Self Care: Resources to Help Repair Racial Trauma
African descended women who engage with the social and political issues of their communities are not strangers to racial trauma. Whether or not we are conscious of this phenomenon, it can have a powerful impact upon our work and the ways that we navigate predominantly White spaces. Many of us have critiqued issues of State violence in our work in religious scholarship as Ethicists, Theologians, Bible Scholars and others in sister disciplines.
As an example, one of the widely overlooked issues that arise from State violence in vulnerable communities is the issue of mental health and wellness. It's very tempting to applaud the courage of the young woman who taped the death of George Floyd. Yet, most do not fully appreciate the tremendous toll that "bearing witness" can cost her and others. The issue of racial trauma is still widely under investigated (see "Racial Trauma," Mental Health America).
African Americans are largely pushing back against the plethora of videos where Black citizens are unfairly targeted for violence by State actors. Whether it is the issue of violence or mitigating the issue of poverty, in a society which underpays Black and Brown citizens, overcoming trauma is an essential tool for creating wellness (see "Legacy of Trauma," Jones). As part of the "activism" portion of the work that we are engaged with at the M2M Research Network, we have shared various blogs regarding "weathering," a term coined by Arline T. Geronimus, ScD, which identifies and provides an analysis of the way African American women are now prematurely aging due to the impact of misogynoir.
Many of us are well aquainted with the work of actress Taraji P. Henson on screen. Here's a look at some of her off-screen work. In particular, Henson has adovcated for mental health resources for women on Historically Black College and University (HBCU) campuses.
Even within the enclave of an HBCU, having access to resources to combat anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues is important. Please read this and share. In addition to the information offered through Taraji P. Henson, we have listed a host of resources at the end of this document.
We would like you to consider how you can also participate in advocating for better mental health resources for Black and Brown communities where there is often less awareness of and access to resources. It might begin with a small act such as locating resources and programs, and then posting them on your social media or even your office door.
The Misogynoir to Mishpat (M2M) Research Network © 2023
https://www.ebony.com/taraji-p-henson-mental-health-resources-hbcu-women/
For additional resources and readings, please see the following.
United States
Bipolar Disorder and Black Americans,
https://www.mhanational.org/bipolar-disorder-and-black-americans
Black Pioneers in Mental Health
How Race Matters: What We Can From Mental Health America's Screen in 2020
Please also see the following page from Mental Health America which details racial trauma, stressors and resources in great detail. Please forward this to anyone that you believe may benefit from this information which is widely available for all who are interested.
Racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), refers to the mental and emotional injury caused by encounters with racial bias and ethnic discrimination, racism, and hate crimes. Any individual that has experienced an emotionally painful, sudden, and uncontrollable racist encounter is at risk of suffering from a race-based traumatic stress injury. In the U.S., Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) are most vulnerable due to living under a system of white supremacy.
Experiences of race-based discrimination can have detrimental psychological impacts on individuals and their wider communities. In some individuals, prolonged incidents of racism can lead to symptoms like those experienced with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This can look like depression, anger, recurring thoughts of the event, physical reactions (e.g. headaches, chest pains, insomnia), hypervigilance, low-self-esteem, and mentally distancing from the traumatic events. Some or all of these symptoms may be present in someone with RBTS and symptoms can look different across different cultural groups. It is important to note that unlike PTSD, RBTS is not considered a mental health disorder. RBTS is a mental injury that can occur as the result of living within a racist system or experiencing events of racism.
Where Does It Come From?
Racialized trauma can come directly from other people or can be experienced within a wider system. It can come as the result of a direct experience where racism is enacted on you, vicariously - such as where you see videos of other people facing racism - and/or transmitted intergenerationally. Trigger Warning: The following includes discussions of abuse, assault, and violence.
Examples Of Individual Racism
Following the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., there were nearly 1,500 reported incidents of anti-Asian racism in just one month. Reports included incidents of physical and verbal attacks as well as reports of anti-Asian discrimination in private businesses.
In 2018, 38 percent of Latinx people were verbally attacked for speaking Spanish, were told to “go back to their countries,” called a racial slur, and/or treated unfairly by others.
Over the course of one year, Twitter saw 4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets in just the English language alone. These tweets included anti-Semitic stereotypes, promotion of anti-Semitic personality or media, symbols, slurs, or anti-Semitic conspiracy theories including Holocaust denial.
Examples Of Systemic Racism
Black people make up 12 percent of the country’s population but make up around 33 percent of the total prison population. This overrepresentation reflects racist arrests and policing as well as racist sentencing practices in the criminal justice system.
Previous and current policies of racial displacement, exclusion, and segregation have left all BIPOC less likely than whites to own their homes regardless of level of education, income, location, marital status, and age.
The erasure of Asian Pacific Islanders (APIs) in the “Asian or Pacific Islander” category by U.S. Census data severely restricts access to opportunities in these communities by concealing the unique barriers faced by APIs that are not faced by East or South Asian communities.
Historical occupation segregation has made Black people less likely than Whites to hold jobs that offer retirement savings which are prioritized by the U.S. tax code. This helps create a persistent wealth gap between White and Black communities where the median savings of blacks are on average just 21.4 percent of the median savings of whites.
Lack of cultural competency in therapy training, financial incentives, and geographical isolation have created barriers in providing appropriate mental health resources in Native American communities. Rates of suicide in these communities is 3.5x higher than racial/ethnic groups with the lowest rates of suicide. To read the full article, click here.