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Michelle Rodino-Colocino, A Pand(acad)emic Plea for Self-Care and Shorter Hours, Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 14, Issue 2, June 2021, Pages 315–319, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab018
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I am revising this commentary one year into the COVID-19 pandemic on a university-mandated “Wellness Day.” I do so to argue for self-care over wellness and shorter hours for self- and collective care. Why? First, wellness has been constituted by whiteness. Dictionaries and institutes define “wellness” as pursuing or attaining good health (broadly construed to include mental, financial, and physical health). Wellness has been promoted for and by white people; industry leaders and attendees at wellness events tend to be white (Madarang, 2020). The industry’s emphasis on individualism and consumerism, not community well-being, social justice, and collective action, align with neoliberal, white supremacist values of supporting the status quo. Aware of its whiteness, the wellness industry seeks “wokeness,” declaring “Wellness Has a Race Problem,” and holding a “Wellness Beyond Whiteness” session at one $1,000 per ticket wellness convention in Palm Springs, CA (Hamblin, 2018; Kylstra, 2018). “Woke wellness” independently brands goods and services from marijuana dispensaries and spas to life coaches.