Intergenerational Trauma
Trauma can be caused by any physical or psychological harm. Trauma results in a variety of emotions, e.g. shame, sadness, dependency. When this trauma is unaddressed, these emotions are passed down from generation to generation. Because society is currently dominated by ideals of whiteness, any non-white, non-patriarchal group will automatically be more prone to experiencing this trauma, including people of color, people from non-western countries, women, LGBTQ+ community, etc.
David Eng and Shinhee Han, "A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia"
Melancholia is essentially prolonged sadness caused by the inability to resolve a lost object. When trauma is passed from one generation to the next, the second generation no longer has memory of what caused that trauma. This loss of memory makes it harder to resolve that trauma, and the irresolution can lead to melancholia.
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
The narrator of this story battles with being mentally stuck between being Chinese and being American, and at the same time feeling as if she weren't either. She experiences trauma both from being unable to attain white American standards, and from not being fully incorporated into her Chinese culture. The feeling of irresolution that comes from not being accepted into any group leads to prolonged sadness.
Coping Mechanisms
Amin Srinivasam, "The Aptness of Anger"
In what cases is anger apt? What do we do when anger is justified but will lead to negative consequences?
Anna Deveare Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles
Twilight: Los Angeles is a play entirely composed of quotes said by real people after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Like the Harlem riots in 1943, the Los Angeles riot had many negative consequences. However, this too was a coping mechanism used to deal with the pain caused by perpetual injustices against the black and brown communities of Los Angeles at the time.
James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
In this excerpt of Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin describes anger and bitterness as a disease that has infected the entire African American community. The anger he depicts is that of his father's, his own when he throws a water mug at a waitress, and that of Harlem, which erupted into a riot in 1943. The anger may have had negative consequences, but as Baldwin states in his essay, it was a form of coping with pain.
Gran Fury
Gran Fury's artwork stemmed from anger over several injustices being enacted against the LGBTQ community and those infected with AIDS/HIV. Their artwork was audacious and risked social backlash, but was also necessary given the circumstance of the affected communities.
Martha Nussbaum, "Beyond Anger"
Gloria Anzaldua, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue"
For Anzaldua, her language was a form of resistance, and a way for her to deal with the intergenerational trauma caused by the colonizer.
Audre Lorde, "Poetry is not Luxury"
Poetry is not a luxury, it is a form of resistance. It is a way to keep histories and experiences alive. Most importantly, it is a way to deal with all forms of oppression.
bell hooks, "Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination"
According to hooks, one of the coping mechanisms within the African American community is orally sharing stories and knowledge about white people so that others could better navigate whiteness.
Ernst Bloch, "Can Hope Be Dissapointed"
Joze Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia
Mohsin Hamid, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"
Trauma extends beyond borders. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the protagonist finds himself having to choose between pledging his loyalty to the United States or Pakistan, his home country. Changez, the protagonist, ultimately chooses his country of origin, but this decision was difficult and required dealing with the same sadness and confusion those trying to assimilate into white American culture have to deal with.
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Trauma can induce shame because the victim blames themselves for having caused the harm. In The Bluest Eye Pecola has internalized shame of her blackness. In the story, this internalized shame becomes externalized after she is sexually assaulted by her own father.
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Trauma has caused all of the characters in Diaz' story to adopt harmful expressions of love. According to Diaz, these harmful expressions of love began with colonialism, when the carribean was raped by the colonizer, and subsequently, by a dictatorship that also perpetuated rape. Rape, misogyny, and machismo became prevalent in Dominican culture, and even internalized by the victims of it. In order to overcome this, decolonial love needs to be achieved. But this is difficult given that this trauma has existed for generations after generations.
Sara Ahmed, "The Affective Politics of Fear"
Under our current society, much trauma has been caused by white supremacy and our patriarchal structure. This is because the dominant forms of existence turn the non-dominant ones into the "other." This creates fear towards the "other," and that fear causes those who identify with the dominant ideals to cause harm on the "other."
"Fear works by establishing others as fearsome..." Ahmed, 64.
Jordan Peele, "Get Out"
Because the "other" has been harmed by the dominant ideals for generations after generations, the "other" has also internalized fear for those dominant forms. That fear then reinforces dominant ideals, and harm turns into fetishization. Now the dominant ideals want to co-opt ideals of the "other." Get Out is an example of this process. In the film, whiteness is the object of fear, and blackness is the subject being fetishized.