HOPE AND HEALING IN
URBAN EDUCATION
Hope and Healing in Urban Education proposes a new movement of healing justice
to repair the damage done by the erosion of hope resulting from structural violence in urban communities. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from around
the country, this book chronicles how teacher activists employ healing strategies
in stressed schools and community organizations, and work to reverse negative
impacts on academic achievement and civic engagement, supporting their students to become powerful civic actors.The book argues that healing a community
is a form of political action, and emphasizes the need to place healing and hope
at the center of our educational and political strategies. At once a bold, revealing,
and nuanced look at troubled urban communities as well as the teacher activists
and community members working to reverse the damage done by generations of
oppression, Hope and Healing in Urban Education examines how social change can
be enacted from within to restore a sense of hope to besieged communities and
counteract the effects of poverty, violence, and hopelessness.
Shawn Ginwright is Associate Professor of Education in the Africana Studies
Department and Senior Research Associate for the Cesar Chavez Institute for
Public Policy at San Francisco State University.
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HOPE AND HEALING IN
URBAN EDUCATION
How Urban Activists and
Teachers are Reclaiming
Matters of the Heart
Shawn Ginwright
First published 2016
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
The right of Shawn Ginwright to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without
intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ginwright, Shawn A.
Hope and healing in urban education : how urban activists and teachers are
reclaiming matters of the heart / by Shawn Ginwright.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Education, Urban—United States. 2. Minorities—Education—
United States. 3. Children with social disabilities—Education—United
States. I. Title.
LC5131.G48 2015
370.9173'2—dc23
2015006417
ISBN: 978-1-138-79756-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-79757-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-75702-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Acknowledgmentsvii
1
Introduction
2
Transforming Trauma into Hope and Power
16
3
Building the Courage to Hope Among Young Men
42
4
Creating a Healing Zone in San Francisco
65
5 Radically Healing Schools and Communities:
Healing-Centered Pedagogy and Forgiveness
86
1
6
Healing with Street Love
113
7
La Cutura Cura: How Culture Cures and Builds Activism
131
8 Ubuntuism: Concluding Notes on Recreating
Self, Society, and Change
142
Appendix: Methodological Synopsis
153
Index157
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is much more exciting to begin writing a book than it is to actually complete
one. The journey for this book came after I had returned home from New York
and I mentioned to my wife Nedra that I was considering starting a book project
that would highlight the convergence of healing and activism. “Let someone else
write it”, she replied, “your last book took too much from our family time”. She
was correct, as she usually is, but I am hardheaded, and sometimes I ignore her
well-intentioned advice.
This book was made possible by a team of people in my life that listened to
me discuss these ideas with them, even when I knew they simply wanted to finish
their glass of pinot noir without complicated conversations. Julio Cammarota, my
friend, comrade, and intellectual fitness coach listened to me and provided brilliant
advice even as he finished his glass of pinot noir. Thanks, Julio, for sharpening my
ideas. Many of the ideas discussed in this book came from debates, conversations,
and discussion with my very good friend Macheo Payne.There probably is no other
person in the country who knows more about how to reach the hearts and minds
of African American youth than brotha Macheo! Thanks, Macheo, for always listening and talking about what is really important. My “chief negotiator” and good
friend Antwi Akom affirmed my ideas and strengthened my confidence at times
when I wavered and was unsure about my thinking.Thanks to brother Jeff Duncan
Andrade, my renegade academic who tells the truth no matter what and, in my
view, is America’s thought leader when it comes to urban teaching.And to the entire
family at the Institute for Sustainable Educational, Environmental and Economic
Design (ISEEED), who allowed me to occupy their offices to write when I needed
to get away from my home office.
viii Acknowledgments
My research team spent countless hours debating, writing, discussing, and
refining these ideas. I am thankful for Guilaine Saloman, who supported with
much of the on ground work in the schools, and captured much of the data about
teachers and schools. Mara Diaz, who jumped into this project in its later phase,
was invaluable in connecting with community activists, and put her heart into
the project. Nicole Lee, Oakland’s own Ella Baker, provided the nuanced insight,
and ideas about healing and activism. Her years of organizing strengthened the
conceptual framing for much of this book.
Thank you to my extended family, the Hawkins’; David, Miko, and Justin.This
book would not be possible without the support of my family. Nedra, you are
an extraordinary woman! Thank you for your grace and stepping in on the times
that I could not pick up the kids, or was so consumed with writing that I didn’t
wash the dishes. Takai and Nyah, I am so proud of you, and seeing you grow into
caring, loving, and justice making young adults is all I have ever dreamed. You
know that you were born to do good and great things!
I cannot say thank you enough to my family who have always supported me,
loved me, and believed in me. Mom and dad (Mae Ginwright and William Ginwright) have always believed in me and encouraged me to dream beyond what
I could see. I would like to thank my brothers Graylin and Chris who are living
examples of strong black men. Auntie and Mamma Joyce your example paved the
way for me, and my growth is rooted in your love and support.
This book is dedicated to Jerry Logans.
1
INTRODUCTION
The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through
the vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose site of its purpose, which is
after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.
(Baldwin 1985)
My mother would often share warm, wonderful stories with my brothers and
me about her own childhood growing up in Trenton, Florida, a small town near
Gainesville. Her stories were so vivid that we could easily transport ourselves
into the wonders of playing hide-and-go-seek at dawn, eating mangos off of the
neighbor’s tree, and spending lazy hot afternoons on the porch. She only needed
to utter a few words to invoke our imagination about her safe magical world she
simply called “home”.
Her stories allowed my brothers and me to imagine a world different from our
own working-class neighborhood, where growing up in the 1970s, the sounds of
police sirens were as common as hearing the familiar tune of the ice-cream truck
making its way down our streets. Her stories about growing up in the rural South
stood in contrast to urban violence, despair, and poverty that had consumed our
neighborhood.
When she would describe her house, I imagined a small cozy house, with
bright yellow flowers in front, lining the walkway to the porch. She would smile
with nostalgic pleasure as she described to us every detail of this small house. Not
too long ago, I traveled to Trenton with my mother. To be honest, I was excited
to see the place that had only existed in my imagination. We visited with her old
friends, and relatives. As we walked through the small town, we approached the
old home she had described for years, and I was shocked. The small house was
not what I had imagined. The old rickety, shotgun style dwelling had been vacant
2
Introduction
for years, and should have been demolished because weeds had overtaken it, the
wood was deteriorating, and the tin roof had rusted throughout. Seeing the house
humbled me, because only then did I realize how poor she had been as a child.
But my mother saw something entirely different. Standing there in the hot,
humid Florida sun, she smiled with the excitement of a child. It was as if being
there had transported her back to her childhood. For her, the house was the birthplace of her hopes and dreams. As we walked slowly through the house, she retold
each story and painstakingly walked me to every corner, pointing out all the little
things that she remembered from her childhood. Standing there, in this beloved,
ramshackle little house, I realized that she had been raised to imagine a world
beyond the present.This sense of hope in those four walls nurtured in my mother
the capacity to understand oppression, but not to be defined by it.
***
I suspect that hope and the capacity to dream of a world beyond the present
has always been at the heart of social justice movements. Hope, in and of itself, is
an important form of resistance, both political and personal, and reaffirms what
is possible, and worth fighting for. However, unlike the mass Civil Rights movement of the 1960s that ushered in groundbreaking legislation, today requires
a new movement that is both inwardly focused on healing from the wounds
inflicted from structural oppression, and outwardly focused on social change.
This dual focus represents a new way of movement building by engaging a
collective conversation about the power of hope and the meaning it holds for
each of us.
This book is about hope, and how teachers, community activists, and youth
development professionals are responding to the crisis of hopelessness among
youth of color in urban American. The central premise of this book is that both
organizing and healing are required for lasting community change. Both strategies, braided together, make a more complete and durable fabric in our efforts to
transform oppression, and hold the power to restore a more humane and redemptive process toward community change. I advance three ideas in this regard:
1.
2.
3.
Structural oppression harms hope.
Healing is a critical component in building hope.
Building hope is important political activity.
There is no doubt that poverty, increasing gun violence, and lack of employment have taken a toll on those who live and work in urban neighborhoods. We
all shudder at the statistics: from 2006 to 2010, homicide was the leading cause
of death for African Americans males between the ages of 10 and 24, and for
Latinos of the same age, it was the second cause of death (Bryant and Phillips
2013). As many as one third of children in urban neighborhoods have witnessed a
Introduction
3
homicide (Buka et al. 2001). Many Black and Hispanic students in urban schools
fear for their safety in school and choose to simply stay away (Roberts et al. 2013).
Notably, emerging research shows that after African American children have been
exposed to violence, their achievement tests scores drop significantly below scores
of other children (Sharkey 2010).
