9 Navigating Racial Trauma
CONTENT WARNING: Depending on your lived experiences and identities, some of the content on this site may be troubling, uncomfortable, challenging, and, at times, triggering. Engage mindfully and intentionally when embarking on your exploration of Learning in Colour, and connect with resources for students if needed.
Developing a healthier race story, safety plans, and engaging in social media
Inspired by an article in the New York Times (2017) by Jinnie Spiegler, developing a healthier race story and self-safety plan for harmful, racist experiences can be a tool used by the BIPOC community to heal and manage some of the emotions that occur during experiences of racial trauma and other forms of discrimination, oppression, and racism. Inspired by Black Feminist and Critical Race scholarship, healthier race stories looks to develop “counter-stories and narratives” to challenge commonplace and harmful stereotypes and scripts about people of colour. Developing a compassionate racial story can contribute to increasing racial and self-esteem, changing and challenging discourse about people of colour, raising critical consciousness, and facilitating tools for independent and collective social justice and movement. This is a great tool to use, especially if you are experiencing the symptoms of racial trauma chronically (long-term).
Some suggestions that can aid in developing a healthier race story or narrative can be:
- Creation of word clouds and other arts-based activities; jot down or illustrate phases, themes, and words when thinking of your own “life story.” Feel free to repeat words or phrases and reflect on them with these questions: what do you see in the word cloud? Is it mostly negative, positive, or neither? What are your thoughts and feelings? Why are some words larger than others and, if so, why? What patterns do you notice?
- This reflective exercise can begin to stimulate the innermost “scripts” and descriptions that we consciously and unconsciously apply to ourselves. You can begin to tease apart, based on your experiences, what is truly descriptive of how far you’ve come and all you’ve accomplished versus what definitions have been forced upon you.
- Write and illustrate your own race stories
- This can look like journaling, audio, or video recording, or drawing out your own story about race and racism. What might have been your first encounters or your recent ones? When were times that you felt race and racism played a role in your life? Then create narratives and expressed lived experiences around these points and others that you feel you need to express.
- This is also a reflective exercise where you can ask yourself: what is the earliest experience you remember where you related to race and/or racism? How did you feel while this was happening or watching? What was your response and what were the responses of others around you? What impact did it have on you? What did you learn from the experience? Did the encounters change you in any way?
- These stories can be kept private or shared with professionals and/or close groups that you feel comfortable with. These stories can also assist in locating where harmful and discriminatory experiences occur to develop a safety plan for how to engage, escape, and address your situation.
- This can look like journaling, audio, or video recording, or drawing out your own story about race and racism. What might have been your first encounters or your recent ones? When were times that you felt race and racism played a role in your life? Then create narratives and expressed lived experiences around these points and others that you feel you need to express.
Engage in Social Media
- Hearing other people’s race-related stories or empowerment stories through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other modalities can be a source through which we draw strengths and inspiration. It can also be a validating tool to reflect on your own experiences as we recognize that other people are going through it, too! Following instrumental, inspirational, and powerful people with whom you share identities can assist in challenging the stereotypes, scripts, and/or racist discourses that may have been internalized over time to compose strengths-based narratives and lenses. However, engaging with social media should not be done without precaution or critique; view our “critical consumptions of social media tab” to ensure you are engaging in the healthiest way possible for you!
- Discuss current events:
- Possibly joining a group or engaging conversationally with family members and friends that SHARE your viewpoints can be a helpful tool to unpack the socio-political events and occurrences that can be affecting you, your mental health, and your view of yourself. Working alongside folks you are comfortable with can allow you to find stories of interest or sites of social justice, collectively unpack and heal from world events, and form social justice or actionable community initiatives. Keeping aware of social events and engaging in a community that reflects your identity can be a powerful educational, eye-opening, and community-building tool.
- Read diverse literature and media
- Whether it be scholarly, non-fiction, fiction, blogs, podcasts, zines, etc., engaging in diverse literature can help disrupt the socialization that we have experienced as a product of either being raised in or exposed to Canadian culture and ethics. This can help develop different viewpoints of your and others’ identities, validate your experiences, and assist in critically reflecting on harmful and helpful ideologies and scripts that may have become internalized over time. By exploring literature and films on the nature of stereotypes, racism, and implicit bias, explorations of power and impact of offensive and racist discourse, and different voices and expressions of assimilation into western culture can help you unpack, strategize, ponder, reflect, and impact your personal narrative as well as your actions and interactions.
Take action
- When you’ve experienced racial burnout, racial trauma, and repeated racial stress, it is easy to feel that the world is hopeless, become depressed, and become disengaged from your community. At times, developing a healthier narrative includes being around like-minded people, bouncing ideas off each outher, and strategizing for change. The phrase “be the change you want to see” really is just that! Sometimes we achieve internal change through striving and working for external change. Joining social justice organizations, anti-racist groups, strategy roundtables, protests, etc. all assist in challenging the unsafe experiences of racism that you bump up against, but also aid in giving a sense of hope, purpose, and community.
