Merchants of Pain: The Wages of Sin

"Facing the Shadows: Sinners and the Legacy of Exploited Pain"

By: Dr. RB

Historical Trauma, and the Call to Collective Healing

This past week offered a powerful mix of reflection and revelation. First, I saw the amazing Ryan Coogler film Sinners, followed by a lunch meeting I had with a long time mentor where she and I spoke on the importance of historical trauma and the need for collective healing. We opened this lunch meeting by addressing a critique I recently recieved which labeled me a “stern and overbearing merchant of pain.” Rather than refute the accusation, I leaned into it, exploring how modern capitalism preys on my pain and anxiety. She explained that we live in a society that thrives not on wellness but on distress—where consumerism, labor exploitation, and media are intricately designed to keep us in a state of need, fear, and unresolved trauma.

My reflections invited us to look deeper: how much of my suffering is my alone, and how much has been handed down through history, nurtured by systems that benefit from mine or our disconnection and despair?

This idea resonates powerfully with Ryan Coogler’s 2025 film Sinners, a haunting and metaphor-rich vampire story set in the Jim Crow South. The film follows twin brothers, Smoke and Stack Moore (both played by Michael B. Jordan), who return to Mississippi to open a juke joint. What they find instead is a community haunted by more than just poverty and racism—a vampire named Remmick, an Irish immigrant who offers freedom through darkness, preying on the locals' unresolved pain for his own selfish survival.

Remmick is not just a villain—he is a metaphor for a system. His vampirism is the embodiment of capitalism’s parasitic nature, drawing strength from the suffering of others while presenting itself as salvation. Like the economic relationship of Black sharecroppers to their white landlords, he offers illusionary autonomy while keeping his victims bound by invisible chains. This is not just a horror story—it’s an allegory of trauma, of the way the oppressed are often offered the chance to become monsters themselves in order to be free.

James Baldwin once said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Sinners is a story of facing. It shows that our current pain and trauma are not anomalies; they are the inevitable products of historical injustice, societal lies, and expectations that fracture our sense of self. What makes the film so powerful is not just the villainy of the vampire, but the agonizing choice of the protagonists: to survive, they become monsters too. This choice mirrors what trauma often does—it deforms in the name of protection.

The biblical verse in Ecclesiastes 8:9 says, “Man has dominated man to his injury.” This ancient truth still echoes through the corridors of modern life. Oppression, when left unchecked, breeds more pain, which then fuels more systems of domination. What began with one man’s suffering becomes the suffering of many. As Coogler suggest, the real horror is not just what has been done to us—but what we do in response.

And still, the film doesn’t leave us in despair. In the climax, we see even the vampires—creatures of pain—begin to recognize the interconnected nature of all life. I've spoken of this interconnectedness too, likening it to photosynthesis. A leaf cannot exist on its own; it depends on the tree, the soil, the sun, and the air. Healing, Coogler suggests, is the same—it requires systems working in harmony, not isolation.

The vampires in Sinners realized that even their dark powers were dependent on the suffering of others—and that this cycle, while seemingly inevitable, could be broken. They sought unity and transcendence from the roles they had been assigned: not just Black or white, oppressor or oppressed, but something more deeply human. Even Remmick, twisted by his own traumas, reveals a history of loss that led him to feed on pain rather than face his own.

So what now? What responsibility do we have to break this cycle? If we know that trauma is not just individual, but systemic and historical, then we must also understand that healing must be collective.

Everyday Ways to Break the Cycle of Pain and Domination:

• Practice Empathy and Active Listening: In conversations at work, home, or even online—try to understand before you react. Empathy diffuses trauma.

• Reject Systems of Superiority: Question the ways power shows up in your life—racial, economic, gendered—and work to dismantle hierarchies in your spheres of influence.

• Create and Support Spaces of Healing: Whether it's therapy, peer circles, or safe conversations at work, make room for people to be vulnerable.

• Educate and Re-Educate Yourself: Read history from multiple perspectives. Understand the roots of trauma, especially in marginalized communities.

• Support Community-Based Solutions: Invest time or money in mutual aid networks, grassroots mental health programs, and restorative justice practices.

• Acknowledge Your Own Pain: Healing starts with self-awareness. Recognize your triggers, your inherited wounds, and how they may affect others.

In both my reflections and Coogler’s visual allegory, the message is urgent and clear: we are all part of this system, and we all have a role in either perpetuating or breaking it. Trauma isolates, but healing connects. The only way forward is together—through systems of care, truth, and shared responsibility.