Hidden Trauma

[sheshe2]

A lot of black academics criticized President Obama for engaging in "respectability politics" when he did things like launch the My Brother's Keeper initiative. But when the President met with the young people involved in the Becoming a Man program in Chicago and during his visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Nation, he likely heard stories like the ones in this article by Sam P.K. Collins titled: The Hidden Trauma Plaguing American Kids.

snip

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies symptoms of PTSD as flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety and loss of trust in people. For children of color still reeling from the effects of crime, poverty, limited health care, and poor schools in their low-income neighborhoods, the mental disorder can take a toll on the mind...

snip

Children of color (especially black boys) who suffer from chronic trauma are the ones who are also being robbed of their childhood innocence when they "act up."

Black boys as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers, but are instead more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime, according to new research.

At about 17:00:

Part of what I think is so heartbreaking and frustrating for a lot of folks when they watch this is a recognition that - simply by virtue of color - you've got less margin for error - that's particularly true for black boys...And so its not simply that we want to make sure that the perfect young man is treated OK. We also want a boy - who's a boy, or a young man who's maybe a little confused, maybe makes a mistake - we want them to be given the same benefit of the doubt as any other boy would be given.

http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2014/12/hidden-trauma.html

[freshwest]

1. Anxiety and fear destroy the body and plague the mind. It is a way to blunt thinking.

It is intentional. It's why understanding racism is more important than class. It is the precursor that reinforces class division from both sides of the divide.

You cannot support ending income inquality without human equality, nor can you support the environment without acknowledging the humanity and equality of others. What we do to the land, water and air reflects our values in how we treat each other.

If we all respected each other, and we should be able to do that, as we are all human, pollution would come to an end along with wars. We'd preserve the bounty of the Earth for present and future generations. It starts with the here and now and who is here. There is no rescue coming, no utopia that will be come to save us with more 'glorious' suffering. It has to end, or it'll end us.

The use of fear and anxiety is a proven technique, that's why it has been used so often. It's terrorism. It keeps the human race down for the short sighted advantage of certain humans who don't believe in the potential of humanity. Or perhaps they do, and fear they will be left behind.

What could we achieve without it?

'We have so much in common. We could solve all the problems of the world. We could all go to stars together.'

That's what a Russian told me years ago, pleading for Americans to not hate Russians because of the history of the Cold War. He was right. His wife was in college learning astrophysics. They had a peaceful plan for their lives.

Then Bush and Cheney kept on pushing the wars in the Middle East. And they both had to make a choice, to save the ground they lived on, and reduce their lives to being in the military. Both wanted to visit the USA and talk to the people in the space programs, see the beauty of the national parks. He had been offered a gallery to show his photographs of the beauties of Siberia and the rest of Russia to the world. He wanted to be an artist. He ended up being a soldier because he had been reduced to that.

How many of our citizens, how many millions, have been reduced to committing crimes or escaping an unbearable reality with the use of drugs?

I think we know, but we don't want to admit that they were locked out of doing more meaningful things and not given the chance to achieve their full potential. And they should have been, and the world demands and needs their talents. Yes, we have billions of people on this planet. But we have a dearth of creative solutions because humanity has spent too much energy maintaining oppression.

I recall a different vision, long since lost, of a more inclusive society that went to places far away but held to principles, where all people were respected.

[sheshe2]

3. tired~

I posted to me and not you. See my response below~

[sheshe2]

2. Yes...

The use of fear and anxiety is a proven technique, that's why it has been used so often. It's terrorism. It keeps the human race down, for the short sighted advantage of certain humans.

Sadly~fresh

[applegrove]

4. No doubt about it. Children are getting

slammed again and again as they face racism. Trauma by a hundred cuts. And we don‘t expect grown men to be able to handle ptsd alone, why expect young boys to be able to handle the traumas they face? To be able to sort it all out while their brains and hormones are adjusting to adulthood? There needs to be a porus line between police and those they serve. Not a wall.