A handful of students gathered in Bodman lounge, located in the basement of Helen Hills Hills Chapel, on Thursday, September 22 to discuss white work in anti-racism. The talk touched on a variety of topics within the framework of white allyship and interwove Buddhist practices.<\/p>\n
Dr. Catherine Anraku Hondorp Sensei, who led the discussion, is a Buddhist Community Religious Adviser at Smith College. Hondorp grew up as a white, queer dancer and choreographer in a poor, black inner city. She is the co-founder of Two Streams Zen<\/a>, a multicultural Dharma Movement dedicated to transforming people and communities through fearless intimacy and living compassion.<\/p>\n Hondorp encouraged students attending the talk to see each moment as distinct. She explained that the Koan tradition of Buddhism emphasized the idea of a \u201ctrue person of no rank,\u201d which brought forth many questions. \u201cWho is this? How can one experience them? How can one experience being a human without an identity?\u201d Pondering these questions, Hondorp organized an exercise where she had attendees bring to mind how these tie with racism and asked them to describe the experience in their bodies.<\/p>\n One of the attendees, Ellen Sulser, who is a third year Environmental Science and Policy major, was generous enough to share her thoughts on the talk with me. When asked why she attended this event, Sulser explained that she was hoping to find a model of positive and effective allyship as well as a space to address confusion on this topic. Growing up in Kirkwood, Missouri which is just 20 minutes away from Ferguson, Sulser saw her community \u201cutterly fail to respond to police brutality and racism\u201d which motivated her to learn how to bring conversations about whiteness and allyship back home. She\u2019d also like to have smaller conversations in her house about these issues.<\/p>\n Sulser was taken by surprise when the talk shifted from \u201ctalking about allyship as a concept to allyship as an embodied experience.\u201d She noticed a great deal of physical tension in herself during the exercise aforementioned, resonating strongly with the idea of a \u201cfreeze response\u201d to racism. Sulser noted, \u201cthe meditative reflection on where there is hurt and healing in my body is a practice I am going to try to keep.\u201d<\/p>\n Sulser is not involved in any religious or spiritual organization on campus, but is an eco-representative for Capen House. When asked about the intersectionality of religion and spiritualty with social justice, Sulser explained that social justice movements need \u201cspiritual underpinnings\u201d to sustain themselves. Sulser spoke to the importance of including spirituality in social justice conversations. She\u2019d highly recommend more students to attend these kinds of events to give a \u201cvoice to our experiences where we don\u2019t do so good a job.\u201d\u00a0 Through naming our wrongs, Sulser hopes we can confront and work towards improving upon them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A handful of students gathered in Bodman lounge, located in the basement of Helen Hills Hills Chapel, on Thursday, September 22 to discuss white work in anti-racism. The talk touched on a variety of topics within the framework of white … Continue reading