WEBVTT - Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome w/ Dr. Joy DeGruy 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:05.559 Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:12.799 Audio in partnership with My Heart Radio. Now, there are 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.840 certain people in America that would rather burn into the 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.759 ground than share it with you. Okay, let's be clear. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.239 They'd rather take it down. No one will have it. 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.000 And there's a fair number of those. We've heard people say, well, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.760 you know, get the police. You know, a few bad apples. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.639 It's not bad apples, it's a bad orchard, right, and 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:40.880 we have to recognize that it's been grown that way. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:51.560 Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. Last year, 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.040 for the first time, I heard the term post traumatic 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.720 slave syndrome. The moment I heard this phrase, I was intrigued. 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.760 I was familiar with the concept of epigenetics and research 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:08.600 that found that intergenerational trauma can quite literally be transmitted 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.640 through our d n A and passed down to the 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:15.440 next generation. I thought about my grandfather and great grandfather, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.400 who were sharecroppers who were beaten on plantations and then 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:25.880 trapped and indentured servitude post emancipation, and the painful legacy 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.120 that violence and trauma have had on my family. I 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.320 knew I wanted to talk to the woman who coined 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.720 this term about her research and how we might begin 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:42.520 our collective healing from post traumatic slave syndrome. Dr Joy 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.640 de Grew is a nationally and internationally renowned researcher and 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:52.200 educator whose work focuses on the intersection of racism, trauma, violence, 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.800 and American childil slavery. She has published numerous peer reviewed 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:01.120 journal articles and authored her seminal book, Entitle post Traumatic 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:07.440 Slave Syndrome America's Legacy of Enduring Injuring. Please enjoy my 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:13.920 conversation with Dr Joy. Hello, Dr Joy, and welcome to 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.200 the podcast. How are you feeling today? I am well, 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.440 How are you? I'm well. I'm really excited about this 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:26.079 conversation today about post traumatic slave syndrome. Can you tell 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:28.520 us a little bit about your background and what brought 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.359 you to um coined the term post traumatic slave syndrome 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.080 and do the research. Yes, my background is I have 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:38.840 I have a degree in communications and I have a 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.600 degree in ms W social work. I have a master's 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.200 degree also in clinical psychology. I have a PhD in 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:50.080 social work research. So that's my educational background, but I 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.720 think it's more about my lived experience that really led 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.760 me there. Um, I grew up my families from Louisiana, 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.080 and I grew up with my father went to the 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.639 sixth grade. My mother could have a full scholarship to college, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.280 but stayed instead and raised a family. But my father 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.919 called himself an asiatic black man. So blackness was something 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.079 that was okay with me. You know, I'm sixty three 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.040 years old, and I grew up with a real healthy 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.160 feeling about my blackness. However, you know, I grew up 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.360 in a time when folks were called negroes and colored 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:30.640 and all the rest. But I remember as a child 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.680 hearing other kids, uh, and and adults, not just kids, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.480 that if they got mad at you, they say you black, 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.360 and then fill into blank you black. And of course 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.240 the assumption here is that adding black is an an 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.200 additional injury or an additional insult. And for me, I'm like, 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:50.560 but you're black, you know what I mean. So it 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:52.560 didn't make sense to me. And then, you know, I 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.240 started to hear things like, oh my god, you know 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.800 she was so pretty even though she was dark. You know, uh, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.320 he was he was really attractive. He was light skin, 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:04.840 diad had good hair. You know, all of those things 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.000 I grew up with and in in in context, I 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.160 guess that makes sense given the time, maybe, But then 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.760 I continue to hear it. You know, it didn't stop 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.360 all the way up until you know, two thousand and nine. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.640 I think Chris Rock made the movie Good Hair, right. Um, 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.560 So for me, it started there, and it started with 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.640 me trying to understand what the ideology of that. Where 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.480 did that come from? You know, I've been to seven 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.760 countries in Africa. It wasn't an African thing. I heard 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.359 it from folks from the Caribbean. In other words, I 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.120 started to hear it from folks that shared a legacy 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:42.320 of enslavement, which was a very different and unique experience. Um. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.200 And what I mean by that is while slavery itself, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.440 and this is what you know, I got considerable pushback. