Cece and Niall are characters we came up with for a chapter that we wrote for a book. We initially were approached to write a chapter about whiteness for a therapy text book. We failed to write that and at the deadline CeCe and Niall emerged to tell their story of a re-imagined therapeutic training in a chapter called:
Re-imagining the space and context for a therapeutic curriculum: a sketch.
You can access a pdf of the chapter: ☞ here and the book is: here ☞ Black Identities + White Therapies: Race, Respect + Diversity Ed: Divine Charura & Colin Lago PCCS Books.
We have made the chapter available as an example of creative writing as liberatory practice. Creative writing as therapeutic practice in some ways reads as limited to the therapeutic benefit of the writer. We wished to think about writing into race as a practice that extends the benefit into the social world, into the collective as is necessary if we are to disrupt white supremacy and live otherwise.Writing into race as a form of inquiry, reckoning, study and healing is offered in this instance and in the new piece that we imagined for this event. We could also think of creative writing as a socially critical practice.
“Can you meet me where we are instead of where you want to be?” read it ☞ here
CeCe and Niall this time are reflecting on race, racism, whiteness, white supremacy and Blackness in an exchange that is rich with references to their studies and explorations from their differing locations - a Black woman and a white man.
There are many writers and thinkers that inform this work that we are engaged with. You will find many of them referred to on this website.
Playlists are necessary companions to our work, parts of our work. ☞ Within the Wake is an example of one of them that you can find on Apple Music. ☞ PDF Version of the playlist.
“To own one’s own shadow is to reach a holy place – an inner center – not attainable in any other way. To fail this is to fail one’s own sainthood and to miss the purpose of life.”
- Robert. A. Johnson
The people and work we referenced in our piece with links to the resources for further study :
Resmaa Menakem and somatic abolition
Toni Cade Bambarra and what work are you going to do?
Layla Saad and becoming a good ancestor
James Baldwin and how much time?
Toni Morrison refusing the white gaze
& an interview with Katherine McKittrick