"Intersectional & Authentic Transformation" with Sunshine Michelle Coleman
In this episode I talk with the Reverend Doctor Diva Sunshine Michelle Coleman.
Sunshine Michelle is a spiritual leader, a visionary, an academic and a poet who is deep into her doctoral dissertation about Authentic Self-Expression of Black and Brown Women. Her academic inquiry is based on a sacred sister circle that she has been conducting over the last year in Berkeley, California.
In this conversation we talk about finding and expressing your authentic self and the powerful rippling out of healing that is created when someone shares their self with the world. We talk about the intersectionality of oppression and liberation, black feminist theory and spirituality and how they all intersect with one another.
This is a timely conversation, where we talk about navigating and calling in the profound transformation that the world is currently going through and how it is reflected in our own personal transformation experiences. And we talk about forgiveness, holy boldness, oneness, the whispers of our ancestors and so much more.
This episode is good medicine for those struggling with how to be in these times.
Here is the transcript of our conversation.
Sunshine Michelle Coleman Resources
Check out Sunshine Michelle's website Authenticity Journey of Renewal: A Focus Ministry of Centers for Spiritual Living. www.authenticityjourney.org
And here is the poem that Sunshine Michelle shared in the episode:
“I Am a Whisper from my Ancestors' Hearts”
by Sunshine Michelle ColemanI am a whisper from my ancestors’ hearts
The sweet song of pride, love, and harmony
My Grameo seeded in my soul her notion to be Holy Bold
To be courageous, introspective, and have a deep trust in God
To be the best me that I can be, always.I am a whisper from my ancestors’ hearts
To listen deeply to God’s signature of me
That unique impression that allows for total authentic expression
From deep within my soul’s calling.I am a whisper from my ancestors’ hearts
Filled with compassion and drive to reach and expand
To touch and lift, to trust and gift, to receive God’s full bounty
To know The Knower within that fills me up to the brim and overflowing.I am a whisper from my ancestors’ hearts
To live my life full out so that I may become an inspiring ancestor of the next generations
To lift them to higher heights and greater horizons
Despite the trials and tribulations of our people
We are resilient and thrive regardless of the shackles, disparities, injustices, and suchI am a whisper from my ancestors’ hearts
I am the me that is we that is us as community
Our greatest multiplicity as Oneness.
Rev. Dr. Diva Sunshine Michelle Coleman
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Duncan talks about this TED talk during the episode: “The Art of Being Yourself” by Caroline McHugh
Other Resources
Sunshine Michelle mentions this talk in the episode.
"It's Time: The World We've Been Reaching For Is Arriving" (Akaya Windwood at Thrive East Bay)
This is where Akaya talks about pulling out the taproot of patriarchy:
Here are resources about things that came up in this conversation.
Thrive East Bay
Sunshine Michelle and I are both involved in Thrive East Bay. Thrive is a “new kind of community offering a relevant space for diverse people seeking meaning and connection in our rapidly changing world. Informed by modern science and ancient wisdom, our culture is both secular and spiritual, infused with a deep sense of purpose and interconnectedness, inspired by the arts, and focused on social change.”
Here is a collection of Fractal Friends episodes with guests that are related to Thrive East Bay.
Anti-Racism, Black Feminism, Intersectionality & Patricia Hill Collins
Black Feminism
Kimberlé Crenshaw: “The urgency of intersectionality”
According to Wikipedia: “Black feminism holds that the experience of Black women gives rise to a particular understanding of their position in relation to sexism, class oppression, and racism.[1][2] The experience of being a Black woman, it maintains, cannot be grasped in terms of being Black or of being a woman but must be elucidated via intersectionality, a term coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989.”
Here is a great article talking about Intersectionality and its role in contemporary culture, “The Intersectionality Wars” by Jane Coaston of Vox.
Here is some information about the Chicana queer feminist Gloria Anzaldúa.
Patricia Hill Collins
Sunshine Michelle's diagram of the “basement” as described by Kimberlé Crenshaw
Patricia Hill Collins is the author of Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. The key concepts of the book are outsider-within, intellectual activism, matrix of domination, controlling images and Self-definition.
Here are some resources to explore the work or Patricia Hill Collins more deeply:
Audio: “Still Brave? U.S Black Feminism as a Social Justice Project” is a powerful talk that Collins gave at the Teaching to Transgress Conference at Oxford University in 2015. Here is the whole Teaching to Transgress Series.
Audio: Women on the Line is a national feminist current affairs program for community radio. Here's the beginning of their series on "Intersectionality"
Here is an academic paper by Patricia Hill Collins: ”The Difference That Power Makes: Intersectionality and Participatory Democracy”
Here's an article by Ayanna Arrington about a talk by Collins: ”Patricia Hill Collins Talks Intersectionality, Black Feminism, Democratic Possibilities." In it Arrington captures the quote that inspired Collins to work on intersectionality:
“Freedom is indivisible or it is nothing at all besides sloganeering and temporary, short-sighted, and short-lived advancement for a few […] Freedom is indivisible, and either we are working for freedom or you are working for the sake of your self-interests and I am working for mine,”
- June Millicent Jordan (Caribbean-American poet, essayist, and activist)
Black Lives Matter
The Black Lives Matter movement is globally famous. Nonetheless, these two links I find particularly interesting. The BLM movement has a really well written Conflict Resolution Statement. This document “What we believe” lays out a platform of deep intersectionality.
Anti-Racism
I want to give a big shout out to the Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites (CARW) in Seattle, WA. This is the organization that helped me learn how to face my privilege after being called out and called in while working on the Aaron Dixon for U.S. Senate campaign.
Rituals, Ancestors, Circles and Beyond
Circles
Sunshine Michelle talks about the indigenous roots of circle process. This article by First Nations Pedagogy Online describes the principles and indigenous history of “Talking Circles." Here Living Justice Press explains “The Indigenous Origins of Circles and How Non-Natives Learned About Them.”
Safe Space vs. Brave Space
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
There's recently been a lot of discussion about safe spaces and how they may be replaced by brave spaces. This article, “Do We Need Safe or Brave Spaces?” does a good job of explaining that we need both and they serve different functions:
A safe space is ideally one that doesn’t incite judgment based on identity or experience - where the expression of both can exist and be affirmed without fear of repercussion and without the pressure to educate. While learning may occur in these spaces, the ultimate goal is to provide support.
A brave space encourages dialogue. Recognizing difference and holding each person accountable to do the work of sharing experiences and coming to new understandings - a feat that’s often hard, and typically uncomfortable.
Seventh Generation Principle
Sunshine Michelle talks about the Seventh Generation Principle. This article, “What is the Seventh Generation Principle?”, explains “The Seventh Generation Principle is based on an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)* philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.
This reminds me of the concept of the 200 Year Present, coined by peace research pioneer & sociologist Elise Boulding. Here is a great article from the Long Now Foundation: Elise Boulding on the “200-year present.”
Related Fractal Friends episodes:
“Rediscovering & Healing Our Ancestors” with Lyla June
"Let's Make Everything Organic" with Armando Davila
“Revealing our Hidden Humanity” with Ashanti Branch
"Understanding our Shared Liberation" with David Dean
Here is the collection of Fractal Friends episodes that address themes of Race, Diversity & Anti-Oppression.
Music
The music features in this episode is “We Survived” by Climbing PoeTree. I thoroughly encourage you to explore their music, poetry and art at their website climbingpoetree.com.