I have a friend, we’ll call her Jessica, who doesn’t speak to her mother, says the relationship is damaged beyond repair. When Jessica was a child her mom allowed abuse, defended the abuser, and turned the parenting of Jessica over to her grandmother in order to continue living with the abuser. Jessica says, “I’ve tried to have a relationship with her over the years. We’d keep hitting an impasse. I’ve told her how she’s hurt me; but she has excuses. ‘I was poor, trying to survive myself. I was a victim, too.’ I can’t heal from her excuses. It’s been a long time to realize this, but for my own mental health I’ve had to let that relationship go.” The trust between them is gone.
I have another friend, Trina, who is a recovering alcoholic and rocking it. Says she went down that road in the first place because her parents were alcoholics. They thought it’d be fun to make getting wasted a family activity with Trina beginning when she was in 10th grade. They know better now; they’re even decades into recovery themselves. But Trina didn’t start to recover for another 10 years after them, after a lengthy visit in a treatment facility. Part of Trina’s recovery was to name her folks’ role in her addiction. They agree, but don’t see the purpose in lingering there. “We were young. We didn’t know alcohol was that harmful to kids. We just wanted to be your friend.” And later, “We thought that if we could recover, so could you. That would be your responsibility, not ours.” Trina does have a relationship with her folks, but they rarely if ever talk about this history. It’s too raw; it’s unhealed.
Relationships with trauma in the past are hard to heal.
A few years ago I went through an intensive Community Trustbuilding Fellowship. The fellowship consisted of five monthly residential weekends at a spiritual retreat center. The cohort of twenty-five fellows from around the country (and some from abroad) engaged in a deeply instructive and reflective process that prepared us for meaningful community work. The Community Trustbuilding Fellowship is offered by Hope in the Cities/Initiatives of Change USA, and their mission is to “transform inequality and conflict through systems of honesty, accountability, justice, equity and peace” (from their website). To work with communities and not at them we would have to build trust that, in many cases, had been destroyed. The challenge of building trust is complicated.
My own story is a case-in-point. In many ways, I am a social do-gooder. I volunteer, teach social responsibility, and want to “make a difference.” I live outside of Richmond, Virginia where the population is half Black. It’s not hard to see racial inequalities here (and elsewhere), and I’m educated enough to know the inequities were created by centuries of national and local policy. Of course, Richmond’s history as a top importer and lead exporter of enslaved Africans and as the former capital of the Confederacy shows up in how we all live here today. So do the relics of Jim Crow segregation, redlining, Massive Resistance, and mass incarceration (just to name the most obvious forces). I am motivated to impact racial change in my community. Initiatives of Change’s mission to transform inequality is my jam.
But me as a trustbuilder in Richmond? This is complicated. Most of the Black residents of Richmond are descendants of enslaved Africans. And me? I’m not only White, and therefore a visual representation of Whiteness, but also a descendant of a notorious owner of enslaved Africans and a descendant of a few Confederate soldiers who fought to defend slavery. I mean, my NAME “Carter” tells that story before I even speak a word. As a beginning community trustbuilder, these were the questions I held:
- Would my Whiteness proceed me? Would my skin be enough to inspire distrust?
- What would I do when I met a Black person with the last name “Carter”? Would I become overwhelmed with guilt?
- Would I be more likely to establish trust if I kept my ancestors a secret — don’t mention my family name, my hometown?
- Is there a place for me to process my familial history in this trustbuilding context? Or will I destroy trust by mentioning it?
- What if I literally wore my values, like a “Black Lives Matter” message tshirt? Would that make a difference?
- Are others even sizing me up? Or am I projecting my own insecurities onto other people?
I have some answers now.
I recently read an advice column that helped me to frame my approach to trustbuilding. A parent wrote in to ask advice about salvaging a relationship with her adult daughter who does not speak to her. The two of them blame each other for the failed relationship. The advice columnist, Lori Gottlieb, is a psychotherapist and author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. She had some helpful advice for healing relationships.
