Last week was hard for sure. The videos that surfaced revealing what the black community has known for so long, that racial prejudice leads to their injury and death more often than white people, was disturbing and eye-opening. My heart aches for the black community and the families that have been touched by a lost loved one. I feel compelled to take a break from my usual learning videos and speak up about our nationwide community focus on the racism pandemic.
I abhor what I’ve witnessed in those videos by white perpetrators. I know that my grief and trauma from watching the videos is nothing compared to what my black neighbors experience every day. I don’t want to be another white person enjoying my privilege and not understanding how I perpetuate incidents like those in the viral videos from last week.
Thus, I decided I want to speak out today about my strong support of the black community. I immediately last week wanted to create a learning video that could help white families and parents, who I know deeply want to take action themselves and help their children to process what’s happening and/or to grow with greater empathy, compassion, and awareness of their privilege. We want to DO something. I also want to support black families in coping with their trauma; the emotional labor of racism is exhausting.
I quickly realized that I would need to call on my professional peers to create such an impactful resource if it was going to be meaningful to a broad range of families. I also recognize that my lived experience with racism represents only a small segment of what the vast majority of families experience. While I could look up statistics and read those to you, I think you really want to understand how to have meaningful conversations with your children. So, I’ve been reaching out to numerous organizations, seeking collaborators, and reviewing resources. It will likely take me a few more days to put together a learning video or two that I feel adequately addresses this issue from a research-based perspective and also from a broad perspective of lived experiences. This is a complex topic, and I recognize that I won’t get the answers right all the time. And maybe the answers will steadily change and grow as we learn.
To get to my purpose for today’s video, I didn’t want to delay in letting you know my support for the equal treatment of individuals. For the right to life, liberty, and equity among individuals regardless of their race. And the fact that I believe black people when they say that they have unfairly been hurt and killed for generations. I can see it. For the BIPOC watching this learning video, I see you. I believe that silence at this time is a clear wrong answer. And I did not want any delay to be misconstrued as silence.
As a scientist-practitioner I find that I am walking a balance between finding the "perfect" research-based answer and showing "perfect" immediate compassion. Using ACT, I realize that my own behavior is a reflection of my lifelong anxiety around this topic. And I want to be open and share with you all that I know that it’s hard to have these conversations. I know I will make mistakes, and I want to invite any and everyone to submit feedback to me to support me in my continued learning on this topic, as well as other families. I support parents of a variety of different family types, teachers, administrators from within the court system, and providers from a variety of different healthcare professions, and I want Enilda Clinic to be a place of safety to explore, learn, and heal. If you have an opinion on this topic that you think would be important for the audience of the Enilda Clinic learning videos, I encourage you to send me an email at frontdesk@EnildaClinic.com. I look forward to supporting and learning with you all as we ally with our black community.
Warmly,
Dr. Blevins
Helping you become the parent your child needs
Videos are for informational and educational purposes only. Information is not intended as therapy, healthcare, or psychology of any kind. It does not create a psychologist-patient relationship. While I believe the information and resources I provide from third-party sources is accurate, reliable, and useful, these third parties are solely responsible for the information and services they provide. For this reason, I expressly disclaim any and all responsibility for the content, accuracy of the individual usefulness of this information, and services.
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