Statement of Mourning from PACEs Connection Team

Thank You for this initiative.

Thanks you for this, Porter. I will add that part of the reason this has hit us all so, so hard is the grief we have felt, too, over the loss of life in Buffalo, NY, just 11 days ago.

The national attention on Buffalo and the loss of 11 people — adults and mostly senior citizens who were parents and grandparents, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, aunts and uncles, dear friends, community volunteers, community leaders and community builders.

In Buffalo 10 of the 11 adults slain were Black.

I want to include them in this post because when I look at this time of horror, those two shootings — and several others including one aimed against Taiwanese Americans — will go together for me. Coast to coast. From one corner of our nation to another. Old and young. People of all colors and of many backgrounds.

The root cause of all of this trauma is trauma. Our toxic polarization, our sick and suffering pregnant women and babies, our suicidal teens, young people feeling hopeless, hapless, helpless. Our teachers, medical professionals and other “front-line workers” who have been exploited by an economy that wants to see people worked damned-near to death for the least amount possible. Our communities scorched by climate-changed induced wildfires sparked by, in some cases, power companies that knew the dangers of their worn out equipment.

In a nation more focused on profits and productivity than the health and well-being of our people, this is what we’re going to get. More. Of. The. Same.

I am grateful to do this work that ties together all aspects of how we got to this point; how our nation’s history of colonization, genocide, kidnapping, enslavement, imprisonments, Jim Crow laws and intentional inequity in housing, education, clean water, air, and land — all aspects of life — has been operationalized to benefit White people, especially White men, to the harm and impoverishment, incarceration, and oppression of so many others. Generation after generation.  

There is much more to say and it will be said in our Historical Trauma in America series offerings, our blog posts, our events and webinars, our History. Culture. Trauma. podcasts. The blogs and comments and events written and shared and hosted by staff and volunteers and many more among our 56,000 + members.

I am glad we are all here together in this work to prevent and heal trauma; build resilience through trauma-informed work with individuals, families, and communities to educate people about and create opportunities for culturally appropriate and community-led positive childhood experiences.

If you’re feeling frustrated, take some of our tools — our new PACEs Science Presentation, resources (in multiple languages) on parenting and self-care, growing a resilient community and more — from our packed resources center. These presentations, PDFs and more are free. Just sharing these is a step in the direction toward preventing and healing trauma. You never know where what you share — on social media, via email, in a presentation to your community resilience group — will land.  It might not change the world in a “big way” but it will in one way, in that it may lead to your feeling a bit more empowered, just as writing this note has done for me, and as I imagine, it empowered Porter as she sat thinking of her children and all on staff who have school-aged children, by writing our Statement of Mourning.

Carey

Thank you for posting this, Porter.