Let me tell you something. You can’t meditate your way out of a system that’s trying to destroy you. Of course, we’re fans of self-care, but this individual self-care thing is not going to cut it.
We need to think about community care. We need to think about how we can speak in alignment with our ancestors, remembering that my enslaved ancestors didn’t free themselves by singing kumbaya. Yo, the way how we get out of this is by pushing back against systems that are intent on destroying us.
My name is David Archer. I’m an anti-racist psychotherapist, and if this appeals to you, stay tuned because there’s more to come. First, let’s just talk about how Ed Sheeran kind of had an FAFO moment, okay? If I can be hip like the young people nowadays.
Speaking Truth to Power and The Reality of Genocide
Although I’m not a big—I don’t listen to Ed Sheeran or Macklemore, but Macklemore identifies with hip-hop, and this is what hip-hop is all about, is that we need to speak truth to power. When Ed Sheeran kicked Macklemore off of the tour because he dared to say free Palestine and dared to say we shouldn’t drop bombs on children, well, he then had the FAFO moment, and he was in the process of finding out when everyone left the tour. Every major human rights organization agrees that Israel’s conducting a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Children are targeted by snipers, thousands of families have been crushed by bombs in Gaza, and my Palestinian and Lebanese clients have shown me pictures of their homes, of loved ones leveled and destroyed. This is not only enabled by the American and governments, but there are times where even our tax dollars not only fund the bombs, but we may even cover the costs of the therapy for the same Israeli soldiers who planted the bombs in the first place. You can’t be neutral when genocide is on the table.
The Privilege of States in Corporate Media
This is not just about a decision that’s made for profit siding with billionaires and all of that. It’s more about how in our society there are levels of privilege, and that’s what I’d like to talk about today. In previous videos, I’ve spoken about the binary complex trauma cycle.
On one side, you’re going to see white supremacy and security. On another side, you’re going to see Black suffering, but this can be applied to so much more than just an individual. When we change up the words, we can sometimes see that this idea of male supremacy and even female subordination, you’re able to switch it up in these ways.
You can also have heterosexist ideas versus internalized homophobia. There’s ways of being able to set it up with any privileged group. In this case, we need to think about states are privileged over non-state actors in general.
So in 2020, when we were talking about defunding police, and when we were saying that we didn’t want to be fearful of being killed by police officers and all of this, a lot of the understanding led towards an individual understanding of race. The focus ends up being instead on individual racism instead of state-sanctioned violence as a whole. While we understood that white people can do some pretty messed up things, we’re now seeing how corporate media still privileges white states.
This ends up making it so that when we criticize protesters and resistance movements, we can then be okay with the death caused by social policies in the United States, like the lack of Medicare coverage, which kills between 68,000 and approximately 100,000 Americans every single year. The basic idea is this, is that we need to think about how corporate media, how it typically represents state violence, is always going to be seen in a maybe a just way, or like in a peaceful way. But if there’s any violence or resistance that takes place from non-state actors, it’ll always be seen as excessive, even if it is just protesting.
We’re not going to say the same thing for Palestinians or those who are in Iran, those who are in Congo, in Sudan, in Haiti. We’re not going to speak up for them in the same type of way. But just know it’s about the privilege of the state, specifically Western states, and how that informs our psychology.
Drawing Courage From Our Ancestors
In the face of these odds, in the face of things looking so bleak, it is very important for us to do what Ed Sheeran’s band members did. What they did is they were thinking like, hey, you know, yo, I come from Ireland and my people were genocided against, so I have to side with people who are also going through these difficult things. Like, I’m out of here.
We can’t stand by and undo these things, okay? And much respect, much respect for the people who are able to understand. Like my ancestors were genocided against as well. We were taken from our land, you know?
There was a time when I worked in the Indigenous communities and there were some people who were like, yo, I’m Native, you’re Black, you’re never going to understand my whole life experience. I told them, yo, just know it’s true I won’t understand everything you’ve been through, but the same people who took your land away took my people from their land. So just know that we’re brothers in the same fight.
There was a pound of respect and it was locked in and the therapy was able to begin. The client just wants to know that you understand where they’re coming from. People want to know that you’re able to empathize with them and we must all understand we’re part of one family. So these band members were acting in accordance with their ancestors and with the history of genocide that was done against them.
And I think that whether you’re Palestinian, whether you’re Arab, regardless of where you come from, we all have to side against people who are trying to eliminate anybody because all of us deserve life. We all deserve it. No child deserves to have their life taken away from them because they’re labeled as a terrorist.
