Amber Karnes 0:00
Welcome to the Accessible Yoga podcast your weekly source for questions and answers around equity in Yoga hosted by Jivana Heyman and Amber Karnes. Join us each week for powerful conversations with thought leaders at the intersection of justice, knowledge and practice. In episode two of the Accessible Yoga podcast, I'm interviewing Kelley Palmer, who is a writer, Yoga teacher, Wellness Advocate and community organiser in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this episode, Kelley will introduce herself and the work that she does in the world. Explain why social justice has always been part of her Yoga from the beginning. And we'll talk a lot about the way that white supremacy shows up in our Yoga spaces how we can notice things like gatekeeping hoarding of resources and really start to shift from this individual lens and focus to one of community care and focus on the collective. Kelley also is going to talk about her upcoming course with the Accessible Yoga Training School, Race and Equity in Yoga Disruption As A Practice. Get ready for a great conversation with Kelley Palmer. Here we go. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Accessible Yoga podcast. My name is Amber Karnes. I'm here with today's guest, Kelley Palmer. Hey, Kelley.
Kelley Palmer 1:23
Hey, how you doing? I'm good. How are you?
Amber Karnes 1:28
Good. I'm glad to be talking to you today. Kelley is one of my favourite people in the world. My work life, basically, yes. We're good friends, and we chitchat outside of work too. But it's really exciting to be here with you today and talking about this work of Yoga and social justice. I know we're both so passionate about and dedicating our life to so Yeah, welcome to
Kelley Palmer 1:53
that is the work. Thank you for having me on the podcast, I always love opportunity to talk about equity and racism and white supremacy and not be silenced or told I can't say white supremacy, white supremacy, white supremacy.
Amber Karnes 2:11
As much as you want, we're gonna call a thing a thing before we can deal with the thing. You know what I mean?
Kelley Palmer 2:15
Right? I was recently on a news broadcast, and I said it like six times in the interview. But you know, they're gonna like edit. And I was like, surely they're going to edit it out? And no, they let me say white supremacy on the news three times Wonderful. Well, it's a
Amber Karnes 2:31
it's a new and different world. And it's exactly the same world. So we're gonna exactly do that today. All right. So before we get started, I know you but not everybody that's listening might know us. So can you introduce yourself, tell us your pronouns, tell us where you live about your life. And then tell us a little bit about your story when it comes to Yoga and kind of how you came to this work that you're currently doing.
Kelley Palmer 2:55
So I live in Charlotte, I was born and raised in Charlotte, and I've lived some other places, but it's what I call home now. And I live here with my two children have a six year old named Palmer, and a four year old named Duke. And in the middle of a pandemic, I feel really grateful that my partner who does live in New York City, is here we go. So the four of us are socially distancing. In Charlotte, I feel extra grateful to because I have a pretty big yard. So we get to explore outside, and we have a garden, slip and slide and all kinds of chalk going on in the driveway. So in some ways, it's been good to just be at home. I've been teaching Yoga now for seven years, I actually started Yoga teacher training when I was eight and a half months pregnant. I gave birth the next week after my first weekend of Yoga teacher trainee. And so I've been a Yoga teacher and a mother at the same time, always. I think I was talking to my six year old recently and telling him that I only started doing Yoga a few years before he was born, which kind of blew his mind, because I think in his mind, he thought it was something that I always did. And I feel grateful for that because he feels really connected to the practice and likes to record his own little meditations and teachers, Gigi, my mom, some Yoga every now and then. But I came to social justice as part of my Yoga practice and teaching pretty early on. The reason why I became a Yoga teacher was because I live in a city where there's a lot of Yoga, and it's very white, it still is very white. And people around me saw that I was practising and enjoying the different benefits of being in this practice. But they didn't feel comfortable going into the Yoga spaces that were available. So I became a teacher so that I could hold the space to teach people on bigger bodies to teach older people to teach B people specifically. And I've always done that. I've really only ever worked in one studio, and I started doing that in two anyway of this year, and that's kind of on hiatus right now. But for the most part, I've always taught in community spaces, community centres and rec centres that I would rent to teach $5 class I taught the same $5 class for almost five years, with little breaks in between. And I started a nonprofit with some other Yoga teachers three years ago called Sanctuary In The City, we're basically focused on a focused on healing spaces for Black and indigenous people of colour. And we do that in various ways before the pandemic, but right now, that looks like us offering emergency stipends to other teachers and healers who are out of work in North Carolina, but also in Georgia. And then offering online spaces, different ones, breathing classes, movement classes, we have a book club, we have community circles, we've had pride events last month. And it's offering us way for us to do our work, even in the middle of all of this, and that feels really good.