On a broader canvas, violence can also be understood as actions from systems that injure young people (Farmer 2004). For example, police departments’
stop-and-frisk practices, and zero tolerance policies in schools disproportionally criminalize young men of color for “willful defiance” and all have negative impact on young people’s social emotional health (Center on Juvenile and
Criminal Justice [CJCJ] 1999). Young people in urban settings who have fallen
prey to these discriminatory practices often have few opportunities to address
the psychosocial harm resulting from persistent exposure to an ‘ecosystem of
violence’. Their experiences are not only traumatizing, but often have a profound negative impact on their sense of efficacy and agency. In most cases of post
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), among youth of color are actually ongoing,
and persistent. Trauma for these young people, therefore, needs to be diagnosed
within a Persistent Traumatic Stress Environment (PTSE), which more accurately focuses on both the individual and the environmental context in which
trauma occurs.
This means that we have to view structural issues such as poverty, unemployment, underfunded schools, incarceration, lack of access to quality health care, and
poor quality housing as the root causes of violence and causes of trauma.Violence,
and its root causes, are not simply experienced as individual phenomenon, but
rather they represent collective experience shared by young people and their
families. These structural issues contribute to socially toxic environments (Garbarino 1995). Socially toxic environments are environments like neighborhoods
and schools where lack of opportunities, blocked access, constrained resources,
unclear pathways to a better life can erode trusting relationships and severely
constrain collective action and agency (Ginwright 2010a, 2010b). Similarly, Paul
Farmer (2004) uses the term structural violence to describe how structural oppression destroys and harms communities. He accurately highlights the ways in which
racism, homophobia, classism, sexism, and other forms of systemic exclusion are
embedded in social institutions and structures, and harm communities and groups
in our society.
If unaddressed, exposure to an ecosystem of socially toxic environments can
have a debilitating impact on young people’s healthy development. For example,
youth who have been exposed to trauma from violence have displayed mental
health symptoms ranging from emotional numbing, to difficulties with sleep or
concentration (Rich 2009). Researchers have found that untreated trauma can
predict lower total verbal and IQ scores on standardized achievement tests (Sharkey 2010) and impede brain development.
4
Introduction
However, the most significant impact of structural violence is how it erodes
young people’s sense of hope (Bolland et al. 2001). One important study conducted by Alvin Poussaint (Poussaint and Alexander 2000) found that poverty,
community violence, racial discrimination in employment, and unreported police
brutality often result in unresolved rage, aggression, depression, and fatalism. He
pointed out that among black youth, suicides increased 114 percent. Other studies have shown that youth in urban environments, structural violence not only
impedes productive development, but also poses serious threats to their social,
emotional, and psychological well-being (Garbarino 1995; Furstenberg and
Hughes 1997; Hart and Atkins 2002)
Young people who witness or experience violence often experience stress,
depression, and anxiety, all of which severely impacts academic achievement and
healthy development. These dire social conditions also breed a sense of meaninglessness and hopelessness, which also impact academic achievement and civic
engagement. As a result of these seemingly intractable problems, young people
and those who support them, including teachers, their families, and community
organizations, struggle to engage young people in meaningful ways.
In light of these bleak realities, youth development and civic engagement strategies designed to engage America’s most disconnected young people will only be
successful to the extent that they address hopelessness (Wilson et al. 2005). Unfortunately, these challenges are exacerbated by the fact that teachers and youth
development professionals have few options available to support young people
in ways that restore hope and well-being. Simply put, traditional youth development and civic engagement approaches to supporting youth of color from stressed
urban schools and neighborhoods have been ineffective in combatting the deep
and multilayered level of stress and trauma many young people bring to school.
While the impact of these conditions on education and mental and physical
health is well documented (Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996; Stern et al. 1999; Mazza
and Overstreet 2000; Xanthos 2008), we understand very little about how teachers and activists can effectively support young people of color in such dire social
conditions. For those who seek effective strategies to combat these conditions,
we are compelled to ask important questions: (1) How do teachers and activists
effectively respond to hopelessness in ways that restore human dignity, meaning,
and possibility? (2) How can these responses inform broader structural changes
in civic engagement, education, and public safety? (3) What are the ingredients to
transformative school and community change?
There is growing recognition among teachers and activists that hope
and healing are critical to academic achievement and civic engagement
(Duncan-Andrade 2009). Duncan-Andrade (2009) accurately points to various forms of hope that build the political consciousness among young people
that is necessary to address material conditions of their lives. He offers three
forms of hope among teachers. Material Hope—Quality teaching that connects
Introduction
5
the harsh reality of community conditions with new possibilities. Socratic
Hope—Requires educators and students to painfully examine their own live
and actions to discover new ways of living. Audacious Hope—Healing from
oppression in order to transform it.
Increasingly, teachers and activists have come to recognize the profound impact
that trauma has had on their students’ capacity to hope, and see the world beyond
the present, something my mother was able to do even when all the evidence
suggested otherwise. They share a common vision that so many young people in
urban communities who have been physically, emotionally, psychologically, and
spiritually harmed must receive support from their schools and communities so
that they can heal from trauma. I call these teachers and activists “soul rebels”,
because they are challenging conventional educational and political strategies and
embarking on their own journeys that allow them to discover practices that heal
and transform their classrooms, organizations, and communities. In doing so, these
rebels are seeking out an alternative vision for their communities—one based on
healing and love rather than hopelessness and fatalism.
An important parallel can be made here. Just as health and well-being are not
defined solely by the absence of disease, justice is more that the absence of oppression. Similarly, creating hope in schools and neighborhoods involves more than
violence-reduction tactics, such as cease-fires and gang truces. These strategies
create temporary reductions in violence at best, but these are not characteristics
of hope and peace itself. Building hope among youth of color in urban schools
requires that educators rethink what is most important and come to recognize
that healing and well-being are critical social justice ingredients.
Tanya’s Turmoil
“There has to be another way, Shawn”, she said over the phone. I was silent simply because I didn’t know what to say. But the silence was not uncomfortable. It
just gave me the space to reflect on what she had just shared with me. Tanya was
a former student whom I had mentored and worked closely with in the Bayview Hunters Point community. She is perhaps one of my brightest students, not
because of her profound knowledge of social theory, nor expansive understanding
of public policy. She is brilliant because she challenges social theory and public
policy, and she’s well aware of the problems and challenges of our society because
she grew up in San Francisco’s gritty Bayview Hunters Point community.Tanya is
rough around the edges, yet never apologizes for her fluent and unrefined urban
swagger. At 25 years old, she has seen more than her share of trauma and violence.
In the past, she has organized teen girls and worked closely with them to build
their leadership skills and prepare them for college. She is passionate and committed to creating educational opportunities, building leadership pathways, and
training “her girls” for political organizing in San Francisco.
6
Introduction
Tanya often spoke with pride about her younger brother, whom she helped
raise, and when he went to college, she acted like a proud parent. This week’s
update on her brother, however, was different from all the others. Her brother
had returned home for spring break when he was shot and killed near their home
in Bayview Hunters Point. The pain of losing her brother forced her to question everything she had been working for. “Why should I continue this work, if
I cannot even save my own brother?” she lamented. “I’m done! I’m leaving this
neighborhood, and never returning! I’m also done with this nonprofit, social justice bullshit! I just don’t know if I can work with youth anymore!” Tanya’s next
few months were spent in deep depression, sleeping most of the day, neglecting
to clean her small apartment, and failing to pay rent which nearly ended with her
being evicted.
Unfortunately, Tanya’s story is not uncommon for those of us who work in
communities ravaged by violence and loss. It’s difficult sometimes to understand
the psycho-spiritual costs of working in highly distressed communities. Researchers have mounted considerable evidence about the toll of environmental stressors on mental and physical health, optimism and hope among communities of
color (Smith et al. 2011). More specifically, the hardships of poverty, racism, lack
of employment opportunities, and neighborhood decay, over time, wear away at
both our mental and physical health (Smith et al. 2011). Environmental stressors
from exposure to violence, lack of economic resources, and discrimination disproportionately injure the well-being of people who live and work in low-income
neighborhoods. Over time, chronic stress also erodes hope, sense of agency, and
the ability to see a brighter future.
Hope, healing, and well-being, however, are not fixed to social conditions and
therefore can be strengthened through practices, programs, and policies. Research
suggests that hopefulness is the function of agency, the belief that one can change
things, and pathways, opportunities to act to achieve a desired goal (Snyder 2000;
Snyder et al. 2003).The fact that we can foster hope and healing allows us to consider how community power, public policy, and educational strategies can support
this process in schools and communities.
Healing justice is one way to examine how teachers and activists can foster healing, hope, and well-being through a social justice lens. Healing justice is
based on the clear understanding that injustice and oppression don’t simply block
opportunities, but also cause psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical harm
to individuals and communities. The perspective also identifies how teachers and
activists can “respond and intervene on generational trauma and violence and
bring collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of
oppression” on physical, psychological, and emotional health (Page 2010).
