Police Defunding and the Process of Healing Trauma- an OPEN Letter to Other White folks

I stand in solidarity and alliance with the Black Lives Matter movement.

I am White, and this is written as an offering intended mostly to other White people who may feel hesitant about the platform of reworking our justice system, in hope that my lens as a yoga teacher specializing in trauma may be one more voice of service in uniting people who are skeptical with the global civil rights movement for Black lives.

(I want to throw in here a note on language. I have attempted to refer to race as specifically as possible, rather than under the umbrella term “BIPOC” except when it applies specifically. This comes out of conversation with people who are Black, Latinx, Indigenous, South Asian – and many expressions of Black and Brown- in which the importance of being specific to race and culture rather than referring to Black and Brown people of vastly different experiences, cultures, and ethnicities as though they are equivalent has been brought up as important. Being White, my default reference point is Whiteness. I would like to shift that, and that is the process I am engaged in- right now my language is in rediscovery, reorientation, and detox. I expect I’m missing some things, and I am open to learning.

Also, the term “White-body supremacy” is from the work of Resmaa Menakem.)

Dear ones,

This time we are in is overflowing with pain, rage, and the possibility of transformation.

It has been terrifying to see the extent of violence directed at Black and Brown people through time- and the rash of murders of Black people and the attempts to justify or ignore them, whether at the hands of police or at the hands of both known and unknown White supremacists, has magnified the outcry into the largest civil rights movement the world has seen. The power of this is astonishing, and I have hope that true change is possible. At the same time the pain of these acts continues to be terrifying and traumatizing. We have to help each other to stay the course. It’s going to be a long journey. White people- like me- who are not in the same direct danger that is in itself a call to the action of survival-- need to remind ourselves of the ways we are all interconnected with this movement. This movement is about the importance of Black lives- making those lives safe, guarding the gifts those lives have to give, creating ways for those lives to have the opportunity to put their energy into creativity instead of survival. And in being a movement about Black lives, and the sanctity and value of Black lives, it is also a movement about the way humanity is interconnected, and our potential for global healing.

One of the things that is most being worked for is defunding or abolishing the police. This still sounds radical to many, most often to those who are White. But in addition to being a crucial step in dismantling systemic racism and the punitive justice system that was created by and operates on colonized white supremacy, this is also a crucial step in universal healing on all levels.

It is a devastating realization to come to, as White people in America, that White supremacy lives in our bodies, regardless of our intentions or desires. But one of the greatest acts of love we can make right now is to learn to be present with that truth. As visionary and trauma expert Resmaa Menakem states:

“We’ve been dealing with white supremacy as if it’s an attitude, a conviction, a belief system, or a way of seeing the world — as if it lives in the thinking brain. But, in my two decades as a therapist, I’ve come to see that this is a myth.

White supremacy — and all the claims, accusations, excuses, and dodges that surround it — are a trauma response. This response lives not inside psyches, but deep within bodies. (In fact, a more accurate term for the affliction is white-body supremacy, since it elevates the white body above all other bodies. The white body is the ostensibly supreme standard against which other bodies’ humanity is measured.) The attitudes, convictions, and beliefs of white-body supremacy are reflexive cognitive side effects, like the belief of a claustrophobe that the walls are closing in. These ideas have been reinforced through institutions as practice, procedures, and standards.”

Source: https://medium.com/@rmenakem/white-supremacy-as-a-trauma-response-ce631b82b975

Until we, as White people, do the deep work of healing our own intergenerational trauma of causing racial harm -especially to Black and Native people through this country’s history- we have to help create ways for Black and Brown people to be safe. We have to take responsibility for standing up for the autonomy essential to healing. This means actively dismantling the systems that put White people- and therefore White supremacy- in control.

If you are a White person fortunate enough to have circles that include many racial and cultural expressions, you will unquestionably have been confronted with an action, a phrase, a way, ingrained in you that caused harm. It is certainly part of my journey, and as much as I would love to claim freedom from White-body supremacy, the only true claim I can make is that I am committed to being accountable, doing less harm, and acting from love. It is crucial that we understand the difference between intent and action. Intention is important- consciously used it is the way we harness energy. But it is not the end of the story. Intention leads to action, and action leads to impact. All actions have impact. And sometimes impact impacts in a completely different way than the intender intended. That may be because we did not understand the full internal world of the person impacted, and it may be because we do not yet understand our own. Probably both. If we want it to stop- and I believe in my heart that most people do- we have to create systemic change that supports the shift from positive intention to positive impact. While we do the necessary inner work, we must simultaneously change the outer systems to support the safety and healing of those most impacted. In regards to the justice system, this means the lives of Black people.

What we have to be present with- is that if white people working to dismantle racism, people who care, people who desire a just and equal world, can still cause pain and harm unintentionally to Black and Brown people out of our own, unconscious, ingrained and inbred somatic racial trauma responses, what happens in a population struggling with the same internal chaos, amplified by the visceral response to stress and danger which increase hypervigilance and reactivity, and within a structure created for the punitive, overt control of Black people by White people, such as the police force?

