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St. Louis Racial Equity Summit 2021 Keynote - adrienne maree brown

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St. Louis Racial Equity Summit 2021 Keynote - adrienne maree brown

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St Louis Racial Equity Summit Keynote (notes):

We are imagining a world we have never seen before. Writing it into existence with words and with actions.

We who live in this country on this earth today have barely experienced the wonder of our planet. We have not experienced a world without homelessness, poverty, inequality, white supremacy, patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, rape culture, slavery, environmental degradation, climate crisis or prisons. And that's the short list of our 'horrible, ordinary' things, as Octavia E Butler called them. We haven't seen a world free of these hellish beliefs and behaviors - many of us have never even experienced a pocket of community with the absence of some of these beliefs and behaviors - and yet we imagine.

We live in a world which others imagined. Most of the constructs that oppress us feel like fact, are taught to us as fact - but they are actually evidence of historical imagination. These ideas were imagined before being practiced into solidity, authority, tradition, assumption. The core patterns of U.S. historical imagination are supremacy, dominance, victory. These are not the most beautiful things imagined in human history, but the most violently upheld.

Someone imagined a racialized economic system built on a foundation of indentured labor and slavery - exploitative production of dehumanized people to benefit those who labor less or not at all. In capitalism the norm and assumption is that we must always be producing and growing in scale, so we either work ourselves to death, or if we are privileged we work others to death, or under risk of death, though these days we prefer that the exploitation stay out of sight, behind bars or across borders. In racialized capitalism, the exploited are primarily Black and Brown people. But it must be said that while Whiteness is presented as a racial distinction and a superiority, in fact when people speak of white supremacy and privilege, they are speaking of a very particular and limited racialized economic status - they mean wealthy able bodied white straight men. White privilege can trickle down to other white people, but the way whiteness really works is that anyone who has access to white skin privilege is competing for that elite economic status of White. This is why the wealthiest nation in the world couldn't just pause and care for our citizens to stop the spread of Covid, even the white people. That elite body refused to take a loss, to let production stop. They could not imagine a scenario in which 570 thousand lives were more valuable than their own bottom lines. Can you imagine only being able to imagine what is good for you?

And yet, there are also, alive right now, those who remember how we are supposed to imagine in relationship to all that lives - indigenous beloveds have taught me we are meant to imagine seven generations ahead of ourselves, and make our choices accordingly. This long-view puts us in a time traveling familial relationship with all of existence.

So. We are in what teacher-friend Terry Marshall calls an imagination battle. The moment we begin to question oppressive historical imagination, supremacy imagination; the moment we begin to dream of justice, of liberation, of right relationship, we become imagination warriors. Organizers. Our mission is to co-dream visions more compelling than oppression, and more honest than supremacy. And then move from imagination all the way to new practice.

What happened in St. Louis, in Ferguson changed our imagination. Changed what we thought was possible inside the collective imagination. We have been fed up with living in a world in which a police officer can imagine himself in danger and kill our children, our spouses, our parents, our friends.

When I was in college, Amadou Diallo was killed in the Bronx, just north of my campus. As a young person, I was galvanized, politicized, shaped, scared, and I felt responsible for doing something urgently to stop this from being able to happen again. I cocreated a campus project called CPR - I can't quite remember what it stood for, it was short-lived but it was a beginning of my path as an abolitionist. Now I see a generation awakened similarly by what happened here, and the way you all rose up to respond to it seven years ago this month.

We are most often moved onto the path of abolition, after being snatched into grief and uprising. Perhaps we watch the disparities, how our communities get locked up for things that white communities don't. Perhaps we see how those who cause harm go into that system and come out with fewer options and more likelihood of needing to break a law to survive. When does it end? 'When does it end?' can be a question most clearly answered by the idea that it ends when we imagine what comes next. Abolition must absolutely be imagined as we begin to practice what comes next.

We imagine in part by remembering. Every single one of us, if we go back far enough, have ancestors indigenous to a place on this earth, or multiple places for those of us of multiple heritages. These ancestors predate colonization world-wide, and in a multitude of ways, they practiced being in relationship to every aspect of the earth and to each other, in responsible stewardship of land and life. For those of us who time and slavery and capitalism and the construct of whiteness have displaced from our original homes and peoples, we must reach to imagine how it might have felt to live this way. Most indigenous people alive today have to navigate and protect their long-held practices, and their literal land, against the pace and pressure of a modern world at odds with being in relationship. But we can all imagine some future-past which lives in our ancestral memory bag, which lives in our DNA. And when we struggle, we can actually find and follow indigenous leadership. A first step is to understand whose land you live on. I am in Detroit, on Anishnaabe territory. Anishnaabe organizers are active here, teaching me and others what they know and remember, and also sharing generously what they imagine through creative projects like the Adizookan.

