Black Trauma and Anti-Racism

Hello friends,

Here’s a question that’s been weighing on my mind recently: do Black people have to experience trauma for white people to commit to their anti-racism work? Does it take our visible pain or videoed death to make you believe in what we have been saying for years, for decades, for centuries? If that’s the case, there’s something very messed up about it.

We’re in an age where there’s information everywhere, where it’s possible to find multiple perspectives on everything, and to get close to discerning the truth. No story based on partial voices will ever hold the whole truth, of course, but there are enough scholarly articles and lived testimonies around to attest to the fact of the trauma of racism, which has been going on since before the days of enslavement. (I say before, because racism was used to justify starting and continuing with enslavement.)

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