"Big, Black, and Dangerous": Primal Scene Of Racial Trauma?

Abstract

Based on a presentation given at the thirtieth anniversary conference of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy in London, May 2022, this article identifies the transgenerational racial archetype "Big, Black, and Dangerous". It is suggested that this unconscious construct is most accurately regarded as a dangerous state of mind, contributing to the disproportionate rates of adultification, criminalisation, and deaths of vulnerable and distressed Black people by law enforcement agents in the UK, the US, and beyond. Well known to Black people, but not typically mentalized outside of the Black community, I argue that "Big, Black, and Dangerous" non-thinking functions as a primal scene of racial trauma. In the absence of a shared mentalization around this, high profile examples from the media are reviewed in order to elucidate and support this idea. Ideas about how forensic psychotherapy might potentially help address this stubborn dimension of racial trauma are suggested.