This journal post is an invitation to participate in an art-based research inquiry to uncovering unconscious anti-Black racial biases – hidden in our bodies in efforts to bring their presence to consciousness for personal, group, and collective healing. This may sound painful, but this research event is being approached as a sacred ceremony to open up a safe, nonjudgmental space to engage racial biases – particularly anti-Black racial biases- by calling them forth through Black expressive art genres.
Clinician Resmaa Menakem (MSW, LICSW, SEP) states in My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, that understanding white supremacy is so difficult because it has become the effect of compounded intergenerational passing of wounds – leading to a visceral, physiological effect literally embedded in our mixed bloodstreams. In fact, he prefers “White-body supremacy” to describe this phenomenon that impacts persons of all skin colors. Manakem warns,”If we are to survive as a country, it is inside of our bodies where this conflict will need to be resolved.”
Menakem’s knowledge of the embodiment of racialized trauma is what persons of African descent who are survivors of the legacy of slavery have known for generations. To survive consistent violent acts motivated by conscious and unconscious anti-Black biases – persons of African descent have resisted and maintained resilience through expressive arts performed in community where we have been safe to express our identity and receive positive validation of being divine.
In this research ceremony, up to 12 participants will hear four presentations on elements of Black cultural resilience delivered by local Black scholars. Participants will then “dialogue” with the material through the art forms of dance, song, poetry, mask-making, and free-movement performance to express feelings of resonation, discomfort, or others that may arise. This research ceremony will occur over the course of one eight-hour day retreat.
This research ceremony is focuses on those involved in the delivery of homelessness services. African Americans make up only 8 to 10% of the Los Angeles region’s population, but over 40% of the homeless population. This research assumes that unconscious anti-Black biases held by participants of the homelessness services delivery system contributes to this dynamic. It is not with guilt or shame or blame that we seek to engage this cohort – it is with a vision of understanding our collective socialization into a system of white supremacy and its bedmate of systemic racism so that we may stop these harms, seek healing, and change outcomes.
Participants for this research study must have at least two years experience in the homelessness services field including volunteers, staff, managers, directors, law enforcement, judges, property owners, clinicians, medical staff, etc. It is designed for participants of ALL racial, ethnic, cultural backgrounds – please do not just pass on to Black staff or staff of Color. We need the heal together.
This is a voluntary, non-compensated study. Participants must also be stably housed for two years and not work for a grantee or be an employee with the City of Santa Monica.
Let’s make L.A. a City of Angels for everyone.
Kindly express interest through emailing Florencealiese@gmail.com.
Alisa's thoughts on Beloved Communities 