The journey- Review
From Intergenerational Trauma to Systemic Healing
Dance as a protest has a long history, in the Cape Verde Islands the Batuque dance, today seen as cultural heritage, during slavery times was a repressed dance. It was performed in slave quarters and used as a way of resistance against slave masters. More recently in the Black Lives Matter Movement, (BLM) dance routines have been performed everywhere as a form of protesting police brutality against black people. “The Journey” is a piece I choreographed for the black history month with the same intention of protesting against: racism, inequality, and social injustice. Prior to creating the piece, I researched black activist dancers such as Pearl Primus, and in an effort, to better understand the BLM movement, I also researched the historical and socio-political context in which people from African heritage live, including the injustices surrounding the black community that often leads to racial trauma.
The State of the Arts
The death of Breona Taylor and the shooting of Michael Brown, a young black teenager, was the starting point for the recent BLM protests, and the killing of George Floyd catapulted the fury over racial injustice. Protests against police brutality were held all over the world. In Dudley on the 28th of March 2020 people gathered in Stone Street, to march to Queen Square Wolverhampton in support for Black Lives Matter movement. These protests were also my wakeup call to start decolonising my own way of thinking. Being born in the Cape Verdean islands and part of the African community living in Dudley, I was curious about the history of the black community that arrived here before me. Specifically the Windrush generation, and the stories of black people that contributed for Dudley to become the birth of the Industrial Revolution. However, this wasn’t an easy easy task, I came to realise that there are a lack of historical archives of past generations of black people that came to live in Dudley. I found myself in a complete void, trying to imagine their life stories, their faces, how did they get here? Who did they left behind?
Decolonizing epistemologies and research methods challenges the status quo and the superiority of western ideologies and focus on agendas meant to honour marginalised people their knowledge and experiences. It offer an opportunity for researchers to de-centre the existing power structure of neo-colonial paradigms. (Bermudez et all, 2016)
Racial trauma
During the research process, I felt as if I was walking on a minefield; every reading was an explosion of anxiety, confusing emotions and wanting to be left alone. For the first time I was facing my ancestry pain, which led me to experience my own cultural trauma. A trauma I thought I dind’t have, that belonged to the Afro-descendant born in the diaspora. I couldn’t be more wrong!
How dare I to believe that because I was born in the Cape Verde Islands, I was free from cultural trauma?
As a dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) trainee, that studying difficult emotions and the use of movement as a healing process, I had to find the causes of my mixed feelings, so that I could express it through movement and as a way of letting go of the pain. “The Journey” was what came out of it!
Intergenerational trauma
During this deep journey of exploring the ancestry trauma, I came across the concept of intergenerational trauma, which made me partly understand where my mixed feelings were coming from.
Intergenerational trauma occurs when a group has been subjected to an unbearable experience undermining their sense of group identity, meaning of values and purpose of their cultural world views; it manifests as symptoms of hopelessness, despair and anxiety. Scientists have found that trauma experienced by parents can impact the DNA and the behaviour of offspring for generations to come. For the black community, the impact of centuries of trauma still manifests today; while part of that is due to ongoing social injustice, some of the impact might be inherited. (Clemmones2020)
“ Shame might be the only thing more prevalent, which leads to trauma being hidden and silenced. If we can’t carry out trauma and act normal, there is something wrong with us. ” ( Brown, 2018,pg63)
Intergenerational justice vs intergenerational trauma
Roman Krznaric, in his book The Good Ancestor refers to the concept of Intergenerational justice, a concept that questions our obligations towards the future generation and is linked to: climate change, rapid species extinction, the spectre of AI and nanotechnology risk, and the burning issue of “what we are doing for the future generations?” According to the author, actions of the present have monumental consequences for the future.
After reading the book chapter the questions that kept popping in my head are:
What are the obligations of society towards black people to help them break free from Intergenerational trauma ?
What is the obligation of power institutions to change black narratives of the future?
What measures are being taken to change this narrative?
Are these measures being effective?
