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Members of the Black collective have to be careful and strategic when talking about racism (White supremacy) with members of the White collective because White people have been traumatized by what they’ve done to Black people. One of the symptom clusters for trauma-related disorders such as PTSD is avoidance symptoms, and that feature often appears as deflections, denial, or tearfulness when speaking about racism with Whites. It’s similar to when a war veteran who has engaged in combat returns back from war and they’re traumatized. They’re not only traumatized by what they saw, but because of what they did (killed and maimed people). Whites need to process this in therapy because avoiding contact with one’s past (distant or proximate) will increase the probability that the past is repeated if it’s not being confronted, analyzed, and resolved.
