August 7, 2023 • 29 mins
Have you ever wondered how grief and loss might pave a pathway toward spiritual growth? In this penultimate episode of Fare of the Free Child podcast, I share with you the fourth path in my care package to this community. Sharing Season 9 reflections, Chemay Morales-James, Vanessa Molano, Jasai Madden, Stori, and I bring to life our experiences in this liberation walk. Engaging in a candid exploration of spirituality, manifestation, magic, and money, we unravel the ways it has shaped our lives. We also dive into our origin stories and the leveling up it has brought us to.
Taking a step further, we tackle the often overlooked issue of pervasive whiteness ingrained in ourselves, our communities, and our learning or workspaces. Drawing from the wisdom condensed in the Developing a Disruptor's Ear workbook, we unearth the impacts of whiteness on various aspects of education and society. Pervasive Whiteness, as we articulate, "Is when a white person either unconsciously or deliberately asserts unsolicited opinions and ideas using their voice, bodies or a particular approach or mindset - like NVC- in ways that are dismissive of the voices, bodies, and experiences of those outside their 'in-group' or culture."
"Pervasive Whiteness is an embodiment of harmful structures deeply rooted in modernity and coloniality, transcending beyond white bodies." It's a significant thread that weaves through our conversation as we share notes from pages 15 to 27 of the workbook.
In the final segment of our discussion, we challenge the traditional norms and tactics underpinned by pervasive whiteness. We delve into the intricate ways whiteness weaponizes communication and highlight the schoolishness that unknowingly seep into our daily lives.
As we wrap up, with our FINAL episode next week, I extend an invitation for you to continue this enlightening journey by accessing the five pathways I have gifted you on this departure. I remain deeply grateful for your unwavering support!
Links:
RFP Unschool
Developing a Disruptor's Ear
Eclectic Learning Network
RFP Book
Bayo Akomolafe
Rooted Global Village
Ep 120
Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!
The Raising Free People Practice Card Deck
https://schoolishness.com/market/rfp-a-practice-deck/
Peek at the details of Personal Manifesto Path (will be available exclusively through our make-it-happen family on Patreon)
https://www.rfpunschool.com/p/manifesto
Our Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/@fareofthefreechild
The Village:
https://my-reflection-matters.mn.co/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on Fair of the Free Child podcast.
So many of us some of us a lotmore than others got a ton of
practice with grief and lossPractice.
We didn't ask for Practice wemight still be processing, but
lots of practice with grief andloss.
(00:21):
Grief and loss that is fardeeper than a podcast ending,
which is one of the forms ofgrief and loss that is present
in my life.
We are at the second to lastepisode of Fair of the Free
Child and I know that I sharethat sense of grief and loss
with some of you, as you havetold me what the podcast has
(00:44):
helped you work through, what ithas brought into your orbit,
what it has strengthened, whatit has helped you to notice
about yourself.
That's been there, just neededto be conjured up, and either I
or somebody else you listened toon this podcast was in a
position to do that.
Conjuring with our stories.
Just all the ways that thispodcast has lived and impacted
(01:10):
are part of a small part of thevariety of loss and grief that
so many of us have experienced,particularly over the past few
years since the pandemic thelevels of grief and loss, the
visibility of it through socialmedia and other technology, the
(01:34):
amplifying of more voices, as wehear, for example, from more
indigenous people nativeindigenous people about the
impact and continuation of griefand loss in the United States
and beyond.
Or it's just there's just somuch unraveling as much as there
(01:54):
is the building up, theevolution of, say, technology,
which is exhilarating andfrightening, there is also the
slowing down to work withunraveling to savor life.
On the other side of thefast-paced everything, when
(02:18):
situations, relationships,climate change, when all of
these things encourage orperhaps force us to slow down
right.
When this slow down happens,maybe without our consent, then
we are in a different positionto pay attention to it.
Me personally, I have beenfeeling the effects of slowing
(02:44):
down and a lot of them have beenpositive.
Maybe on the other side ofpainful, positive, and some of
that I did publicly with thegood sis Damari in season eight,
when we talked about pausing,which last episode I got into a
little bit more and season nine,as I move into this recap of
(03:08):
season nine, we talked aboutnotes from the other side of the
pause.
I had recognized that thatpause was not in service of
going more fast or better.
It was actually even more of aninvitation to slow down and to
savor, which is what I'm movinginto beyond this podcast, and
(03:28):
next week I will talk in moredetail about the things that I'm
moving on to, in addition tosome of the ways that you can
continue to get this work beyondthe podcast.
You can't keep using tools ofoppression and expect to raise
free people.
(03:53):
So, season nine last season, wetalked about spirituality and
intuition in self-directededucation.
Shout out to Chamei, morales,james and the
MyReflectionMatters communitythat whole team of folks who, by
the way, celebrated at thebeginning of this month August
in 2023.
(04:14):
Their three year anniversary.
It's been three years, as ofthe time that I'm recording this
, that MyReflectionMatters hasbeen moving and grooving,
supporting, serving, connecting.
They also have a fantasticvillage support system that you
can also support through theirPatreon, patreoncom forward
(04:36):
slash MyReflectionMatters.
Chamei came through and we had atwo part discussion on
spirituality and intuition inself-directed education.
How, for many of us, thisjourney as you heard Yolanda
Coles Jones say last week isabout our parenting, is about
education and also is about us,our journeying with ourselves,
(05:00):
our own unravelings, our ownnoticings, the ways that we have
to sit with, what we got tostop doing and why, and not so
much what we need to start doingor do more of All of it is in
the mix, and so your personalleadership practices get named
and refined through this processof raising free people, and we
(05:23):
talked about that.
