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The Wounds of White Supremacy and the Power to Heal: Restoring Africana Agency from the Trauma of the West

Sat, Oct 8, 2:00 to 3:50pm, Richmond Marriott Hotel, Richmond Marriott Hotel Shenandoah-AV

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Africana people have experienced and continue to experience trauma due to white supremacy and anti-Blackness at a nearly numbing state. In response, we aim to utilize our scholarly work to articulate and amplify culturally rooted Africana methodologies and modalities of defining and healing that trauma in meaningful ways. Williams asserts that the negative effects of gender and racial discrimination and prejudice, particularly in the institution of education has hindered the imaginative possibilities of Africana girls in STEM fields. She suggests approaching STEM education of Africana girls as a healing ritual that wholistically addresses their historical and contemporary trauma, as well as provides them tools to remain healthy as future STEM practitioners. Hamilton articulates that Africana peoples have been intentionally disconnected from Africana healing modalities as an intentional act of imperialism, colonialism, and White supremacy. In her presentation, she posits healing as a political act, making medicinal modalities cites of liberation or oppression. Through investigating the history of Africa’s relationship with tropical medicine as a colonizing force and African healing modalities as a site of resistance, Hamilton will illustrate the incendiary nature of medicinal colonization, and locate African healing knowledges as prescription. Roberts’ work contends that Africana people are in the throes of a multi-generational ideological assault from white supremacy that is physical and spiritual. His research pays specific attention to the pain experienced by Africana people due to racist physical monuments and myopic leadership models that he argues replicate trauma across epochs. In this iteration of his work, he presents an Afrocentric process for creating spaces of healing from these types of violence that are rooted in Africana culture. Through these presentations, the panel seeks to provide solutions that posit Africana healing methodologies as resistance to imperialism, institutional discrimination, political and psychic oppression.

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