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Head to Research & Community (yemipenn.com) for more information
Join me on patreon for community led dialogue: patreon.com/yemipenn
Follow me on Instagram : Yemi Penn (@yemi.penn) • Instagram photos and videos
[00:00:36] Yemi: For this particular podcast, I want you to embody radical self care, meaning that you pause and you stop this when you need to. And if for some reason you decide to continue through it, sway back and forth, just rock, whether you're standing or sitting down, just move your body. Take time to look around the space you're in, making sure you know where the windows and the doors are.
[00:01:08] So you kind of know that you can leave at any point, that you are safe in your body. These are one of many ways in which we can regulate ourselves. And just do a sense check that nothing dangerous is going on. So radical self care is about to happen to us, but what we are experiencing is a re triggering or an activation of something that might relate to what I'm talking about or something else.
[00:01:36] So radical self care. A big reason why I paused beyond what was going on in Australia was what was going on across the seas. Russian Ukraine. I don't even know where things are. The media that feeds us information, whether it's traditional or social media or our politicians, I guess, are now focusing on something else.
[00:02:02] And you can see it taking the same blueprint, almost map by map, as to what is happening between Israel and Palestine.
[00:02:17] When Hamas attacked Israel. Noting that we have history that goes way beyond what I will ever understand. But knowing my history of being black, of slavery, of ongoing racism and impacts from slavery, you better believe that there's some shit that goes down way before we think things officially start.
[00:02:45] And I'm ready to ride with you on that one if you disagree. But if you suspend disbelief for a second, let's assume there are things we don't know. And if we were to even just start with October 7th, that when that happened, I went straight to do my own research of once again, leaders that I admire, don't always necessarily agree with, but admire.
[00:03:13] And it was made very clear that we should hold our breath for what's to happen. Believe me when I tell you that most parts of the world, more than likely the global majority, when I'm talking global majority, I'm not talking Western per se, global majority knew what was about to happen with the amount of power and influence that Israel has.
[00:03:42] But if I take a decolonising lens to what happened to Israel, the nature and the force of its response. I kind of get, once again, a story we've been hearing time and time again, which is the blueprint for colonization, which is exerting power over, which is you have your own traumas, i. e. things that have happened to you in the past, which have now generated into fear.
[00:04:14] that makes you feel this is the only way to manage it. One thing I did that I remain proud of was when the 7th of October happened, the friends who I knew were Jewish, I sent them a message because I could only but imagine the terror that could be going through their veins. Having visited the Holocaust Museum last year in Washington DC in the States, I experienced something that I've never publicly said, which was when I went to visit the museum, because I also went to the African, African American museum.
[00:04:54] But when I went to the Holocaust Museum, the queues to get into the lift were really long. And so they had this whole process of how they had people go in. And so they put us in batches in groups. Now pause because there might be stuff already going through your body here. When I went into that lift, We were told by one of the officers who was organizing us on the tour.
[00:05:21] Okay. I've pressed the button for you already. This will take you to the top floor. You'll be able to walk around the museum and we'll take about an hour, which will eventually lead you out. If you just listen to the message and watch the TV screen at the top and the lifts close. Now, I'm actually a little bit claustrophobic.
[00:05:42] I typically try to avoid going into lifts on my own, and if they look dodgy, believe I ain't going in it. I'm walking up 29 flights of stairs. But because there were so many of us in there, I felt safer. Until the TV screen did not come on. And whatever message was being shared over the speakers, I couldn't hear it.
[00:06:03] And then my heart started to race and beat really fast because then I looked around this lift we were in and honestly, without obviously haven't ever experienced it in this lifetime or supposedly through my genetic makeup, I thought, fuck, have they designed an elevator? With the view that it resembles a gas chamber.
[00:06:31] I can't be faulted for thinking this because I did. And the last time I have been that fearful. I can't even remember. Because I'm pretty confident I left my body. I'm pretty confident I started to tell myself a story. Oh shit, is this how it can happen? This guy didn't even get in the lift with us to tell us where we're going.
[00:06:57] What if this isn't a lift? How do we get out? There was no buttons or signs to say whether this was going up to the third floor. I didn't even know if it was moving down or up. I couldn't feel anything. And I assure you, I was not the only one who looked panicked. After what genuinely felt, honestly, like 30 minutes, the doors opened.
[00:07:19] And I almost fell to the ground in a heap. And that was the point that I thought, if that was intentional, that's fucking sick. And if it wasn't, can someone please give feedback that there is something we are able to do when we come out of that lift to shake the extra energy and trauma that has now been reactivated in our bodies?