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.719 Slavery itself is not a new institution. It's existed for 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.000 a long time. And when people get really tested, they'll 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.320 tell you, well, you people enslaved each other. And I 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.520 was like, correct, and so did you people? Right? A 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.680 matter of fact, most societies in the world had some 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:06.760 form of indentured servitude or or slavery. So I'm starting 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.880 to look at where did this come from. And so 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.520 I started reading slave narratives. I started interviewing the oldest 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:20.040 people in my environment that I could that had memory right. Um, 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.520 And on one occasion, you know, actually at Lais Sandford, 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.720 who was the vice chancellor of education in New York, 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.479 I was on a on a radio call. She actually 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.920 called in and mentioned something that her grandmother had said 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.120 to her. Now, Adelaide was up in age at that 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.159 and I think she's in her nineties now, but she 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.800 talked about sitting at her grandmother's knee and hearing her 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:45.400 grandmother recount what it was like during slavery. So, you know, 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.160 I had enough context to realize that what is this? 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:50.839 Where did this come from? So I have now a 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.320 context of where it came from. I even have an 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:58.200 understanding of some of the behaviors, and I examined those 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.800 behaviors contemporary behavior years that folks don't even know why 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.800 they do what they do, right, because our history has 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.200 not been readily available to us, and their history we 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.760 have is a bit distorted, if not outright wrong about 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.240 about black people. And so I mean that's where I began, 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.560 and I began really trying to understand how we could 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.400 really love each other and embrace ourselves um better, you know, 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:25.440 And so that that's kind of where it starts. But 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.960 when I talk about post traumatic slave syndrome, um, I'm 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.839 talking about you know, some of the adaptive behaviors that 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.880 have been left over. Uh. It is not about a 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.919 pathologizing black people, It is not. It is about really 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.960 trying to tease the poison from the cookies. I'm trying 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:50.359 to tease out what is healthy, cultural understanding, knowledge and 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.400 relevant from the poison, which was what we had to 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:58.160 do to adapt to being in hostile environments. The kind 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.160 of things we had to do not look people well 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.400 in the eye, and you know, diminish our children so 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.120 people wouldn't look at our children as having value because 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.039 we didn't want them sold. I mean, all of the 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.200 things that we did. That makes sense. But you know, 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.960 when you start seeing those those behaviors, you know, like 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.720 I asked, so what this usually gets me trouble? You know, 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.480 has anyone heard of anyone saying go get a switch everybody? 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.120 I mean, I spoke to a whole room full of 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.640 psychiatrists and all the black pikers raising the hand, I said, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:29.200 how many of them had you get a couple of 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.000 them and they brayed them together. You know, people are laughing. 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:34.200 I said, how many of them? How do you have? 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.400 You dip it? Leave it in water overnight? And then 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.480 they're like, wait a minute, I said, you know what 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:43.400 that is? That is pretty much a whip. Right, So 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:48.560 you're looking at a whip that you've created to hit 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.280 a child, right, and it's behavior. And then in the responses, 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.440 but big Mama loved me, and I'm like, yeah, big 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.880 Mama loved you, and I look at me, I'm okay. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.280 I said, yeah, you're okay. In spy it of it, 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.600 not because of it. We don't have to hit children 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.680 with parts of branches on trees, you know what I mean. 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.080 So there there was that sense of culture, you see, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:11.680 But what is it? What is it? Is it really 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.520 cultural or is it adaptive? Mm hmm? What do you think? 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.480 You know, it's really interesting. Many years ago, Jamie Foxx, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.320 when he won his Academy award, talked about his grandmother, 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.400 you know, whipping him and beating him, and he sort 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.520 of made a joke of it and used in a 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.200 lot of black folks, we make jokes about getting the switch. 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.920 Oh yeah, we laugh. It's a knowing laughter, but it's 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.360 traumatizing for a lot of us. What do you think 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.760 that laughter is about? Is it about trying to diminish 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.480 the pain of it? I think what happens. You know, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.360 there is a wonderful statement by Isabel Wilkerson and her 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.320 book cast And and she talks about it in the 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.960 context of of of living in an old house and 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.840 getting used to the broken pieces and the you know, 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:02.959 propping up floors and leaking ceiling things. We begin to normalize, 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.680 do you see? We normalize it so it doesn't get 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.880 it doesn't get um really brought into our consciousness as 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.480 a trauma. Right now at the time it's happening is traumatic. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.120 But what we do is we normalize those behaviors to 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.200 such a degree that we don't allow ourselves to see 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.480 it any other way. But imagine, just let's just unpack 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.400 that for a moment. I'm getting you've done something wrong. 