Amber Karnes 6:03
That's awesome. Well, thanks for telling us about what your work looks like these days. And today, I want to talk about a little bit how, what do you see as Yoga teachers responsibility, when it comes to Yoga and social justice, or anti racism work? Specifically, I know that one of the reasons you started teaching in this practice is because people like yourself, your mother, your friends, like we're not feeling welcome in these like, primarily white-led Yoga spaces that you're describing. And so, um, maybe you can talk a little bit more about that, like what your experience has been in those types of spaces. And what you feel like a Yoga teachers responsibility is when it comes to things like social justice.
Kelley Palmer 6:54
I think that Yoga studios and Yoga communities and spaces are just mirrors for what's happening in the rest of the world. And so it's been my experience that Yoga spaces are usually white centred, and white run, and then White attended. And so I don't necessarily have the experience of having to navigate lots of white people, but it's because I've practised in a space that was Black, and then I curated my own Black teaching space. But when I have been in studio spaces, the harm that comes are things that other people might not notice or overlook. But they also mirror the same harm that I would experience in any other workplace, being questioned around expertise or knowledge base being made to feel like I don't belong in the space, people being surprised that I'm in the space. Even here in the pandemic, I had an experience where I was teaching online. And, you know, I signed in from the studios account. So obviously, I have some credentialing from the studio to do that. And there were people waiting, and one person asked, Are You the teacher, and I said, Yes, I'm going to be the one leading, and we began. And then they said, Oh, I just realised I had a meeting I have to go to, and maybe they did have a meeting they had to go to. And it felt very much like what I've encountered at festivals, when I'm teaching when I'm teaching at conferences, or in a new space of people not really being sure that a Black person could or should or can leave the space, and really not knowing what to do with that. And so that's that's the part about being in Yoga spaces as a Black person and a Black body. Also in a bigger body and a queer body, that the media surrounding this practice and the business of this practice centres, one population, which is slim, young, white women, and everybody else, if you sit outside that norm, there's almost this necessity to prove that you deserve to be in a space, prove that you have the training to be in the space, prove that you your body can do the hard things, which make you more valid in the space. And for me personally, that takes away from the ability to lean into the benefits of the practice. And that informs me wanting to create spaces where people don't feel like they have to do that. But also, I think that when we're talking about the responsibility of studio owners, especially white studio owners, there needs to be a real dismantling of how you even got to the place of opening a studio, who your sintered population is who the teachers are in your space, and a real inquiry around whether or not you're willing to sit down your power and privilege in those spaces. And you know, I've seen different people within the Yoga industry navigate that into For some ways, including stepping away from teaching entirely. And so I don't really, I'm not going to tell people exactly what they need to do, I will say that this practice is very much steeped in white supremacy and capitalism, and ableism, fat phobia and racism. And for it to be healed, white people have a responsibility to even understand how they get to the place of being the centre population of a practice that originated in Black and brown places.
