Today I delivered a workshop for the 2025 Race and Social Justice Institute at Morgan State University. I spoke about why we cannot build lasting justice with people whose childhood trauma has gone unhealed.
Movements break down, policies fall flat, and communities implode when we overlook the foundational role of childhood in shaping the brain, the nervous system, and our capacity for empathy, focus, collaboration, and critical thinking.
Too often, social justice frameworks name race, class, gender, and sexuality but they forget childhood. My work begins there. Because if we are serious about liberation, we have to stop treating trauma as a side issue. It IS the issue. We can’t change the world if the people trying to do the work are still stuck in survival mode.
Justice begins with the treatment of the child. And until we center the treatment of children, we will keep producing the very harms we claim to fight.
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