Posted on 02/04/2014 11:08:23 AM PST by nickcarraway
IT HAPPENED TO ME: THERE ARE NO BLACK PEOPLE IN MY YOGA CLASSES AND I'M SUDDENLY FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE WITH IT
I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my skinny white girl body.
January is always a funny month in yoga studios: they are inevitably flooded with last years repentant exercise sinners who have sworn to turn over a new leaf, a new year, and a new workout regime. A lot of January patrons are atypical to the studios regular crowd and, for the most part, stop attending classes before February rolls around.
A few weeks ago, as I settled into an exceptionally crowded midday class, a young, fairly heavy black woman put her mat down directly behind mine. It appeared she had never set foot in a yoga studioshe was glancing around anxiously, adjusting her clothes, looking wide-eyed and nervous. Within the first few minutes of gentle warm-up stretches, I saw the fear in her eyes snowball, turning into panic and then despair. Before we made it into our first downward dog, she had crouched down on her elbows and knees, head lowered close to the ground, trapped and vulnerable. She stayed there, staring, for the rest of the class.
Because I was directly in front of her, I had no choice but to look straight at her every time my head was upside down (roughly once a minute). Ive seen people freeze or give up in yoga classes many times, and its a sad thing, but as a student theres nothing you can do about it. At that moment, though, I found it impossible to stop thinking about this woman. Even when I wasnt positioned to stare directly at her, I knew she was still staring directly at me. Over the course of the next hour, I watched as her despair turned into resentment and then contempt. I felt it all directed toward me and my body.
I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my high-waisted bike shorts, my tastefully tacky sports bra, my well-versedness in these poses that I have been in hundreds of times. My skinny white girl body. Surely this woman was noticing all of these things and judging me for them, stereotyping me, resenting meor so I imagined.
I thought about how even though yoga comes from thousands of years of south Asian tradition, its been shamelessly co-opted by Western culture as a sport for skinny, rich white women. I thought about my beloved donation-based studio that Ive visited for years, in which classes are very big and often very crowded and no one will try to put a scented eye pillow on your face during savasana. They preach the gospel of yogic egalitarianism, that their style of vinyasa is approachable for people of all ages, experience levels, socioeconomic statuses, genders, and races; that it is non-judgmental and receptive. As such, the studio is populated largely by students, artists, and broke hipsters; there is a much higher ratio of men to women than at many other studios, and you never see the freshly-highlighted, Evian-toting, Upper-West-Side yoga stereotype.
I realized with horror that despite the all-inclusivity preached by the studio, despite the purported blindness to socioeconomic status, despite the sizeable population of regular Asian students, black students were few and far between. And in the large and constantly rotating roster of instructors, I could only ever remember two being black.
I thought about how that must feel: to be a heavyset black woman entering for the first time a system that by all accounts seems unable to accommodate her body. What could I do to help her? If I were her, I thought, I would want as little attention to be drawn to my despair as possibleI would not want anyone to look at me or notice me. And so I tried to very deliberately avoid looking in her direction each time I was in downward dog, but I could feel her hostility just the same. Trying to ignore it only made it worse. I thought about what the instructor could or should have done to help her. Would a simple Are you okay? whisper have helped, or would it embarrass her? Should I tell her after class how awful I was at yoga for the first few months of my practicing and encourage her to stick with it, or would that come off as massively condescending? If I asked her to articulate her experience to me so I could just listen, would she be at all interested in telling me about it? Perhaps more importantly, what could the system do to make itself more accessible to a broader range of bodies? Is having more racially diverse instructors enough, or would it require a serious restructuring of studios ethos?
I got home from that class and promptly broke down crying. Yoga, a beloved safe space that has helped me through many dark moments in over six years of practice, suddenly felt deeply suspect. Knowing fully well that one hour of perhaps self-importantly believing myself to be the deserving target of a racially charged anger is nothing, is largely my own psychological projection, is a drop in the bucket, is the tip of the iceberg in American race relations, I was shaken by it all the same.
The question is, of course, so much bigger than yogaits a question of enormous systemic failure. But just the same, I want to knowhow can we practice yoga in good conscience, when mere mindfulness is not enough? How do we create a space that is accessible not just to everybody, but to every body? And while I recognize that there is an element of spectatorship to my experience in this instance, it is precisely this feeling of not being able to engage, not knowing how to engage, that mitigates the hope for change.
Judging from that link, this has been quite a stir on the internet with lots and lots of people chiming in.
This is the first I have heard of this article.
I conclude that I am out of touch with the goings-on on the internet - and for that I will thank God everyday.
