Cultural betrayal can have a painful impact on entire groups of people, but there are ways to overcome it. In a continuation of a conversation we started with Dr. Jennifer Gómez, we dive into the concept of “DreamStorming”, and explore the bigger picture of cultural, racial, and gender privileges. At the end, just when we thought we were finished, our producer Christine sparks up a passionate debate on how the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade is a powerful example of cultural betrayal for many women. Please listen to our previous episode with Dr. Gómez, if you haven’t already. Dr. Gómez developed Cultural Betrayal Trauma Theory as a tool for examining the impacts of discrimination and inequality in the wake of trauma. As an Assistant Professor at Boston University in the Clinical Practice department and as a faculty affiliate for the Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health, Dr. Gómez has made tremendous contributions to trauma therapies. She’s a black feminist trauma researcher and race scholar dedicated to understanding the effects of physical, sexual and emotional trauma in diverse and marginalized populations. Check out some of her published work below.
This episode was produced by Bright Sighted Podcasting
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Lisa Danylchuk 0:02
Welcome to the How We Can Heal podcast. My name is Lisa Danylchuk and I'm a psychotherapist specializing in complex trauma treatment. I'm a graduate of UCLA and Harvard University, and I'm thrilled to share these reflections on how we can heal with you today.
Welcome back to the show. In this episode, we get to enjoy part two of my interview with Dr. Jennifer Gómez, creator of cultural betrayal trauma theory, which explores the impact of inequality for marginalized people who experienced trauma. In addition to what I shared last week regarding her vast list of accomplishments, I think it's important that we recognize the depth of her contributions to the field. Dr. Gomez has been published in over 100 peer reviewed journal articles. That's a lot, book chapters and professional development resources. She's also been featured in national news outlets, including NBC News, Huff Post, Newsweek and Forbes. She's presented her research at more than 125 locations locally, nationally, and internationally, including the United Nations, Stanford University, UC Berkeley and the BBC. Dr. Gomez has also been honored with numerous awards and honors for her research, including most recently, the 2021 to 22 Center for Advanced Study in the behavioral sciences fellowship at Stanford University. Teaching advising and mentoring are high priorities for Dr. Gomez, and she has an abundance of resources on her website, as well as through the Gomez HOPE Lab professional development series, and the Gomez social justice and institutional change collection. Today we step into the space of dream storming a practice Dr. Gomez created to visualize the best possible outcomes. We took a trip to explore what the world could look like without issues like cultural betrayal, and systemic racism. so deeply ingrained, and Dr. Gomez shares a surprising practice we can use to move in the direction of the dream and have more healing. Lastly, we'll be sharing a conversation that happened after the cameras stopped rolling about what the Roe v Wade reversal shows us about cultural betrayal trauma. Here's more from our conversation with Dr. Jennifer Gomez. So I want to highlight we've talked about humanitarianism being something you could kind of land on Are there any other things that you feel like folks who who might be listening and identifying with you know, and going oh, yeah, I've been through that. I'm going through that right now. Like, what are some supports perspectives, resources that you feel like might be helpful for them? Yeah, so
Speaker 2 2:45
I have a few. And I think I'll use myself as an example and tell you some of these views. So as a trauma researcher, I spent a lot of my my career thus far documenting that, like, rape is harmful, you know, cultural betrayal is horrible. And in setting out to the book, it was just like, I can't, I can't do this anymore. Like I can't doc have my whole career be documenting how stuff sucks all the time, and all these different ways. And so, for me, I split the book, essentially in half, or like the first half is Everything's bad, like structural racism, intersectional, oppression, sexual abuse in black community. What that looks like culturally secondary marginalization, and then the research with cultural betrayal trauma theory, and the second half of the book is like, what do we do then? You've now said, it's terrible. So what do we do with that? And it's, you know, culturally competent trauma therapy. What does that mean? What does that look like and pulling from feminist evidence informed therapies like relational cultural therapy and the the importance of relationships and really against a kind of a classic, oppressive medical model frame of like your you know, that you've healed when you're all by yourself, and you need nobody else? And instead saying, like, No, we actually being in connection with each other is actually very healthy.
Lisa Danylchuk 4:08
It's inhumane, right to say that you healed when you're independent, you can live on another planet
Speaker 2 4:14
by himself, no advice of anyone, you never are not a part of a group.
Lisa Danylchuk 4:18
You have no emotion.
