Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation

by Angel Kyodo Williams

Once you are aware of how you are being policed, you can begin the process of self-liberating, from the position of realizing the mutuality of our liberation rather than suffering under the delusion that you are doing something for me. There is an intimacy in that realization.

I understood more intimately that I was suffering, that other people were suffering, that I was a part of other people suffering, and that I was charged with addressing my suffering and the suffering around me. I was understanding that the stakes were incredibly high. That was the beginning of my activism.

The tiptoeing around race and other forms of difference as if in fear of waking a sleeping lion is one of the most subtly toxic attributes of whiteness in our culture right now. Everyone fears making mistakes. For white folks, though, the coexistence of being historically lauded as the creators of what is right, making mistakes must be hard. We are all waking up. It is going to get messy. The good news is there are brooms, and there are rags.

Healing can be started now. I get pushback from people who say, “No! We need to end oppression. Or we need to end all these systems.” I think that’s how we get lost and distracted from the work of healing. I’m working to end racism and oppression, but at the same time I want to be liberated. I want to thrive. I want to be happy.