Beyond Land Acknowledgement - Part three - Patty Grant Edgemon

Notes from "Beyond Land Acknowledgement: Toward Reparations and Healing"

Sept 30, 2023, Asheville, NC

These are my own comments and photos on this blog, except the photos of her power point presentation, those are Patty Grant Edgemon's.

Sept 30, 2023, Asheville, NC

Patty Grant Edgemon, Behavioral Health Specialist - "Healing from Historical Grief, Trauma and the Intergenerational Impacts of the Colonization Process"

Opening the door to considering the emotions and looking at the experiences of trauma.

Patty spoke from her heart, sharing her own story of being a daughter of a boarding school survivor mother, who passed that trauma down to her children.

Many details of what the Cherokee tribal members have gone through, and where they are today.

And Patty spoke of the healing process, which continues as she shares. She spoke several times about how these details could bring up the traumas that members of the audience and other presenters might have experienced and how they need to find a trusted person with whom to share their feelings and experiences.

With organizer Pat Johnson...

 Patty shared a video clip (photo above) of Craig White (appropriately named) who gave his personal apologies to Tribal Peoples for the white colonial privileged ancestors and current day people who have done such harm to people of color, including the Native Tribal Peoples and enslaved Africans. This was perhaps the point where I most teared up in the program. Unfortunately I left the seminar without finding out more about him. (But I sure am planning to do so in the future)

I had one question for Patty, concerning her approach to dealing with addictions...and alcoholism. I had worked with white people in substance abuse and found the disease model of the problem was helpful. I wondered if she found the traumas to be more important in her approach...and she said yes, that came first. Later at lunch I mentioned my learning this, and a new friend said "everyone has traumas of some kind." That was really the moment I absorbed what Patty had been saying.

Patty speaking with an audience member from another tribe who was welcomed also as a descendant of enslaved Africans.

Maggie O'Neill was one of the organizers of the Conference.  She shared her personal experience of attending the 5-day Cherokee Spirituality Retreats in 2020 and 2022, where she heard much of the same information, but in more depth. That retreat will be offered again in March 2024, contact Liannaconstantino@yahoo.com for more information.

The sponsors of the program were...

All Native Peoples were admitted free.