Systemic Racism and it’s denial in America has created a malignant cancer that has unconsciously spread to all parts of our country. Through yet another tragedy we’ve been forced to become conscious. Awake again, we can feel the pain of our cancer triggered by the cries of a black man begging his murderer for breath that he would never get. Yet because of his pain and sacrifice we have an opportunity as a country to acknowledge and deal with the reality of our grim diagnosis. I fear though, this may be our final wake up call because we have ignored and denied our symptoms so many times for so many years.

Unfortunately our cancer has progressed too far to surgically remove it all. The only thing that has a chance to work at this late stage is chemotherapy. We must treat our cancer from the inside out. The cure is painful because our therapeutic purges must effect our whole body. All cells must be purged even ones where cancer is thought to not have yet spread.

This chemically induced purge began with the justified outrage of African Americans tired of seeing black people repeatedly murdered without conscience by sociopathic militarized police. Deep festering emotional wounds were exposed again and opened to purge the hurt and anger from inside our collective unconscious. This flowing of previously blocked emotion clears the cancer from our body system. This flow also triggered a needed healing crisis and purging of the unconscious shame of white Americans who have generationally denied the truth of African American experiences of personal and systemic racism.

We all should be grateful for the forceful expulsion of this long repressed outrage which set our healing process in motion. All of this is necessary even if our emotional and sometimes physical purges create collateral damage. Upheaval created by our purges must intentionally tear down imbalanced and unstable structures in parts of our system especially our “justice system” that promotes the metastatic growth of our Cancer. Because until both the collective outrage of the oppressed and the collective shame of the oppressors are acknowledged and purged we will not have a complete healing of our dis-ease.

Undifferentiated Cancer cells are immature cells that lost their memory and forgot how to become whole. Our Cancer has its origins in the hypocrisy of our white supremacist ancestor’s who became adept at forgetting what they said they believed. This is why the same men who wrote the words “all men are created equal” could also proclaim that sovereign African people counted only as 3/5s of a person. With this denial and forgetting of humanity cemented in place they could, without conscience, kidnap, enslave, and own human beings as property.

Over the centuries we have become more and more numb from constantly pounding down our shame into our collective unconscious so we could live with the hypocrisy of what we have done as a nation. And of course we’ve had to numb ourselves to the bone to deny the validity of black people’s justified outrage at what we have perpetrated against them. We have been filling our collective unconscious with our repressed shame and their suppressed outrage for hundreds of years.

Against their free will African Americans became a part of our ancestral roots when they were forced to build the foundations of this country. All of the roots of our country grown in that foundation are drenched in the blood, sweat, and tears stolen from our African ancestors. Yet, our African American roots have still grown strong among us despite being abused and starved without the nourishment of acknowledgment or recompense for their contribution to our country’s very existence.

But these days have come to and end. We cannot heal our cancer until our cells, with fully restored memory, can differentiate and become whole. So we must remember and reclaim the truth, we as oppressors, have selectively denied, that ALL humans are indeed created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. We must also acknowledge and affirm the lucid and intact memories of African Americans who hold the only truly legitimate memories of our history as a whole. They are the only Americans who have not wavered in their authenticity even though we have gaslighted them for centuries with denial of our true history!

So to fully purge our shame we must make amends, which are not just about saying we’re sorry and expecting absolution. Our shame will not be fully purged or absolved until we have asked African Americans what we need to do to change our system and have followed their lead. They must be included in all phases of the true reconstruction of America. To have peace and move forward, as a healed and whole nation, all changes we make must feel acceptable to the ones we have transgressed. They are the only ones who can absolve us of our transgressions.

The more we accept and embrace the painful and sometimes destructive process of our collective healing, the sooner we will have a chance to rebuild our broken nation and become whole. Hopefully for the FIRST time in American history, we as a collective will choose healing and become whole as a nation. Only then will Colin Kaepernick or any American in this country be able to stand up, with our hands over our hearts, and legitimately and honestly say, ONE nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all!