Dr. Steele and Newton have joined forces to research and collate tools to tackle racial trauma. Their book, Black Lives Are Beautiful: 50 Tools to Heal from Trauma and Promote Positive Racial Identity, has been released recently to address this issue.
Racial trauma can be caused in several ways – including transgenerational trauma due to historical oppression. This in turn creates chronic stress which lives in the body and can be felt like a rush of energy to the chest or stomach.
These physical symptoms can be prompted by a range of external triggers – such as race-based violence reported in the news or social media. Repeated exposure to these stressors can impact the brain – creating more of the ‘stress‘ chemicals that affect memory and fight/flight responses. This means the brain remains hypervigilant and unable to relax.
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This could present itself as hypervigilance around threats to safety, anxiety about the way one is perceived – choosing certain clothes and avoiding certain places. Because racialized trauma is a result of accumulated effects over time, you may not even be aware that your reactions are in response to your encounters with race.
Hence, experts also explain the impact of internalized racism on Black people, which often leads to self-hatred and a low sense of self-worth. In Western culture, White cultural standards are still upheld as the gold standard – and the beauty and cultural norms of other racial groups are portrayed as inferiors.
Messages of inferiority include television shows that depict Black people as unintelligent, criminal, prone to violence, and sexually promiscuous; the underrepresentation of Black people in positions of leadership and power; and the lack of justice received by Black people in our judicial systems.
Tools For Coping with Trauma-Related Racism
As well as helping Black people to identify racial trauma, Black Lives Are Beautiful also offers tools for healing. The experts have collated a trauma checklist to help identify racial trauma, including feeling guarded around white people, having witnessed Black people being mistreated, and feelings of helplessness when hearing about racism in the news.
Apart from acknowledging the trauma, the experts provide a list of tools for coping, including mindfulness, physical relaxation techniques, and mental exercises including compassion meditations, positive affirmations, a self-esteem plan, and visualization tools.
Recognizing how social media can be triggering, they also offer tips to navigate the online world with well-being in mind – such as following uplifting content creators and taking regular breaks.
Because of racism, many people of color lead lives full of worry, with a constant sense of being on guard. We might suppress or deny feelings about racism, or feel conflicted about talking about it.
Dealing with these thoughts and feelings repeatedly and over a prolonged period can eventually result in damage to mental and physical health. They want to give people the tools to identify their trauma and move forward with their healing.
Source: Eurekalert
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