Brittany Owens Micek, Meditating for Black Lives, Part 2: Parks, Permits and White Psychology

New York, I Love You But You've Changed

Brittany Owens Micek is the founder and lead organizer of Meditating for Black Lives, a community organization that uses the principles and practices of various meditation traditions to support community efforts to heal oppression. Brittany started Meditating for Black Lives last summer with hopes to create a space for attendees to sit in contemplation together to process our absorbed trauma and breathe for the lives of Black and Brown people, and for all people, throughout the world. On Saturdays and Sundays from June 2020 lasting through the fall, Brittany or other intentionally selected guides led up to 2,000 attendees through 30 minute guided meditations in both Bed Stuy and Brownsville that focused on the privilege and precarity of breath.

This is part two of our conversation with Brittany. Topics include, how the wellness industrial complex has co-opted the ancient practice of meditation, leaving it falsely synonymous with whiteness and money… and also how Meditating for Black Lives is an attempt to counteract that. Brittany explains why she chose to move the meditations to Lincoln Terrace Park from a park in a gentrifying Bed Stuy, how she intentionally chose the meditation leaders and how the local NYPD precincts chose to behave when she applied for a park permit with “Meditating for Black Lives” in the title. We also talk about the psychology of whiteness and why nobody ever talks about it, Alexis’ honest journey with yoga and we somehow manage to stumble on conversations about Jay-Z, NoName, Atlanta, Robin D’Angelo, Solange, DMX and the Goonies.

Meditating for Black Lives is also back for its second season! They will hold three meditations every Saturday and Sunday in May at Swivel Gallery in Bed Stuy. Visit the links for MFBL and Swivel Gallery below to check the times and sign up in advance.

Places on the Internet to Learn More:

• Visit Meditating for Black Lives’ Website and Instagram to sign up for a meditation and donate if you are able

• You can also sign up for a meditation on Swivel Gallery’s website

• “Corporate Mindfulness Programs Are an Abomination”, Thom James Carter for Current Affairs

• Yoga is Dead Podcast