-You can have a job, you can get educated,
you can do all of the right things
that we're told to do to achieve the American dream,
but in this country, as a Black person,
none of that will protect you.
There's absolutely nothing
that can protect me, anyone in my family,
anyone that looks like me.
-A year ago, we watched George Floyd die on camera.
It's by no means the first time
we've seen a Black man killed by police in America,
but his death was an inflection point.
During Derek Chauvin's murder trial,
we watched George Floyd's last breaths over and over again.
In that same month, Daunte Wright and Ma'Khia Bryant
died on camera.
It was an exhausting reminder that the outcome of that trial
didn't make it any safer to be Black in America.
Living with that reality on a daily basis
isn't just emotionally exhausting.
It's also physically harmful.
In this episode, we're gonna tackle racial trauma --
what it means, what it does,
and how to cope with it as a Black person.
I'm Nicole Ellis, and this is "The New Normal."
♪♪
-Racialized trauma is a form of stress,
and the constant stress that one holds in the body
does take a toll.
-We live in a society where Black death is common.
And you can trace it back to when lynchings occurred.
-Knowing that Black communities
have been facing oppression and violence
for hundreds of years
and how that's upheld by white supremacist systems,
institutions,
all of that is not only weary for the soul
but is also really demanding.
It demands additional labor.
-But how does racial trauma reveal itself in our lives?
What does it actually look like?
-Racial trauma shows up as anger, anxiety,
paranoia, helplessness, hopelessness.
The stress hormone is cortisol.
Cortisol is related to diabetes, obesity, hypertension,
cardiovascular disease,
all diseases that Black and brown bodies
are more likely to experience.
-Hearing that can be stressful.
And so, I'm wondering, is it possible
to overcome that kind of trauma?
Or, how do you change that for yourself?
-So the first thing that Black people can do
is to create boundaries about what they watch
on an ongoing daily basis.
-In a time when a person is feeling exhausted
and traumatized,
I invite us to give ourselves permission
to turn it off.
-5-7-9 -- Inhale for five seconds,
hold for seven seconds,
and exhale for nine seconds.
Over time, it helps
to decrease the amount of cortisol in the body.
-One way that we can tend to ourselves
is actually paying attention to our senses.
Sometimes when we're just needing to soothe,
you know, rubbing our hands together,
rocking, swaying, having a fleecy blanket.
And my favorite way is actually cuddling a furry animal,
which, you know, gives me the touch
and then, also, some of the smell, too.
Our people have always known how to take care of one another.
Our people have always known how to heal.
How did our people or your people connect with the land
and find healing in their relationship with land?
Maybe through growing food,
maybe through spending time near water.
-But what if you don't have that kind of context
just readily available to you?
Like, what if you don't know where your people came from?
-Connecting with ancestral wisdom
may feel far-fetched, especially for people
whose history has been erased.
That connection may be someone that we might be related to.
It may also be someone in the community
that have, you know, been a source of wisdom.
-What I do in my research is giving people skills
to create Black joy.
Maybe for one person, it could be dancing,
getting adequate sleep, adequate rest.
Joy may also look like taking a long walk with your family.
-In situations where the entire country
is reeling from watching somebody die on camera,
it can be really hard to do that kind of thing
without feeling guilty.
How do you navigate that?
-I know I've felt that way.
I've gone on vacation, and you feel guilty
'cause you feel like you need to do more.
But I also think about all of those ancestors I had
or all those people whose shoulders I stand upon
who were not able to take a vacation.
It's a way of honoring them.
-The essence of solidarity
is that we are able to co-lean on one another.
When my community is hurting, I can lean on yours.
When your community is hurting, please lean on mine.
And so, that offers us an opportunity to rest.
-Does it eliminate the threat? No.
But what it does -- It gives us a tool
to counter the ongoing trauma that we may have in our lives.
-We're gonna continue to cover topics like this,
so stay tuned.
For more stories like this one,
find us on thelily.com and washingtonpost.com.