Nurturing Children's Mental Health Body and Soul: Confronting American Child Psychiatry's Racist Past to Reimagine Its Antiracist Future.

This paper unpacks the legacy of racism and white supremacy in American child psychiatry, connecting them to current racist inequities, to reimagine an antiracist future for the profession, and to serve all children's mental health body and soul. History reveals how child psychiatry has neglected and even perpetuated the intergenerational trauma suffered by minoritized children and families. By refusing to confront racial injustice, it has centered on white children's protection and deleted their role in white supremacist violence. An antiracist future for the profession demands a profound historical reckoning and comprehensive reimagining, a process that this paper begins to unfold.
Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. They collectively contributed hundreds of hours and centuries of lived experience. In the process, they endured retraumatization while confronting white supremacist violence and risking censure from their employers and institutions for their unapologetic, transparent approach. The emotional, intellectual, and physical toll of this labor on their bodies cannot be quantified. The only remuneration they received for their free labor was support from one another. While invaluable, this is also unacceptable. The motivation for their unpaid contribution is that it serves as an impetus and mandate to fund long overdue and desperately needed anti-racism initiatives in American child psychiatry.
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