The Unspoken Message
I would argue that the statement (All Lives Matter) in response to (Black Lives Matter) is not trauma informed, allow me to elaborate.
I am a physician, and if one of my patients is gasping for air and visibly can’t breathe, then their case is the one I need to attend to immediately and urgently, and that of course does not mean that the lives of the rest of my clients don’t matter.
When a house is on fire, we allocate resources to that emergency, and that is not dismissing the rest of the neighborhood. If we focus on a broken bone, we are not neglecting the pain of the rest of the body, we are actually tending to it.
There is an unimaginable amount of trauma in the black community, stemming from centuries of historical, systematic, structural, institutional, and trans-generational oppression, racism and terrorism. Calling out injustice is a healthy adaptation to this trauma. We need to engage with the black community and skillfully be part of the solution. When black lives really matter, then all lives matter.
I am a physician, and if one of my patients is gasping for air and visibly can’t breathe, then their case is the one I need to attend to immediately and urgently, and that of course does not mean that the lives of the rest of my clients don’t matter.
When a house is on fire, we allocate resources to that emergency, and that is not dismissing the rest of the neighborhood. If we focus on a broken bone, we are not neglecting the pain of the rest of the body, we are actually tending to it.
There is an unimaginable amount of trauma in the black community, stemming from centuries of historical, systematic, structural, institutional, and trans-generational oppression, racism and terrorism. Calling out injustice is a healthy adaptation to this trauma. We need to engage with the black community and skillfully be part of the solution. When black lives really matter, then all lives matter.
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