Love Letters 2 Humanity

We're exploring accountability. Individual accountability and collective accountability. In this episode, I get real. I share two stories of harm I'm responsible for and introduce Mia Mingus' work on accountability. I share a bit about how I work toward accountability in my own life AND THEN I connect the conversation to our collective experiences. Specifically, I talk about the ways the United States of America needs to work on accountability (for real, for real)) - accountability for a series of harms that begin with Native Americans, continue with enslaved Africans, and are showing up right now as white backlash. I'm also uploading two short self-reflective practice videos that accompany this episode. Watch the episode. Leave a comment. Like. Share. Subscribe.

I've created a new podcast. This is all about collective healing and liberation. Episode 1 is an introduction. I share the reason I started the podcast, I delve into the ways trauma and oppression have presented challenges and. material barriers to collective liberation, I call in spiritual teachers and all the practitioners of "Love and Light" who are silent as we live through these most violent times, and I offer humanizing ideas and tangible ways we can put these ideas into practice. I close with a short somatic practice adapted from Resmaa Menakem. Throughout the podcast I mention the teachers and thought-leaders who continue to inspire my work. Teachers like Howard Thurman, Katie Geneva Cannon, Audre Lorde, Natalie Gutierrez, Prentis Hemphill and many others. I name very specific bell hooks and her idea: A Love Ethic. Subscribe. Listen. Share. Thank you!

In this Soul-Centered Conversation, I am talking with decolonial scholar and Bay Area DJ and entrepreneur, Jose Arias, about healing Black and Brown relationships. Jose was born in San Francisco to a Salvadorian father and white-identified mother from the Mid-West. He identifies as a son of El Salvador and the Bay Area. This mix of backgrounds, as a decolonial scholar and as someone of Latin American and American descent, made him the perfect person for this conversation. Too often, we have experienced rifts between these two groups. There's a legacy of anti-Blackness that comes with being colonized people - that comes along with white supremacy culture. There's a legacy of anti-Blackness woven into the fabric of America and sometimes that shows up as marginalized people targeting one another. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation, so I'm including a breakdown of what I'm calling chapters (so you can get it where you fit in, as a friend of mine would say): Intro: About Jose, 00:23-4:54 Chapter 1: Music, 4:55-12:06Chapter 2: Black and Brown Relationships, 12:07-19:17 Chapter 3: Religion, History, & White Supremacy Culture, 19:18-31:19Chapter 4: Personal Experiences re Anti-Blackness, 31:20-39:02 Chapter 5: The Impact of Anti-Blackness, 39:03-41:08 Chapter 6: Challenging our own binaries and judgements (even with people we consider racist), 41:09-51:01 Chapter 7: Case in Point: Anti-Blackness in the LA City Council, 51:02-1:06 Chapter 8: Cancel Culture, 1:07-1:13 Bonus Chapter: Jose’s Background in Decolonial Thought, 1:14

In this conversation, with musician, musical soul, Sambadá member, and co-conspirator, Annie Stafford, we explore white responsibility in ending racism. As a "Black-bodied" person, I have come to see that the labor associated with ending racism has largely been placed on "bodies of culture" (bodies of culture is a term to describe Black, Indigenous, People of Color coined by Resmaa Menakem). I also believe, ending racism requires the labor of white bodied people. Racism and oppression hurts all people - including white bodied people. To that end, conversations like this one feel necessary. Thank you, Annie, for being willing to have this Soul-Centered Conversation. As I begin to prep for my film on truth, reconciliation, and reparations I will be having conversations with friends, community members, and wisdom keepers about ending racism and oppression.