Consider deeper layers with Tiburon incident

In considering the conflict between a Black Tiburon store owner at the White police officers (“Tiburon police face-off with Black merchant fuels outrage, probe,” Aug. 25), I’m beginning to think how both parties — Yema Khalif and Hawi Awash, as well as Sgt. Michael Blasi — may have been responding to somatic trauma in their bodies on the issue of race.

In Resmaa Menakem’s book, “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies,” he writes about the trauma that has been stored in our bodies from ancestral wounds. These wounds range from racism from White people toward people of color to trauma between White people as they perpetuate their own generational trauma through oppression and, thus, pass it onto the Black community.

That trauma continues within the people of color among each other.

In watching a video of the incident, Khalif appears to be defensive and belligerent. He was not right in his approach, but did anyone think that might be hurting? I’m talking about ancestral hurting.

Some White people, perhaps during their childhood, heard biased stories regarding people of color. They may have formed their own narrative toward Black people based, in part, on those stories. Is this true for Blasi?

Considering Menakem’s theory, you can see how what looked like a simple interaction between a store owner and a police officer goes much deeper than what we are shown. It is possible that they both responded in a way that held to ingrained trauma.

It’s hard to know how to heal properly. I can only hope this is a teaching moment for everyone.

— K. Michelle E’toile,

San Leandro