We imagine in part by tasting our own aliveness. Audre Lorde wrote that once we experience our erotic aliveness, it becomes impossible to settle for less, for suffering and self-negation. For me, organizing to transform the conditions of injustice in the world was when I felt that aliveness, that tying in to something true, a connectedness that vibrates through my veins. We know this isn't right. We know we aren't meant to live in this perpetual state of war and stress and unmet needs and loneliness and lies. We can change this. Even before we have an intact political analysis we can feel that things must change, and we in small circles of humanity can change things.

Now, I sometimes imagine that each of us holds a distinct piece of our collective, liberated future within us, and it is only accessible as we liberate our own imaginations, and our truest selves, shaped by each of our particular ancestral and life experiences.

My work straddles the lines of science fiction, speculative fiction, and collaborative ideation.

Most science fiction answers three fundamental questions: What if, if only, and if this goes on. Social justice work answers the same questions as we dream together of a world in which we feel our miraculous lives matter, our freedom is non-negotiable, and we live lives that are satisfying and interdependent.

What if there were no prisons? What would you need to be able to do? Who would you need to be, to participate and be accountable and experience growth and consequences in that paradigm? I find it exciting to remember that there are places where there is no armed body making people obey - I got to travel to Costa Rica, a land with no ARMY, and I can attest that there is joy and there is community.

What if all children had access to the same resources of healthy meals, space to play and create, solid familial and community attachments, safety from physical emotional and sexual abuse, and quality education? What if they were not raised in an environment of emotionally or physically violent punishments, but tangible and nourishing consequences that grew their sense of responsibility for their behaviors and relationships?

What if we began life by getting to know ourselves outside of any preconceived identity-value construct (race, gender, class)? What would our Blackness feel like if it wasn't primarily a site of shared trauma and forced resilience? What if the work we do in this generation makes it a smaller and smaller part of our history?

What if?

If only we learned democracy and consensus and collaboration as a practice from a young age, instead of just a theory we expect our government to practice with representatives in our place.
If only our police were not issued deadly weapons, but trained to mediate and intervene on harm.
If only we had a cooperative economy. If only we could liberate ourselves from scarcity thinking and practicing, had an abundance

If only.

If the movement for a just transition goes on, our species might be able to survive on earth and take root amongst the stars, a destiny Octavia gifted us with in her books the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Talents.
If this abolitionist movement goes on, we will transform how humans relate to each other.
If movements for queer and trans justice go on, we will successfully break the restrictive and damaging construct of gender and hetero normative supremacy and actually get to experience the wide variety of love, life and pleasure that is most natural to us.

If this goes on.

What if.
If only.
If this goes on.

Right now, we are in a phase of history in which we are awakening our imaginations, and these questions help. We are articulating dreams to each other in which we matter. We are dreaming to each other that Black Lives Matter - and not just black straight ablebodied male lives, but black queer trans women's and non binary disabled lives matter. We will say the names of these lives and we will take direct action and change policy until these lives matter to everyone.

I want to share a poem I wrote about this political moment. It's called "this is not justice, this is respite":

the first thing we could do was breathe,
together
a practitioner of breathlessness is guilty
(hallelujah hallelu!)
like, they said what we knew
(he looked surprised too)
that small alignment is so rare
it lays our contradictions bare
some hushing shout does move through the body as if (remember) we are one body but
it's really chorus, we of so many minds
we feel so hollow
we feel such joy
we feel such rage
we feel our grief
we feel relief
all at once, in undulation
we cry out in celebration
and then catch a dissatisfied breath
this moment makes the moment we need possible but...but...
in the next breath world
he would be fathering right now
or high like the rest of us
inhaling aliveness, exhaling freedom
on a day that blended into a life
blessed to be unknown
in the next breath world
they would all be alive today
and the presence of that absence
casts a blur across the headline
it took so much burning of precincts, chaos, rage
screaming and defending and
terrifying the children and
combating every mistruth and
nauseous vulnerability and regret and pressure from so many precious lives already at risk
to get this guilty, guilty, guilty
we will praise up the collective tonight
we will lay gratitude for our warriors tonight
we will claim the hard-won territory tonight
tomorrow, we return to the fight
for even in our gasp of yes
with our need to grieve so desperate
we know
this is not justice
this is respite

Respite is going to save our lives. Rest is going to save our lives. And rest allows us to come down from the nonstop stressful urgency of now, to remember that we are also responsible for dreaming. We are concurrently dreaming a world in which all Black lives matter, and rape culture ends, and we reclaim our place on this planet, and we can hold each other accountable through love, mediation, boundaries and consequences.