The tragic loss of Tanya’s brother to violence and her ensuing depression
marked a turning point in her thinking about the needs of San Francisco’s Bayview community. Her employer graciously allowed her to take time off to rest
Introduction
7
for a few weeks, which allowed her to reflect on her life and figure out what she
wanted to do next.Two years before the loss of her brother, she had been inspired
by Jeffery Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, and began to imagine what it would
look like to create a healing zone in San Francisco. She was not exactly sure what
a healing zone would look like, but just the thought reignited in her a sense of
hope and possibility.
It didn’t take long for Tanya to join a community-wide effort to draft a plan
for a healing zone for Bayview Hunters Point, a 7.5 square mile neighborhood
of San Francisco with 70,000 residents. She recognized that this community disproportionally experienced far more homicides, and residents suffered from Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) more than any other neighborhood in the
city. Despite these urgent health needs, she also learned that other San Francisco
neighborhoods, with far fewer mental health needs, received significantly more
financial support from county and city agencies than the Bayview community.
Armed with hope and a conviction to bring healing to the Bayview community,
Tanya worked with other community activists and launched a campaign to saturate the community with healing and health opportunities focusing on young
people. Tanya’s campaign galvanized community residents, city officials, and philanthropic stakeholders to support the community’s bold vision. The healing zone
was designed to bring to scale opportunities to enhance the well-being and civic
engagement among Bayview residents; the healing zone campaign involved much
more than conventional violence reduction strategies. Rather, the campaign
focused on saturating the neighborhood with activities and places that would
enhance well-being.This involved investments in community based mental health
interventions, yoga classes, mental health education in schools, meditation centers,
establishing neighborhood therapeutic spas and places to experience deep relaxation. For Tanya, it was her sense of hope that reignited in her the passion to heal
her community.
A Framework for Healing Justice
Healing justice involves (1) transforming the institutions and relationships that
are causing the harm in the first place (Wallace 2012), (2) collectively healing
and building hope. This transformation requires us to address the institutional
causes of trauma, while simultaneously building practices in schools and communities that promote well-being. As such, healing justice focuses on both the
systemic consequences of oppression on hope, as well as how communities can
heal and be restored to vibrant, healthy communities. Healing justice practitioners are acutely aware of the ways in which stress, lack of resources, violence, and
prolonged exposure to trauma all present tremendous challenges in creating community and/or social change. Similar to environmental justice activists who view
policies that harm the earth as political issues, healing justice activists view policies
8
Introduction
that harm individual and community well-being as political as well. For example,
environmental justice activists view policies that promote pollution and fossil fuels
as harmful to the earth and our environment. Much of their activism focuses on
protecting the environment from harm created by lack of awareness or concern
for the natural environment. Similarly, healing justice activists view policies that
promote violence, stress, and hopelessness in schools and communities as harmful to our collective well-being, human dignity, and hope. Rather than viewing
well-being as an individual act of self care, healing justice advocates view healing
as political action. Healing is political because those that focus on healing in urban
communities recognize how structural oppression threatens the well-being of
individuals and communities, and understands well-being as a collective necessity,
rather than individual choice. Additionally, healing justice advocates understand
that community organizing and acting in ways that improve communities builds a
sense of control, agency, and self-determination, which are important for collective
well-being.
I have used the term radical healing in prior writing on social justice, community change, and youth engagement (Ginwright 2010a). Radical healing refers to
a process that builds the capacity of people to act upon their environment in ways
that contribute to well-being for the common good. This process contributes to
individual well-being, community health, and broader social justice where people
can act on behalf others with hope, joy, and a sense of possibility.
Healing justice is the broader framework; radical healing is the specific process
that restores individual and collective well-being. There is a subtle, yet important distinction between radical healing and practices focused on social emotional learning. First, unlike social emotion learning, radical healing has an explicit
political focus. In other words, radical healing defines well-being as a function of
the environments and the capacity of communities to respond to injustice. This
definition highlights how agency and collective engagement are focused on a
common good, rather than individual traits. Second, radical healing is collective
in nature, focusing on collective identity, such as race, gender, sexual orientation. Healing is the result of building a healthy identity and a sense of belonging.
For youth of color, these forms of healing are not explicitly addressed in current formulation of social emotional research. Third, social emotional practices
rarely focus on building awareness, consciousness, and actions that address the
social conditions that threaten social emotional health in the first place. Poverty, violence, stress, racism, and homophobia are all significant threats to social
emotional health for young people. Without an analysis of these issues, young
people often internalize and blame themselves for lack of confidence or suboptimal social emotional states. Finally, radical healing is political because it recognizes
the collective nature of well-being, and moves away from individualistic notions
of health, and views health and illness as the result of political priorities and decisions. Additionally, radical healing recognizes the healing power of agency, voice,
Introduction
9
and belonging.These features of radical healing promote meaning and purpose, all
which contribute to both individual and collective well-being.
The healing justice framework requires that we conceptualize oppression as a
form of social and collective trauma. This view of oppression allows us to identify
and name the cultural, social, and spiritual consequences of trauma for oppressed
communities.Trauma conveys the idea that oppression and injustice inflict collective harm. Effectively responding to oppression, therefore, requires a process that
restores individuals and communities to a state of well-being.
The healing justice framework is also supported by research in public health,
which has linked structural inequality to poor health outcomes in low-income
neighborhood and communities. Researchers and practitioners have increasingly
adopted a broader understanding of those social and environmental factors that
promote or inhibit health (Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996; Edley and Velasco 2010).
The healing justice framework rests on the theoretical premise that well-being
is a function of social justice. Optimal conditions of social justice, such as control
over life circumstances, sense of hope, and ability to pursue dreams, facilitates
greater overall well-being. Injustice, however, results in suffering, the psycho-social
consequence of oppression (Prilleltensky 2012). Prilleltensky theorizes that
well-being as a function of social conditions, social capital, and social inequality.
Prilleltensky’s major contribution to healing justice is the premise that well-being
is connected and determined by quality of life, rather than individual choices and
behavior. While this may not be new for public health professionals, it gets to the
heart of what healing justice activists have always known. When people exercise
their power to change conditions in their lives, they are more hopeful, which in
turn contributes to overall well-being (Lbersöhn 2012; Prilleltensky 2012). However, in communities of color ravaged by violence, crime, and poverty, there are
significant barriers to hope, and challenging environments for community change.
These practices are not new to black activism. The black church has in many
ways served as a sanctuary for activists who find power in healing through faith,
gospel music, testifying, and congregating. Black churches played a significant role
in the civil rights movement by harnessing hope and healing psychic wounds of
racial oppression. Historically, these healing communities have sustained black life
in the form of quilumbos, maroon communities where Africans would physically,
emotionally, and spiritually resist the brutality of slavery.
Social Change From the Inside Out
These barriers require a new strategy in schools and community organizations.
Nicole Lee, Executive Director of Urban Peace Movement in Oakland, California, commented that we often think of social change occurring from the top
down (i.e. government programs) or from the bottom up (i.e. grassroots community organizing). However, the conditions in urban communities of color also
10 Introduction
require that we address the long-term exposure to social trauma.This means social
change from the inside out by working on self-transformation, healing, hopefulness, and fostering a general sense of well-being. By and large, these practices
do not exist in urban schools and community organizations, as we now know
it. As a result, their absence has been the Achilles’ heel of modern organizing’s
effort to engage constituencies in a deeper way. Inside-out social change simply
means examining both the root causes of barriers to building effective, healthy,
and vibrant communities, and focusing on caring for our individual mental and
physical health. Healing justice advocates examine the process that contributes to
individual well-being, community health, and broader social justice.
Nicole Lee is a long-time community organizer in Oakland, and after years
of front line organizing, she recognized that healing from years of exposure to
toxic public policy was also key for community change. She commented that
sometimes she wondered if the young people of color would be able to “absorb”
the benefits of the policy wins for which they worked. In her poignant paper on
healing-centered organizing (Lee 2014), she wrote:
I heard environmental author Paul Hawken use the metaphor of a healthy
watershed in a speech about creating sustainable local economies. He said
that in a healthy watershed, fertile soil absorbs rain when it falls, and the
rain feeds the whole ecosystem.The local environment flourishes as a result.
However, environmental degradation has left many places around the world
with dry, cracked soil. In these places, the rains seldom come. But, even
when they do, the soil is so damaged that it can’t absorb the rain. The water
runs off elsewhere. Hawken described this as a metaphor to illustrate issues
surrounding local economies, but I found it just as helpful when thinking
about my work with Oakland’s young people. I wondered and worried
whether the youth I worked with would be ready to take whatever green
jobs we helped create. Did they even know what a “green job” was or why
it was important? I came to understand that . . . the policy wins that we seek
are the rain, and the youth are the soil. The soil has to be tended to and
cared for so that it can absorb the rain.
