“Most Americans of all skin tones have at least some racialized trauma lodged in their bodies. This is not because they’re bigots, or weaklings, or immature, or dysfunctional. It's because trauma is the body's normal and appropriate response to extreme or long-term stress — in this case, the stress of white body supremacy.
“The most telltale symptoms of racialized trauma in white bodies include a profound lack of racial acuity and agility, high anxiety and/or defensiveness around race, an extremely low trauma-response threshold in any discussion around race, and, in many cases, intense denial about the three previous symptoms. …
“The most common symptoms of racialized trauma in bodies of culture are the classic symptoms of trauma in general. Many of these are mostly physical — sleep problems, obesity, heart palpitations, digestive issues, high blood pressure, fatigue or exhaustion, … and a general weathering of the cardiovascular, endocrine, reproductive, and musculoskeletal systems.
“… You didn't ask for this trauma. You don't deserve it. And you didn't create it. But if you sense that racialized trauma is stuck in your body, only you can take the necessary steps to heal it. …
“Like all trauma, racialized trauma can manifest as a spring-loaded trap in your body — an urgent stuckness that's ready to instantly activate whenever your lizard brain tells it to. But this isn't just an individual phenomenon. Because we all swim in the water of white-body supremacy, our whole culture is similarly spring-loaded, poised to snap into a sudden, collective trauma response.
“As you'll continue to discover, this book is not just a guide to maintaining safety, sanity, and stability under dangerous circumstances. It's also about using emerging moments of peril and possibility to heal our personal and collective racialized trauma.”