On my Bucket List; (as no one lives there and) they have a ski area.
No, she should have done her own workout and minded her business.
I assume people go to the gym (or in this case a hipster yoga class) for their own self benefit. Everyone else is their for theirs. If I would go to a gym, I would go for ME. I could care less what anyone else is doing or if they can do this or that. I am there to work out and leave, not to make friends and help humanity.
This lady is crazy, all she (probably) had to do was say “hello” and start a conversation (actually attempt to become a friend).
Liberals are nut, so are females which I am neither, but I’d imagine that pretty much no one would reject the effort to simply be “friendly”!?
It is truly AWESOME and SPECTACULAR
A Public Apology Heres what Ive learned after writing the yoga class article.
jen polachek in Gender Justice/Feminism --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The piece that I wrote last week is deeply ignorant, insensitive, and self-centered, and I am entirely to blame for that. Im sorry.
Its tricky for me to specify where I went wrong, because as many have pointed out, all of it is wrong. For starters, I projected my anxieties onto someone else and dehumanized her in the process. I apologize to her first and foremost. Over the past few days Ive thought a lot about othering, privilege, and responsibility. Pia Glenns response helped me think through the dangers of projection, narcissism, and non-communication. CeCe Olisas piece taught me about the problems with using others to secure my own self-perception, and the self-importance of assuming someone else needs or wants my help. Jamilah Lemieux broke down the politics of my body-policing. Rebecca Carrolls editors response helped me understand both her story and the moral repercussions of my own. Im learning an enormous amount from the dialogues that people are having, and it goes without saying that I have a huge amount of learning ahead of me. That people are having insightful conversations about this is the silver lining to an unretractable mistake, and Im grateful.
I carry a tremendous amount of white guilt and Ive never taken the necessary steps to examine it, ask questions about it, work through it, or communicate it in a way that is productive for anyone. I have not educated myself, and failed to ask the right questions about how my words would affect others. It is this kind of short-sighted thinking that is the problem; I can claim no victimhood. Because it is nobodys responsibility but my own to help me navigate my inexperience and anxiety, Im all the more appreciative of the guidance and feedback Ive received. My piece was beyond problematic, and the response has affirmed the importance of considering the holds of privilege and the ways in which it affects everything we do.
I thought that my attempt to exhume this guilt, acknowledge my privilege, and confess to feelings by which I was troubled would be of use. I failed spectacularly. When asked if I stand by the piece, Im unsure how to respond. While Ive offended a lot of people, Im still a real person who spoke honestly of real experiences. Subsequently Ive become a symbol of many of the things that are wrong with privilege, and to say that I dont stand by the piece would be to irresponsibly strip my experiences of significance and deny that those wrongs exist. They do exist. They are real feelings with real problematic weight. I regret harboring them for this long.
Many people have criticized me for trying to hide my identity, and I understand why. Within a few minutes of the pieces posting, I started receiving threatening messages and I panicked. Strangers have told me that they know where I live and that they wish death upon me. They have sought me out in every facet of my life, including going after my family. I tried to protect myself and the people closest to me, which only made it worse. It was an impulsive and fear-driven decision. Im not asking for sympathy or forgiveness; rather, Im trying to explain the basis of my actions.
Having had a few days to reflect, I know that I must take full responsibility for my actions and words. The article was a shaky first step comprised of too many unfinished thoughts. I am deeply sorry for the damage Ive inflicted.
Sincerely,
Jen Polachek
And a graduate of Reed College, no less.
No thanks.
Gimme the woods and the ‘simple’ menus.
Leave it to a woman, when there is no real problem they create one.
Negrophobia.
Must vote for Obama to feel better.
Obama must run again.
Must give him best chance we can after all, he is black.
Its coming people, Its coming!
Why is it that the one’s that think way too much are the least equipped to do so?
5.56mm
The orange tan needs to go. Maybe she can worry about that?!
If that is her, then I guess she should be forgiven, but I read this is her: http://yogibattle.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/polacheck.jpg .
I don’t think that’s the same girl.
“Jen Polachek”
Dear Jen,
Learn cursive and get a journal.
Nobody cares.
I see She has put herself through a “Self criticism” session.
Kneeling on broken glass comes next.
Their silly bizarre thoughts bounce around inside their heads, never running into anything important that might slow them down.
In the old days, men only had to encounter these inane thought avalanches when they were trying to pick up a dingbat such as this in a bar.
Then Al Gore went and invented the internet, giving them each a global blog voice.
She probably ran out of things to say on her blog, and manufactured this out of desperation — but it still shows she needs help.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.