Increasingly, social change advocates are focusing on healing and building
hopeful, healthy relationships in order to absorb the rain from policy wins. This
book highlights the how community advocates seek policy change and also create healing opportunities for the young people whose lives are made difficult as a
result of policies that punish rather than restore.
Book Overview
The purpose of the book is to illustrate how community leaders are changing
their communities from the inside out. My hope is that the case studies in this
Introduction
11
book will ignite a new conversation about what constitutes justice and how we
should go about achieving it in urban schools and communities. The purpose of
the book is threefold. First, is to examine a growing effort among urban teacher/
activists to support young people with healing. Recognizing how the urban conditions harm the educational and civic well-being among young people, community activists are creating innovative strategies to build hope and strengthen
civic engagement. Hope and Healing in Urban Education examines how community
teacher/activists are successfully using healing justice strategies to support young
people in classrooms, afterschool programs, and community-based organizations.
Second, the case studies in this book illustrate how a focus on healing advances
both educational and civic engagement strategies among the most disconnected
young people. By fostering hope in schools and community organizations, young
people will blossom into powerful civic actors. Third, this book provides practical
recommendations to activists, teachers, school administrators, youth development
professionals, as well as local, state, and federal policy-makers, on ways that public
policy can more effectively support these important forms of civic action.
The term urban education as used in the title of this book extends far beyond
the confines of schools. Schools are a function of the political, economic, cultural,
and social environment in which they exist. Discipline, attendance, academic performance, civic engagement are all, in varying degrees, influenced by the struggles
and triumphs in urban environments. The analysis in this book highlights how of
community organizations, schools, teachers, and activists comprise an ecosystem
of possibilities for building hope on among young people. I also use the term
teacher/activists to highlight the idea that the case studies in this book blur the
distinctions between these two professional activities. Using the term teacher/
activist allows us to understand the thin line between schools and the communities in which they exist.
Over a three-year period, I interviewed and observed teachers, activists, and
community residents across the country. In many of my encounters, I simply listened to their stories and was overwhelmed by the depth of compassion and wells
of fatigue many of these rebels shared with me. As I listened, I began to see similar patterns in their stories, despite the variations in settings and contexts. These
settings ranged from urban schools dealing with daily fighting and sometimes
shootings among students, to community organizations struggling to compete
for funding to keep the doors open. I wanted to document the strategies they
used aimed at restoring hope among young people in urban schools, and explore
the role of hope in young people’s academic and civic activities. Although I have
spoken to dozens of activists, teachers, and community residents, I choose to
focus on activists of color. My conversations involved in-depth questions about
the nuances of their experiences, and I attempted to identify and describe their
own restorative strategies in classrooms and community organizations. Each of
these case studies are also situated within a broader social justice framework. In
other words, I examine the political, economic, and cultural dynamics that give
12 Introduction
structure and background to each case study. This involved approximately a total
420 hours of participant observation across all the sites.1 Each of the following
chapters provides a textured understanding and analysis of how teacher/activists
have focused on healing as a central educational and political strategy in each of
their respective settings.
Chapter 2 extends the radical healing framework and argues that teachers
and organizers are responding to hopelessness among disconnected urban youth
in innovative ways. These teachers and organizers share the idea that hope and
healing is a political act. In their classrooms, community organizations, and
campaigns, they all understand that acting in community to build and sustain
well-being requires that we move beyond mere problem reduction strategies to
enact a courageous vision about how we should live. I underscore features of
radical healing, and illustrate how these principles are embedded in organizational practices. Chapter 2 builds from existing literature that highlights the how
urban environments threaten hope among young people, and provides examples of how transformative organizing, healing circles, restorative justice, and
mindfulness practices all are aimed at collectively repairing harm and fostering
well-being.
What does it look like to build hope among young men who are most at risk?
Chapter 3 examines a project to build hope and healing with a group of formerly
incarcerated, unemployed, and frequently homeless young men in Oakland, California. Over a two-year period, we worked closely with this group of young
men to better understand what constitutes hope and to learn how our collective
efforts could build it. Through weekly healing circles we learned that despite
these young men’s external conditions, they remained hopeful. Chapter 3 offers
a rich description of how to build hope, as well as its pitfalls and challenges. The
ethnographic account of our project highlighted the story of one of the young
men who powerfully illustrates that isolation breeds despair, while community
heals it.
Chapter 4 examines a community’s effort to create a healing zone in San
Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. Chapter 4 explores how organizing rich networks of social, emotional, and spiritual support builds hopeful
community action. Building from critical social capital theory, Chapter 4 explores
how Lena Miller discovered a new way to organizing that focused on healing,
hopefulness, and well-being. Her new consciousness fueled a campaign to create
healing zones, which are neighborhoods saturated with health opportunities and
pathways, in San Francisco’s most dangerous neighborhoods.
How might forgiveness and uncommon love contribute to reconciliation and
healing in schools and community organizations? Chapter 5 explores the conditions that compel activists to take up radical healing practices in their social
change strategies. Rudy Corpus, a community leader in San Francisco, was forced
to abandon his old ways of handling conflict. There was a time when someone
Introduction
13
damaged something he cared about, ruthless retaliation would ensue. However, his
own spiritual journey of healing compelled him to build and organization around
the principles of compassion, forgiveness, and justice.
Chapter 6 illustrates what healing looks like for young men who carry guns
to school. Richmond, California, is home to some of the most violent neighborhoods in California. For DeVone Boggan, the Director the Richmond Office
of Neighborhood Safety, the level of neighborhood violence had to be treated
as a public health issue, not a criminal justice strategy. Using his years of knowledge about how to reach some of the most difficult and armed young men, he
decided the single goal of his office was to stop young men from pulling the
trigger of a loaded weapon. Making the unprecedented move to hire formerly
incarcerated men from the neighborhood to intervene in potentially dangerous
turf conflicts, his office has discovered that healing, relationships, and support
are the critical ingredients to transforming the lives of Richmond’s forgotten
young men.
What is healing and what role does culture play in civic engagement and social
change? How can activists in urban communities shift attention inward in order
to heal from the stress brought on by trauma; build hope; and sustain health and
well-being? What are some practices and strategies that activists of color use to
foster healing? These questions form the basis of Chapter 7, which highlights the
role of culture in healing Latino and African American boys and young men in
Oakland.
In the concluding chapter, healing justice is anchored in public policy. I raise
the question: How can healing justice inform, direct, and shape public policy?
The concluding chapter brings together examples of activism and healing: local
policy in Oakland, California, that adopted restorative justice in public schools
to reduce suspensions; and national policy in South Africa that created the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission that healed a nation, restored hope, and ignited
a vision of new possibilities among South Africans. These examples serve as the
basis to envision how healing justice can support local community change efforts
and revive civic life in urban America.
The ability to see a better world when all the evidence suggest otherwise is
not easy. My mother, in her southern wisdom, somehow envisioned a world for
me deeply rooted in her vivid hopes and dreams. Her own activism may not have
sparked mass marches in her small town in Trenton, Florida, nor was it a catalyst
for broad policy change in Florida. Rather, her activism was rooted in a spiritual
reality that guided her, which she passed along to me, a quiet and powerful sense
of purpose, healing, and well-being.
Note
1 See Appendix for a more complete discussion of the research methodology for this study.
14 Introduction
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2
TRANSFORMING TRAUMA INTO
HOPE AND POWER
Generally, I’m a happy, optimistic, and hopeful person. I have a tendency to look for
the good in most things; however, I am skeptical about the many recent research
findings that have called attention to the impact of stressors on the development
of children and young people. It’s not the overly zealous conclusions researchers
make about human brain development based on the study of rats and mice that
bothers me. Rather it’s the nearly unanimous conclusion that what really matters
in the “secret sauce” to healthy development and learning is better parenting,
no excuses teaching, and more robust character traits among children and youth
(Babcock 2014). There is an eerie silence among some educators and researchers
when confronted with the question “what are the root causes of stress for young
people in low-wealth communities in the first place?”What is needed is more balanced attention to both the policies that create and sustain poverty and therefore
stress, as well as the biological, psycho-spiritual consequences of living in poverty.
Having worked for over 20 years with young people in urban schools and
community organizations, I have seen the limitations of arguments that singularly
attribute learning and development to what boils down to “individual” efforts
despite the magnitude, complexity, and scope of the challenges many working poor people face. Writers like Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (2014)
and Paul Tough (2012) accurately point out how environmental stress threatens
brain development by creating high and consistent doses of cortisol in the body.