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:32.040 I'm going to to punish you, and I'm gonna make 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:36.600 you go get the weapon I'm sending you to get 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.360 the thing to hurt you with. And so there's there's 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:44.160 so many implications of what's wrong with that, just the 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.720 whole psychological impact. Go get me a switch to hit 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.400 you with. Now again, seven countries in Africa, I didn't 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.160 see people wailing on children in that way. I'm not 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.320 suggesting that they don't somewhere and there, but that wasn't 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.439 the common practice that I have experienced and I've spoken about. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.080 And I know there's an incredible violence. Don't get me wrong, 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:07.439 there's violence everywhere. But I think we have to take 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:11.840 into account. You can train uh elephant without hitting it, 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.200 you know, I mean, so, come on, we don't have 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.360 to hit children. You I'm talked about post traumatic slave 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.160 syndrome as an a set of adaptive behaviors. How would 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.640 you distinguish um Let's colleges pts S post traumatic slave 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.400 syndrome from epigenetics? Right when trauma is passed down through 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.920 our d n A and through our genes, is there 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.320 a difference for you between the two or is there similarity? 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.640 Are connected? They're connected, so that not everything. First of all, 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.240 let me let me kind of set up this this 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.000 reality around trauma, because people are talking a lot about 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.719 trauma in a lot of different ways, and there's a clinical, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.959 you know, a discussion of trauma where you experience a 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.240 severe you know, someone threatened your life, or something violent happens, 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.920 or it could even be a natural disaster, whatever, and 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.000 it causes your body to go into a certain kind 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:03.240 of it or flight or freeze kind of behavior. Right, 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.319 So there's that reality. Now, we could both be in 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.920 the same room together, and let's say we're at the conference, 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.160 you and I. We're at the conference and someone um 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.600 shoots somebody in the room shoots him, right, and well, 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.800 we know one that person is traumatized. Probably the person 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:27.719 seated nearest to them might be traumatized, but not necessarily 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.880 because everybody is not traumatized by traumatic events. Not you 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.120 know everybody that somebody will go wh it was really bad, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.680 it was horrible. Let's go to lunch. Right, So we 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.320 don't all we don't all have the same response. When 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.720 I talk about post traumatic slave syndrome, I'm not talking 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.280 about a single trauma. I'm not even talking about a 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.000 clinical diagnosis, because a clinical diagnosis means that we could 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.680 get you some medication, get you in the room, people 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.120 talk to you softly couple of times a week, help 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.840 you out with that. Postraumatic slave syndrome requires much more 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.360 than that. It requires social justice. You gotta stop hitting me. 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.880 That's one, and the trauma itself reflects itself in what 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.120 I call social learning. So let me explain the difference. 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.040 So epigenetics that you know, if if something is showing 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.600 up as markers on your DNA, you know, once is there, 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.280 you can do something. You can actually change the trajectory. 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.560 And I'll talk about that. But there's something else that 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:24.360 we do, and that is called social learning. Social learning 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:29.520 theory looks at how we are influenced by everyone around us. 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.599 So for you, if if you learned to cook, or 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:34.920 if I learned to cook, and I know who I 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:36.719 learned to cook from. I learned to cook from my mother. 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.440 My mother learned to cook from her mother. So I 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.000 begin to do some of the things through my social 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.560 learning that my mother did, right, So that's a social 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.480 learning phenomena. Now let's put it in an advantage point 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.959 of trauma. Okay, there is a door and at that 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:00.199 door there are guards, and if anyone goes to the door, 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.160 they beat them down. After a while, you know, folks 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.040 stop going to the door because they don't want to 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.480 get beaten down or killed. But I'm learning also from 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.000 those people in my environment. So if you are my champion. 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.080 If you're the person I'm looking up to, and you 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.160 won't go through the door, I then vicariously learn a 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.400 helplessness that says, well, if my hero, my you know, 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.360 the person that that raised me won't go through the door, 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.800 I'm not going through the door. If this is called 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:32.920 learned helplessness, learned helplessness as well, you know I nobody's 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.240 going through I'm not. There's nothing over there anyway, Why 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.240 does anybody when we start making up reasons why we 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.320 don't go through the door, But the opposite is also true. 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.440 You can confound that because if you go through the door, 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.400 then I go, well, if if she can go through 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.400 the door, then I can go through the door. And 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.640 so what we have is social learning which can end 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:59.240 up being learned helplessness, which began with animals. They took dogs, 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.120 they put them in an h in a fenced area, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.320 turned on a red light. Every time the light came on, 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.559 they shocked the dog wherever they were. Then, after all, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.040 you didn't need the shock, you didn't need the reinforcement. 