“I saw myself and my family all through that data,” one participant said during a discussion. “From addiction to incarceration to broken relationships, I could see how these patterns play out.”
The presentation also focused on the concept of intergenerational trauma, including emerging research in epigenetics suggesting that traumatic stress can influence biological responses through generations.
Matthews said that historical experiences such as slavery, Jim Crow, and economic exclusion created conditions that affected how families functioned.
He also described how social systems limited Black men’s ability to provide or protect their families, roles historically tied to masculine identity, while exposing Black women to violence and economic vulnerability.
Those pressures, he said, contributed to long-term struggles in relationships.
“When someone comes home exhausted from surviving a system designed to break them, they may not have the emotional resources to sustain intimacy,” he said.
Media And Modern Conflict
Matthews also criticized contemporary media and social media for amplifying gender conflict within the Black community.
“Modern social media platforms profit from conflict,” he said. “Gender war content is deliberately amplified because outrage drives engagement.”
He pointed to viral narratives portraying Black men and women negatively as examples of what he called “trauma-saturated scripts.”
“These narratives accumulate silently. Becoming the lens through which we see every potential partner,” he said.
To challenge these negative scripts, Matthews encouraged participants to practice critical media literacy by questioning and analyzing the messages they consume. He and the organizers also suggested uplifting positive stories of Black relationships, both online and in daily conversations, as ways to resist divisive portrayals and begin building healthier community narratives.
Despite the heavy subject matter, Matthews emphasized that knowing and understanding history can be the first move toward healing.