By: Lisa M. Hayes – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know
You know all the funny memes being posted by white people of giant smudge sticks with funny little phrases like, “Me smudging 2020”? I’ve got news for you:
This is what sacred smoke looks like right now.
This is the cleansing.
This is holy.
At this point, it seems like daily there is another spiritual white teacher, recoiling from the cleansing by shaming others, (predominantly people of color) for raw, scalding rage as being less than enlightened.
Spirituality has always been a tool that white supremacy used to control and destroy. So many of us in the spiritual but not religious community like to condemn the use of Christianity as a method of oppression. Too many have died at the hands of white supremacist Christian institutions.
However, it’s time to take a good long look in the mirror as we watch so many of the teachers and gurus in the “spiritual”, personal development, and coaching communities use their platforms to suppress or even worse outright shame voices of color with some misguided message of peace and love above all else.
For so many of us, the absolutes of spirituality are filtered through the lens of white privilege. This is why it’s time for white spiritual leaders to sit down and shut up. We need to sit at the feet of indigenous elders if they will have us. We need to stand BEHIND bold and brilliant women of color who are leading and ONLY step to the front if we are protecting their bodies. We need to protect black men the way we would protect any other sacred teacher.
AND we need to do this, not because it’s politically popular, but because we are broken and we can heal. This is where we need to spiritually evolve.
This thing we are doing right now – this is church.
God/Goddess is in that smoke.
Jesus rioted.
We need to unplug ourselves from passive-aggressive spiritual white supremacy and try to heal ourselves in communities where we DO NOT lead.
Sure, love is always the answer. However, anyone who believes love is passive doesn’t really understand love.
More by Lisa:
The most effective method for changing racist violent police culture will surprise you
Lisa M. Hayes, Senior Editor of Confluence Daily.
Confluence Daily is the one place where everything comes together. The one-stop for daily news for women.
