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“Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we’re and the way we live on the planet.”  –bell hooks

Within the U2 song “One,” Bono sang, “We’re one, but we’re not the identical.” We could also be joined in our shared humanity, but the small print of our human experience are incredibly different. While we may share a selected identity with others, we also differ in our experiences, opportunities, and concerns. Those differences could also be extremely difficult for marginalized groups, especially for Black and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC), and particularly for girls of color and their queer and trans siblings (QTBIPOC). To be able to have whole, healed, and unified communities, including the yoga community, we’ve got to acknowledge the historical and contemporary evidence that indicates and affirms this truth.

That begins with understanding that we each even have a position within the social hierarchy—what sociologists call our “social location.” Our race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education level, and other aspects combined create an aggregate that defines our position inside that stratification system. Some elements of our identity put us closer to social rewards. Others push us to the outskirts of society where resources are scarce. The closer you’re to accessing rewards and resources reminiscent of education, health care, housing, safety, food, property, and power, the more benefits you could have. These could also be unearned and are sometimes invisible but, ultimately, they impact your success in life.

Taking stock of privilege

Consider the ways you could experience unearned benefits or types of privilege while concurrently experiencing some type of structural oppression or drawback. For instance, at the peak of the ladies’s movement within the ‘60s and ‘70s, many white women focused on the actual fact that that they had experienced sexism and sexist oppression. At the identical time, they ignored or neglected the ways through which they experienced white-skin privilege. In this fashion, they centered or foregrounded their sex and backgrounded their race.

During this same era, men within the Black Power movement similarly focused on their experience of racist oppression, while not taking stock of their male privilege. In each examples, the sexism and racism were real, yet so was the white-skin and male privilege respectively. You possibly can see, then, the way it’s possible to experience sexism and profit from racism. It’s possible to experience racism but experience heteronormative or class privilege. It’s possible to experience homophobia but profit from sexism or ageism.

We’re multidimensional beings, yet it’s common for us to overlook that fact to center the ways through which we may experience oppression while overlooking the varied types of privilege of their lives. It’s essential to shine a light-weight on the ways we’re oppressed or challenged, but we must also take stock of the ways through which we’re privileged as well. We must acknowledge the well of resources we will access based on our position inside any social location. We must consider the unseen benefits we can have by virtue of the social locations we occupy.

What’s intersectionality?

To create equitable spaces–including yoga and other wellness spaces—we must consider the myriad ways we intersect, overlap, and diverge from each other. Black feminists have been talking to these varied and overlapping differences because the late Nineteen Sixties. The feminist writer bell hooks referred to it because the “matrix of domination.” Poet Audre Lorde, one other Black, feminist, queer icon, wrote about “the mythical norm (where cis white Christian males were the apex of society).” They were addressing “intersectionality” as an idea and a practice.

That now commonly used term was first coined by scholar and activist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. She used “intersectionality” as a metaphor to explore the multiple types of oppression experienced by Black women, given that the majority antiracist and traditional feminist ideas excluded them, and neglected the undeniable fact that they experienced simultaneous racial and gender prejudice.

Crenshaw, a legal scholar, explained it in a 1989 paper called “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”: “Intersectionality was a prism to bring to light dynamics inside discrimination law that weren’t being appreciated by the courts. Specifically, courts appear to think that race discrimination was what happened to all black people across gender and sex discrimination was what happened to all women, and if that’s your framework, after all, what happens to black women and other women of color goes to be difficult to see.”

Intersectionality asks us open our eyes. It demands that we consider the relationships amongst and intersection of multiple social locations in shaping our world view and our experiences. It also recognizes the undeniable fact that, while people may share one social location—for instance, sexual orientation or age—there are variations inside that have based on additional aspects, reminiscent of education and economics. Not all members of any group share a universal or monolithic experience with every other member of that group.

Putting yoga in motion

Through svadyaya (self study), the fourth niyama in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, our yoga practice offers us the tools of discernment (viveka in Sanskrit), to go deeper in unpacking our own biases so we will unlearn and relearn. We must utilize  svadhyaya and viveka in tandem to dismantle harmful spiritual bypassing, cultural appropriation, sexual objectification, ableism, size-ism, ageism, and toxic masculinity. We must stand against the concept of the “yoga body,” in addition to the commodification of yoga practice within the West.

Intersectionality is the trail forward and the longer term of wellness so we may be more inclusive of all marginalized voices and experiences. It allows us to look at the reality in a holistic way without giving in to denial, distorting reality, or leaning out of the conversation resulting from guilt or shame. Like our lived yoga practices, intersectionality allows us to step out of perceived and socially constructed binaries to carry the total spectrum of experience and move into conscious motion to create social change.

This movement must not diminish or ignore the ability and truth in our differences. As Audre Lorde wrote, “It shouldn’t be our differences that divide us. It’s our inability to acknowledge, accept, and have a good time those differences.” In truth, our differences generally is a source of each individual and collective strength.

Once we gloss over the distinct contributions and the unique issues and concerns facing the various members of our local and global society who face racism, sexism, gender bias, classism, homophobia, transphobia and plenty of other aspects, we feed oppression and inequality. We must not overlook or ignore the historical and contemporary evidence that indicates and affirms the truths of marginalization and systemic oppression. We cannot have unity without accountability and we will’t experience healing without repair.

Acknowledging our differences allows us to make use of our position, influence, and voice to advocate and activate powerful change. Honoring our differences  gives us the chance to commune, to cultivate solidarity, to authentically support each other, and, with a way of integrity, to collectively heal.

That is the primary in a series of essays conceived by Melanie Klein, co-founder of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition, and Anusha Wijeyakumar, co-creator of Womxn of Color + Wellness. They and other BIPOC and QTBIPOC yoga teachers will write essays that apply an intersectional lens to their experience of the yoga world. “Our goal is to construct an inclusive community for dialogue, introspection and direct motion,” they write. “We invite you to affix us on this journey to remodel your yoga practice from the within out and compel you into meaningful, authentic and sustainable motion.”

See also:  I Saw the Truth of the Wellness Industry. Here’s How I’m Disrupting It.