Taking a Moment to Pause and Breathe

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 10:20:36 -0400
diversityandinclusion, radicallove, umbci3b, umbctogether

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been reading See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valerie Kaur. In the book, Kaur explores what brought her to a fight for social justice and the need for radical love, while offering insight into her lived experience as a Sikh American living in the United States. As she shares her story, she likens the darkness of the world to a “tomb” and a “womb.” In this likeness, she argues that if the world is in transition, and this darkness that we continue to experience is in fact the “darkness of the womb,” then the only way to move forward, is to “breathe and push.” We, as a community, are so connected to the pushing - pushing through, pushing up, pushing back… yet, we have not quite figured out how to first breathe.

We know that so many in our community are overflowing with emotions and feelings connected to continuing isolation and hyper vigilance from COVID-19, accompanied by what feels like non-stop death, tragedy, racial injustice, and ongoing distrust of the criminal justice system. In the past, Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion & Belonging (i3b) and our associated centers - Pride, Interfaith, and Mosaic, have often rushed to hold processing and healing spaces, with and for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and our broader campus community. As a staff team composed 100% by folks of color, we are feeling intricately impacted, and at the current moment, we have found that we simply do not have the emotional capacity to hold such a space in an authentic, productive way. Yesterday, today and for the remainder of this week, instead of pushing through our own pain, we have decided instead to pause and breathe. As we take the time to process our own rage, exhaustion, and sadness, we still want to be sure that you know that we see you and are in this with you. If you, like us, are navigating a range of emotions, we encourage you to spend this week honoring your needs, and creating space for self-care and reflection, while connecting deeply with loved ones as you engage in community care.

We offer you the following as ways to engage:

If you are feeling directly impacted.

Breathe deeply. Taking long quiet breaths helps to ground you in moments of crisis.

Connect with loved ones you trust to process, cry, or just be together. There is no “right” way to process the ongoing trauma we are experiencing.

Monitor your news and social media intake. To the degree that you are able, avoid (re)watching videos of death, or getting stuck in the traumatic news cycle.

Remember that we are in this together. As a function of White Supremacy, communities of Color can find themselves pitted against one another, getting caught in horizontal aggression and/or the Oppression Olympics. Instead of getting caught in that cycle, or “keeping score,” consider ways to coalition build and show up for one another across identities.

If you are an ally looking to support impacted communities.

Connect with your friends, family, peers, and colleagues by helping them to understand why ongoing racial violence is traumatic and overwhelming for communities of color.

Take the time to explore local organizations who are rooted in ending racial violence in MD, and more broadly across the United States.

Take the time to learn more about the impacts of racial trauma and the history of racial violence in this country. What we are experiencing today, is not new and has not necessarily ever stopped. Take the time to explore more deeply the historical context of white supremacy, racism and xenophobia in this country and the ways it continues to show up today.

Instead of getting caught up in hashtag wars, explore the lived realities of the victims of violence - learn their names and about their communities - remind yourself that they were living human beings, not just social media trends.

If you are confused by everyone’s anger.

Instead of thinking solely about what you might see as a singular current issue at hand, consider the number of BIPOC community members who have been accosted, murdered, etc. as connected to racism and xenophobia in the past two months alone. From spas in Atlanta to Fedex in Indianapolis to Minneapolis and California - there are far too many to name, but the patterns are present and clear.

Consider that we are not only talking about systemic issues, we are also talking about real people whose lives were taken - real living, breathing human beings whose lives were taken at the hands of someone else. Lean as much as you can into compassion, empathy, perspective taking, and radical love for humanity. As mentioned above, explore the lived realities of the victims of violence - learn their names and about their communities remind yourself that they were living human beings, not just social media trends.

Explore concepts like Racial Battle Fatigue and Race Based Traumatic Stress to support a more deep exploration of the impacts of racial trauma and the history of racial violence in this country.

Take the time to explore more deeply the history of white supremacy, racism, and xenophobia in this country. As you explore this history be careful not to give in to defensiveness, shame, or guilt, instead sit with any discomfort you may be experiencing and explore why those feelings may be present for you.

If you are overwhelmed and need to connect.

While our i3b staff team will not be hosting a healing or processing space this week, we are still offering times to connect with us personally. We offer this space for you to join us individually, or in small groups. You can join our office hours at the times listed below by joining using our individual Webex Personal Room links provided. Our staff will be holding office hours this week during the following times:

Tuesday, April 20 from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. with Jasmine Lee | https://umbc.webex.com/meet/jaslee | 640903142

Wednesday, April 21 from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. with Erin Waddles | https://umbc.webex.com/meet/waddles | 641819311

Thursday, April 22 from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. with Lucy Delgado https://umbc.webex.com/meet/ldelgado | 1208674009

Friday, April 23 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. with Carlos Turcios | https://umbc.webex.com/meet/carlos6 | 640105492

You can also join our Webex Chat space that serves as our virtual "lounge space" by going to our main myUMBC group page.

You may also want to connect with a confidential resource and/or clinician who is trained in dealing with issues of trauma. For such support, please connect with the Counseling Center. Find more information about connecting with a university counselor here: https://counseling.umbc.edu/

In closing, I offer this - “Revolutions do not happen only in grand moments in public view but also in small pockets of people coming together to inhabit a new way of being.” - Valerie Kaur

No matter who you are or where you are, we know that we are all navigating a lot and are all impacted by country-wide and international violence. We also know that ongoing racial violence and trauma uniquely impacts certain members of our UMBC community in ways that are pervasive, intergenerational, ongoing, and quite frankly, terrifying. Please create and protect the time you each need to care for yourself, and if you have the capacity, others. If you are feeling that you have the emotional ability and the privilege to detach from our current events, I invite you to invite others into community with you to explore new ways of being moving forward.

In solidarity and with radical love,

-Jasmine A. Lee, on behalf of the full Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion & Belonging (i3b) team