According to the Associated Press Detroit reported on April 17, Khalil Pitman has a personal experience of trauma. As co-founder of the Chicago-based youth organization Goodboy Mad City - Englewood, he lamented the death of Del Monte Johnson two years ago. Johnson is a young community activist, and it is precisely what the young man is fighting against that takes his life — gun violence.
Pittman was also outraged and frustrated by the spate of black American deaths at the hands of police across the country over the past year. First came Brenna Taylor, a black woman who was fatally shot at her home in Louisville, Kentucky, last March. Then there was George Floyd, whose death by a Minneapolis police officer sparked global protests.
Pittman said: "We turn on the TV, log on to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and keep seeing people who look like us murdered, but no one is responsible. It's not normal to click on a video on your phone and see someone murdered. But for people like us, for our communities of color, it's become the norm. ”
Many black Americans are facing a sense of collective grief and trauma, and the more people in the United States die at the hands of the police, the deeper this sense of collective grief and trauma becomes. The sense of grief that some people see in the victims of police violence and their children is exacerbated. This collective grief worries experts and medical professionals, who see racism and various forms of trauma affecting people of color as a serious public health crisis facing the United States.
The racist trauma that affects black Americans is nothing new. It is based on centuries of oppressive systems and racist practices that have been deeply embedded in the fabric of this country.
Rashad Robinson, head of The Changing Colors, said the trauma also led generations of black Americans to have reasons to distrust law enforcement agencies.
Much of the media attention to police killings of black Americans has focused on black men, but experts say the phenomenon of misogyny of black women is equally noteworthy. Black women experience this phenomenon in every aspect of their lives, and some have been linked to police violence. The "Say Her Name" campaign was launched in 2014 to draw attention to lesser-known incidents such as the persecution of black women and girls by police.
The hashtag has become a hit again after the death of Brenna Taylor, prompting more people to condemn the lateness of justice in the case.
On June 6, 2020, people held up signs with the slogan "Black Lives Matter" protested in Washington Square, New York. (Xinhua News Agency)
Source: Reference News Network