However, rather than identifying how to transform the root causes of stress from
underfunded schools, violence, and joblessness, these writers (and others) overly
rely on individual character development and social emotional learning as the
antidote to building healthy, strong young people. How might key features of
social emotional learning such as grit, gratitude, and purpose support learning
Transforming Trauma
17
when kids come to school hungry in the morning, dodge bullets during lunch,
and fear the police as they walk home in the afternoon? How much grit actually makes a difference when nothing changes around you? I’m a fan of Bobby
McFerrin’s song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and Pharrel’s catchy tune “Happy”
because they simply make me feel good. But these songs are emblematic of a
broader trend that suggests the solution to the woes of the poor can be realized
through miraculous individual effort.
I recalled watching the documentary Happy with my family at the recommendation of a colleague. The basic premise of the movie is that happiness is something that can be cultivated and sustained regardless of the external conditions of
our lives. The film shows inspiring examples of this, such as poor families from
the Mississippi delta enjoying the simple life eating crawfish on the porch with
family and friends, or a man in India finding solace in spending time with his wife
and children in a shack.These stories are compelling but incomplete.We don’t see
what happens when the man in the Mississippi delta gets sick and cannot afford
the medical care he needs. Nor do we see the man from India having to tell his
children that there is no food for the fourth night in a row.
Well-being is both a function of external opportunities such as access to jobs,
good education, quality health care, and our to capacity to hope for a more equitable, inclusive, and fair society. Both are intimately tied to one another, creating
an inextricable fabric of possibility.While I applaud advances in brain research that
shed light on the consequences of stress and positive psychology’s study of character strengths, we cannot oversimplify the ways in which long-term structural conditions such as poverty severely limit people’s sense of hope for a promising future.
No amount of happiness, grit, or gratitude can alone counter policies and
practices that lock undocumented immigrants out of health care, justify police
homicides, and dislocate longtime residents from gentrifying neighborhoods. We
need both a policy that empowers young people in schools and communities, and
a policy that fosters healthy development and more robust learning, which will
lead to informed and engaged young people.
What are the conditions necessary for community to thrive? In what ways
do communities confront misery and transform the structural constrains in their
neighborhoods? How might schools serve as incubators of political possibilities
for young people? These questions are not new of course. Historically, the black
church understood that refusing to languish in misery and merely survive was a
significant step in social change. For years, the black church has inoculated activist
communities with the revolutionary power of faith, hope, and love in their efforts
to protect against the vicious toxicity of racism. Robin Kelley (2002) reminds us
that the movement was “more than just sit-ins at lunch counters, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides; it was about self-transformation, changing the
way we think, love and handle pain” (p. 11). Religious scholar Howard Thurman
in the 1940s boldly recognized that “out of the heart are the issues of life and
18 Transforming Trauma
that no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy
a people if it does not first win the victory of the spirit” (Thurman 1996, p. 21).
Similarly, African American music has historically served as a sanctuary to
restore the spirit to go out and fight another day. Jazz music, gospel, soul, and hip
hop all speak to the experience of suffering, and in doing so give us permission to
heal, hope, and fight to change things. These ideas, however, are not only limited
to the confines of the church, theology, or African American music traditions.
Increasingly, social justice advocates and teachers are creating ways to rebuild
hope, improve health, and make learning more possible in schools. But what happened to hope among young people of color in the first place?
Ethnographic portrayals of young people of color in urban settings often
suggest that poverty and lack of opportunities in urban environments are the
root causes of hopelessness and risky behaviors among young people of color.
For example, Jay Macleod’s study of two groups of teenage young men—one
white, the other African American—concluded that culture, values, and beliefs
among the two groups of working-class young teenagers play significant roles in
reproducing and reinforcing their working-class status. The white teens, “Hallway
Hangers”, express little hope about their future. Conversely, despite the fact that
the African American group of teens expressed aspirations and hope, they largely
remained poor and working class. In one interview, MacLeod asks a young man
about what his life would look like in 20 years. The teenager responded, “Hard
to say, I could be dead tomorrow. Around here, you gotta take life day by day”
(MacLeod 1985).
Even more disturbing are the ethnographic accounts of how limited opportunities impact hope. Kotlowitz provides a poignant example how such conditions
destroy hope in his description of Diante, a nine-year-old boy caught in a crossfire
between rival gangs while he was playing on the playground swing. Despite pleas
from his friends to run and take cover, he kept swinging responding to his friends
plea saying, “I want to die, I want to die” (Kotlowitz 1991). His response pointed
to his knowledge that death came at an early age and perhaps he simply wanted
to get it over with.
Similarly, Rich (2009) provides vivid insight into how violence, which is a
result of limited opportunities, numbs emotions and ultimately breeds indifference and fatalism. David Simpson, a young man Rich had interviewed, was shot
and his cousin was killed in the Green Street Housing Development in Roxbury.
After his recovery he shared with Rich, “This thing really fucked me up. It really
changed me . . . its like they took some emotions that I used to have.That nervous
feeling, that scared feeling? It’s gone . . . I lost emotions. I think my heart got a
little stone in it now” (p. 93). For David, violence had destroyed his ability to feel,
and had been replaced by indifference and emotional numbness.
Victor Rios’s ethnographic account of young African American and Latino
young men growing up in Oakland describes his conversation with Slick, a
Transforming Trauma
19
15-year-old Latino teen (Rios 2011). As they walked to 23rd and International,
a known hot-spot for violence, Slick commented, “at any given moment something could jump off, fools could roll up and shit could go down. . . just the other
day, mothafuckers rolled up on me an pulled out a strap to my head . . . Fuck it,
today is my day, . . . so I threw up my [gang] sign and said Fuck you” (Rios 2011,
p. 4). Luckily the gun was jammed and Slick lived to see another day. Rios commented that Slick pretended not to show signs of trauma, fatalism, and hopelessness despite the fact that he could tell Slick had been deeply spiritually wounded
by the traumatic event.
In California, fatalism and hopelessness among young people are the results of
long-term disinvestments in urban communities of color, and gross investments in
incarceration and punishment. Peter Schrag (2004) insightfully chronicle’s California’s shift from an exuberant support for public education, to dramatic cuts in
public education funding. To further the assault on young people in California,
during the mid 1990s, California voters launched a barrage of measures focused
on restricting and punishing young people. For example, in 2000, California
enacted measure ballot Proposition 21 (officially known as the Gang Violence and
Juvenile Crime Prevention Act of 1998), which resulted in youth being adjudicated as adults for even minor offenses. Since Prop 21, there has been an increase
in the number of youth transferred to adult court. Additionally, three strikes laws
provide courts greater discretion on sentencing people with two prior felonies.
For example, if a person with prior violent felonies is charged with a third felony
(violent or non-violent), the person can be sentenced up to 25 years to life in
prison. Moreover, state-sanctioned violence in the form of police departments’
stop-and-frisk practices, police brutality, increasing deportations, mass incarceration, and zero tolerance policies in schools disproportionally criminalize young
boys and men of color (Skiba and Knesting 2001; We Interrupt This Message
2001). These policies constitute structural violence not only because they limit
opportunities and criminalize young people of color, but over time these conditions erode hope, which is critical for effective political and civic engagement.
Navigating Trauma and Hope
These ethnographic accounts provide important insights into how structural conditions in neighborhoods erode hope. There is no shortage of data about the
relationship between poverty’s impact on the psychosocial, physical, emotional,
and spiritual health of young people in urban communities (Ortiz et al. 2008;
Rich 2009; Sharkey 2010; Bryant and Phillips 2013; Ladson-Billings 2014). Some
researchers have examined how structural conditions such as poverty contribute
to violence and trauma (Bolland 2003; Landis et al. 2007). In some cases, trauma
resulting from traumatic experiences has been labeled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), originally attributed to soldiers who had been traumatized by the
20 Transforming Trauma
ravages of war. More recently, however, scholars have recognized that conventional
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder simply fails to capture the complexity and ongoing
nature of trauma commonly experienced by youth of color in urban communities. Reoccurring and long-term exposure to violence, and physical assaults, has
been labeled complex trauma, which recognizes that trauma is not always confined
to a single event. Research shows that living in urban low-income neighborhoods increases the risk of exposure to violence. In one study of urban children
and youth, 75 percent had heard gunshots, 18 percent had seen a dead body, and
10 percent had seen a shooting or stabbing at home (Buka et al. 2001). Similarly, a Chicago-based study found that 25 percent of black children reported
witnessing a person shot and 29 percent indicated that they had seen a stabbing
(Tough 2008).
There is a relationship between the structure of opportunity in urban communities, and collective well-being. Toxic policies and practices like zero tolerance in
schools and stop-and-frisk police practices result in accumulated trauma and ultimately erode young people’s sense of hope. An example would be a young man is
wounded while he witnesses the shooting of his best friend (trauma 1). While in
the hospital recovering from his injury, he is approached, questioned, and accused
by the police of being responsible for the shooting (trauma 2). Angry at the accusation, and still grieving the loss of his friend, he returns to school and gets in an
altercation with his teacher for refusing to remove his hat in the classroom. As a
result of the altercation, he is suspended from school and escorted off campus by
the police in handcuffs (trauma 3). He internalizes his grief and anger and loses
hope and concludes that he simply does not care about life or what people think
about him (trauma 4). In the attempt to ease his stress, he self-medicates with
marijuana, is arrested for possession of drugs, and incarcerated (trauma 5). And
so the scenario is built, deeply embedded in structural inequality and ineffective
draconian policies, all of which threaten this young man’s sense of hope.
