HFor no reason, here is a set of nice interactions I had with R----, a man with whom I just took the 75-minute (challenging, fun) Yoga Sculpt class at Core Power Yoga Encino.
I don't mean R---- and I made a plan and met and took the class together. I mean he is a person I met today who was also in that class. He seems like a nice person, based on our interactions.
I went into the studio before class to lay down my mat. Taylor Swift's "Out of the Woods" was playing; that made me happy, and I thought about how T Swift is at war with all the streaming and so I don't get to hear this awesome song that much.
(If you hit the link to the song and you just listen to it like 4 times and don't come back to this post, and therefore don't read this sentence, I still want to put it out into the aether that I totally sympathize with that choice.)
I went back into the dressing room and was changing. Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" (seriously is this video an ad for young-middle-aged perfumejeans? Don't answer that: of course it is) anyway that song was playing and I was kind of humming under my breath, because that song is at this point inside my bloodstream becausetheworld. Then I stopped.
(By the way, I don't mean to be salty, but if I lose you to "Hey, Soul Sister"...I mean, I'm not knocking it. wutever. u do u, frend)
R---- came around, also changing. He was more audibly kind of hum-singing along to the song.
Here,then, a nice tiny little explosion of my own implicit biases that I'd like to walk you through. Feel free to judge me a little! That's why I'm sharing!
Now, I had just been humming along to this song. So: obviously, I find it catchy. But it is Not Cool; I think I actually think that, i.e., I'm not just meant to think that because that's what my fellow coastal elite glittergentsia think. I'm not knocking Train, good for them, but y'know it's a song that goes with the trailers to movies I'd never see, etc. "Hey, Soul Sister" = Not Cool. And, saliently, Very White.
This is salient because R----, whose name I did not know at this point, is not white. He is, in fact, an African-American gentleman in his I'd say mid-50s, with buzzed salt-and-pepper hair and a friendly face.
Let me be clear how these biases work, in myself and I think most people. I absolutely was not like, "My goodness, a person of color appreciating Train!" Of course not; I'm not that whatever-it-is-that-I-am: stained by the bias that is inside the fabric of us. What I was like--and this is why things like these implicit bias tests are so valuable and interesting--was just for no time at all momentarily surprised that the next words out of my mouth were a self-mocking and rueful, "Gotta hum along to this song,"
and perhaps even more for-no-time-at-all surprised when R----'s response met the words of my statement, erased the rue and replaced it with zest. He said something like, "Man, gotta sing along to this song."
And I smiled and laughed, and then R---- came around a bit to my rue with: "At least it isn't Taylor Swift." Referring, one assumes, to the music that had been playing to the studio.
And I smiled and laughed again.
R---- was mistaken, of course. It is better to be humming T Swift than to Train. But the interaction was a friendly conviviality.
Upon reentering the studio for class, I noted with extremely mild pleasure that the funny skull-n-crossbones yoga mat next to but slightly offset behind mine was R----'s. I'd seen this mat for sale on Amazon, a couple years ago. It is a kind of flimsy mat, I think. That's neither here nor there.
We took class together. It was a challenging class. R----, for a man of his age &c., did really well (seriously). At one point during a break between the hard bits, I couldn't see him really but just knew that he had his hand out for me and I met the high-five. Nice moment; no words. Not one of those moments when the teacher was like, "Give your neighbor a high five!" R---- just did it.
Afterwards he came back to the locker room after I'd showered and everything'ed.
I said, "Easy peezy." Joking, of course. The class was challenging.
He laughed and we chatted. We chatted about the weather and the rains; how they all came at once and how that was typical of California; how the dressing room is muggy so it's hard to get dry; he said he hoped that the coming sunny days would stick because "it's time."
Then--I have no idea how we got onto this--we got back to music.
He said something like, "I got an Alexa." Meaning, one assumes, this. "And on Saturday nights now I just tell it what to play and me and my wife dance. I was missing that. Just..."