My mentor Grace Lee Boggs used to always ask us 'What time is it on the Clock of the world?" and right now my answer would be, we are in a phase of imagination, co-dreaming a world where our 'what if's and 'if only's get realized, and the patterns of harm cannot go on.

Imagining these futures, writing these stories, does not mean we know yet how to live into these dreams.

I have worked as a facilitator and mediator for over two decades and a huge portion of the disputes I have been asked to hold are rooted in us being angry at our mistakes or someone else's, while unable to be accountable for those mistakes. The crises are urgent, but the transformation that emerges from radical imagination is still slow, relational, imperfect work. We are learning.

Earlier this year, I noticed that we are in a pattern of disposing of Black women leaders, and I felt the heartbreak of that, and at first it hurt too much to write. But then I wrote, and so much came out of me that i ended up sharing a piece called Disrupting the Pattern, in which I offered some things for us to consider as we learn to practice solidarity with each other, whether it's with and amongst Black people, or across racially constructed lines with any other people fighting for right relationship to the earth and each other:

"Consider that whenever dehumanization is taking place, someone is benefiting from devaluing another person. Ask yourself who benefits from attacks on effective Black radical women? Who benefits from spotlighting conflict within movements that are changing material conditions for Black people?

Consider who benefits from you thinking that Black success and freedom is dangerous, and particularly that the success and freedom of Black women is dangerous.

Consider that this isn't a new pattern.

Consider that social justice work is a place where most of us work for years for less than a living wage, subject to the whims of trend and philanthropy.

Consider, when you see the news of some perceived betrayal, some corruption of power, that the least likely option is that a Black woman who has given decades of her life to social justice work, to her people's liberation, has turned on her own legacy, on us.

Consider that the lie is scarcity. The lie is that there isn't enough for us to have abundant resources for our liberation work. The lie is that we can't have multiple leaders shining simultaneously, moving divergent strategies. It's a lie - we generate what we need and we are always moving divergent strategies.

Consider that there are ways to access abundance that don't rely on attacking each other.

Consider that it is not an accident that a massively impactful social movement for Black liberation is under this scale of attack - it only looks personal. This is an attack on all our emergent, imperfect efforts for Black liberation.

Consider that you don't have all of the information. We live in a social media world that profits from tawdry, salacious, divisive misinformation, where power is wielded by those most comfortable with distortion and manipulation. Consider that we don't have to feed the beast that comes to eat those who inspire and lead us. Consider that this may not be your business, especially if you don't have time to ask questions, investigate for something true, especially if you are only being asked to leap into judgment.

Consider how you want to be held when you are attacked for things you didn't do. Consider how you want to be held accountable for things you did do. Do you want death threats, doxxing and other privacy violations, organized harassment and disposal, when it's your turn? Cause if you plan to lead anything, your turn will come. So consider - what is principled struggle, principled critique, not just when you have a concern, but when you are the concern?

Consider that movement is not just a place of faith in the futures we are creating, but a place where we need to practice faith in each other, in our effort and our learning.

Consider that how you act or don't act in this moment is part of setting a precedent for how movement responds to attacks on those who love us. If you won't protect a Black leader from white supremacist attack because you also have critiques of or questions about how that leader's movement work is unfolding, examine that. How does that align with the world you dream of?

Most of the leaders I look up to were attacked in their time, and might have been attacked in ours. The common thread amongst them is that they were driven by love for their people, our people, us. The work of the revolutionary is to transform everything that does not align with love, from the personal to the systemic.

Consider what love does in the face of dishonesty, faithlessness, and repression: love tells the truth. Love believes in our best selves. Love liberates us.

Consider that you should not feel afraid to love Black women leaders out loud. In the long run, what Audre Lorde taught us is still true: your silence will not protect you or anyone else. Love Black women leaders out loud wherever you see us attacked and dehumanized.