We also had an origin storywhere Naz and I talked about how
we met.
We did a sort of rememberingand releasing ritual out loud,
and that in and of itself wasand remains spiritual work.
We continued that spiritualtheme with Aliyah Waste Beads,
(05:48):
where Jisai and Story the motherdaughter team behind Aliyah
Waste Beads joined us to talkabout spiritual technology and
more mad question asking andjust affirming and doing a lot
of reflection about how Jisaiand I met another origin story
and how some of the spiritualwork that we were doing back
(06:10):
then really worked and how itled us to where we found
ourselves years later when sheand I reconvened for that
episode.
That conversation is also whatsparked my revisiting and up
leveling of personal manifestopath, the course that is
(06:31):
happening through our Make itHappen family on patreoncom
forward slash akila.
Our very first class is August22nd and we run weekly through
November 7th from 6pm to 7.30pmEastern every single week, shout
it.
So I'm excited about that weare going to talk about
(06:51):
abundance, which we also talkedabout in season nine.
We talked about abundanceculture, abundance being a we
thing, not a me thing, and thatconversation was guided by
Vanessa Milano, who came in as aproject manager, bridget
Bridging so many gaps that Nazand I needed to help get filled
(07:13):
as the podcast grew into thenetwork over the years, and we
were just kind of holding onlike whoa While all of that was
happening.
So shout out to Vanessa, younailed it, bro.
We're so appreciative.
You are amazing.
You are amazing.
When Chame was back on, wetalked about manifestation,
(07:34):
magic, money as a tool.
Chame talked about the role ofintuition in her life and her
intuition led path to thatupdated business model that
centers relationships and notdollars.
Vanessa was a huge part of thatbecause they updated to this
star model and you can hear allabout that star model.
(07:56):
If you too are growing arelationship centered community,
you might benefit from theknowledge, the exposure to that
star model.
So check that out.
Season nine was a dope anddelicious because we talked
about the spiritual things, andI know that perhaps some folks
(08:17):
hear that and say what they gotto do with unschooling, which is
exactly why you would need tolisten to season nine.
What we are talking about nowis the fourth of the five care
packages that have beenassembled specifically for you.
(08:40):
This fourth one is called myWhiteness Centric Work Life Path
.
It is for folks who want toface the power over mindset that
we are all steeped in, and wantto do it through getting more
and more familiar, morepracticed with unschooling, the
skills of unschooling notnecessarily taking a child out
(09:00):
of school, but really focusingon some of the skill sets and
characteristics of theunschooling life.
What I'm going to pull fromhere is a workbook called
Developing a Disruptor's Ear.
You have heard me talk about itbecause Malika digs of Speak
(09:22):
and Be Easy and more widelyknown Eclectic Learning Network.
Malika and I created thisworkbook as a result of being
two black women in theself-directed education space to
whom people reached out becausethey were the black person at
the Agile Learning Center or atthe Sudbury School or at the
(09:45):
co-op or whatever the thing was.
They were one of, if not theonly, and they were having the
issues.
That happen because pervasivewhiteness is everywhere and it
lives in a variety of bodies,not just in white bodies.
They would reach out becausethey were not in a position to
speak up about the issues theywere experiencing because it was
(10:07):
more layered for them than forme or Malika.
For example, if they have achild at that same space and the
child actually is fine there,by and large it is the safest
space for their child, notnecessarily the best space.
Or if they work there, that'swhere their check comes from, so
they can't really mess withthat too tough and a lot of
(10:27):
other things in between.
But those are two of the mainexamples.
We got enough of those types ofrequests and also requests from
white folks who were like wehave this center, we've created
this space and we don't know howto make it welcoming for
non-white people and they're notcoming to the things that we're
hosting and what can we do?
(10:48):
So we really took some monthsto sit with and gather this
thing that became a workbook.
It was initially a trainingthat had this conversational
workbook element and then wecreated a subsequent workbook so
that people who weren't at thelive training sessions could
also get the work, and we'vealso created versions of that
(11:11):
workbook for people outside ofthe self-directed education
space.
So if you are interested in aversion of this especially when
you check it out, and I willmake sure the link is wherever
you're listening to this podcast.
If you are interested increating a version of developing
a Disruptors' Ear for yourorganization, you can reach out
to me.
You can go toraisingfreepeoplecom Give me up
(11:33):
on that little voice memo button.
First I want to say a couple ofthe reasons why people took the
course or did the workbook.
It's actually online as acourse, but it's a workbook
because it feels important tothis idea of this
whiteness-centric path.
So one person said my intentionis to see and understand how
(11:54):
schools and societies ingrainedprejudices affect my thoughts,
interactions and decisionswithin the context of home
education of my children andothers, and become a proactive
disruptor working to eradicatesystemic racism.
So that's one person's why.
Another person's was myintention is to learn how
(12:16):
pervasive whiteness infiltrateseducation as I know it and to
educate myself on and no longeruse any practices that are
harmful to my students.
I loved those particular whysthere were so many of them
wanted to share those with you.
So now what I want to do is I'mactually going to pull some
things specifically from pages15 through 27 of developing a
(12:41):
Disruptors' Ear.
The entire workbook is about 70pages, maybe 68 pages, but I'm
going to pull from this littlesegment right here.
What we said about pervasivewhiteness is that on a personal
level, as opposed to a systemiclevel, which I'm also going to
talk about.
