What Our Bodies and Souls Need: Emotional Justice and Healing in Racial Justice Youth Organizing

• In Event: 1284 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 11. Race/Ethnicity, Schools, and Youth

Abstract

My study addresses perils and possibilities of social movement participation for communities of color, bridging critical race, emotions, and social movements theories and scholarship. Social movements can advance racial equity and develop empowering identities and skills for people of color. However, the stress of engaging in social movements—including concomitant backlash—can compound traumas from inequality that jeopardize the well-being of communities of color. To understand how social movements led by communities of color address this paradox, I build on and advance theoretical and empirical understandings of “radical healing” (Ginwright 2015) and “emotional justice” (Armah 2015). I draw from preliminary findings from ongoing participant observation and interviews with two Southern California-based, youth of color-led social movement organizations for racial justice. I argue that emotions are key in enacting and seeking racial and intersectional justice. Social movements led by youth of color practice healing and emotional justice by: validating emotions as knowledge and valid metrics of educational success; identifying how emotional experiences of injustice impact physical and mental well-being; engaging in embodied emotional resistance; and disrupting timelines and schedules in service of well-being. Ultimately, I seek to advance theoretical frameworks for understanding the intersections of race, social movements, and emotions, as well as collective resistance to intersectional and racialized inequities.

Author

• May Lin, University of Southern California