Race-based trauma is the threat to emotional, physical, and psychological safety due to racial discrimination (overt), racial microaggressions (covert), and racially motivated incidents such as workplace bullying, police profiling, and racial violence. Stress reactions can manifest as: flashbacks; avoidance of triggering people, content, or spaces; shutting down; withdrawing; emotional triggers when confronted with reminders of the events; distressing thoughts; hyper-vigilance or always on guard; and mood changes and irritability.
Other forms of racial include historical trauma and collective trauma. These are traumas that groups of people with similar social identities (race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, etc.) have experienced in the past or that they have experienced or witnessed at the same time. While these traumatic experiences may have happened in the distant past, they often have very present-day impacts. For example, the enslavement of Africans, the Holocaust, and the public murder of George Floyd.
Additionally, generational trauma refers to responses to traumatic events that are passed through different generations. Epigenetic research has shown that trauma can be passed through 14 generations.
What Happens When We Experience a Trauma?
When we are triggered, feel threatened, or fear for our lives, our bodies engage in an automatic response directed toward the perceived threat or danger. We exhibit these responses in many situations such as environmental events, accidents, life-threatening situations, and even discussions of race. Trauma lives in our memories and in our bodies.