Love invites us home, love says we belong, unconditionally.

Love does not demand our perfection, because none of us have that - love sees the effort we have made on behalf of our people, our species. They are home.

A huge part of my racial justice work is being in solidarity and loving myself in my own Black story and Black offer, which I know takes nothing away from all the other Black brilliance in the world, but increases its abundance. I love myself and claim my eternal place in movements for liberation. I have made and will make mistakes. I will still be liberation bound.

If you feel moved to practice this solidarity of which I speak, repeat after me:

I love you, Black woman.
I love you, organizer.
I will not engage in gossip about you.
I will not stand by quietly while you are attacked.
I will practice solidarity with you, for you, at your side and all around you.
I am committed to your freedom."

Thank you for that.

In closing I will offer that yes, I imagine a world in which we are liberated. And before that, I imagine a world in which we deeply honor the work that we all do towards that liberation, even if we don't agree on the methods. But I see so much more than just the state of freedom - I know my dream is not a destination, but a practice that will be ongoing. Because after imagination comes ideation - how do we bring these dreams into ideas of structure and policy and agreement? How do we move from air to earth?

And then once we have these ideas in place, we move into iteration - what do we stop practicing and what do we start practicing?

I am aware of how so much of what I imagine - liberation from the cycles of harm and supremacy, being in relationships of sovereignty and safety in our bodies and on our planet, letting love being a guide to how we understand everything from identity to economy - these imaginings may still seem peculiar and strange...queer. So i want to share the first words of Emergent Strategy, a quote from Ella Baker. ""This may only be a dream of mine, but I think it can be made real."

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St. Louis Racial Equity Summit 2021 Keynote

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St Louis Racial Equity Summit Keynote (notes): We are imagining a world we have never seen before. Writing it into existence with words and with actions. We who live in this country on this earth today have barely experienced the wonder of our planet.

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SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, HOST:

Well, forgive me because I'm on this mic exhausted.

(LAUGHTER)

TRICIA HERSEY: We all are, though. I think we all are residing in - sometimes in a place of exhaustion, in and out. That's what the culture is doing.

MERAJI: You're listening to NPR's LIFE KIT. I'm Shereen Marisol Meraji, and my guest today is Tricia Hersey, also known as the Nap Bishop. Tricia founded a project called The Nap Ministry back in 2016, and she uses performance art and social media and photography. She even has a hotline to promote the healing power of rest. And now she has a book out called "Rest Is Resistance." And Tricia says she wants it to be a balm for an exhausted world.

Look. I don't usually start my interviews talking about how tired I am, but Tricia really encourages her overworked readers and her IG followers to acknowledge that we're exhausted and that we have the right to rest. So here goes. I'm so tired. I don't know how to say no. I know you've heard this a million times. I definitely am one of those people who operates from a scarcity mentality that I was 100% raised with - shoutout to my Puerto Rican mom and my Iranian dad.

HERSEY: Actually, I was just going to - I was going to ask, were you from an immigrant family?

MERAJI: Yes.

HERSEY: Yeah.

MERAJI: Yes.

HERSEY: Yes. OK, it makes sense. Yes.

MERAJI: Yeah. I just - you know, it was just - I don't know - pushed onto me that all my opportunities would dry up if I say no.

HERSEY: Yes. My parents - my dad taught me you got to work 10 times harder...

MERAJI: Yeah.

HERSEY: ...Than all of the kids in your class because you're Black.

MERAJI: Exactly.

HERSEY: And so all of us are kind of holding onto these toxic programming ideas. But I think the - a major thing and what's so beautiful is that the awareness of it is coming now...

MERAJI: Yeah.

HERSEY: ...That you can at least name that and say that because that's really what this work is. It's just helping to pull back a veil a little, helping for people to peek out and see their humanness a little more and have that awareness.

MERAJI: All right. So it wasn't that hard for me to say I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I'm doing too much. I complain about that all the time. But the second part, that I-have-the-right-to-rest part, saying that and really believing it, that's what's hard. That's so hard. On this episode of LIFE KIT, rest is resistance. Tricia and I talk about the inspiration for her manifesto on rest and how she started believing that rest is not only a human necessity but a human right.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MERAJI: Tricia, there's an absolutely beautiful dedication to your dad at the beginning of "Rest Is Resistance." And I can't read it because every time I read it, it really - it chokes me up. It makes me emotional.