It is a perfect recipe for the repeated re-traumatization of racism. We have seen the danger and the tragedy of this in too many unjust deaths- Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Charleena Lyles, Eric Garner, Tony McDade; even children like Elijah McCain, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice- the list is endless. Each death of a Black person at the hands of police is both a new trauma and a re-traumatization of those impacted by the constant terror and literal life endangerment of White supremacy.

Re-traumatization is a previous trauma response flooded and amplified by the present. Each death is both traumatic and retraumatizing to the people who see themselves in those bodies, creating a cascade of responses to danger and life threat that affect them daily on all levels. And it is retraumatizing to the people who see themselves in the bodies inflicting atrocity, creating another cascade of response. The most challenging trauma to heal is the trauma of having done harm. So those whose bodies are creating the harm- the police- are reiterating the most dangerous, reactive places of themselves, which will inevitably produce even more need to deny accountability to survive, creating more reactivity. While police are not all White, the police force was designed out of slavery, to “protect” White people from Black people, and as such represents an important component of White body supremacy.

What we are finally understanding, thanks to epigenetics, are the ways trauma changes the expression of DNA. Intergenerational trauma is not a concept, it is a physical reality. It is in our cells.

When White people claim the right to decide what is safe from our perspective, we are claiming that right from the viewpoint of our traumatically bred White body supremacy. We are reacting from the lizard-brain belief of defining ourselves from seeing and feeling the reality that we have created with White supremacy. What we are not doing is listening to the needs of the people most affected- Black and Brown people.

The needs expressed are needs for autonomy from an abusive system in the same way a person needs autonomy to heal from domestic violence or assault. We do not have any right to be the authority, but we have taken that role as if it is a birthright.

The first step in any healing is the reclamation of autonomy. Until a person has control of the choices made over their own system, other changes will just be band-aids. Interpersonal trauma causes us to lose our own center and subjective viewpoint and adopt that of our oppressors so that we can predict unpredictable behavior and survive. Healing happens when the space is made and held for reclamation of one’s own experience. This is autonomy. It cannot be given or granted to another person- though the circumstances that make its expression possible can be stolen. A healing space does not take over the process of a survivor, or presume to grant another person autonomy. A healing space makes room for the survivor to re- own their own process. Another may hold that space, may reflect what is seen and honor it. But no one should decide what healing means except the person healing. In this case, no one should decide what healing means except the collective community doing the healing- in this case, the Black community. A police system created by White body supremacy trauma to reinforce White supremacy simply cannot be a protective force from racial trauma.

Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, talks about the process of trauma in the following (paraphrased) way:

If you are a boat going down the river of life, there may be some obstacles, like rocks or tides, other boats to navigate, other creatures. Obstacles are not trauma. They are just obstacles. Trauma is the body response to something crashing through the riverbed and breaking the boundary, creating a vortex that pulls us in, and a counter vortex on the other side. Those of us who have experienced trauma understand the experience of going through one vortex and then being pulled into another.

But the healing of trauma is not that the vortexes suddenly vanish. It is when we deny their existence, when we consider these very real and present body responses to be past, that they bring us back down. They have to be acknowledged as the realities they are. As we are able to be present with, and to embody ourselves within the full spectrum of our experience, we become able to ride the space between those vortexes. We hold the space with our awareness and move through and finally on. Healing is not the end of suffering. Healing is the creativity and embodiment that come out of our ability to be present with the full experience.

Racism, and systemic white supremacy, are vortexes of collective trauma. Pretending that these vortexes do not exist will only pull us deeper into them. Learning to ride the edges, willing to see ourselves right where we are, on the edge of a vortex and maintaining that mindfulness as we balance there- in that is the possibility of healing and reaching new territory.

White colonialism is a sad history of White people stealing the circumstances that make the birthright experience and expression of autonomy of Black and Brown people possible. That history is alive in our bodies today- and that is what White people feel in our defensiveness, guilt, and shame when we are confronted with our own White body supremacy. Oppressors and abusive people protect themselves with denial, with defensiveness, with counterattacking, with gaslighting, with insisting that they are the ones victimized. We see this embodied overtly in President Trump- everything he does and says seems designed to reiterate the power of colonized supremacy over the autonomy of those deemed “less.” And we see it in the police force, the military, the prison system, and our schools. The power dynamic created is based around the illusion that we can avoid the vortexes by controlling with punishment. We are missing the fact that punishment- based solutions create more trauma and more vortexes rather than the embodiment and autonomy needed to ride the edges. And we need to own the fact that we continue to embody this unintentionally when we deny the validity of requests to change the system by those most impacted.

Defunding the police is about creating the space for BIPOC- and especially the Black populations- to reclaim autonomy; a safe space without the constant threat of danger and harm. And without the backup of a system that relies on that harm and its threat for control. It is also very specifically – and very importantly- about investing in resources to help the people in these communities thrive: education, social services, employment services, childcare, and restorative and transformative justice. This is far from a violent or extremist platform. It is a platform based on the reclamation of autonomy, and faith in the human spirit as a healing force.

