Have you ever been going through something mentally or emotionally and felt like you should be able to get over it in a couple of days? You told yourself that healing shouldn’t take long, so you’re confused when you’re still upset weeks later.

This beautiful baby girl with hair that looked to us to be unkempt by Eurocentric standards of beauty, had us up in arms and ready to fight. As far as I can tell, whether or not we were ready to fight the folks at H&M for being seemingly disrespectful or ready to fight other Black folk for seeming to admonish this girl, it all seemed a trauma response to me.