Collective community trauma in Oakland

Last night, in Oakland, a white man stabbed two young Black girls, killing one of them (18 year old Nia Wilson) and putting her 19 year old sister into critical condition in the hospital.  The situation was likely racially motivated and many are saying the killer may have been in town for a gathering of white supremacists scheduled to happen in Downtown Oakland today.  Are these two incidents connected?  Possibly, probably,….?

My heart hurts, I’m super angry and sad and overwhelmed with emotions.  I have a 19 year old family friend living with us.  She is Black.  She is the one who told me about the situation and I sat with her for about an hour this morning as she shared her fear… or more so terror and anger and sadness.  This could have been her, she shared.  This could have been her close friends.  She was born and raised in Oakland and said she has never felt so scared to be out as she does today.  She was crying and shaking and wondering what this meant for her own life in Oakland and her own safety.

She was traumatized in a way that I, and every other white person, won’t be able to fully understand.  The stabbing of these two girls doesn’t just impact them and their loved ones.  The trauma reverberates out to every young Black girl in Oakland, and possibly across the country.  It impacts the whole Black community because it’s collective community trauma. These two girls didn’t do anything wrong, they were just traveling on the BART train when this dude followed them off the train and then attacked them, slitting Nia’s throat and seriously injuring her sister.  And it’s likely because he doesn’t like Black people?  Because he thinks his skin color and his people are more superior than others?

Our country is splitting apart at the seams, the unhealed racial wounds seeping out everywhere and it’s scary.  I believe that racial trauma, both old and current, causes people to be in a trauma response, which means there are currently a whole lot of people walking around right now in a fight, flight or freeze response which means the logical mammalian brain is not working… only the reptilian brain is.  That means people are responding from a “I need to find safety no matter what” place, which is not logical and doesn’t think first.  It just responds.  This is not a good place to act from.  It causes more conflict, more hurt and often times, more trauma.

I am left feeling confused.  Maybe I’m in a trauma state of freeze… that would make sense.  My heart is hurting and I ask again, “What more can we do to make a change?  What is really going to make a difference?” We have to shift the energy around by changing the energy within.

I pray for the family of Nia Wilson and for us all.  I pray that love truly does overcome hate.