• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Heart - Head - Hands logo

  • About
    • Beth Godbee
    • Commitments
    • Offerings
    • Publications
  • Blog
    • Contemplative Practices
    • Emotional Literacies
    • Everyday Feminism
    • Higher Education
    • Interviews
    • Racial Justice
    • Recipes
    • Why Vegan?
  • Coaching
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Navigation Menu: Social Icons

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter

3 Reasons to Participate in the 40-Day Practice on Strengthening Emotional Literacies to Counter White Fragility

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies, Racial Justice By Beth Godbee November 20, 2019 Leave a Comment

Starting on November 22nd and running for the final 40 days of 2019, I’m offering the “40-Day Practice: Strengthening Emotional Literacies to Counter White Fragility.” Every time I offer this practice (this will be my third and second online), I get a lot of questions, including what this work involves, why it asks for a commitment of 40 days, and why it focuses on emotions.

Along with showing 4 emoticons representing different emotions, this flyer reads, “40-Day Practice: Strengthening Emotional Literacies to Counter White Fragility. Nov. 22 – Dec. 31.”

Though I hope the course description answers many of these questions—and I’m happy to answer questions at any time—I also want to share reasons I believe in this work.

This post, therefore, answers the most frequently asked question: WHY?

  • Why do sustained work with emotional literacies?
  • Why counter white fragility (the myth, the harm, and the learned behaviors)?
  • Why commit to a daily practice?

Three Reasons Why:

1. To shift habits by practicing—again and again and again.

Like holidays, the period of 40 days has a spiritual significance, as many faith, cultural, and wisdom traditions use 40 days to mark transformation (birth, death, and change). Forty days are linked with habit formation and with creation of daily routines. This time period, therefore, is intentional for building a self-work practice that can be repeated and carried well beyond the 40 days.

Committing to daily practice matters because small actions, when sustained, add up to significant change. Learning and unlearning requires time to make shifts in thinking, feeling, being, acting, and showing up. So, repeated practice—with the attitude of “try-try again”—allows for making change.

And so many changes are needed now—throughout our everyday lives.

White supremacy is both internalized and institutional; it’s both systemic and enacted through everyday interactions. It’s woven into the fabric of society, shaping relations with ourselves, with others, and within institutions, including families, workplaces, and holidays.

We need, therefore, long-term commitments to antiracism and racial justice, along with daily practice acting on these commitments. We need daily practice in witnessing and interrupting microaggressions, crying out against oppression, investing in ancestral healing, and more. And those of us who are white—who experience the world through whiteness and have internalized white supremacy and white fragility—need these practices especially.

At this time of year when seasonal shifts invite introspection, we need practices that support learning and unlearning, embracing both/and.

2. To invest in the critique for racial justice.

Much of our schooling, when it addresses injustice at all, addresses it as a problem to study. Our energies get directed, therefore, toward the critique against injustice, which is absolutely needed and important. However, we need *both* the critique against *and* the critique for. And we need ongoing education that builds our literacies and capacities to strive toward social, racial, and environmental justice.

Said differently, if we look only at the problem (e.g., white fragility), we can get stuck and fail to imagine ways out of the mess. To invest in visioning and striving toward racial justice, we need to feel-think-act into the critique for, which includes deep emotional work.

The self-work or “shadow work” of countering white fragility involves recognizing that “fragility” is a socialized state and a functioning apparatus of oppression and, therefore, truly a myth—but a powerful myth that does harm. From this recognition, work toward investigating and disinvesting from white fragility can happen. And then it’s possible to create new emotional patterns.

Bottom line: it’s not enough to understand the critique against racism and injustice. We need active engagement with fully embodied ways of enacting a critique for, too.

3. To do emotionally messy work toward unlearning whiteness and white fragility.

How can those of us who experience internalized whiteness and white supremacy recognize and respond to emotions before they do harm? How can we take accountability when they do? And how can we recognize complicity with the long-standing harm and systems that prevent taking accountability?

