In this episode, I sit down with my dear friend and transformational workshop facilitator Marco to discuss the ways we’ve been overlooking racism, from microaggressions to the things Black people have to worry about that we’ve never thought of. We get real on the racial issues in today’s world and discuss how there are many spectrums of racism– including denial and apathy. This is a must-listen episode to understand the social and political climate of today.
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Transcript
Episode 294: The Racism Underneath Our Noses with Marco Hansell
By Sahara Rose
Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose and welcome back to the Highest Self podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you, your soul’s highest evolvement.
We are going through this incredible collective shadow work as a civilization right now. Things are not getting worse in 2020, we might joke around like that, but it’s actually getting so much better, because how are we going to be able to create a better future for all, if we don’t look at what’s wrong. Sometimes things have to get more chaotic before they become more clear, and that is what we’re going through right now.
It might feel like things are getting worse, but they’re actually getting better. Because what we are doing is excavating. You know, if I want to build a new house, the first thing I have to do is excavate. I have to go into the dirt; look at what is underneath the foundation of that house; clear it out: clear out anything that would not serve this home.
If you look at it, if you look at a construction site before the house is built on it, you say “Oh my God, it’s in shambles; it’s horrific; it is worse than it started; it used to be this beautiful earth and now it’s in shambles.” Well, you don’t see what is to come.
So, we’re excavating right now so we can lay a solid foundation in the new paradigm. The people who before, because I’ve been doing this work for 10 years, were like “New paradigm – what are you talking about?” And now it’s like, “Okay, it’s here, I get it”. Because we are collectively growing so quickly that every single day, every single second feels like a completely new awakening.
I was joking that this year was like a global Iowaska ceremony for everyone, because people are like “Wait! Racism exists? Wait, there is oppression; I’ve had a privilege that I have been unaware of, I thought my life was so hard; I didn’t even realize how much harder it could’ve been because of the color of my skin. You know, there are the things you know; there are things you know you don’t know (I know I don’t know a lot about chemistry), but then the 99% are the things you know you don’t know.
The things that you are not even aware of you not knowing about. And that is what waking up to this ‘white privilege’ is. It’s realizing that there are things that your black peers had to think about and worry about, that perhaps, you will never have to. In fact, if you’re not black, you won’t have to worry about those specific things. Not to say white people don’t have struggles and difficult lives and many of them have so many other traumatic things happening to them, but right now, we’re talking about the specificities about racial divides.
And in the past episode, I did the solocast “Why Are People So Angry?” I go deep into the history of why that is. So, if this is a new topic for you, I would highly recommend listening to that first. To learn about the history of colonialism and the neo-colonialism that is still happening; of oppression; of slavery; of segregation: of all of the things we are experiencing are results of today. And in this conversation we are talking about what is happening right now.
So, this entire month on the Higher Self podcast, we are highlighting black and people of color voices. It’s so interesting because I’ve actually never had to be someone who, like, went out and sought people of color or black guests myself, because I am a person of color, so technically, every single podcast has had a person of color – because I’ve been on it. But now, specifically, really making an effort to highlight black voices, because right now, this is what we are focussing on. It is not saying other voices don’t matter, it is not saying all lives don’t matter; it is saying, that right now, we are focussing on our black brothers and sisters who have suffered because of this oppression that this country has been based off of.
So, last week, we had a dear friend of mine, a mentor of mine – Tatyana Rae, who is an Apache and Toltec Shaman, speaking about it from a shamanic perspective, and this week we have my dear friend Marco Hansell, who I have known for a couple of years, is such, just a joy and such an inspiration to the world. And we met each other at this conference, and we were kind of going to.., him and I kind of kept ending up at the same, exact talks.
We went to a talk on like, ‘black coolness’, on like, why we almost keep black people apart by being like “Oh, you’re so cool”, you know, and I always knew that he was very into all those social justice stuff. He’s also very conscious; he’s a transformational workshop facilitator; he’s a serial entrepreneur, and he has been very, very vocal about what is happening today.
So I really wanted you guys to hear it from his perspective as a black man living in the United States who, in this episode, shares has had to think about things that have never, ever even crossed my mind. And you’ll hear, in this episode, it really was an “A-ha” moment for me. You know, growing up and like, going to parties, there were white people and black people, and noticing that sometimes my black friends would behave differently when they were at white people’s houses, and then this episode really clicked in for me to understand why they were afraid.
So this is a really a great episode to talk about all the things that people are diving into right now and understand them.
He called us in from Columbia, the country of Columbia, so that is why we were on the internet and the sound is not the same as when I record it in person, but it was such an important conversation, I really wanted you guys to hear it and hear his voice, and just learn from him specifically.
So, without further ado, let’s welcome Marco to the Highest Self podcast.
Sahara:
Welcome Marco to the Highest Self podcast. It’s so great to have you on here.
Marco:
Awesome. So glad to be on this podcast.
Sahara:
Hmm…long overdue!
Marco:
Yes.
Sahara:
So, first question that I’d love to ask you is “What makes you – your Highest Self?”
Marco:
Ehm, for me, it’s when I sit in this thought that I have which is being the creator of my reality, right. And there’s something to that, that is so powerful and I understand that every single situation and every single circumstance that I’m hit with, had the opportunity to decide exactly not only how I’m responding, but I believe that I’m powerful enough to create change around me too, so that puts me in the most highest place I would ever be.
Sahara:
Hmm..I love that. And when all of this happened, you’re someone, I’m like “What do you feel?” Because you’re someone that knows so deeply about yourself from a soul level, from an interpersonal mind level. But you’re also, I remember, I don’t know if you remember this, but when we went to that workshop on ‘black coolness’..
Marco:
Oh yeah, I do.
Sahara:
I know you’re like ”It’s so fascinating because right now, with what is happening, a lot of people are like “Wait! Where did this come from?” And it’s like – No! You’ve been doing this work a really, really long time and you’re someone who – you’re just like so calm and loving, you just like exude love, and I feel like no one can ever be mad at you because that’s just who you are, but you’re also telling the truth.
Marco:
Yep.
Sahara:
You’re not holding back. So, the first question I’d really like to ask you – for a lot of the white people listening right now, they’re feeling attacked. You’re feeling like people are making them say sorry for something they never did. They’re feeling like “Well, that was my ancestors and it wasn’t me, so why are you mad at me?” Can you speak into how we could actually look at this and overcome this white guilt?
Marco:
Yeah. So, there’s two things. One part of it is a part of acknowledgement that I think is a big thing that is missing from both our wonderful President and a lot of majority of the government, a lot of majority of people around us. It’s just acknowledging that racism exists.
Before we even start talking about you know, who’s to blame and “did I create this or did I not create that?” It’s like, yeah, the conversation is not about you, which is so beautiful, then why are you taking it personally?” That’s question number one right?
Question number two is, if you actually acknowledge what has happened and what has created not only from a 400 years of history of slavery, and then moving it to literally less than 50 years, 53 years is actually is the total amount, some 53 years since there is a perceived level of quality and it’s only driven by law. And then knowing that you live in this environment and understanding that as a citizen of this environment, and as a citizen of this environment particularly being a white citizen.
