Ours to Tell. Everyone's to Learn.
Danielle Feidler
Senior Business Leader l Culture Innovator l Brand & Customer Experience
This year's Black History Month in Canada is themed "Ours to Tell" so I wanted to dedicate time to listen and learn. During the RippleEffectCircle Summit on Anti-Black Racism, I had the opportunity to hear the wisdom of an inspiring Black Canadian, David Archer who published Anti-Racist Psychotherapy: Confronting Systemic Racism and Healing Racial Trauma.
In his book, David's focus is to heal individuals and society from the impacts of systemic racism. He articulates things in a mindful way that inspires us to a deeper understanding of resilience, and "the beautiful spirit that exists within everybody".
His philosophy is that the genesis of racism came from a need to justify the acts of enslavement and colonization without moral guilt. However as a consequence, both the victim and victimizer are ensnared in the trauma, historical and current, caused by the "binary complex trauma cycle of white supremacy and black suffering" which is intergenerational and much like our inherited biology through genetics, is perpetuated.
Through his version of psychotherapy, which is rooted in compassion and a deep awareness of how the roles of systems and our need for identity interacts, he teaches us how we can discover a path towards healing humanity and ourselves.
David's work is a gift to us all and worth celebrating during this years Black History Month and beyond.
.