Speaking about my research

I’m used to editing and omitting what I talk about when I talk about my PhD.  Women’s spirituality – exploring women and religion, ecofeminism, and sacred arts/healing – isn’t necessarily what I was raised to value.  Of course, my family is thrilled I’m working on my PhD, education being the passage of ascension, and in many ways, they don’t care what I am studying.  At least, that’s how it seems.

But there’s a new thing that I’m speaking to in my research now: racism.  And, you know, I just don’t know how to edit or omit very well in regards to this topic.   Moreover, with women-centered communities that I have felt free to share with before in regards to my program, mostly women who do not identify as women of color, I now find myself a bit speechless. I am hesitant to tell them that I want to talk about all women’s spirituality of my ancestors, making sure to include the dark and indigenous.  I somehow feel like I am calling them racist.  I feel unsafe, probably on the first level within myself, and then I think I’m all alone in this awkward inability to share. And, I realize, I am, actually, racist.  I carry that in me, and judging myself for that culpability, I can’t help but judge those around me