Racial Trauma Unfolds: The Spectacle of Witnessing George Floyd's Murder

Donna Richards; Paul Banahene Adjei

doi:10.25071/1929-8471.141

Authors

Donna Richards Trent University - Department of Social Work https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3716-0345
Paul Banahene Adjei Memorial University, Indigenous Research-Bruneau Centre for Research and Innovation https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3635-3038

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/1929-8471.141

Abstract

In this article, we chart some of the detrimental emotional impacts of what we consider a human disaster: denying Black people’s humanity. We focus on the highly publicized and violent killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in 2020: 9 minutes and 29 seconds of state-sanctioned, anti-Black violence that was filmed and circulated globally and has sparked the largest racial justice protest and beyond since the civil rights movements of the 1960s. We consider the impacts of viewing this footage, this spectacle, on Black people, seeing this human disaster playing out in front of their eyes through the lens of anti-Black racism (ABR), which serves as an analytic lens to theorize this trauma within the context of visceral and ubiquitous anti-Black racism. We further contextualize these links between racism and trauma by drawing from our firsthand experience, as well as the stories, worries, and feelings shared with us by Black professionals, families, and members of the community. We focus specifically on that shared by Black youth, which has primarily been the focus of our professional work. We conclude by highlighting strategies of resistance to counteract these impacts, as well as shifts to clinical practice that might better address them and structural shifts towards social justice.

Keywords: Human-made disasters, mental health, trauma, anti-Black racism, resistance, resilience.

Author Biographies

Donna Richards, Trent University - Department of Social Work

Lecturer, Department of Social Work, Trent University, Peterborough Campus

Paul Banahene Adjei, Memorial University, Indigenous Research-Bruneau Centre for Research and Innovation

Associate Professor, Interim Associate Vice-President (Indigenous Research and Innovation) at Memorial University Newfoundland

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