Originally published at: https://integrallife.com/enoughisenough-overcoming-racism-in-america/
In light of the recent violent deaths of three black Americans — Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd — at the hands of current and former police officers in the United States, we wanted to deepen our discussion of race and racism and how we as Integralists can contribute to change by becoming powerful anti-racists in our own circles of influence.
This was just the beginning of an extremely important conversation, and we want to know what you think. Let us know about any questions or comments you may have below!
I really enjoyed this. Thanks to all of you for this “conversation;” it’s a strong start of a presentation for you all as a group about this issue of racism and Integrality. You demonstrated a sufficiently safe space to appropriately be able to discuss, talk about, these issues. I very much appreciated each of your contributions, particularly the vulnerability, openness, presencing, and inquiry that Gabe enacted; speaking like he was in the experience and exploration of it, not just talking about it all as some expert.
That said, I’d like to see you go beyond just talking ABOUT Integrality and the dynamics of racism to taking the interaction into a sufficiently safe space of also engaging each other in it, not just talking ABOUT, but demonstrating DOING this valuable work with each other. This would be powerful, robust, potent, and juicy; a tour de force impact in this subject matter. Are you up for that level of transparency and vulnerability on video (you don’t have to air it, but at least step up to it, then decide whether to air it on Integral+Life)? I definitely sense that most of you are ready to walk that talk. And, obviously, it would be a great service to us all in the world, to show us the how of facing, engaging, and transforming through these issues. No pressure.
Highest regards,
Larry Kiehl
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Thanks to all of you for this conversation, which was a free-wheeling and promising beginning. I say “free-wheeling” because there were numerous topics that came up that seemed to me worthy of an entire, deeper conversation themselves: intergenerational collective trauma AND intergenerational resiliency; Rob’s comment about radical creativity (in addressing racial issues; what are some ideas?); xenophobia and exotica; class issues in conjunction with race; accounting for the history of slavery and genocide without being trapped by it (is this only possible for integralists?); development of white identity, to name a few.
I appreciated Gabe grounding the conversation in the somatic experience, and also Greg’s “Melancholia” piece: a great musical exercise for conversations like this (my energy fell straight into the “womb-tomb” of the 2nd chakra–birth and death intermingling, appropriate for these times of uncertainty, I guess). I also very much appreciated Diane helping to structure and focus the conversation; that’s really helpful when there are numerous speakers.
I thought the integral sensibility of inclusion was present, of course, or as Mark said of this “this is us” moment: “collective acknowledgement of our inter-relatedness.”
And here is what I came away wondering about: why not use and define the term ‘white fragility’? In these conversations, I mean. Of course it is not a term to be hurled as accusation or confrontation in other settings, but these conversations are intended, at least in part, to educate the Integral Life community, so it seems appropriate to me to relate the source of the term and educate the community as to all the different things it points to. I appreciate that, as Mark said, past conversations in the larger culture on race have involved a lot of shaming (of whites), and that’s not what I’m suggesting at all. I know some people see it as a “weaponized” term, but integralists have not shied away from using other apt and precise terms, even if they tend to initially sound derisive: mean green meme comes to mind, as do toxic masculinity and weaponized feminism.
But it’s a pertinent term, and given that the IL Community through “developmental privilege” is largely white, it seems appropriate to educate us about white fragility. There have been many conversations on IL about fragility/resiliency/anti-fragility during recent months, so why not address it head-on to help this community at least become more anti-fragile regarding racial issues and discussion. Corey did use it in the write-up about this conversation, thank you. By not using it, it almost seems like reinforcing white fragility.
Of course, I may be way ahead of things here; maybe the term and its different aspects will be discussed in the future.
And back to the praise, this was indeed praise-worthy. Thanks again to all of you.
It sometimes feels like we have the expectation that integral must necessarily lean toward “anti-green”. I don’t see it that way. I think that ideally we are trying to integrate the full value stack, which means that we can occasionally find ourselves aligning with healthy expressions from all these stages, even while adding new layers to the conversation.
Which is exactly what my experience was of this conversation. Which, for me, did not feel like a “green discussion” at all, even if we found ourselves agreeing with certain green perspectives. It was a conversation driven more by compassion and empathy than many other integral discussions, yes. But those obviously are not just “green” sentiments.