Amber Karnes 10:31
Yeah, I think it's, I really appreciate you saying that like this, I think responsibility in this type of work that as white teachers, right, so I'm white, white teachers like me, who don't have any sort of like direct connection to some indigenous holder of this practice, like, how did we get to be in charge of Yoga in the West? How did it become that, you know, after, like, almost like, I don't know, 15 years of being part of Yoga spaces for myself, the first time that I was the only white person in a space. So when it came to a space that you created in Charlotte, you know, like, Why? Why am I always the one that feels, you know, and I've been marginalised in Yoga spaces for different reasons, like, I'm in a larger body, whatever. But as a white woman, I know that I belong in those spaces. It's all marketed to me, I always see pictures of white woman doing things, I know that that, you know, I know, like, who belongs there. And I never had to experience that very disorienting thing of like, this is a space that was not designed or created for me, like Yoga spaces, I think in in America in the West, are really set up to be like this comfortable place that white people can go. Especially, that's the closest Yeah, a safe space. And and I think that, you know, something I was actually talking with Jivana about today was the fact that like, for some people, maybe white studio owners are like the biggest component of of this group that for us, for them, the Yoga practice, and the Yoga studio space specifically has been that safe space, it's been for them, like their haven, their place of peace, the place they go to escape the world, the place they go, to feel better to reduce their stress, like, it changed their lives in so many ways. That when they hear folks like you talk about having an opposite experience there, or not feeling welcome or not feeling like it was created for you or with you in mind, or that you're not able to practice in the same way. It's like, they can't even understand it. They're like, how could I have this experience, and you have this experience. And so I don't know if you want to talk about that a little bit of how we can start to like, what what really keeps us stuck, you know, from doing this work, and from really stepping into that responsibility as a teacher to be able to create a space that doesn't just feel safe to one person or one type of person. But that can really be safe for all because and I think that piece is so important. Because if we're asking folks to practice Yoga, which is really about a tonne of self study and self inquiry and asking hard questions, and really like digging into our conditioning and the truth of who we are, and all those like big sort of like questions of what it means to be human. Nobody can even start that process unless you feel safe in your body. Nobody can start that really hard process of turning your attention inward. And learning all those things about yourself, and then hopefully, ultimately going into the world and being of service if we don't meet that prerequisite of like, feeling safe enough to actually do that, to let down your guard enough to turn that attention inward. So what do you think keeps people stuck from from stepping into this work? Especially, you know, as I think right now, in the world, we're seeing so many people have this? Well, we could call it like an awakening or awareness is raising. They know there's a problem. We know there's the problem. What keeps us stuck from being part of the solution?
Kelley Palmer 14:23
I mean, I think that we I don't think I say this all the time. And when I'm teaching, I talk about this a lot. There is this notion of Black, there isn't enough resources, space, land money, whatever, there's not enough of it. And what white supremacy thrives on is that notion that there's not enough and the people who hold power and privilege white people, they aren't really willing to hand over their power because then it means if we're believing there's not enough, it means that if they hand over even infant, you know, a little piece of pie Our there won't be enough for them. And so people hoard power just like they hoard resources. And I think when we start to have conversations about racism and white supremacy and privilege, even before this awakening that we're seeing this, like, collective awakening, even before this, whenever these conversations start to happen, you know, you and I have talked about it a million times, I can tell you exactly how the conversation is going to go exactly what a person is going to say, maybe not the exact words, but what they're going to say we even made a flowchart once on the internet, about how what the things a white woman's gonna do when you bring up white supremacy online, and it never fails. I see it in other people's comments, it's chilled out in my comments a little bit, because they know I'll post that flowchart in a minute and be like you are on step three. But I think that what comes up is that people want to believe that they're good, especially Yogi's, especially ones who've been on their path for a long time. They want to believe that they're good. And I'm not saying that they're bad, I am saying that they're very much involved in a bad system. And so people have a hard time separating themselves from whiteness, because they know that that whiteness holds power. And so when I start to say, white people do some white people that, you know, I often lead in workshop with, like, I'm not talking about an individual, I'm talking about the collective notion of whiteness, which isn't even real. But this collective notion that gives people power and privilege and people will say that they want to dismantle it, not realising that most of what makes their life feel good, is based in oppressing another person. And that goes for me, too, is like, you know, we use all this fancy technology right now. And we also know that small children made that technology and they weren't paid fairly. And there's a company making exorbitant