"Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome [PTSS] is a condition that exists when a population has experienced multigenerational trauma resulting from centuries of slavery and continues to experience oppression and institutionalised racism today."
I'm aware of the concept of intergenerational trauma, but I've not previously come across this specific formulation of it, which sounds interesting.
Bookwomble I'm not reading Dr. DeGruy's book, but it's referenced in the one I am, Transforming Race Conversations.![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png)
Transforming Race Conversations: A Healing Guide for Us All 3w
Transforming Race Conversations: A Healing Guide for Us AllGingerAntics This sounds legit to me, honestly. I just feel like there is no way all of that trauma isn‘t still reverberating through families still today… especially when the oppression still continues. 3w
Bookwomble @GingerAntics Both your points are key to Eugene Ellis's view of the ongoing trauma caused by the race construct, both for the oppressed and the oppressor. For the latter, white slave owners and those benefiting from chattel slavery had to repress their inherent human capacity for empathy and compassion, project that distress onto the other, and develop anti-social coping mechanisms and systems that persist to the present, perpetuating harm. 3w
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GingerAntics @Bookwomble I hadn‘t thought of enslavers having to suppress their humanity. That is 100% still happening and it explains a whole lot in former slave states. 3w
Bookwomble @GingerAntics It's a thought provoking perspective, for sure. 3w
GingerAntics @Bookwomble it‘s truly unfortunate that the people most in need of these discussions - former slave states - are the least likely to actually have them. In fact, they are actively trying NOT to have them. Again, actively suppressing their humanity. 2w
Bookwomble @GingerAntics There does seem to be a lot of defensive cognitive somersaults required to maintain a sense historic virtue in the face of all the evidence. We get it here in the UK, too, given our country's major role in the slave trade, and that British Empire thing we did! Sorry, world 😒🗺️ 2w
GingerAntics @Bookwomble yeah, there are definitely people still defending that gem. It‘s weird to see how people cling to the obviously harmful past because it means they can think of their ancestors as heroes that should be on a pedestal instead of thinking of them as people. 🤦🏼♀️ 2w
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