In my mind, here are a few things that separated this from a typical “green” discussion:
The overall intellectual scaffolding of the show felt pretty darn integral to me. These guys are careful integral thinkers, and I am so happy they shared their views with us, from each of their particular rungs of the ladder.
We were able to point to multiple systemic failures that are contributing to this eruption of protest, while green tends to limit the conversation to a single system failure (in this case, “systemic racism”.)
We were able to poke fun at “woke culture” and their silly overreaches while also respecting the sense of urgency and injustice that is driving that culture.
We emphasize identity as something that is constantly growing and evolving, while green tends to see identity as a purely intersectional construct.
We were able to criticize the common usage of “all lives matter” (which aligns with green) while also making space for good-faith uses of ALM (which very much does not.)
I think the sorts of prescriptive solutions that come out of conversations like these tend to be much more full-spectrum and 4Q than green solutions, including some prescriptions that resonate with healthy green because it lands in their territory, and can act as guardrails to keep green healthy. (The same with orange, and the same with amber.)
As for finding ways for integral to gain more traction, to me the best way forward seems to be to begin meeting issues like these where they are, supporting the healthiest views and the healthiest possible enfoldment between conflicting views, and really leading with the whole “everyone is right” idea before telling everyone why they are so partial 
And thank you for the feedback, I’d love to know what you think of the above. Maybe we will address some of this in our next show, and make some of these things a bit more explicit.
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My thanks to all of you who participated in this first “Enough is Enough”. I’m looking forward to many more, and with new voices added to the mix, too.
This is not a race issue. If you have no clue what the issue is, how will you ever create a lasting and wise solution?
This is a Government Corruption Issue. A Corrupt Government that follows a Marxist Ideology that has lost the Confidence of the People.
We are witnessing the Collapse of Carl Marx Ideology.
Do you know what Marx advocated?
Who in this divisive and destructive experience is the Proletariat? Who is the Bourgeoisie?
The Police have Immunity from their crimes.
The Prosecuting Attorneys have Immunity for their crimes.
All Federal and Local Agents of Law enforcement have Immunity.
The Judges have Immunity. Judges who hold positions for Life and are appointed by the Executive and Legislative bodies. This appointment corrupts the Judicial making them beholden to those who put them into their position of Power.
All of these entities get their Immunity and Policies from Career Politicians who have also given themselves Immunity, fat pay checks benefits packages and Pensions. All paid for with Borrowed Money that Bears a Rate of Interest the Career Politicians have Forced the Rich and Poor of the Colorful Masses to pay through the 16th amendment which is Legal Slavery.
Career Politicians who come from families of Career Bureaucrats and Career Politicians.
The Violence ALL COLORS of People, and ALL CLASSES of people experience from the Police is due to the Career Politicians and their family and friends in the Bureaucracy of the Government who profit off the Drug War. Now they, the Career Politicians and Unelected Bureaucrats are at War with a Virus, which is cover for their war on ALL OF US.
The Militarization of our Police is due to the Government Mandated DRUG WAR.
Career Politicians who have the Power of Government and sell it to the highest bidder.
“The Great Reset” that you advocate is a Policy Plan set out by world economic forum made up of Self-Identified Elitists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=92&v=8rAiTDQ-NVY&feature=emb_title
The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
From Martin Armstrong
This has all been planned and it is being promoted by the infamous Davos — World Economic Forum. These people are all elitists who would never walk among us who they consider the great unwashed. They have unleashed domestic violence in the world and encouraged all the suicides by imprisoning people and stripping them of all human rights. Their view is that the world is overpopulated, so thinning the herd to save the planet is justified and not genocide and Bill Gates sees no problem that [700,000] people may die from his vaccine which is an acceptable risk for him. Meanwhile, they use the media to blame Trump for 100,000 deaths as if Gates’ vaccine would save them.
Countries like Thailand saw their tourist trade collapse and countless food lines, all for a fake virus. These elitists have used the press to terrorize the people to achieve their goal to recreate the world economy as “greener, smarter, and fairer.” The World Economic Forum is promoting a Marxist agenda with a 50-page manifesto organized by the communist Thomas Piketty. The Forum promotes a new Marxist world, calling upon Piketty’s “[urgent new message” where they want to attack anyone with wealth. Their proposal for Europe is to increase taxation by 400%!
