By Skylar Stekly, The Seattle Medium
PORT TOWNSEND – A short film highlighting the process of racial healing through touch is underway in the Pacific Northwest.
The project will detail the story of the Chronically UnderTouched (CUT) Project, a movement designed to address the lack of healthy, nourishing, platonic touch that Black men receive.
The CUT Project’s founder, Aaron Johnson, is a public speaker, facilitator and touch activist. The under-touched issue rose to his attention after a conversation with a young Black man he mentored. Johnson realized there was a significant lack of platonic intimacy in their shared legacy once he asked:
“When was the last time you had thoughtful, platonic touch for three minutes?”
Johnson’s question began the CUT movement, and eight years later, it struck a creative spark with Ben Wilson when he was attending one of Johnson’s workshops on touch activism.
Wilson is the founder and CEO of Color of Sound, a new nonprofit dedicated to positive social change for people of color in the northwest with a focus on racial healing, housing and land access, economic opportunity and reparative justice.
“It was the lack of platonic intimacy between people and especially people of different backgrounds that got my attention – I had some personal experiences so it resonated with me.,” Wilson said. “As I got deeper into it I realized this was something that was very universal and that seemed to be important to all people that we talk to.”
Wilson founded Color of Sound in Port Townsend after his recent retirement from a career in digital health and healthcare IT. He has been involved with numerous nonprofits but saw an opportunity with Color of Sound to create more long-term projects that address systemic issues, in his town and beyond.
“With the resources I have now and the opportunity and the time, I want to dedicate the balance of my life to see what I can do to have an impact to positively help out not only people of color, but also to help whole communities to thrive because they’re benefiting from everything diversity brings to the table,” Wilson said.
Color of Sound’s board has five directors, including Wilson and Johnson. All are people of color. Their first project will be the Chronically UnderTouched Project Short Film, to bring awareness to the under-touched issue and counteract racial stereotypes in film.
Johnson speaks of the “Black brute,” an archetype commonly seen in media, which depicts Black men as aggressive or dangerous. He believes that representing “Black masculine tenderness, normalized and nuanced” is crucial to interrupting this harmful cycle.
The first step in this process will be the completion of the short film, documented early this year. They plan to submit the production to film festivals next year, starting with the Port Townsend Film Festival, for the 2025 cycle.
The majority of filming occurred on the weekend of April 19-21 at the Whidbey Institute, a center for transformational learning on Whidbey Island. Johnson held the three-day retreat for Black men of all backgrounds to explore their relationships with platonic physical touch and to create a touch plan for their individual healing journeys.
Kingsya Omega is an integrative health coach and one of the 11 participants at the retreat. He found a connection with himself and others while immersed in a safe and healing space.
“It’s possible Black men can actually get together and let their guards down, and remove judgment and lean into those topics in a way that’s supportive, therapeutic, positive, inspirational,” Omega said.
“I have never experienced that before.”
Each day included practices such as song circles, meditation, physical movement, intimate conversation and group meals. These activities built a connection with the group but also between the individual man in his own physicality.
“I think everyone left that retreat a changed human and seeing life from a lens and seeing possibility. This is possible. This exists. Now, what can we do to find more of it?”
Omega said that shifting into environments that invite supportive and intimate connections for Black men is essential to expanding the under-touched movement.
Wilson attended the private retreat and found himself moved by many tender moments throughout the weekend.
“We showed up as 11 separate people and by the end, there was a real bond between the group,” Wilson said. “Black men often call each other brothers, but I think in this case, it was a step beyond that sort of brotherhood.”
He believes that the footage of the weekend’s sessions will provide a unique lens for a broad audience to witness the process of racial healing. The filmmakers hope the documentary motivates the public to participate and engage with each other on the healing promise of platonic touch.
The short film is being produced in the Pacific Northwest by Whaleheart Productions and funded by donors, primarily in the Port Townsend community, where Color of Sound is based.
Executive Director of the Port Townsend Film Festival Danielle McLeland said, “We recognize many of the strengths and the beauty of the place that we live here in Port Townsend, but really recognize the weakness that we have in our homogenous culture and the possibility of Port Townsend being a place where everybody feels welcomed.”
The Color of Sound team hopes to use the momentum from this first project to create a full-length documentary film. Each step of this process builds more visibility for the movement and aims to increase the amount of thoughtful, platonic touch in the world, three minutes at a time.
“Take this as a practice, take these questions into your community, into your home,” Johnson said. “This is something we can make a part of the fabric for America.”