But on a personal level,pervasive whiteness is when a
(13:03):
white person, eitherunconsciously or deliberately,
asserts unsolicited opinions andideas using their voice, their
body or a particular approach ormindset, like nonviolent
communication, in ways that aredismissive of the voices, bodies
and experiences of thoseoutside of their in-group or
(13:25):
culture, and I will have thatwritten out on the show notes
page as well.
So on a personal level, that'swhat it is Okay.
When a white person, whetherthey're doing it on purpose or
not, is pushing their opinions,their ideas, they can do that
verbally, they can do itnon-verbally, they can do it
through an approach that issanctioned by many, many people
(13:46):
like NVC, and they do it in waysthat are dismissive of people
outside of their in-group orculture.
Now, coming from a systemiccontext, what we said is that
because our dominant culturereally only speaking in the
context of the US, becausethat's what Malika and I know
well as adults living in theUnited States so we are speaking
(14:08):
from that limited context,because our dominant culture is
white and our education andpolitics are rooted in lesser
opinions of non-white peoples.
Pervasive whiteness is ourdefault in America, even among
non-white people, because it hasbeen a means of surviving for
(14:29):
black folks, for NativeIndigenous folks and for
basically anybody not white forhundreds of years.
Pervasive whiteness andproximity to whiteness has been
how we've survived.
Another thing that I want toread to you before I move into
some of the details of howpervasive whiteness is
significantly influencingschoolishness I would say it's a
(14:52):
derivative of it.
It feels really helpful for meto share what my brother, bayo
Okomalafi, who wrote the forwardfor raising free people book.
Shout out to you, bayo.
He says and it's a part of alonger thing.
So this is just an excerptrecognizing that whiteness is
not attached to white bodies butis the embodiment and enactment
(15:13):
of ways of thinking, doing andbeing associated with harmful
structures rooted in modernityand coloniality.
And because of that we havedifferent experiences of working
with the internalization ofwhiteness as a cultural form,
just as we are differentlyimpacted by it.
So I'm done with the quote, andthe rest of that last sentence
(15:37):
was a statement from rooted, therooted global village.
So, in the context of movingaway from this pervasive
whiteness that we are allsteeped in and that is deeply
harmful for all of us, butspecifically to people who are
not white in particular ways,again it feels really important
to name here that, just like thepatriarchy, just like misogyny,
(15:59):
like all these things, theyalso negatively impact the
people, the bodies whoperpetuate them.
So it's not like it's only thejob of white people to eliminate
pervasive whiteness.
We, as people who are not white, need to be aware of what it
looks like and how it livesthrough.
Our practices, our unquestionedpractices, the ones we hold
(16:24):
essentially are schoolishness,which is a huge part of that,
and so in the workbook we reallyget into the details of
schoolishness and we giveexamples which I'm going to
share a few of them with you ofsome schoolish tactics and of
pervasive whiteness.
Schoolish tactics a fewcharacteristics of a schoolish
tactics is that they demand workfrom the person being oppressed
(16:47):
, essentially prove that you'reworthy of being treated well.
It calls for us to somehowstand out above white bias.
That's an example of aschoolish tactic that is rooted
in pervasive whiteness.
Another one is that schoolishtactics subconsciously crave
external validation for self andothers.
(17:09):
So it isn't coming from arooted space of trusting the
self and a level ofself-validation, a level of
confident autonomy.
It doesn't have that, so itseeks it out there.
That's another example.
One other one I'll share isthat you know it's a schoolish
tactic.
When it is seeking a superclear, super efficient path, it
(17:33):
is resisting emergent structure.
It is resisting the aspect ofseeing hmm, how long might this
take?
I assumed this, but is thereality this?
It resists that at all costs.
It's all about efficiency andclarity, not in the ways that
are healthy.
I'm not saying efficiency isinherently problematic, nor is
(17:54):
clarity, come on.
But it seeks it in a way thatit puts it above the benefits of
emergent inclusive structure.
And those are specificallyschoolish tactics.
So let me touch on a few aspectsof pervasive whiteness.
One of them is pervasivewhiteness weaponizes nonviolent
(18:18):
communication.
An example of this lives inepisode 120 of this podcast,
where my whole family, me, chrisMarley Sage we got together to
talk about and you hear all fourof our voices on that episode
the experience that we had whensomeone listened to I think it
(18:39):
was episode 115, where we weretalking about pervasive
whiteness and proceeded to senda long ass detailed message of
foolishness and the details ofit live in episode 120, so go
check that out.
Another example of pervasivewhiteness that Malika and I
shared is that it prioritizesresearch over current reality.
(19:03):
So the person tells themthere's a problem and they
respond to the problem withresearch about why there is no
problem.
You feel that I know thatsomebody listening has had that
experience where you're in aspace and somebody who is
steeped in pervasive whitenessis telling you why your feelings
(19:24):
are the problem and not youractual experience in a thing
that they keep on trying to tellyou as community.
So you having a problem in thecommunity is the problem, not
the problem you're dealing with.
You are the problem.
Another related aspect ofpervasive whiteness is that it
defends intention over therecipient's experience, as if
(19:46):
well intentions stop us somehowfrom causing harm.
Those aspects I want to sharewith you, as well as foolishness
, which we've talked about inprevious episodes.
But I want to say here thatit's a mindset foolishness.
It has actions to it that comefrom that mindset and it shows
up in various aspects of dailyliving, not just in a dedicated
(20:10):
place like a classroom.
