Let’s move on to some of the many reasons White people have given for why we are not racist and why we don’t need a workshop, or this book for that matter, by addressing some frequently asked questions (and frequently raised objections). These are, by the way, mostly questions and objections I have heard with my own ears or read with my own eyes—I swear I’m not making it all up. It isn’t exactly where the healing begins, but it might help to clear away some of the cobwebs, and maybe we need to wear out our conscious minds before we can access our unconscious minds—to “break our brains,” as the Dalai Lama has put it—or maybe we just need a few laughs to loosen up. Whole, brilliant books have been written around most of these points, but we may as well dispense with them briskly. We have wonderful work to do!
If you’re not in a state of denial or resistance and really do want a workshop, or a book, about spiritual healing of White racism, you’re good to go, and you can skip all this and move on—there won’t be a quiz at the end. On the other hand, perhaps you might like to think of what follows as that heavy-duty encounter-group thing we have all come to know and dread—or, as the case may be, relish as an opportunity for some schadenfreude—and if you find yourself getting all riled up at any point, you might want to skip to chapter Six and try tapping on it. Tapping works best when our emotions are right up there on the surface and boiling over, where we can really feel them.
This all may come in handy if you’re thinking of offering a workshop yourself—for free, please—and you can add and embellish according to your own experience. Or you might just find here some useful things to say the next time your Uncle Donald is making up stuff at a family gathering. With any luck, it might trigger enough to give everyone something to work on.
Seriously, though, if you’re really raring to get started on the practices, you don’t have to read any of this now. You can always come back to it later if you really want to see what all the fuss was about.
Q: Isn’t White racism really a systemic problem, and not a personal one? Shouldn’t we be focusing on making systemic changes instead of centering White people’s precious character defects?
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