Krznaric’s answer to our obligation to future generations, is obvious to Greta Thunberg, the teenage Swedish climate activist, to strike until rich countries start reducing their carbon emissions.
What are the answers towards intergenerational trauma?
Can black people strike for the right to own non-judgmental spaces for cultural healing?
According to Halloran (2019) contemporary policies directed to address poverty and prejudice have limited impact as they target the injustices of today and do not consider the impact of past. This way they fail to meet the needs of black communities as they are not sufficiently sensitive and responsive to address cultural diversity.
“Forgiveness is not a one-time act, but a process, a series of steps taken to reach an end goal. When the history of trauma of black bodies is examined, there is literally no room to begin such a process because as black people attempt to remember their bodies from the past, new forms on injury are inflicted on them”. (Innis,2017)
Healing process in the black community
“Tough conversations require openness, bravery, the ability to work through discomfort, express views in a non-combative manner, and to listen and reflect without judgement”. (Mutuma, 2020)
The first steps towards the healing process, is to address historical trauma as a persistent sickness in the afro-descendant community. It is also important to collect stories that replicate and reflect the truth about African Heritage, and accurately document them, so that memory can be restored.(McCulloch 2020) Black Trauma experts recognise that the restoration of memory is part of the healing process in the black community, it can help black people take back individual and collective identities in addition to restore their spirits, sense of self, and potential. It is also important to create healing spaces owned by black people, where they can speak out their truth without fear of being judged or feeling ashamed.(Brian et all 2006)
“ If the system can not sustain transformation, new system must be taken up, systems that are liberatory rather surveillance, systems that support cooperative work , community justice , social connection, healing equity and possibility.(Chilton, Pg2, 2014)
Through CoLab Dudley learning experience on systemic thinking, and my practice as a Dance Scientist / DMP trainee, I have been expanding my views on building more sustainable projects directed to community healing. Creheart projects have been directed to improve health and wellbeing in children from black African heritage in Dudley, whom I believe to be one of the most vulnerable groups in the community. We create safe spaces where children can come together play, move, express themselves and feel accepted in the community. Recently we were invited to show case in the Global water dance festival a choreographic piece created in the Wrens Nest Nature Reserve with the intention to connect the black community with nature. The GWD is a festival that uses dance and film to promote awareness and behavioural shift towards solutions for water preservation. This will be an opportunity for the community to learn more about water issues around Dudley, in addition share cultural experience with other communities around the globe. I have also been focusing on developing a project for black women community healing. I feel that there is a need for safe spaces where women of colour like me, can come together share experience and support each other in the Journey of living in a land that is not ours. The idea is to create healing Circle spaces to come together once a month; to move, share experience, and hopes with the intentional of cultural healing. The project is inspired on the traditional dance Batuque were black women used to gather during the full moon to dance Batuque for the fertility of the land.
In addition to systemic racism experienced in the black community, we have the pandemic that is affecting black mental health in unimaginable ways, now more than ever it is important to come together to support each other in our community.
“What we need is culture where common experience of trauma leads to a normalisation of healing” (Brown, 2018, pg63)
A poem for the Imagination
If we want a better world we have to be able to imagine it. (Womack,2019)
Imagine for a moment…
And give yourself some time, because this might require a fair amount of imagining (Hopkins, pg. 82)
What if by 2030
We discover our joy, beauty, and spiritual healing
Our thoughts become decolonised
We rise up in the end on anti- black ness around the world
The world becomes a place without violence against black people
A place where black people play an important role in the creation of stories from the future
Until I see social injustice among black children,
Through creativity my voice will rise
My voice will rise to protect black children and to give them hope of a positive life
Until then…
I will keep imagining a near future
where discrimination against black children does not exist
Where the interest of the individual, the values of freedom justice and dignity, are more important than territory
Where young black children are free to choose their future according to their talent not the colour of their skin
I move at the speed of trust my thoughts and creativity moves at the speed of light with hope that one day we will rise
( inspired by Maya Angelou, Bob Marley, Womack and Colab principles )
…And a Dance for hope