Speaker 2 4:21
You know, it is inhumane. So pulling from that point from the liberation health framework from John Belkin Martinez here at BU and others of like, even when we're doing individual therapy, how are we fostering critical consciousness? How are we working ourselves with our clients, ourselves separate from our clients and the clients separate from us towards battling these systems? We could have a world where like racism, like wasn't promoted and wasn't so easy and sexual abuse wasn't so promoted. Right? And we have a chapter on radical healing in the black community. So outside have anything like formal, you know, and psychologists driven? Like, how can we heal and some of those that I have that I'll share with you here are things like free writing, like a very simple concept. But I have an example in the book of Nicaea, who's a black woman, late 30s, sexually abused by her father, sexually abused, throughout her life growing up in high school, her first job, all were black, black males who she trusted. So you have this cultural betrayal piece going, you have this high betrayal piece going of this, you know, in a personal betrayal, and her really wanting to heal, specifically around child sexual abuse and having like some sort of accountability from her father. Not every sexually abusing father is going to be safe, or amicable to have such a discussion, right? So what Nicaea does, and why discuss in the book of her free writing is to say, Okay, if I write as if i My father, and as if he were taking responsibility for this, and so she writes like, I raped you because and then she writes down different reasons of like, because I didn't know it was hurting you because I hated you. Because I'm narcissistic. And I just like, couldn't tell that you didn't like it. Because I have no idea why. And I should have removed myself from you. Since I could not stop myself over the course of years, I should have saved you from myself know how healing that is. Because we're talking like relational healing, community healing, we've said multiple times, it's so important. And if I'm thinking about a person listening, we don't all have these, like built in communities or built in families or built in spaces that we've been talking about. It's one of them, we do, but we don't have that all the time, right. And so free writing being a way where you can have this kind of relational healing and hopefully benefits from relational healing that you do by yourself when you don't have those spaces, or you don't know you have those spaces you hope you can trust, so and so you know, but so I think that's one option. Yeah, Lisa,
Lisa Danylchuk 7:15
I love that just because I think it's so common to encourage folks to write a letter to the person who did something to them to get everything out that they need to say, but this other perspective of taking on the position of the person who harmed and expressing it and sort of tapping into that, or free writing from that perspective, I can see how that can just be another layer of depth, another layer of reflection and another need. That's so deep within, you know, how we heal through things like this.
Speaker 2 7:48
Yes, and I think, I agree, I have it resonates, resonates with people.
Lisa Danylchuk 7:55
I think it'd be challenging, like when I think of, of clients that I've worked with specifically, I feel like that could be a big ask, right. And it's always timing. And it's always in the context of life and development in the relationship of the person you're working with. But I can see how that would be one of those pieces that feels like a really potentially a really big thing to suggest but also, I can't believe how much came out of that. Right? Yeah, yeah, and most most people I've worked with, I haven't had a client suggest that or right kind of go that route on their own, but I can see a lot of potential value in it.
Speaker 2 8:34
And facing I think what we talked about earlier on of like, that you were saying, like, it's so complicated, and people you know, get lost in enemies say like, I think they do know it, you know, I think this is one of these things of like, the truth sucks you and I mean, like, and some truths suck more than others are, are more digestible than others. So a, a script at least where I'm from, for like an abusive father, sexually abusive father is like a hateful, you know, person who's being violent and overtly violent and hateful in this way. And that's an easier script, maybe, or a person who was maybe it was even two people, maybe even that, like violent with me, but great in the world, or in this very one dimensional way. I think it's harder when we, when we poke through potential other truths is all hard, but pulling through other truths of like, maybe he just did not care. Right? Maybe he's like, he thought about himself and didn't care about me at all. Maybe I had parents who never loved me. And I think as for me as a student clinician, that was always very difficult to be because because what you want to do and from like, kind of classic, like cognitive behavioral therapy stuff would be like, well, those thoughts are probably inaccurate. So how do I make American you sad? So how do we adjust those thoughts? You experienced this better? Your parents did love you. They just didn't love you in the way that you need. It might be like a CBT reframe. Am I denying the truth which might be denying the truth. And I think that as as we're talking about this across this hour of just the things that we do to protect ourselves from the depravity of the truth, are sometimes just as harmful or more so than then the truth. Because Because if we follow this to the train, if in Nikias case, for instance, her father did not care about her, and he didn't remove himself, because he really couldn't be bothered with her feelings, or what he was doing to her, what we have paired in our heads, I think it's really cool people I've worked with and people who I know also personally, is that that means that I'm unlovable.
Lisa Danylchuk 10:43
Yes, right. Then it gets internalized. Yes. And that's
Speaker 2 10:46
a scary thing of like, but if my parents didn't love me, that means that just
Lisa Danylchuk 10:50
that he in particular couldn't love me, but I am unlovable.
Speaker 2 10:54
Yes. As opposed to like, yes. Let's let's put on the table as a possibility. Your father didn't love you and couldn't couldn't care, as he was raping you. That was the luck of the draw, you know, wherever, however, religiously or spiritually or cosmically, you understand the world, like that was what it was, but it's his issue. Yeah, like racism is white people's issue, right? Sexual abuse is the perpetrators issue, and the cultures issue that promotes it, etc. But then it's like, oh, but my father didn't dictate who I am or what I'm in or saw me actually. Yeah. That actually is like, really
Lisa Danylchuk 11:31
freeing. You never knew me? How would he know if I'm lovable? How,
Speaker 2 11:35
right? He wasn't capable in whatever ways of loving someone besides himself. Well go start it, I can live a whole life that I want to live, I can have great relations with people, I can expect more from people because it was never about me in this way that I've always internalized, you know. So it's like the hump of having to admit or entertain the possibility of these truths that we're talking about, can seem so insurmountable. But when you interrogate and kind of like get over the mountain and look to the other side, then it's like, I could live a life that isn't dictated by what he did or did not think about me, or how he did, he did not care about me.
