and rage we're seeing right now. Again, no.

While we know that human beings should be treated with equal respect, rights, and dignity, we also know, at the deepest levels of our being, that all are not treated the same.

What we may not see plainly, if we are privileged in our society, is the unfathomable depth at which that inequality exists in our country and the lengths which have been gone to at every level to keep it that way.

We also might not see the existence of our own implicit biases and the many ways we are taught to see different groups of people as different from each other–– even at the same time we may be taught to say, "I don't see color."

If we believe that all beings deserve to be treated equally, then we have to stand up and say so.
And we have to do it now.

Over the last week, we've seen the rapid escalation of tensions as protestors took to the streets to demand justice for Floyd and a painfully long and growing list of Black people killed by police, as well as those murdered by racist individuals. Justice, repeatedly, is absent.

And it is because of the very particular kinds of abuse and oppression that Black Americans have faced and continue to face that we must unequivocally say BLACK LIVES MATTER.

What we are seeing now is an uprising against the daily trauma, pain, suffering, stealing of resources, injustice, unaccountability, and inhumanity that have been suffered by Black people in America for 400 years.

In response, we've seen escalated violence from police around the country and threats of violence from the president, who, rather than using the opportunity to acknowledge the pain, suffering, and fear of Black people in America, or to try to strike any chord of unity amidst the outrage of so many Americans, held up a bible for a photo opportunity while threatening military force against Americans exercising their right to protest.

We are all keenly aware that no matter how many times and ways Black Americans have tried to address, protest, and change the injustices they face every day, their struggles continue to be largely the same. So now is not the time to talk about how someone should be fighting for their own lives and the lives of their entire family and community. Colin Kaepernick took a knee and many NFL players and coaches joined him. And yet, he was met with white rage and the president called him a “son of a bitch.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is regularly referred to by white people as a symbol of peaceful protest, but too often his real teachings go ignored, as does the fact that he was hated by MANY white Americans while he was alive. So hated that he was assassinated. After protesting peacefully. So please, if you are truly interested in the work of Dr. King right now, don’t just post memes and quotes– read more of his speeches, watch his interviews, understand that he preached and advocated for the liberation of Black Americans from economic- and white-supremacist-terrorist oppression and not just the "nice" dream of equality.

Dr. King also said that "Riots are the language of the unheard," so I think it's clear where he would have stood on Black Americans taking to the streets right now. And I think it’s VERY clear what the current president would have said about him and how police would have responded to his peaceful protest and how many white Americans would have agreed. Let’s not kid ourselves.

If our practice is about truthfulness, then it must be about learning to see and to strip away the lies and untruths we’ve been taught to uphold systems of oppression and injustice. It must be about striving to align our actions with truth.

If our practice is about love, then it must also be about justice. It must be about creating a world in which people are valued, provided with resources and opportunities, held and supported by communities, listened to and heard, and met with genuine and fierce kindness– not just “niceness.”

Our practice does not begin and end with ourselves. Rather, we begin to grow and evolve as human beings when we learn to be of selfless service to those with whom we share the world. We begin to step into our own power when we find the courage and clarity to shine our light in the darkest of spaces and in the darkest of times.

That time is now.

Stand up. Speak up. Shine.

In Solidarity,