Discovering Our ‘Oppressor Selves’ in order to Reclaim Our ‘True Selves’

As an African American man I’m still discovering how my personal growth and development parallels that of many other men—my brothers! In that regard my diversity watchword (universally applicable) has become: ‘There’s more that unites us than divides us—as men.’ But one of the things that repeatedly threatens to divide me from other men is white supremacy and racism. Certainly, I’ve been targeted as a Black man by such divisions. However, my liberation resources have also been remarkable. In particular I commend the resources of my community of reference: Re-evaluation Counseling (RC at www.rc.org)—also known as Co-counseling, because we take turns listening to one another as peer counselors. I’m sharing about RC because I believe, for example, that one result of its peer counseling practices is that I’m far less at risk for stroke or heart attack than I would be otherwise. My explanation: I have spent four decades consistently discharging–that is, releasing painful emotion associated with–stress and rage; the stress and rage associated with growing up as a Black man in our beloved USA.

Like most people, however, who deliberately do inner healing work like this, discharging my victim experiences has occupied much of my journey. It’s inevitable that I focused on healing the ways that I’ve been targeted by mistreatment. How else can one begin to heal without first focusing on how we got hurt? Only then can we move on to how we also hurt other people (more about that immediately below). On both fronts, I’m pleased to report, I’ve been brilliantly coached in RC: coached about how to discharge the painful emotion due to (a) how others target me and (b) how I target myself and others by my internalized patterns of victimization. With skill learning and growing confidence, co-counselors become adept at recovering from victimization both outwardly installed and turned inward: attending to, and reversing how, we turn our victimization inward by believing and acting-out negative feelings and stereotypes on ourselves and other people.

Yes, even men do that kind of inner work. Or also men. Or especially men—my brothers! We men characteristically experience victimization during our most formative years as youth. Early onwards, immediately after birth (and also ‘in utero’ as our family fixates on our gender), we are ‘formatted’ to become the workhorses of our societies: the drivers of ‘can-do’ performance; ‘get it done’ management. And don’t forget our warrior role of community protection. So our harsh treatment is considerable. Consider what it takes for us to pass through and survive such gauntlets or rites of passage. It quickly differentiates us from women—from the stereotypically gentler and caring, more thoughtful and compassionate treatment accorded women—our sisters; our gender complements; our co-human companions.

“All men are sisters,” quipped the founder of RC, Harvey Jackins, in his leadership efforts to contradict the estrangement we incur due to our training as men. Thus, our prevailing challenge involves overcoming our disassociation from women as our ‘natural allies,’ and the related alienation between ourselves as caring persons for other men. Certainly, part of our liberation involves recovering from and repairing the ways we have been channeled into antagonized relationships. The other part involves reclaiming our relationships with women as our allies, for the recovery and liberation of us all.

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Open Secret: How We Get ‘Formatted’ to Be the Way We Are

But here is ‘the elephant’ in the room; that is, the ‘open secret’ that everyone knows is true in our prevailing societies: most of the mistreatment that occurs in the world is perpetrated by men based on that scenario; that scripting of men’s oppression. War and the ravages of brutality, violence and violation, are the entail and outcome of our treatment as young people, O my brothers (I lament, I wail, I keen, I grieve). To be self-aware is to ‘own’ that reality. To ‘blink it,’ to turn away our gaze, to occlude or remain oblivious to it, is morally naïve at best; irresponsible and culpable at worst.

In that connection the celebrated Russian novelist Dostoyevsky asked us to consider, in “Notes from Underground” (1864), “Can a man of perception respect himself at all?” Well, we men in Co-counseling have gone “underground” in order to perceive the deep abysses of our patterns. But the goal of that introspection and inner healing work is also deep: to reemerge our truly noble selves with valor and growing self-respect. And then: to ally with our sisters—our gender sisters and transgender companions—for the liberation of us all.