The resulting accumulated trauma among African American and Latino youth
has been dramatic. First, research suggests that both chronic and acute exposure
to traumatic stressors erode young people’s aspirations. The ability and capacity
to envision a promising future is fundamental to having hope. Without hope,
young people are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and hostility and
resort to substance abuse and are more prone to engage in violent behavior.These
negative behavioral traits also cascade into schools and classrooms. Research has
illustrated how exposure to traumatic and high-stress environments often leads to
behavioral challenges in schools.
Yet, the presence of hope is one of the most significant factors to evoke social
and community change. When people build a sense of collective hope, they
are more likely to engage in activities that will improve their neighborhoods,
schools, and cities. Community gardens, street fairs, youth poetry slams all are
critical hope-building civic activities. Social movement researchers have explored
Transforming Trauma
21
concepts as cognitive liberation, political awareness, and critical consciousness, all
of which focus on a collective understanding of how inequality is created and
maintained, as well as how to go about transforming the systems that created it.
Hope for the most part, however, has been treated as an individual and psychological phenomenon among researchers. This is because researchers in the
field of psychology have done the most extensive research on the topic. However,
hope is also a social phenomenon that should be studied through institutions,
communities, networks, and social settings. From this perspective we understand
hope as a function of the shared opportunity structure, collective experiences, and
mutual meaning communities share about the future. Hope from a sociological
point of view involves shifting from an individual perspective toward an understanding of hope that is shaped by social and environmental systems, institutions,
and opportunities. Hope involves acting on collective possibility where community
members envision the change they seek. Pedersen and Syme (2009) commented
that “efforts to address hope need to account for how the environment (social,
cultural, political) acts to facilitate or constrain hope” (p. 7). Hope must be understood as situated within opportunities and constraints found in schools, neighborhoods, and relationships.
Hope understood as a collective phenomenon is not simply the aggregate of
individual hopefulness. Rather, collective hope is a shared vision of what could be,
with a shared commitment and determination to make it a reality. Collective
hope can be likened to the soul of the community as it bolsters and protects the
existential dimensions of community life, its faith, purpose, meaning, and collective imagination.
Faith-based institutions like churches, mosques, and temples have historically
served this purpose, but support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous also provide
a rich resource to foster and support collective hope. Unlike social capital defined
as “features of social organization such as trust, norms, networks that facilitate
coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam 1993, p. 36), collective hope focuses on those aspects of community life that provide meaning, purpose, happiness, and joy. More importantly, collective hope is more than simply a
protective factor in the calculus of understanding resilience in challenging social
settings. Rather, collective hope is the psycho-spiritual fuel that drives community
efforts toward the struggle for a higher quality of life.
Two ethnographic examples highlight this point. Pattillo-McCoy (1998) examined the ways in which African American churches influence community action
and civic engagement. Her study of how black churches facilitate collective action
in Groveland, Chicago, found that black churches serve as an important conduit of faith which in turn contributed to political ideas and community change
within African American communities. Similarly, Akom (2003) illustrated how
the Nation of Islam served as a key mediator of faith, hope, and identity among
black youth in his ethnographic study of a Philadelphia high school. He described
22 Transforming Trauma
how black youth members of the Nation of Islam develop black achievement
ideology where working to improve community conditions served as the basis for
political socialization and academic success. In short, the theological foundations
of the Nation of Islam provided a reservoir of faith, hope, and vision to propel
them to achieve in school.
On a broader scale, South African researchers have also examined how communities in South Africa sustained hope during the country’s apartheid government
and in the context of limited opportunities and violence (Lbersöhn 2012; Isaacs
and Savahl 2014). In this context, hope was shaped within a cultural values system
called Ubuntu, which means valuing the collective human interconnected nature
of society.That is, hope is interconnected where all members of a community share
a common relatedness, forged by existential supports such as faith and meaning.
Toward Collective Hope
Similar to the concept Ubuntu, collective hope in the United States has been at
the root of efforts to transform schools, change social policy, and create opportunities for young people. Collective hope involves at least three features. First, are
shared experiences from the conditions of everyday life. For example, young people
in low-income communities share common experiences with run-ins with police,
teachers, and exposure to violence. These shared experiences provide a collective
view about school, neighborhood conditions, and how these conditions influence
perceptions of what is fair and unfair. A growing body of research indicates that
neighborhood conditions play a significant role in shaping perceptions of injustice
(Hagan et al. 2005; MacDonald et al. 2007). Much of this literature focuses on
the attitudes toward police (Fine et al. 2003), school authority, and experiences
with racial discrimination (Seaton and Yip 2009). For example, in their survey of
3,000 residents in 53 Cincinnati neighborhoods, MacDonald et al. (2007) found
that black respondents experience a disproportionate burden of both experiencing crime and increased contact with the police in their neighborhoods. This
contact increased negative attitudes and perceptions of unfair treatment by police.
Similarly, Hagan et al. (2005) examined ethnic differences in perceived injustice
among 18,000 students in Chicago public schools.They found that African American students reported more frequent contact with police than white and Latino
students. They also found that increased contact with the police was positively
associated with perceptions of injustice. This body of research demonstrates that
negative interactions and experiences in neighborhood and school settings influence young people’s perception of injustice. These conclusions are also supported
by Sanchez-Jankowski (2002), who argued that systemic discrimination in courts,
daily negative experiences of racial profiling by the police, and negative media
portrayals of youth in low-income communities have all contributed to racial
solidarity, and ethnically based civic and political activity.
Transforming Trauma
23
The second feature of collective hope is a shared radical imagination about freedom,
peace, and justice (Kelley 2002). Generally, shared radical imagination is the result
of a collective agreement about why injustice has occurred and a shared vision that
ruptures our day-to-day life, propelling us toward seeking a more just and fulfilling
way of living.The phrase “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired” conveys the idea;
that living in sustained misery is no longer an option. In short, radical imagination is
our collective dreaming about how things should be.
The role of imagination and hope in relationship to activism has been explored
among social science researchers. For example, researchers suggest that assessments of injustice are also based on how individuals within a group perceive their
relative quality of life compared to other groups (Davis 1959; Corning 2000).
Researchers have demonstrated how assessments about injustice can serve as a
catalyst for social action (Davis 1959; Corning 2000). A solid body of social psychological research asserts that feeling aggrieved as a group is a necessary first step
for people to engage in social action (Klandermans 1984; Tyler and Smith 1999;
Simon and Klandermans 2001). Social psychologists have examined the role of
group-based emotions, such as anger and perceptions of injustice, as a motivating
force for collective action (Stürmer and Simon 2009).
There are numerous examples of radical imagination in the community
responses to the not guilty verdicts where race clearly played a significant role in
the deliberations. Trayvon Martin’s case in Florida, Oscar Grant’s case in Oakland,
California, and numerous others provide good examples of collective moral outrage that compelled communities to take action in response to injustice. Radical imagination alone however will not create community hope. Typically, when
people experience hardships and even trauma, they blame God or they blame
themselves. Freire reminds us of this in his discussion of magical and naïve consciousness (Freire 1974) where people attribute their quality of life as to God’s
will or the lack of their own individual efforts.
The third feature of collective hope therefore is critical action. Critical action
occurs when community members perceive the conditions, traumas of daily life
as both wrong and subject to redress. Community members must see the conditions as unjust, nonpermanent, and changeable. It appears that critical action has
a powerful impact on hope. When community members act to achieve a specific
goal, they foster a sense of control over their future and sense of engagement
with society. The sense of control over future events is perhaps one of the most
important features of collective hope because it requires the community to share
collective vision of their future. Working together for a common goal through
critical action involves collective agreement and action to achieve the stated goal.
The sense of control strengthens future orientation, which is central to developing hope. Therefore, critical action builds a sense of control, which in turn supports collective hopefulness. If social conditions are mutable, then collective hope
can facilitate positive change in the community and schools.
24 Transforming Trauma
Collective hope exists between the experience of neighborhood conditions,
collective understanding of those conditions, and actions to change the conditions. Collective hope also contributes to well-being. That is, when residents,
young people, or community groups act to improve the quality of life for the
group as a whole, the process of movement toward the shared goal engenders
existential outcomes such as purpose, imagination, meaning, and faith. Even in situations where groups are defeated, the worthy act of trying to change something
that is meaningful sometimes buffers the emotional low that comes from defeat.