I have benefitted from that system that was built for 450 years to benefit and acknowledge me alone, and actually benefitted and created to actually put other people down; black people; people of color down, then I’m still a part of that system and the one thing that I think is so interesting, and this actually relates to a lot of something that I do in my creative journey workshop, is we talk about the different stories we create, we talk about biases and generalizations, right. And the invitation that I have for a lot of people is to think about very simple things, simple things like a chair. And then you see four legs and you see a table on top, you’re like – that’s a chair! And your mind deposits and says it’s a chair. And across the board, whenever you see something with four legs and a flat surface, you’re not re-imagining what that thing this is every single time, you’re just storing it as a chair, a chair, a chair.
So, now, imagine in this mind-set of “I’m not racist” or “I’m not biased” and I say “bullshit!” I say “you are, you are inherently”, and the beauty is when it happened we think about, and a lot of times, a lot of people make this assumption, you think about – I don’t know if you’ve seen the post of the chairman of the White Supremacy – everything about racism, and you’re like “I’m not a clan member”. It’s like “Ok, cool”, you do understand that there are several layers to this. And as a part of those layers, one of the things you get to acknowledge is that 90% of you, that subconscious that you may not even be aware of the chair generalization that you have made when you see a black person. And that is a reality, so, if you tell me, you don’t see color, I would say you’re not a human being, because as a human being, you’re automatically creating biases around everything, including yourself.
Sahara:
Hmm…that is so good and that is exactly what people think – they think you’re either a hard-core racist or you’re a good liberal citizen, and what, you know what, so many people from Martin Luther King to even now, it’s just those neutral liberals who are often the biggest culprit of this because they’re the ones who are just being neutral about it, they’re like “it’s not bothering me, it’s not in my field, so it’s not an itch”, so they are not speaking out.
So, right now, I’m seeing a lot of tension. A lot of people who feel like – for a long time they haven’t been listened to; they feel like, you know, we’ve been rapping, we’ve been marching, we’ve been protesting, we’re been hashtagging and you haven’t listened. And now, George Floyd, really being the last straw on the camel’s back, is like, finally you’re listening.
Marco:
Yeah.
Sahara:
How do you think we can take this anger and rage that is rightfully there and actually construct it towards something that is beneficial to last?
Marco:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think there’s a number of different ways that you approach it, and luckily there’s no one way to skin a cat, so it’s gonna take a diverse set of approaches, everything from, you know, ‘my wonderful world’, or like starting off with ‘being’ is just something that’s interesting because what I like the prefaces of what I talk about ‘being’ – it doesn’t mean that there’s no ‘doing’ that happens afterwards, it doesn’t mean that if the ‘doing’ happens without the ‘being’ being there. Then it’s just going to be lip-service, right? It’s just gonna be like “Oh yeah, we locked up these cops, are you guys happy now? Can we move on?” And that ‘being’ doesn’t change, so there is first starting off with diem, just repeating back without acknowledgement of a country, and a leadership, and Trump (in particular), and if he’s unwilling to acknowledge this, then I’m just gonna say right now, straight up, he should not be able to live out the last five months of his term. It’s like we need a leadership change, if that literally, right now is the only thing he’s able to acknowledge is acknowledging how he needs to create more Marshall Law on people that are protesting. And not even treating the actual disease, looking at a symptom, which is not even given to you how legitimate or illegitimate that symptom is. But there’s first step of acknowledgement as a nation, and everybody, the people that you just even mentioned, as a white person wondering “Well, I’m not a part of this problem” or if I hear another person say “Well, I’m not racist”. It’s acknowledging the privileges that you’ve got. It’s acknowledging the experience that you have and acknowledge my experience and acknowledge the difference in that experience, and after we move past that acknowledgement, then a lot of actions start to become really fucking clear.
So, it’s the easiest way that I start thinking about it, is I imagine this like race, right. And you start off in a race and race around the world, and someone started 400 miles ahead of you, right. And then they said “Ok cool, now you’re free to go”. You can go ahead and start the race as well, but they gave you some raggedy shoes, they put a bunch of obstacles in your way and then they’re like “Well, everyone is racing now, it’s all equal”, It’s like “No, I’m 400 miles behind” and in order for you to actually create a balance in that, you have to treat that black body the same way you treat a sick part of your body, right, like you would just continually treat your entire body the same way. As I told you “I have a pain in my stomach” I’m not just gonna ignore it, I’m not just gonna say “Well you know, all body parts are equal so I don’t need to do do anything to it; I’m actually gonna pay special attention to it”. It’s that special attention that means special economic attention, special educational attention, special legal attention, special attention to every single facet of this organisation because this entire system has been built in a racist context.
Sahara:
Wo-hoo Marco for President. Please run, please! But it’s so interesting because you know I grew up as a person of color, and my dad is extremely like Malcolm X, and so I grew up always being like black people need reparations.
They built this country, they built the White House they built everything, they were not paid. They need reparations. They need money going into the school systems. And this is what gets me angry is when people are all like “Well, all lives matter“, and they just negate the experience and then they draw comparisons of – “Well in Australia we have the Aborigines and we just had a ‘sorry’ day where peopel just said ‘I’m sorry’ and they’re mad at us anymore“. It’s not supposed to be the same thing and it’s like how can we get people to like understand just the setbacks that you know, a black person has, and then also I think people then say “Well what about Oprah, what about Obama, he made it and then they just make up that well if he can do it, then how come all of you guys aren’t.
Marco:
Yes, yes so there’s actually two things that bring up to me. This is something very personal to me because I think that as I started posting about this, I realised that “Oh yeah, you know what, I have a lot of white friends, I have white investors, I have white like colleagues and the like, that look at me and do the same thing as the Opera thing. Well you know Marco you did this and you did that, and I’m like “Y’all have absolutely no idea what my experience is“. And that’s the thing that’s so amazing, so there’s two things that you get to understand. You get to understand – One – the continual experience that I have, right. The experiences I had growing up of kids telling me that the’re going to kill me cause I’m a n***** ; of people literally telling me that I’m going to grow up as a drug addict; like labelling me continually. So when you see these success in spite of, It doesn’t mean that those things aren’t there; it doesn’t mean something I realise just during this process It was so crazy to me and it came from an interview that I had yesterday, when we were talking about normal discrimination. And it made me realise, I was like ”You know what’s a crazy is I count the number of times that I have had with the encounters with the clan level discrimination in my life, and then I absolutely take for granted the amount of time I spend in my day recognizing and knowing that as a black person, here are the things that I can and cannot do; here are the things that somebody’s already assuming about me; here are the places that I can and cannot go; here is the fear that I feel when a police officer is pulling me over. It’s like all of those things that are part of my day, and it’s normalized to a place where I’m “Oh wow, we accept that as just being a thing; well I’m black and that in another self is something people get to recognize as there is very similar to something you were talking about – the scales of racism. There is this extreme adhere, and there is this reality part of like “Well, what has Oprah’s experience been; what has my experience been; what has Obama is experience been?” Obama became President and got crushed whether he was even a US citizen, it’s like we do above and beyond and yet still, the barriers, the judgement, the viewpoint for us is still coming through the same lense.
Sahara:
So accurate and to me it’s so fascinating how someone can even fake that way; could even look at someone and think they are worse than them. And again, there are so many levels to it. But, I’d like to talk about that, like, liberal person who thinks they are a good person, the Amy Cooper you know. Did you see that video of Amy Cooper?
Marco:
No, I didn’t actually.
