Floyd killing seen as adding to racial trauma
Repeated incidents of violence taking toll on African Americans
George Floyd, after a police officer knelt on his neck. Ahmaud Arbery, while on a jog in Georgia. Breonna Taylor, while police raided her Louisville, Kentucky, home.
And the ones before: Eric Garner, who couldn’t breathe. Philando Castile, in the car with his girlfriend and her 4year-old daughter. Trayvon Martin, only a boy.
Scores of killings answered with acquittals. Now, as a pandemic rages, African Americans disproportionately devastated by COVID-19 are forced to bear witness to more black deaths.
The costs of these deaths ripple. When people of color experience racism, when they repeatedly witness racism, there is a profound emotional toll.
“The persistent pandemic is racism. That’s the pandemic. Recent deaths of individuals of color and the deleterious impact of COVID-19 on communities of color stems all the way from 1776,” said Alisha Moreland-Capuia, executive director of Oregon Health & Science University’s Avel Gordly Center for Healing, which focuses on culturally sensitive care for the African American community.
“The emotional and psychological impact of racism means acutely, every day, being reminded that you are not
enough, being reminded that you are not seen, being reminded that you are not valued, being reminded that you are not a citizen, being reminded that humanity is not something that applies to you.”
Research shows racism has harmful mental and physical effects. They can result from a person experiencing racism directly – as a bird-watcher did when a white woman in New York’s Central Park told police he was threatening her life when he asked her to leash her dog – or vicariously, such as someone watching the video of Floyd’s suffering.
Racism is associated with a host of psychological consequences, including depression, anxiety and other serious, and sometimes debilitating mental conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders, mental health experts say.
“Racism is traumatic for people of color,” said Monnica Williams, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. “Everything that you have to carry around anyway as a black person in America, to add onto it having to watch people in your community who’ve done nothing killed at the hands of people in power who will probably suffer few, if any, consequences. I think there’s no better word to describe it than traumatizing.”
Four Minneapolis police officers were fired after Floyd’s death, but no criminal charges have been filed.
Williams’ niece, who is in Germany, tried to reach her this week after watching the footage of Floyd.
“She was so upset she couldn’t sleep,” Williams said.
The video that spread on social media this week shows officer Derek Chauvin driving his knee into Floyd’s neck as Floyd repeatedly says, “I can’t breathe.”
This isn’t the first time those words reverberated through this nation’s conscience.
In 2014, Eric Garner was placed in a chokehold by white New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo after being arrested on suspicion of illegally selling loose cigarettes. His dying words were “I can’t breathe.”
Pantaleo was fired in 2019, five years after Garner’s death.
These incidents influence the experience of being black in America – how dangerous it is to drive, jog, stand on a corner, or even sit at home.
“I can only describe the continued viewing of racial violence, torture, murder and disregard for the humanity of black bodies as repetitive trauma,” said Danielle Jackson, a psychiatry resident and board member of the American Psychiatric Association’s Caucus of Black Psychiatrists. “Perpetrators of racial violence may have changed uniforms, speech, and coded message, but the message remains the same, ‘you – black person – are other, you are less than.’ ”
Police kill more than 300 black Americans – at least a quarter of them unarmed – each year in the U.S., according to a 2018 study in The Lancet, which found these killings have spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans not directly affected.
Research shows black Americans are 20% more likely to report serious psychological distress than non-Hispanic white Americans. In a study on black youth suicide, researchers found suicide attempts rose by 73% between 19912017 for black adolescents and listed exposure to racism as a factor.
While videos of police brutality fuel outrage and galvanize movements, they also linger, long after the protests quiet.
Some mental health experts argue the explosive footage that accompanies many of these violent deaths is vital to raising public consciousness, even if they are disturbing.
“It powerfully shapes our discourse, much like the images of African American youth in the South who were being sprayed with powerful water hoses and bitten by police dogs when they protested during the civil rights movement,” said Brian Smedley, chief of psychology in the public interest at the American Psychological Association. “As disturbing as these images are, as tragic as it is for individuals who’ve lost their lives, or who have been abused in these circumstances, the reality is that their victimization is not in vain.”
Others fear social media’s amplification is a step too far, treading into gratuity. Williams says it can be re-traumatizing for people of color, and in some ways, its viral spread is yet another act of dehumanization.
“These are human beings and they deserve dignity, and the fact that you can just go online and ... watch a black person be killed – when is the last time you saw a white person killed online?” she said.