2022 Equity Challenge Day 6: Resilience and Healing

Who is responsible for healing the harm caused by systemic and structural oppression in all its forms? Is it the responsibility of the privileged, whom the system is designed to protect, or the responsibility of the people that have experienced harm? The ownership of healing our communities belongs to us all.

Resilience is a trauma response of marginalized people groups to survive and overcome adversity. Resilience techniques may look different for each person as resiliency is a muscle that can be built over time to empower someone to cope, adapt or change in order to stabilize their environment.

They find within themselves the strength, fortitude and courage to heal their own pain while moving toward equity, equality, justice and freedom. In defining resilience, it is important to specify whether resilience is being viewed as a trait, process or outcome, and it is often tempting to take a binary approach in considering whether resilience is present or absent. However, resilience more likely exists on a continuum that may be present to differing degrees across multiple domains of life.

After spending the first week of our challenge building a foundation together, today’s challenge is meant to expand your understanding of resilience and healing. At United Way, we believe in the power of our community coming together to change unjust systems while giving one another the support and encouragement we need to continue moving forward.

Because even though the inequities are deeply woven into our society, we hold power together, we must never forget, “This is treatable. This is beatable. The single most important thing we need today is to look this problem in the face and say, ‘this is real, and this is all of us.” – Dr. Nadine Burke Harris