Sahara:
So there’s this woman in Central Park, on Memorial Day, like, last week. And she was in Central Park …
Marco:
Oh yeah, yeah…
Sahara:
And basically there’s this guy bird-watching, he happens to be black. She has her dog who is you know a very energetic dog. And he’s like can you put your dog on a Leash, It’s a lot, you’re in Central Park. And she basically like “I’m going to call the police and tell them an African-American person is threatening me, and was so angry that he told her to put your dog on a leash, that she instantly knew, and she probably voted for Obama. She is probably like an Upper-West side, yoga, whatever, green juice person. And in that moment that she felt not even threatened, but angry that someone put her in her place that she was “Oh, but you’re black and I know that I can use that against you“. How often do you see these short little microaggressions happening in our daily society?
Marco:
Oh man I mean it’s happening all the time. You think about like if I were to just to absorb and imagine somebody sitting in a position of power. So it’s like you don’t wake up one day in your position of power and say you know what – This is unfair, I should give up some of my power, right? So imagine that gift. Imagine the ability of being able to throw around your whiteness as a card that you can use to get yourself out of bad situations; to exert superiority over somebody else; and that ability becomes something that you are using whether you’re conscious of it or not. Quite honestly it’s a very similar thing to any personality trait that I could have. I know like, I’m arelatively precarious and charming person, so when I think about an average situation and I’m competing against someone else – I’m like “Well my charm is a skill that I can use to support me in this situation”. So I don’t have the ability to say my whiteness is a skill, actually my blackness is always started me back. It’s like I walk in knowing that black and it’s something that was brought up for me when you mentioned that is, you’re familiar with Atil too. So, it reminded me of this scenario and just for the people listening, Atil is young boy and my golly, he must have been 12 years old or something, who got accused of basically…This white girl who was in an elevator with him and she yells or whatever and said that he apparently raped her. Obviously none of this was true, they ended up, you know, killing him. A whole clan of white people come and it becomes this massive thing, obviously just false, false accusation, and this was something culturally was done a lot, like this like big scary black man who’s coming to rape our white women. It was literally a part of the birth of nations and a part of so much media. So there was a time where just to get into the mentality of this. I was actually in Thailand at the time and we had a table with me and a bunch of my friends, and there was this white girl, who, her and her boyfriend came and and they were coming to hang out with us and they got way too drunk. He ended up leaving her and now she is insanely drunk , and we were ready to leave the club, and I’m having this moment of – she’s here by herself in this foreign country, right. And she doesn’t have anybody looking out for her. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, but through my mind is running “What is it going to look like if I try to help her, If I try to support her right now? And what if I try to help her and something bad happens and she claims that I did something to her. So in that moment I made the decision that – I’m like, yo, like my intention is good, like I can’t consciously sit here and allow that fear to keep me from acting in my own good intention; but taking a moment and just thinking about that from under a mentality standpoint, “I know, I have no bad intention; I know that I’m here to support, I know that I’m here to help and I’m questioning whether or not my help is going to put my life in danger.“
Sahara:
Ugh, What a story.
Marco:
That’s something that you as a weight male wouldn’t have to think about. You wouldn’t even be thinking a second – it’s like “I’m going to help support“, and it’s like these are the thoughts that run because I know not only what happens from a legal standpoint; what happens from a media standpoint, so you gotta think about this, that media lie. I traveled to a lot of places where people have never even met a black person, and then the only perception they have of a black person, is something that is definitely not an image often times. At often times it is the criminal, the rapist. That energy, so regardless of how I’m showing up, that’s how I end up being interpreted and I end up having to unwork that mentality on a daily basis.
Sahara:
What do you think of kind of this modern movement to be like “I love black people; like, I love their music, and I love their movies, and I love their sports”, and to show you’re not a racist somewhere to the black coolness to almost like – use it to a tokenism. To be like “Look I have this black friend like, look at me”. For example there is this girl on Instagram and she didn’t post anything about BML like the entire week, and people are like “Why are you not posting this?“ And then she posted a picture of her and her black friend, and she’s like “Look, I’m not a racist“, as if like that’s enough. So, what do you think about this tokenism fetishizing black culture?
Marco:
I mean this has been done since the beginning of time right? Wonderful Trump has his My African-American“ that he does. And he finds black people and he’s like “Hey, I got this black person here because black cans always wins. Which is the interesting theme, and something that, I was just talking to my family about this concept that we’re all just this one monolithic voice. How many people have asked me “Marco what would you do about this racial issue?” And my friends are like “Well speaking on behalf of all all black America, here’s what I think..“
Sahara:
If I’m on a call and like “What did they want?“
Marco:
Yeah, yeah
Sahara:
It’s like a translation, it is crazy, just because they typically only have one token black friend. They don’t know that it’s just like we think all Asians are all Chinese, it’s all the same thing.
Marco:
Yeah, yeah. You think that one person speaks for an entire race. And also thinking that somebody’s also an individual, changes what your role is in racism, right. And again I think, and again, I’ll go back to the same thing that I said before, that if you understand that pure men and racism and the difference to marginalisation to discrimination to all those layers, I would argue that I would find it hard to find an individual that can actually claim that they are not racist. One of the things that I would offer, because I do this in my creative journey, that’s not meant to be like “Alright you’re a bad person” as much as it is to be like acknowledgement, understanding and gain awareness around your own bias, gain awareness around the way that you treat somebody differently based on the colour of their skin. And then understand “Well, what are those assumptions and what are the different stories that I’m making about that person“. And are those assumptions and stories are actually lined up with my balance. And if they’re not, you’ve got throw them shits away. If you are not even willing to investigate your own biases, then this is like the thing that we do and both your Highest Self, like all of these stuff, these are all likes self-worth issues at the end of the day. It just so happens to be centred around racism. I spend all day talking to people about the stories they generate, and the things that they are not aware of, that they are walking around living in, because 90% of them is living in their subconscious, and you got this little 10% of surface area, and like “I’m aware of this.“ And they’re not even aware half the time of what is truly going on in their actions, and in their mind, and in their thoughts and their ways of being.
Sahara:
Here is what it is – people only want to do work that they think will benefit them directly. And then dismantling racism doesn’t benefit them directly so they don’t want to look at that, you know. If you say “White girl, they say I’m not a racist, I’m good in that area.“ Instead of actually looking into, whereas, if you tell them how do I manifest more money, sure I’ll do it.
Marco:
It’s funny you bring that up, because I think this is something that a lot of people get to understand from the historical standpoint and very human standpoint around this. And, I think this highlights a lot of what is happening on both the black and the white side of this, and then as an overall society. Imagine for 400 years right, you have been one way. Let’s just take the picture of the super racist clan member, and ultra-racist clan member. And then I go down that scale of ultra racist clan member, I’m the person who supports ultra racism; I’m the person who discriminates; I’m the person who’s against; I’m the person who’s indifferent, whatever that is. When a Civil Rights Act passed, the law did not settle to infiltrate your stories, it didn’t suddenly infiltrate your beliefs. So, that Act passed, and based on the variety of different responses you might have made, one might have been, you know, the torture genius response, which is, like “If these people would just listened to me, they should have never passed that law.“ You just doubled down on your racism. And what do you think you taught your childre, who are my peers, our parents were the generation that was going through this very thing, and we are one generation removed, and then we wonder “Well what do you mean racism still..“ I’m like “What the fuck do you think?“ And then flip that on the other side of, for 400 years you have been told that your life literally, legally did not matter. What stories are you teaching? You’re teaching stories of fear. You’re teaching stories of “You’re not going to be the same person as this other person; You’re not going to have the same laws“ In fact you need to watch yourself because you might get killed if you speak in the wrong way. And then all of a sudden a law passes and you think you have sprung up with all the most confidences in the world. You and I both know how much time we spend trying to support people in changing habits they want to change.
