Invisible Wounds: Gun Violence and Community Trauma among Black Americans

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Moms Demand Action
@MomsDemand
Persistent gun violence is harming too many Black communities across the U.S., contributing to individual, family, and community-level trauma. Take a few minutes this weekend to read more about this burgeoning crisis.

Invisible Wounds: Gun Violence and Community Trauma among Black Americans | Everytown Research &...
Community trauma encompasses the suffering of both individuals and communities with elevated levels of violence.
everytownresearch.org
9:17 AM · Jun 13, 2021

https://everytownresearch.org/report/invisible-wounds-gun-violence-and-community-trauma-among-black-americans/

Some people describe the sound as a car backfiring. Others, popcorn on a hot fire. To me, though, gunshots were the soundtrack of my childhood. . . We don’t have to live like this, and this doesn’t have to be our normal. Black children shouldn’t have to grow up like I did, with gunshots a more common refrain than ice cream truck songs on warm summer days . . . Our stories matter. We’re not just dots on a map. And the continued, shared trauma of normalized gun violence in Black communities—it’s a burden we shouldn’t have to bear.
Addressing Trauma from Gun Violence

The word “trauma” expresses many states and emotions. One is the everyday feeling of being extremely scared, even overwhelmed. A second use for the word is the more clinical definition—an emotional response to a terrifying, often unexpected event or events. This can include being in a serious car accident, experiencing severe combat stress from a military deployment, or surviving a natural disaster such as a major earthquake. These events all can cause trauma. In some cases, those affected have little or no lasting trauma symptoms. Research shows that surrounding those harmed by a traumatic event with physical, emotional, and social support can make a huge difference in their healing and recovery.2 For others, longer-term reactions and symptoms are a natural response to a harrowing event; this response can make it difficult for people to move on with their lives.

The term “posttraumatic stress disorder” (PTSD) was initially a diagnosis for soldiers returning from the Vietnam War.3 It has since been applied far more broadly to describe a syndrome in those who have experienced a serious traumatic event. Medical and social scientists have learned a lot about individual trauma over the past few decades, with important discoveries in terms of how it can change the chemistry in one’s brain. These professionals have made promising developments in medical treatments for the aftermath of a traumatic incident and in trauma-informed care.

But what if there is no “post” trauma in sight? What if police sirens, gunshots in the distance, and sidewalk memorials to those gunned down are a feature of daily life? How do we understand the experiences of people who have never directly experienced a terrible, unexpected event but nonetheless suffer from severe trauma symptoms? Despite scientific advances in the understanding of trauma, too little of this work also studies, or is developing solutions for, trauma from indirect and persistent violence.

*snip*