Mindful of Race - Ruth King

 

After reading Waking Up White, my lovely wife, who is working on her Buddhist studies, recommended this book as a follow up. Here, King explores race issues and racial identity through the filter of Buddhism and the practice of Mindfulness Meditation. As an African-American, older lesbian, her viewpoint of race and life experiences are extremely different from Debby Irving's in Waking Up White. Overall, I was expecting more about race issues - and she does focus on this in general - but there is quite a bit about meditation practices (in relation and reaction to racial issues), as well, which I am not quite ready to delve into.

But, before she gets into meditation recommendations, she does reference race and racial issues, and refers to racism as a disease - which she also breaks down as dis-ease in the case of race. There are many points made, and once again, there are complaints from people of color about whites wanting to be taught what the issues are for POC, but due to our whiteness, how are we to know or understand without POC explaining? I'm certain that it gets tiresome but what are the options? I suppose the point is for us to research the writings of POC rather than just asking friends and acquaintances.

The point that POC do their best to make, and whites have a hard time registering, is clearly stated by King as "Systemic racial harm and injury is not a POC issue - it is a white privilege issue." This is certainly difficult for many whites to comprehend, especially those who see themselves as the savior rather than the oppressor.  Another major point is that "I don't see race" is an insult, not a compliment as it ignores all that someone has gone through due to their race. And saying that is a privilege relegated to whites - POC do not have that privilege.

This book is definitely written for people who are working on the mindful meditation practices and who want to combine that with racial awakening (for lack of a better term). But, for those of us who are not looking for meditation recommendations, it falls a bit short as a book on race relations. So, I'd only recommend for those who follow these practices.