Lisa Danylchuk 12:15
Now, to me feels like a moment of reclaiming power, or of identifying power within your soul choose and to self identify, and to move forward from things which you know, are all all, all easier said than done, right? But I hear in that moment of looking over the mountain like this, oh, here I go. And I don't have to be defined by these other people or their problems or their behaviors or the way that they treated me.
Speaker 2 12:44
Yeah. And if we never do it, then we never start. Right. So like, an epiphany is lovely. And you'll probably have to have that epiphany multiple times, over time, and cycle through it. But if you never go in that direction, then you never get there. You know, and there's no movement, you know, why don't have some slower movement than the no movement.
Lisa Danylchuk 13:05
So the free writing is amazing. And I'm sure you have a bunch of other suggestions and, you know, outlines and things in the book that folks can benefit from, are there any other kind of key healing pieces you want to share? tools or resources?
Speaker 2 13:19
Yeah, so I would say the arts is one. I'd say my Bryant, black feminist woman, a psychologist, also president of the American Psychological Association has, I think many books but the two I'm thinking of is thriving in the wake of trauma, a multicultural guide, and then homecoming, her latest book, help yourself, help your loved ones everyone needs books are brilliant, and what she discusses and what she centralizes is humanity and the humanity in us all and within context. And so related to the arts is that the arts can be so healing to, to watch it, but I was a ballet dancer. So for me ballet, watch the ballet go to the symphony, but also engaging in the arts, drawing, writing poetry, like making art with your, with your body, with your mind with your space, and how the arts are such a beautiful way, a lot of times, at least at least for me and for many people I've worked with, of being able to get feelings out in a way that somehow feels less vulnerable. Because it's ours at the end of it, you know, it's not like I have to disclose something per se, it was like through poetry somehow feels feels different, or speaking in a have this in the book anywhere by speaking in a different language. When I was younger, like say, you know, very deep things in Spanish, or write them in Spanish just felt better than saying it in English where other people understand. There's restorative justice principles. People feel lots of different ways about restorative justice. But the three principles being who was harmed, what are their needs? Whose obligation are those needs? And so if it's okay, I was harmed, what are my needs? Well, I need community, I need to have access to books that have access to people, I need to have access to free writing material, whatever. And whose obligation are those needs? And so the perpetrator your harm? What about in the case of sexually abusive black father against black daughter? What about the rest of the family? What could they be doing? What about the organization's CPS Child Protective Services and others that have lots of problems with racism? What are their obligations to do? And whether we can engage in that process physically? Or even I find it healing in our minds of like, if, again, we don't have that community that's going to take responsibility to different levels. What if I myself wrote it out? And said, like, in an ideal world, what would these things look like? What it does is it takes the all of the kind of pain and so called pathology that you've taken responsibility for, and placed it out structurally where it belongs. And then the last thing I'll say, is the closing chapter for the book, which is institutional courage coming from Jennifer fried, and social courage to change the world. And so how do we change the systems and it was a big focus of the book and when I fought really hard for it, so the book is published by APA, the American Psychological Association. In psychology we send we tend to be individually focused, and having to really justify for the radical healing in the community chapter as well as the institutional systems change chapter of life. No, this matters if we want to, like how can we do better by black women and girls who have experienced culture, betrayal, sexual trauma, right? This blackmail, perpetrated sexual abuse, the systems need to change and having an entire chapter devoted on if this were a different world, what would it look like? What would our systems look like? What would our universities look like? Right? What would our healthcare system look like? And going through different examples of institutional betrayal coming from Carly Smith agenda for Friday in like a healthcare setting where white woman doctor sexually violates black woman patient who has been sexually abused in the ways that we were describing? And okay, that happened. So what would a good response to that be? What would the institutionally courageous response that be? And then dream storming concept of mine of like, like brainstorming but dream storming a better world like this? Well, we're equal, and if this world was a place where no white woman doctor ever, like sexually violated a black woman patient, and she was never sexually abused, to start with, what would what would need to happen in that world, and going through and describing what those things could be? It's a intellectual, but also psychological, spiritual, emotional, emotional process and healing, to be placing the emphasis someplace else off of the individual. And in my opinion, it's just a straight or shoot to change. Like if instead of saying, you know, when you go the doctor black women, you could die during childbirth. Any class, I'm going to protect you from that. So beware, what if we just like trained MDS better, right? That would affect black women, but also everybody else? Because they would treat everybody better, right? And so I think that we do what we can behaviorally with institutional change, systems change. But I think even us thinking in that different way, even as privileging like a black woman perspective, that's healing by itself don't exist to be understood by white people. Like that's a huge like, healing thing for me with this book of like, I could write a book the way that I wanted to write it, for who I wanted to write it for. and have that be okay, because I am not a second class citizen in this world. Right? Like, what I think matters for myself and for and for all of us, right? People who are like minded people who aren't