Here is the platform description for invest/divest from The Movement for Black Lives:

“We demand investments in the education, health and safety of Black people, instead of investments in the criminalizing, caging, and harming of Black people. We want investments in Black communities, determined by Black communities, and divestment from exploitative forces including prisons, fossil fuels, police, surveillance and exploitative corporations. This includes:

1. A reallocation of funds at the federal, state and local level from policing and incarceration (JAG, COPS, VOCA) to long-term safety strategies such as education, local restorative justice services, and employment programs.

2. The retroactive decriminalization, immediate release and record expungement of all drug related offenses and prostitution, and reparations for the devastating impact of the “war on drugs” and criminalization of prostitution, including a reinvestment of the resulting savings and revenue into restorative services, mental health services, job programs and other programs supporting those impacted by the sex and drug trade.

3. Real, meaningful, and equitable universal health care that guarantees: proximity to nearby comprehensive health centers, culturally competent services for all people, specific services for queer, gender nonconforming, and trans people, full bodily autonomy, full reproductive services, mental health services, paid parental leave, and comprehensive quality child and elder care.

4. A constitutional right at the state and federal level to a fully-funded education which includes a clear articulation of the right to: a free education for all, special protections for queer and trans students, wrap around services, social workers, free health services (including reproductive body autonomy), a curriculum that acknowledges and addresses students’ material and cultural needs, physical activity and recreation, high quality food, free daycare, and freedom from unwarranted search, seizure or arrest.

5. A divestment from industrial multinational use of fossil fuels and investment in community- based sustainable energy solutions.

6. A cut in military expenditures and a reallocation of those funds to invest in domestic infrastructure and community well-being.

I think the best description of what this might look like comes from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, when asked what a world would look like after defunding police:

“The good news is that it actually doesn't take a ton of imagination.

It looks like a suburb. Affluent white communities already live in a world where they choose to fund youth, health, housing etc. more than they fund police. These communities have lower crime rates not because they have more police, but bc they have more resources to support healthy society in a way that reduces crime.

When a teenager or preteen does something harmful in a suburb (I say teen bc this is often where lifelong carceral cycles begin for Black and Brown communities), White communities bend over backwards to find alternatives to incarceration for their loved ones to "protect their future," like community service or rehab or restorative measures. Why don't we treat Black and Brown people the same way? Why doesn't the criminal system care about Black teens' futures the way they care for White teens' futures? Why doesn't the news use Black people's graduation or family photos in stories the way they do when they cover White people (eg Brock Turner) who commit harmful crimes? Affluent White suburbs also design their own lives so that they walk through the world without having much interruption or interaction with police at all aside from community events and speeding tickets (and many of these communities try to reduce those, too!)

Just starting THERE would be a dramatically and radically different world than what we are experiencing now.”

So much of this comes down to White people doing the work of dismantling our inner racial trauma of White supremacy so that we can support this movement wholeheartedly- so that we can support the creation of a world in which all people have the right and the means to live in an autonomous way. The world we are in right now is one created from toxic power dynamics. It is killing our souls, and literally taking the lives of Black and Indigenous people at a terrifying pace.

In my work- I teach therapeutic yoga, and I work a great deal with trauma, chronic illness, and physical and emotional pain- I witness the healing power of reclaiming autonomy constantly. Even something as seemingly less complex as back pain does not shift in a substantial way until a person has a sense that their space is their own, and that they are the person in control of the choices they make about their body. Prescribing a bunch of stretches or poses- or even breathing or meditation- has a temporary effect at best. Watching a student as they reclaim that sense of sacred boundary and the right to choose where and how they practice is always a beautiful and magical moment. It is one of the many ways my work feeds my soul, because it is a daily reminder of the wholeness inherent in every human. To be clear: It is not something I give, it is something I help create space for.

White people in America need to take on this role of actively protecting – while simultaneously stepping out of- the space for Black and Brown people to have the autonomy they need on a legal and physical level. We need to actively dismantle the structures that are based in coercive power dynamics and which disproportionately affect BIPOC communities for the sake of the entire spectrum of humanity.

If there has ever been a time in which we were shown the ways that we are interconnected on all levels, it is now. We cannot unsee what we have seen, and we must act on that seeing. Like the protests, this is not violence. This is love in action. This is transformation. This is healing.

By re-allocating resources to where they belong- in the support of the innate wholeness of Black and Brown communities- we have an opportunity to dismantle our broken world and rebuild one based in human potential.

Please honor, join, and take action with this movement.

In Love and Gratitude,

Deborah King (she/her)

E-RYT 500; YACEP (YogaAlliance)

Advanced Teacher of Yoga Therapy and C-IAYT in training (Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy)

For more information:

The history of the Police force: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/05/871083599/the-history-of-police-in-creating-social-order-in-the-u-s

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/05/police-us-history-reform-violence-oppression

On Transformative Justice: https://transformharm.org/transformative-justice-a-brief-description/

The work of Resmaa Menakem (Racialized Trauma):

My Grandmother’s Hands (book)

https://www.resmaa.com