Safety Planning
Having an informal safety plan that includes pathways to conflict resolutions, communication strategies, assessment of racial trauma, tactics for disengaging safely, and safe spaces is an important and necessary tool for BIPOC individuals in mediating harm. This can be an informal jotted down list that you carry with you to refer to in anticipation of, during, and/or post- harmful, racist, and discriminatory experiences. It is especially useful for acute, infrequent, or isolated incidents of racism and discrimination.
- Who to call to talk to
- Emergency phone numbers, contacts, and/or hotlines
- Places and people to call or see to resolve and/or address the conflict
- People and places to avoid/disengage
- Nearby safer spaces to go to
- Self-care activities to engage in
- Phrasing to disengage from or reject disclosure
- Human and legal rights to be aware of that pertain to racist or discriminatory situations and experiences
Critical Consumption of Social Media
Social media can be considered a double-edged sword to the BIPOC individual. While social media is a useful tool to receive the latest news, build community, engage in light-hearted discussion, and express yourself, social media can also be a harmful space where triggers, misinformation, misrepresentation, racist rhetoric, and harmful images take place that can contribute to experiencing chronic racial trauma. Critically consuming media can be used as a technique to mediate racial burnout, racial stress, and racial trauma, especially when the socio-political contexts in relation to your race and culture are challenging (ie. protests, murders, civil unrest, etc). Essentially, developing mindfulness around the images, text, discourse, discussion, and people you follow and engage with on social media can assist you in protecting your physical and mental well-being.
We have compiled some tools and considerations to critically consume media for you to take up, as you see fit.
- Tools and considerations
- Be mindful of following pages or engaging with articles, blogs, and other social media sources that frequently show and distort violence on racialized bodies, police brutality, alt-right rhetoric, and pejorative language. Often, these depictions are traumatizing and have long-lasting effects on how we engage with others and with media
- Developing news literacy is important; if you are a political or news buff, that is okay! Do some research around the news outlets that you consume: are they endorsed by political parties or lean a certain way politically? What does their representation look like; is it diverse? Do they uphold and publish harmful views and other forms of hate speech? Are they known to misinform or distort information to influence the masses? After reflecting on these questions, choose to follow and consume news outlets that are aligned with your vision to avoid misinformation and further harm.
- Allow yourself to take breaks as needed from social media and media content, especially when it becomes anxiety-provoking and anger-inducing. At times, we begin to go down the rabbit hole of social media and it leads to places that are exhausting. If you begin to recognize those reactions after using certain apps, viewing certain pages, or just being on social media in general, TAKE A BREAK! A break can look like: deleting your app for as long as you need to, refraining from commenting and liking, permanently deleting certain apps that are harmful to you, or doing an overhaul of who you follow and engage with
- Avoid Twitter fingers. Oh, don’t we love to debate and express ourselves online?! However, sometimes, there are folks there just to start arguments and aggravate you from halfway across the world. Avoid getting into lengthy arguments with faceless folks online–they are there for the sole purpose of zapping your energy and, honestly, it’s not worth it!
- Focus your media consumption on following and engaging with voices from the margins, people who reflect your identity and viewpoints, and those that offer strategies and strengths-based perspectives. This can assist you in acquiring knowledge of certain issues and can also be a source of collectivity and healing
- Don’t feel like it’s all on you! Often, when social issues are of mainstream focus, it becomes the “buzz-event” for the week or months to come. Especially when the news pertains to racism, you, as a racialized person, feel the weight and pressure of having to represent your group or your race, push out the latest, informed, and correct facts, or voice your solidarity. This can take a lot of time, effort, research, and uncompensated labour to educate other people but to also feel like you are not “letting down your group.” Affirm yourself in knowing that, just because you choose to disengage from this discussion or news, it does not mean you are not “for the cause or for the people.” Social justice can be expressed in a number of ways; do what is safest for you and know it’s okay to take a break! Your people are resilient and care for you, and they got this one!
- Assessing your racial burnout after media consumption: a great tool to assess if you are getting burnt out from social media is to log your thoughts, emotions, and physical reactions based on the media you are consuming. Are there certain pictures and pages that induce anger and anxiety responses? If so, log this and the cascading thought patterns that often come with it. At the end of the day, week, or month, take the time to reflect and you will be able to find triggers, your reactions, and any other changes that can occur (ie. sleeping, eating, tightness in the chest, anger, etc) from racial burnout to strategize ways to change your media consumption.
