http://publish.uwo.ca/~rlanius/ Francesca Maximé welcomes Dr. Ruth Lanius for a conversation about how racialized trauma lives in the body and can ultimately lead to a lesser sense of self. Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, is the director of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research unit at the University of Western Ontario. She established the Traumatic Stress Service and the Traumatic Stress Service Workplace Program, services that specialize in the treatment and research of PTSD and related comorbid disorders. She has written more than 100 published papers and chapters in the field of traumatic stress and is an author of the book, Healing the Traumatized Self. Racialized Trauma in the Body Francesca and Ruth begin with a conversation around how racialized trauma lives in the body, and how the inescapable stress can basically shut down a traumatized person’s system. They talk about the effects of trauma from an intergenerational viewpoint, and how chronic trauma ultimately can lead to a lesser sense of self. “I think we see this large intergenerational transmission of trauma, and we really need to think about the mechanisms and how we can intervene at an individual and at a community level.” – Ruth Lanius Raghu Markus and James Gordon, MD, talk about transforming trauma on Mindrolling Ep. 336 Community Healing (17:00) The conversation turns to how the system of white supremacy and racialized trauma affects white people. Francesca asks Ruth how she addresses issues of racialized trauma with her patients. Ruth explains some of the basic brain function around PTSD, how it affects the sense of self, and the importance of community as a place of healing. “Being in a community gives you a feeling of a sense of belonging, which is so critical. If you don’t feel like you belong, that’s an incredible, painful, intense feeling.” – Ruth Lanius Mindfulness and Trauma (35:10) Francesca and Ruth discuss what a reparative multiracial community might look like, and how we can do healing work within a system that is set up for division. They talk about the impact of mindfulness practice on trauma, and how there can be a rebirth of the sense of self. “I think that hope is so critical for change. There’s nothing worse than going to see somebody and them telling you, ‘Well, you’re a hopeless case, you’ll never get better.’ That’s a really toxic place to start from. But to have hope and to know that the brain is very malleable and that it can change through good treatment, I think is really important.” – Ruth Lanius http://publish.uwo.ca/~rlanius/ https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/psychiatry/divisions_programs/general_psychiatry/Faculty%20Biographies/ruth_lanius_md_phd_frcpc.html https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/psychiatry/divisions_programs/general_psychiatry/Faculty%20Biographies/ruth_lanius_md_phd_frcpc.html http://publish.uwo.ca/~rlanius/

Ian Haney López joins Francesca to discuss how dog whistle politics and media perpetuate the socially constructed, hierarchical story of racial identity. Ian Haney López is a law professor who specializes in race and racism. The Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the UC, Berkeley, Ian’s focus has been on the use of racism in electoral politics. From writing, to public polling and message testing, to accessible videos, Ian develops and promotes a race-class praxis. His books White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race and Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class showcase how powerful elites exploit social divisions, imploring that no matter our race, color, or ethnicity, our best future requires building cross-racial solidarity. Discover more at https://ianhaneylopez.com/ Race is Not Destiny Prompted by Francesca, Ian shares about his upbringing in Hawaii, being raised by a mixed race couple. Growing up with this unique vantage point from the cultural melting pot of the Island, sparked an inquiry into race relations inside of Ian, a query that would deepen as he traveled to college in St. Louis, Missouri, one of the most starkly segregated areas in the States. Sharing stories of realizing both the overt and implicit racism in society, Francesca and Ian elucidate race as a social construct, rather than a fixed trait. “Race isn’t something that’s fixed in us. Race is a social practice. It’s a set of understandings. It’s something that circulates in the culture, but it’s something that is interpreted and imposed by different actors, at different times, in different ways.” – Ian Haney López The Powerful Story of Race (8:12) Diving into themes within Ian’s book, White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race, Francesca and Ian explore how race was created as a social construct, and is being upheld by our prevailing systems. Highlighting that race is not real as a biology, but is undeniably real as a set of social practices, they elucidate the complex nuances of social hierarchy, showcasing how race was created as a story so we could swallow the harsh truths of slavery, exploitation, and genocide. “Race was always an attempt as a set of ideas–as an ideology–to displace responsibility from what we ourselves were doing. Race was a story to explain why genocide and dispossession of Native Americans was inevitable and natural, and that we weren’t responsible for it…” – Ian Haney López “The powerful elite exercise so much power in our society, not through direct violence, not through direct force, but instead through stories about how they deserve to be rich, they deserve to be powerful, and we don’t” – Ian Haney López Dog Whistle Politics, Dog Whistle Media (22:02) Using the example of the Obama administration’s issues of further bolstering racially biased mass incarceration and deportation targeting Latinos, Francesca and Ian examine how politics has became a way in which racism is being expressed and mobilized within our society. This epiphany led Ian to look back through history and uncover the coded language of racism used by politicians to uphold the story of the hierarchal social power structure of racism – a veiled technique still used today by both major parties. “It’s not white racism in general. It’s Donald Trump, it’s Richard Nixon, it’s Ronald Reagan, it’s Bill and Hillary Clinton in their time telling stories about threatening people of color and then encouraging police departments to treat Brown and Black People as fundamentally lawless and violent.” – Ian Haney López