amounts of money companies on this technology, and we willingly pay it. And we don't ask any questions, or demand any justice for the people that are serving us, essentially. And so it's not an individual space, it's a collective space of saying, what are we willing to give up, so that everything is equitable, and when we focus in and hone in on Yoga spaces, it's interesting that it's a business. And I say that as a person who does make a living in this space. Yoga studios are businesses and as a person who's worked for herself for a long time, and did own a storefront business for a long time. The bottom line is about making money. But we also know that capitalism is a part of white supremacy. And so for me, from my opinion, for it to be equitable, we're going to have to step away from that model, which means that people are going to have to close their businesses. And I know that's not going to be a popular thing for me to say. But if they want, if we want this to be a practices grounded in equity, and wellness for all, there has to be the space for us to reimagine what that looks like, for us to collaborate and co-create and spaces. And it's not enough to hire one Black teacher or go through a training and reword and make new marketing that has a Black and brown face and a fat body and a queer body on it. Like, that's not enough. That's the least you should have been doing all along. But you do need to be understanding is how your power whether it's the money you're earning, or the place where you've located your salon, or not salon, sorry, studio, the way you operate your business, even the way you offer scholarships, or work trades. All of this is based on power and privilege. And you're not actually sitting with people and co-creating, you're making something to market to people. And if we're honest with ourselves, that's not Yoga. If we're honest with ourselves, that's capitalism, and we're using capitalism to make money on a practice. And so I don't proclaim to have the answer around that. But I do know that in the same way, we can't continue as a country like the pandemic has shown us, we can't continue in the model that we have. It's not sustainable. The same is true for Yoga. We're in an awakening period where a lot of people have gotten rich, and I'm not saying every Yoga teacher has done that. But a lot of people have gotten rich and made exorbitant amounts of money selling a practice that didn't belong to them and holding other people outside of that space, whether it be the teachers, whether it be the students, there is a certain level of knowing, which is kind of why I laugh at the notion of like awakening because we talked about this last week, like why people will be honest with yourselves, you've been clear about white supremacy because if you weren't clear on it, you weren't existing or living you know, you don't want to be a Black person. You know, you don't want to be a child in a detention centre right now and that's because you knew already, there's some privilege to you being white to you being a citizen. I mean, even as we're talking about Accessible Yoga, to you being in a body that can do things that maybe someone else's body can't do. Not having pain continually, like all of these things are privileges that you live and revel in fully and don't even have to think about. Right? And so we're gonna have to get to the space where people are willing to release all of that, even if it means releasing the models we currently have around Yoga making money.
Amber Karnes 20:36
Mm. So I wonder maybe if we can talk about some examples of you know, you're talking about redistributing resources and power, right. And sometimes that does look like a business closing or someone leaving the teaching practice. I definitely know people that have stepped into that where they've, they've done some intensive self study and decided, like, I can't even be part of this system. But I know that it can also look other ways, right? And that, what and that what are some ways of where people who recognise that they have more privilege that they are socially located in such a way that gives them access to privilege to power to resources, sometimes that's money, sometimes that's access to knowledge. Sometimes that's the privilege to be able to rearrange your life. So you can take an advanced teacher training, right? Like, it can look a lot of different ways that proximity to power. What are some ways that we as Yoga teachers, or practitioners, studio owners, people who are involved in this business can start to redistribute that to make it a more equitable space?
Kelley Palmer 21:49
Right, I think one of the first steps is looking at the way we make everything so transactional. And that's not something that I came up with. Having a nonprofit really opened my eyes to the way that even giving and charity is very transactional, a person has to prove, without a shadow of a doubt that they need your assistance. And then you decide whether or not they're worthy of that. And as a transaction, when what you said is you want to help and support people. But white supremacy tells us that there's not enough so we have to even hoard our charitable resources. And so I bring that up, because even in the studio space, as it's not as if their Yoga studios haven't all along been doing some sort of siva, some sort of karma work, but really investigate if it turns actional. It's like, nothing irks me more than hearing that a person had to clean up or work at a studio to have access to something. Because the fact that you're willing to let the person be there in the space means there was space, you could have just given the space. And so if you want to be in the space of serving others, first, look at the way you're making everything transactional. But second, ask the people you want to serve what it is they desire and what feels good to them, and then be open to just doing that, instead of trying to think what you could get from it. I think I have really been awakened in the last couple of years, and