And so in terms of what we doto challenge this norm, this
insane norm of pervasivewhiteness, is to do a lot of the
things that we talk about doingto work on foolishness,
including wound awareness,talking about how certain social
(20:32):
wounds stop us from takingaction, like fear of sounding
wrong or bad or biased, and whythat keeps us causing damage and
accepting damage as normal.
So wound awareness, also personbefore process right, which
talks about how folks try sohard to fit people into
(20:52):
processes instead of seeingresistance as guidance.
Resistance is the roadmap.
Emergent structure fits in herewhen we figure out that it is
not about trying to get theperson to fit into our idea of a
process, but to really allow aprocess to happen that may have
predetermined pieces but haslots of room in it for what
(21:16):
emerges with the specific peopleinvolved.
A last one that I'll touch hereis witnessing, which is about,
in this case, checking yourtranslations by not thinking
that you know what's going tohappen, but instead watching for
what happens, watching for andassessing your expectations and
(21:36):
naming all the ways that yourexpectations don't match what
you ended up witnessing.
Rewind this.
If you need to Go over it, hitthat little 10 second rewind
button to really feel throughthis, because it's a lot.
But as you take it in, I reallyfeel and we've seen, malika and
me, from people working withthis particular content how
(21:59):
personal it is and how much youcan pay attention to, as we say
in the workbook, how it shows upand ways to shift the practice.
So we talk about shifting thepractice in community, in school
, at work, at the playground,everywhere.
We talk about in language, inactions, in cultural
understandings that put youreccentric habits and accents and
(22:20):
priorities above all else.
These are some of the elementsof it, and so once you have this
sort of language around, likewhat it is and how it shows up
and how it's tied toschoolishness, then you can
become more aware of it inyourself and you can begin to do
these practices that we talkabout so many of them in detail
in the workbook for shifting it.
(22:43):
And knowledge of something isnot enough to shift it, but
without the knowledge of it itcan be kind of hard to shift it,
wouldn't you agree?
So, if you have this language,if you are thinking about these
schoolish tactics that areseeking a clear path and demands
work, they are subconsciouslycraving external validation when
(23:03):
you recognize yourself beingcaught up in these things or
somebody in your life, you havethe naming for it and now you
can start to look at yeah, buthow do I want to feel.
Yeah, but how do I want thisperson, who I'm saying is in
community with me, to feel?
What is it even about thenaming of community the word
community that actually mightnot be appropriate here.
(23:26):
Are we more of a collectivefiguring out where community
lives?
Are we more of groupings ofpeople figuring these things out
together that are trying to getto some aspect of cohesiveness
that each person has to consentto and believe in before we call
the shit community?
(23:49):
This is my recommendation.
This is my tiny little keerpackage around working with
pervasive whiteness whereverit's showing up for you in your
body at your job.
Of course, I cannot tell youhow to talk to the people at
your job.
I don't know them, I don't knowyou like that but what I can
say is that when you have thelanguage for what something is,
(24:10):
it becomes easier to recognizeit and to begin to put into
practice your own reckoning withit.
You might not be able to changethe people at your fill in the
blank, but if your perspectiveand your actions are different,
you move that vibration, youmove your choices, you move your
actions in the direction thatyou want to go and away from the
(24:33):
direction that you are nownaming as harmful.
So, of course, I do recommendthat you grab the workbook.
If you head over to RFPUnschool, like
raisingfreepeopleunschoolcom,you'll see all of the different
offerings there, includingdeveloping a disrupter's ear.
And, of course, wherever you'relistening to this podcast, the
(24:54):
link to it, the direct link toit, lives there as well.
And the last thing that we willtouch on in this episode, as
promised, is one little snippetfrom Personal Manifesto Path.
(25:14):
This is one aspect of thecourse that I recorded back in
2014.
So a part of me cringes, as youmight have heard me say before
when I listened to my old audios.
I'm like, oh my God, why am Italking like that?
Oh my God, why are I saying itlike that?
So I want you to listen withoutmy cringe factor in mind,
(25:38):
because this is just a veryclear example of the sort of
things that we will be workingthrough from August to November
every week.
If you are part of the Make itHappen family and come to the
invitations each week forPersonal Manifesto Path class,
live with me.
No extra costs.
Whatever level at which youcome into Patreon whether it's a
(26:00):
dollar, five dollars, fivehundred dollars you will have
full access to this pathPersonal Manifesto Path.
So this is me talking aboutwailing.
W-a-i-l-i-n-g.
Wailing is a significant partof this route to the Personal
Manifesto Creation process.
I will talk a little bit aboutit here and, of course, wherever
(26:22):
you are listening to thisepisode, there will be show
notes and there will be a directlink for you to see a little
bit more and hear a little bitmore about Personal Manifesto
Path.
And if you want to come throughand be part of it at any point,
come over to patreoncom,forward slash akila.
That is our Make it Happenfamily and you will have full
(26:42):
access there.
Then there's the whaling stage.
Whaling is where we present thewound to the world and yell at
the top of our lungs that thisis not okay.
We are not okay.
In this stage we say I amhurting, we proclaim it, we're
acknowledging the hurt, just aswe were in the wound licking
(27:03):
stage, but this time we're alsoacknowledging that we and the
hurt are separate.
Perhaps in this stage, thelicenseeim from our wound
licking and our tears haveweakened the walls that show up
to protect us from the raw,nerve portion of our hurt.
