Historical Trauma: White People vs. White Privilege

Hi Robert,

Thanks for mentioning the collective governing agreements of the Indigenous and Shay's notes on "cohesive narrative." 

"...Unhealed trauma from any source destroys the unnoticed substructure of Democracy, the cognitive and social capacities that enable a group of people to freely construct a COHESIVE NARRATIVE of their own future."-pp 180-181 of Achilles in VietNam:... by Jonathan Shay.  People who are either unable or unwilling to validate the trauma of another person, or group of persons, may do so as Shay noted in his book as: what VietNam veterans refer to as "Pissing Contests".... The Iroquois 'constitution' gave women the rights to: Assert, Debate, Vote, and Declare War...almost 1,000 years before we amended the US constitution to afford some of them to vote.

Hi Robert,

I hope the following response addresses the points from your comment:

TaNahesi Coates, who also writes for the Atlantic, did a lengthy scholarly work on the historical treatment of African Americans in North America that addresses many methods of and policies related to oppression and discrimination.  It was published in the Atlantic.  I believe "peonage" or chain gangs or convict leasing were covered there. 

To me, the article I shared above by Alex Wagner of the Atlantic was a call to recognize, speak of, and act upon "historical trauma" in the sense of its real impact on current structures and circumstances.  That is to say, it is necessary but insufficient, from the perspective of these writers (Coates and Wagner) and from our TIC perspective to merely acknowledge sub-optimal development/circumstance and/or merely highlight the multitude of oppressions.  To study history as a catalog of events is to study history for a wrong (poor) reason and to recognize trauma as an outcome of previous inputs without studying personal, relational, and institutional historical influence would be unwise/ill informed, at best.  At worst, it is carrying out the tradition of not addressing the real issues while pretending to by calling our dialogue by pretty names that in the end sound good but merely reconfigure the same reality.  Such is the difference between the appearance of progress and the nature of transformation.  And so, we must take inventory of and account for what constitutes both the history and the trauma of "historical trauma"---meaning taking account of the cumulative and intergenerational effects of what has and has not been done, why, to/by whom, etc.  

As to speaking of "only one's own trauma":  I maintain that there is not a single demographic or interest group that parallels or rivals the historical trajectory of people of African ancestry.  Not one.  There is no vanity or malice in that fact.  Why do people seem to need false equivalencies?  It simply is not equivalent--warts and all.  Yet, that fact has never stopped people of African ancestry from seeking to help and lend their situated Civil Rights cause and social capital to almost every special interest group and demographic--often without reciprocity.   Should I (personally and theoretically) take on the causes of others over my own personal and humane collective interests and story?  Why?  Who and/or what group with verifiable oppression defers to another to tell their story with accuracy and the urgency deemed necessary by their experience of their circumstance?  Who better to give voice to the story but the one(s) who've experienced it?  What listener needs to hear my story told by someone else or would prefer that I say it in a way/time/frequency that makes them feel comfortable about things that are manifestations of their own or collective emotional/thought/belief/historical/identity life?

We build alliances by first not being the person exemplified by the last several questions of the paragraph above.  We build alliances to "correct those systemic forces that oppress" by being not only willing and able but by ACTUALLY looking at the nature of systems and their working parts (who/what/when/where/how/why)...one cannot change what one cannot perceive.   It is a most inefficient and ineffective "alliance" if contention arises from my very story of my experience with the system(s) we are potentially allied to change. 

Also, it is healing to tell one's story and have it heard.  The historical trajectory of people of African ancestry is no less "healing" for our looking at institutions and their working parts.  I would suggest it is more so healing and liberating.  If this entire system was transformed tomorrow, the full trajectory of our story should never be disaggregated or untold, ever.  Those who are imprisoned by the truth are most likely actually ensnared by their unwillingness/inability to accept and create from it; such would be valid cause for self-reflection.

From the standpoint of Historical Trauma, I'm surprised that the issue of "Peonage" was not raised in this Atlantic article. PBS had a noteworthy presentation on it, a few years ago. If we only view our own trauma as "Oppressive", how to we build alliances to both heal and correct those Systemic forces that Oppress others-of different ethnicity, or gender, or sexual preference, or....... ? ? ?  (What was the function of an "Athenian Theater" in Greece ?)