especially right now in the pandemic around the way that once I have personally released the need to get something from my giving or my work. I always receive more than what I actually need. I always have what I need and our nonprofit, we did this emergency stipend fund and we started it in April, when we realised that Yoga studios were going to be closed and people like acupuncturist and Reiki and anybody who does energy body work, like they're going to be out of work. And, you know, the government, the government had some things set up that weren't really helpful, or they were just really labour intensive. Even you know, yesterday, I sat down to fill out a grant somebody sent me, I got to the second page and I was laying on top of this. And I close it just because so much hoop Johnson so much. Yeah. And so when we designed our programme, it really was a one page application. Most of the questions were about how do we get the money to the person. And some people say, well, people will lie, and they'll steal from you. And what I've learned is people will do that even with a rigorous application, people who want to steal we'll figure out a way to do it. The same time people who need it, who are stressed because they don't know how they're going to feed their families. They don't have time to prove to you that they're starving. And we have to release this part of white supremacy that says people have to prove that they deserve to exist. And in terms of Yoga studios, the same needs to be true. As like teacher trainings, make a lot of money. I know that I've participated in enough of them. I've taken them to know that this is a moneymaker for studios and teachers. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't be compensated for their teaching. Also, different people have access to different resources. So to me, if anything you offer is not on a sliding scale, you're already saying that you only want certain people involved. And that's why it's supremacy on display. That's your privilege on display. If you have a studio where you have people who are willing to pay 20 $25, for a drop in, these people should be equitably contributing to make sure that other people can get into your studio class for nothing, if that's what they need. And it shouldn't be a rigorous programme around them trying to prove to you that they can't get in there, you already know the practices beneficial. That's why you're teaching it, that's why you open a studio, that's why other people are paying $25 to get in. But you're creating this barrier, and really saying, I only want rich people to come to my studio, I only want people have means to have access to this practice. And that's a form of gatekeeping that shouldn't exist. And it definitely shouldn't exist in a healing space. You know, it's like, even if I, as a person pay you $25 to come in your class, what you should know is that I've already spent $75, because I had to pay my babysitter to come and take that class. And that is unaffordable for almost everybody. I mean, maybe there are people who that feels good, but I like to practice Yoga every day. $75 a day. And so these are the spaces where I'm saying, like people are gonna have to reimagine what a studio looks like. You know, even studios that offer childcare, it's like, I understand, you definitely have to pay people their worth for working. And also, if I've paid you $18, to take class, you should watch my kids for free, and figure out how to make that work financially. That's what accountants are for help you figure out your budgets. But there when we started our nonprofit, what we had in mind, people told us was not feasible, and it wasn't sustainable. And last month, our nonprofit would raise $30,000, at the halfway mark of the year, we raised 90% of our yearly goal. And so resources are out there and they aren't available. It's just a matter of us re imagining what it means for there to be true equity, and unfortunately, but fortunately, that means that a select few can't be rich, and the rest of us be paying into that wealth. It means that we're equitably distributing, and maybe we look to coops maybe we look to, you know, the sliding scale Co Op spaces where teachers are being paid equitably. And the people with the most means are contributing the most to cover the costs of those who can't contribute at all. I just know that the solution that we need doesn't exist, and we're not going to find it in the same models, all of us Yeah, to be pulled apart. And that's going to be very uncomfortable for people. But I mean, the people who are afraid of being uncomfortable to know that everybody else is uncomfortable waiting on you to make it equitable. Yeah. Yeah.
Amber Karnes 28:21
I think one of the themes that you know emerges for me when I talk about stuff like this is, you know, you're talking about a shift from this like kind of individual lens or focus, right, where Yoga is, like a personal practice. And it is it is a personal practice, but that we can shift from this individual focus to this collective focus, we can really use this practice to wake us up to the ways that we are dependent on one another. And not just in a way that like a child is dependent on a parent, but in the ways of like, well, the COVID pandemic has really opened our eyes that our actions have echoes, like, what we do affects another person in the way that we set up systems affects everybody, and people create those systems. And so I think one of the things we're talking about when we talk about redistributing resources is if we have this current model with Yoga in the West that anyone who has the means can go start their own studio space where they can set it up exactly how they want that honours, like their comfort and where they're at and the type of people they want to see show up and then they get to control all that marketing and that of course, informs who shows up all the gatekeeping we talked about with teacher trainings, all of that that means that if we're going to look toward these collective and community