He didn't trail off in some moody way. The thought just pleasantly trailed off.
We exchanged names pleasantly. And out I went.
I don't mean R---- and I made a plan and met and took the class together. I mean he is a person I met today who was also in that class. He seems like a nice person, based on our interactions.
I went into the studio before class to lay down my mat. Taylor Swift's "Out of the Woods" was playing; that made me happy, and I thought about how T Swift is at war with all the streaming and so I don't get to hear this awesome song that much.
(If you hit the link to the song and you just listen to it like 4 times and don't come back to this post, and therefore don't read this sentence, I still want to put it out into the aether that I totally sympathize with that choice.)
I went back into the dressing room and was changing. Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" (seriously is this video an ad for young-middle-aged perfumejeans? Don't answer that: of course it is) anyway that song was playing and I was kind of humming under my breath, because that song is at this point inside my bloodstream becausetheworld. Then I stopped.
(By the way, I don't mean to be salty, but if I lose you to "Hey, Soul Sister"...I mean, I'm not knocking it. wutever. u do u, frend)
R---- came around, also changing. He was more audibly kind of hum-singing along to the song.
Here,then, a nice tiny little explosion of my own implicit biases that I'd like to walk you through. Feel free to judge me a little! That's why I'm sharing!
Now, I had just been humming along to this song. So: obviously, I find it catchy. But it is Not Cool; I think I actually think that, i.e., I'm not just meant to think that because that's what my fellow coastal elite glittergentsia think. I'm not knocking Train, good for them, but y'know it's a song that goes with the trailers to movies I'd never see, etc. "Hey, Soul Sister" = Not Cool. And, saliently, Very White.
This is salient because R----, whose name I did not know at this point, is not white. He is, in fact, an African-American gentleman in his I'd say mid-50s, with buzzed salt-and-pepper hair and a friendly face.
Let me be clear how these biases work, in myself and I think most people. I absolutely was not like, "My goodness, a person of color appreciating Train!" Of course not; I'm not that whatever-it-is-that-I-am: stained by the bias that is inside the fabric of us. What I was like--and this is why things like these implicit bias tests are so valuable and interesting--was just for no time at all momentarily surprised that the next words out of my mouth were a self-mocking and rueful, "Gotta hum along to this song,"
and perhaps even more for-no-time-at-all surprised when R----'s response met the words of my statement, erased the rue and replaced it with zest. He said something like, "Man, gotta sing along to this song."
And I smiled and laughed, and then R---- came around a bit to my rue with: "At least it isn't Taylor Swift." Referring, one assumes, to the music that had been playing to the studio.
And I smiled and laughed again.
R---- was mistaken, of course. It is better to be humming T Swift than to Train. But the interaction was a friendly conviviality.
Upon reentering the studio for class, I noted with extremely mild pleasure that the funny skull-n-crossbones yoga mat next to but slightly offset behind mine was R----'s. I'd seen this mat for sale on Amazon, a couple years ago. It is a kind of flimsy mat, I think. That's neither here nor there.
We took class together. It was a challenging class. R----, for a man of his age &c., did really well (seriously). At one point during a break between the hard bits, I couldn't see him really but just knew that he had his hand out for me and I met the high-five. Nice moment; no words. Not one of those moments when the teacher was like, "Give your neighbor a high five!" R---- just did it.
Afterwards he came back to the locker room after I'd showered and everything'ed.
I said, "Easy peezy." Joking, of course. The class was challenging.
He laughed and we chatted. We chatted about the weather and the rains; how they all came at once and how that was typical of California; how the dressing room is muggy so it's hard to get dry; he said he hoped that the coming sunny days would stick because "it's time."
Then--I have no idea how we got onto this--we got back to music.
He said something like, "I got an Alexa." Meaning, one assumes, this. "And on Saturday nights now I just tell it what to play and me and my wife dance. I was missing that. Just..."
He didn't trail off in some moody way. The thought just pleasantly trailed off.
We exchanged names pleasantly. And out I went.
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