No Safety: An Exploration of the Meaning of Traumatic Events for Black Americans

• In Event: Violence, Trauma, and Urban Politics

Abstract

This paper examines how Black residents in the broader Chicago area define trauma and traumatic experiences. Recently, the language of “trauma” has emerged as a popular idiom. Political scientists define trauma as the experience of a reasonably perceived threat of or actual death or serious violence and proceed to define a traumatic event as events in which there is a reasonably perceived threat of death or serious violence or experience of death or serious violence during the event or in its immediate aftermath (Marsh 2022). This definition is derived from the diagnostic criteria provided by clinical psychology for post-traumatic stress disorder. I argue this clinical definition of a traumatic event provides little practical use to scholars interested in examining the political ramifications of trauma, especially racial trauma that involves the United States government. To examine this phenomenon, I conduct a qualitative analysis of the meaning of trauma for Black residents in the broader Chicago area. Through interviews, I explore how Black Americans define trauma and traumatic experiences that involve the United States government and present a typology of traumatic events. The findings of this paper provide critical insight into how political scientists may apply the language of trauma to describe state violence in the United States.

Author

• Monique Newton, Northwestern University