spaces, which you know, you spoke to this that like you never practice Yoga in some like white lady's Yoga studio with like, you know, the perfect statues everywhere and minimalist, whatever, like you are always practising in community spaces. and marginalised folks have been practising Yoga outside of Yoga studios since it started. And so like the way that community space, and the way that collective Co Op spaces, places that you were talking about where resources are redistributed to make sure that everybody has what they need. That's a very different way of orienting yourself, your business, your practice, and how you lead it your intention with this practice, than it is to have these like really siloed spaces that focus on like, individual people's comfort. And so I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit like that mindset shift from this individual lens to the collective ones. And how I think something really powerful you talked about was that white supremacy and capitalism and patriarchy basically like all these systems in dominant culture that set us up to believe that there's not enough and that we need to protect our safety at all times, that keeps us in this individual lens, where we're really focused on our own individual safety and comfort and identity. And so what maybe we can just talk about this a little bit like how that shift happens from this individual lens to the collective. And like maybe even that shift from like self care to community care,
Kelley Palmer 31:25
right? I think you know, it's a practice because we are very much socialised to centre yourself. And I think that Care for Self and understanding of self are important and essential. But the part that white supremacy makes it kind of like aching, gross, is this notion that if we release our grasp on certain things, we'll be left with not enough or nothing at all. And, in particular, in the West, in the United States, in particular, there's this notion that we have a right to hoard and gather as much as possible. And that that is what makes you most valuable. And there has to be a work around, knowing that, if you're just holding on to resources, whether it's a location where there's actual money, whether it's actual power and privilege, you're, you're basically saying that you don't care about humanity, that you aren't open to the fact that everyone deserves access to a place to live, food to eat, health and wellness, you're saying that you matter more than everyone else. And the work of unpacking that feels daunting, I feels really big. It feels like if people really connected to the indigenous cultures that cultivated this practice, they would see that deeply rooted. But people have cherry picked, what parts of indigenous rituals and beliefs they want to hold on to, and squeeze them into this manifest destiny. America is the greatest indoctrination that we all who are raised here, hold, you know, sometimes people say to me, like, Oh, I was raised outside of that. And my parents taught me this or that or whatever else. And it's like, you couldn't have been raised outside of it. It it. This is it, it is the thing. We're all in it. We're all steeped in it. The notion of purchasing a home like the people who occupied this land before us didn't even believe in land ownership. But we have readily agreed to market, cut it all up, chop it all up and say who owns what. And the only reason it holds value is because other people don't hold it. It's like money. When we really think about it money only holds value, because some people will never have it. If we gave it to everybody, then it would mean nothing. Yeah, why is it Max? We have nothing.
Amber Karnes 34:05
You carry a Prada bag, because other people don't have it like,
Kelley Palmer 34:09
right, right? Right. And they make it expensive, so that it's exclusive. And to me that feels like such a ingrained part of our society that it really is an individual practice of asking ourselves in every moment, like does this serve the collective? Because Because even then our self care True Self Care serves the collective getting enough rest serves the collective, but they're going to dollar massage, though, doesn't serve the collective. And that's not to say that body work isn't important. We know that touch is healing. And it doesn't have to cost $300 At a super exclusive shiny, modern Salon Spa either. And so it's this space of in what ways like I already said are you willing to give up that The notions that whiteness have told us equal success equal, best, equal, good, equal, you know, worthy. And I think that's going to be individual work I was, I just want to say this other thing I was watching a documentary The other day rewatching it was called the canary effect. And it just talks about the way the genocide was exacted by the US government against indigenous populations, from the early 1500s, all the way to now. And there's a part of the very beginning where Christopher Columbus, in his own words, is describing the people that he countered when he first arrived in the Caribbean, thinking he was in the West Indies. And he talks about how the people that he is encountering are the kindest, most generous, most trusting, most loving, most communal people he's ever encountered. They have no fear of other humans, they give every single thing that they have, everyone works together, everyone is valued, everyone is loved, and honoured and upheld. And in the next breath, he says, and this will make it super easy to subjugate, rule and get rid of them. And that particular thinking, to me leads why collective care so hard for people to grasp. We've really been indoctrinated that if you are the person who just gives up what you have the person who is in, in community with other people in a really trusting and loving way, then that makes you weak. And we hold that inside of ourselves in different ways. And it makes us hold on to things that we really should just be sharing. It's unfortunate and sad and feels heartbreaking and feels like a big job to undo.
