Tackling Racism

Like many sectors of society the therapy profession is reflecting deeply on issues raised by the death of George Floyd in America and the Black Lives Matter movement generally. Those of us who are white-bodied are starting the hard work of facing up to our white privilege and the reality of structural racism within which we live and work. Trauma therapist and author, Ressma Menakan talks about this in terms of healing ‘white body supremacy trauma’ – the idea that those of us who are non-white are inherently traumatised by growing up in a society which privileges whiteness. “I want to help you metabolize … the internalized ‘ white body supremacy’ energy to create fuel for freedom,” he writes on his webpage. This feels new – the unifying and liberating idea that racism hurts all of us and that together we can begin to create something freer and better.