held EVERY SATURDAY in 2020

The James Patterson

Healing & Reconciliation Circle

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

— Nelson Mandela

“Racial healing is a process that restores individuals and communities to wholeness, repairs the damage caused by racism and transforms societal structures into ones that affirm the inherent value of all people.”

— #HowWeHeal

The James Patterson Healing & Reconciliation Circle is a Tounché initiative creating a sacred space for healing of the conscious and unconscious (language, beliefs, bias, traumas, etc.) perpetuating institutionalized racism. It’s a place of introspection & reflection, learning about the other, dialogue, truth telling, sacred witnessing, healing, transformation and reconnection.

For more than 500 years, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) from all around the world have suffered unfathomable continuous oppression: genocides, slavery (400 years), colonialism (100 years), neo-colonialism (since 1960 to this day), apartheid (100 years), new Jim Crow and “systemic institutionalization of the construction of whiteness as inherently superior to people of other races” (L. Saad). Centuries of racial oppression have entrenched structural and societal racism, created acute racial disparities across most quality of life indicators (health, housing, income, wealth, employment, education, criminal justice) and intensified generational trauma. The recent murder of George Floyd in the US has raised a global outcry and shook up communities around the world.

How come 500 years later and too many lives lost to racial injustice, we have not been able to abolish once for all institutionalized racism?

The answer is that we are the co-creators of this reality, each one of us is responsible for what we are experiencing. The so-called oppressor and the so-called oppressed. The outer world is a reflection of our inner worlds: our language, our thoughts, our beliefs. We haven’t been able to abolish institutionalized racism because the various communities have been running unconscious programs of oppressor and oppressed keeping alive the destructive dynamic. We need to step out of the programming, heal ourselves from what creates the disconnect to create the definitive disruption. It’s time each one of us takes a firm stand and commitment to do the necessary inner work and heal the generational wounds that perpetuate systemic racism. It’s urgent work. Too many lives depend on it. Our collective wellbeing depends on it.

These times call for a new consciousness to meet racial injustice in a more conscious, and intentional way. We need a renewed commitment from all of us to reclaim our sovereignty as changemakers through Knowledge, the power of Love, Compassion and Unity. We need to unite, to reconnect beyond racial line.

The James Patterson Healing & Reconciliation Circle focuses on EDUCATION, INTROSPECTION and HEALING. It is FREE and OPEN TO ALL.

This circle is for you if:

you would like to do the necessary inner work to help dismantle institutionalized racism
you are a racial expert, facilitator or healer who would like to hold space for the racial healing

This circle is a judgement-free and safe space for you to:

Share your experiences, fears, anxieties, ask questions related to race relationships
Expand your knowledge of the conscious and unconscious tenants of structural racism (including the language: racial politics weaponization, white supremacy, white privilege, white fragility, tone policing, cultural appropriation, etc.) and provide you with a list of resources to help you on your journey
Explore your internalized racism and how you have been complicit to the system
Facilitate the healing of your generational trauma
Guide you on how to practice race-unity consistently

If you are a racial expert, facilitator or healer, in contributing your gifts to the circle, you:

Share BIPOC history, perspectives and experiences
Create a safe environment in which all feel safe to share their truth
Provide effective healing tools and exercises for exploring and healing generational race-related trauma

The format of our gathering is weekly online meetings (Zoom). Each session is 90min (allow 2hours) structured in 3 parts: Knowledge Sharing, Group Discussion and Healing. Each circle will be facilitated by a different expert. See schedule below.

“This initiative is named in memory, honor and gratitude of my late father James Patterson,
a Black Panther Party Leader of the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Chapter and member of the Black Liberation Army who sacrificed his life for racial justice.”

— Swaady Martin, Founder of Tounché

REAL CHANGE HAPPENS WHEN WE WORK TOGETHER. LET’S BE THE GENERATION WHO PUTS AN END TO INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM.