Disciplines:
Original Prompt: What role does trauma play in the origins and maintenance of racism? Does healing trauma have implications for eliminating racism?
There are two truthful insights that call loudest for my reflection in this essay 1)”Dehumanisation of the self precedes the dehumanisation enacted by those who profit from the enslavement of “others,” or choices to perpetrate any systems of oppression.” And 2) “We have a monumental challenge, because I think healing from racism is necessary to eliminate it, but eliminating racism is also necessary to heal from it. How can we heal from oppressions and traumas still being inflicted?” In this first of my 2-part response, I address insight #2 in the only way I can: through the lens of my belief system. Hope it’s helpful.
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Because the nature of reality is fractal, I find it useful to explore systemic issues by looking at similar dynamics in interpersonal relationships. While there are unique features to every exploitative relationship, systemic and individual, exploring the microcosm to better understand the macrocosm (and vice versa) has value. So here I go.
Racism is a relationship that can be categorized as an abuse of power by one group over another. That is an oversimplification but it's sufficient for considering a few ideas on how we heal from racism while it’s still impacting our lives. Hence, I wonder what can be learned about systemic racism by looking at abusive power dynamics in, say, a life partner relationship, where one of the partners is being violently victimized.
While the victim’s process of self-empowerment might take time, detours and numerous false starts, it is crucial that they eventually relocate to a safe space, out of reach of their abuser, if the power dynamic is to change and the violence is to stop. Until that happens, there is no space to even imagine, much less take, next steps to heal and consider transforming or terminating the relationship.
For BIPOC folks, though, the capacity to relocate to a safe space free of systemic racism is, seemingly, a nonstarter. Even if there was such a place on planet Earth, we are all expressions of One Spirit, One Collective Consciousness, that is inevitably evolving toward Oneness/Unity Consciousness. We cannot separate from each other at the level of race or as individuals. “Races” or ethnocultural groups sharing the ecosystems, resources and life force of planet Earth simply cannot stay out of each other’s way.
This is among the reasons why antiracism efforts have tended to focus on changing systems and institutions, which do transform over time, sometimes morphing into more subtle expressions of abuse and other times lashing out with even more violence. Furthermore, racism intersects with other forms of systemic inequality, which enhances its ability to mask up as or join in with other forms of oppression. Hence, we have learned that antiracism work cannot take place in isolation from anti-oppression work. So not only is our healing dependent on eliminating racism, it also hinges on the elimination of other forms of oppression.
For folks who cannot accurately read the moment we are in, this would seem like an impossible conundrum to resolve: Racism as a never-ending intergenerational cycle into which humanity is locked.
The good news is, Spirit does not tolerate closed cycles. The unconscious impetus to evolve is encoded into every entity’s life force. What can look like millennia-long cycles are actually spirals moving ever forward, nested in ever-larger spirals. (As mentioned, the universe is fractal in nature.) On this ride, we periodically pass through portals of transformation that, from one vantage point, look like endings, but when viewed from the other side, are experienced as transmutation. Thus, what the caterpillar considers the chrysalis of death, the butterfly celebrates as its cocoon of birth.
When the victim in an abusive relationship becomes unavailable for continued abuse, the relationship as it once existed ends. Collapses. Dies. Depending on what the parties choose, there is then space for healing, transformation, and many other options. But the power imbalance that informed the status quo must be interrupted for this space to become available.
In applying this to systemic racism, one would conclude there must be systemic collapse before victims, victimizers, and those benefiting from the status quo can become authentically available for co-creating the healing and transmutation that can occur.
I submit that is exactly where our civilization finds itself at this moment. We are witnessing a cascading collapse of global systems of ecology, magnetism, climate, resource extraction, economy, governance, international relations, healthcare, education, law, nuclear family, etc. Like an abusive life partnership, systems of exploitation are unsustainable. Our social movements and binary positionings have pushed that unsustainability to its limits. This is not a surprise to anyone knowledgeable of even a fraction of the thousands of Indigenous “prophecies” which might be less supernatural visions than they are exercises in connecting the dots.
Indigenous people have been observing colonial behaviour for centuries. It was clear from the beginning where capitalism and colonization were headed. If only today’s advocates for social transformation, environmental justice and right relationship had the same clarity of vision. And thank goodness, many do.
Foundational to the irreversibly emerging paradigm is an understanding of intra-connectivity. Even if you only understand this superficially at the physical level, it is obvious how human lifeways have to be realigned to reflect this fact of existence if we are to survive and evolve as a species. The beauty in being human is that we are the one species on planet Earth (so far as we know) that can be intentional about our evolution. This means the more we take intentional steps toward hastening the arrival of the more expanded civilization that is emerging, the more we clarify the nature of reality for those who have yet to see it.
Paradoxically, it is in this moment of apparent chaos and collapse that we finally have an opportunity to heal from racism and heal our relationships across racial, species and other divides, because the system that has benefited from these and other forms of inequality is dying. Of course, having the opportunity doesn’t mean we will seize it but at least one condition foundational to healing, and a prerequisite to all others, is in process. If we are intentional, we can heal and accelerate the collapse by taking further steps to empower ourselves by aligning with the unifying rhythms of life while Earth’s heart still beats.