All those who want to. If you are a racist, if you are a discriminator, if you are anything and you didn’t go to Sahara course, or one of my courses to work on that, you didn’t just suddenly shift.
You continue to tell those same stories, and you were in a multitude of positions of power at that time. You didn’t uproot yourself from power, the law didn’t say – well now you’re not allowed to be in power, now you’re not allowed to have your wealth. You continue to have wealth, you continue to have political influence, you continue to have every single thing that you benefited from in that system. And now, just the law changing might change your language for a moment.
Sahara:
100%. And the 60s and not that long ago, we’re still listening to The Beatles. What was happening? That was the first time a black person could drink out of the same fucking water fountain. Sit in the same area of the bus..that was the same.
Let’s talk about Marilyn Monroe. There was legal segregation at that same time. That was not that long ago. Our grandparents were alive for that. So it’s like we’re just think it’s that this far movement thousands of years ago. And then we do comparisons. So this is what I see, “So, I’m Jewish, so my ancestors suffered from the Holocaust or they did this; so I know what discrimination is like, so I don’t have any prejudice or racism.“ And I think people have a really hard time to understand that yes, the Holocaust happened, that yes, racism to Hispanic, Mexican people, to Middle-Eastern people, to all of those things. I don’t know why people have such a hard time to just focus on black lives right now.
Marco:
So, you wanna to know? Because we are actually living in a system where the context is – that black lives don’t matter. So, it’s happening subconsciously, is that topic in and out itself is not allowed to be talked about. It becomes taboo immediately. We weren’t allowed to talk about our own oppression, right. This shit right here is so much of a mirror to 1968 – 6 days before, the Civil Rights Act was passed, and we were literally being beaten and killed in the streets out here protestion in John Kennedy’s assassination.
And we are now having the same exact thing happen. The same exact thing happen. Your voice is being silenced. And it is not ok for you to talk about it, because it’s not a big deal, just like it wasn’t a big deal when we were literally being lynched. And it was for fun. It was a celebration. Allow that to settle in for a moment. I’ve not only of the people that are being oppressed; but it wasn’t just like your black life didn’t matter; we celebrated your death. And what happens when that mentality continues to get passed on, and you tell me, that I’m speaking as a business person. I had a business that I ran for 400 years, with a set of mission statements and a set of core values. And one day I change them, but I didn’t change any of the business; I didn’t change much of anything other than what has just changed over some the words. I expect that there is going to be this immediate change, as a matter of fact, I’m probably going to think “I should probably start a new business, this business is so cancerous right now.” And so many people already believe that thing that I was telling you for over 400 years then it’s probably easier for me to just fucking start over. It’s just allowed that…I love using very simple metaphors for things that people do on a continual basis, to understand like – this is not some far-fetched thing that’s so unique to racism. It’s like, just think about how you try to change values of a country; how quick that’s gonna be. Be fucking patient; be patient on all sides.
Sahara:
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Sahara:
And that’s why I love that. I re-shared the systemic racism video that you put up and I was shocked by how people are like, “Wait, do they teach us in schools? I had no idea.”
Marco:
Nope. Yep, cause the system is built to support the silence in that, that’s the problem. And the reason why there’s such a beautiful opportunity for these steps of conversations, and my invitation for everybody, when they’re getting in, because, just to be clear, like “I have the side of me, right, that gets very fucking angry because of all of this.” And just imagining for a moment, like “I’m coming from a place of having superseded and achieved things that I’m not supposed to achieve; of being in rooms where I’m constantly the only person in this room. Because I’m sitting in on a top of 1% of whatever it is that I’m doing in a nation.
And yet, and still, the experiences that I’ve had caused me to feel rage, where I’m just like “Yo, like, fuck this; like, this is fucked up.”
So, imagine if I wasn’t in an empowered position how pissed off I would feel! Because I was actually born into a context that was a little bit different, right. So, my context came with the context of parents and grandparents letting me know how things are gonna be for me, and how different things are gonna be for me. But also of a context of your grandfather who is a black general in the military in a time where he couldn’t even eat in the same places that his officers could eat in. But he managed to supersede things so what he passed down to me, and my lineage and my family was the story of empowerment. And not everyone got that story of empowerment. The only got the side of “You’re not going to be as valuable; you’re gonna be discriminated against; and you’re gonna be put down; and you gotta watch yourself because white man is out there to continually get you. And if you don’t marry that with empowerment of “Yes, and you can”, you think, despite that, then you wonder what happens, and we, we know so well from talking about the stories that people created.
Imagine now what gets passed on generationally, on both sides. The power of ‘superiority’ mind-set, and a ‘not good enough’ mind-set. And what does that continue to create?
Sahara:
Mhm…and I think that is so important for people to see you, who, your career and everything you do – is doing personal development. And you still feel that rage. Imagine someone who’s been completely in the system; who’s still in the system; who’s never actually met, you know, someone who loves them.
You know, I was watching the “Malcolm X” documentary and when Malcolm X went to jail, the person who was his mentor was like, he said “All white people are the devil”, which we would be like “Oh, that is so not true”. But it made sense why he would think that because his only experiences with white people at that time of the Segregation, were them being extremely cruel to them. So, look at the stories we can create around someone that we don’t know.
Marco:
Yeah, and that’s so beautiful because I think when you start looking at those things from an implicit bias to the way that the mind creates generalizations, to the stories that we tell and pass on. A lot of the stuff doesn’t become such a big surprise. It’s not like “Oh my, oh my, oh my word, I can’t imagine how this is happening”, and you’re like “I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t be happening” with what position we place and with how much, not only have we ignored this problem because we… I talk about this a lot, about parts of yourself, and I love thinking about all of us as parts of this human body, right. And just imagining again, that one part of yourself that has been screaming for attention continually; and has been yelling out, what Sharp did yesterday, yelling out “Get your knee off my neck”, and keeps yelling and keeps yelling and keeps yelling.
How frustrated has that individual become! And that whole concept of ‘what you resist plays out on a larger level in a physical manifestation of – you’re literally resisting this as ever really being an issue. You’ve addressed by just saying “We’ve changed the law, why isn’t that good enough for y’all? Why aren’t y’all, you know, happy just being quiet about the fact that actually hat we did is shifted a few laws to allow ourselves to have four times the amount of enslaved black males than we had during slavery.”
So, we could still continue to do the same thing, but maybe appease you by saying “Well it’s because they’re criminals”. But it’s also because they’re criminals because of the system that we set up to make sure they were criminals; the system we set up to ensure that they couldn’t even get out of jail; the system that we set up to ensure they wouldn’t even have a fair share, but now, we just put a new face on it.
Sahara:
100%. A new face on, you know, the slave owners in a way are behaving like some sort of police right now. You know, using the same exact tactics that they would’ve used to make a black man, you know, succumb to them, is what they are doing in the police force. Just these 8 things they’re trying to pass right now, did you see this law that they’re trying to do this 8 things officers have to obey?
Marco:
Oh yeah.
Sahara:
And one of them is like “don’t put people into choke-holes”, like “tell people before you shoot them”.
