Day 6 Black August: wounds

black liberation. today i am thinking about the wounds we carry in our lives that pass from one generation to the next and show up in liberatory spaces.

my mom stayed up most of the night to finish my manuscript. there were things that i shared on those pages that i had never told her; wounds that i carried into relationships with friends, lovers and movement comrades. fortunately for them and me the expressions weren’t abusive, but they still created their own kind of harm in the ways i was guarded and distant. these wounds showed up in those places where boundaries should have existed and where lines drawn would’ve maintained clarity around needs and expectations. the relationships and work sometimes didn’t reach a level of depth that could’ve allowed for greater understanding, connection and/or impact.

what does this have to do with black liberation? wounds show up in our movements and our liberatory spaces, often to the detriment of relationships and the work that is so necessary in this world. on the one hand, it is important for people to do our own work of healing. (let me own my stuff, it is important for me to work through my sh*t.) and on the other hand, movements have got to have healing supports for people in this work. whether people bring wounds into movement formations or they happen in the course of seeking justice and liberation, we have got to have ways of working through and being there for one another. liberation is a community process.