Unlearned History

Since the colonial period there have been 99 recorded race-related massacres. They are divided into eras: Revolts of the Enslaved, Antebellum Urban Violence, Civil War, Reconstruction, Post-Reconstruction Era Violence, Race Riots (1900-1960), Urban Uprisings (1960-2000), College Campus Violence and 21^st Century Racial Violence (Blackpast.org). The actual number of people murdered in these uprisings is forever lost to history. Notably, this does not include single individuals who were murdered by lynching or other forms of violence.

This history was completely absent from my education. It is entirely possible that I was not paying attention, but I don’t think so. The history of murder and violence toward blacks was nowhere in my high school, college or seminary education. I doubt I am alone in this. There may have been a paragraph about the Tulsa “race riots,” but that was about it.

It’s time for some remedial education in the history of black violence, white supremacy and the challenges of our time.

First, to call the uprisings race riots is wrong. This is the accepted language that shapes the narratives. It implies that blacks are rioting when in truth they are being rioted against. In the Tulsa massacre of 1919 over 1200 homes were burned, 300 died and thousands were left homeless as white Tulsans attacked black Tulsans. It was a racial uprising of whites against blacks. That makes it a race massacre. Gradually the narrative is shifting from “race riot” to racial massacres as our understanding of what actually happened changes.

Second, most if not all of the race massacres are a reaction to blacks exerting agency over their own lives. In the Reconstruction and Post Reconstruction era, blacks were regularly beset with violence, lynching, tar and feathering and the burning of their schools and churches. According to the Zinn Education Project, what was at stake were voting rights, land ownership, economic advancement, education, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. The massacres were white supremacist efforts to suppress the agency of blacks as they endeavored to live into their newly found freedom.

In our time the racial uprisings in cities around the country have to do with prejudice, inequality, injustice, structural racism and wounds that come from 400 years of being seen as second class citizens.  Collectively it means that blacks suffer a legacy of generational trauma.

In his 1952 semi-autobiographical novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin asked the question, “Could a curse come down so many ages? Did it live in time or in the moment?” What we are just beginning to understand is that the trauma of African American slavery cannot be underestimated. According to Michael J. Halloran, “The notion of traumatic effects of enslavement being transferred to successive generations starts with the idea that slavery was not only a dreadful individual ordeal, but a cultural trauma to African American people; a syndrome which occurs when a group has been subject to an unbearable event or experience thereby undermining their sense of group identity, values, meaning and purpose, or their cultural worldviews and is manifest in symptoms of hopelessness, despair and anxiety.”

What this suggests is that it is time for blacks to define their own experience and claim their own understanding of collective trauma. History is usually written by the winners, and nowhere is that more true than in the history of American blacks. Part of acknowledging black agency is amplifying their voices so they can tell their own stories and not our white version of their story.

The collective trauma, what some call Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, is reinforced every time a black person enters a store and is followed around to make sure they don’t steal anything. It is reinforced every time an unarmed black man is murdered by police. In a thousand small and life-defining ways the structural racism of our country is reinforced.

We are learning that trauma has physiological consequences. Julia Agos, in an article entitled “Racial Trauma in the Black Community Could Have Generational Effects” writes, “The effects are two-fold. One is the prolonged activation of a stress hormone in the brain that can lead to long term negative health effects, while the other is the generational effect racial trauma can have on a group of people….The problem with long-standing chronic trauma is that the response is never turned off.”

It is believed that generational trauma is actually passed down through DNA. Dr. Althea Stewart asserts that “…the experiences of someone’s ancestors can affect how the body and brain reacts to stress today.”

The ongoing stigma of seeking mental health services, limited availability of affordable mental health services and lack of understanding of generational trauma makes it difficult for blacks to get the help they need. Affirming their collective trauma and acknowledging the physiological strain is just the beginning.

We need to learn our history and receive the language blacks use to shape their own narratives. We need to check our own prejudice and privilege and advocate for increased subsidized mental health counseling. These are just a few of the concrete things we can do to reach to the black community as they live with burdens no human being was ever meant to carry.