It Happened To Me: There Are No Black People In My Yoga Classes And I’m Suddenly Feeling Uncomfortable With It (Jen Caron)

Photo by Elvert Barnes

I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my skinny white girl body. (…)

I realized with horror that despite the all-inclusivity preached by the studio, despite the purported blindness to socioeconomic status, despite the sizeable population of regular Asian students, black students were few and far between.  (…)

I got home from that class and promptly broke down crying. Yoga, a beloved safe space that has helped me through many dark moments in over six years of practice, suddenly felt deeply suspect. Knowing fully well that one hour of perhaps self-importantly believing myself to be the deserving target of a racially charged anger is nothing, is largely my own psychological projection, is a drop in the bucket, is the tip of the iceberg in American race relations, I was shaken by it all the same.
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La réponse de Dave Schilling dans la revue Vice Canada

What Caron doesn’t address is that it’s very possible that black people just aren’t into yoga. That might bring her carefully constructed worldview crashing down upon her, but she brought it on herself. Black people had to fight for their freedom from bondage, their right to own property, their right to vote, and their right to go to the same schools and play golf at the same country clubs as white people. If black folks want something en masse, history says they will let you know. Thus far, they seem pretty ambivalent about yoga, and I don’t think it’s really necessary that they all of the sudden change their minds about that. It’s like writing an essay about why more black people don’t bowl. Who gives a fuck?