On Healing Activism and Plant-Based Eating

Above is a picture of me at a conference I co-hosted yesterday at San Francisco State University. The day was filled with technology learning curves and challenges, which felt fitting given that it was the first day of Mercury going in retrograde. The good news is we had powerful and meaningful conversations with each other, and there was an overall engaged energy in the room. The whole conference was about reflecting on where we are as a society, and how we might think and relate to each other in more integrative ways. Below is a photo of me hosting the panel on Seeking Social Justice: Beyond Culture Wars and Towards Cultural Healing.

This section explored the punitive cancel/call-out culture playing out in all of our social movements. Dissenting voices are dehumanized and Othered, further eroding democracy and opportunities for human goodness to show up in the form of healthy, open dialogue and communication. Journalist Matt Haig defines cancel culture as the "shutting down of different perspectives and treating people like mere disposable artifacts in the cultural economy.” People who are in the alternative media and anti-establishment movements are just as vulnerable to this unhealthy approach to societal change. And I'm certain, from my own lived experience of working in many diverse spaces, that another way is possible.

I think Martin Luther King Jr. would align this process of healing activism with his vision of a Beloved Community, in which people centered agape in their lives, a Greek social concept defined by King as an understanding, creative, redemptive good-will for all people. He shares eloquently: "If I respond to hate with a reciprocal hate, I do nothing but intensify the cleavage in broken community. I can only close the gap in broken community by meeting hate with love … Agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community."

A powerful example of this is Nelson Mandela, who spent his years in prison learning Afrikaans, the language of his oppressor while studying their history and reading their favorite poets. He became close friends with his prison guard, and even disarmed Constand Viljoen, a South African general who was an oppressive enforcer of apartheid. Viljoen was the former chief of the South African Defense Force, which had crushed dissent in Black townships and assassinated Black activists. Many White South Africans were terrified of losing political power in an impending national election. Political factions murdered one another in the streets. And an alliance of White supremacist groups had asked Viljoen to lead an armed insurrection against the government.

However, Viljoen and Mandela both wanted to avoid a looming civil war, so Mandela asked if Viljoen wanted to come over for some tea. By the end of the meeting, Viljoen had not only accepted Mandela’s request to call off the insurrection; he persuaded other White South Africans to participate in the upcoming election. And when Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s President a year later following the nation’s first fully Democratic elections, Viljoen stood in the middle of the new parliament, saluted him, and would later call him “the greatest of men.”

Mandela understood on some profound level that ultimately, whether you are Black or White, right wing or left wing, is ultimately a function of change things for which you have no control. Political views are like the dress you wear, but underneath them is a flesh and blood human being. If you cut through those and start finding the heart and appeal to their generosity, you’re going to make them feel better about themselves. - Journalist John Carlin

Given the shadowy network of corruption and special interests within US government systems, what Mandela did isn't necessarily something that would work with, say, the Bush family or the Clintons, or rogue elements within the CIA. But what if each of us were to practice this in our own lives and institutions? How would that add to the sense of collective efficacy needed to create new systems independent of the abusive establishment we live in?

Social commentator and poet bell hooks is one of my favorite role models when it comes to healthy social justice activism. She argues that activists are more concerned with material goals like policy change and learning fancy vocabulary terms than they are with listening to other perspectives, building relationships across our differences, maintaining full respect for each other as valued human beings, and transforming our anger at oppressive systems into constructive and compassionate action. The Compassionate Rebel: Energized by Anger, Motivated by Love is a compilation of stories of 50 people who have experienced physical and sexual abuse, combat trauma, and many types of oppression who have become social change activists using nonviolent means to promote social justice. What the authors found was that "the majority of the acts of compassion stemmed from anger, and their ability to achieve social change is maximized when the capacity for rage against injustice and capacity for love are fully joined."

hooks writes a powerful essay called "Love is the Practice of Freedom" that further explores the need for love in our social movements.

In this society, there is no powerful discourse on love emerging either from progressives or from the Left. The absence of a sustained focus on love in progressive circles arises from a collective failure to acknowledge the needs of the spirit and an overdetermined emphasis on material concerns. Without love, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our world community from oppression and exploitation are doomed.

Critically examining these blind spots, I conclude that many of us are motivated to move against domination solely when we feel our self-interest directly threatened. Often, then, the longing is not for a collective transformation of society, an end to politics of dominations, but rather simply for an end to what we feel is hurting us. This is why we desperately need an ethic of love to intervene in our self-centered longing for change. Until we are all able to accept the interlocking, interdependent nature of systems of domination and recognize specific ways each system is maintained, we will continue to act in ways that undermine our individual quest for freedom and collective liberation struggle.

Without an ethic of love shaping the direction of our political vision and our radical aspirations, we are often seduced, in one way or the other, into continued allegiance to systems of domination.

Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.

Here are a few more pictures from the day :)

Now that the conference is over, I can let out a full exhale and focus on the next few weeks of travel, where I'll be in Kona, Hawaii for the first week and visiting my man in Minneapolis the second week. I feel grateful that I've manifested work and good health that allows me to travel and explore. Speaking of health, I've been doing better with my asthma, although the intense pollen in the air makes this more challenging. The one thing that seems to make the most difference is being conscious about relaxing my shoulders and taking deep, slow breaths throughout the day.

I've also been eating plant-based the last few weeks after watching Rotten, an investigative docu-series on Netflix that explores corruption in the food supply chain, and The Game-Changers. This show explores the rise of plant-based diets for elite athletes and peak performers. Basically, a plant-based diet is associated with significant benefits linked to increased sustained energy levels, increased performance and endurance, and decreased chronic inflammation. Interestingly enough, Roman gladiators back in the day ate most barley, wheat, and beans. There was a scene in the show where scientists took blood samples of three athletes, with two of them eating meat and the other on a vegan diet. The blood samples from the athlete who didn't eat meat was clean and clear, while the blood samples from the people who ate meat were murky and dark.

Something the show didn't address was the rise of synthetic 'meat,' like the Beyond Meat products we see everywhere now. Those products are filled with synthetic and genetically modified ingredients that you wouldn’t find anywhere in the natural world. I'd much rather eat locally sourced, organic grass-fed beef than a Beyond Meat burger any day.

Given my asthma and my daily dancing practice, I figured I would give it a try. I also see it as a way to get creative in the kitchen, and further evolve my skills with cooking. I've been doing chickpea stir fries, spinach dishes with indian spices, jackfruit sandwiches, and more. I've noticed a few shifts even in the few weeks, but my tummy feels good after I eat these foods and I feel less tired throughout the day. I don't plan on giving up meat, but these shows had me thinking about reducing my consumption. And I think it's always healthy and feels good to shake things up.

A fun frame I saw at a coffee shop in Ridgway, Colorado!

Love changes us, whether that's learning to build connections with people we deem as enemies or learning to love the people we choose to be in intimate relationship with. I'm so grateful for my lovely man. And he inspires my dance sessions like no other. Since falling in love, I feel like my dancing has felt more embodied and alive than ever before.