Lisa Danylchuk 19:15
right, it matters for everyone. Yeah, yeah. So I often asked folks what brings them hope. But I want to ask for a dream storm right now, because I love that term. And we'll continue to use it and reference you in that. What does it look like for this to be healed for cultural betrayal trauma to be healed? Like what are some anchor points that you if you dream, storm it and look forward in time? What would it look like for some of these things to be non issues? Oh,
Speaker 2 19:46
let me I want to keep this grounded to like actual stuff. So let's, let's go with our Kelly. So what would this what would this look like if it were going differently? Yes. So one thing could be that this came out initially in the early to mid 90s. He himself said, Oh my gosh, I just sexually abused a child. Oh, he goes and discloses to somebody, instead of the carceral state that we have, where black people are represented, but the US has number one prison right in the world. That's insane. So instead of a locking up and throwing away the key saying, Okay, so, back to restorative justice principles, at least here in the purest form of like, whose obligation is it for you to correct this? And if we're really going there, like, what happened to you? And how did you make sense of what happened to you? And how did the model of of whiteness and white domination, but as a black man not being able to reach those same heights because of racism? Like how would we understand what that was? Or better yet? How would we have that not even be there that are Kelly would be seen as from a cultural portrayal perspective, as an individual, an individual person who did this, imagine what I'm thinking for myself from a dreams or in place of like, what would that feel like? If all these conversations were about helping to correct this one instance, that happened in the 90s, and it's now 93, or 94, let's say, closed, he was one person who did it. And this wasn't a black on black crime thing. This wasn't a black girl is responsible for our Kelly thing. This was just a he was wrong. We have these systems here to address and to give back to the person who was victimized, to put in place things that are Kelly. I mean, if her dream storming, wasn't able to abuse anyone again, but also didn't want to abuse anyone again, and didn't need to have that kind of domination over somebody again, and when held accountable, we're doing I've got like different layers of dreams forming here. But if we wanted to have black solidarity, because cultures are nice, you know, wasn't to buffer against, you know, racism, just like a, you know, in our, in our black culture. What if a frame was, you know, I'm sorry, that I, I betrayed us when I did this. And please support X child who's speaking out and do what I could not have done, but I'm going to work in my life to correct because I'm still human. And this person may be able to hear my apology and hear my reparations experienced them or not, but I wouldn't be doing that work. And other people in the community who were also responsible for this culture be doing that work. It's like a, I get stuck with Dream storming. Because each time when you talk about in a good way of like, you peel back, yeah, the layers, you know, like, what, what happens in sexual abuse? Anybody? What if what
Lisa Danylchuk 22:54
if no one ever got sexually abused, there was no racism. But I think the way you're describing it anchors and provides these clear sort of direction and steps that feel, you know, they always say, like, make smart goals that are measurable and attainable. And all these things. Like, I feel like they're things that we can hopefully see as realistic in our lifetime. And when you talk about also, including this humanitarian approach to perpetrators, like that's really hard for a lot of folks in season one, we had Delia Janerio, come on. And she did a lot of restorative justice with people who had committed murder people who had committed rape, and, you know, had some of those people end up working on her team in the nonprofit helping other people. So I think there is an avenue here that that's happening now. That is realistic. And as much as I agree, peel back the onion, you know, what if, what if just no one ever got sexually abused? Like, that would be great. And I think the way that I see that we can get there one path is by folks who have been abused, interrupting the cycle, by getting support from other people identifying their needs, and, and giving back in some way, hopefully, that's balanced and healthy. But it's also you know, shifting entire dynamics and cultures that have been passed down over time. It's big. It's such big concepts and, and impacts that we're talking about. But super important at the same time.
Speaker 2 24:23
Yeah. And that's one thing about that about hatred. I spoke with Lawrence Ralph, who's the author of the torture letters, an anthropologist, brilliant, brilliant, phenomenal. And I asked him about the role of hatred. I write about this in the book I have this about like the role of hatred because they're a call and and for black people in particular, and black women and girls in particular, in particular, that we don't get to heat because then we're the angry black woman. And so we have to forgive and etc.
Lisa Danylchuk 24:55
doesn't tend to work very well.
Speaker 2 24:57
Yes, but then you feel ashamed when you can't You know, admit writing about, like the importance of the role of hatred. Like, when you have a perpetrator and anger probably, yeah, you're probably less likely to be around them. Yeah. Right. If you can help it, right.
Lisa Danylchuk 25:12
Functional LOA for me.