HERSEY: Yes, me, too (laughter). I read to my brother the other day, and he was bawling.

MERAJI: You write about how special your dad was not only to you and your family, but to your entire church community.

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: Why did you dedicate this book to him?

HERSEY: That's such a good question. Yeah. My dad is my deepest ancestor. He was my best friend. Like, I have a photo of him in my office when I was a baby. And I'm on his shoulders, and he's smiling. And it's just the epitome of the relationship that we had. He was always holding me up - like, whatever you could do - always teaching me you're enough. He really was one of the people who I could look to, to know that even though my body and my skin color was being criminalized in the culture, he was always responding by saying, it's a lie. You are enough. Your Blackness is a miracle. Like, he was an activist, union organizer, Pentecostal, fire-and-brimstone Black preacher. So I dedicated the book to him because I think, in a lot of ways, my work with The Nap Ministry and experimenting with it was because of him, you know? So I wanted to uplift him, to say thank you for being my biggest supporter.

MERAJI: What was going on in your life at that time when you were studying, when you just decided, enough; I'm going to start prioritizing rest in a way that I've never prioritized rest before?

HERSEY: You know, this was in 2013 when I started divinity school. And September 2013 is when I had my orientation, and we were to start the program, a three-year program. And I remember very quickly - it took about two weeks before I was sitting on the steps of the financial aid building at the university, crying to my husband on the phone, like, what have I gotten myself into? And he's like, what are you - I'm like, I - the pace of this, if you can see the syllabus...

MERAJI: Yeah.

HERSEY: They want us to read a thousand words in a week. That's one class. I'm taking six classes. Like, I can't keep up already. I'm overwhelmed. Like, how am I going to do this? But also, at the time - specific time - Black Lives Matter movement was heating up, just, like, all this trauma was happening. I was just coming to school, and nobody was mentioning anything about it. The teachers were just moving on, and I was just, like, so traumatized by this.

And then I also had two people in my family die suddenly. I was going through deep financial issues. I didn't have a car. So sometimes, I would be walking back and forth to the bus because - bus stop, trying to get to school. And then I had a 6-year-old son at the time that I was raising, working two jobs, trying to pay for my tuition, also doing an internship for school. So I really was, like, spiritually dying and physically seeing effects of that on my body. I was having migraine headaches. And my weight was fluctuating. I wasn't eating properly. It was just, like, a full-on battle.

MERAJI: Yeah.

HERSEY: And so, at one point, I just said to myself, I don't care. Like, I went to all of my teachers and told them, I'm going to come to class and get the attendance credit. But you may not get any work for me. And so I just started resting everywhere. I had all these special places to sleep all over campus. And I would also sleep when I got home. Instead of studying, I would lay down on the couch and put the book on my chest and just go to sleep. I wasn't staying up no more 'til 3 in the morning, like my classmates. I just - I said, I don't care. I said, let the chips fall where they may. I have to save myself. And rest became the vehicle to see what my body would do and what could happen when I went into a dream space, when I went into a portal of resting, when I decided to just lay down.

MERAJI: What happened, Tricia says, is that she began to heal. Her grades improved. She was happier. She was healthier. And she wanted to share that with people. Before seminary, Tricia was a longtime artist. And like her dad, she was a community organizer. So her first thought was a performance art piece, a collective napping experience where strangers could come together and rest in public. And to Tricia's surprise, people actually showed up.

HERSEY: People came in droves. And they'd lay down. And they woke up crying. They were so moved. They were so exhausted. It was just - became the spiritual, community-driven activation for the community.

MERAJI: So Tricia was organizing these collective napping experiences. Then she started sharing her rest philosophy on Instagram. And because she was in seminary, she was also doing a lot of studying.

HERSEY: I was studying in archives, looking at plantation labor. Being here in Georgia, in the South, I was able to touch and get my hands on so many powerful, really haunting documents around the sin of slavery here. And so I was writing and writing papers and, like, experimenting with this idea of somatics and rest, the body and the mind and resting and reparations and racial healing.

MERAJI: All that studying and writing and thinking about rest as reparations led Tricia to develop the four tenets of the nap ministry, which she writes about in "Rest Is Resistance." Tenet No. 1...

HERSEY: Rest is a form of resistance because it pushes back and disrupts white supremacy and capitalism.

MERAJI: No. 2.

