Sam Simmons

Yeah.

One of the things that changed

since, you know, 17 years ago is when I first started having this conversation, I would get a lot of pushback from the older part of the community.

It's like, why are you being so negative?

Because when you think of trauma, you think of negative, right?

That kind of thing.

Why are you being so negative?

We've been trying to avoid the negative and just live, you know, suck it up.

We've been, you know, and then as a community, we get credit for being resilient.

You know what that looks like to me?

Ain't nobody supposed to be resilient for no 400 years and not learn how to thrive.

Okay?

And so we're like the Mikey of the community.

He's like, you can do whatever you want to them, but they'll be resilient.

And that's the way it's always been.

And that's the way it continues to be.

And on top of that, part of our community believe if you haven't suffered enough, you ain't black enough.

So we have built around the whole trauma, because when I talk to that whole trauma piece, because it's been so much a part of our lives.

Because even when we talk about the trauma of during slavery in the church, the church helped folks believe that there was something greater than this life on Earth during slavery.

God, we know you've got a place for us.