St. Catherine University recently hosted a community forum that delved deep into ways to reverse centuries of systemic hatred that has been allowed to perpetuate within our society. 

“St. Kate’s faculty, staff, students and alumni joined St. Kate’s Executive Vice President and Provost Anita Thomas, PhD, for an hour with subject experts Sha’Kema Blackmon, PhD, and Bryana French, PhD, LP,” St. Catherine University reported on its website. “Blackmon and French led the community in an hour of listening, reflecting and sharing in order to better understand the layers of trauma and how radical healing can support meaningful change.” 

Trauma is when we respond emotionally to rape, natural disaster or another similar incident, the hosts explained, while shock and denial are normal responses to have to an incident. The long-term impacts of the trauma are often somewhat unknown and may result in physical and emotional side effects. 

Sha’Kema Blackmon | https://www.stkate.edu/

While there are many levels of trauma, some recent examples are of those who participated in the protests following the death of George Floyd after having themselves faced brutal tactics from law enforcement. 

“If you are a person of color, there's also a piece around — perhaps within your own community — you may have had some similar things happen that you're familiar with,” Blackmon said. “Or even things that have happened maybe within your own family, where maybe the person lost their life or maybe they did not, but that's also an additional layer.”

Discouraging as this inequality may be, it is important to dig deep into what causes the emotions and how to move on from the trauma that we experience, the hosts said. French explained that while it may be common to feel shameful or try to place blame on a person or group, one must move past this in order to affect change. 

“Honor the feelings that are coming up,” she said. “To feel discomfort is good. That means that you're human — that you care, you have empathy and that you want to do and be better. But to sit in that shame is not useful in social justice or in any context.”