Black History Month, Embodiment, and Why This Conversation Cannot Be Seasonal

By Dr. Denise Renye

Black History Month often invites reflection. But what I want to name is that history does not live only in textbooks or museums. It lives in bodies.

As a psychologist, sex therapist, and yoga therapist who works closely with trauma, attachment, and embodiment, I am constantly aware of how much history the body holds. Nervous systems remember what was required to survive. Patterns that get labeled as symptoms are often stories of adaptation that made sense in real and dangerous conditions.

Much of the psychological framework we still rely on today, including attachment theory, was developed through research conducted primarily with white, middle class families. These models were not built to fully account for racialized trauma, systemic threats to safety, or collective survival strategies shaped by oppression and exclusion.

When those contexts are missing, behaviors like hypervigilance, emotional guardedness, self reliance, or mistrust are often framed as deficits or wounds. In many cases, they are intelligent responses to environments where safety, autonomy, and dignity were not guaranteed.

This matters deeply in my work around sexuality and embodiment.

For Black individuals and communities, sexuality has been shaped by both profound resilience and profound violation. Control over Black bodies has been central to the history of enslavement, segregation, and ongoing racial violence. These histories are not distant. They continue to shape how safety, pleasure, consent, desire, and agency are experienced today.

And this is not only about the past.

We are still witnessing racist attacks and efforts to erase or sanitize history in real time. Earlier this year, a widely condemned video using a racist trope to depict former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama circulated publicly before being removed, drawing outrage across political lines. At the same time, in Philadelphia, exhibit panels at the President’s House site that documented the lives of people enslaved by George Washington were removed under a federal directive. These were not symbolic gestures. They were real actions with real impact, shaping what is allowed to be remembered and what is pushed back into silence.

These moments are not abstract. They affect nervous systems. They affect bodies. They reinforce vigilance, grief, anger, and exhaustion in ways that do not show up neatly in diagnostic categories.

This is why conversations about embodiment, sexuality, and trauma cannot be separated from conversations about race and power. Sexual health, consent, pleasure, and agency are not peripheral concerns. They are central to dignity and healing.

Black History Month offers a moment of collective attention. But this work cannot live in one month of the year. If we only speak about race, history, and embodied trauma in February, we risk treating them as occasional topics rather than ongoing realities.

Culturally responsive care is not a seasonal practice. It is an ethical stance.

In my clinical work, this means approaching every person with humility about the limits of our theories and curiosity about the full context that shaped them. Attachment theory can be helpful. Somatic work can be powerful. But no framework is universal. When applied without cultural awareness, even well intentioned models can unintentionally pathologize survival.

Honoring Black history is not only about remembrance. It is about how we listen, how we assess, and how we show up, not just this month, but every day.

For services by and for the Black community, check out BEAM and Therapy for Black Girls.