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Indigenous and Black women in Canada are disproportionately impacted by racial and gendered forms of environmental violence that are rooted in a legacy of colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Gender, race, class, and other social identities render Indigenous and Black women more susceptible and vulnerable to a web of inequalities that inflict violence on their bodies, lands, and communities. In response, Indigenous and Black women have been building grassroots social and environmental justice movements for decades to challenge the legal, political, and corporate agendas that sanction and enable environmental violence in their communities. This article examines the disproportionate social, economic, and health impacts of multiple forms of environmental violence in the lives of Indigenous and Black women in Canada, including low income and poverty, systemic racism in employment and law enforcement, and environmental racism and climate change. The article also calls attention to the transformative human agency of these women by illuminating their legacy of grassroots mobilizing and activism against the various forms of environmental violence in their communities.

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PurposeThe murders of Black people at the hands of police in 2020 have led to global protests that have called on public officials to defund or abolish the police. What has been drowned out in these conversations, however, is the traumatizing aftereffects of anti-Black police violence as a public health crisis. In this paper, I argue that the racial terrorism of anti-Black police violence is a deeply felt wound in Black communities that extends beyond the individuals who directly experience it and that this type of collective trauma must be understood as an urgent public health crisis.Design/methodology/approachUsing published studies and online commentaries on anti-Black police violence and its mental health impacts in Canada and the United States, this paper examines the mental health impacts of anti-Black police violence at both the individual and community levels.FindingsA public health response to the traumatizing aftereffects of anti-Black police violence and other forms of state violence must highlight important policy imperatives, such as policies of action focused on improving the public health system. It must also encompass a recognition that the public health crisis of anti-Black police violence is not solvable solely by public health agencies alone. Rather, strategic opportunities to address this crisis arise at every level of governmental interaction, including law enforcement, health care, employment, business, education and the media.Originality/valueWhile the impact of anti-Black police violence on the mental health of Black individuals has been emerging in the literature over the last several years, what has been less focused on and what I address in this paper is how the threat of that violence lingers in Black communities long after the protestors have packed up their megaphones, resulting in collective trauma in Black communities.