Black Psychology and Whiteness: Toward a Conceptual Model of Black Trauma through the Prism of Whiteness

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to introduce and examine whiteness as a source of trauma for Black people. We explore Black psychology scholarship to conceptually ground whiteness as the impetus for racism, while identifying it as an interpersonal, psychosocial, and contextual phenomenon that informs the race-based traumatic experiences of Black people. The primary factors constituting whiteness are ethnocentric monoculturalism, White standardization, ontological expansiveness, White emotions, attitudes, reactions to race, and White privilege. While racism operates through oppression and exclusion to produce trauma among Black people, we argue that whiteness operates similarly to produce race-based traumatic stress. With this premise, we offer and explain a conceptual model to promote empirical research that identifies and operationalizes whiteness and its components as observable contributors to the traumatic experiences of Black persons.

A special kind of hate: Black women college students’ experiences with gendered anti‐black incidents of violence on campus

“…Similarly, race‐based trauma fails to account for the many identities Black women carry by inserting a race‐only analysis of trauma. Literature on race‐based trauma focuses on Black men only (Aymer, 2016; Lipscomb et al., 2019), does not include a substantive analysis of gender‐based trauma (Hargons, 2021), or couples the experiences of Black women with those of white women (Tyler et al., 2021).…”

Whiteness hurts society: How whiteness shapes mental, physical, and social health outcomes

“…If psychologists continue to allow whiteness to flourish in our discipline without interrogating it, we are complicit with a psychology that embraces White ways of knowing, theorizing, evaluating, and teaching. While whiteness studies are growing, the construct has not received significant attention by psychologists until recently (Coleman et al, 2021;Collins & Watson, 2021;Ferguson et al, 2022;Fine al., 2004;Karras et al, 2021;Remedios, 2022;Salter & Adams, 2013;Teo, 2022;Tyler et al, 2022).…”

Decolonising the psychology curriculum: a perspective

“…This is a significant component to improve population sciences and epidemiological approaches used to combat communicable and non-communicable diseases. Various Black scholars, including anthropologists, psychiatrists, and of course psychologists, have explored and introduced culturally informed psychological theory ( Tyler et al, 2022 ). Research in anthropology has shown that whiteness directly reflects into racism, facilitating and fuelling Black trauma ( Drake, 1980 ; Tyler et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Various Black scholars, including anthropologists, psychiatrists, and of course psychologists, have explored and introduced culturally informed psychological theory ( Tyler et al, 2022 ). Research in anthropology has shown that whiteness directly reflects into racism, facilitating and fuelling Black trauma ( Drake, 1980 ; Tyler et al, 2022 ). Black Psychology has enabled the advancement of these theories, understanding the experiences and exposures of individuals of Black heritage ( Drake, 1980 ; Tyler et al, 2022 ).…”