This post is prompted by the recent news of Lt. Dan Choi's emotional collapse and involuntary confinement. He sent the following e-mail to a couple of his friends and asked that it be shared with others:

I wanted you to know because you are important to me and I think you can explain my situation best to those in our community who may be still interested. I was involuntarily committed to the Brockton MA Veterans Hospital Physchiatric Ward on Friday Morning after experiencing a breakdown and anxiety attack. …

I did not initially want to publicize this but I now realize it is critical for our community to know several things: veterans gay or straight carry human burdens. Activists share similar burdens, no activist should be portrayed as super human, and the failures of government and national lobbying carry consequences far beyond the careers and reputations of corporate leaders, elected officials, high powered lobbyists, or political elites.

They ruin lives. My breakdown was a result of a cumulative array of stressors but there is no doubt that the composite betrayals felt on Thursday, by elected leaders and gay organizations as well as many who have exploited my name for their marketing purposes, have added to the result. I am certain my experience is not an isolated incident within the gay veteran community.

At the same time, those who have been closest to me know that I truly appreciate their gracious help and mentorship. I am indebted to their hospitality and leadership.

A few words about why I felt it important to share these words here on this blog…

First, I want to extend my deep appreciation and my love for Lt. Choi as he recuperates. I would like him to know that his activism has not been in vain and that so many of us who do not know him still love and admire him for his perseverance and for his commitment to justice. I know that my liberation as a straight black woman is integrally tied to his liberation as a gay Asian American man. I want him to know that many, many people in this country have his back. He is not alone.

Next I want to share a few words about my own journey in activism and social change work. I have been an organizer and activist for almost my entire life. I started organizing as a teenager and have continued uninterrupted since that time. I have organized around issues of racism, sexism, economic justice, prison abolition, violence, etc… In general, I believe that we have to dismantle oppression wherever it exists. Lt. Choi’s current situation is one with which many of us can empathize. Those of us who refuse to be blind to injustice are in a position to have to act. This action takes a physical, emotional, mental, financial, and spiritual toll. We also feel ourselves to be isolated from others. We wonder if we are truly making a difference. This situation is often exacerbated by the fact that as Dr. King has written:

It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the appalling silence of the so-called good people.

It is true that the “appalling silence of the so-called good people” often leaves people like Dan Choi and others feeling like the hill of social justice that they are fighting to climb is even steeper than they imagine. The loud, noisy voices of the detractors and the bigots overwhelm the deafening silence of the majority who yearn for a more just society.

This is why it is so critical for organizers and activists to build communities of support for ourselves. It is why I am so excited by the emergence of the concept of healing justice.

Healing Justice asks us as organizers and activists to focus on our self-care. It is also explicitly political in nature with a focus on uprooting the internalized oppression that so negatively impacts our own movements for social justice. Organizer and activist Cara Page offers a definition of healing justice as:

a framework that identifies how we can holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence and to bring collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds.

Some friends of mine have just launched a terrific new center here in Chicago that is dedicated to advancing the concept of healing justice. You can read an interview with one of them, Tanuja Jagernauth here. Tanuja expands on the concept of healing justice:

The way I understand it, healing justice acknowledges and addresses the layers and layers of trauma and violence that we have been living with and fighting for generations. And, it asks us to bring collective practices for healing and transformation INTO our work. It recognizes that we HAVE bodies, minds, emotions, hearts, and it makes the connection that we cannot do this work of transforming society and our communities without bringing collective healing into our work. People have been asking more and more questions about “sustainability” in the work. I think that working within a healing justice framework is a way to institutionalize sustainability in our work.

So, we are asking ourselves after and before actions, for example, what was the impact on our bodies, minds, and emotions? What came up for us? What tools do we need or do we have to address what came up and the impact? And the actions themselves address trauma and violence as they are addressing systemic oppression. So the work is necessarily creating intersections between what tend to be separate issues.

I think that practitioners of healing justice are helping all of us as organizers and activists to reprioritize self-care even as we continue to dedicate ourselves to the fight for social justice and transformation.

In closing, I want to share some words from the Dalai Lama. I found these instructions for life in the new millennium and I really like them:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s: Respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

I dedicate these words to all of my fellow travelers on the road to social justice and most of all today to Lt. Dan Choi. Peace to you.