Unpacking the Embodied Plantation Backpack: The White Body’s Burden

Soon after an American baby is born, they are put into a cute little onesie. But at the same time, they also get fitted with a heavy, invisible backpack. This backpack burdens them and restricts their movements, usually for many years—until they recognize that they are carrying it and choose to do something embodied about it. Because we Americans typically carry this backpack from our earliest days, most of us don't even realize it's there. It seems normal, standard, and natural to us. Many of us carry it to our graves. This backpack is metaphorical, of course. Yet it causes very real constriction, fear, and weariness in the bodies of hundreds of millions of Americans.

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