Self-Compassion, Whiteness, and Working Towards Equity and Justice
Often we forget that part of compassion is self-compassion.
It’s September 2017. I’m sitting in a training session for diversity practitioners, a group of people committed to creating more inclusive and equitable schools. I’m a white, heterosexual, cisgender man. I’m sporting a pink polo shirt-tucked into my khaki shorts-and my Chaco-tan is prominent.
The leader of the training tells us that we are going to partner up and do a little role playing exercise.
“DEIJ work,” he says, “Starts with empathy.”
He’ll get no argument from me. As a DEIJ practitioner, my first job is to listen to the stories of others, to hear their experiences.
The leader continues, “But sometimes, what we don’t recognize is how damaged the people in power really are. We don’t realize how their prejudice and their discriminatory actions have scarred them.”
Okay. This has taken a turn. Typically, in these sorts of sessions we think about those that have been marginalized, those that the system has forgotten or pushed aside.
“You’re just gonna have to develop,” the leader says, “some empathy and maybe even some compassion for those people too. Because they are hurting, but…
