About Rita S Fierro, Ph.D

Dr. Rita Sinorita Fierro
Social Justice Consultant, Coach, Author

I have been studying the systems that oppress and divide us for 30 years, but I’ve also been learning to play ancestral Italian folk music. How are they related?

Because studying my ancestors’ history helps me understand their world view and what unresolved wounds had white people cause so much pain in the world. Folkmusic shares a lot of what they experienced – and how it impacted them – in story form.

It also reveals a lot about the ancestral trauma I’ve carried from previous generations that I continue to heal from–and support others to heal from, too.

Ancestral racial healing is a key tenet of my work to show trailblazers–entrepreneurs, companies, and communities–how to address the challenges of racism, sexism, and classism and the operating systems they’ve created. I do much of this through Fierro Consulting, LLC, where my team and I help clients around the world increase their effectiveness through realigning their internal cultures with their values and then measuring the results.

As a company at Fierro Consulting, LLC we work for an equitable and humane world where everyone thrives in community. We use organizational development, evaluation, coaching and public speaking services to create a future we can be proud of.

A part of this work is helping to heal those impacted by oppression. Many people who start businesses hit roadblocks because they need to fully process the trauma inflicted upon them by a hostile culture. We use a variety of methods, ranging from coaching, somatic techniques, and Family Systems Constellations, to help them do this.

This is the result of the fact that I’m a descendant of a long line of healers who believed that complete healing only comes when we treat our emotional and spiritual needs along with the physical.

The importance of racial healing in myself and others was established when I was four years old. I remember overhearing a conversation during a family dinner where a guest complained bitterly about losing a job to an African American because of Affirmative Action.

Whenever he said the word “Black,” it was with such hatred. It nauseated me because deep down, I knew there was something profoundly wrong about hatred.

Over time, I became numb to that feeling. I am one of many whites, trained to numb the pain that empathy generates. My journey of healing has been all about overcoming the numbness and learning how to stand strongly with everything I feel, while learning how to say racism hurts us all.

This realization pushed me to learn all I could about world systems and their effects on people. To that end, I have earned a Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, and a Master’s in Sociology from the University of Rome, Italy. While at Temple, I saw first-hand the flaws in programs that force failure on the poor and people of color and the limitations of white saviorism.

I was a research assistant for a Welfare-to-Work program designed to reunite parents with their children who had been placed in foster care. I interviewed about 100 parents, where they explained the program’s numerous contradictions, like how parents couldn’t live in one-bedroom homes with four kids, but they could live in shelters in one bedroom with four kids.

Also, parents couldn’t be given money to help keep their children with them, but foster parents would get paid. Time and time again, the parents told me how systems intended to help them made their lives much worse.

I also observed that people who haven’t been harmed by these systems are less likely to recognize the damage they have imposed and how it continues today. That’s what made it imperative for me to write Digging Up the Seeds of White Supremacy, where I explore how exploitation and oppression have branched into persistent structures that are resistant to change and how white people can take ownership of what we’ve created through the System. The book also addresses the extensive trauma this produces and how those harmed by these structures can heal and transform the world around them.

After the death of George Floyd, public discussion about the tragedy revealed a shallow understanding of systemic racism in the media and among policy makers. This is due to what I’ve learned in my 30 years of study: These oppressive systems adapt, attack and sabotage any meaningful efforts to change them.

I was terrified that our young folk would go into the world to dismantle these systems, only to hurt themselves. So, I authored this book to equip them for the journey. While the book has something for all generations, I especially wanted to say to Gen Y and Gen Z: “If you’re going to fight an enemy, you need to know your enemy.”

I also believe that sharing this knowledge doesn’t end with authoring a book: In 2012, I partnered with similarly minded activists to establish the Home for Good Coalition. Our goal is to help communities organize against racism and its traumatic impacts embedded in our courts, schools and numerous other systems that support our society.

People built systems and people can transform them. I’m passionate about building a society where we accompany people through our own messy humanity and stop punishing people for our traumas.

My work has been forged around practices of healing and integrating all the parts of me. This helps me become whole and it compels me be a wayshower for others. Feeling whole helps me serve the world.

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