Speaker 2 25:14
Yes. Um, so the demand then of like, but if we if we're thinking that we need to humanize everybody involved, including people who perpetrate okay, but maybe that's the responsibility, not of the person victimized, yes, responsibility of the other people in that person's life, and this gets into him and in his life and in his surrounding community. And we can do those things like we talked about earlier on it, like, there's so many layers and but we can, like, we can be feeling all of these layers and not say, hatred is good, or hatred is bad. Or we can say like, you know, if you've been victimized, you, haters hate you can hate, I'm down with it. I'm down, that's where you are, and oftentimes is where you, quote unquote, should be given a specific circumstance.
Lisa Danylchuk 26:02
It's an adaptive response. Yeah, like it's a healthy emotional response. If someone like walks down the street, and to pick a really simple, you know, easy to define example, harshly steps on your foot intentionally. It's, it's adaptive to go What what are you doing, and to want to have them go away from you and get angry or have a fight response or like, this is all normal? And so I do think, you know, in spiritual circles to we can be like, anger is bad, and hate is bad. And I just think it's more about less about these binaries of good and bad and that we seem to fall into so many times all or nothing thinking rather than going why, what's the why is the anger there? What is the anger expressing what is? And a lot of times it's expressing a boundary, or it's expressing a boundary violation or lack of dignity or harm, right? Yeah. And say, I'm angry because someone harmed me? Well, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 26:59
Yes. Yeah. I'm just gonna say from a cultural portrayal perspective of like the context mattering right of like, this, this harm isn't just interpersonal, right? It's community, it's societal. It's all these different things because of everything we've been talking about. Therefore, the responsibility around hating or not hating, doesn't just fall on this individual who has been victimized, right, we expand the responsibility into our families, into our communities into the perpetrator as well, for them being accountable for their behavior, and so on. And so it just, in thinking about his came from Dream storming as talking about this of like, peeling the onion back, like, more and more context, because a lot of times just gets so individualized that there was the perpetrator or perpetrators and the victim, as opposed like this was a relational harm a community harm or societal all the way out. And so then our response to it, for prevention for accountability for healing has to happen to all those layers as well, not just one layer. Yes.
Lisa Danylchuk 28:00
I love it. 12 episodes of Jennifer. Dr. Jennifer Gomez, Episode Seven. I really want to have you back. And I hope we can because there's so many things I want to keep talking about. And so many things that I know every time I have a conversation like this, I just I love podcasting so much is it like, it gets in there. And then I'll like wake up, you know, tomorrow and next week with like, more questions. Keep the conversation going. So hopefully we can do that at some point. Yeah, yeah, definitely. For now, I'm just curious, you know, I know your your book is coming out this summer. How can people connect with you? How can they get the book?
Speaker 2 28:33
Oh, awesome. So the books birthday is set to be July 11 2023. So mark your calendars. A great way as of now is to go to my website. And so I'm Jennifer M. Gomez. My website is J M gomez.org. I'll have everything there for all time. And I have a specific section on the website about cultural betrayal trauma theory, then you'll see talks, there's even a dance idea contemporary dance culture, betrayal trauma theory that illustrates the theory. You see talks, I've given questions, links to articles I've written for the general public and for academics. And then there's also a book section to the website that has what the chapters are. Eventually, it'll have where you can go to buy the book, if you're interested things obviously buy the book if you're able, and you're interested. But there are things to support the book, even if you don't have money, like if you're affiliate with university asker University Library to carry it. Yeah, lots of ways. JM gomez.org is the easiest to get information and to follow up. And to the extent that this is of interest to you, and that you think this kind of work is important. The American Psychological Association, my publisher, this is a promising direction for what they publish. And so to the extent that we'd want to see more work from marginalized folks, like we're warned that a book like this that is contextual that is critical that names racism and oppressions and speaks I write the way that I speak, it speaks very directly takes it to a community and systems level, supporting the book would really help to transform I think, what ABA can do, and what the field can do and mental health in general, like where we can go. There are lots of people doing this work. And we don't always get to be published, right in big avenues because of the things we discussed.
Lisa Danylchuk 30:26
Well, I'm so glad your book is coming out. I can't wait to get it myself. And we kind of glossed over this. Well, we went into dream storm, but is there anything that like on a daily basis brings you hope, as you continue to do this work?
