how black women’s self-healing can heal the black community
Healing begins from within. Not from without.
Everywhere these days I hear cries for healing. For racial healing. For national healing. For healing not only of soul and mind wounds, but physical and material transgressions. For sincere apology accompanied by appropriate penance and lasting behavioral change.
These pleas seem to suggest that there is some outside force or benevolent body, some grand adjudicator that will hear these entreaties and show up like a high-paid, highly-qualified “fixer”.
They will dispose of the bodies, clean up the bloodstained carpet and bring a fresh change of clothes, so we can return to normal. They will dispose of all the evidence of any wrongdoing, so we can keep our hands clean and our eyes averted from the mess we created.
Emotional labor cannot be outsourced.
Unlike domestic labor - which I have absolutely no problem outsourcing - the emotional, mental, and spiritual labor that is required to “keep my house clean” cannot be outsourced. It is work only I can do.
And so it is with any healing work. If you have been intentionally injured by an outside force or another person, the healing from that injury is work you will most likely have to do yourself. Your enemy or adversary is not going to suddenly abandon his tactics to help you re-gain strength for your next battle with him. What logic would there be in that?
When it comes to racism and white supremacy, we - the global body of humanity - have all been injured by this adversary. Repeatedly. Consistently. For generations. And while I know that I am a part of the global body and that I cannot fully heal until the entire body heals, I also know that I belong to a general group of cells known as black people, and to a specialized group of cells known as black women. So it is these cells that I turn my healing concerns to first.
How healing spreads.
So, then. How do I begin? With one cell. A single cell called self. If I can effectively heal a single unit of the global body, reverse the effects of injury, then, maybe… with enough exposure, with the right messages sent via enzymes and hormones and all the other other messaging systems the body possesses, the adjacent cells will pick up the signal and begin the process for themselves. And if this repeats often enough and consistently, before long, an entire region of the body has healed.
In this process, the healed cell does not say to the unhealed cells, “I have healed, so now, I will heal you.'“ Nor, “I have healed, so now I must part from you.” The healed cell’s message is:
“I have healed. Here is the method. Use and pass along.”
As a self proclaimed self-healer, I have been on a healing path for quite a while - at least half of this life. I have not always been vocal about this path or the lessons and methods I’ve acquired, but I have shared stories that may have alluded to this.
Where white supremacy is concerned, I was fortunate enough to have received early fortifications against it by way of insular community, self-affirming environments and guardians, and a cultural period that saw a resurgence of black and African-centered ideologies that were disseminated through music and other forms of art that I readily and regularly consumed.
Since then, I have gleaned messaging and methods from other fortified cells, Black men and women who have taught me how to first identify and then reverse the effects of anti-blackness and white supremacy within myself.
Healing in an unhealed world.
Meanwhile, I still exist in a world that directs new assaults and injuries my way on a daily (even hourly) basis. The need for high-reliability, low-energy early warning and defense systems is essential if I am to remain injury-free or to minimize repeat damage. This manifests in the daily practices and habits I keep, the content I consume, the places I live, work and play in, the people I associate with.
It also requires a certain dispassionate stance. A willingness to say “fuck this” to anyone, anything or anyplace that is detrimental to my healing or that repeatedly triggers my early warning and defense systems. This could include family members, “good jobs,” old friends, lovers, or ideas about myself and what I should be or do. It requires me to put my desire for wholeness and healing over my desire to belong or to please.
This is a constant work, but a worthwhile one. And a fruitful one. It is occasionally lonely. Often exhausting. But, always enlightening.
The work of dismantling white supremacy and anti-blackness is a work that black people must undertake for themselves within themselves. This is my belief. This is my primary concern. I can only suggest that if you are a black person reading this, that you make that your primary concern as well. That you center yourself and your own healing. That you spend time walking the halls of your own mind and soul and identify the injured places, the hiding spots where anti-blackness still resides. The ways you quietly or silently tell yourself that your black existence, your black speech, your black name, your black hair, your black skin, your black food, your black neighborhood, your black religion, your black customs and traditions, your black clothing/style is unsuitable, distasteful or unacceptable and must be changed if you are to be happy, accepted, loved, successful and/or of value in this world.
By no means am I suggesting that black people are suffering from a victim mentality. Black people are victims of white supremacy. The whole world is a victim of it. What I am suggesting , is that black people stop waiting for a fixer to come and get rid of this mess.
Dear black women,
You not only know the fix, you are the fix. You are the source of your healing. And once you have done this work, you will find yourself able to exist in an injurious world without succumbing to defeat.
