Non-Diet Yogi
Non-Diet Yogi explores and dismantles the world of #BigWellness, where yoga, spirituality, fitness, diet culture, white supremacy and toxic female entrepreneurship collide in a dizzying spectacle of goji berries and designer mala beads.This podcast is for you if you - love yoga, but don’t always love yoga culture - wish to form a deeper connection with your body and with the natural world around you, minus the wellness wankery - are tired of the classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fat phobia and other threads of white supremacy woven throughout #BigWellness. Hosted by Casey Conroy, non-diet dietitian, naturopath in training, and yoga teacher.
Non-Diet Yogi
Ep 14. Performative Activism: Feigned Anti-Racism & White Supremacy in Yoga
•
Casey Conroy, MNutrDiet, APD, YT
•
Episode 14
There has been a phenomenal uptick of rising yoga and wellness influencers posting anti-racism sentiments on social media. Yet in stark contrast to the important message of bringing light to police brutality against BIPOC, or tackling underrepresentation of coloured folks in wellness spaces, these feeds are filled with white, thin, able-bodied, cis-het women striking yoga poses on beaches. Are these influencers for real?
In this episode:
- The current phenomenon of performative activism in yoga social media, and why it comes across as disingenuous
- How white yoga and wellness influencers can leverage their privilege to do better
- My personal experiences of racism growing up, how these pale in comparison to those of BIPOC, and how I'm responding to racial injustice
- The damage done by sentiments like, “No One Is Superior”, "We Are All One", or "I Don't See Colour"
- Spiritual capitalism and the ways white supremacy manifests in real-life white yoga studio culture
- 3 tactics of defence and dismissal used by white wellness influencers to deflect accountability around racism
- People who are doing excellent work in allyship, de-centering themselves, raising the voices of BIPOC, and/or speaking out as BIPOC wellness and yoga influencers themselves
Resources mentioned:
- Dianne Bondy on challenging racism and spiritual bypassing, on the triyoga podcast
- Acknowledgment of Country by Georgia Mae Capocchi-Hunter
- Casey's article on The Spiritual, Sexy, Successful Woman Ideal
- Transcript of this episode with links to posts mentioned
- Yoga is Dead podcast