Neighborhood conditions, without actions to change those conditions, constitute suffering—the internal state of powerless misery. It might seem obvious to say
that suffering has a considerable impact on collective well-being, but research has
documented the relationships between health and perceived helplessness.This area
of research focuses on the extent to which people have influence and involvement
in the issues that affect their lives. Well-being is a function of control and power
young people have in their schools and communities (Prilleltensky and Prilleltensky 2006; Morsillo and Prilleltensky 2007). These studies focus on concepts such
as such as liberation, emancipation, oppression, and social justice among activist
groups and suggests that building an awareness of justice and inequality, combined with social action such as protests, community organizing, and/or school
walk-outs, may contribute to overall well-being, hopefulness, optimism and positive development (Potts 2003; Prilleltensky 2003; Prilleltensky 2008).
Table 2.1 illustrates the relationships between social justice and social conditions and well-being along a continuum. Persisting injustice (i.e. structural barriers
to opportunities) contribute to suffering that is the internalization of powerlessness. According to Prilleltensky, well-being is commensurate with the conditions
in which it is located. These conditions of justice, however, are not static and can
change with collective hope. Arguably, the most significant factor in determining
hopefulness is the structure of opportunities and the expectation that results from
having access to these opportunities. Simply put, when people can reasonably
expect to achieve a desired outcome, they are generally more hopeful. Conversely,
when there are few opportunities, individuals are less likely to be hopeful.
For Prilleltensky, the concepts of well-being and social justice are woven
together and influence one another. Well-being is a function of social conditions,
social capital, and social inequality. Prilleltensky’s major contribution to healing
justice is that well-being is connected and determined by quality of life, rather
than individual choices and behavior.
Collective hope also suggests a shift from pathogenic analysis of collective and
individual behavior that focus almost entirely on individual problem behavior
and is viewed as a condition to overcome. The pathogenic perspective leaves
no room for agency, collective action, and transformation. Rather, collective
hope embraces a salutogenic analysis of community which focuses on collective
strengths and possibility, and views communities, groups, and collective action as
key to well-being.
Transforming Trauma
25
TABLE 2.1 Collective Well-Being in Response to Conditions of Justice
Suffering
Sense of powerlessness
Loss of hope
Internalized oppression
Permanent conditions of
injustice
Surviving
Adaptation to circumstances
Navigating conditions
Acceptance of status quo
Persistent conditions of
injustice
Challenging
Critical consciousness
Collective action
Rejection of status quo
Sense of collective
power & hope
Promising conditions of
justice
Thriving
Control of life
Collective power
Pursuit of dreams
Collective
responsibility
Sense of collective
peace
Optimal conditions of
justice
Conditions of Justice
Source: Adapted from (Prilleltensky 2008) Justice Continuum.
Collective hope and commensurate action challenges much of the current
focus on social emotional learning. Scholars and educators sometimes mistakenly
attribute educational success entirely to character traits such as grit, meaning, and
self restraint. Current efforts that focus on social emotional learning and character
development may be necessary but are grossly insufficient because these efforts
rarely address the underlying structural, political, and economic conditions that
create and sustain young people’s quality of life. Without attention to the policies
and practices that disrupt young people’s social emotional well-being in the first
place, we will simply fall into the seductive temptation to view the psychological
states of young people as the only factor required to foster healthy schools and
neighborhoods.
Based on the case studies in this book, I have revised an earlier model on
radical healing. This revised model focuses on five features of healing I found
among teachers and activists. I call these features CARMA, which stands for Culture, Agency, Relationships, Meaning, and Achievement1 (see Table 2.2). These
characteristics are:
•
•
•
CULTURE: Culture serves as an anchor to connect young people to a racial
and ethnic identity that is both historical grounded and contemporarily relevant. This view of culture embraces the importance of a healthy ethnic
identity for youth of color while at the same time celebrates the vibrancy and
ingenuity of urban youth culture.
AGENCY: Agency is the individual and collective ability to act, create, and
change external and personal issues. Agency compels youth to explore their
personal power to transform problems in to possibilities.
RELATIONSHIPS: Relationships are the capacity to create, sustain, and
grow healthy connections with others. Relationships build a deep sense of
26 Transforming Trauma
•
•
connection and prepares youth to know themselves as part of a long history
of struggle and triumph.
MEANING: Meaning is discovering our purpose and building an awareness
of our role in advancing justice. Meaning builds an awareness of the intersections of personal and political life by pushing youth to understand how
personal struggles have profound political explanations.
ACHIEVEMENT: Achievement illuminates life’s possibilities and acknowledges movement toward explicit goals. Achievement means to understand
oppression but not be defined by it and encourages youth to explore possibilities for their lives, and work toward personal and collective advancement.
TABLE 2.2 Revised Radical Healing Framework
CARMA Five Elements
Radical Healing
Radical Healing Practices
Radical Healing
Outcomes
• Affirm and celebrate cultural
and indigenous practices.
• Integrate cultural practices
into school and organizational
rituals.
SOCIAL
• Cultural awareness
• Sense of belonging
• Collective identity
• Ethnic pride
⇒
CULTURE
Culture serves as an anchor
to connect young people
to a racial and ethnic
identity that is both
historical grounded and
contemporarily relevant.
AGENCY
Agency is the individual and
collective ability to act
in order to create desired
outcomes and transform
external conditions.
RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships are the capacity
to create, sustain, and grow
healthy connections with
others.
MEANING
Meaning is discovering our
purpose, and building an
awareness of our role in
advancing justice.
ACHIEVEMENT
Achievement illuminates
life’s possibilities and
acknowledges movement
toward explicit goals.
⇒
COMMUNITY
• Create space for youth voice
• Encourage political reflection of • Community
well-being
root causes of social issues.
• Identify ways for young people • Collective
consciousness
to address community issues.
• Community power,
civic action
• Create opportunities to learn
• Relationships,
trust,
about others beyond their titles.
social capital
• Use activities that encourage
young people and adults to
share their story.
• Create healing circles where
members share their interests,
fears, and hopes.
• Have conversations about what INDIVIDUAL
• Healing
gives life meaning. Create
• Hope and optimism
discussions that foster self
• Sense of purpose
discovery.
• Sense of
accomplishment
• Recognize and celebrate small
and large victories.
• Build knowledge and skills
about individual assets and
aspirations.
Transforming Trauma
27
Social Justice Practice vs. Healing
There is a growing recognition among social justice practitioners and community
organizers that there is a need to bridge their community organizing with practices that facilitate well-being. Most social justice organizing has been outwardly
focused on building coalitions and community power, and advocating for policy
change. Typically, the efforts of organizers and social justice practitioners have
been pragmatic in focusing on short- and medium-term change. While these
approaches have created significant community change, its outward focus rarely
prepares people to turn inward in order to focus on their own health, well-being,
and happiness.
There are two challenges, however, with bridging social justice and healing.
First, some organizers simply don’t view healing as an important component of
organizing. There is the perception, among some activists of color, that healing
and well-being is not the “real” work needed in communities. This perception is
supported by the idea that real organizing is about resisting oppression, fighting
for justice, and winning important local campaigns. Healing and well-being strategies are sometimes seen by activists of color as the agenda of white progressives,
and therefore healing often takes a back seat, if considered at all. Activists of color
sometimes critique healing for its inability to address social and community problems. “We can’t meditate the social ills of the world away”, the critique goes. “No
amount of mindfulness will create access to quality housing and access to medical
care in poor communities”.
Second, much of the work and research related to healing and well-being
generally lacks a social justice framework or action.This is largely because healing
has been conceptualized as an individual practice, separate from broader social
issues, context, and environment. For example, much of the emerging research on
mindfulness in schools is generally focuses on fostering mindfulness skills among
teachers and students. Mindfulness practices are generally concerned with the
cultivation of individual focus, non-judgmental attention, and awareness. While
important, mindfulness education rarely is concerned with issues related to poverty, violence, racism, and inequality. In fact, non-judgmental attention to these
issues may do little to address these social problems. (Hicks and Furlotte 2009).
Similarly, in schools, research on character development and social emotional
learning which focus on emotional regulation, grit, and conflict resolution among
young people in low-income communities simply fail to examine social conditions, and don’t address the structural realities of young people’s lives (Duckworth
and Gross 2014).
While there is some truth to both of these critiques, there is a need for a
convergence of these two seemingly separate approaches to change. The healing
justice framework provides a useful way to bridge organizing and healing. Healing justice calls attention to the distinctions between oppression and suffering.
28 Transforming Trauma
On one hand, outwardly focused social justice organizing movements have organized communities to fight for systemic changes to remove barriers to access to
opportunities. Outwardly focused organizing views oppression stemming from
racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and others generally as structured through
the political, legal, and economic systems. These unjust systems limit opportunities, restrict freedoms, and constrain liberties for marginalized groups. Oppression is a function of the ways in which our society is structured which provides
access and privilege based on race, gender, sexuality, physical ability, social class,
and so on.
