In light of the shocking and disturbing news of the unjust murders of #GeorgeFloyd #AhmaudAbery #BreonnaTaylor by police officers, we would like to bring awareness to and highlight the mental health impacts of exposure to traumatic racial incidents to the Black community 
In this thread, we particularly focus on race-based trauma – providing an understanding of what it is and how it can impact the Black community after exposure to the recent incidents of police brutality in the USA.
So what is race-based #trauma? Race-based trauma (or racial trauma) refers to peoples’ reactions to dangerous events and real or perceived experiences of racial discrimination.
These include threats of harm and injury, humiliating and shaming events, and witnessing racial discrimination towards another Black person. Exposure to these experiences can occur either directly or indirectly, through the learning of, or witnessing of an event of the sort.
As such, exposure to police brutality – where officers exercise undue or excessive force against a civilian resulting in harassment, injury, property damage, and death – against a Black person can evoke race-based trauma amongst Black people.
Particularly as police brutality towards Black people is known to be fuelled by racial bias and racial profiling. Experiencing race-based trauma is even more likely in an age of social media, where individuals can easily access, witness or learn of incidences of police brutality.
Prior exposure to racial discrimination, microaggressions, racial trauma’s historical roots or even vicarious traumatisation can increase the likelihood of Black people experiencing race-based trauma after being exposed to police brutality.
With this in mind, it is increasingly important that those affected are aware of how to cope with news circulating around these recent events. #BlackLivesMatter #BlackMentalHealthMatters #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd
So how do we recognise race-based trauma? Similar to the symptoms of PTSD, researchers have argued that individuals experiencing Race-based trauma react in the four main ways:
One may also experience diminished self-worth, feelings of confusion, shame and self-blame which can increase risk of depression and anxiety. Further impacts are summarised below:
However, it should be noted that not everyone will experience race-based trauma in response to the recent police brutality cases.
Whether or not one becomes traumatised is based on many things including coping strategies & if the incident is perceived to be negative, sudden & uncontrollable. Thus, a lot of Black people may have already developed coping strategies to deal with the recent events....
..in light of the several previously reported police brutality incidents against unarmed black people. Accordingly, reports have concluded that Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police than white people, with often no accountability for the officers involved.
This can make the repetitive witnessing or learning of police brutality against Black people feel like an inevitable event, which can sadly lead to desensitisation to trauma. Radical reform is needed of the systems that perpetuate such incidents.
However, this does not diminish the urgent need for therapeutic support amongst Black people. The following tips can be useful for anyone trying to understand, process and cope with their emotions in response to the recent events:
If you are in need of professional help, please aim to seek a culturally reflective, sensitive and competent service or practitioner who can emphasise with and validate your emotions surrounding racism and police brutality.
The following organisations can be useful: @baatnman @therapy4bgirls @NafsiyatTherapy @TeamBreakingMad @BlackThrive Please tag anymore below.
We will be posting information on how you can support the movements in the upcoming weeks.
Note. Information from this thread was drawn from Robert T. Carter’s (2007) Theory of race-based traumatic events, a perspective largely ignored in the UK’s psychology curriculums and scarcely researched #DecolonisePsychologyCurriculums #BlackMentalHealthMatters