In many ways, reckoning with white fragility begins with reckoning with whiteness, which is all around and in us—like the air we breathe. Here’s a definition from Robin DiAngelo’s 2011 article “White Fragility,” citing sociologist Ruth Frankenberg, who defined whiteness as multi-dimensional:

“Whiteness is a location of structural advantage, of race privilege. Second, it is a ‘standpoint,’ a place from which White people look at ourselves, at others, and at society. Third, ‘Whiteness’ refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed. (p.1)” (page 56, emphasis added)

These three components of whiteness—(1) structural advantage, (2) standpoint or perspective, and (3) cultural practices—add up to triple trouble. Particular ways of being and doing—and, therefore, people involved in this being and doing—are privileged over others. These three components reinforce and concretize dehumanization so that hierarchical power structures (including white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and interconnected oppressions) show up throughout everyday life. The work of unlearning whiteness is critical, and yet the unlearning process is messy, messy, messy.

Performances of white fragility come out especially through the unlearning process and in multiracial educational spaces, doing further harm and asking us to take seriously calls for white caucus spaces. The 40-day practice takes up these calls, acting on the YWCA’s goals for white caucuses to help with deepening self-reflection, commitment, and accountability among white folks.

By holding space for emotionally messy and imperfect work, the 40-day practice strives to shift habits, to facilitate learning + unlearning, and to build the critique for racial justice, hopefully in a form that lessens harm along the way.

Referral from Mel (participant from Pennsylvania): “The experience taught me a lot about what it takes to actively practice anti-racism.”

While there are many reasons to participate in the “40-Day Practice: Strengthening Emotional Literacies to Counter White Fragility,” my hope is that these three reasons begin to answer why I believe in this work and why I ask others to commit to the 40 days, too.

—
This post is written by
Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For related posts, you might try “My New Year’s Resolution = Self-Love for Countering White Fragility” and “Self-Inquiry and Social Justice: What’s Walking Got to Do with It?”

Consider joining or sharing with others “The 40-Day Practice: Strengthening Emotional Literacies to Counter White Fragility.” And reach out with questions or feedback at any time.

Also, join me on Patreon for additional monthly content. And consider subscribing to the newsletter and liking this blog on FB. Thanks!

Share this:

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Pocket

Tagged with: activism, antiracism, commitments, community care, countering perfectionism, embodiment, emotional literacies, habits, healing, hope, learning, meditation, microaggressions, power, racial justice, resilience, social justice, systemic oppression, teaching, understanding injustice, white fragility, whiteness

Support the Work

subscribe to posts:

Previous Post: « Q&A with Alexa Eason: Intern with Heart Head Hands
Next Post: Q&A with Mel Meder: Why Support generative somatics »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

About This Site

Embodied knowledge matters. So do commitments. And especially acting on commitments as part of everyday life, BIG and small. This website—a mix of blog posts and research writing, courses and offerings—shares ongoing efforts toward everyday living (feeling, thinking, and doing) for justice.

Subscribe via Patreon

This button from Patreon says “Become a Patron” in white font against a bright orange background.

Subscribe to Newsletter

courses, webinars, and writing groups

This e-course announcement shows a yellow sunflower and blue sky. It includes a textbox with the following information: “E-COURSE AVAILABLE NOW! Career Discernment for Academics: Aligning Career with Commitments. Self-paced study, exercises, coaching, and more ...”

This ad reads: “Time to write! Writing Retreats. Learn more @ Heart-Head-Hands.com.” A white coffee mug and table appear in the foreground, with golden chairs and walls in the background.

This image shows writing tools (phone, keyboard, journal, pencil, and pen) along with the event information: “Online Writing Groups. Tuesday and Friday mornings 10am EST | 9am CST | 8am MST | 7am PST. Come Write Together: Heart-Head-Hands.com.”

This image shows a scene of wrapped packages, a pine cone, and evergreen branches. A white text box shares the circular logo for Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice, and another text box reads: “gift cards available.”

