Tending Our Fear, Building Our Resilience: White People for Collective Liberation

Fear keeps us white people from accessing so much of our power. We fear “doing it wrong” or not doing enough. We fear losing relationships because of our commitment to racial justice, which is a fear related to our belonging. We fear violence and the repercussions of taking bold action in the context of empire governed by racial capitalism.

These fears are legitimate and are taking care of our basic human needs. And, when we don’t tend our fear well, they get in the way of bringing ourselves into alignment with our values. Like: moving powerfully toward collective liberation. Like: leveraging our power as a white-identified person for the sake of protecting Black and Indigenous life.

In order to work with our fear we need to ensure we are well resourced and supported. Whiteness leaves us with an emptiness and a lack of cultural practices and containers to be with and process our fear.

Through group dialogue, self-reflection, story-telling, resiliency practice, somatic practice, and ritual, we will access and build  up our resiliency practices so that we can feel more prepared to take bigger risks; enter the tender work of naming and facing our fears; and refuse to let those fears govern our actions.