Speaker 2 30:37
I think one, this might seem ethereal, but just like the beauty of the world, like I'm sitting, I will take a walk after this. I work in Boston on Charles River, there's snow outside, it's gorgeous water to me is always healing. So even just like the beauty of the world around me, like the natural beauty is very hopeful, I can be reminded why it's good to be alive, when it gets to be in nature, when it feels like life is really hard. I think the other thing that's very direct is students. Yeah, like students are the future, you know, and me being able, it's greatest as a job as a professor, that I get to work in a research capacity and a didactic teaching capacity and teaching clinical skills, etc. With students because I think, I don't mean this in a just manner, but just at as we get older, we can like, start to accept the world the way that it is, because it hasn't changed. And we've lived longer and longer, you know, whereas like students, regardless of their age, you know, can have like a fire of just like, but this is unfair, or this, you know, we're like, or what do you mean, there isn't this or that, you know, and I think that firing that energy to me gives me lots of hope. And it also reminds me that I'm not by myself, because this work can be and can feel very isolating, and you're hitting against much of what we talked about this whole podcast is having to say like, no rape is still wrong. No, please don't rape kids. No, I promise you it's harmful, you know, and it can just feel crazy making. And to the extent that, for me, at least with students of like, they're coming, they're brilliant. And they're coming behind me. And so I can rest, I can die, I can retire, I can do whatever I want to there's going to be the students who are carrying the torch into their professional and personal lives. And that's endlessly hopeful. To me.
Lisa Danylchuk 32:33
It's that community in that legacy that you talk about that, again, takes away the individual focus, like I have to carry this on. Yeah, one of the things I really love is the, I think I saw this on a card in an airport once and it stuck with me. I don't know who originally said it. But it was, it's important to remember that you're not Atlas carrying the world that the world is actually carrying you. And so we can, I think in this type of work, just start to carry all this, I remember, you know, working in Oakland with commercial sexual exploitation, and just feeling like I have to, you know, I can live and die, and this is still going to be a problem, I have to do everything I can. And like the weight of that, and just a moment of walking around like married or now I live near, you know, another lake schmo and walking out and like feeling my feet on the planet, and the support of the Earth, our connection to each other, but also our connection to this planet, you can't really separate it, right? Love that nature. That if I share that feeling of appreciating the beauty and the resource and water and sky and just watching plants and going that's incredible. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. So hope you get some of that time after our conversation now, and I just so appreciate you all of your work and sharing your time today and sharing your wisdom and intelligence and skill with listeners and just want to applaud and appreciate that. And thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 34:00
Thank you, thank you so much for having me. I just have to say really quickly, that like every change matters you're gonna need and I'm speaking about like working with like sex trafficking and human trafficking, it can feel like, if the problem isn't solved, then nothing I'm doing is enough, as opposed to like, but each life that they got to hear you speak or to know that you care, like each life matters. Each small change matters. And those small changes then lead to bigger structural changes. But the small changes small individual changes in themselves are so valuable and are worth noticing. And I think being deliberate about noticing those least for me is helpful of like, parents are still raping their kids. This is where we are and to the extent that I was healed, which I was in this conversation, and you were any listeners were like them, this was a win and we need to relish relish the wins because each of us matter.
Lisa Danylchuk 34:55
Yes. I love all of that. Please come back Yeah, we're gonna do another one, you know, when your book comes out, and I don't know, if you're doing audiobook or anything like that,
Speaker 2 35:07
we'll have to see. But yeah, I'd love to come back. This was wonderful. My so appreciate you having me on on on your platform and just engaging in this in this dialogue, but really, truly was was very healing for me. And I'm going to actually enjoy that it was recorded and enjoyed being able to, to kind of hear it and feel it and feel it back in the future. Awesome.
Lisa Danylchuk 35:29
Thank you so much, Jennifer. Thanks, Lisa.
Christine O'Donnell 35:33
While I was researching you, and looking into cultural betrayal, trauma theory, and like trying to wrap my head around it in a way that I haven't really thought about it before I was, I found myself thinking about the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And I find myself like looking at the systems in our society. And just feeling like this is such a massive failure, and it is so damaging on so many levels. And not that it's like hurtful. Yeah. For women. It's a betrayal. It's it's a massive betrayal. And I'm like, No, I would I'm just curious, because I think we just celebrated the anniversary as when 50 Roe v. Wade was passed, like, a couple of days ago, I think Camilla Harris was on a podcast talking about it. And I just found myself wondering, what do you think about this when it comes to cultural betrayal? And trauma theory? I mean, it See,
Speaker 2 36:39
I mean, big words, the culture of it becomes complicated, because there's also been efforts at for sterilization, means of color and so you get then this, like, it opened up a whole thing of like, Roe v. Wade is not that that's something else, but you get get this conflation when you have the arguments. So like, so there's all of that. I, what I've told myself is just that we're in terms like a hopeful frame, because otherwise you want to jump off the ledge, you know, of just like, we're not the first people to have a government like this. And there was a pre Roe vs. Wade, that they were dealing with stuff like this, you and I mean, and so like, we're in a line of like, of history and present around the world of governments that are, that's tyranny, you know, that are terrible. And, and like we can, and we can move through this, you know, kind of like that frame, as well as something is working, these things are interrelated. You know, all these different, like, you know, banning books, you know, like, all of its related, and it's happening, because we're having an impact you and I mean, because if we weren't having an impact, then they wouldn't need to fight against us, you know, and the backlash is just something that's so just always happens. Yeah. You know, like, he's always how the 90s Charles actually was awareness then came with a false memory bullshit, you know, excuse me, recording. No, please.
