Brave and stunning monument to #bodypositivity Jessamyn Stanley, or someone just like her, is very probably — should the unthinkable occur in a couple of weeks and Kamala Harris is successfully installed in the Oval Office — the Kamala entity’s next HHS Secretary.
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Via People (emphasis added):
Jessamyn Stanley needs you to know what yoga is really about — and it's not the poses.
In her new book Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, the yoga instructor and body activist shares reflective personal essays that touch upon everything from racism to the cultural appropriation of American yoga, from consumerism to cannabis.
And while the timing couldn't be better considering the current cultural climate, the idea for the book came to her years ago while she was writing her first book, Every Body Yoga, a guide to developing a yoga practice.
"I realized yoga is a lot more than postures*," she tells PEOPLE. "The postures get to be more complicated, not because you're practicing harder gymnastics or physical postures, but because you're practicing emotional and mental and really spiritual postures."…
Stanley has been nurturing this self-awareness in the nearly 10 years since she has been breaking barriers in the yoga world, tackling topics like fat-shaming, her queer Black identity and unattainable beauty standards. In Yoke — which means yoga in Sanskrit — she uses her own life as a a metaphor to further explore the coming together of mind and body, light and the dark, good and the bad — both on and off the mat.
*Yoga is “a lot more than postures,” as a matter of fact, so credit where it’s due for recognizing that fact. But let’s not pretend this lady understands or appreciates what that more actually is.
I do yoga several times a week. Am I the problem? pic.twitter.com/ONBfQHxozA
— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) October 16, 2024
Continuing:
The book explores the existence of white supremacy and cultural appropriation in American yoga. "I would venture to say that everything in our collective society is rooted in white supremacy. I am sure there are many people who would disagree with that, and honestly I don't care because I believe that and I know it's the case," she says.
"I think that we see it show up in a lot of different ways. In the same way it's everywhere else and it has polluted everything else, it's polluted yoga. It's very much a part of how yoga has spread in America. The popularity of yoga really came down to wealthy white people wanting to learn and explore in a very specific way, and that's why yoga has been so white for so long in America."
Detailing the cultural appropriation in yoga, Stanley says it's "rampant because we are still living in the legacy of colonization."
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Imagine the gall of being not just morbidly obese and palpably unhealthy but also obviously black — and then granting yourself license to lecture racist white “colonialists” for a living about the cultural legacy of yoga, which originates in South Asia and not Africa.
For all of her breathless effort trying to parlay #bodypositivity into the broader Social Justice™ movement, Jessamyn has been handsomely rewarded with presumably very lucrative corporate sponsorship deals showcasing her alleged yoga prowess as an icon of fat, diverse, empowered women everywhere.
Via Yoga Journal:
At a glance, the yoga world appears to have made progress around body inclusivity. Your Instagram feed likely features teachers and practitioners of all identities, sizes, shapes, ages, colors, backgrounds, and abilities. Athletic wear companies include more realistic mannequins than the ones of years past. Ads for yoga studios typically include at least one larger-bodied person…
But when we look at the fuller picture of yoga as a mirror of society, there’s been an inch of movement compared to the light years of distance we still need to traverse.
The contrast between where we think we are and where we need to be is perhaps most apparent when full-figured people appear in the media. Take yoga teacher and body inclusivity activist Jessamyn Stanley, who continues to endure intense criticism whenever she appears on magazine covers and in ads. Most recently, Stanley came under scrutiny when a Gatorade Fit ad campaign featured her practicing demanding yoga poses.
This is all obviously very inspirational and empowering — until, perhaps, you consider that Jessamyn announced earlier this year she is literally pre-diabetic.
This announcement came a few months ago, so it’s entirely possible she’s full-on diabetic at this point. At any rate, “pre-” vs “actual” diabetes is a diagnostic distinction without much of a difference; it’s all bad news. This lady is obviously in this condition because she pounds the Cheetos and Gatorade extra hard after yoga practice, assuming she actually does yoga at all when the cameras aren’t on and this isn’t all a giant DEI scam that pays better than most real jobs.
