The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness: Summary
Rhonda V. Magee, a law professor and longtime mindfulness teacher, argues that racism lives in our bodies, habits and institutions, so undoing it takes inner work as well as outer change. Drawing on her own life and on the contemplative practices she calls ColorInsight, she offers ways to notice racialised reactions with compassion, stay present in hard conversations, and turn awareness into action with others. It refuses both easy guilt and easy comfort, and treats justice as an ongoing practice.
- Rhonda V. Magee
- 2019
- 8 min read
- 8 key takeaways
- 8 ways to apply it
Key takeaways from The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness
The ideas readers on HourLife upvote the most, in order.
-
1
Racism lives in bodies and habits as well as in laws and institutions.
Magee holds that racial patterns are learned and held below conscious thought, which is why good intentions alone rarely change them. Inner work makes the automatic visible so it can be met.
-
2
Paying attention to race is the beginning, not pretending not to see it.
Claiming not to see colour can shut down inquiry before it starts. Magee's ColorInsight practices ask you to notice, with curiosity, how race shapes your experience and other people's.
-
3
Notice the body's reaction before the story about it.
A tightening, a flush of heat, an urge to change the subject: these arrive first. Pausing to feel them gives you a choice about what you say and do next.
-
4
Self-compassion is what keeps you in the work when it gets uncomfortable.
Shame pushes people away from reflection. Meeting your own mistakes with kindness and accountability together is what makes it possible to keep looking.
-
5
Everyone has a racial story, including people who rarely think about theirs.
Exploring how race has shaped your own life, family and opportunities is part of the practice for everyone, not only for those who are targeted by racism.
-
6
Deep listening across difference is a practice, not a personality trait.
Listening to understand, rather than to defend or correct, can be trained. Notice the urge to respond and let the other person finish first.
-
7
Inner work and collective action belong together.
Reflection that never reaches action stays private comfort; action without reflection can repeat the harm it means to undo. Let each feed the other.
-
8
Discomfort often marks the edge of what you were taught to avoid.
When a conversation about race feels hard, that is frequently where learning is possible. Stay one breath longer than you want to.
How to apply The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness
Turn the ideas into something you can do this week.
Write a one-page racial autobiography
Note your first memory of noticing race, what your family said about it and what went unsaid.
Find a practice partner or circle
Ask one friend, colleague or group to commit to honest, regular reflection with you.
Look at whose voices you hear
List the authors, journalists and teachers you read most, and add voices from communities you know less well.
Learn one local history
Find out how race shaped your own town, school or workplace, and who told that story.
Choose one place to act
Pick one setting, such as your workplace, school or neighbourhood, and one concrete thing you will do there this month.
Pause before responding
In conversations that touch race, take one breath and notice what your body is doing before you speak.
Reflect once a week
Spend fifteen minutes on one moment when race was present: what you noticed, felt and will do.
Practise compassion for yourself and others
Close the day with a short wish for wellbeing that includes yourself, people harmed by racism and people you find hard.
Turn toward what you were taught not to see. Feel it, stay with it, and then take the next right step, with others.