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.880 The light would come on, dog would move. Then they 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.360 just wanted to see, let's just shock the dog arbitrarily, 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.760 whether the light is on or not. The dog will 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.800 lie down, it will no longer move because it learns 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.440 that no matter what I do, it won't change the outcome. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.600 That's learned helplessness. And we can learn to be helpless 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.520 if we're in an environment where we are consistently put 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.280 upon by these hostile behaviors, and then we we model 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.560 that behavior for our children. That's modeling, that's not that's 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.760 not epigenetic that that is what we're learning. But then 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.280 on top of that we have epigenetic transference or trauma. Wow, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.480 that's really deep. And then what that makes me think 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.240 of two are the systems that teach us that no 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.040 matter what we do, we're still going to be in 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.800 the same circumstances no matter who we vote for democratic 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.200 public and they've all been bought by corporate interests, so 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.320 it doesn't really matter, and so we don't vote and 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.520 we feel helpless, and it's just pick up to this cycle. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:11.920 So I mean, I think the piece though, for me 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.120 with epic genetics, with post traumatic slave syndrome, what is 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.200 the conversation so that we don't take postmatic slave syndrome 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:20.400 and say I'm a victim forever and there's nothing we 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.960 can do, but take that as an understanding, as a 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.920 way to heal and understand that we can be agents 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.800 in our own life. Absolutely, And when I wrote post traumatic, originally, 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.160 you know, my whole focus is healing. And you can't 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.040 heal what you don't understand. Amen, And you most certainly 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.040 aren't going to stop behaviors that you have come to 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.400 accept as normal, just like we began to you know, 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:47.080 in Isabel Wokerson's statement that you began to accept all 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.640 of the problems, you adapt to them, you adopt them, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.640 and you begin to realize or believe that this is 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.880 how life has to be. And what I do is 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.960 I give people. I said, let's examine what we've learned, 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.160 let's examine why I behave the way I behave, and 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.400 let's make a decision about you know, God blessing my parents. 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.800 They gave us the best that they could given what 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.800 they had. But there there are some things that my 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.960 parents did taught that I did not share with my kids. 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.239 I didn't raise them that way. I had a different experience, 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.160 a different perception of the world. And I think post 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:27.200 traumatic helps people, um remember where we came from. Right 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.480 If we think this is not nowhere close to as 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.400 deep as it's been. So I know we can move 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.520 beyond this, but we have to again as we move forward, 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:39.720 we have to do it intentionally. We have to lean 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.120 in in a way and and say, well, you know, uh, 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:44.120 do I want to call people out of their name 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.400 like that? Do I want to assess black people in 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.840 this way as a total pathological group of people? Do 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.320 I what? What? What is it that I've learned even 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.600 from people we love that I don't want to maybe 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.320 continue on we aren't really necessarily exam I'm in in 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.080 those parts of our lives to say, you know, again, 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:05.280 I know my family gave me the best they could, 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:07.800 but there were some gaps there that I had to 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.880 make some decisions about with regard to my own children. 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.280 So I'll give you an example of something that happened 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.760 there was amazing my when I was a little girl, 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.159 I remember being so small. I'm looking up at my 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.200 grandmother's hand, so I'm I'm gotta be a toddler, right, 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:29.240 maybe three maximum. And I noticed that when my grandmother 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.439 was upset, she always had an apron off and she 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.400 would be holding the edge of that apron in her hand, 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.119 just holding it tight and she didn't even know it. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.080 She wouldn't even know she's doing it. But what got 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.159 internalized in me is something's wrong. Because I didn't have 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.679 I was maybe even pre verbal. I'm just all I 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:48.800 know is when I see that hand type, something's wrong 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:53.040 with grandma. My mother did it. My mother's sister didn't. 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.440 Years later, I would find myself this is an absolute truth. 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.520 I'd find myself after a lecture. You see this, a 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.399 little ball, a piece of tissue. It would be in 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.800 my hand. I wouldn't know when it got there, and 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.520 I never let go of it. And I was like, wow, 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.160 I wasn't holding the side of my dress like my 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.479 mom or my my grandmother or my aunt. But I 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.399 had that balled up tissue in my hand. So I 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:20.600 called my sister who's older to be right. And I 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:25.480 called my sister and she said, you too. I found 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:31.480 out my daughter did it, my daughter. But once my 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.760 sister and I found out about it, talked about it, 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.560 began to do some things to change it. We said, okay, 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.159 I'm gonna zip up the pocket or do something, but 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.359 we're not gonna be holding Now. I understand holding the tissue. