Dr Zinny OO

Clinical Psychologist in Stroke Rehabilitation and Clinical Health Psychology. Director, TheMigrantMentalHealthHub. FaithnMental Health. @MinoritiesGroup

[Race Reflections @RaceReflections]

Dear friends, colleagues and comrades.

A few self care reminders for Black people.

Please pass them on and share.

Many of us have been deeply troubled, angered, disturbed, traumatised vicariously by this country’s determined and yet predictable violence towards Black people, particularly towards those who threaten the myths of white superiority and who refuse to stay within their designated racialised territories.

We recognise the underlying motif regardless of how it is dressed.

The collective boundless sadism this country’s institutions are capable of indulging in freely when it comes to keeping Black people in line.

A ferocious whitelash which will always find a new costume, alibi or justification to sustain the racial order. Knowing this can activate racial trauma or even just despair and hopelessness.

As always though there is resistance, defiance and creativity within our communities too. Even if sometimes we need to be reminded to look after ourselves, and we need to be deliberate in creating spaces and moments to grieve, to come together and to think and feel alone and in community.

I want to offer a few clinical tips, and self care notes for anyone racialised as Black who has been impacted by Prof Arday’s passing to help support community wellness.

Here are some ways we might tend to ourselves and one another.

1. Seek community and hold space for one another.

Come together and allow each other simply to be with what is felt. No need to resolve it, explain or strategise right away. Just being in the same room or circle with those who know what has been done — once more — is enough. You do not need to carry that weight alone nor do you need to intellectualise straight away. Let your body do what it needs to process what emerges with other bodies.

2. Take a break and rest from the noise.

Step back from the feeds, the commentary, the endless replaying of harm and its denial if you need to.

Give yourself permission to switch off so your mind and body can regroup. Return only when and if you choose. You owe no one constant attunement to the news, particularly if it damages your wellbeing.

3. Honour the truth of what we know happened.

When ready, write, speak, draw, or simply name what you have seen and felt. There is no need to provide evidence. There is no trial of your reality. Reclaim the narrative from those who would twist it, reclaim your epistemic authority and capacity to recognise antiblackness.

4. Nourish yourself as resistance.

Tend to your body. White supremacy seeks to exhaust and when we are worn down, we are deprived of the will to experience joy, which in essence is the will to live. We know how far this can go.

Eat as well as you can, touch your body with love, moisturise with intentionality, feed your heart and keep your rhythm. Connect to beauty in nature, in art, in culture. Replenish your soul. This will counter the wearing down.

If you need more support, feel free to get in touch to see if I can help.

May we be here for one another. May we grieve in our own rhythm. And may we remain determined to seek lives full of meaning, connection and beauty that this world remains intent on disallowing us.

[Dr Ruby (she/her) jaboukies everything @PaperWhispers]

All these white profs on LinkedIn talking about the huge grants that they received from bids co-written with Jason.

Why did you not talk about it when he was alive and in the eye of the storm?

The hypocrisy of academia.

[Misan Harriman @misanharriman]

I've just spoken to @BellRibeiroAddy . The media have been outside the Arday family’s home; have they not done enough?

They are also publishing the family address.

This has to stop immediately.

The @metpoliceuk are also aware of this.

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

📍

[Race Reflections @RaceReflections]

My good people,

I have been quiet over the whole Jason Arday affair, as it blew up during my break.

I have not followed closely, but the way the allegations of dishonesty were handled in the press, the presumption of guilt, the incessant humiliation, the obsessive media exploitation, made suicidality foreseeable. So, as a clinician, my first responses were: what risk assessment and management measures were put in place? What support was offered, and was it sensitive to race and racial trauma?

One thing I will say is this: he was killed.

He is the prime example of someone acting out collective wishes projected onto him, these internalised necropolitics I speak of. We can kill someone by their own hands while disavowing all involvement, and disowning, all murderous wishes.

He was used as a political weapon in a war against progressive change, in the very same way his opponents claim he was used as a D&I poster child. In both cases, his existence became theoretical, what I frequently warn about in anti Blackness.