HERSEY: Our bodies are a site of liberation. And that brings into the somatics the idea that wherever our bodies are, we can find rest.

MERAJI: Three.

HERSEY: Naps provide a portal to imagine, invent and heal.

MERAJI: And tenet No. 4.

HERSEY: Our dream space has been stolen, and we want it back. We will reclaim it via rest.

MERAJI: I really want to dissect tenet No. 1, or talk more about tenet No. 1. Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. This book is so much more than encouraging people to take naps (laughter).

HERSEY: Oh, my God. This is about more than naps. Thank you for saying that. I say it so much - it is about way more - it's a paradigm shift. It's mind-altering. It's culture-shifting. It's a full-on politics of refusal. We have been brainwashed by this system to believe these things about rest, about our bodies, about our worth - this violent culture that wants to see us working 24 hours a day, that doesn't view us as a human being, but instead views our divine bodies as a machine.

And so when I think about the first tenet and this idea of disrupting and pushing back - I've been taught my whole life that resistance looks like so many things, you know? It isn't one way. There's never just one way. There's infinite ways that we can find liberation. And so for me, when we are on - in a system that we're on that's under capitalism, that doesn't look at people as people - they look at profit. White supremacy - they don't see the divinity in all of us.

And so these two systems working in collaboration - we can push back against them. But even if we're off the clock and saying no intentionally for 10 minutes, our insistence on being like, not today, you can't have me for these 30 minutes, this little, small disruption - I'm thinking about my ancestors who slowed down production in cotton fields and who did these - this quiet quitting that's happening. You've been hearing about this idea of quiet quitting, where people are going to work but not giving as much?

MERAJI: I have.

HERSEY: Yeah. And so I feel like it's all in the same idea of disruption, of pushing back, of saying no.

MERAJI: Let's go back to our brainwashing (laughter)...

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: ...Because I 100% am a victim of this brainwashing, especially the thing that you talk about, where, you know, we think that the more we do, the more worth we have.

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: I am 100% guilty of that kind of thinking. So Tricia, how do I deprogram? How do I...

HERSEY: Yeah, I know.

MERAJI: ...Stop thinking that the more I produce, the more I do, the more I say yes...

HERSEY: I get it. I know.

MERAJI: ...The more worth I have?

HERSEY: What I will say to you is that it's going to be slow. It is not going to be a quick tip, advice that I can give you and just be like, this is going to work for you. It's really going to be a slow uncovering, a slow mercy and grace towards yourself. I tell people to rest through the guilt, rest through the shame because to me, the guilt and shame is just beautiful evidence of your brainwashing. And give thanks for that because you didn't even know you were brainwashed before. You know what I mean? You thought this was normal. You thought everybody around you, the whole entire culture, is moving at this pace. And so take it slow. Understand, be aware that it's happening, and then start to go deeper into the wells of yourself, to be to begin to see what could help to help you heal.

Like, this work is about listening and about connecting with the body. And so I love yoga. I love meditation. I love deep breathing, taking baths. I love walking, birding. I think all these ideas of what resting could be for us and how we can reimagine ourselves to be more human is really the key to this work, to, like, begin to disrupt the idea that you're a machine and that your worth is connected to your accomplishment. It's going to be a slow go. This isn't easy work. Like, this is some serious, real deep, dark s***. Like, this is dark.

MERAJI: Yeah. I appreciate that. Tricia, what are the health benefits from taking the time to prioritize rest from napping?

HERSEY: Yes. You know, I talk a lot about my divinity degree, but I have an undergrad degree in public health and community health. So I know the beauty of looking at this message from the science of sleep. The CDC have named sleep deprivation as a public health crisis. Three of the top diseases - high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes - can be linked back to sleep deprivation. And so when we aren't sleeping, our organs don't have a chance to regenerate. And then from a brain level, our brains are being truly traumatized by our lack of sleep and lack of a moment of pause.

When we sleep, the brain is like bathed in this chemical that helps people to process trauma. And it helps you to remember. It helps your creativity, memory retention. And you're able to, like, really heal your body. So I tell people, maybe this work can't land in your mind and spirit from a political level. Maybe you can't right now jump on the whole spiritual idea of it. But just to look at what is happening from a health level, from biologically, from neurologically, what we're doing to our bodies when we're exhausted, when we're burnt out - over a sustained amount of time, it is killing us. It is causing more disease to take root in our bodies. It's not allowing us to live to our full potential.

