Learning from the past

Statue of orixá Oxóssi, the hunter, at Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá, terreiro in Salvador da Bahia

Laroiê Exú! Salve Exú. Salve todos os guerreiros. Okê, okê, okê arô Oxóssi! Ogum iê!

Recently, I dreamed that Spirit pointedly asked me, ¨Are you writing?” The answer is yes.

I am privileged and blessed to be able to live in Brazil right now, on ancestral Guaraní-Kaiowá land named Rio de Janeiro by Portuguese colonizers. A list of 282 indigenous nations in Brazil can be found here. Traffickers forced more African people to Brazil than any other location in the Americas, and more to Rio than any other Brazilian city. This memory is written in the faces of the people, the structure of the city and the institutional racism that is more pervasive than Brazilian flags during the World Cup.

When I’m not working on my forthcoming book project about Candomblé priestess Dona Cici, I’ve been studying capoeira. For those unfamiliar, capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that enslaved people created and disguised as dance. This embodied practice of community care, energy work, resistance to oppression and ancestral connection is beautiful. But it’s not perfect: misogyny, machismo, homophobia, and transphobia are as prevalent in capoeira circles as they are anywhere else on this planet. Also, as Eliane Oliveira writes in “Take your hands off our symbols of struggle!,” white and non-Black people do harm when we (I include myself as a descendant of European and Asian ancestors) appropriate capoeira without organizing in solidarity with Black people.

Training in capoeira is one way I am trying to be sustainable in my work for justice and healing. Family separations at the US border been going on for more than a year, but like most people I know, I found out only recently. Facing my limitations – the fact that I cannot personally reunite children with their parents – was painful. Knowing that this current atrocity is a continuation of the United States’ long history felt heavy. I turned to adrienne maree brown’s book Emergent Strategy and to the knowledge embedded in the movements of capoeira.

I’m fortunate to train in Capoeira Angola with my dear friend Renato Mendonça, who dedicates his free time to teaching this martial art from an intersectional, anti-racist perspective. As an Afro-Brazilian man from Rio, he teaches for free to make sure that this art is accessible to people of African descent and residents of “favelas” (under-resourced communities built by low-income, mostly Afro-descendant people excluded from affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods). Please let me know if you’d like to support his work and I’ll put you in touch!

Here are a few of the insights I’ve gained as I train:

When a kick approaches, follow the motion of the attack and ground yourself.

Be alert to openings and spaces – in your opponent’s game, in your own defenses, and in the circle. It is possible to shift the game to face in a different direction, change angles, or cartwheel away from a strike.

Like the warriors who created capoeira, disguise your resistance as something innocuous (if necessary). Let the opponent underestimate dance, music, femininity, or whatever else they perceive as worthless.

Honor the body. Provide an outlet to release the stored physical energy of trauma.

Form a circle. The shape contains and builds energy.

Rhythm and sound are healing. Respect the power of music, particularly percussion.

Play is necessary. Being serious all the time is a bit self-important. The world can afford for you to rest, relax and enjoy yourself. You will be able to do better work if you take breaks to laugh, kiss, and feel sunlight on your skin.

“Cada um tem seu jeito.” Each person’s body and style of play is different, and that is good.

Meet opposition by flowing.

Be patient if your body wants to freeze or flee. It is okay to fight to defend yourself. You have a right to exist, though not a right to be on stolen land. You have a right to be on this planet and protect the body that is your sovereign territory.

People of African descent in the Black Atlantic have been creating “maroon spaces” (Greg Tate’s term) for centuries. Indigenous people have survived their attempted extermination for more than half a millenium. As Gamba Adisa wrote (Audre Lorde took the name Gamba Adisa, “Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known” before she died), “[T]here are no new pains. We have felt them all already.” The horrors of the present come from the same old playbook of white supremacist capitalism that built this world system. People have resisted since the beginning. We can learn from them.

When you heal yourself, you heal your ancestors and all your relationships. Healing happens in connection, not isolation from others.

Use what you have.

There can be so much love in found/chosen families.

Tradition provides structure. Adaptation is essential, but in dialogue with tradition.

Reclaim your physical, spiritual, mental and emotional energy. Foucault showed that the western European societies that colonized much of this planet organized space and bodies for maximum efficiency and consolidation of power. Take back the vital axé (life force) of your being and channel it towards what you love and value.

Look to the past and study what worked.  Pay attention to what the ancestors gave us. Let go of the savior mentality and collaborate with others to make something that will benefit the generations to come.