An Important Thing to Remember
A central theme for BIPOC folks and students is the notion of uncompensated labour and having to educate others. Here’s the thing: information is universal and has become highly accessible. You do not have to be the unpaid teacher of white counterparts or other groups that seek to understand, challenge, or lament your experiences. Much like being critical of posting and consuming social media, be critical of the conversations that you engage in and whether folks are asking you to unnecessarily disclose your experience, teach or provide them with literature/news/pages, or ask you to support/educate groups without your consent or comfort. The power of expressing yourself within your terms and saying no is truly empowering and affirming. However, it can be awkward or uncomfortable, or, at times, we may feel it is our responsibility and not our right to decide not to engage, educate, or disclose. But the reality is that people can find the same information that they seek from you in blogs, social media, formalized literature, movies/videos, podcasts, and other information-sharing modalities should they wish to seek it. The labour of learning does not have to happen on your back and, should you wish to educate, then feel affirmed in charging a fee 😉
The Power of Self-Expression (and Saying ‘No’!)
While folks looking to learn off of you may feel fragile, upset, uncomfortable, angry, or jolted when you refuse to disclose or educate them. Just know those are not emotions for you to take on or to internalize. Often, when we say no, invalidating comments like “well, it’s because you don’t know,” “I don’t understand why you can’t explain this to me,” “it’s because it’s not real/true,” and “how else am I going to know what to do” may follow. Developing what is known as “consistent assertive communication” can help in being clear, straightforward, and setting boundaries in compassionate ways. This can be developed for in-person communication and online communications. Some phrasing to shut down disclosure and teaching someone or to express when you are willing to communicate can be found below for you to use as you wish:
“Hey, I hope you’re well. Right now I just am not in the space to have this conversation but I appreciate you reaching out!”
“I am a bit emotionally depleted and it’s been a long day, but I’d still love to talk. Are there any other topics you want to chat about?”
“Thank you for checking on me and paying attention to the movement! I can’t provide those resources for you at the moment, but I hear there are loads of accessible things online right now! I’d love to hear your thoughts when you’ve read some! Let’s talk soon.”
“I’d love to chat about this when you have some ideas to bounce back and forth with me.”
“I can’t think of an example to give you at this moment, but there are a lot of general experiences (enter race or culture) people face with racism that you can read about online.”
“I am not comfortable giving an example right now as a lot of this has brought things to the surface for me. I have some healing to do, but maybe we can talk about that someday”.
How to Address Teaching Staff with Concerns
The above phrasing is useful for interpersonal communications where power differentials may not be present. With that being said, we recognize that the same communication may not be comfortable to use when trying to express your concerns and viewpoints or when shutting down conversations with people in positions of power (e.g. professors, TAs, etc.). You may worry about how addressing your concern or refusing to disclose or educate others may affect your relationships, grades, job, or future. However, it is your right as a student and community member to have your voice heard and your concerns addressed, especially when discrimination and racism are present. In addition to the pathways through which you can address conflict within the community or school (please see tabs on conflict resolutions pathways for McMaster and community resources), some helpful phrasing or techniques can be:
- Requesting a private meeting with faculty and/or an administrator to discuss concerns one-on-one
- Ask for a representative and/or person that you are comfortable with to mediate a private discussion and to be present
- If other students feel the same, mobilize with them to collectively address the issue with faculty or administration (there is strength in numbers)
- Root conversation in concrete examples, what the effects are, and, if possible, reference to the repetitive fashion in which this has occurred
- Give the concrete examples that you provide a name — e.g.) it is a microaggression, dismissal, silencing, etc.
- While you may express your emotions, the inability to control them in a conversation MAY work against you. Although uncontrollable emotions as a product of racist or harmful experiences are NORMAL and okay, unpacking surface-level emotions before meeting independently or collectively can assist you
- Request a meeting with your faculty dean or chair if you do not feel comfortable expressing your concerns directly to the source
- Express your concerns in written or recorded form and submit for them to listen or read; a follow-up meeting will likely be requested
- Document everything! This will help you with providing concrete examples (e.g. writing down dates of the incidents, saving emails, etc.)
- Become well-versed in your student rights in the case that you may be challenged or misconstrued (look at conflict pathways tab for language and resources)
- If you are comfortable addressing it in the moment or in the classroom, helpful phrasing to shut down conversation can be:
- “There is a lot of misinformation and misrepresentation in this conversation. As a precaution, we should stop here”
- “This conversation is becoming harmful and uncomfortable. Are we able to move forward to the next topic?”
- “What we are discussing does not connect to the learning/lesson content being presented at this moment; we should refocus”
- “What you are saying is racist and discriminatory. I encourage you to learn more about this topic”
- “Playing devil’s advocate is not progressing this discussion or offering learning opportunities. It is actually quite harmful.”
- “I think this is a moment where you can intervene; this discussion is becoming unproductive”
- “This material only reflects one perspective/viewpoint. Are you able to provide other examples or arguments from different sources or other forms of representation?”