Marco:
What sort of a thing, yeah. They can do whatever they want and it’s sickening. And I think, the thing, the invitation I would have for people that are sitting in the position of either “I’m confused” or “I don’t understand” or “why is this such a big deal?” it would be very similar to something that I talk about with my analogy I use about the sky is green, right.
When someone says “The sky is green” and you just say “The sky is blue”, you guys just endlessly go back and forth, and no matter how many times you tell them “the sky is blue”, they’re not just suddenly gonna see the sky as being green. For them, their experience is ‘the sky is green’. So, until you acknowledge the fact that to you the sky is green, tell me more about that. You can’t even fucking begin a conversation.
So, when you’re walking around saying “Well, I’m not experiencing this” or “I don’t understand it”, it doesn’t invalidate my experience; it doesn’t invalidate the people that are marching experiences. You are having that experience, and what is so interesting is – even, let’s even just take one step further if you just thought we were fucking crazy and you were like “Yeah, racism is just in their head”. I’m like “What do you do to your grandmother that gets Alzheimer’s?” Like, do you dismiss her and just say she doesn’t have a disease; she doesn’t have a problem; it doesn’t exist. No! You still pay attention to it, so in every single version of this, from the, like, extreme disbelief to the ability to decide to understand. The only option you have, other than understanding and supporting, is to literally be against it. When you’re sitting there and start realizing – oh, wait a second – me, sitting in my silence; me sitting in my disbelief is literally as powerful as the person who is saying blatantly “I do not like you blacks.” Because they are denying the ability for me having my experiences; my experience to even be valid. For it to even exist. And denying the ability for me to be cared for, as a human being in this race, where you would say “Wow, Marco’s having that experience, what can we do to help?”
Sahara:
You’re like “Marco, black friend, please tell us why all lives don’t matter; I don’t get it. Do I not matter?”
Marco:
Yeah. I’m like “Yo, this is so crazy”. And it’s like, I make it akin to you walking into, I posted this earlier, it’s like it’s walking into a history class and yelling at the teacher “Yo, why aren’t you taught teaching Math?” It’s like “Because this is a history class.” I’m like – I’m confused, like – what has one got to do with the other? There’s no statement where we’re paying attention to this part of our human body invalidates all other problems, so you’re just saying “Well, what about AIDS or what about poverty or what about this?” It’s like “Yeah, those are problems as well, thank you for reminding us about that,..so, moving,..back to what our subject was..
I don’t see how the two are co-related at all. So, the thing that gets to happen for people is also, and this is the part that I think is so important, other than this idea od us, you, me, everyone walking around trying to teach and train people. There is this internal awareness; an internal responsibility that you get to have of like, before you speak for a moment, like think about the intention of what you’re saying. What’s your intention? Because I’m sitting here saying “I have this problem” and you’re like “Well, is it really a problem?” What intention is that?
Sahara:
Yeah
Marco:
What is the intention of that? It’s not an intention of support. It’s an intention of literally, an invalidation. That is the most human, basic thing and doesn’t have shit to do with racism or not. If you’re walking to somebody and expecting to create a forward, meaning, meaningful and connective form that starts off with invalidating their experience.
Sahara:
Mhm..I see this so much, I see this so much. It’s like “Well, I’m 1/16 native American and blah blah blah”, it’s like – what are you here to prove? And it’s like all of us, this energy that we’re also spending on just fighting with each other, instead of remembering the cause. It’s like – everything is getting lost in the semantics and the call-out culture, and I get it. I know that a lot of peoples’ intentions, in maybe even doing so, could be good, but it’s just all this energy that we’re wasting, and if we waste the energy then we’re not gonna push this movement forward. We’re all gonna get tired; we’re all gonna get fatigues; we’re all gonna get worn out, and it’s not gonna move forward.
And one thing that I think is so important is to humanize the cause. How we can humanize it is – hen you have a friend that is black, and what I’m realizing is that most people, their friend groups are only that look like them. And it’s interesting cause for me..remember our Corret Summit – it was like me, you, an Italian girl, a Puerto-Rican girl. It was like the United Nations. I’m like, I feel like, maybe because I’m a person of color, maybe because I’ve been around, like, that’s just always been my reality, but then I see other groups of friends that every single person is white. Like the Italian girl, hahaha, the person of color for them. So, why do you think there still is so much discrimination in friend groups, and in both ways because I know what they say is “Well, they don’t wanna be friends with us.”
Marco:
Woe, yeah. Again, it’s just back to what we were talking about, right. And you’ve created an entire system that’s been built around that separation; been built about that inequality. What’s interesting to me that you just mentioned is, I sometimes forget, like, what the world looks like, and what our nation looks like because I’m in, you know, I spend my time in the most liberal state in the world – California. It’s like “Oh, yeah, people love each other and we’re all this one melting pot, and then, I did something a few days ago, I pulled up the Nagga hashtag and it was literally this whole world of people creating memes, right. And I was like “Oh wow, yeah, they do memes just like we do.” It’s like they’re creating memes about shooting looters. Like, there was this one meme with this guy being like “I set up my looter track. I put my electronic out my front door and I’m just waiting for the looters to come.” Like, literally perpetuating; not only encouraging violence, but trying to create it. Like I’m gonna create a trap so that I can have an excuse to use my ARY. Because I believe I need to rid the world of there people. Look at the messaging behind that.
So, now we start talking about the subcultures that exist and continue to exist, and not only the overt racism, but the racism and the continual stereotypes that get perpetuated through fear. They get perpetuated through our education system, right. And you don’t got to look much further than… I posted the Doll test earlier today, and I know you’ve seen that. It’s like those implicit biases that we create that then shape our actions, cause our beliefs shape our responses. So, even that concept of like – I can separate myself from this black culture and from this black society, and I can decide that “Well, I believe that they don’t wanna be friends with you or whatever”. It’s like “Yeah, you’ve created that and then you believe that’s gonna be”. So, that’s what you’re creating; that’s what you’re continually creating; you’re continually creating separation, and we are running around creating that separation instead of creating conversation. And that’s why I love right now, because the conversation is so fucking loud, that the people who don’t even wanna talk about it are here.
Sahara:
And the people who don’t want to talk about it are in a way being called out for not wanting to talk about it which is beautiful because we’re saying “You don’t get to sit this one out.”
Marco:
No. And I know that’s something I do wanna bring up. It’s this whole scenario also taught me something and it taught me that in my own pursuit of which is something I created in a story that I’ve created – which is that I don’t walk around thinking “I’m Marco, the black entrepreneur,” right. Because if I do that, then I’m gonna associate it to all the things I can’t do and all the things that, you know, people are gonna judge me for and all such and such. So, my own level of protection, for me, was like – I don’t walk around thinking that, because I think that, it’s only going to continue to draw what I believe is the opposite of what my results are that I’m, deserving, rigt. But in the process of doing that, what I’ve also done is I’ve allowed myself to disconnect from that experience and disconnect essentially, essentially numb myself to that experience because, as it’s happening I’m like “Yeah, it’s just what happens”, but moving on, then I realize that the people around me are like “Oh y’all, y’all don’t even know about this experience because I don’t talk about it”, if normally I’m like right. And I’m like “Well, I have all of these experiences that I could tell you about my life, and about growing up, and about daily interactions that are; it’s not meant to be like – I put it on blast so that everyone can say “Oh, this is Marco”, but it’s like – you’re not even made aware of it because all you see is my success and then all of a sudden I have friends that think “Oh Marco must not experience racism” and I’m like “Oh, no, I’m sorry you thought that way. My bad for misleading you.”
