Duration: 59m 13s
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A few minutes before recording this session, as Akilah sat with her notes for the interview, she heard a voice within her that said: “There will be no performance. You will not perform.”
She disposed of the agenda and what unfolded after this was an honest, generative, and authentic exploration between her and Resmaa about the ways in which BIPOC often perform as a coping strategy to deal with systemic oppression.
In this session, Akilah and Resmaa experientially explore performing and the very real pain attached to being drawn out of authenticity in order to fit into the wider system. They honor the struggle that many BIPOC face, especially in the field of Psychotherapy that doesn’t always honor non-white knowledge. As they rumble with these issues that live in their own bodies, they note the power of “being” as a huge part of the revolution and wish to invite others to do the same.
Resmaa Menakem, MSW, SEP, is a healer, a longtime therapist, and a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in the healing of racialized trauma. Resmaa is best known as the author of the New York Times bestseller My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, and as the originator and key advocate of Somatic Abolitionism, an embodied antiracist practice of living and culture building.