I do not want to engage in over-analysis at this point while his family grieve a son, a father, an uncle, because that will too render him abstract and further dehumanise him. There will be time to do this at length.

I send all my solidarity and my condolences to his friends, family, colleagues, and all who have been touched by his work and ideas, however imperfect and flawed they might have been. And indeed black people have the right to exist as flawed, imperfect, complex and at times problematic and be held to account without triggering waves of transgression and envy related hate and normalised violence.

That is never justice-seeking, that is antiblackness.

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

Relationship breakdowns, mental health crises and stress can happen when people have no tools to navigate the migrant journey. For every unfortunate story there are several stories of thriving. Look to those stories, find those tools, make new connections, give it time.

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

The immigrant journey is multi faceted: adapting to a new environment and way of life, including the weather, dealing with uncertainty, missing family and friends left at home, social and professional integration, for Christians...

[DON “Tobechukwu” Ade 👑 @Row_Haastrup]

This is not new…

I dropped a post last year about my experience when I arrived the UK 🇬🇧
How I arrived & expected to be excited & all I felt was darkness & gloominess (only people of the spirit can feel this at first instant & know what it means)

2 weeks later when my wife arrived Heathrow to join me, she burst into tears, instead of being excited.
It was a few weeks later it was shown in a revelation how EVERYONE in the UK are all on chains bound one to another.
That as long as you are resident in the UK, you are bound.
It is you who will personally break loose by the power of God.

The forces of hell that have held that place bound aren’t the kind of kindergarten powers in Nigeria.
These ones don’t make noise like the ones in Africa.

Reason why in the UK 🇬🇧 marriages are failing like water, depression & mental health issue is the order of the day, many work so much with nothing to show for it among so many things I don’t want to mention, but above all, no matter how fireful you were in God back in Nigeria, you would easily forget God - this is the ultimate goal of the devils that have held the UK bound.

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

...the disruption of leaving a faith community and settling into a new one. It is an emotional roller coaster, a context that matters. You are human, with human responses to human circumstances.

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

@RRDirector Happy Birthday beautiful Guilaine. All the best wishes for a joyful, lovely day!!!

[Erin Stevens same handle elsewhere @aclientfirst]

1 hour webinar for ANYONE interested in harm in therapy. Info/resources for ppl who've experienced harm in therapy, or want to learn more about harm, complaints or finding a new therapist after harm. Donation tickets. Will include live Q&A. April 30th 6pm. https://t.co/ZQnuZiLxTH

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

#Northernlights #Aurora Can't quite believe I've seen these twice in one year from our little Essex garden🤩

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

@IndieTams *Congratulations* !

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

@IndieTams Cong Ingrid! 🎊

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

@Nay_Landell @RoyalHolloway @LLC_RHUL Congratulations Dr Landell!! 🎊

[Dr Renée Landell @Nay_Landell]

Had a Teams meeting with someone I once knew. Our last encounter was in a classroom. We had a racist teacher. 10+ years later she reaches out because she heard about me & wondered if we could collab., neither of us seemed to remember that we once knew each other, until...🧵

[Kai @OfficialSamaKai]

Currently at Hackney Town Hall

A protest in place with supporters standing in solidarity with Diane Abbott, holding 46 posters stating “I stand with Diane”

[Black Men In Law Network @BMLnetwork]

The Black Men In Law Network’s unequivocal statement of support to Black women in the public eye, with particular solidarity given to @HackneyAbbott, @JacquiMckenzie6 and @DawnButlerBrent ✊🏾

[Laura Farrell @LauraJFarrell]

I am recruiting participants for my ClinPsyD thesis. If you are a family carer or an informal carer of someone who has experienced a stroke, please take part. Or if you know anyone who meets the criteria, please share!!
https://t.co/vI6ohqXSWT

@uniofeastanglia
@UEAReasearch

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

@Mrs_Reeny Aww, Congratulations Noreen!!! 🎊

[Dr Zinny OO @thepresentlight]

@sisterhoodse @ClinPsy Yes to this 🤩 !!! I've followed but am unable to DM you.