Here we begin to see ourselvesas someone who has been hurt,
meaning at some point we werenot hurt and that hurt is not
(27:25):
something we inherently are, butsomething that we are now
experiencing.
This stage is also important, somuch that many, if not most, of
us get stuck right there.
We're no longer in hiding withour pain points.
We're actively engaged now infacing those wounds and creating
experiences that replace thoseold wounds, not in the sense
(27:48):
that we forget, but that we usethe experience to be empowered
by it to be better as a resultof it, because we're facing
these wounds by whaling.
So of course, we want to beable to have this be as
practical in our minds aspossible, because we're creating
our own personal manifesto.
So in the next lecture we'lllook at examples of how we will
(28:17):
All right.
One more episode to go.
So our chatty again in about aweek where we will wrap things
up with the fifth care package,the fifth and final care package
and some other goodies that Ihave for you in our final time
together in terms of episodesand I shouldn't say our final
(28:40):
time together, our final timetogether through Fair of the
Free Child podcast, because inthis final episode coming up, I
will also invite you to themyriad of other spaces and
places and ways that we cancontinue this work.
As always, thank you forlistening and chatty next week.
(29:04):
Music Audio by Raising FreePeople Network.
This week on Fair of the Free Child podcast.
So many of us some of us a lotmore than others got a ton of
practice with grief and lossPractice.
We didn't ask for Practice wemight still be processing, but
lots of practice with grief andloss.
(00:21):
Grief and loss that is fardeeper than a podcast ending,
which is one of the forms ofgrief and loss that is present
in my life.
We are at the second to lastepisode of Fair of the Free
Child and I know that I sharethat sense of grief and loss
with some of you, as you havetold me what the podcast has
(00:44):
helped you work through, what ithas brought into your orbit,
what it has strengthened, whatit has helped you to notice
about yourself.
That's been there, just neededto be conjured up, and either I
or somebody else you listened toon this podcast was in a
position to do that.
Conjuring with our stories.
Just all the ways that thispodcast has lived and impacted
(01:10):
are part of a small part of thevariety of loss and grief that
so many of us have experienced,particularly over the past few
years since the pandemic thelevels of grief and loss, the
visibility of it through socialmedia and other technology, the
(01:34):
amplifying of more voices, as wehear, for example, from more
indigenous people nativeindigenous people about the
impact and continuation of griefand loss in the United States
and beyond.
Or it's just there's just somuch unraveling as much as there
(01:54):
is the building up, theevolution of, say, technology,
which is exhilarating andfrightening, there is also the
slowing down to work withunraveling to savor life.
On the other side of thefast-paced everything, when
(02:18):
situations, relationships,climate change, when all of
these things encourage orperhaps force us to slow down
right.
When this slow down happens,maybe without our consent, then
we are in a different positionto pay attention to it.
Me personally, I have beenfeeling the effects of slowing
(02:44):
down and a lot of them have beenpositive.
Maybe on the other side ofpainful, positive, and some of
that I did publicly with thegood sis Damari in season eight,
when we talked about pausing,which last episode I got into a
little bit more and season nine,as I move into this recap of
(03:08):
season nine, we talked aboutnotes from the other side of the
pause.
I had recognized that thatpause was not in service of
going more fast or better.
It was actually even more of aninvitation to slow down and to
savor, which is what I'm movinginto beyond this podcast, and
(03:28):
next week I will talk in moredetail about the things that I'm
moving on to, in addition tosome of the ways that you can
continue to get this work beyondthe podcast.
You can't keep using tools ofoppression and expect to raise
free people.
(03:53):
So, season nine last season, wetalked about spirituality and
intuition in self-directededucation.
Shout out to Chamei, morales,james and the
MyReflectionMatters communitythat whole team of folks who, by
the way, celebrated at thebeginning of this month August
in 2023.
(04:14):
Their three year anniversary.
It's been three years, as ofthe time that I'm recording this
, that MyReflectionMatters hasbeen moving and grooving,
supporting, serving, connecting.
They also have a fantasticvillage support system that you
can also support through theirPatreon, patreoncom forward
(04:36):
slash MyReflectionMatters.
Chamei came through and we had atwo part discussion on
spirituality and intuition inself-directed education.
How, for many of us, thisjourney as you heard Yolanda
Coles Jones say last week isabout our parenting, is about
education and also is about us,our journeying with ourselves,
(05:00):
our own unravelings, our ownnoticings, the ways that we have
to sit with, what we got tostop doing and why, and not so
much what we need to start doingor do more of All of it is in
the mix, and so your personalleadership practices get named
and refined through this processof raising free people, and we
(05:23):
talked about that.
We also had an origin storywhere Naz and I talked about how
we met.
We did a sort of rememberingand releasing ritual out loud,
and that in and of itself wasand remains spiritual work.
We continued that spiritualtheme with Aliyah Waste Beads,
(05:48):
where Jisai and Story the motherdaughter team behind Aliyah
Waste Beads joined us to talkabout spiritual technology and
more mad question asking andjust affirming and doing a lot
of reflection about how Jisaiand I met another origin story
and how some of the spiritualwork that we were doing back
(06:10):
then really worked and how itled us to where we found
ourselves years later when sheand I reconvened for that
episode.
That conversation is also whatsparked my revisiting and up
leveling of personal manifestopath, the course that is
(06:31):
happening through our Make itHappen family on patreoncom
forward slash akila.
Our very first class is August22nd and we run weekly through
November 7th from 6pm to 7.30pmEastern every single week, shout
it.
So I'm excited about that weare going to talk about
(06:51):
abundance, which we also talkedabout in season nine.
