ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the story of the planning and practice of Multiracial Aikido, a weekend experiential learning retreat created for students at Oregon State University. It recounts the author's approach by mapping relevant principles from adrienne maree brown's book Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, in hopes of inspiring others to adopt similar methods centering adaptation, attention to relationships, and embodiment exercises. The chapter explores basic concepts of aikido to help participants find ways to respond to harmful racialized experiences. The Multiracial Aikido curriculum prioritizes assisting students to connect with themselves by practicing exercises that ground them in the present moment. The authors have used the fishbowl exercise to address important topics, such as unpacking whiteness, identifying how antiblackness is maintained and perpetuated, discussing the history and complexities of Indigeneity and multiraciality, and exploring how family dynamics plays a role in the experience of multiracial people.