Amber Karnes 36:51
Yeah. So I know for some folks that step into this work, especially white folks who maybe are being asked to, like, consider for the first time that you're white, first of all, right, because white is set up as default. So oftentimes, like unless you, you know, grew up in a family where that, you know, had people of different races or maybe you grew up in a certain era, like you'd ever even had to confront whiteness, then we're asking white folks like, dismantle whiteness sometimes sounds like, Okay, we're gonna push you off into space. And now we're just going to be floating out there. It's scary, right? It's scary to think about like, Okay, you're asking me to, like, redistribute all my resources and power divest from this identity that I whoops, up until a minute ago didn't even know I had, like, Ah, it's a mess, it's confusing. I know that you're creating a space for people to explore and do this work. This is a course that we're releasing through the Accessible Yoga training school. So I want to spend a little bit of time just at the end here, talking to you about the course that you've created the process that you have to take people through that really difficult inquiry that it takes to really step into your power and your activism and to be part of this collective shift towards equity toward community toward making our Yoga practice part of our activism so that we can create the type of world that we want to see. And so I wonder if you could talk about your course a little bit, Race and Equity and Yoga Disruption As A Practice. That's going to be starting here in a couple of weeks. And tell us about the types of things that folks we'll learn in the course and what type of space it is, like, Who is this course force, give us the breakdown.
Kelley Palmer 38:44
So I feel super grateful for the opportunity to lead the space. I've done this workshop in different ways and different places over the last few years. And so it's grown and evolved. And it has always been, and I hope that it continues to be a space to co create. So you know, I'm there as the guide and the facilitator who's leading the work. And every single time I do this workshop, the conversations, the sharing is different because there's different people in the room. And this is not a workshop in terms of Kelley's going to talk while you take notes. And then you hold that knowledge in your brain and regurgitate it in you know, IG posts and comments on people's threads about racism. This really as a space for self inquiry. This is a space for us to look deeply at our own beliefs, our own patterns, our own practices, and also our history, our individual and collective history. I feel really fortunate that I was raised by a librarian and a history major. And both of my parents instilled in me the importance of knowing what has happened like really knowing what has happened, and being able to look at that with a critical eye. And for the most part When I encounter other adults who are my age and older, I'm 39 years old, I'll be 40. At the end of the year, I am blown away at the people who really love America and are so proud to be an American, and really have no idea around the history of their country. And not just the ways that harm has been perpetuated against Black and brown people, but also how it's been perpetuated against the disabled, how it's been perpetuated against the poor, how it's been perpetuated against non Christians, and the way that continues and uplifts white, cis, hetero, Christian, able folks, while forgetting about everybody else. And this workshop is really an invitation to take a critical look at ourselves and how we are upholding that on a daily basis, not just in our Yoga spaces, but also in the media that we consume. And the communities that we curate, and the places we decide to live and travel and the food we eat. Like, it's impacting all of those things. And I personally am frustrated with conversations that intellectualise Something that is affecting the lived experience of so many people, including myself, including my family, and my children, and even people in my family, I won't know, you know, I don't know who my children are grew up to be and who they love and whether or not they'll decide to be parents themselves. But I often hold and think about a quote from Coretta Scott King, where she basically says, each generation has an obligation to liberation. And I want to be fully engaged in my obligation and my responsibility around that, so that my children, and then their children and whomever else comes and my family lives, have new levels of liberation to access. And maybe in seven generations, this can be healed in a way that people are living equitably. But we have to be willing to lean into our discomfort. So you know, this course is going to hold some more uncomfortable places. And I'm going to provide support for the folks who are engaged in the work. But I think the work is necessary. I think that it's not for people who want to hold white supremacy outside of themselves. But people who are really willing to do what our practice asks us to do, which is look at ourselves, and to check our alignment, breath by breath. And that happens off the mat more than it needs to happen on the mat. To me, the mat part is supplementary to the lived part of this, and I'm going to cultivate some spaces for us to share in small groups, but in large groups too. And we'll dig deeply around how white supremacy is showing up every day, not just, you know, on this global look what this bad white person did on TV, it's like, look what we're all doing to uphold it, and then creating the space for us to reimagine how we want to be and how we individually shift but also collectively, what are the things that we're going to reject as normal? And what are the new things that we're going to create, I also really