Murmurations: From Rupture to Repair
A note from adrienne maree brown: Briana Herman-Brand is a somatic practitioner and facilitator who is helping us learn how white folks become a part of racial and social justice work without centering—or disappearing—themselves.
This is one of my deepest truths: If we are in relationship, no matter how scared or unskilled I may be, I want to repair with you. Part political commitment, part survival strategy, part just essence of who I am, holding out hope for repair is at my core.
Rupture is a given. We will disagree. We will hurt each other. We will sometimes find ourselves facing the irreconcilable. And we will need ways to make ourselves—and each other—whole in the aftermath of rupture.
I have grappled with the dynamics of repair throughout more than 20 years of practice with transformative and restorative justice. In this age of deepening cultural and political divides, facing the election of our lifetimes and whatever comes after, it is more critical than ever that we learn how to be in principled conflict and repair with each other. Three things stand out to me in this high-stakes historical moment: We have much to learn about the possibilities of genuine repair, our unrepaired places are where we are most vulnerable to ongoing harm and domination, and the human capacity for repair is vast and stunning—when we are given the support to move toward it.
This seems to be a principle of dominant society, often internalized and acted out by our communities and families: You will live wounded, unrepaired, and you better not expect anything more. Yet this grim promise is juxtaposed with an evolutionary drive toward relational healing. I believe each of us comes from a lineage—no matter how buried—that knew how to heal, how to repair with each other. Throughout history, we have survived by bringing our harms to the circle of community and quite literally humming and drumming through them together. It is by design that most of us have no living memory of these possibilities. And still, they are there. We can find them.
