Library Spotlight: Posts

Okello, W. K., Quaye, S. J., Allen, C., Carter, K. D., & Karikari, S. N. (2020). “We Wear the Mask”: Self-Definition as an approach to healing from racial battle fatigue. Journal of College Student Development, 61(4), 422–438. “With experiences of racial trauma and fatigue, what possibilities exist for Black students, faculty, and practitioners to heal? We trouble the notion of self-care, highlighting the rationality-laced logics (Feagin, 2010) that inform how student affairs educators survive racial battle fatigue and we look more closely at the terrains of healing. We propose that the achievement of such a place requires an alternative theoretical ground that is made possible in and through self-definition"  (422). 

Washington, K. (2020). Journey to authenticity: Afrikan psychology as an act of social justice honoring Afrikan humanity. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 60(4), 503–513. "The proper healing of a people is difficult without a correct understanding of those peoples’ experiences and their worldview. This is very true with respect to the healing of the shattered consciousness and fractured identity of what has been called the transatlantic slave trade encountered by Afrikan people in America and throughout the Afrikan Diaspora” - from abstract (503). 

Green, K. M., Taylor, J. N., Williams, P. I., & Roberts, C. (2018). BlackHealingMatters in the time of #BlackLivesMatter. Biography (Honolulu), 41(4), 909–941. The article takes up the work about “Black healing, repair, and transformative justice. In this conversation, we focus on BYP100’s mobilization of a Black queer feminist lens to create a Black politic that holds at its core Black healing and a radical ethic of love” (909). 

Facilitator Bio: 

Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts, BA, MBA, MFA 

As a writer and thought-leader, Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts offers those who read her work and hear her speak an authentic experience; an opportunity to explore the intersection of culture, identity and faith/spirituality at the deepest levels. She is the founder of HeARTspace, a healing community created to serve those who have experienced trauma of any kind through the use of storytelling and the arts. 

As a writer, Tracey has published eighteen books including several collaborations with numerous high-profile authors. In 2021, Tracey became one of 20 writers who contributed to the groundbreaking book, You are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame, Resilience, and the Black Experience edited by acclaimed researcher, Brene Brown, and founder of the MeToo Movement, Tarana Burke. Her most recent publication is the critically-acclaimed book, Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration (Gallery/Simon and Schuster) which has received rave reviews from celebrities like Kerry Washington, literary writers like Kiese Laymon and Deesha Philyaw, and media outlets like Good Morning America, Essence Magazine, and USA Today (Facilitator Bio). 

Resources curated by Najeeb Ahmed, Liaison Librarian, Business & Applied Sciences & Technology.