Examples Of Trauma Within The Black Community

Trauma Within the Black Community Fighting for their rights has become the new normal. The black community is known for being robbed of opportunities because of the color of their skin. However, some ways are more prominent than others. As seen in 2020, there was a revamp of the movements due to a lack of rights. In The Nickel Boys, Whitehead gives strong examples of police brutality, PTSD, and racial movements. Because of this, society has seen multiple times that the black community has been attacked. To begin, one of the most vital points of understanding trauma within the black community is the amount of police brutality they have been faced with. In The Nickel Boys, Elwood is approached by a police officer, “The deputy had his gun

This mental illness can take both a mental and physical toll on the human body. There are multiple examples of how PTSD could have been formed within these communities, “Feagin describes an enduring system of oppression in the U.S. where people of Color have been the targets of a wide range of racism, including social and economic oppression…” (Kirkinis 393). Kirkinis explains further how PTSD in the black community stems from several issues: the most common being police brutality, slavery, and abuse. As a country, the United States has repeatedly failed to meet expectations for the black population. As a result, they have begun to cope and adjust to the standards they receive, which gave many of them trauma. A prime example of this would be the large population in the United States that gets told how to act if a policeman pulls them over. Trauma is deeply rooted within their community, and without a whole justice system change, this trauma will never go away. The Nickel Boys did not shy away from expressing trauma within the black community. Some characters carry the trauma more openly than others but, Whiteheads makes it clear that “Turner knew his mother loved him. She just loved liquor more” (Whitehead 125). Even though this quote is not about the tortures from the discrimination and hatred from this time period; it demonstrates how largely family plays a role in a child's life. Throughout the book,

Elwood grew up very sheltered but knew that he wanted to fight for his rights. Once he gained the courage he went and marched. Because of this he found his teacher, Mr. Hill. Whitehead says, “He’d kept his movement dreams so close that it never occurred to him that others in his school shared his need to stand up” (35). Elwood finally gained the courage to go protest for black lives. The Black Lives Matter Movement has been going on for decades. There are certain instances where it becomes more well-known than other times. One of those was during the Martin Luther King Jr. speech in 1963 and then again in 2020 due to the tragic death of George Floyd. To continue, there have been several deaths of black individuals that have boosted the urge to keep protesting. This connects back to both police brutality and how so much PTSD forms, “As a result, the phrase "Black lives matter" has been invoked alongside the recognition of the deaths of numerous Black individuals who have died from undue police violence” (Green 199). There were thousands of BLM protests in 2020 due to the loss of so many from the community that was going unnoticed. The point of raising so much awareness was to emphasize that this has been going on for decades. BLM as an organization just formed in 2013 (Green), but the protests in years before that still fall under the march for their