(Sign up for Sweat Together for Equality)

If you’ve been following along on Brave Sunday, I usually use this email (and it’s corresponding post) to share what I’ve learned over the past week. This week is a little different. Across the United States, protests erupted in major cities to bring light to another killing of an unarmed black man – George Floyd – by the police in Minneapolis, MN.
 
I have a lot to say today and somehow I am also having trouble finding the words. We at aSweatLife, have often leaned back from political conversations. That ends today. Because simply stating that people don’t deserve to die because of the color of their skin isn’t a mother fucking political statement. It’s human.
 
Today we’ll raise our voices and use our action because black lives matter and oppression anywhere deserves all of our attention and efforts.
 
I am the founder of aSweatLife. I am a white woman. I didn’t get here on my own – I have parents, systems and privilege to thank. Sure, I worked hard, but hard work is never in a vacuum. It is my responsibility to set the tone for this community that we have created within the fitness industry. I can do better. We can do better. We will do better.
 
But we can’t just talk, we have to act. We have to show up, march, vote, make an effort to self-reflect on the ways we’re spending, the words we speak, and the examples we set for each other and our future generations.

It’s time to get uncomfortable. But like in fitness, you have to break down your body to build it back up. You have to find your weakness to make it strong.
 
It is hard to admit your own prejudice. It is hard to learn from what you’ve done in the past, but it is imperative for us to ask the big questions and learn. Because if we cannot learn from our own mistakes, our own stumbles, the wrongs, the injustices, we lack the ability to get better.
 
We’re calling on you to listen to that little voice in your head that tells you when things are wrong as a siren song. Let it call you to action. Let that little voice pull you to stand up and get out from behind your computer screen and join in to say, “this isn’t right and we need to do better.”
 
Here’s what we’re doing this week and our plan to move forward.  
 

1. We’re donating all Eventbrite donations for scheduled events to the ACLU
2. We’ve called on friends to help us create an event this Tuesday that we’re calling “Sweat Together for Equality” it’s $5 a ticket for a 90-minute workout featuring five different trainers – Paige Willis, Ashley Rockwood, Emily Hutchins, Marquita Anderson and me. All ticket sales will go to the ACLU.
3. We’re prioritizing our voice as a strong ally
4. We’re supporting our Black friends, community members, businesses
5. We’re recognizing that black and brown faces are underrepresented in the wellness space and that we have the ability to change the landscape.  

We understand that we should have already been doing more and because of that will fight that much harder for action and antiracist education.