What IS Racial Healing?
Lucretia Berry • 3
“THIS is what healing looks like,” Spirit whispered. Instead of fighting sickness, healing is intentional love and support lavished upon the burdened parts of my body that have become weak, bruised, and depleted. The daily hours, the focused care, and months of commitment taught me that healing asks for a significant investment – one that I deserve because it’s the abundant life Spirit wants for me (John 10:10). Healing wants me to not just acknowledge my suffering, but to seek restoration. Healing ushered me from isolation by calling in community – people who shared their stories, wisdom, and professional experience.
Prior to this revelation, I learned that I was suffering from long-term toxic mold exposure. Asthmatic, depleted and exhausted, I cried out for healing. Using morphogenic field technique (MTF), my doctor explained that my body’s systems had been working extremely hard for an extended time trying to eliminate the mold toxins from my body. My adrenals were shot. My lungs were compromised. Without me uttering a word, she knew the magnitude of my exhaustion. She then crafted a healing protocol to replenish my body so that it could grow strong enough to eliminate toxins — so that healing could occur.
Then, the hard work began. Over months, I committed myself to extensive healing protocols. At times, the journey felt brutal. But it simultaneously felt beautiful! Yes, it is a whole lot of work – hard work. But it is the hard work of healing. It is the hard work of love. I learned to give myself the time, attention, and support needed to be replenished and restored.
Likewise, we all have suffered under the long-lasting, toxic regime of race/ism. Conditioned, confused, and socially anemic, we must reach for healing. Racial healing reconciles us with wholeness – as individuals and as one human family. Racial healing requires us to learn hard hidden history, repair harm, and embody restoration.
Today, January 17, 2023, is the seventh annual National Day of Racial Healing. Hosted by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), the National Day of Racial Healing is a time to contemplate our shared values and together create the path forward for #HowWeHeal from the effects of racism. Launched In 2017 by the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) community partners, observing this day is an opportunity to bring ALL people together in their common humanity and inspire collective action to create a more just and equitable world. Fundamental to this day is a clear understanding that racial healing is at the core of racial equity.
As you honor and celebrate racial healing, I invite you to recall what healing looks like and requires. Healing is the hard work of love.
Instead of focusing all of our energy on fighting the dis-ease of race/ism, we must remember that healing is intentional love and support lavished upon the parts of the human family that have been burdened, bruised, and battered by unjust ideologies and practices. Racial healing asks for a significant investment – one that we all deserve because it’s the abundant life that Spirit wants for us (John 10:10). Racial healing wants us to not just acknowledge the suffering, but to seek and reach for restoration. Healing ushers us from isolated racial silos by calling us into cross-racial community with each other to share our stories, wisdom, and lived experience.
My racial healing journey has gifted me ABUNDANTLY more than I have sacrificed through the hard work. I was and am never alone on my journey. And you don’t have to do this alone either. Here are a few excellent resources that offer you guidance, support, and community. In the meantime, may you refuse to live with disease and reach for wholeness. May you be strengthened to endure and embrace all that the work of racial healing has to offer you.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10 (NIV)
Racial Healing Resources
Milagros Philips. Check out ALL of her creations! Her book, Cracking the Healer’s Code – A Prescription for Healing Racism and Finding Wholeness offers a roadmap for the racial healing journey. Actually, this is the only book that I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of books about race/ism) where I saw my own miraculous healing journey reflected through someone else’s words.
What LIES Between Us book & on-demand course. We can only heal when we understand the dis-ease and how it dis-orients us. I designed, created, and implemented this course (2015) to empower you with a historical framework for examining race/ism in the US and beyond. The reflective journaling (Reflect + Rethink + Reach) supports learning, development, and embodiment.
Hues of You – An Activity Book for Learning About the Skin You Are In. Allow the curiosity of kids to lead the way through play, coloring, exploration, and examination. This activity book provides caregivers and kids an interactive, engaging, and developmentally-appropriate way to build understanding and appreciation around phenotype, culture, ethnicity and race.
In honor of the National Day of Racial Healing, Brownicity is hosting Change the World From the Inside Out – Using Human Design as a Lens for Antiracism Work, a four-part series with Craftingood’s Rachel Walt. You can participate in person (Charlotte, NC area) or by zoom. Enroll now as this is a small group experience, so space is limited.
Lucretia is a former college professor, who founded Brownicity with the purpose of making scholarly-informed, antiracism education accessible in order to inspire a culture of true belonging and justice for all. Her TED Talk, ‘Children will light up the world if we don’t keep them in the dark’ (2017) is well received, as well as her books and courses:
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