Protests and ensuing seeking change to the status quo of white supremacy and state violence against Black bodies have started to take place around the nation. These protests come on the heels of video surfacing of police kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, in the same month the murders of Ahmuad Arbery and Breonna Taylor. It has been hard to focus on anything given all these images circulating. Instead, I have been forced to do my best to cope with the dread and anxiety I felt. The distractions that usually work and allow me to live my day-to-day life haven’t been helpful. I have felt a tightening in my chest, sadness, hypervigilance, and on edge. I figured I was experiencing vicarious racism. This was especially the case as images of riots from the civil unrest started to surface in various cities, my home town of Cincinnati included. And that’s when I realized I wasn’t just having an emotional response due to vicariousness; but, due to my own past experiences. Specifically, the terror I felt from being caught in the crosshairs of the “Race Riots” of Cincinnati almost 20 years ago.
Currently, Black people’s experiences with racism directly or indirectly may be coming back to haunt them. As a researcher and educator in the helping professions I believe it is paramount that we realize the impact that racism and white supremacy have on the people we serve. We can start by having a better understanding racism-related stress and race-based trauma and heal at the root of the problem; white supremacy.
Racism-related stress is conceptualized as a life stressor that particularly affects people of color (POC) and is derived from experiences that materialize from the dynamics of racism. (Harrell, 2000; Pieterse & Carter, 2007). Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams (1999) offered that akin to other life stressors, racism engenders coping responses, psychological and physiological stress responses, and health outcomes. Harrell’s (2000) racism-related stress model identified six types of life stressors specific to POC that include: personal experiences of racism, vicarious racism, microaggressions, collective experiences, transgenerational transmission and chronic-contextual stress from the impact of living in a white supremacist society.
Similarly, race-based traumatic stress injury refers to the potential emotional consequences of pervasive racism and racial discrimination in society (Carter, 2007; Carter, & Sant-Barket, 2015). By injury, Carter referred to the emotional or physical pain and/or the threat of physical and emotional pain resulting from racism in various forms such as, racial harassment and discrimination. Hence, race-based traumatic stress injury can occur from both overt acts of discrimination, and covert microaggressions, or the threat of it (Pieterse, Todd, Neville, & Carter, 2012). Many racial injustices can occur throughout one’s life, thus severity may be a consequence of the cumulative effects of numerous events (Carter, et al., 2015).
When trying to better understand my own trauma response to the media images of white supremacy through police brutality and subsequent protest and riots; I find the grief metaphor of “The Ball and the Box” to be helpful. The metaphor goes… There is a ball in a box with a button in it. The ball and its size represents grief. When the button is pressed painful emotions are released. Thus, in the beginning the ball may be large but may get smaller over time. Consequently, the button would be pressed less following the incident of loss. However, the ball and button are always there. Though, things in life may happen that increase the size of the ball or rattle the box more, pressing the button. For me, in the case of my emotional response the ball, represents my experiences with white supremacy; the button, distrust, sadness, and fear.
Through my constant coping efforts, the ball is at a size that allows me to function. I imagine the same to be true for most Black people, who are forced to learn to cope with the omnipresence of white supremacy in order merely function in society. Yet, right now for me the ball is enormous and the box lay on the bottom of a bouncy house. Until recently, I never recognized my emotional reaction as a trauma response; but, that’s exactly what it was and had been in the past. Unfortunately, no matter how small, the ball and button are always there. As long as racist polices exist, so will white supremacy, and so will my pain. Thus, the need to heal the pain at the root of the problem and dismantle white supremacy. While protesting may be the communal trauma response to the injurious ways of white supremacy, rioting is the civil disobedient coping mechanism to address and change the traumatic suffering.
The difference in the application of the metaphors is that there are tangible things we can do to eliminate the white supremacy ball; it doesn’t always have to be there. Oftentimes, White people start the work of dismantling white supremacy by starting within. While intrapersonal work is necessary, the casualties of white supremacy do not have the privilege of waiting for your individual progress. Consider protesting society’s self-healing measure to the illness of white supremacy. Consider rioting and looting symptoms of the illness that is white supremacy. Rioting and looting the result of a broken police system and economic inequality. Society’s self-healing measures of protesting and the manifestation of rioting and looting symptoms denote an increase in severity and urgency. Now is the time for action that brings about antiracist policies on local, state, and federal levels to quell the disease.
While I am triggered by riots; let’s be clear, I am not trigged by the impetuous nature of such rebellion. I’m triggered by what they represent. Peaceful protest being met with police antagonism. The hopelessness of the status quo. The silent replies to calls for help. I am triggered by my own memories of countless police traffic stops with no explanation; undercover police threatening me with violence for getting too close to them in a crowded area; and police holding me at gunpoint for driving while Black. I am triggered by the fact that people are rioting because nothing has changed; and the fact is I’m alive because of luck, not policy change. We must have policy change to dismantle the system and sickness of white supremacy.
Carter, R. T. (2007). Racism and psychological and emotional injury: Recognizing and assessing race-based traumatic stress. Counseling Psychologist, 35 (1), 13-105.
Carter, R. T., & Sant-Barket, S. M. (2015). Assessment of the impact of racial discrimination and racism: How to use the Race-Based Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale in practice. Traumatology, 21(1), 32-39. doi:10.1037/trm0000018
Clark, R., Anderson, N. B., Clark, V. R., & Williams, D. R. (1999). Racism as a stressor for African Americans: A biopsychosocial model. American Psychologist, 54(10), 805-816. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.54.10.805
Harrell, S. P. (2000). A multidimensional conceptualization of racism-related stress: Implications for the well-being of people of color. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70, 42–57.10.1037/h0087722
Pieterse, A. L., & Carter, R. T. (2007). An examination of the relationship between general life stress, racism-related stress, and psychological health among black men. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54(1), 101-109. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.54.1.101
Pieterse, A. L., Todd, N. R., Neville, H. A., & Carter, R. T. (2012). Perceived racism and mental health among Black American adults: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 59, 1–9. 10.1037/a0026208