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:44.320 You ain't gonna hurt me. It's not one way or another. 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.520 But I'm trying to show how things get transmitted without 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.640 you even consciously knowing it. My granddaughter does not do it, 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.119 my grand and part of what happened. You remember, what 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.840 gets internalized, its stressed. That's what I learned. That's what 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.679 I internalized from my grandmother. Something's wrong. It's something stressful. 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.480 And when things were stressful, my grandmother, my mother, and 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.840 my aunt, I did it, and clearly I did it 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.800 enough for my daughter to get it, but she didn't 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.199 do it enough for her daughter to get it. In 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:20.520 other words, the stress or however we interpreted it, changed 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.919 along the way, but sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.440 gets worse. And it's not a piece of tissue, right, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.159 It's a behavior, it's a word you say, it's an assault. 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.400 It could be any number of things that I'm saying. 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.920 We have to pay attention to those things to make 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:41.920 certain that they're not something that we are unwittingly passing along. Now, 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.320 good news, good news about epigenetics, which I really you know, 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:51.600 I've been really geeked about. Is they were talking about telomeres. 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.320 I'm not gonna even get into it gets thick in 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.399 terms of these telomeres and the protection of your DNA 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.440 and all that. But they've said that what helps people 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:06.879 change and regrow healthy cells and healthy telemeres is to 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:12.440 actually pay attention to the way you're thinking. Your actual 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:21.399 mindfulness exactly presents practicing being present, not running from things. Right, 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:23.879 So when I look at black people, it's a lasting 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.000 in the world. I ever consider that we are victims? 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.360 Are you kidding me? For me? Even when I deal 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:34.640 with other people of color? You know, if listen, let's 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.240 let's be plain about this. A lot of people walked 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.480 in the door that we knocked down. Are you with me? 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.280 We knocked down, we were water holes, we were dogs, 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:50.000 and lynchings and beatings. We knocked on those doors. And 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.600 what that says to me is that's what we're gonna 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:56.000 do whenever this happens, whenever it occurs, we are going 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.199 to show up for ourselves and for each other and 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.520 to the benefit of everybody else. To be perfectly honest, 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.280 when we start looking at things like civil rights. So 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.720 you know, I think, and I'm not suggesting there weren't 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.160 people that were involved, but come on, we know, knock 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.240 down the door and the cost of knocking down that door. 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.399 So yeah, we we we have things that we have 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.800 to deal with, I mean any group, and we are 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:23.400 human beings, so certainly three years of slavery produce injury. 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:28.480 Con you know, we're humans absolutely, And what you say 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.320 so much in your in your work, in your research 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.280 is that those injuries have continued right through sharecropping, through 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:39.600 Jim Crow, through math, incarceration, et cetera. That the injuries continue. 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.520 How's that for a little truth after a tiny little break, 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:54.640 We've got so much more for you. Let's get back 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:59.480 to our chat, back to the piece around, because we 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.040 talk a lot about trauma on this podcast. I'm really 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.240 interested in trauma resilience, and um, I've interviewed my therapist 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.800 Jennifer burten Flyer about trauma and trauma resilience, and she says, 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.560 the body can experience good things as well as challenging things. 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:13.879 It's too much, too fast, too soon, and that, um, 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.840 it's not just about understanding trauma is something horrible has 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.280 happened to us. But those stressors that you allude to 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.280 when you're grabbing that bald up piece of paper, and 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.800 the way to sort of, you know, begin to alleviate 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.400 that is to build resilience to these behaviors, having an 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.359 awareness of it, and having a sort of set of 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.840 things that we can do to sort of alleviate all 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.880 of those things. So with post traumatic slave syndrome, right, 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.600 what's deep for me at this historical moment is that, 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:45.159 like one, you can turn on the television or go 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.760 on the internet and to see people saying that structural 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:51.679 racism doesn't exist, that white supremacy isn't a thing in 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.480 the United States, that Black people need to get over slavery, 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:57.760 that we're just being you know, all these all these 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:02.840 things that people say that invalidates the experiences of black 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.439 folks not owning the history, the real history of what 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:08.880 happened in the United States. And I love your work 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:12.160