We talked about abundanceculture, abundance being a we
thing, not a me thing, and thatconversation was guided by
Vanessa Milano, who came in as aproject manager, bridget
Bridging so many gaps that Nazand I needed to help get filled
(07:13):
as the podcast grew into thenetwork over the years, and we
were just kind of holding onlike whoa While all of that was
happening.
So shout out to Vanessa, younailed it, bro.
We're so appreciative.
You are amazing.
You are amazing.
When Chame was back on, wetalked about manifestation,
(07:34):
magic, money as a tool.
Chame talked about the role ofintuition in her life and her
intuition led path to thatupdated business model that
centers relationships and notdollars.
Vanessa was a huge part of thatbecause they updated to this
star model and you can hear allabout that star model.
(07:56):
If you too are growing arelationship centered community,
you might benefit from theknowledge, the exposure to that
star model.
So check that out.
Season nine was a dope anddelicious because we talked
about the spiritual things, andI know that perhaps some folks
(08:17):
hear that and say what they gotto do with unschooling, which is
exactly why you would need tolisten to season nine.
What we are talking about nowis the fourth of the five care
packages that have beenassembled specifically for you.
(08:40):
This fourth one is called myWhiteness Centric Work Life Path
.
It is for folks who want toface the power over mindset that
we are all steeped in, and wantto do it through getting more
and more familiar, morepracticed with unschooling, the
skills of unschooling notnecessarily taking a child out
(09:00):
of school, but really focusingon some of the skill sets and
characteristics of theunschooling life.
What I'm going to pull fromhere is a workbook called
Developing a Disruptor's Ear.
You have heard me talk about itbecause Malika digs of Speak
(09:22):
and Be Easy and more widelyknown Eclectic Learning Network.
Malika and I created thisworkbook as a result of being
two black women in theself-directed education space to
whom people reached out becausethey were the black person at
the Agile Learning Center or atthe Sudbury School or at the
(09:45):
co-op or whatever the thing was.
They were one of, if not theonly, and they were having the
issues.
That happen because pervasivewhiteness is everywhere and it
lives in a variety of bodies,not just in white bodies.
They would reach out becausethey were not in a position to
speak up about the issues theywere experiencing because it was
(10:07):
more layered for them than forme or Malika.
For example, if they have achild at that same space and the
child actually is fine there,by and large it is the safest
space for their child, notnecessarily the best space.
Or if they work there, that'swhere their check comes from, so
they can't really mess withthat too tough and a lot of
(10:27):
other things in between.
But those are two of the mainexamples.
We got enough of those types ofrequests and also requests from
white folks who were like wehave this center, we've created
this space and we don't know howto make it welcoming for
non-white people and they're notcoming to the things that we're
hosting and what can we do?
(10:48):
So we really took some monthsto sit with and gather this
thing that became a workbook.
It was initially a trainingthat had this conversational
workbook element and then wecreated a subsequent workbook so
that people who weren't at thelive training sessions could
also get the work, and we'vealso created versions of that
(11:11):
workbook for people outside ofthe self-directed education
space.
So if you are interested in aversion of this especially when
you check it out, and I willmake sure the link is wherever
you're listening to this podcast.
If you are interested increating a version of developing
a Disruptors' Ear for yourorganization, you can reach out
to me.
You can go toraisingfreepeoplecom Give me up
(11:33):
on that little voice memo button.
First I want to say a couple ofthe reasons why people took the
course or did the workbook.
It's actually online as acourse, but it's a workbook
because it feels important tothis idea of this
whiteness-centric path.
So one person said my intentionis to see and understand how
(11:54):
schools and societies ingrainedprejudices affect my thoughts,
interactions and decisionswithin the context of home
education of my children andothers, and become a proactive
disruptor working to eradicatesystemic racism.
So that's one person's why.
Another person's was myintention is to learn how
(12:16):
pervasive whiteness infiltrateseducation as I know it and to
educate myself on and no longeruse any practices that are
harmful to my students.
I loved those particular whysthere were so many of them
wanted to share those with you.
So now what I want to do is I'mactually going to pull some
things specifically from pages15 through 27 of developing a
(12:41):
Disruptors' Ear.
The entire workbook is about 70pages, maybe 68 pages, but I'm
going to pull from this littlesegment right here.
What we said about pervasivewhiteness is that on a personal
level, as opposed to a systemiclevel, which I'm also going to
talk about.
But on a personal level,pervasive whiteness is when a
(13:03):
white person, eitherunconsciously or deliberately,
asserts unsolicited opinions andideas using their voice, their
body or a particular approach ormindset, like nonviolent
communication, in ways that aredismissive of the voices, bodies
and experiences of thoseoutside of their in-group or
(13:25):
culture, and I will have thatwritten out on the show notes
page as well.
So on a personal level, that'swhat it is Okay.
When a white person, whetherthey're doing it on purpose or
not, is pushing their opinions,their ideas, they can do that
verbally, they can do itnon-verbally, they can do it
through an approach that issanctioned by many, many people
(13:46):
like NVC, and they do it in waysthat are dismissive of people
outside of their in-group orculture.
Now, coming from a systemiccontext, what we said is that
because our dominant culturereally only speaking in the
context of the US, becausethat's what Malika and I know
well as adults living in theUnited States so we are speaking
(14:08):
from that limited context,because our dominant culture is
white and our education andpolitics are rooted in lesser
opinions of non-white peoples.
