Sunday, March 21, 2010

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome--We Still Seem To Hate Ourselves

















Every time a teen looks in the mirror, she will see the V-shaped scar - a permanent reminder of the violence that erupted near her grandmother's Brooklyn home.

Shantayah Lewis, 17, sat in her room at Kings County Hospital Saturday, calmly reflecting on the Friday afternoon attack that left her with dozens of stitches in the left side of her face.

"My face is too beautiful to be fighting," Shantayah told the Daily News. "Fighting is not the key. Violence is not the way."

Shantayah was walking with her 15-year-old cousin, Shakeena Grant, on Franklin Ave. near Lincoln Place in Crown Heights about 3:30 p.m. They were being tailed by a girl who is dating the ex-boyfriend of Shakeena's sister, Shamaula.

"She kept following us," the injured teen said. "She wanted to fight."

After a brief scuffle, the 17-year-old girl who had been following the cousins vowed to return.

About 5 p.m. the girl came back with her boyfriend, the center of the beef. She then whipped out what witnesses said was a knife and started slashing.

"She swung and started stabbing my face," Shantayah said. "I didn't know what to do."

Shakeena, who was stabbed, was released from a hospital Saturday.

The two girls somehow escaped and ran to the Union St. home of Shantayah's grandmother, Cheryl Evans. The grandmother called 911 and the two girls were taken to Kings County Hospital.

Though the wounded teens believed the boyfriend was holding them down, cops said he actually was trying to break up the attack.

Police talked to the man, who said he was trying to help, and surveillance video backs up his claim, sources said.

Shantayah said the whole thing should never have happened.

"Basically, [Shakeena] fought for her sister," she said, referring to Shamaula, who used to date the attacker's boyfriend. "She should not have done that. We should not have been involved."

The young girl responsible for the attack was still at large last night and no arrests have been made.

jkemp@nydailynews.com
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It was Franz Fanon who said long ago that oppressed people oftentimes do not turn their wrath on the oppressor, but on each other. We see this happening more and more with our people, specifically, our children. Dr. Joy Leary has written a book about this called 'Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome'. In essence, her thesis is that we, as descendants of slaves, are still suffering the effects of hundreds of years of trauma. Listen to her speak about this on the video clip.


Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome Part 2

The Whats Up News | MySpace Video


1 comment:

  1. The violent incident in Brooklyn again was another indictment of the self-loathing that people of color have with each other.The video clip with Dr. Joy Leary was mesmerizing. I knew about these atrocities before,but honestly I never thougt about PTSD in relation to slavery. Now it all becomes clear in my mind the clarity of truth that is the manifestation of how our emotional fractured existence at the hands of so many deviant malviolent individuals have disrupted the balance of our true reality.We have created a world of perpetuated violence among ourselves because of our own self-hatred that was taught to our ancestors years ago. Instead of understanding that our strength comes with our unification, we delve in the ideology of divisiveness among ourselves with gang violence and believing that our "purpose and "strength" derives with our hurting those that look like us. We have bought into the perversness of a decadent society where we are still the victims but now we also have become the victimizers. Those who know and know that they know have a responsibilty and an accountabilty to begin to reverse the perverted way that we agreeably have begun to perceive ourselves as if we are the enemies of ourselves and we are acting out that perverse reality.

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