hold something that Reverend angel said to me a few years ago, Reverend Angel Chiodo Williams, that we need a new solution, we can't look to any of the solutions that have been provided to us before if they worked, we would not currently be still in this place. And, you know, in terms of Accessible Yoga, to me, this is a space where people are very much connected to new solutions and new ways of navigating. It's why we have a whole conference with multiple workshops of people telling each other and teaching each other how to make this practice accessible. And this is for me is an extension of that it's like let us come together let us really examine the problem of white supremacy, and how it shows up in ourselves and in our communities. And then let us really work on a reimagine a solution for what this looks like. And, you know, these 12 hours, I'm really looking forward to and also they're just the pinprick into the veil. But my goal is to create a big enough opening that whoever chooses to can stick their frickin head through and make a new way. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
Amber Karnes 44:25
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So Kelley's course is going to be starting on August 18. And so we'll be opening registration for that, in the upcoming week. We'd love for you to check it out. You can head over to Accessible Yoga training.com to find all the information on Kelley's course, which is called Race and Equity and Yoga Disruption As A Practice. So I hope that if you're listening and this type of work calls you if you know that a shift is necessary, but you're confused about what your lane is and how you're supposed to stay in it. If you feel like you're really stuck in a place of guilt and shame and fear around this, this is definitely the course for you. Guilt and shame are pretty worthless to the revolution and to liberation in general. So we want to get you out of that space and really into a place where we can start to be honest with ourselves about how we uphold or participate in the systems that we are saying, we want to dismantle so that everybody can be free and happy and at peace. And so I think if we only use our Yoga practice, to make ourselves feel better, or to be able to like find refuge from the world, we missed a huge opportunity, which is what this practice demands of us that we get to know ourselves well enough that we can recognise our humanity, and recognise the ways that each day, we honour that humanity, but we also deny that humanity and that shows up in the way we treat ourselves and the way we interact with others. So I really hope that if this resonates with you that you'll join us for this course, Kelley's got a lot of really great tools, and support in store for y'all that are ready to do this work. Thanks for being here and talking with us today. Kelley,
Kelley Palmer 46:10
no, thank you for the opportunity. I loved it. I always love working with you remember?
Amber Karnes 46:15
All right. So if you have to leave folks with one thing, maybe a question that they could sit with, or journal about a little bit or talk to a friend about? We're trying to leave folks with a question at the end of these podcasts to stay in inquiry with what's one question that you were opposed to everybody today?
Kelley Palmer 46:32
I think if I had one question to leave people with, it's really a two part question. All right. My question would be, when we think about equity, when we think about justice and liberation, what are you willing to release? And the second part of that question is what are the obstacles that you perceive around that? And, and, and I think that that's the question I want to leave people with. Because for us to make a new way, all of us are going to have to release some things. And what we're releasing is really dependent upon our privilege and our power and how we identify in this world, because we know that certain people are valued over others. And it's important that we are sitting with an open hand, allowing some things to flow out the things that are misaligned, and allowing other things to flow in that bring us into greater alignment, that and part of that being discomfort. And I just want people to get clear about what they were willing to release. And I think that's a question that can evolve. But I also think people have to be clear about the perceived obstacles around that. And it's a question I think about a lot. So yeah.
Amber Karnes 47:53
Thank you. Alright, Thanks, Kelley, for being here. Thank you for all the work that you do in the world. And we are so excited to have you lead this course for us as sort of the inaugural setting sail of the Accessible Yoga training school. So we encourage you to check it out Accessible Yoga training.com. And you can get all the details about Kelley and her work. Check out. Also the website will have the podcast show notes where you can get links to the resources we talked about. Thanks again, Kelley will talk to you soon.
Kelley Palmer 48:30
Thank you so much.
Amber Karnes 48:32
Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Accessible Yoga podcast. We are honoured to have you along for the ride. Be sure you check out everything we're up to on our website, which you can find at Accessible Yoga training.com. There you'll find all our upcoming courses including the flagship Accessible Yoga training online, which we'll be running again in September of this year. And you'll also be able to register for Kelley Palmer's course Race and Equity in Yoga: Disruption As A Practice. If you're looking to find your lane when it comes to Yoga and social justice so that you can get to work find your lane and stay in it. Kelley's course is a perfect supportive environment for you to do that. We'll see you online. Thanks for joining us.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