Sahara:
There’s no racism, Marco made it…hahaha
Marco:
Yeah. I was like, you know, cause it’s so interesting, cause in my course there’s actually a session that I do that it moves from this whole concept of you being the creator of your reality, and then it starts talking about energetic momentum. And when I talk about energetic momentum, I start talking about your environment, I start talking about the people around you, I start talking about the city that actually creates this gap between just ‘claiming’ and ‘manifesting’, right. I’m like “Well, if you can just claim and manifest, why can’t you just sprout wings right now? I’m like “Well there’s a lot of energetic momentum – things like gravity that are keeping you from discorded wings. Like, in the saying, there is a reason why, when you wanted to go to California in 2000 and pass a gay marriage law, and when you wanna go to Texas in 2020 and pass a gay marriage law, there’s a lot more energetic momentum towards California being open to that than Texas. So, right, no matter how much you willed it to be, it’s gonna be harder fr you to create that result in Texas. So, what I am saying in bringing that up, it’s not that it’s ever impossible for me to create the circumstances and create the types of results that I’ve created, but it’s been a hell of a lot harder. It’s been a hell of a lot of energetic momentum is actually being put against me and against what I’m creating and what I’m standing for.
Sahara:
And even the energetic momentum of this time right now, of like – us protesting; us going out. This is, we can use this energetic momentum to pass the laws; to get down and teach; to defund the police, which doesn’t mean no police ever, but it means to retrain the police and reset up the police system. And what I see, and this is from a lot of spiritual people is “Well, I don’t want to play into the victimhood”, and they label this spiritual bypass of they’re playing into the victimhood. They keep telling themselves something that happened in the past and negating the fact that we have to go into what happened in the past to create the energetic momentum for a better future. So, what do you say? I was like someone who is like, a deep coach and a black man, when people are like “Well, I don’t want to play into the victimhood.”
Marco:
I say that you’re not really standing for what you are saying. If you’re standing for the love; if you’re standing for the harmony of this nation and this body, then we get to follow the ‘being’ with ‘doing’. With actual action, right? Like, if all we’re doing is running around saying like “I’m sending good vibes”, I’m like “Right now, there’s literally someone holding a gun to my head, I would appreciate it if you could call the police instead of sending me good vibes; I would appreciate it if you could help me out instead of just sending me good vibes.” I’m like, so, that is something very similar to what, I often times call personal faith without words. Like this idea that we do our share of willpower, where we’re going to change things in the world without creating action, and I must say like you know, no offence to anybody, actually no, I’m not even gonna say that – actual offence to anybody who is thinking this way. You’re sitting in your high and mighty, ‘I’m so spiritual’ or ‘I’m so religious’ or ‘I’m whatever’, that like ‘I don’t need to create any action in this scenario’, like “that’s bullshit, that’s bullshit!” And that is what we do in our entire lives. We follow this thing and I call it responsibility, plus belief, plus willingness, right. It’s the responsibility for us to take ownership for the environment that is happening around us – the belief that we actually can change that environment and then the willingness to do and be the types of people we need to be and the types of things we need to do in order to affect the ‘I am’. But all this shit, even that though process of like “I meditate, I meditate, I’m doing it in order to calm myself down peacefully”. I’m still creating that call for action and alerting, and noticing of being aware of a victimization is not you feeding into it. That’s the same exact thing of what we talk about, accepting all parts of ourselves, right. Like, accepting my anger doesn’t suddenly make me more angry, it makes me become friends with my anger and I understand that anger, but if I avoid it, then it becomes just like a phobia. It’s something that I’m literally so. It’s so toxic and like, “Get that bad energy away from me”, that I’m effectively ineffective at ever shifting that energy. I’m just running around in this bubble of protection that I believe I’ve created and I’m not actually ‘doing’ with real life.
Sahara:
And here’s where a lot of ‘The Law of Attraction’ books or whatever are harmful, because it tells people – if you don’t think about it, it won’t happen. And I had MaryAnn Williamson on the podcast who’s like a spiritual politician and she was like “So, if your neighbour was beating up their kid, and you knew about it, but you said “Well, I’m not gonna put that in my frequencies, it doesn’t make them stop beating up their child.” And it’s so important for us to realize, like, yes we are spiritual beings; we’re soul; we’re all one; all of our souls are connected; and we’re all fucking all physical bodies here on this earthly plain here to… If you weren’t meant to be in a physical body, you would not be alive.
Marco:
It’s so funny cause I actually was joking about this with Anna – I was like “Anna, think about this for a moment,” because we live very much in this space of understanding our infinite power and then, also understanding our human experience, and I always call it…The way I think about this – I play the game of life hard as if my life depends on it, all the while knowing it doesn’t. Right, there is this duality of infinite connections to all. But then, there is also this very real identity that ‘a Marco only exists in my limitation; it only exists in my physical form.’
The moment that I’m connected to all things, and I am all things, and I’m one, I literally imagine you just collapsing like a black hole. Like, if you ever achieve that, you could just cease to exist because our sheer human existence is built around those limitations; it’s built around this wonderful contrast between out infinite power and this physical form; that I am here to exude and exert that infinite power through. It is a conduit for that power, so if I sit only here and I’m thinking “Well, I’m just gonna wheel things into existence”, I’ll be like “No, you’re missing the point.” Like, we literally were living that feels like a physical form, so we could physically exert things and physically exist.
Sahara:
And I think it’s our lack of understanding and having experience in sitting into our more shadowy emotions – our anger, our sadness, that we feel like – If I give into it, I’ll lose myself to it; if I feel the anger, I will never be able to come out of it; if I feel the sadness, I’ll become just depressed, so I rather just pretend that it doesn’t exist, because it does create a better reality to me in the immediate, you know. But it’s not real, it’s fantasy, you know, it’s mental masturbation, think about it that way. It’s not true.
So, what tools do you have for people to explore their anger, but also to be a channel for it so they don’t get stuck in it forever either?
Marco:
Yeah, yeah. I mean one thing that we actually do, we call this ‘polarity collapsing’, and it’s a really far out way of thinking about it so I might suggest that if anyone is in that position to start off, first, with just letting it be; letting your anger exist. And the interesting thing about presence is that often times, what we think when we imagine presence, is we imagine this stoic monk, who’s like, unaffected by anything.
I remember practicing this in my Vipassana in Thailand with a bunch of monks and actually had an opportunity, prior to the Vipassana starting, to talk about some of this stuff and they spoke about the fact that they’re like “Yeah, I feel all the emotions that anybody else feels, it’s like, it’s just in my control of how I act with those emotions”. So, when we accept the fact that there is no good, bad, right, wrong emotion, we just allow ourselves to be; we allow ourselves to be like a baby. Like a baby, and I love that thought process of a baby smashes their head onto a wall and “Ahhhhhhh”, and they move on; they release it, right. And we deny ourselves the opportunity to be in our emotional state because we’re labelled a certain emotion as being bad; then we’re gonna continually label ourselves as being bad foe even feeling that emotion, and it will continue to create more energy and bubble that thing up.
