The emotional distress arising from various situations, such as witnessing or personally experiencing violence, can cause trauma. Trauma can reside in our bodies causing long term stress. If trauma and grief are not dealt with, they can be passed on to subsequent generation. While police violence or instances of brutality can result in personal pain and suffering, the inability to have any control or agency in those instances can be humiliating. It can be implicitly used as a tool of suppression. Michele Alexander describes how targeting leads to the disproportionate numbers of men and women of color in the criminal justice system, and how their absence traumatizes their families and communities. This secondary trauma, attributed to the loss or lack of participation of a relative, friend or community member, is exacerbated by financial hardship and loss of resources and possibility when family members and friends are incarcerated or killed by police. Because of the direct and indirect violence enacted against communities of color, the violence is often re-enacted among other community members.