Beyond ‘solidarity’ with Black Lives Matter: Drawing on liberation psychology and transformative justice to address institutional and community violence in young Black lives

The authors, a Systemic Therapist (Author 1) and a young activist (Author 2), call for an approach that draws on Liberation Psychology and Transformative Justice to address pervasive racism in society, beyond statements of solidarity with Back Lives Matter. This requires addressing the impact on Black communities of the criminal legal (or criminal INjustice) system, ‘perpetual community trauma’ and grief, multiple forms of social disadvantage and exclusion and the relationship between these forms of racial trauma and serious youth violence. Rather than going back to business as usual once the current focus on Black Lives Matter dissipates, such as calls for more police, more prisons and more exclusion, the authors suggest that we work against the grain and envision alternative systems based on community-based responses to trauma and oppression with mental health practitioners and community activists working together.

Practitioner points

• Drawing on Liberation Psychology can enable us to go to the root of problems and directly challenge oppression
• Liberation Psychology advocates for (1) explicitly naming oppression, (2) reconnecting to a collective history of resistance and solidarity and (3) drawing on peoples’ creativity
• Radical change requires radical thinkers who can imagine alternative social systems based not on punishment and oppression but on Healing, Restorative and Transformative Justice