So, I say “Let that shit out!” And after you let that shit out, they start loving you. Like, and literally be like “I love this; I love this feeling; I love the feeling of anger; I love it; I even love that I have the ability to feel that.” And in that, what happens in this beautiful thing where the energy that is repelling you from this – it is making you ashamed that you feel anger, it is making you wanna repel or quiet that anger – suddenly starts moving because the brain doesn’t fucking understand the difference between you saying you love your anger or you love happiness. It starts saying “Oh cool, so anger is ok”, right. And then, all of a sudden, when you feel anger, it’s like “Oh I see you angry, I see you, I love you, I love you”, and I can embody that anger and still embody that love.
Sahara:
So good. And I love how you brought it up. You know, when we think about spirituality, we think about that monk and he must not have any emotions, he must be like, totally happy all the time and that even being the symbol of spirituality in our modern world of like, completely non-attached to anything and so, if you’re reacting to things happening and you have a response – yeah, you must not be fearful. And also, there’s the warrior path, you know. Oh I know you were training in Thailand like martial arts and stuff, and that is also a spiritual practice. So, let’s look at the other side of spirituality – the shaking, the transcendence, like, this side that’s more Yang and explosive and uncontrollable, and our society is so afraid of it because we wanna control things. And someone who is sitting and I quiet, I can control that.
I don’t know what they’re doing. I mean it wasn’t there so long ago that even meditation was deemed satanic and probably a lot of people still think it is, but we still haven’t been able to go to the other side of spirituality which is me yelling at being free, and that is actually the more indigenous side, the African side. Like that side of it. We’re only taking this one Asian side, and even these Asian sides have those other practices so we cut them all out, so it’s like we’re deepening our understanding of what it means to be a spiritual person.
When we are realizing that “Oh, me, protesting and marching and screaming at the top of my lungs to protect my children and my future generations, that’s the most spiritual thing that I can do.”
Marco:
A powerful, spiritual thing that we need to do right now. Powerfully spiritual, and that’s the part when we match up our responsibility with our intentional action, right. It’s like, “I’m aware of what’s happening; I’m aware of the power that I have; I am taking responsibility, ownership for my ability to choose how I’m gonna respond right now. And my intentional action is to create change. And it’s to create change in a very tangible way. And I think, the thing that we get to understand is every single part of this process is gonna play a role.
Like, there’s going to be a part of this that is spiritual healing; there’s gonna be a part of this that is actual; there’s gonna be a legal, like legislation, being passed; there’s gonna be a part of this people and people coming together; there’s gonna be a part of this that’s just gonna be economic healing, but every single one thing, too, that I would invite people to do and to understand, because at often times another thing that they see and divise is people, like telling you, like how you’re supposed to protest.
Sahara:
Yeah. Or that the way you’re doing it is incorrect, because they and their partners are doing it another way. It’s like “Hello! Let’s all focus on the oppressor.” Someone’s beating us up, let’s focus on that.
Marco:
Like, oh my God, it’s diverting energy from somebody and like, somebody pops up and like “Well, I didn’t see you say anything about Black Lives Matter; Why are you putting energy into that? Why? Like why”?
You know what’s so crazy. I was telling out of this beautiful part, you see all the corporations talking about, they’re like “Donate $100 million to Black Lives Matter” – here’s the one interesting fact. I actually don’t even give a fuck if they believe it or not. Because what’s happening is, you have an energetic momentum that now has made, potentially for a moment, caring about black lives, popular, which then allows us to continue to create a narrative that just might allow the black narrative to benefit for a fucking moment of the same benefit that the white myriad has had for an entire freaking several generations is that my media dollars now benefit me to now stay in the white myriad, I continue to do that, but if my media dollars benefit me to play the black myriad then I might actually change the way I produce media. I don’t care how it happened – if it happens that way then the beautiful thing about the wealth of the wicked being stored up for the righteous is this concept of like – people can literally, through negative intention, still actually create the type of momentum we see. Just target the developing change.
Sahara:
Well cause we can’t take Google’s money, and someone else that might have the ideas but not the money can link out. But then someone that’s with kids, so that’s the beautiful thing that they’re so many aspects of activism that we get to give in the ways that we can. So, maybe you have a lot of money and not a lot of time, and that’s how you can give, and there is those people who are the opposite. So, I mean, in an ideal world, and eventually, we will all do all of the different types of healing work within ourselves, but in the meanwhile, let’s keep this momentum going instead of saying “Well, why aren’t you doing this and this?” Let’s just keep, keep it going people; keep showing up and giving the ways that they can give and…
Ok, so one big thing that I see people that are criticizing the movement – well there’s no one leader. And I think it’s really hard for people to get around a movement that there’s the…Who’s the MLK of this? Who do we listen to? And what I’m hearing from the black community is – it is not about one person. So can you give us some knowledge on that?
Marco:
Well you know what’s interesting is – I love the fact that there is no one leader because there’s no one person to assassinate.
Sahara:
Yeah.
Marco:
Let’s just get real for a moment. Like, that’s actually the real unitization in this particular scenario, and the separate thing that you just said is like – I think that we’re at this point where the beauty of technology; the beauty of media, is we’re able to create this like, collective oneness, this collective leadership where the pulse is beating, and you’re not only can find its single person that you could say “That’s the person who’s doing it”. But you also have this crowdsourcing of ideas, of energy, of thought processes, of approaches that no one individual could have done, that Martin Luther King, in that time, could not, had actually executed the number of different narratives, the number of different initiatives, the number of different ways that we could approach this thing by literally having this entire, freaking, massive unit.
So, I welcome it. I think that it would be false to say that those movements and those initiatives aren’t without leaders within their own separate rights. It’s like every single individual becomes the leader. If I’m the leader of this blotched protest – I’m the leader, right; if I’m the leader of this city – I’m the leader. I’m the leader of this initiative in this Minnesota farm – then I am the leader, right. That ownership and that ability to allow people to feel that level of empowerment and also to fill that level of responsibility that it’s not resting on one person that’s going to save us. It’s resting on us individually, and that is so much more powerful. So much more powerful, because if we make that change, it’s very similar to something that we know in the coaching world, like if you come to somebody and you coach them and you tell them what to do, it’s like you bammed from two different sides – if it works out, they’re like “No, I gotta go to Sahara every time I need that fix”; and every time it doesn’t work out then you’re blank, right. But if you are the one that empowers yourself, to actually take that action, own it and it’s rooted in you, and there’s nobody that can be killed that will stop a movement like that. There is nobody that can be removed that will stop a movement like that because it’ll actually bring in all of us. And I know, that this energy, momentic-wise or whatever, I just created another word, but momentesly, let’s go with that, momentesly, I know that this time is so valuable because I feel the feeling of me and I’ve had all these scenarios happen, and I felt the anger, and I felt the desperate shit or whatever, but it hasn’t charged me up enough to start a fund for black empowerment now, to say “Ok, what are you gonna do on June 19th, say, well, I need to create content and if I’m feeling that then there’s tons of me’s, there’s you’s, theres tons of people that we’re like “Yo, I’m about to use my platform to shift shit, and that’s powerful as hell because there’s a certain thing that I have, there’s a certain thing that you have, there’s a certain thing that somebody who is listening to this has, that nobody else in the world has access to; that nobody in the world can do like they do; And if they spring into that level of ownership and they say “My gift is not gonna be put to words, this promise – there’s no stopping this. It is going to happen.
Sahara:
Mmhh..So beautifully said. So what can we do to just keep this momentum going? So it’s not like another one-week thing – back to business as usual. Like, how are you asking us to really show up and serve and keep this cause going?
