Seattle, Washington is one of the most progressive cities in America.
When President Trump had a novel idea in April of putting illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities; Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan responded that her city wasn’t “afraid of immigrants” and they are “always welcomed.” That’s how progressive Seattle is.
That’s why it wasn’t a total shock to see one of the craziest racist stories about how a Seattle Yoga instructor is attempting to teach white people how to undo their “whiteness.”
Seattle is right up there with San Francisco as one of the most liberal cities in America.
But Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan doubled down and said she’d take on all of them. She said about Trump, “It’s clear he hates the fact that the very cities he scorns are engines of innovation, opportunity and economic power. But we will not be deterred.”
Durkan said immigrants “make up 18% of the city’s population, make Seattle a stronger, more vibrant place and make contributions to business, culture, law enforcement and other parts of its society.”
Issue solved? Not so fast. It probably won’t happen.
In fact, it’s even worse than you might think and the best example is how a yoga instructor is teaching a class aimed at “Undoing Whiteness,” by showing Caucasian yoga students how white supremacy is inherent in their “body, mind and heart.”
A 15-year yoga teacher, Laura Humpf, claims her philosophy will teach attendees how to “unpack the harmful ways white supremacy is embedded,” in white America. Also, it’s important to note she is also white and if that doesn’t scream social justice warrior then nothing does.
Humpf told the Seattle Times, “I do stand behind white people needing to talk to other white people on how to undo whiteness. Can I keep refining it and doing it differently and better? Yeah, and I will forever and ever. But I believe in this space as one tool.”
When Humpf posted the idea of her new class on neighborhood Facebook groups, many noted she had “lost her mind.” Some interpreted “Undoing Whiteness” as “a bunch of white people” getting together to discuss their “white shame” without consulting people of color, and another accurately equated it with embarking on a pub crawl to tackle alcoholism.
The 39-year-old yoga instructor admitted she received death threats and it got so bad they had to cease operations at the studio for weeks.
The New York Post poignantly noted, “Her class tries to neutralize defensiveness, perfectionism and the ‘white savior complex’ as participants try to physically interpret words such as ‘oppression” and “liberation.’”
That’s the problem is the aggressive social justice warrior having “white savior complex.” Humpf’s “Undoing Whiteness” class is literally a “white savior complex” so she’s either tone deaf or just oblivious to what she’s doing.
It’ll probably spread to other cities soon enough.