MERAJI: All the women in my family - and this includes me, I'm raising my hand here - we are the type of people that if there is a moment where we can rest, we're wiping something or we're cleaning a window.

HERSEY: Or organizing something, yeah.

MERAJI: Organizing. Exactly.

HERSEY: That's how my mom used to be. Yeah, definitely.

MERAJI: So for all those busybodies out there who just - they just have to be doing something in order to feel alive, like...

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: ...How do they - how do we force our bodies to rest, to stop?

HERSEY: I think the idea of active rest - anything that can slow your body down enough that you can connect with your body and mind. I was taking dance classes and ballet and somatic dance classes when I was in graduate school, and I found that to be one of the most ultimate forms of rest when I was learning how to spin and do turns and, you know, moving my body. So I really felt that dancing was really a beautiful, active form of rest for me. I love to walk. I love walking and being in nature, you know, just being able to like, move your body in a way that is slowed down and isn't being moved for the idea of labor.

You know, when I think about hobbies and how everyone is, like, monetizing their hobbies right now, and I'm like, no, that's capitalism telling you that you need to, like, monetize crocheting. Like, my sister is a beautiful fiber artist. And she says, to her, this the most meditative, restful state where she's crocheting blankets for people. And she refuses to sell them. She's like, if I do that...

MERAJI: It'll be stressful.

HERSEY: ...Because then it will become capitalism, making it not fun. And she will be rushed and feel urgent. And it's all linked back to trying to make money. She does it for the meditation, for the connection, and because she loves to do it. And so I think about that a lot.

MERAJI: There's this point you make in the book, which for me is so key. You say resting and recharging and rejuvenating is not so that we can grind more. It's not so that we can prepare ourselves to, you know, give more output to capitalism. That is not actually what this is about.

HERSEY: Not at all. Not at all. People get it twisted and think that's what it's about, because...

MERAJI: Of course they do.

HERSEY: ...It ain't about naps so that you can do more. Because a lot of corporations are pushing this idea. They're saying, have our employees rest more. You guys can have a nap room here, so that you can be more productive when you come to work, so that we can pay less in health insurance premiums. So we're not resting to get ourselves more riled up to be on capitalism's clock. We're resting simply because it's our divine and human right to do so.

MERAJI: Please say that again, Tricia.

HERSEY: Yes. We are resting simply because it is our divine and human right to do so, period. There is no - nothing else on the end of that sentence. It is the end of it. Most people I talk to are saying - talking about productivity. They got to be productive. They got to be - you've been told - you've been taught productivity by the curriculum of white supremacy and capitalism. Is that who your teacher needs to be? I - that's not my teacher. I'm not allowing that to be my teacher. I don't want to be under the guise of believing that I have to be productive in order to be deemed worthy. I am enough now.

MERAJI: Tricia, where does social media fit into all this? You've mentioned you've used it as a tool. You use IG to create this community around the Nap Ministry, but you also say it is toxic. It prevents us from resting.

HERSEY: Yes, it does. Yeah.

MERAJI: So what's a good way to limit, you know, its toxic hold on us?

HERSEY: Yeah. I love to speak about this because it allows me to have a opportunity to begin to talk about nuance and to get people out of the binary.

MERAJI: Yeah.

HERSEY: It's always a thing that we can have both in. All things can be possible. And so social media is a beautiful tool of connection for so many communities, for so many people. But at the same time, it's an extension of capitalism. That's just what it is. And so, they would love for us to be online, scrolling all day, buying all day - 24 hours a day, scrolling and buying. Like, that's what it is. And so, I tell people, find spaces to detox offline because there is no pause. There's no interruption that's going to happen unless you make it. At night, I turn my phone off at 8 o'clock, you know?

MERAJI: Yep. I do, too.

HERSEY: It's just off. Like, if you can't reach me by phone, you going to have to come pull up in front of my house, send a letter or telepathically communicate with me.

MERAJI: Oh, you actually turn off your phone...

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: ...Not in the do not disturb, like...

HERSEY: No, it's off.

MERAJI: ...Physically turn it off. Oh.

HERSEY: It's off in a drawer, like, next to my bed. It's done. It's - I'm totally not with it. I'm dis-attached.

MERAJI: Good for you.