Marco:
I think that the first step is – don’t be silent, right. It’s like I think as much as we talk about any movement, like, when we talk about AIDS relief, we talk about poverty – whatever it is – it’s like don’t allow this to become a fad and recognize that, which is why I even had, and I don’t know what the new suggestion would be, but a justice of peace is not enough. Like, it’s not about just getting these officers arrested, and that is a great symbolism of black lives actually matter as much as a white life. By being, like “Wow, our justice system treated them the same” – great, cool, you get brownie points for that! Now, the real work begins. And the real work begins with – if when we don’t allow it to become silent; we hold our government; we hold our officials; and we hold our cities and we hold our states accountable for what are they doing now. Now! And we demand that there are changes; we demand that there are shifts; we demand that it continues and it needs to continue until I start feeling warm and fuzzy about it. So, I start seeing the actual results of what’s happened and what’s been inactive, and you know, this feels amazing, right, and then it still continues, that’s not a fight that we settle at ends because if it ever ended it would be as if we were saying that the condition of caring about black lives was a temporary thing. Yes, it’s just as much as if you bring in the whole matter of all lives mattering, it’s like “Yes, this was never an issue that is ever a fad and that ever has a time, start and end date of this is when we’re gonna do and, you, know, we care about black people and then you move on. So, it’s a matter of how do we integrate into this thought process of “Hey, here is this issue that is happening, and it’s been happening for hundreds of years, and we get to deal with it; we get to address it with feverish results, and not accepting tokens. Like, I would hate for a court case to go down; for these officers to be convicted; for everyone would say ‘Good job’.
Sahara:
Yep
Marco:
Because that is not the point. It’s not the point.
Sahara:
And just making one leader the face of a movement puts that leader there at the face of – well in their personal life they’re like this and that, like what people do with MLK and anyone else discredited in the whole movement. What I’m seeing opposing people is – well George Floyd was on drugs or George Floyd this, and making it just about him as this one person and like “What’s such a big deal about this one guy and it’s not, and people are so missing the point, so that’s why it is really important for to like, remember that this is a greater movement that one person, currently, right now, the face on, but it’s actually all of the billions or unprivileged people that have suffered because of the system from the past, over 400 years.
Marco:
Well the simple question is – is violence against your own brother ok? Like, does it become ok when, “Ok, well, you know, he wasn’t very good of a person so..”, and I’m like “So, if you even formed your mind to start asking questions like that – “Yo”, I’m like “Seriously?!” Are you literally getting back to that moment of what is the intention; like is your intention to discredit the violence that was done against this man? What does that mean? And where does that come from? It’s not a example of again black lives not matter, because we did something, so you know..it doesn’t matter, not a big deal.
Sahara:
Right. Exactly and I think it’s just us trying to protect ourselves because changing is uncomfortable. And it’s much easier to blame someone else and say “Well, they this, they that”, instead of looking in the mirror and being like “There’s a lot of shit, I don’t know, and I’m going to continue to make mistakes and I’m going to continue to figure this out, and even though I might even be receiving mixed messages, because some people are saying “Use your voice”, some people are saying “mute your voice” and I think there’s a lot of that happening too, but don’t let that keep you from trying, you know. Don’t let a mistake, don’t let an error, don’t let someone calling you out on something keep you from continuing to go because as you started – there is no one black voice and also every single moment, new layers are being added to this whole movement so, let’s continue it, keep it moving and keep supporting.
So, can you let us know any accounts, of course your own or anywhere else that we should follow, we should subscribe. Like, where should we direct our energy to really remain updated on all of this.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, honestly, the Black Lives Matter hashtag has been certainly really well, you know, I have been religiously posting content, re-posting content from there because it is so decentralized. Obviously Black Lives Matter account is a valuable one, but there is a myriad of accounts like mine that are continually putting out information, continually sharing, not only content that’s relevant to this exact issue, but also action steps and things that we can so. I’d invite you to dig into that – the Black Lives Matter won’t take you very long. You’ll start finding a whole host of information and resources that will be available for you on how you can act in a number of different ways.
Sahara:
Mmmh..and I will have you Instagram in the show notes and where can listeners connect with you; get coached by you; join your group; everything that you have.
Marco:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. You can check me out on Instagram, you can also check out Creator’s Journey about me, that’s where my workshops are held and they’re all centered around you understanding, you gaining awareness, gaining acceptance, moving into the creator of your reality, and understanding how you are responsible for the things you create – and it’s a powerful journey, a powerful workshop. So, yeah, it’s really about people.. It’s interesting because during this time there’s so many amazing parallels to that journey of self-discovery and this journey of racism, right. Because it’s all about the things that are sitting in your subconscious that are, you within, acting out of from a lack of awareness, and that journey to bringing that stuff that is under the iceberg to the surface is something that everybody gets to do. That if you think that you don’t need to do it, then you probably should die or implode into yourself because you’ve probably figured out the world, and you’re not growing and learning, but as long as you’re a growing individual I can assure you that there’s 90% of shit that you don’t know. And you don’t know what you don’t know.
Sahara:
Hmm…100%. Well thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us; for always bringing your expertise. We should do another podcast, just like all of the others that you have. Like, I literally hop on the phone and we pretend that it’s like a year from now, and we’re like “Oh my God, I’m so glad that Oprah just had us on the show”. Toni Robbins was there too, and like “Oh, you know, so..” I love how you are just like a visionary, you are a big picture, thinker; you are so just like – you don’t let any limitations stop you. And it is so inspiring in this conversation, but also in every single conversation. So, thank you for being you and for shining your life.
Marco:
Thank you Sahara. Thank you for having me. You are a constant inspiration and the light that you shine is the thing that allows people lightly continue to be inspired and continue to know that they’re going in the right direction.
Sahara:
Aww, thank you.
Wow, how important was that conversation with Marco. He is someone who can really deliver the message of truth and not detract from his experiences, and really tell it as it is without trying to make anyone else feel comfortable. He does not diminish himself or make his experiences invalid because as they are, they are real, and his anger, which he isn’t even expressing, it would be justified.
And I think it is so important for us to hear it from the mouths of the people who have been oppressed in our system, by the black men specifically by our prison, and police system. And it is important for us to hear the voices, to humanize the cause; to remember who is on the other side of that line. And when we hear it straight from the people who have experienced it for themselves, we create more compassion, and with that compassion we can take action, change laws, vote for the right people, and create a better and more just world.
So check out Marco Hansell, his Instagram s in my show notes. He’s such an incredible person to learn from. I deeply admire his work.
And if you loved this episode, I would love to send you a free gift which is the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for Your Mind Body Type. This is a different book than EatFeelFresh. My first book ever which is not released anywhere, and I am gifting it exclusively to those who leave a review of my podcast in the itunes store. So all you gotta do is head over to the itunes store where you’re maybe listening to this podcast and leave a review, take a screenshot that you’ve left it and email it over to me at [email protected] and I will send you the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for Your Mind Body Type, which goes all into Ayurveda, Doshas, plant-based nutrition, and body types – all of the things in a really fun and engaging way. So this is my gift to you for supporting the podcast. Every single review I personally read. It really helps the podcast be listened to by more people so that we can raise the vibration of the planet together, and I am soul grateful to have you on this journey.
Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode. Namaste.
Episode 294: The Racism Underneath Our Noses with Marco Hansell
By Sahara Rose