Epilogue

What does it mean to continue this work after season one is completed?

Jenny shares some thoughts, feelings, and actions around our individual, collective and interrelated work.

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For a transcript of this episode and more, please visit our website, www.thespillway.org

Mentioned in this episode:

The Spillway Community Guidelines

1. Engage sequentially. The show is a serial not episodic. We do this so we can build relation and find common ground and context. 2. We stay in our own lane. The Spillway is about White people talking to (predominately) White people about White people and White culture. We're not out here to critique anyone's actions but our own. 3. Our combined fabric of destiny. (3a) As Dr. King said, our humanities are deeply interconnected to each other. Racism negatively impacts me, too. (3b) The Spillway is one mechanism within a larger framework needed to sustain racial equity and justice. We're not a one-stop shop. 4. No one right way to liberation. We all share the same goals, but not every method works for every person. If this doesn't work for you. That's okay. Maybe it works for someone else.

Episode Transcript

Jenny (00:00):
yeah, it's been an experience.
When Loran invited me to, to bea part of this, I said, "yes,"
without getting any specifics.
And I did that again, when theyasked me to write the epilogue

(00:21):
and in both cases, I agonized.
Over everything I said, wrote, did.
And then I realized somewherealong the way, oh shit.
This isn't about me.
Not being the center of everything.
Freed me up to participate withoutfear and to let the creativity flow

(00:46):
without being hindered by my worry.
To, to something larger than myself.
And then as I wrote, it becameclear that it is actually about
me and also everyone else.
And that's that paradox that emerges.

(01:07):
We are all important individuallyand not at all as individuals,
but in our larger humanity.
And that's a lot ofwhat The Spillway does.
It opens up the paradoxof being White in the US.
The duality of loving ofliving, of understanding the
world as both a perpetrator anda victim of White supremacy.

(01:31):
And it doesn't stop there.
It dives deep into the nuance ofboth states, the, the shared and
the individual, and differentiatesthem from the experiences of BIPOC
folks and dares to ask where do.
I stop.
And you begin?
Where do you stop?
And I begin?

(01:52):
And with the tenderness of a lovingparent, Loran takes our hands and walks
us through how we have benefited fromWhite supremacy and how that has hurt
us and how that has harmed others.
Specifically, the bipocommunity in the US.
Loran is my dearest friendand they are full of love.

(02:16):
Not the love of hallmark orDisney, the love that shows up.
The love that dedicates their lifeto showing up often for people.
They will never know.
The love that, again, dives deep intothe hard end of things, swimming to
the bottom to unplug that filter atthe source, no matter how long they

(02:38):
have to hold their breath to do it.
And their continued love for mein that same way is why I'm here.
Because of their love forme and my love for them.
And in the process, my own heart hasbeen changed and challenged and charged
with the energy of their mission.

(02:58):
There's, I mean, still so much work to do.
And without Loran's help, I would not haveknown where to put my feet to even start.
They asked me to write a poembecause really at my heart I'm
a poet, which I mostly ignorebecause poetry says, "Hey look!

(03:18):
Tender spot.
Let's poke it.
Let's examine it."
And I don't wanna most of the time,but for Loran's love, I'll I'll do it.
I'll show up.
There are a lot of people here.

(03:39):
Bodies breathing blinking, grabbing,asking, leaning, waiting for coffee,
for tea, for muffins for napkins, take

(04:00):
them and go and leave and step outand hurry and trip and glide away.
There's not one human body,the same as any other human
body twirling about this space.
And yet, and yet we all breathethe same air each other's

(04:20):
air in and out here you go.
Have some of this.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
We have all tasted each other's blood.
And if we go back and back and backand back before any of us knew how

(04:46):
the world wanted us to hold life indollars and coins and no touching,
please, we here in this shop.
We're all babies.
Filling our lungs with the air ofthose who came before, releasing it

(05:08):
for those who will come after living inour interconnectedness unaware of any
separateness reaching without hesitationfor the softness of another human being.

(05:28):
We very literallybreathe each other's air.
That's not something I made upand that's freeing and terrifying
because it means we are connectedand responsible for one another.
So what do we do?

(05:49):
We grab our talents, our hobbies, anddesires and turn that toward collective
liberation and we do it in community.
And if you are White, which if you arelistening to this, my assumption is
that you are and feel afraid, ashamed,guilty, angry, whatever, plug into other

(06:13):
White people and share those feelings.
Cry with those White people.
Unpack with those White people,approach their feelings with curiosity.
Hold each other,
Check out The Spillway website andknow that you are not alone and
that you can move forward and thatwhen you fuck up, because you will,

(06:50):
you can always begin again,cancel culture, be damned.
This is important.
And it's not theresponsibility of BIPOC folks.
If we really want to heal racism,White supremacy and patriarchy, we
have to name, explore, and work toheal our own collective Whiteness,
not show up on the doorstep of BIPOCpeople and ask them to show us the way.

(07:15):
Is it scary?
Absolutely.
Can we do it?
Can we dive into the deep endand follow each other to the
heart of where the work is?
We can, and we are.