HERSEY: I understand that there's ways to communicate and connect with people that we are not looking at because we're so caught up in the grips of this technology that's taking over our lives. It's addictive. So do it slowly. Find ways to do it weekly. Put it in your calendar. You have to be subversive, inventive. And you have to create and craft a way.

MERAJI: Yeah.

HERSEY: No one is going to give it to you. I put in my calendar every week my rest days. So I actually put it in there. Like, I don't...

MERAJI: What is a rest day for you?

HERSEY: I don't - there is no - I don't even look at my email. I don't even respond to anything work-related. I'm all about laying around the house, going outside. I'm going to go get my hair done tomorrow. I'm not engaging in any type of labor outside of what feels good to me.

MERAJI: That sounds wonderful.

HERSEY: But I plan those in my calendar. And before COVID, I actually would put, from 1 to 3 every day in my calendar, no - it's rest time, you know? There is just a moment where I'm not on capitalism's clock. Like, my dad would wake up in the morning two hours before he had to go to work and read every newspaper because he loved newspapers. He loved reading. And I would be like, why are you up so early? You don't have to be at work. He was like, I want to get up and be human for a little bit and actually not be on the clock and do what I want to do.

MERAJI: Do you think that your dad allowed himself to rest enough even though he did have that ritual every morning?

HERSEY: And he did have that ritual, but he didn't. He got so - he was caught up in the machine in such a deep way. Like - and it was like a beauty and a curse, you know? He was this organizer and activist. So this work, in a lot of ways, is also dedicated to organizers and social justice activists like myself and like my dad, and like a lot of people in my life who feel like they can't rest while the machine continues to rage around them, you know? How can we ever take a break when they're continuing to lock up people and put them in prisons? How could I stop when they're, you know, continuing to make laws that are, like, taking away women's autonomy? Like, how do we rest?

And I keep telling them that resting is part of the strategic plans for people who are organizers and activists, because I believe resting is generative. It's not frivolous. And it's not a luxury. And it's not some afterthought. It truly is something that will allow us to tap into the inventive and imaginative ideas that are going to get us to the next dimension. I talk about in the book, I don't think my dad knew what a hobby was or what leisure was or a vacation was, and how once you're on this wheel, once you're on this wheel of grind culture, it sometimes can be impossible to unravel from it. And unfortunately, my father was one of the people who capitalism got, you know? It ended his life in very, very...

MERAJI: Way too early.

HERSEY: Way too early because of that. And so, yeah, I write from that understanding. I write from the tender rage that is inside of me because of that, you know? I have rage because of that. I have a tender rage inside of me that - I won't allow myself to donate my body to capitalism. I won't - you won't get me, you know? I refuse. And so that's really where it resides in for me personally.

MERAJI: Tricia, I cannot tell you how much I needed this conversation. I needed it. I needed it. Thank you. I know so many people listening are feeling the same way. Thank you. Thank you.

HERSEY: So amazing. Thank you for engaging with the work and for this conversation. It's been beautiful to speak with you.

MERAJI: I hope you enjoy your rest day tomorrow.

HERSEY: I will. I cannot wait. That's all I'm thinking about (laughter).

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MERAJI: For more LIFE KIT, check out our other episodes. I've hosted one on mindfulness and meditation. I've got another one on how to learn your heritage language. That's one of my favorites. Go check it out. And we've got lots more on everything from parenting to how to organize all those photos that you take and, you know, don't print out or do anything with. You can find those at npr.org/lifekit. And if you love LIFE KIT and you want more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org/lifekitnewsletter.

This episode of LIFE KIT was produced by Andee Tagle. And it was edited by Marielle Segarra, who is also our host. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan. Our digital editor is Malaka Gharib. Meghan Keane is the supervising editor. Beth Donovan is the executive producer. Our intern is Jamal Michel. Our production team also includes Audrey Nguyen, Clare Marie Schneider, Michelle Aslam, Summer Thomad and Sylvie Douglis. Julia Carney is our podcast coordinator. Last but not least, engineering support comes from Ko Takasugi-Czernowin, Hannah Copeland and Stu Rushfield. I'm Shereen Marisol Meraji. Thanks for listening. And get some rest.

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Why rest is an act of resistance : Life Kit

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subscribe to Life Kit podcast SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, HOST: Well, forgive me because I'm on this mic exhausted. (LAUGHTER) TRICIA HERSEY: We all are, though. I think we all are residing in - sometimes in a place of exhaustion, in and out. That's what the culture is doing.