Racism & Trauma
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Welcome to Psychology Level 1, Lesson 2: Racism and Trauma
In this lesson, you will learn about:
Psychological and physical causes of trauma
Racism causing trauma in the past and today
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) and Dr. Joy DeGruy
The media’s role in psychological trauma
Symptoms of trauma caused by racism
Daily racism, self-esteem, and internalised racism
(Brief) Healing trauma in Black community
Objectives
By the end of this lesson you will understand:
How racism causes trauma
Why trauma caused by racism is as legitimate as other forms of trauma
How and why toxic behaviours and beliefs have been learned over generations
Caution: this lesson contains references to violence
Racism causes trauma.
From the beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade until the formal abolition of chattel slavery, Africans were hunted like prey, captured, sold, tortured and raped. The worst kinds of physical, psychological and emotional abuse were experienced during these centuries. Following apparent emancipation, Africans were forced into different forms of institutionalised subjugation throughout the Americas and Europe, and were once again enslaved - this time on their home continent.
In the USA, Jim Crow laws, convict leasing, sharecropping and peonage (a system where people were re-enslaved because of debts they owed) were enforced on the Black population after slavery. Racial terrorism in the name of white supremacy spawned various hate groups, most famously the Ku Klux Klan - which at it's height had millions of members with many in governmental positions. Black people were lynched, raped, beaten and had their towns destroyed by white America.
Throughout the Caribbean, Black people were forced into labouring for the white minority and were trapped in a cycle of poverty, living in conditions which were often not fit for livestock. In Brazil, racial terrorism was rife as the slave patrollers - who became rebranded as the state police - regularly murdered and lynched innocent Black people.
Today the violations continue. Whether it be through encountering racist attitudes or murder and enslavement at the hands of the state, the disgusting treatment of Black life shows no signs of slowing.
So, when today’s violations are combined with the atrocities of the past, what happens? What does repeated trauma on a specific group of people over generations produce? What is the impact of centuries of chattel slavery, subjugation and racist institutions on Black people today?
Trauma emerges differently in different people and many conditions can cause a person to experience trauma. A serious threat or harm to one’s life or one’s family, the destruction of one’s community, seeing another person hurt or killed, or learning about a relative being hurt or killed can all induce trauma in a person. If exposure to these stressors is repeated for years, trauma is almost guaranteed.
During enslavement and colonialism, Africans encountered many of the stressors that induce trauma. They would have seen people murdered, experienced physical and psychological assault and witnessed the destruction of their communities first hand. Today these stressors persist in many Black neighbourhoods worldwide. Violence through police brutality, mass incarceration, entrapment in impoverished ghettos and community bloodshed consistently occur.
The mainstream media’s constant peddling of Black death and negativity, as well as the education system’s refusal to teach anything Black and positive, means even those from more affluent backgrounds are still affected. The constant onslaught of death, destruction, abuse and negative imagery on the Black psyche can cause both an individual and the entire group to experience trauma.
The symptoms of this trauma then emerge in a number of ways:
individual and group self-hatred
feelings of worthlessness
ever-present anger
violence enacted on oneself and others like them
internalised white supremacy
psychological illnesses
Once large sections of an entire community suffer with these symptoms, a cycle of despair is perpetuated.
These symptoms can then cause a person to behave in a particular way. Their behaviour may range from passive anti-Blackness, with comments such as “don’t get too Black” or insults based on the darkness of a person’s skin routinely spouted. Other behaviours may lead to the changing of one’s appearance through skin bleaching, surgery and straightened hair in order to look less Black. When combined with living in an impoverished ghetto, symptoms can often lead to aggressive confrontations, and ultimately death.
Trauma over generations has also led to the adoption of certain beliefs and behaviours. Some of these were through social learning, as children who received physical abuse from an enslaver would grow up and reproduce that abuse on their own children. Over generations, and with the prohibition of education and the exacerbation of stress through terrible living conditions, this became normalised behaviour.
Other psychological behaviours would have been adopted to survive a lifetime of torture. Today, these behaviours may emerge as low self-esteem or ever-present anger, particularly when coupled with ongoing stressors.
Ever-present anger often emerges due to the awareness of living in a racist society. Whether it be from day-to-day “microaggressions” - daily racist acts in public spaces - or the understanding of the global racist system, Black people can live with a constant underlying rage. This is often coupled with a feeling of powerlessness, leading to that rage being misdirected towards others who are also seen as powerless.
Internalised white supremacy also results from racist trauma. This psychological trait is shared by many Black people today - and many do not even realise they have it - due to generations of being taught white supremacy and Black inferiority as if they were fact. In the past, these teachings would consist of nothing but abuse but today, they are subconsciously force-fed.
Eventually, this myth became embedded in a culture imposed by white people. This has caused many Black people to both overtly and covertly hate their skin and themselves - and consequently, their own people. The legacy of trauma can lead to a self-hatred so deep that a Black person will aid the white supremacist power structure in the oppression of Black people.
When an individual experiences trauma from a physically or psychologically violent event, they are given therapy to help treat the cause and their symptoms. However, Black people have never been given any help for their perpetual trauma. Healing is required, and the first step on the road to recovery is learning that the trauma exists and plotting its elimination. Positive self-image, self-love and a knowledge of self are imperative when combating the trauma caused by racism.