“Being blamed for a child’s unhappiness can make a parent feel defensive and frustrated, but layered underneath that frustration might be feelings of shame or self-blame. (My grown daughter’s life is her responsibility, not mine—but what if there’s some truth in what she’s saying?) One way to rid yourself of those feelings is to dismiss her complaints entirely—which probably just makes her protest louder. Replacing self-blame with self-compassion, on the other hand, will allow you to look more closely at yourself, in a kind way, so that you can consider with an open mind why your daughter might be so angry with you even if you did your absolute best as a parent under the circumstances.”
There are two conditions for healing that may seem at odds.
First, we must honestly face our role in past events, fully own the things that we have done. Healing can begin for my friends if their parents could say, “I am deeply sorry I didn’t support you as a child; I see that my choices hurt you, and I am so sorry” or “I am so sorry for our role in you becoming an alcoholic; I see how badly that decision has hurt you, and I am so sorry for my role in that.”
What makes ownership difficult is our tenancy to want to punish ourselves for what we have done, the self-blame. But that doesn’t lead to healing for the self. Either we wallow in self-loathing and cannot heal ourselves or we dismiss the claims entirely and the other party’s healing is challenged. But there is another path, another option, our ownership must be accompanied by the second condition.
We must also have compassion for ourselves. But compassion without honestly owning our role avoids the healing. We cannot skip the ownership and jump right to self-compassion. It doesn’t work that way. Self-compassion thoughts like “I was a victim myself” can be helpful to our own healing, but it does nothing for healing the other.
I want to add a third requirement for healing. The space between ownership and compassion should be long and silent. Hold the owning. Savor it. Allow it in deeply. If the second part, the self-compassion part, is spoken at all, use the transition word “and” and not “but.” See the difference?
- “I’m sorry that my choices hurt you, but I didn’t know better.”
- “I’m sorry that my choices hurt you, and I didn’t know better.”
“But” negates everything said before it. “And” allows us to hold both statements as true. And both statements ARE true.
These same concepts, ownership and self-compassion, work with racial trustbuilding. Try the same above quote with my edits to reframe toward racial healing advice for White people.
When White people feel blamed for the oppression of Black people they can feel defensive and frustrated, but layered underneath that frustration might be feelings of shame or self-blame. (Black people’s success is their own responsibility, not mine—but what if there’s some truth in what they are saying?) One way to rid yourself of those feelings is to dismiss responsibility entirely—which probably just makes protests louder. Replacing self-blame with self-compassion, on the other hand, will allow you to look more closely at yourself, in a kind way, so that you can consider with an open mind why some Black folks might be so angry with White folks even if you did your absolute best to not be racist.”
Interracial healing can take place if White folks admit our ancestors’ trauma-inducing actions and decisions. Sure, I didn’t “do it,” nor did anyone else alive today; but, as my trustbuilding teacher Jeanné Lewis said, “If you inherit a deteriorating house, are you going to stand there and let it rot around you, or are you going to take responsibility and fix it up?” I choose responsibility. Further, there ARE things today that I AM doing; that all White people are doing. I still catch myself with implicitly biased thoughts. I received unearned advantages due to my skin. Those things exist right now and I can own them.
For me trustbuilding looks like this. I own my ancestors stories, all of them. I don’t avoid using my family name, in fact I insist on using it. I’m not just Kelly Merrill, but Kelly Carter Merrill. I tell people my family’s history, especially as I do trustbuilding work. I own implicit biases that still cross my mind, and humbly confess them to others. I continuously work to understand my unearned advantages. I do not wear message tshirts or buttons. I allow people to assume what they need to of me. I observe any defensive feelings I have as signals that some assumptions might hold truth. I welcome my own discomfort on this path toward owning and self-compassion. This is where the healing is.
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Notes: My friends’ names are both pseudonyms. The CTF fellowship is offered every year and is open to anyone. Check it out, and please know scholarships are available.