By embracing an accurate and inclusive socio-historical context for our individual clients and society as a whole, counselors can be part of a national project that brings to the center people whose narratives and stories have been on the margins of our shared historical memory. While healing for the historically disenfranchised, such integration will also allow those of us who are privileged to live more authentically, honestly, and without shame.
This website is the in-progress expression of an inquiry of how, as a counselor in training, I can foster healing, justice, and community in a nation that has not adequately addressed its white supremacist foundations and our inheritance of pervasive racism that sets some up for success and marginalizes others. While I take responsibility for the content here and invite feedback or critique on messy, poorly expressed, or ill-formed ideas, I also consider this project collaborative, in as much, many activists, teachers, and community members shaped my thinking on this topic. I thank everyone who has engaged with me on issues of historical memory, racial justice, trauma-healing, and self-realization, as I see this as an integration of the history I have studied at the Masters level at the University of Illinois, my Buddhist background, and my current education in a Clinical Mental Health Counseling program committed to social justice, at NCSU, with Dr. Marc Grimmett as my adviser. James Baldwin, Bryan Stevenson, angel Kyodo williams, Robin D.G. Kelley, Michelle Alexander, John D'Emilio, and Timothy Tyson are among the writers and historians who inspired my inquiry, thank you. Gratitude, also, to those in my extended circles and communities of racial justice and creative change who generously gave their time to talk to me: Jaguar Mary X, Chandra Taylor, Latham Owen Zearfoss, Tarish Jeghetto Pipkins, and Lois Helmbold. Peace, Vanessa Soleil