Healing Historic Harms
by Meta Commerse
“Grief is a language that goes straight through all the barriers to the heart and soul of anyone who hears it. We are afraid of people who grieve because we don’t want to feel that. We have so many kinds of grief buried inside of us that we don’t want to open that door. If we open it, the dam might break, and if the dam breaks, then all hell might break loose.” ~ Sobonfu Somé from Falling out of Grace
Many African Americans are aware that as a people, we suffered incalculable collective losses, the scope of which may be unprecedented in modern history. The Swahili word for this suffering is maafa, or, the indescribable suffering.
Although our ancestors suffered directly, their untold losses became ours. Thankfully, we also inherited their resourcefulness and their will to survive and overcome. Still, it seems their losses became cumulative and created a pain we feel deeply yet deny and cover up, their losses and pain endured through a process in psychology known as the intergenerational transmission process. Our specific pain has been called post-traumatic slave disorder by African American psychiatrists such as Dr. Patricia Newton and Dr. Joy Degruy.
Has it ever occurred to you that we never had the chance to grieve our losses?
Chief among these losses are our stories, original names, languages, religions, families, and native land. Customs such as roles, rites, and traditions that honored our innate uniqueness and gifts, and the ways these attributes were understood, existed for the good of the whole community. This system of values held the village—earth, life, people, Spirit—above possessions. In this system, every developmental milestone of life was understood, acknowledged, and celebrated in the whole circle of life.
In the transatlantic slave trade, West African people were captured and chained, loaded into the bowels of ships, then taken under horrible conditions to ports for sale. Once sold, legend has it that a great many slaves were “seasoned” to keep them in line and resigned to their lot in life. This process of seasoning, dividing them by age, size, strength, skin color, features, hair texture, etc., only increased the trauma.
Judge A. Leon Higginbotham wrote extensively about the “precept of inferiority” undergirding the exclusionary systems of institutional racism such as slave codes and, later, the Jim Crow laws that followed emancipation and reconstruction and have survived in various forms well into the current century.
In our nation, this history and its effects were not acknowledged or taught, nor were amends made for the damage done by the legacy of slavery and internalized racism. We point each day to its raw evidence in our cities and schools, in the disparate state of our communities, families, and even in our health. Studies have shown a connection between our health disparities and the racism we live with as Americans of African descent.
Yet, there is good news!
We live in an exciting time. Some of the healing tradition of our ancestors has been documented and is being brought back to us!
Sponsored by Black Mountain’s School of Integrated Living, world-renowned and beloved author and speaker, Sobonfu Somé from Burkina Faso, West Africa, will visit Asheville in November to conduct a weekend Grief Ritual. This retreat will touch and address the generational core of our woundedness. Although her work directly applies to people of African descent, anyone can benefit because western culture teaches no real appreciation for grief or the natural wisdom of our emotions.
One person’s journey to wholeness can include the re-discovery and grieving of their life losses. Likewise, our community can become more whole through sharing such life-changing experiences as Sobonfu’s Grief Ritual. Imagine the possibilities!
Come join Sobonfu Somé at Jubilee, 46 Wall Street, at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 8 for an introductory session. For more details please call (828) 664-0268 or visit the school’s website at www.schoolofintegratedliving.org.
Meta Commerse, M.A., M.F.A. is Director of Story Medicine of Asheville, a unique healing program. She is also an author, activist, and public speaker. Meta is also a professor of English and History at Haywood Community College. Her novel, The Mending Time, is forthcoming. Meta is available to speak to your group on the healing power of story and other topics of interest. Contact her on Facebook.