Lisa Danylchuk 38:11
What it is,
Speaker 2 38:13
but you just you have this thing, and me too, right now is in the middle of a backlash. And like the woke thing is in the middle of backlash, and now and Roe versus Wade is, you know, with the dog decision. So this is, it's just how it works. And I try to remind myself that, like, it's half the backlash is happening in the end, and the reversion is happening, because it's working. And so we are being successful actually. And that, like, our I know, if you're looking for hope, but there's a, I have to think hopeful, because it's just terrible. It's just, it's too awful. But it's just like, as humans, like, we live so short. You and I mean, that we have a hard time having like a longer historical perspective. And like, if we're overall over hundreds and 1000s of years going upward, and better than that's what we're hoping for. And at any given moment, we could be going backwards. Yeah, I mean, so we're clearly in a moment of like, going backwards, and it's and it's gonna get worse, Inc. and better. Like, you know, they're coming for gay marriage, they're gonna come for everything now, it's going to undermine so many different things. Don't get me started. And how do we have a Supreme Court? That's lifetime appointments? I don't understand how can Congress by definition, like, how can Congress be that they can go on endless terms like this is not a democracy, we live in a democracy so fine, but just that like that, our understanding that our scope and our pain is, is so localized to the present because we live such short lives, you know, and so our perspective is skewed in that manner. And so like a question from you, Christine, was like, wasn't Anita Hill before her time? You know, when it was like, No, it's been the time to do this. And people before her ever had to do is have done this, you know, so like, was the world ready? No. And kind of yes, because she, like Anita Hill, like changed my life. You know what I mean? Like when I grew up enough since I was a child when happened. So when I like revisited a new like, what it meant what she did, I'm going to start, it's just like, she's a legend, you know, matters. So even though, like the asshole is still on our Supreme Court, so doing the shit he's always done and worse, like this still was powerful what she did. And that still matters. And so it's sort of like the cultural betrayal like why not minority betrayal language, like we centered our culture and our culture is in this way, like, we're gonna go ahead and center Anita Hill, like as a win. And we'll let Clarence Thomas, like, sits where he sits, you know what I mean? But like, we get to pull back, like, the power of what this means. And the power of like, how bad racism is that like, we'll, we'll give up Thurgood Marshall and go with a Clarence Thomas. He's always been ridiculous. What you don't I mean, like it. So I just, I just have to think that way. And it's the Pollyanna nature of Jennifer fried, you know, like rubs off of me over time of just like, like, each of us matters. And if Anita Hill was only if she only existed in that realm of her doing good, like, she's, it's for herself and her own life and everything, but but to the benefit of people like myself, Jennifer, fried, everyone else who was moved and inspired by her than when you I mean, because we all matter. And so it's always this way. And I talked in the book about her about the book, just like on my mind, but like, about how we get called to do what the other side is doing. Like, the other side is just very easily passing laws, why can't we do what they're doing? They have power on their side, they have bigotry on their side, you know, they have status on their sides, we can't do what they're doing. They get to be stupid as shit, and do stuff, because they already have the power to do it. You and I mean, and so we can't, we can't make those comparisons, you know, across, like, why are they winning? And we're losing. It's like, because inequality is winning, you know, and we were gaining ground and they stomped on us because they had to you and I mean, yeah, like, if we weren't have an impact, they wouldn't do anything. And it's, it's painful. Because I'm, I work with students who were like, should I not do race scholarship, because not be able to get a job in academia, or I can work in Florida, you and I mean, or whatever. And it's, like, keep doing it, because we're all still here, like, those of us doing this work are still gonna be here, and we got you, you and I mean, and those people who aren't going to like your race, color slip, weren't gonna like your brown skin anyways, Hate to break it to you, they were already gonna discriminate against you. So do the work, you want to do find your community, like us lean on each other and know that we exist, and we can keep doing this. You know, what I mean? And history will show them for, for who they are. And, and that should their do it. Like, it's just so painful. Like every, yeah, it's dogs, and it's everything else that's going to shit. You know? It's too much. And like, we're not stopping. Like, we're on this, you know, like, we're.
Lisa Danylchuk 43:31
Yeah, it makes me think of the arc of the moral universe is long thing, right? It bends towards justice. But you know, like you were saying earlier, we want it to happen in our lifetime. And I know, I really felt you know, how long ago was it now? 1015 years ago, like, yeah, here we go. Good. There's progress. This is happening. And I just expected it to continue. And then, like, slammed in the face. Oh, no, here comes the back slide here comes the under toe. And, and living that is, is really challenging. And there's so many things we've been through recently, where, you know, people will say, Oh, this is unprecedented, or this has, this is worse than it's ever been. I'm like, there's been a lot of real hard times here and around the world. And so like, I'm not gonna say this is the worst it's ever been. I think it's just one of those backslide times where you feel that poll and you go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because we were just here, like, let's go back there. And it's hard to trust that that type of cycle just like in trauma therapy, when people are making progress and then some trigger or something happens or something happens in the world, right? And it's like, why am I back here again, why am I having this same thought or why am I having to make the same argument again, like, why am I having to reestablish this boundary? I thought it was good. And I just feel that collectively and it's, it's challenging, and I'd say for me, the only like, like sunny side of it is more of appreciate Getting walking up the hill this morning. Like, that's the only you know, it's like, Okay, let me just actually it's a way of coping with it. But it's also like, I don't know, it is tough. And it and it's so laden with, with emotion, right with, like real human experience and real negative impact. And I think that's yeah, we talked about bearing witness, like, that's hard to bear witness to.
