Acupuncture and Liberation

Here's why I started doing community acupuncture: the structural inequalities and, specifically, the explicit racism and classism baked into the health care landscape in the U.S.

At acupuncture school, the cost of which was exorbitant and therefore unnecessarily exclusive, I was only taught how to set up a practice doing private treatments for people who could pay between $80 and $150 for a single session. Acupuncture schools, professional organizations, and licencing and regulatory bodies were all set up to create an industry that essentially fenced off the simple and powerfully effective medicine of acupuncture and maintained it as almost exclusively a privileged luxury. In a glaringly insidious example of structural racism, my acupuncture school had also not even mentioned the vast history in the U.S. of acupuncture being used in liberation movements with powerful and transformational results among black and brown and asian communities. Acupuncture in the U.S., it turns out, has a very different origin story than the one I was presented at school and the one most of us still hear. I invite you to take the time to watch one of the videos or read one of the articles I linked below to learn about what that story is.

Just after Hurricane Katrina, I joined a group of acupuncturists treating people in New Orleans on sidewalks, in churches and mosques, under Red Cross tents, and school gymnasiums. Even though our training didn't prepare us in any way for this kind of clinical experience, I immediately felt more useful than I ever had. And, I had rarely seen healing as profound. That's not just because there was crisis. It was also because people who cared joined together in solidarity and left behind the delivery system of you-get-the-healthcare-you can-afford in exchange for a community supported model that meant widening access to more people and improving results of treatments. This is what I want, I thought to myself: building a future of community connection and support with more democracy, and more healing potential. What I'm learning is that everywhere that acupuncture has been used, it has been used in the daily lives of common people. And that the real story of acupuncture in the U.S. is a story of powerful liberation movements among poor and violently oppressed communities of color, of cross-cultural solidarity, of the loving transmission of a brilliant medicine through the hands of people committed to the health and survival of their neighbors.

Please explore these links about acupuncture and liberation in the U.S. These stories should be known. As Tenisha Dandridge LAc. says, we've had 50 years of not telling these stories; and that's 50 years of black and brown people and of poor people not seeing themselves in the story of acupuncture, and therefore not being safe in the white space of acupuncture clinics.

In the Hands of Revoltionaries and Communities: A Social History of Acupuncture
A short two-part video series

An Unusual Tale of Acupuncture, Racism, and African American History in the USA.
Short article by Tenisha Dandridge LAc

Using Acupuncture and Traditional Asian Medicine to Treat Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome and Racial Battle Fatigue.
Short article by Tenisha Dandridge LAc

Dope is Death.
Podcast and film
The story of how Dr. Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of Tupac Shakur, along with fellow Black Panthers and the Young Lords, combined community health with radical politics to create the first acupuncture detoxification program in America in 1973 - a visionary project eventually deemed too dangerous to exist

And, join local acupuncturist and artist, James Shelton at his exhibit, People’s Medicine: Acupuncture, Liberation and Recovery.

Outside the Common Ground free health clinic, residents of the Algiers section of New Orleans rest and receive acupuncture after Hurricane Katrina.

Gathering resources. Looking for the right time to open.

I wanted to hop into your email inbox just to let you know I am thinking of you, and working hard on a plan to re-open the clinic.

COVID-19 continues to be an ongoing threat, even beyond the individuals and communities that have already been impacted. Even though Rhode Island has done a relatively good job flattening the curve of transmission and also supporting hospitals, we are not disconnected from the rest of the country and from very concerning trends related to infection rates and lack of leadership. Also, it's clear that the virus spreads most easily indoors with people near each other for stretches of 15 minutes or more. So, I am making the decision that it does not make sense for us to open Kindred just yet. But, we are keeping our eye on the national and local situation, and exploring every possible strategy for making the clinic safe, so we can open as soon as is wise.

Healthcare is a human right; and we can see that and other human and civil rights being undermined right and left right now. In the midst of it all, and even with the clinic temporarily (we hope) closed, I want you to know that your health, and your access to good care, matters to me. Community acupuncture is one of the only great models of affordable, accessible, community based consistent care that I have found; and, together, we're going to have to innovate that model to keep it working well for all of us. In the meantime, as much as I so desperately want to do acupuncture and to see you all again, I do not want to risk anyone's health. So, until the epidemiological picture is trending positively and we have refitted the clinic to maximize safety and comfort, we will remain closed.

Please - be safe. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. FInd some play and some rest and some joy.

I can not wait to invite you back to the clinic, and to all the ways that acupuncture can boost your immunity, your nervous system, and your overall health during a time of change.

Don't hesitate to drop me a line and let me know how you are doing. I miss seeing you at 545 Pawtucket Ave.

Here is a link to a wonderful interview with John Lewis, whose passing we mourn. I cherish his life’s work and his words here on the “Beloved Community”.

Hope and Precaution

On RE-OPENING, and continuing to care for each other.

Two months ago Kindred closed temporarilly. I lost my job and my ability to help people everyday. I had to lay off my wonderful employees, and I stopped seeing the hundreds of people I'm used to seeing evey month. My immediaite family and I have been fortunate to remain healthy, housed, fed. You have a story to tell, too, about your life over the last 10 weeks or so. I can only imagine the breadth of loss many of you are experiencing. One of the losses we're all exposed and succeptible to right now is the loss of hope - in the face of so much death and dysfunction and while the most violent and manipulative aspects of our political and economic system rear their ugly heads.

While I am not yet able to report a date for our re-opening, I did want to offer you the hopeful news that kindred will definitely survive this. When it is safe to re-open, our precious and powerful clinic will be here, maybe literally with bells. You might discover that our operations will be a little different to start out - fewer chairs, fewer patients per hour, masks being worn, dividers between chairs, and a few very important guidelines for patients to follow. But, we will be here, providng the acupuncture which we recognize could have helped with so much phyiscal and emotional suffering since March 13th. I cannot wait for the moment I can send you a message that says we're open and then to welcome you.

I pledge to base our re-opening strategy first and foremost on the safety of you and me and the other employees at Kindred. We are staying abreast of new information and guidelines as they evolve from the RI Health Department, and from the C.D.C. We are staying in communication with other acupuncturists and paying attention to the experiences of other similar businesses. We are also studying the epidemiology *, which frequently gets lost in the confusing and politically motivated mixed-messaging coming from the federal government about the economy and plans for the relaxing of infection controls. Please also know, that the Mills Building, and it's managing company, 545P Associates has been and will continue to take measures around the sanitation and safety of our building. Currently, one can only enter the building with a key. 

Many of you have reached out to ask if we are able to do private treatments during this time. It is hard to say no to our patients who are obviously in need. However, we are committed to creating access for the many through community supported acupuncture; and, when it is safe to have a clinical interaction with one other person at a time, we can also create a safe container for more people to get affordable acupuncture. If you have the time, please read this statement from the People's Organization of Community Acupuncture. It speaks to this commitment to creating access for regular treatments in the context of our current global health crisis. 

* "I Promise. I Promise. You Can't Cheat a Pandemic" By Jonathan Smith, epidemiologist at Yale and Emory
"COVID !9. Path Forward" by Harvard School of Health, Center of Communicable Disease Dynamics