COLUMBUS, Ohio — Recent police shootings of Black individuals can bring up trauma for others in the Black community.
For Al Edmondson, the owner of A Cut Above, it reignites trauma.
“My emotions right now…nothing’s changed. We’ve seen shooting after shooting, arrest after arrest. When is it going to stop,” said Edmondson.
Those are the types of conversations that linger through his barbershop nowadays. It’s pain, anger and unrest that’s shared by many in the Black community.
“You get in a state of mind where you can find other avenues to suppress your pain and a lot of people are starting to do that,” he said.
10TV spoke with Dr. Edwin Nichols, a clinical and industrial psychologist.
“You talk about people sitting in front of the television and crying, it’s not their relative but it’s their collective trauma,” said Dr. Nichols.
He described collective trauma as psychological chaos that a group of people can share.
That trauma can be passed from generation to generation through genetic memory.
“The reason people destroy property is because property is more valuable than life, than Black life. To destroy white property is more disturbing than a black person killed,” said Dr. Nichols.
He did say collective trauma can be healed.
Edmondson told us it takes understanding why you feel the things you feel and having an ear that will listen.
“It has to get better or else we’ll still keep seeing these types of incidences happening across the country,” said Edmondson.