We must make it that all people have that opportunity to live their lives. Now we’re going to talk about how I help people to do this.
Resourcing and EMDR Therapy
In a recent training, we were training some EMDR therapists and we were trying to explain that in addition to processing trauma targets, there’s also resourcing that is necessary. With EMDR therapy, there are three principles. First principle, all people can recover.
Second principle, trauma is stored in this dysfunctional manner that makes it so that when you try to access this thought, you re-experience it in the present. The third principle, having dual attention to both the trauma of the past and the present moment using the bilateral stimulation, is going to re-engage the first principle and make it so that we activate the adaptive information processing.
In that case, we’re not only focused on healing traumas from the past, but also helping people to gain the adaptive resources that allow them to process that trauma from the past and also allow them to have a better understanding of the future. We were talking about resourcing and I spoke about resource integration.
Resource integration relates to how you can use concepts, characteristics of the self and ancestors, and also forces of nature to heal deep-rooted trauma and to help you to feel that you can do this and to help to deal with limiting beliefs and all these things. One of the trainees was a person and they said, well, what if I don’t believe that my ancestors are a source of resources?
And recently I had a client too, who came from another country. They weren’t white, but they were also like, you know, in my history, my people were responsible for a lot of violence against other people. How am I supposed to do this?
Ancestors as the Ultimate Resource
So I helped them to understand when we are talking about ancestors, we’re not talking about mom. We’re not talking about dad. We’re not talking about grandpa or grandma. Of course, there’s going to be some challenges.
The past hundred years, there have been some terrible things taking place. So I get it if the immediate family is not seen as a resource. Sometimes it’s helpful for us to think even further back.
If we think even further back than you think, then the names start to disappear. The genders start to disappear. These fake nation lines, these countries start to disappear and we start to get closer to the idea of somebody who met another person, had a child and that specific child was protected.
That the parent did everything that they could to make it so that that child could survive. You might not have even heard of this person. They might even have a different race or color than you because we all came from Africa. So they might look a little different than how your family looks.
The Universal Archetype of Survival
When we are talking about an ancestral resource, we mean the archetype of the mother, the archetype of the father, the person who was able to protect that child, that despite the difficulties, despite the storms that might’ve been raging, despite them not having sufficient shelter, despite them not having sufficient food, the sacrifices these parents made to make it so that this child could live.
And the fact that that child then did it again to make it so that that other child could live. The fact that this process continued so much so that it made it so you and I are having this conversation right now. We are talking about the universal characteristic that belongs to all of us, that our mother, mitochondrial Eve in Africa, or even if it’s not in Africa, maybe it’s even later on.
But the basic idea is when we’re talking about ancestors, we’re talking about the fact that there’s a force, there’s people, there were communities that made it so that we’re here today. And even if we’re not talking about that abstract concept, I’m still going to look at it that my ancestors intellectually are going to be people who made amazing gains in history. These are people who went through things that were much harder than I can even imagine.
And even though it might’ve been challenging for them, like my current stressors are nothing in comparison to them. So just know, even though you can’t see it right now, you know, I got Malcolm X right here. You know, I got Fred Hampton chilling.
I got Thomas Sankara. You know, I got my crew with me, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For sure. And just know the idea is that you never need to be alone.
Healing and Cultivating Peace
When you have your ancestors by your side, you want to make sure when you are using good speech, your ancestors are there with you. You want to make sure that if you’re confronted with something that is scary, just know that your ancestors in the abstract concept, they passed on that DNA.
So you can deliver the theoretical concept, the academic concept, the intellectual drive concept, the drive of the activist. Just know there were people who preceded us, who inspired us to do this work today, that when we think about them, they can become present and imbue us with the energy we need to deliver the message that will help to reach the people and help to change the outcomes of the systems that are intent on making lives worse for us.
Just know that we will be successful. In fact, we already win. If this message is reaching you, just know that’s a confirmation of that.
The basic idea is we want people to heal the trauma of the past. We want them to heal using the resources they’ve developed from their accumulated life experience, but just knowing that we are all part of a living and breathing history. And so that if you ever feel alone, remember there were people who fought to make it so that you’re here today and we must honor them as well.
My name is David Archer. This is my message for today. If you like it, share, subscribe, do all of that. Join the mailing list if you like this type of information and share it with someone else so we can make sure that on an international day of peace, we are aware of the fact that challenges are raging, but we will survive.
We will find ways of making it so that even if there’s not peace all around us, we can cultivate peace in our heart, knowing that we are never alone once we bring our resources to the forefront. All right, peace.
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