Black Youth in Pale spaces (Systematic trauma)

It is 2022 and we are still surviving, thriving, reclaiming and healing from centuries of cultural warfare globally.  

Many of us are embracing therapy and other healing practices to ensure we are mentally, physically and spiritual healthy as we live "Our best lives". Everywhere we go someone is "unpacking" an issue in order to improve their mental health.  Many times we focus on interpersonal relations as the cause of our trauma but don't focus on the larger overarching systematic aspects. We work to create "safe spaces" in an world designed by PWNC (People with no color) to be unsafe for People**

Franz Fanon said in White Skin Black Masks that "..A normal Negro child, having grown up in a normal Negro family, will become abnormal on the slightest contact of the white world."

With that in mind we will be addressing the systematic trauma (trauma being our emotional response to a distressing experiences) for Black youth in Pale spaces.

Desegregation school programs are extremely harmful to our youth currently and have been harmful to young people for decades. Those systems took us out of the safety of our homes and communities and put us in the belly of the beast. We had to adopt to their way of speaking, dressing, eating, thinking and living to be "successful". That adaptation and success meant denying, judging and suppressing our family and cultural practices.

 

In these programs we spent the majority of our waking hours traveling to and from and being inside their schools and communities.  Most productive hours of our days were spent away from our homes were we were comfortable, families who loved us and communities built by and for us. This separation caused disconnects between our people and pulled funds, resources, skills and talent from our communities. 

It was/is a systematic way to control academic advancement while appearing to do good.  White schools got more funding and resources for "accepting" millions of new young people without having to use the resources to accommodate the people they were bringing in. Our young people were forced to assimilate to foreign culture without even understanding what was happening to them.  Parents were forced to choose between thriving schools with excellent facilities with unloving, unwelcoming  environments for their children and culture or run down schools with poor facilities. Though we had some Schools of our own we did not receive the same support or resources. 

Children found themselves not fitting where they were shipped to because of their Blackness and also being disconnected from their communities because they adapted so much whiteness for survival. Children begin to deny or demean their family/cultural practices and tradition as a means of survival in the spaces they spent most of their time. Our families begin to conflict more because of the aspects of white culture that was being brought into our homes and minds. Adults found themselves having to to explain, justify and defend their family/cultural practices and traditions to children being taught externally to challenge and deny it. Though many families worked through the issues because of the love we have for each other it still caused harm, distance and judgement for our adults and youth.

As children we experienced cultural shaming, linguistic suppression, social isolation, combative authority figures, classism, colorism and so much more emotional abuse daily as their bodies, minds and spirits were developing.  Everything about us as people was contrary to the spaces we were in yet we... we had to adopt, adjust and keep moving forward. We developed many mental and social issues as children because of this that went unaddressed and misunderstood.

Many of us had healing or comfort  in going to HBCUs (Historically Black College or University)  or joining Black focused clubs, organizations and unions in PWI (Predominately white institution) however the long term emotional impact of being in foreign spaces and treated as less than or being given pet status still causes us unrecognized trauma.

As we embrace therapy designing for us and other avenues for healing we must understand and factor the impact of systematic trauma and how to recover from that. Hopefully examining these elements that are often swept under the rug will help us heal, reconnect to ourselves, families and culture.  Most importantly we have to understand the cause and source of our trauma to heal.

How did going to PWI impact you in your youth?  How does the impact manifest in you life and relationships today?

 

**People is used as default for Black, Afrikan people