Pervasive whiteness is ourdefault in America, even among
non-white people, because it hasbeen a means of surviving for
(14:29):
black folks, for NativeIndigenous folks and for
basically anybody not white forhundreds of years.
Pervasive whiteness andproximity to whiteness has been
how we've survived.
Another thing that I want toread to you before I move into
some of the details of howpervasive whiteness is
significantly influencingschoolishness I would say it's a
(14:52):
derivative of it.
It feels really helpful for meto share what my brother, bayo
Okomalafi, who wrote the forwardfor raising free people book.
Shout out to you, bayo.
He says and it's a part of alonger thing.
So this is just an excerptrecognizing that whiteness is
not attached to white bodies butis the embodiment and enactment
(15:13):
of ways of thinking, doing andbeing associated with harmful
structures rooted in modernityand coloniality.
And because of that we havedifferent experiences of working
with the internalization ofwhiteness as a cultural form,
just as we are differentlyimpacted by it.
So I'm done with the quote, andthe rest of that last sentence
(15:37):
was a statement from rooted, therooted global village.
So, in the context of movingaway from this pervasive
whiteness that we are allsteeped in and that is deeply
harmful for all of us, butspecifically to people who are
not white in particular ways,again it feels really important
to name here that, just like thepatriarchy, just like misogyny,
(15:59):
like all these things, theyalso negatively impact the
people, the bodies whoperpetuate them.
So it's not like it's only thejob of white people to eliminate
pervasive whiteness.
We, as people who are not white, need to be aware of what it
looks like and how it livesthrough.
Our practices, our unquestionedpractices, the ones we hold
(16:24):
essentially are schoolishness,which is a huge part of that,
and so in the workbook we reallyget into the details of
schoolishness and we giveexamples which I'm going to
share a few of them with you ofsome schoolish tactics and of
pervasive whiteness.
Schoolish tactics a fewcharacteristics of a schoolish
tactics is that they demand workfrom the person being oppressed
(16:47):
, essentially prove that you'reworthy of being treated well.
It calls for us to somehowstand out above white bias.
That's an example of aschoolish tactic that is rooted
in pervasive whiteness.
Another one is that schoolishtactics subconsciously crave
external validation for self andothers.
(17:09):
So it isn't coming from arooted space of trusting the
self and a level ofself-validation, a level of
confident autonomy.
It doesn't have that, so itseeks it out there.
That's another example.
One other one I'll share isthat you know it's a schoolish
tactic.
When it is seeking a superclear, super efficient path, it
(17:33):
is resisting emergent structure.
It is resisting the aspect ofseeing hmm, how long might this
take?
I assumed this, but is thereality this?
It resists that at all costs.
It's all about efficiency andclarity, not in the ways that
are healthy.
I'm not saying efficiency isinherently problematic, nor is
(17:54):
clarity, come on.
But it seeks it in a way thatit puts it above the benefits of
emergent inclusive structure.
And those are specificallyschoolish tactics.
So let me touch on a few aspectsof pervasive whiteness.
One of them is pervasivewhiteness weaponizes nonviolent
(18:18):
communication.
An example of this lives inepisode 120 of this podcast,
where my whole family, me, chrisMarley Sage we got together to
talk about and you hear all fourof our voices on that episode
the experience that we had whensomeone listened to I think it
(18:39):
was episode 115, where we weretalking about pervasive
whiteness and proceeded to senda long ass detailed message of
foolishness and the details ofit live in episode 120, so go
check that out.
Another example of pervasivewhiteness that Malika and I
shared is that it prioritizesresearch over current reality.
(19:03):
So the person tells themthere's a problem and they
respond to the problem withresearch about why there is no
problem.
You feel that I know thatsomebody listening has had that
experience where you're in aspace and somebody who is
steeped in pervasive whitenessis telling you why your feelings
(19:24):
are the problem and not youractual experience in a thing
that they keep on trying to tellyou as community.
So you having a problem in thecommunity is the problem, not
the problem you're dealing with.
You are the problem.
Another related aspect ofpervasive whiteness is that it
defends intention over therecipient's experience, as if
(19:46):
well intentions stop us somehowfrom causing harm.
Those aspects I want to sharewith you, as well as foolishness
, which we've talked about inprevious episodes.
But I want to say here thatit's a mindset foolishness.
It has actions to it that comefrom that mindset and it shows
up in various aspects of dailyliving, not just in a dedicated
(20:10):
place like a classroom.
And so in terms of what we doto challenge this norm, this
insane norm of pervasivewhiteness, is to do a lot of the
things that we talk about doingto work on foolishness,
including wound awareness,talking about how certain social
(20:32):
wounds stop us from takingaction, like fear of sounding
wrong or bad or biased, and whythat keeps us causing damage and
accepting damage as normal.
So wound awareness, also personbefore process right, which
talks about how folks try sohard to fit people into
(20:52):
processes instead of seeingresistance as guidance.
Resistance is the roadmap.
Emergent structure fits in herewhen we figure out that it is
not about trying to get theperson to fit into our idea of a
process, but to really allow aprocess to happen that may have
predetermined pieces but haslots of room in it for what
(21:16):
emerges with the specific peopleinvolved.
A last one that I'll touch hereis witnessing, which is about,
in this case, checking yourtranslations by not thinking
that you know what's going tohappen, but instead watching for
what happens, watching for andassessing your expectations and
(21:36):
naming all the ways that yourexpectations don't match what
you ended up witnessing.
Rewind this.
If you need to Go over it, hitthat little 10 second rewind
button to really feel throughthis, because it's a lot.
