During my student years, I first heard about Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
In psychiatry, PTSD is defined as a stagnant processing of the experience of a shocking event. Generations later, descendants of World War II victims were still dealing with it. I didn't quite understand it and wondered how that was possible. After all, they hadn't experienced the war and had even grown up in a prosperous Europe.
If you have seen films like The Pianist and Schindler's List, you realize that it is impossible to truly imagine the atrocities these victims survived. Any normal person would suffer severe trauma from this. It's logical that survivors would rather forget all the misery as quickly as possible. Inhuman cruelties often inflict such deep wounds that it seems easier to suppress the pain than to face it.
But alas, there is no escape. Suffering finds its way, and traumatic stress can be passed on to the next generation. Feelings of detachment and alienation, difficulty showing affection, distrust, aggression, and relationship problems are just a few manifestations of PTSD that affect the descendants of traumatized victims.
Two years ago, I first heard about Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome; a stagnant processing of the experiences of slavery. Via WBAI radio, Dr. Joy Leary meticulously explained the effect that four centuries of shocking events have had on us as a people. I listened intently. For the first time, the enslaved were analyzed as human beings. Not as beasts or superhumans who overcome everything and survive anything, but as people like you and me, of flesh and blood. People with a psyche, and it's inevitable that they all dealt with PTSD.
The similarity to the well-known Stress Syndrome is striking. I listened in disbelief to examples that illustrated behavior directly related to the era of slavery. The example of how disobedient children were still "whipped" until recently gave me goosebumps. Wielding a whip to control people is, after all, a well-known behavior of slave masters.
It seems highly unlikely that I, as a descendant of an enslaved person two centuries later, would still be grappling with inherited unprocessed emotions. But then why does discussing the history of slavery always bring an uncomfortable feeling? Especially when white people are present, I try to choose the right words. There is probably a professional analysis needed, but why can I passionately discuss the Holocaust and even Srebrenica with great ease and without reservation? Have I unconsciously learned to maintain a distance when it comes to slavery, precisely because it feels so close? Or is it the inherited shame about the slavish humiliations of that time that still affects me?
The last word on Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome has not yet been spoken, and it will be different for each individual, but perhaps now, thanks to Dr. Joy DeGruy, we can place inexplicable emotions and barriers and collectively begin to process the greatest trauma that has ever been inflicted upon us. There has never been time for that. Today, July 1st, Keti Koti, seems like the ideal day to start.
Links:
https://www.joydegruy.com/post-traumatic-slave-syndrome
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/slavery/