Many of the traumas that occur today cannot be treated in isolation without addressing systemic racism. Baltimore City was the first city in the country to establish redlining (limiting the ability to get bank loans based on the racial makeup of the community). These racist policies have subjected entire neighborhoods to generational poverty and the traumas that are manifested from it.

Racism and racial bias occur on a daily basis for people of color through micro aggressions and systems of oppression that prevent healing and progress—underfunded schools, limited access to health and mental health services, limited access to healthy food sources, inadequate transportation and affordable housing, limited access to jobs and opportunity in general. True and full healing cannot happen in an environment of racial injustice and we must address both to break the perpetual cycle of generational traumas that prevent equitable progress.