But as you take it in, I reallyfeel and we've seen, malika and
me, from people working withthis particular content how
(21:59):
personal it is and how much youcan pay attention to, as we say
in the workbook, how it shows upand ways to shift the practice.
So we talk about shifting thepractice in community, in school
, at work, at the playground,everywhere.
We talk about in language, inactions, in cultural
understandings that put youreccentric habits and accents and
(22:20):
priorities above all else.
These are some of the elementsof it, and so once you have this
sort of language around, likewhat it is and how it shows up
and how it's tied toschoolishness, then you can
become more aware of it inyourself and you can begin to do
these practices that we talkabout so many of them in detail
in the workbook for shifting it.
(22:43):
And knowledge of something isnot enough to shift it, but
without the knowledge of it itcan be kind of hard to shift it,
wouldn't you agree?
So, if you have this language,if you are thinking about these
schoolish tactics that areseeking a clear path and demands
work, they are subconsciouslycraving external validation when
(23:03):
you recognize yourself beingcaught up in these things or
somebody in your life, you havethe naming for it and now you
can start to look at yeah, buthow do I want to feel.
Yeah, but how do I want thisperson, who I'm saying is in
community with me, to feel?
What is it even about thenaming of community the word
community that actually mightnot be appropriate here.
(23:26):
Are we more of a collectivefiguring out where community
lives?
Are we more of groupings ofpeople figuring these things out
together that are trying to getto some aspect of cohesiveness
that each person has to consentto and believe in before we call
the shit community?
(23:49):
This is my recommendation.
This is my tiny little keerpackage around working with
pervasive whiteness whereverit's showing up for you in your
body at your job.
Of course, I cannot tell youhow to talk to the people at
your job.
I don't know them, I don't knowyou like that but what I can
say is that when you have thelanguage for what something is,
(24:10):
it becomes easier to recognizeit and to begin to put into
practice your own reckoning withit.
You might not be able to changethe people at your fill in the
blank, but if your perspectiveand your actions are different,
you move that vibration, youmove your choices, you move your
actions in the direction thatyou want to go and away from the
(24:33):
direction that you are nownaming as harmful.
So, of course, I do recommendthat you grab the workbook.
If you head over to RFPUnschool, like
raisingfreepeopleunschoolcom,you'll see all of the different
offerings there, includingdeveloping a disrupter's ear.
And, of course, wherever you'relistening to this podcast, the
(24:54):
link to it, the direct link toit, lives there as well.
And the last thing that we willtouch on in this episode, as
promised, is one little snippetfrom Personal Manifesto Path.
(25:14):
This is one aspect of thecourse that I recorded back in
2014.
So a part of me cringes, as youmight have heard me say before
when I listened to my old audios.
I'm like, oh my God, why am Italking like that?
Oh my God, why are I saying itlike that?
So I want you to listen withoutmy cringe factor in mind,
(25:38):
because this is just a veryclear example of the sort of
things that we will be workingthrough from August to November
every week.
If you are part of the Make itHappen family and come to the
invitations each week forPersonal Manifesto Path class,
live with me.
No extra costs.
Whatever level at which youcome into Patreon whether it's a
(26:00):
dollar, five dollars, fivehundred dollars you will have
full access to this pathPersonal Manifesto Path.
So this is me talking aboutwailing.
W-a-i-l-i-n-g.
Wailing is a significant partof this route to the Personal
Manifesto Creation process.
I will talk a little bit aboutit here and, of course, wherever
(26:22):
you are listening to thisepisode, there will be show
notes and there will be a directlink for you to see a little
bit more and hear a little bitmore about Personal Manifesto
Path.
And if you want to come throughand be part of it at any point,
come over to patreoncom,forward slash akila.
That is our Make it Happenfamily and you will have full
(26:42):
access there.
Then there's the whaling stage.
Whaling is where we present thewound to the world and yell at
the top of our lungs that thisis not okay.
We are not okay.
In this stage we say I amhurting, we proclaim it, we're
acknowledging the hurt, just aswe were in the wound licking
(27:03):
stage, but this time we're alsoacknowledging that we and the
hurt are separate.
Perhaps in this stage, thelicenseeim from our wound
licking and our tears haveweakened the walls that show up
to protect us from the raw,nerve portion of our hurt.
Here we begin to see ourselvesas someone who has been hurt,
meaning at some point we werenot hurt and that hurt is not
(27:25):
something we inherently are, butsomething that we are now
experiencing.
This stage is also important, somuch that many, if not most, of
us get stuck right there.
We're no longer in hiding withour pain points.
We're actively engaged now infacing those wounds and creating
experiences that replace thoseold wounds, not in the sense
(27:48):
that we forget, but that we usethe experience to be empowered
by it to be better as a resultof it, because we're facing
these wounds by whaling.
So of course, we want to beable to have this be as
practical in our minds aspossible, because we're creating
our own personal manifesto.
So in the next lecture we'lllook at examples of how we will
(28:17):
All right.
One more episode to go.
So our chatty again in about aweek where we will wrap things
up with the fifth care package,the fifth and final care package
and some other goodies that Ihave for you in our final time
together in terms of episodesand I shouldn't say our final
(28:40):
time together, our final timetogether through Fair of the
Free Child podcast, because inthis final episode coming up, I
will also invite you to themyriad of other spaces and
places and ways that we cancontinue this work.
As always, thank you forlistening and chatty next week.
(29:04):
Music Audio by Raising FreePeople Network.
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