Speaker 2 45:28
Right. Yeah. And gives insight, I mean, from like, a hopeful frame gives insight on privilege and how to manage that, like for me, for dogs, like, I'm 38 years old, I don't have children, I probably won't, but like, we'll see what happens. But it's like, I won't be affected by this, because I can pay my way out of it, like Massachusetts, a good state, I could also travel states, if I had to, I could get better health care. There's also isn't gonna be like people's actual health care, like unrelated pregnancy, like, you know, and knowing that like, even as a black woman, who has all this shit in the healthcare system that we know about, etc, it's like, I have privilege in this way. And how can I understand that, and some and be present to that, to somehow use it for good? Yes, I'm saying, because it's very easy. For me, at least I probably for lots of people to be like, here's how I marginalized, here's how I'm discriminated against, and everything's against me all the time, just what it feels like, as opposed to being like I need to be that's true. And I need to be in solidarity with people who are marginalized in ways that are different from me. And this is going to hit people who are in in different states who have the finances to move, who are of color who are going to have doctors who are not going to be courageous, you know, we're, you know, etc. And how can we then, and like the International Women, International Women's March 2018, like, that was the most beautiful thing I've maybe ever seen, because it's always been siloed, it's always been like, the white women do their thing. Black people, we do our thing, gay people, they do their thing over there, you know, and it was just like, everybody came together. And we're like, loss and make it prove that it was but it just, it was different than what I've seen in the past, and what I know about of the past, and so like, it is getting better. It's just also like, getting way worse. Both things are happening at the same time.
Lisa Danylchuk 47:24
You know, it's like that messiness that comes up, though, when I mean, I just think about a dissociated memory coming into awareness, right? Where it's like, Oh, I was think of one person, oh, super embodied, and I loved, you know, getting out and being athletic, and then this memory came up, and why do I not enjoy that anymore? And what's happening? It's like, the whole, you know, chest opens up, and the whole memory comes in, then the impact of it is there, and then like, wait, what's happening? Because, you know, just a couple months ago, this felt good and doesn't anymore. And I think it's like, we got to a threshold where we can unpack, yeah, you know, and have more of what's real, come to collective light. And then we're like, Oh, this feels like, crap. Right? This is, and it's really tough to navigate through, but I do think we're navigating through it.
It was a question.
Speaker 2 48:25
Do we have a choice? Like, unless we all just, unless we all just die? You? And I mean, well, we cease to exist, then we're navigating through it.
Lisa Danylchuk 48:36
Do it. But I mean, I think there's individual levels of how we're navigating through it. But I think collectively, it's a question because like, I log into social media, and I'm just like, I have to go now. This is a lot enough. So but I do I there's, there's, you know, like you said to have the hopeful frame, there's, there's progress. There's, there's backsliding in the progress. There's a whole nonlinear path that we're all on. That's really tough.
Speaker 2 49:04
But you know, and like the awareness of like, like, when I was a kid, there wasn't social media. So it was you by yourself, thinking that our Kelly Kelly was ridiculous, there was nobody else you would I mean, and now it's like you're able to find your communities of people who you don't know and who don't live near you, you know, and I think like, for all the harm that social media does, and I think it does do a lot of harm in many different ways. But like, that's been something that we're not going to go back from, of like, keep fucking with us. And we're going to keep like, knowing what the truth is and fighting against you. You're going to be because we're not going back to being all of us by ourselves, saying, I'm the only person who's been sexually abused in this way. I'm the only person who experiences this thing at work. I'm the only person who you and I mean, it's just a knee problem. It's not the systemic thing. Like, I think I think we have come to places where we're not going to slide back. And they're going to keep sliding back policy to You try to have us forget that but I just wish is different. I just think it's a different world than the one I grew up in. And I grew up not that long ago, like 90 was my childhood and it already is better, in lots of ways. Yeah. Okay.
Lisa Danylchuk 50:19
Thanks so much for listening. My hope is that you walk away from these episodes feeling supported, and like you have a place to come to find the hope and inspiration you need to take your next small step forward. For more information and resources, please visit my website how we can heal.com There you'll find tons of helpful resources in the full transcript of each show. You can also click the podcast menu to submit requests for upcoming topics and guests. I look forward to hearing your ideas
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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