Increasingly, however, that inner work is taking us on a journey that involves directly discharging our oppressor patterns. Now here may require some psychodynamic ‘gymnastics.’ How do we identify our victim patterns, and distinguish them from our oppressor patterns, so that we can focus on them all—either/or and both/and—for our maximum recovery? My suggestion: let’s identity the baseline of our victim feelings as fear or terror and, by contrast, the baseline of our oppressor feelings as resentment and rage. And then let’s develop best practices for discharging both: each one of us practicing how to release the painful emotions of both rage and terror; each one of us acknowledging, and then taking responsibility for addressing and healing, our dual societally-imposed roles as oppressors and victims both.

Working-it-Out in Self Development ~ Sharing My Story

Allow me to share my personal journey involving all the above, back in the early 2000s–a bit more than 20 years ago as of this writing (halfway through my liberation quest). At that time I was fortunate to experience some pioneering efforts in the Atlanta RC community. One of our co-counselors, a self-identified Black man and working-class southerner, began visiting our Atlanta area and experimenting with our small Black Men’s ’empowerment’ group. He was concerned, he explained, to address the drop-out rate or attrition of African heritage men in RC. His perspective was that the majority of co-counselors, as we take turns assisting each other in discharging our patterns of distressed emotions, are significantly under-discharged about racism, and/or too timid in sessions, to create enough safety or otherwise assist Black men in discharging our heavy feelings of rage and terror.

So he designed a session format for encouraging Black men in particular to discharge the rage and terror ensuing from our intergenerational trauma due to decades of lynching and ethnic genocide in the U.S. The evident effectiveness of that format, and its long-range impact beyond our support group in Atlanta, has encouraged me to consider the viability of offering such ‘Rage and Terror’ sessions outside of RC, not only for Black men but for all persons, constituencies and groups engaged in so-called ‘trauma mastery.’

Meanwhile, for my part, accessing my own rage and terror has rendered me more open to consider new terrain in my distress patterns: my oppressor material. In the most recent period, in that connection, our Atlanta RC leader, Cornelia Cho, began specializing in oppressor material from her work as an ally to indigenous communities. (See also her related writing “Working Consistently on Chronics, Together (rc.org)” linked here: https://www.rc.org/publication/present_time/pt193/pt193_024_cc.) Following the alliance building work inaugurated by Marcie Rendon, our RC International Liberation Reference Person (ILRP) for Native Americans, Cornelia has rigorously pursued Marcie’s key direction: ‘What is your earliest memory in any way connected to harming another living thing?’

Our peer leaders’ coaching on that question has enabled me, along with a growing number of co-counselors, to achieve a ‘lightness of being’ outside of our familiar victim material; material that still mires us in guilt issues or blaming others, in shaming or feeling shamed or powerlessness over others. Some counselors report that we may feel empowered WHILE we discharge our victim material, but AFTERWARDS there’s also an entail, ‘blowback’ or side effect of victim feelings; disempowerment for example. Conversely, facing our oppressor material may feel forbidding, unbearable or shameful WHILE we discharge in session, but AFTERWARDS we feel less clinging distress, fewer hung-over or heavy feelings; a sense of freer agency or non-oppressive empowerment in relation to our self-motivation as well as attitude toward others.

Who Will We Be?

As regards guilt or self-blame, Cornelia Cho is deliberate and persuasive in reinforcing the perspective that ‘We’re not responsible for how we learned to become oppressive in order to survive oppression.’ Discharging in this way also shows me quite clearly how I turn my oppressor patterns inward on myself, in order not only to fight back at oppression but also just as everyday motivation to do my work and get things done. Oy veh! What a captivity!

So I’m indeed grateful for the innovating work of co-counselors; particularly for this latest resource in the project of becoming more nobly human. With care and competence, guidance and inspiration, we men alongside all people have new ways to discharge our oppressor material with as much intention, awareness, and skill as has been formerly brought to discharging people’s victim distresses. Hurray for the liberation of us all!          _______________________

If you are interested in more information about the peer counseling community described above, browse: www.RC.org.

More specifically, the best single website link for people new to or interested in learning how to co-counsel is: https://www.co-counseling.org/how-to-begin-rc.

There are also multiple language versions of that introduction, as well as a list of translations of other RC literature, linked here: https://www.rc.org/page/translationslist.