a guest column by Misha Agunos

instagram: @miss_chief_misha

medium.com/mishaagunos

note from the author:

I write these from a place of wanting to normalize people having a process and sharing their processes (with those who consent) of dismantling systems of oppression within themselves, their communities, and the world at large.

I want to normalize allowing this process to be messy, unsure, and ambiguous at times, regardless of whether you experience more harm or more benefits from these systems--and looking at how I can still take action anyway. These writings reflect my own messy, unsure, ambiguous jumble of experiences, learnings, and integration as I take action where and when I can.

I welcome questions, discussion, contradictions, engagement, and corrections made in good faith--I absolutely do not look to go unquestioned and welcome opportunities to take responsibility for any harm caused by my content. And, I reserve the right to set boundaries around engaging in emotional labor as it serves my well-being. Ultimately, I hope that these provide tools and questions to think about, and that they initiate discussion and action.

Blog
10/22/22 Community meeting recap: Resilience Toolkit Group Intro
10/22/22 Community meeting recap: Resilience Toolkit Group Intro

2nd Quarterly meeting recap: Resilience Toolkit Group Intro Follow-up + Aftercare with Misha

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From Values to Impact: Intro to Trauma-Informed Tango Spaces

Instead of trying to tackle the whole system in dramatic, urgent, sweeping gestures, in which ways can I support myself in taking incremental consistent action?

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From Values to Impact: The Importance of Trauma-Informed Practices in Tango Spaces
From Values to Impact: The Importance of Trauma-Informed Practices in Tango Spaces

This is also why all places benefit from practicing trauma-informed ways of crafting spaces, even if (and I would say especially if) they’re not therapy spaces or counseling or spaces for processing trauma. We can never guarantee that our spaces will be “safe,” and there’s no way to avoid all harm in a space no matter how many courses we’ve taken. But we can ensure that we are doing everything we can to minimize the chances for harm to occur, and maximize the quality of support we can offer when harm does happen.

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Tango Hierarchies and Our Stress Responses to Them
Tango Hierarchies and Our Stress Responses to Them

…being unsure whether asking this person to stop would result in retaliation or not--and expending the mental resources to weigh those probabilities--is taxing on the system, on top of juggling all the other social involvement of navigating a tango space. How many people adopt survival/coping patterns of avoiding or simply enduring these ambiguous possibilities of threat in the first place?

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Tango and Ecologies of Stress
Tango and Ecologies of Stress

Socially, tango can be a protective buffer to the effects of stress on a few different levels. It can also exacerbate the effects on those same levels.

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Are You Actually Dancing Tango If You Aren’t Dismantling Systems of Oppression?
Are You Actually Dancing Tango If You Aren’t Dismantling Systems of Oppression?

If there’s a disconnect so profound in your own body that you can diminish the overwhelming evidence of harm and oppression enacted on others’ bodies, how could you ever be connected enough to your own body to facilitate reciprocal enjoyment in a dance?

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Tension as Instrumental to Anti-Racism (and as it just so happens, Tango)
Tension as Instrumental to Anti-Racism (and as it just so happens, Tango)

…just like you can’t dance tango without certain, specific timbres of tension at different times, neither can you truly practice anti-racism without purposefully leaning into the tension you experience when looking at the ways your actions (or inaction) uphold white supremacy.

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photography by Israel Jimenez V.