The Effect of Racial Violence: Collective Cultural Trauma

Abstract

Trauma has mainly been viewed as an isolated experience, but upon further research, sociologists and researchers alike have come to realize that trauma can be shared as a collective. The coined term for this being cultural trauma, a trauma that is carried through generations due to the transfiguration of the collective psyche and identity in the wake of horrifying events. Using the African American community as the leading example of such trauma, due to their long history of responses to the lynchings of the 1950’s and the police brutality of the 2000’s, such as cases like Emmett Till’s and George Floyd. This article expands on the theory of cultural trauma by explaining the idea of the healing in this community to be nearly impossible if the routine of racial violence that changes the collective sense of self has been weaved into the systemic structures of the country, and presents itself in different forms throughout the decades.