About Liberation Medicine School
Liberation Medicine School (LMS) is an Afro-Indigenous and Afro-LGBTQ rooted initiative that is dedicated to the teaching, learning, and practice of a decolonized medicine that is grounded in the collective struggle for Black liberation. LMS was conceived by Black students - and is driven at its core by Black trans and queer healers - in protest of colonial curricula at medical institutions that prepare medical practitioners to uphold racialized systems of oppression that harm Black patients. We aim to build a school and a place of healing that A) centers the indigenous knowledge, experience, and narratives of the Black community; B) serves as a home of and for Black students, healers, and community members who are deeply passionate about honouring and harnessing the innate medicines that Black folks carry within us; C) engages healers and medical practitioners in undoing pathologic systems of power that undermine the health of Black folks; D) upholds and celebrates the central role of Black trans and gender non-conforming people in anchoring Afro-indigenous medicine.
What We're Creating
A Liberatory Curriculum
We are constantly formulating curriculum that is designed and taught by marginalized communities. It will center liberation, anti-oppression and decolonization. It will engage students in diagnosing and treating systems of oppression instead of pathologizing individuals. It will affirm the knowledge and experiences that marginalized communities have about their own healing and medicine. And it will aim for the health and self-actualization of marginalized communities.
A Critical Mass of Health Activists
LMS will organize community members and health practitioners to undo racialized systems of oppression that negatively impact the health of communities of color. Participants will build and nurture practices that undo the colonial foundations of the healthcare industry while simultaneously working in relationship with Black and Brown communities to build a healthier world.
A Space for Black Folks to Reclaim Our Body & Health
Due to a history of colonization, imperialism, and slavery, communities of colour carry historical traumas that attempt to displace us from own indigenous practices of medicine. LMS builds on histories of resistance by creating protected spaces where people of color - especially those who are Black, Indigenous, queer, and or trans - can unpack our historical traumas, reclaim our health and humanity, and recenter ourselves on our indigenous practices of medicine and healing.
A Redistribution of Wealth and Power
Power and wealth continue to be concentrated in white-dominated institutions, while POC-centered organizations with the analysis, skill, and relationships to create racial justice are continuously under-resourced. Through a Healing Justice Fund, LMS redistributes both resources and power from white-dominated institutions to anti-racist community organizations in Seattle who work towards the well-being of communities of color.