In May 2020, after the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and the release of a video of a white woman making a false police report about Chris Cooper, a Black man, America’s attention became focused on a plague that has troubled the nation for centuries. Racism and racial discrimination are deeply woven into the fabric of America, and the consequences of both are inequality and, too often, untimely death for Black Americans.
While these are the most recent cases that have made national news, countless more are undocumented by the media but are regularly witnessed, lived, and experienced within the Black community. Each case illustrates the injustice, inequities, and mortal threat that Black people in the U.S. live with every day.
Many people across the country and the world have been profoundly distressed by cases of racism and police violence against Black people, but each of these events also inflicts particular trauma within the Black community. Research shows that witnessing the deaths of Black men and Black women induces both collective trauma — trauma experienced by a large group of people — as well as racial trauma, which results from direct or indirect experiences of racism and discrimination.