BLACK HISTORY IS AMERICAN HISTORY
Center for Trauma & Embodiment at JRI
Black History Month, Vol. 1 of 4 • February 2022
BLACK HISTORY IS
AMERICAN HISTORY.
This is part 1 of a 4-part series on Black History Month.
Center for Trauma & Embodiment is proud to recognize and celebrate Black History Month and the culture, contributions, & resilience of Black communities around the world, and especially in the United States.
Black history is American history.
So much work is yet to be done to secure justice for Black Americans, from voter suppression, gerrymandering, police brutality, & systemic racism to inequities in education, healthcare, & more.
Black and BIPOC communities in the United States suffer from complex trauma and PTSD at higher rates than any other group. This is evident in research and in our society’s treatment of BIPOC folx in general. The work that we do is not preventative, but we hope to work toward a society in which our services are no longer needed. That would be true justice.
POLICE REFORM NOW
2020 — Kwame Jones • William Howard Green • Jaquyn Oneill Light • Leonard Parker Jr. • Manuel Ellis • Barry Gedeus • Donnie Sanders • Breonna Taylor • Daniel Prude • Fred Brown • Denzel Marshal Taylor • Shaun Fuhr • Maurice Gordon • George Floyd• William Wade Burgess III • Julian Edward Roosevelt Lewis• Kurt Reinhold • Jonathan Price • Anthony Jones • Marcellis Stinnette • Frederick Cox • Angelo Crooms • Sincere Pierce • Johnny Lorenzo Bolton • Andre Hill • 2021 — Carl Dorsey • Akeem Terrell • Patrick Warren • Jenoah Donald • Daverion Deauntre Kinard • James Lionel Johnson • Dominique Williams • Daunte Wright • Lindani Myeni • Andrew Brown Jr. • La'Mello Parker • Latoya James • Renardo Green • Frederick Holder • James Holland Sr. • Tory Brown • Fanta Bility • Cedric Lofton • Michael Craig • Jermaine Jones • Jim Rogers • Calvin Wilks Jr. • Eldred Wells Sr. • Quadry Sanders • Terence Caffey • James Lowery • 2022 — Jason Walker • Dyonta Quarles Jr. • Robert "Junior" Langley • Donnell Rochester • Tracy Gaeta • Patrick Lyoya • Herman Whitfield • Jalen Randle • Jayland Walker • Brett Rosenau • Roderick Brooks • Raymond Chaluisant • Kyle Dail • Donovan Lewis • Genesis Hicks • James Wilborn • Ki'Azia Miller • Eric Holmes • 2023 — Keenan Anderson • Tyre Nichols •
REPORT: Black people are still killed by police at a higher rate than other groups
“Black people, who account for 13 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for 27 percent of those fatally shot and killed by police in 2021, according to Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit group that tracks police shootings. That means Black people are twice as likely as white people to be shot and killed by police officers.”
Can interoceptive awareness help transform public safety?
While there are surely many confounding factors that need to be addressed when it comes to what is currently the standard for our police force personnel (among them, a lack of trauma training, systemic racism and systemic white supremacy, over-militarization) it seems evident that a lack of empathy is also at play; that is, a lack of the capacity to “understand and share the feeling of another”.
The fact that police officers shoot especially non-white children, for example, suggests an inability to empathize with their fundamental humanity - to sense themselves in the other.
To this point, the research that connects increased interoceptive capacity with increased empathy points to one path forward.
The Work We Do
Our organization is committed to participating in the work of protecting and uplifting communities and people victimized by structural oppression including black, brown and indigenous folks and folks everywhere on the gender and sexual identity spectrums. We recognize this commitment not only as an expression of social justice but as a matter of trauma stewardship as the rates of trauma are statistically higher in communities that have been systematically and intentionally disenfranchised. We also acknowledge that, as an organization founded in a white institutional environment and by white people, the integrity of our commitments is predicated on our own self-examination and personal as well as group work right here at home.
Our commitment to equity includes and will not stop at: providing scholarships, increasing BIPOC-identified organizational representation, increasing organizational-based racialized and equity trainings and education for all levels of staff and community, and more inclusive and safer services for underserved communities.
Your donations make our direct service initiatives possible
We are a 501(c)3 non-profit.
Center for Trauma & Embodiment at JRI
160 Gould St. Ste. 301
Needham, MA, 02494
United States