Karl Marx tried this before and over 200 million people lost their lives. This is what Socrates has been forecasting — the destruction of Western Society. This new report puts the faces behind the plot and this is the fight between human rights and oppression.
Identify the problem correctly and you will be able to easily identify the solutions.
All individuals act out of their own self-interest. Deny this all you want. Hate this all you want. It is part of the Natural Law that governs the consequences of Behavior.
I am Responsible to Take Good Care of My Self-Interest. Not you, or rich people, or the government. Me.
I am responsible to take good care of my self-interest. I do this Lawfully by doing all that I agree to do and by not encroaching on others nor their property.
This is all of the Law.
Until you properly identify the Problem you will forever chase your tail and FAIL!
I have to admit that I’m getting a little ticked off at the quality of debate in the public media. However it has provided me with a little fun and intellectual stimulus. I wanted to have a stronger handle on why so much of the dialogue seemed skewwhiff to me. So I bought the book "Hypersanity: Thinking beyond thinking. By Neel Burton. Chapter 5 sets out 14 common fallacies found in inductive arguments. They range from the Straw Man fallacy to the correlation implies causation fallacy to the argument from ignorance fallacy.
It has helped me to weigh the value of perspectives where I have little or no knowledge of the background of those putting forward the views.
Which brings me to the conversation by Corey et al. It starts with the premise that there is overt and covert, systemic and ad hoc, conscious and unconscious racism in America. It is so ingrained that it is one of the integral attributes of society in America. In other words you cannot do away with racism and hope to have the same kind of society as was there before. Leastwise that was what I understood to be the basis of the conversation.
I get that. I get it because of an incident that I experienced. Confidentiality prevents me from giving details. However I was astounded to find that a group of well educated liberal non-whites were cautious about raising and discussing with their white colleagues the effect that the killing of George Floyd had had upon them. That is the effect of systemic and endemic racism. That’s how deep it is. That’s the length of the journey our society has to take.
Hi Corey, this was an extraordinary conversation that resonated with me on many levels. Deep bow to you and all the others. One quick comment: I though the exchange between Mark Palmer and Tim (listener) about progressive whites “self-flagellating” each other was very useful. This is what I’ve experienced in a couple of anti-racism groups I’ve been part of here in Portland. In one instance, the conversation consisted of looking at a wall gallery of photos of atrocities committed against African Americans in Portland’s history. It was true and very partial. Then the conversation was primarily explorations around guilt and responsibility. This can be an important step for many people new to the history, yet I had just interviewed Greg Thomas for my podcast so I started doing my best to channel Albert Murray, black folks contribution to American culture, the blues idiom, and the power of the hero’s journey. This was clearly a violation of the rules of the discussion and probably over people’s heads, but I was suffering so much by the omission I couldn’t help myself! This is all a pretext for how I felt when in the Integral Justice Warrior discussion, Mark said that when he’s with a group of white folks having this conversation, he asks them to do it without using the phrase “privilege.” I thought “Great idea!” This sounds to me what Bill Torbert would call a liberating structure. I’m imagining how the container would be both safer and freer with a simple guideline like this, not to mention including in the wall gallery examples of African American culture contributions without which we would not be the same city and culture. As for the latter, if a conversation is overladen with shame and guilt, a bit of gratitude and appreciation can’t hurt too much, can it?
OK, here’s one more comment: the next time you do this, a couple of other frames that might be useful to introduce: (1) The Drama triangle (victim, persecutor, rescuer) and (2) language of the socialized mind versus self-authored mind. Just a thought!
Thanks again,
Amiel
Hi Corey (and Diane),
It sounds like the next one will cover the work white people need to do together and black people need to do together. You know what would be really valuable? At least for the former, which is where my attention is at, exploring a continuum of conversations, each of which meets people where they are at, introducing increasingly more complex frames and emotional challenges, etc. Almost like white belt, yellow belt…What would it look like to design an integrally informed sequence of experiences and conversations?