Healing with jai podcast
Chapter 1: How are you decolonizing? Decolonizing
Hey friends! We are diving right into it today, going right into Decolonizing.
This has been a trending topic lately.
So what’s decolonizing…simply put it is decentering the colonizer. There are so many ways to do this.
TV: centered mostly white families, we had Full House, Step by Step, Brady Bunch etc. We were also lucky to have Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Family Matters, In Living Color.
Even in Latine shows, whiteness is centered. And let’s not get into the whole “they aren’t white they are Mexican, or Columbian” etc because damn. The whole race, ethnicity, and nationality situation have Latine in a CHOKEHOLD!! Being Latine doesn’t mean you’re not white or black or mixed race. So let’s leave that there because that’s a topic for another time.
Beauty: We grew up with the european standards of beauty. Some of us grew up hating our hair, our nose, our body. Using chemical things to blend in. The body positivity movement to me is also decolonizing. Growing up in the early 2000’s with the skinny models and low rise jeans where for people of color some of our bodies just don’t do that. It takes a hit to our self esteem. I felt like back then they really wanted models to be so skinny as not to distract from the clothes they were trying to sell us. Let me not start on aesthtics taken from the hood and get revamped, like bamboo earrings, “clean girl esthetic”, nameplate necklaces, dique sticky bangs when we’ve been doing our edges like that since the 80’s….and so on. When we do it, it’s hood but when they do it, it’s fashion. Make it make sense.
And Diets are a subtopic in beauty because for years we believed the hype that our ancestral foods are not healthy. for them to turn around and repackage them and sell it back to us. Don’t get me started on avocado toast ok?? I know in my home, my mother and aunts cooked traditional food. They were and are the Queens of clean eating. My metabolism was insane. And then I went to college and ate more junk gained the freshman 15 and my body was like wtf are we doing here??
Religion: Decoloizing and breaking down what religion meant to you growing up, what it meant to your family and how you feel about it today. Processing any religious trauma you may have from your time in church whether that is Pentecostal, Evangelical or Catholicsm. What blows my mind is how Christians us the colonizer’s religion and spit it back to non christian and spiritual folk to spread hate. Just lost in the sauce and like my mind can’t comprehend it. Just like the Spanish colonizer, they do it in the name of God.
Immigration: As kids when our parents or grandparents moved here from their countries, they wanted us to fit in. Assimilate. Not make waves. Those types of things we are still unlearning. I don’t judge the “no sabo kids” because their parents were focused on assimilation. Spanish is the colonizer’s language anyway right? So it doesn’t make you less latine. IDK if we’re ready to discuss how immigration is a form of capitalism so i’m going to keep that one in my back pocket for another time.
Parenting: Afro-Indigenous groups centered the mother, Taino culture was matrilineal meaning that if someone from another group was going to marry a Taino woman, they would then join the Taino as their group. As their tribe. The next cacique would be from the mother’s side. That’s how Anacaona ended up with her own Cacigazco in Kiskeya. With colonization, the patriarchy ruled and they ruled with an iron fist. Which would translate into kids also being hit when misbehaved. Understanding how that impacted your childhood is also a part of decolonizing.
When we talk about healing and decolonizing, it’s layers and intersectionality. We live in the crossroads of more than one thing, we are multidimensional beings. And we each went through our own things growing up that have impacted the way we viewed the world, and the way we view each other and ourselves.
When you are a child of both the colonizer and colonized, this is lifelong work. We’ve all been impacted by colonialism and capitalism in our own ways. Positively and negatively.
Breaking generational curses and doing our own healing is a lot. But you can take it one step at a time.
This week’s collective reading:
Modern Witch Tarot: Wheel of Fortune R, Six of Swords R, Ace of Pentacles R This talks about how you can block your blessings by trying to control everything. Don’t try to control all the things, try to fall back and reassess.
Caribe oracle: Lento y contento, cara al viento. Slow down. Reassess.
Let’s add a song to this chapter. I have been loving fellow Dominican songstress Yendry. She’s also Italian. Her latest song Kiki is a vibe, I love to dance to it.
This week’s journal prompt:
What does being native mean to you? What does decolonizing mean to you?
I’d love to hear your responses to these journal prompts, you can email me or message me on instagram @crown.emerald and let's talk about it!
A book I love to recommend to folks is All About Healing by Bell Hooks and it talks about love in a spiritual way.
