Racial Justice: A letter to the Hakomi Community

Dear Hakomi Community:

We are writing you all to address this pivotal moment in our history as well as to share our response and commitment to racial justice, inclusion, and equity. We first want to acknowledge that we are an entirely white staff and are writing from that perspective. With that, we are dedicated to growing in our own conscious awareness in the ways we center whiteness and identify within the white frame of the dominant culture. We acknowledge that there is much for us to learn.

We are deeply saddened and enraged by the ongoing violence inherent to and expressed within the context of systemic racism in the United States. We are also deeply impassioned by the cultural revolution in response to the longstanding injustices in our country. We want to own our personal and collective responsibility to support this collaborative cultural movement founded in racial justice and we will work to actively oppose the impact of our unconscious solidarity with institutionalized racism on Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).

As faculty of Seattle Hakomi Education Network, we are committed to doing our own work in anti-racism, endeavoring to do less harm toward BIPOC with our organization, and also addressing the disconnect between our work in the world and the realities of BIPOC.

At this point, we have committed to several immediate action items, listed below. This list will continue to adapt and grow as we learn more, particularly as we hear from all of you, the members of our community. We invite your input, your passion, and the authentic truth of your experience.

Actions:

• We are donating individually to local and national organizations such as: Black Lives Matter, Bail Funds, the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and funds that support Black-led healing for Black Folks, including The Loveland Therapy Fund, the WA Therapy Fund, and Blackout Healing.

• We are actively educating ourselves — in understanding and dismantling white supremacy in ourselves and our offerings, and in informing ourselves and giving credit to the important work done by BIPOC in the fields of somatics, trauma, race, and justice. Given time and further consultations with BIPOC in related fields, we are devoted to expanding our trainings to better meet our students more fully in their experiences of race, justice, and power.

• We are devoted to making informed decisions that will help us meet our students where they are more fully in their experiences of race, justice, and power.

White colonial culture’s legacy of genocide and racism is a burden that limits all who live in this country, especially those in our Black, Indigenous, and communities of colors. We are committed to doing our own work to actively work against the impact of our unconscious racism on others and to decrease suffering and harm in our world. We understand that this work is not easy, but we are committed to the work that needs to be done to best support, advocate, and empower those in our community, our country, and our world.

Sincerely,

Seattle Hakomi Education Network Faculty

Dave Cole
Carol Ladas-Gaskin
Dennis Gaither
Lynn Morrison
Roxanne Peterson
Kristina Cook