Categories

  • Contemplative Practices (59)
  • Emotional Literacies (81)
  • Everyday Feminism (100)
  • Higher Education (49)
  • Interviews (9)
  • Racial Justice (61)
  • Recipes (22)
  • Why Vegan? (12)

Footer

bethgodbee

I've been reflecting a lot on trails this winter a I've been reflecting a lot on trails this winter and feeling how grateful I am that my work, especially coaching, is rooted in relationships.
 
One-with-one coaching can mean many different things, but it always involves connecting, listening, question-asking, and co-learning. At its best, it highlights what’s possible—possible in writing, relations, and life.
 
If you're interested in learning more or want to try a session, reach out. I'm here.
 
*This photo shows me standing next to a carved statue of two bears (adult and cub). Bears remind me of the importance of introspection and self-work, especially during the winter hibernation season. What are you reflecting on these days?

#coaching #learning #writing #reflecting #reflection #reflectivepractice #winter
#Repost @cl_collaboratory with @use.repost
・・・
We would like to formally announce the opening of applications for our Spring 2023 Possibilities Hub Seminar, titled "Coalitional Literacies: Strategies for Building Social Justice Initiatives Across Institutions," hosted by Drs. Jones, Gonzales, and Del Hierro. 

Applications close February 17! You can scan the QR code on the flyer below or visit the Programs page on our website to do so.

#literacy #literacyseminar #freeseminar #socialjustice #socialjusticeeducation #seminar
I keep six writing retreat dates open at a time an I keep six writing retreat dates open at a time and schedule retreats on different days of the week, hoping this supports access.
 
Is there an upcoming date you’d like to join?
 
Share, register, and sign up here: https://heart-head-hands.com/product/writing-retreats/ —> link in bio. ✏️
 
Image shows lined notebook paper; a yellow pencil; and pink, green, and yellow text that reads: “writing retreats upcoming dates: Wed, Feb 8 / Thurs, Feb 16 / Sat, Feb 25 (next Saturday) / Mon, Mar 6 / Thurs, Mar 16 / Wed, Mar 22nd. Heart-Head-Hands.com.”

#writing #writinginspiration #writingcommunity #writer #writersofinstagram #WritingResources #WritingSupport #WritingLife #WritingCenterLife #WritingTime #writinggoals #writersblock #writingmotivation #writerscommunity #writers #WritingCoach #WritingGroup #WritingRetreat #WritingFeedback #HigherEd #HigherEducation #Dissertation #Book #GrantWriting #CreativeWriting #TenureTrack #CommunityWriting #PublicWriting #UpcomingDates
Happy Saturday! Here are some photos from a winte Happy Saturday!

Here are some photos from a winter break last week -- time at the beach and in the marshes. Hoping the nature connection may bring a boost this weekend. 

Photo descriptions:
1. The beach at sunset.
2. Cypress knees in a swampy area.
3. Me and Jonathan in the swamp at sunset.
4. Marshlands with blue water and sky.
5. Tendrils / winding lines in the sand.
6. Awesome branching tree.
7. A final ocean sunset pic.
#Repost @mvmnt4blklives with @use.repost ・・・ #Repost @mvmnt4blklives with @use.repost
・・・
PASS IT ON, COPY/PASTE:

From Jenin to Memphis to Atlanta, the wave of grief from losing our people to cops & soldiers must end. Defund them:

1. Abolish the police and #StopCopCity. #DefundThePolice
2. Stop funding Israel's massacres of the Palestinian people. #StopArmingIsrael

Repost this image and pass it on.
Load More... Follow on Instagram

About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former writing studies professor who believes our fully embodied selves matter in the world. We can’t just think our way out of the incredible injustices, dehumanization, violence, and wrongdoing that characterize everyday life. We must feel and act, too. [Pronouns: she/her.] Read more ...

This image shows books alongside the words: courses, coaching, consulting. learning + unlearning.

Copyright © 2023