A Trauma-Informed Approach to Affirming the Humanity of African American Boys and Supporting Healthy Transitions to Manhood

Abstract

The dehumanization of boys and men in African American families is a historic and contemporary racial trauma that black males and their support systems must negotiate. While racial socialization and racial literacy strategies provide black males and their families with protective resources in response to racism, Stevenson (chapter “Dueling Narratives: Racial Socialization and Literacy as Triggers for Re-Humanizing African American Boys, Young Men, and Their Families”) notes that these interventions are not equipped to address the trauma resulting from black males’ racialized encounters. In this chapter, I apply a trauma-informed approach to affirm the humanity of boys and men in African American families and suggest the integration of a trauma-informed perspective with a racial literacy lens to support healthy transitions to manhood for this group.