*crowds singing*
COLETTE BAPTISTE-MOMBO: I was born in 1958, and when I was born
it was activists, you know, the black activists era. It was
Fannie Lou Hamer and it was Rosa Parks.
Speaker: ...Freedom! Freedom! Freedom now!
*crowd cheers*
All types of things were going on
in the black community at the time, and the struggle
eventually caught up to me.
My name is Colette Mombo. I live in Southbury, Conn. I have
a lovely husband and twin daughters. My mother was an
immigrant. She came from northern England. Her father was was a
Somali from Africa. And my father was first generation Jamaican. So
we were an immigrant family mixed in with an African-American
family. I grew up in Queens, NY, Far Rockaway Boulevard. We
moved from there when I was 7 years old. We left what what now
I see was our comfort zone moving from an all black neighborhood
into an all white neighborhood. And we later came to find out
that it was not going to be an easy road for our family.
Home was a happy place, and there's no question about it. But
as soon as that door opened and you'd have to make that walk to
the bus stop, just walking down the street. You know, the looks that
you get, the shouts that you get. You know, they're calling your
names. They're telling you to go back to Africa where you belong.
I mean, a child. This is what a child is being exposed to.
It's shocking, it's degrading, but most of all, it's fearful.
SHAVONNE MOORE-LOBBAN: When young people, and young people
of color specifically, experience trauma —
and racial trauma specifically — it really confuses
their place of being and it really disrupts the way in which
they were coming to understand the world.
COLETTE: Hello, Dr. Lobban. It's so nice to meet you.
SHAVONNE: Hi, Collette. It's very nice to meet you, too. My name is Dr.
Shavonne Moore-Lobban and I am a licensed psychologist. My focus
is on trauma as well as the impact of trauma on marginalized
communities. Trauma in and of itself can already be life
altering. Racial trauma even more so. You begin to see the world in
a way that questions where you're safe and who you can trust.
That sense of safety is tied to, 'Am I safe here because of just
who I am?'
COLETTE: My mother always had the shades drawn. My mother always
felt that she had to protect us from what could happen. She
eventually went out and got German shepherds. We had dogs in
the house because she felt that was, that was very important to
protect my family.
We started to find and explore places in that very neighborhood
that were safe havens. We found a place that they called the
Metedeconk. It was a beautiful wooded area. It was right around
where the bus stop was, about a half a mile from the house. It
was almost like a small paradise. And there was no one there, just
kids, kids from the neighborhood. One day I was playing down in the
Metedeconk. We had tents, and it was wonderful. I was happy and I
was down there with my Jewish friend, Robin. And my twin
sister said that she was there that day, I don't remember. And
they said that my second oldest sister was there that day. I
don't remember that. But I do remember Robin Charles, and I
remember talking to her. And all of a sudden, she started to
change in color, and she seemed to have been looking behind me as to
try to warn me that something terrible was about to happen. I
didn't have time to look behind me.
I was knocked unconscious.
My sisters told me that they saw everything.
They saw that it was a young boy, he was a teenager, I
knew who he was. They said that he had crept up behind me and
just attacked me. And he didn't think anything of it. It's
something that he wanted to do. They remember his face. They
remember the smirk on his face. He didn't say anything, but he
just attacked me and he wanted to hurt me. I remember when I came
to, my mother was there in the Metedeconk holding me in one
arm, and in the other arm she had this huge log that she was
dragging. She was crying. She was screaming. She was shouting, 'how
can you do this to my child? I've had enough of the racism. This
has got to stop. You've hurt my child. You've injured my child.'
And my mother dragged me to that house across the street.
That same house there every day, they called us the N-word, every
day they told us, 'go back to Africa.' So my mother, in her anger,
she took that same log that the boy hit me with,
and threw it through their glass window,
broke the window and started screaming and shouting,
'come out, come out! You want to hit my child?'
My mother was literally at the end of her rope.
She'd had enough. That was a defining moment for me.
A defining moment for my mother. It was a defining moment
being black in that neighborhood. She had had enough.
VOICE 1: I am not going to serve you.
VOICE 2: Because of my race?
VOICE 1: I'm not going to serve you!
VOICE 2: Because of my race?
VOICE 1: Move on!
COLETTE: We read stories about Jim Crow and segregation and lynching,
but we don't read stories about what happens in between that
while civil rights was being played out.
This was in the backdrop, and I often wonder the reason why the
level of racial intensity had to have been the influence from what
was going on from the '60s as I was growing up.
SHAVONNE: Yeah, and those experiences send messages about worth, right?
They send messages about whether you are worthy to be served in the
front of a restaurant or the back, whether you're worthy to be at
the front of a bus or back, whether you're deserving. The type
of hatred and violence and racism that existed at that time, and
still exists today, is used to teach you that you are less than
in some way, right? Even when your family is actively
working to teach you the opposite. It takes a lot of work
and effort to remind yourself of messages that are strong and
powerful and opposite to what society might be trying to teach
you about yourself and people who look like you.
COLETTE: I often wonder over the years being so traumatized as a child
because of the racial incidents, why it hasn't manifested into
extreme anger, extreme anxiety.
SHAVONNE: You know, everyone responds to trauma in different ways. Your
home itself was a safe place. That can be a buffer and a support to
helping you adjust and deal with the trauma in different ways, right?
In ways that may promote more resilience and strength.
I mean, and the other piece of it is that you also witnessed
strength and resilience. So even though around you, outside of
your home, trying to come into your home, there was anger and
violence and racism and discrimination. Even despite
that, your family within and of itself was providing love and
safety and comfort and reassurance and showing you
strength and showing you resilience.
COLETTE: Because of my trauma and because of my experiences with
racism as a child, I feel the need, the dying need, to get active, to
do something about it, to make a difference in a peaceful way. So
we started an advocacy, activism group here in my town called
Justice Southbury. We show up every Sunday. It's about 500
Facebook members of Justice Southbury. And what we do is ever
since the death of George Floyd, we hold these peaceful
rallies. So I'm wondering if because of my trauma and my past,
that this is influencing me to move forward, to do something
that's bigger than myself, to get active in my community. Is there
a connection here?
SHAVONNE: Yeah, there can be a connection between activism and
healing and thriving in the wake of trauma that one has
experienced. Racial trauma has a lot to do with using race and
discrimination and ways to oppress a group of people and
keep them in a subordinate position and silenced in a lot
of ways. The activism allows for you to take that power back and
to take that control back and to be empowered and to empower your
community to feel hope that change is possible. And that what
has occurred and the racial trauma that exists doesn't always
have to exist. And that even though you have been on the side
of receiving it, you can now also be on the side of changing that.
COLETTE: When you are a black kid moving into an all white community,
you can lose your identity, you can lose your sense of self. And
I'm so happy that I was able to educate my children about who
they are, their long history, their ancestors, and to see where
they are today. I have to let them know that, you know, we're still
living in a country that judges us because of the color of our
skin. And things happen because of the color of our skin,
and those things are not always right. I want the sun to shine in
on our lives as much as possible, unlike when I was growing up in
fear of violence, a fear of somebody getting hurt, fear of
being attacked. It's different for my children now. It's
different. It's almost like 50 years later. And thank goodness I
can say that, you know, I don't have to have my shades drawn in
my home. But there's still, you know, a way to go.
A long way to go.