Talk of systemic racism triggers anxiety among Black Sonoma County residents

Santa Rosa marriage and family therapist Maurice Travis, 45, thinks mental health often is overlooked when racism becomes a national conversation.

A legacy of trauma experienced during slavery, passed down generations and built into the neurochemistry of Black people, has created anxieties that surface daily, Travis said.

Black people are then traumatized again when they experience racism or discrimination, he said. It also can happen when videos like George Floyd dying in Minneapolis police custody on May 25 go viral, eliciting primal fight-or-flight responses that don’t always subside.

The focus on the outcomes of systemic racism, like disparities in economic access, education and policing, and the calls for reform that follow often ignore mental health effects at the root level, according to Sonoma County health experts in the Black community.

And cultural stigmas that deem a mental health condition as a form of weakness often make it harder to address underlying factors that can impede progress.

“There is this legacy for African American folks of trauma,” Travis said. “This trauma that is suffered is a collective experience as a culture — and we’re not the only individuals of culture that have experienced it — but our transgenerational trauma has been persistent for years, and it’s deeply ingrained.”

For Rohnert Park resident Anferny Moore, 26, those fears make it harder to find any sense of comfort in his community following adverse police encounters growing up in north Texas, and bias from teachers he thinks kept him behind his peers.

Even now, as he studies social sciences at Sonoma State University, Moore said he can’t have the typical college experience.

He didn’t go out or enjoy the nightlife — before the coronavirus pandemic forced everyone to stay home. He’s afraid to take his kayak on the water because he could end up isolated in nature where there is no cellphone signal or cameras if something happened.

He avoids driving alone, fearful he could get pulled over by police and not have a witness.

“Law enforcement is asking us why we’re nervous and it’s literally because they have the power to take our lives,” Moore said. “That’s something you have to come to terms with. If you’re in a life-threatening situation, you’d rather call a friend than a public servant.”

Even those who reach prominence in terms of wealth or status still stay on high alert.

Barbie Robinson, director of the county Department of Health Services, said navigating implicit biases and having to dispel stereotypes or assumptions about her aptitude as a Black woman with authority is “a taxing, everyday reality.”

As the head of county public health and housing, steering high-profile agencies this year through a homelessness crisis on the Joe Rodota Trail that was soon followed by the coronavirus pandemic, Robinson believes she gets challenged differently than a white male would in her position, she said.

In recent weeks, Robinson has found an outlet, meeting with other Black women in power from around the region to share how they confront these types of situations.

If these inherited stresses build up, they can have lasting consequences, she said.

“This trauma creates mental health conditions or shows up in physical health conditions when you look at cardiovascular disease, heart disease, diabetes,” Robinson said. “There are direct links between mental health and physical health.”

The hardships that face Black Americans align with post-traumatic stress disorder, Robinson said, which is defined as “exposure to a psychologically distressing event that causes intense fear and hopelessness.”

“But when I think about PTSD, for Black people there is no post,” she said. “The trauma is ongoing.”

Improving mental health goes hand in hand with dismantling systemic racism, but there is a stigma that needs to be removed, said Dr. Diana Grayer, a psychotherapist and author in Petaluma.

A University of Wisconsin study found 63% of Black people view mental illness as a sign of weakness, which makes it harder to find healthier ways to cope.

And more than half of Black Americans with serious mental health conditions in 2018 did not receive treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That means greater outreach and access to mental health services is needed, Grayer said, which has been a key demand local activists have issued to area politicians and Santa Rosa Junior College administrators.

“The value of acknowledging mental health at this time is so important. People are acting on so much anxiety and anger,” Grayer said. “Having space for Black people to vent, to rage, to express all that’s been happening, is necessary — overdue for years.”

Travis, the Santa Rosa therapist, said in order for Black people to heal, there needs to be greater acknowledgment of the pain and hurt they have experienced for centuries. That recognition has been elusive, but the reckoning taking place after Floyd was killed gives him hope more of the country is looking inward, he said.

In no way does he view his community as victims, Travis said. The negative effects also have created a type of resiliency he views as a positive, and that’s worth recognizing as the community continues to call for reforms.

“We have mental and emotional and spiritual fortitude that’s also being imprinted in our gene expression, and that’s the cornerstone of our legacy,” Travis said. “If we’re going to look at things that are impacting us negatively, we also have to look at things impacting us positively.”

You can reach Staff Writer Yousef Baig at 707-521-5390 or yousef.baig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @YousefBaig.