Last year, I was asked what my stance was about concerning world events during an event I facilitated for Creating Resilient Communities (CRC), a program I spearhead that educates on trauma-informed awareness, resilience building, anti-racism, and social justice issues through the evidence of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs science). With a few minutes left of the online meeting, I provided a link to Children and Families Displaced by War and Violence, a free, well-researched global resource.
It was an important question to ask. Truth be told, I didn’t yet have the words. I wanted to do more than give a quick answer. I’m no stranger to the human rights of Black and Brown people being politicized as a supremacy culture tactic. As a Black/African-American woman and assault survivor, I have as many thoughts about violence and Atrocious Cultural Experiences (ACEs) as I do the importance of speaking from the heart.
PACEs is a social justice issue.
If I’ve learned anything about harmful systems that target Black and Brown communities: Movements rely on longevity. In order to give a response the attention it deserved, while also sharing through the lens of my own lived experience, I took a needed pause. Over the holidays, I reflected on my duties and responsibilities to the Creating Resilient Communities Accelerator and Fellowship programs with trauma-informed transformation and heart-centered practices in mind, beyond typical intellectual or technical expectations.
The Creating Resilient Communities Accelerator certification program was created by two credentialed professionals, Ingrid Cockhren, M.Ed. & Dr. Donielle Prince, to introduce commonly used terms and jargon about PACEs science and support entry-level discussions about PACEs as a social justice movement. A movement campaigns on defined issues. It utilizes power-building organizing strategies. Movements are public and include actions, marches, rallies, training, and open meetings.
Historical movement goals in the U.S. have typically sought to end the income/wealth disparity and poverty, end racism and the denial of civil and human rights, achieve immigrant and labor rights, achieve education access, and secure social infrastructure, including health care, child care, elder care, and universal basic income.[1]
If we want to talk about repair, we need to talk about the impact of ACEs. All of them.
My official stance on the immutable violence we’ve seen play out in several territories on a day-to-day basis to a global audience is this: it is unspeakable, needlessly inhumane, illegal, and heartbreaking. As a witness to deeply unsettling atrocities, my intention is to support mass educational access and raise awareness about ACEs and PCEs—Adverse Childhood Experiences, Adverse Community Experience, Adverse Climate Events, Atrocious Cultural Experiences, Positive Childhood Experiences, and Positive Community Experiences.
Narratives I carried long after witnessing and experiencing life-changing violence at the hands of a non-blood relative and caretaker who routinely harmed my family with impunity—who happened to be a law enforcement official—is that I didn’t matter as a bruised fourth grader, my sadly estranged, late sister didn’t matter, and that we had no value to society and somehow must have even deserved the onslaught. Back then, I lacked the tools, access, and support I needed to be the advocate I needed. I knew nothing about how generational and historical patterns played a role in toxic stress or that it was an epidemic. I also didn’t understand how deeply these experiences increased my health risks and sense of overall well being or the role that intersectionality would play in adding layers of historic and systemic barriers as I sought ways to recover.
The Resilient Communities Programs are a part of the PACEs science movement.
Since then I’ve grown. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s possible to heal and become stronger after adversity. I’ve accepted the challenge to examine my beliefs that stem from colonization and supremacy culture and to do so with no attachment to a conclusion, but rather, continued learning about the systems and structures within the world we all share. As a wave of determined #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) advocates marched down the avenue beneath my window one morning (that I initially took as someone’s television up too loud), I was reminded that I matter. I owe my thanks to courageous BLM founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi for an impeccable living example of a movement that centered the kid I was and the trauma-informed advocate I’ve become.
If harm has been systemic, so, too, must be the movement that propels effective transformative interventions.
I have the deepest appreciation for the fierce, committed, purpose-driven leaders in the PACEs movement that intimately know the power of organizing that I’ve had the opportunity to learn from. I have had the pleasure of learning from Jane Stevens, the founder of PACEs Connection and ACEs Too High and Ingrid Cockhren, Chief Visionary Officer of PACEs Connection.
Thanks to these leaders, the Resilient Communities ecosystem of programs and other offerings that educate on historic and generational trauma at PACEs Connection, are a part of the PACEs science movement. These are effective, evidence-based resources to learn about anti-racism, social justice issues, and mobilization, and Atrocious Cultural Experiences (ACEs).
I’ve learned that we can all play a significant role in social justice for the opportunity to change protocols, practices, and policies. If we can speak truth to light through shared language about the short and long term health outcomes of toxic stress on the brain and body caused by prolonged violence, and subsequently, epigenetic consequences, we can shift social and political power and imagine new alternatives.
References
- Walls, David S. Community Organizing. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
- Photo by Nadine Shaabana
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