[00:07:47] Because I make no comparison that I could understand. The history of the Holocaust or concentration camps, even though this is really prominent in my research, even so much so with the stories I'm hearing with those who have shared in my documentary. What I did think is, Yemi, you got this snippet of fear of nobody knowing where you could be and somebody with an inhumane amount of power deciding to completely end your life.
[00:08:29] That feeling still stays, stays with me. And so when I messaged my Jewish friends, and it might've been a couple of days after the 7th of October, it was to let them know I was thinking of them. It was because I knew something would be triggered or reactivated in them. And although I had already been pre warned through some of the talks I'd listened to and the readings I'd done, that Israel was going to come back with full force and power, and they still are today.
[00:09:02] And sometimes we use words that in itself triggers us to the point of fighting, flight, running away. Or just point blank freezing and saying nothing. And I tell you now that most of those in my circle, most of the world is probably frozen. Because if you don't count yourself as a Palestine or a Jew or really big into activism whereby you are fighting for humanity, you are frozen.
[00:09:32] And there is no shame. Please hear me when I say this. Let's start fucking naming shit so we can work through it. Because we are frozen when we say there is nothing I can do. We are frozen when we say I don't understand why people are coming up and posting stuff XYZ. And yes, I have the same level of judgment sometimes, so I'm counting myself in on this.
[00:09:55] But most of us are frozen because we don't know what to do.
[00:10:02] Take a breath.
[00:10:05] Because even though I don't want to invite you to do this, I must. If either incidents of the killings and the kidnappings and the taken of hostages in Israel or the continued genocide. And yes, I said, what I said, the continued genocide of Palestinians in Gaza was happening in your own backyard. And your backyard can physically be your backyard as to wherever you live in the world.
[00:10:40] Your backyard can be the country of origin, i. e. where your family's family's family comes from, wherever you call home. And if you are a nomad, then make it the world. If what has happened across these two places was happening in, in your home, what would you be doing? And yes, we note that we might not all be in a position to go and carry arms and fight to protect and to save.
[00:11:16] But I think you'd be doing something. And that's the invitation I give to you. Because part of the risk we have with colonization is really just making it about white bodies. And trust me, there is a lot that has come from colonization in the form of white bodies. What we and yes, I say we I say we because I am part of the system we are in I do not carry the same Behaviors and actions but in order for me to ever ever Understand or heal or transform trauma?
[00:11:50] I am going to need to understand the psyche not fully because I try to go there the psyche of perpetrators when they exist Because outside of race, there is a blueprint for colonization. And it seems to be repeating itself in real time. That leaders across the world, what has been called the free world, continue to say for weeks, now months, that Israel has a right to defend itself.
[00:12:26] That United Nations that allows all of us to go to sleep at night. That somebody, whether we refer to them as, I don't know, some father role or patriarchy or whatever, that some institutions have been formed that make sure that world agreements for peace are in place. It's not working. Now you can listen to this and say, yeah, but what do I do?
[00:12:54] Part of it is you keep on waiting for somebody to tell you what to do. What would you do if it was in your home? Let's take it to a micro level. Firstly, we are going to need to clean our trauma because I can share so much more on this and my insights. But right now that doesn't matter. What does matter is that we start to build our resilience to have the conversation.
[00:13:21] Just because you currently have the privilege Transcribed by https: otter. ai And the perceived notion of safety to be able to listen to this podcast doesn't mean that it cannot or will not happen to us. If we do not create a world in our homes, in our communities, in our organizations, in our governments, in our countries, in the world, if we cannot communicate a way for us to be better.
[00:13:53] To find alternative ways to fucking genocide, to deal with major issues such as killings.
[00:14:10] Then we're going to have a problem if we can't find another way to do it. Because the world wars we had in the past really has left a lot of clues. But because we're too busy producing and churning out stuff to ensure that our countries has the highest GDP, we're forgetting we're just completely slaughtering humanity.
[00:14:37] And I'm not just talking, talking humanity in Palestine, Gaza, Israel, Sudan, Congo, Ukraine, Russia. Yeah, I'm naming all of them. Because if we've got to a point in humanity, that we are only willing to deem humans in certain parts as human, then let's go back to the drawing board. But let's get a few more courageous leaders, who can at least speak up.
[00:15:12] Because what we all thought we signed up for, is not what is playing out. And if you think going to your job and doing 9 to 5, and making sure your kids have good manners. And that they decide to stay up that trade or become an actor. If you think it's enough, it's not.
[00:15:38] If you've listened to this to end without wanting to leave your body, or actually not coming back to listen to it if you paused, you're already doing something. You are willing to sit in the arena. Because we are the ones we have been waiting for. I love you.
[00:15:57]