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Hi there! I’m Tada Hozumi. Amongst many other things, I am Japanese, genderqueer, and a body-centred therapist.
First off, I want to let you know, there is no one here calling you out for not being good enough or telling you to hold back your white tears.
Amidst all of the conversations around calling out ‘white fragility’ we’ve been missing something: nurturing ‘white vulnerability’. White-bodied people need to have space held for their pain and shame, not for the sake of others, but for themselves.
Why? Because what we POCs truly need from white allies is intimacy, NOT care-taking.
I understand that a lot of what you’ve heard in mainstream social justice media is the exact opposite of this. There is so much emphasis on the obligation of white people to educate themselves and restore equity. The thing is, as a POC, when I honor my most vulnerable needs, I know that I want more than just equity. I want to feel genuine connection. This cannot happen when a white person’s motive to care is avoidance of threat.
The question then is: what is getting in the way of intimacy? As a POC and therapist, I have come to see that white people tend to project childhood experiences of feeling unloved on to their relationships with POCs. Allyship from this place is exhausting for us to receive because it keeps covertly centring the unmet emotional needs of white people.
It’s oppressive to us and unsustainable to you.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. I am currently designing an online nurturance program where I, as a POC, can hold mutually nourishing space for your intersecting pains from childhood and white-ness. Together we can explore a different type of allyship that is rooted in self-responsibility, consent, nurturance, and vulnerability.
An Authentic Allyship that feels good for BOTH you and me.
As a kick off to this project, I would like to invite you into the design process of my program by joining the Authentic Allyship community research group. I want to know more about how I can support you.
Previously published on Selfish Activist
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
Tada, thank you so much for the work that you are doing. As a white person, I completely agree with you that many of the defensive feelings I have that come up in relationships with POCs have their roots in abuse I experienced as a child (or, as you put it, experiences of being unloved). I haven’t found many useful tools for dealing with my white fragility in a constructive way, and based on everything I’ve read on your blog, I’m REALLY looking forward to the program you’re working on. Thank you again!
It is about time someone talk about the suppress emotions of white males.
You lost me at “Authentic”.
” I have come to see that white people tend to project childhood experiences of feeling unloved on to their relationships with POCs.” Can you point me to a place of reference where the theory above is discussed, reviewed, bandied about, researched a bit, etc ? Or is this just something you’ve come up with all on your own? You say that “you’ve come to see” – it comes across as your hypothesis. Do you you want to hear what I’ve “come to see”, or can you guess? …that “practically” the whole field of “therapy” should be blown up along… Read more »
It’s got nothing to do with our emotional needs.
Just stop talking to us in ways we all know nonwhites wouldn’t stand for.