Suffering, on the other hand, “is a way to describe the anxiety, fear, stress,
disappointment, self loathing and other psychological and emotional conditions
that show up in people’s lives. The social justice movement is not generally well
equipped to deal with suffering” (Social Justice Leadership 2010).The key distinction to be made here is that suffering is the internal consequence of oppression.
Suffering is the result of the psycho-spiritual injury resulting from oppression.
Increasingly, activists are seeking strategies that both address oppression (racism,
sexism, homophobia, poverty) and suffering (anxiety, fear, stress, despair). These
strategies are directed at fostering social change by shifting how individuals, organizations, and communities relate to one another as they envision a new way of
creating collective hope.
There are at least four approaches to healing justice that have gained momentum in the past decade that attempt to resolve the tensions between structural
change and healing. While each approach shares similarities, each has a distinctive set of practices that support the well-being of individuals and communities. First, transformative organizing views social change as an ongoing process of
personal reflection, individual and collective growth, communal healing, and
personal transformation. Transformative organizing views healing and personal
transformation as necessary steps to building healthy relationships, that ultimately
breeds transformative leaders who work to transform systems and structures in
our society. The second, restorative justice, focus on repairing the harm, as opposed
to punishing people who violated rules, agreements, and trust within a community.Third, healing circles allow young people to discuss and collectively understand
how trauma shapes their behaviors and attitudes and provides opportunities for
healing, compassion, and support from other young people. The fourth approach
is contemplative practices where activists use meditation and mindfulness as ways
to strengthen and build their individual and collective capacity to engage and
sustain social change work. Contemplative practices involves preparing the mind,
body, and spirit in order to facilitate well-being to individuals and communities.
Practices like meditation, mindfulness, and yoga all prepare strengthen individuals’
capacity to stay centered in turbulent times in order to make decisions, and lead
from a place of compassion and love.
Transforming Trauma
29
Transformative Organizing
During the 2010 US Social Forum in Detroit, nearly 300 organizers packed into
Cobo Hall in Detroit’s convention center to attend a workshop for organizers
about a topic that deeply resonated with them, but few had actual language to
describe. Eric Mann, director of the Strategy Center in Los Angeles, and N’gethe
Maina, Director of Social Justice Leadership in New York, eloquently codified the
issue and provided a new way to think about organizing. N’gethe Maina opened
with this statement: “How do we make a process that transforms society, and
people? It is something of a gamble to invest all our efforts in transforming the
systems and structures, without attention on addressing the toxicity that is imbedded within us”. Capitalism is not simply an economic system that blocks opportunities, he explained, but rather a cultural, spiritual values system that injures and
harms how we relate with one another. Focusing on transformation of the system
alone is not enough to heal us from the injury capitalism continues to create.
Transformative organizing is not an entirely new idea. There are numerous
leaders from past movements for justice who have taught us that social change
first begins with shifts in how we relate to others and treat the world. Cesar
Chavez, Gandhi, Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X all taught
us that social change is the result of deep healing and spiritual practice. Gandhi’s
satyagraha movement was rooted in using inner truth, love, and faith in order to
transform oppressive economic and political systems.
Transformative organizing is a term used to convey the idea that social change
is the result of individual and collective transformation of how we treat ourselves and relate to one another. The broad goal of transformative organizing is to
reimagine ways to restructure our economic, political, and judicial systems in
ways that create justice, democracy, and equality. This process requires that we
first develop an awareness of how these structures influence our relationships, our
values, and behaviors. For example, the idea that we live in a ‘dog eat dog’ world
means that we live in a world that encourages people to fight and do harm to
others in order to pursue their own interests. This idea comes from a capitalist
culture which justifies and rewards values and behaviors that promote individual
gain at the expense of others. This idea is also played out in political battles where
individuals blame immigrants, poor people, African Americans, gays, and lesbians
for a host of social problems.
Transformative organizing focuses on changing this mind-set in order to build
a society that is inclusive and based in justice and equality.Through self-awareness
and daily practices that promote healthy values and fostering a vision for our
world, transformative organizers build mass movements by encouraging ideological shifts toward healing our relationships and building healthy organizations and communities. Transformative organizing activists share similar strategies
30 Transforming Trauma
to environmentalists who (1) develop an awareness of how the environment is
harmed, (2) develop daily practices like recycling in order to repair the harm, and
(3) develop a vision of a more green and healthy and sustainable environment.
Similarly transformative organizing activists first build an awareness about how
current values, beliefs, and behaviors are harmful to both themselves and society
in general.
Restorative Justice
On Tuesday, May 14, 2013, the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board
(LAUSD) voted to approve the School Climate Bill of Rights and roll back ‘zero
tolerance’ discipline in all Los Angeles schools. The decision was the result of
organizing work of Brothers, Sons, Selves, a coalition of LA community organizations who developed the School Climate Bill of Rights, which outlines policies
that promote student achievement and healthy school environments conducive
to learning. The decision to adopt the School Climate Bill of Rights in LAUSD
marked the first district in California to bar willful defiance as criteria for suspension. Willful defiance is a rather vague category of behaviors ranging from
dress code violations, refusing to complete classwork, or disrespecting a teacher.
Researchers have found that willful defiance was largely responsible for disproportionate suspensions of African American and Latino students in urban districts
like Los Angeles. These zero tolerance practices gained momentum in the late
1990s2 in response to school shootings, and was rooted in the assumption that
young people’s behavior could be “improved” and modified by adopting zero
tolerance for unwanted behaviors; these policies ultimately meant harsh punishment for violations of adult expectations of good behavior. Restorative justice
represents an alternative to zero tolerance policies and will use restorative justice
programs that use peer support groups, group agreements to resolve conflicts
between students, and students and teachers.
Restorative justice commonly refers to a set of principles aimed at repairing
harm inflicted to victims of crime. Rather than focusing on punishment as a
sole means to correct the crime or harm, restorative justice focuses on repairing
harm caused by a crime or violation of an agreement. Restorative justice is also a
philosophical framework that shifts organizational, institutional, and social values
toward healing damaged relationships and community bonds. Restorative justice
defines crime as an injury to victims and the community peace. This important
shift allows for both the victim and offender to consider how to heal the harm
in the relationship. Repairing the harm often involves the offender accepting
responsibility for the harm created, and agreeing to some form of restitution and/
or compensation to the victim.
There are several types of restorative models that are increasingly being
adopted in schools around the country as an alternative to zero tolerance
Transforming Trauma
31
practices and its focus on punishment. First, peer mediation is an restorative
intervention where students mediate conflicts between their peers. This process
is aimed at reducing violence that may escalate if there is no immediate intervention. Second, restorative support circles allow for the offender and the victim
and others affected by the harm to sit in a group circle where they are given the
opportunity to share and speak about the impact of the harm as well as express
how it has impacted their lives. This technique has roots in indigenous practices
where community members would sit in a circle and pass around a talking stick,
which signifies that all circle members respect the power of each person’s stories
and words. Restorative circles are spaces where circle members can be honest
and testify and listen to young people, staff members, and other community
stakeholders.
While there are numerous restorative justice strategies, what is important
is how we understand restorative justice. Significantly, restorative justice is an
important strategy in the broader movement toward healing, particularly among
communities of color. Not only do restorative justice strategies represent a
fundamental shift in policies and practices in urban schools, they also provide
important spaces and opportunities for young people and adults to prioritize
healing and wellness, and place these values at the very center of classroom
and school practices. Within school environments, restorative justice encourages
administrators, teachers, and students to ask different questions. For example,
rather than asking how might we stop fights at our school, a restorative approach
might ask, “How might we increase and enhance peaceful interactions and solutions among students, teachers, and the broader school environment?” Given the
ways in which punishment-focused zero tolerance policies have disproportionately harmed African American youth and their communities, restorative justice
strategies offer an important alternative to building peace, healing, and justice.
Healing Circles
I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off of my back after our circle. I
didn’t even realize that I was carrying all that stuff. But I’m so glad that I got
to talk about this and folks really heard me and felt what I was saying cuz
they going through the same shit as me.
Interview with Duane, healing circle participant, August 2013
Duane, a 16-year-old youth participant in Oakland’s Joven Noble program, commented about his participation in the a series of healing circles at his school. The
program is designed for men and boys of color ages 10–24 and offers healing
circles as one strategy to support the development of healthy young men.
Healing circles represent yet another healing justice strategy that are increasingly practiced in schools and community organizations. Healing circles are often
32 Transforming Trauma
based in African, indigenous, or other cultural practices where members of a
community gather in a circle in order to share their stories, experiences, and feelings among community. Healing circles are often led by a community elder who
guides member through the process of creating safety, tells his/her own story as
an example of how to share with honesty and truthfulness, and provides each
member of the circle the opportunity to share their story without judgment from
other members. These ...
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