"You hear a lot about epigenetics- changes that are in your genes, but they do not alter your DNA. And they are passed from generation to generation, ways that we deal with stress, ways that we cope. But I also noticed something, that this was yet another way the system was using biology to tell us that we’re broken. Now they have scientific based evidence that there is something wrong with us, that we do not cope well. And therefore they needed to make services for us, instead of inviting us to take care of the services that we need to give to our own people.
So I proposed to the Icarus Project that we change the conversation. … Also, being very attentive that this doesn’t become yet another reason why our communities are policed and criminalized, because we carry this trauma. And we want to expand this conversation. We also want to make sure that we have all of the information, not just the information that the system wants us to have, that focuses on our deficits. But also that we are here because our communities have been resisting for forever. …
If they’re going to talk about intergenerational legacies, and if they’re going to talk about epigenetics, let’s have the entire conversation."
The event was organized by the Icarus Project and co-sponsored by the Barnard Center for Research on Women and held in December 2016.
Click here to watch the one hour video panel.
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