Saturday, April 14, 2018
PTSS: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
I came across this theory called Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by educator and author Joy DeGruy, whose research on multigenerational oppression from slavery and institutionalized racism culminated in her 2005 book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (PTSS). PTSS describes a set of behaviors, beliefs, and actions associated with or, related to multi-generational trauma experienced by African Americans that include but are not limited to undiagnosed and untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in enslaved Africans and their descendants. PTSS differs from PTSD, which results from a single trauma experienced directly or indirectly. "When we look at American chattel slavery, we are not talking about a single trauma; we're talking about multiple traumas over lifetimes and over generations," says DeGruy. "Living in black skin is a whole other level of stress." PTSS posits that centuries of slavery in the US, followed by systemic and structural racism and oppression, including lynching and Jim Crow laws, have resulted in multigenerational maladaptive behaviors, which originated as survival strategies. In formulating her theory, DeGruy wondered what happens when stressed people lack treatment for generations and how have black people coped. She argues that the adaptive behaviors that African Americans created to survive in a toxic environment are misinterpreted as "cultural." DeGruy states that PTSS is not a disorder that can simply be treated and remedied clinically but rather also requires profound social change.
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Thought-provoking theory. I think DeGruy's ideas ring true in some sense. A couple quotes from Beloved that deal with the effects of slavery, at least tangentially (sometimes directly):
"It had been a long time since anybody (good-willed whitewoman, preacher, or newspaperman) sat at their table, their sympathetic voices called liar by the revulsion in their eyes" (14).
"So, Denver, you can't never go there. Never. Because even though it's all over—over and done with—it's going to always be there waiting for you" (44). --> recall Elizabeth's comments during our discussion of this quote in class (that the effects of slavery reach even into today's society)
"Before and since, all her effort was directed not on avoiding pain but on getting through it as quickly as possible" (47).
"For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love" (54).
By multigenerational effects, I believe (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that DeGruy means effects that result from multigenerational oppression and marginalization. We can certainly see that slavery’s effects didn’t end when slavery did, since we’ve all studied U.S. History. Seriously, this is crazy to think about, but the civil rights movement was only pretty recently. Can you even wrap your head around that? That less than 60 years ago, black people didn’t have equal rights to white people? Couldn’t sit in the same areas of the bus? Receive equal education? Couldn’t even drink from the same WATER FOUNTAINS???
It’s going to take a much longer time for the effects of slavery to actually fade out of our society, but I think that eventually they will. Though, sadly, I highly doubt it’ll happen within our lifetimes. The fact that racism still exists is horrifying and flabbergasting.
However (and this is grounded in nothing but my own thoughts and observations), I don’t think that the effects of slavery really affect all African American people equally, or that the “key patterns” that deGruy observes really apply to all black people. The effects, to my understanding, would be partially based on social status, how well-off one’s family might be, or other factors. For example, one of her key behavioral patterns is “marked propensity for anger and violence.” I’m not really sure about you guys, but I haven’t really seen a higher propensity for anger/violence in black people than in white people. I just don’t think it’s really fair to characterize black people as violent and angry, though I’m not sure that’s what DeGruy is doing. The phrase “Extreme feelings of suspicion, perceived negative motivations of others” makes me think that DeGruy is pointing out personal characteristics she has observed, not general anger toward a system that favors white people (which I could understand better).
I also want to say that DeGruy isn’t trying to argue that black people today experience the same exact trauma as black people who were enslaved. What she is saying is that black people today feel the effects of slavery because of behavioral responses and attitudes that have been passed down through families as a result of slavery. Furthermore, this oppression actually does continue to exist today, though not in the form of slavery.
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