In her book Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome [PTSS]: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary, Ph. D., proposes that the current generation of inner city African Americans are suffering a collective case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
What?
Before discussing the details of Dr. Leary’s theory, it will be helpful to review the basics of PTSD. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV-TR), “PTSD is marked by acute stress and anxiety provoked by memories of an extraordinary traumatic event”. Classic situations that tend to cause PTSD are war, rape, natural disasters, and negative experiences on drugs. The intensity of the symtoms vary according to the intensity of the traumatic event.
The crux of Dr. Leary’s theory is that entire communities, not just isolated individuals, are subject to PTSD. The proof is supposed to be the inner city African American community which has manifested symptoms of PTSD as a result of the intense trauma inflicted during centuries of slavery and years of segregation.
Leary’s book explains how despite the civil rights movement, and many other social advances, the majority of African Americans are suffering from a collective self esteem crisis that is reflected in the external environment of the ghetto, and the internal desire to accumulate material items to justify their superiority. She goes on to state that this collective insecurity is a direct result of socialization within an institutionally racist society.
Say What Again.
I give Dr. Leary credit for exploring the idea of collective mental disorders. That is a very interesting topic that most certainly needs further exploration. However, the basis for this book is PTSD, and PTSD depends on memory for its existence. So the question is, how does an entire community with no recollection of slavery suffer from a collective disorder that relies on memory for its existence?
Collective PTSD exists in inner city African American communities not because of slavery, but because of poverty – trauma that exists at this current moment. Because the stress of poverty is the root cause, collective PTSD cannot be race specific, but instead can be found in any poor community. As for institutional racism – yes that is certainly a contributing factor to the cycle of poverty, but it is poverty itself that causes the collective insecurity Dr. Leary is proposing.
The purpose of labeling a mental disorder is to classify symptoms so as to more easily find effective solutions. By using the label Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Dr. Leary seems to be suggesting that the solution to the trauma of African American inner city communities is different than the solution to the trauma of non-African American inner city communities. If this is the case, she is mistaken.
The solution to the collective ills of poverty is the eradication of poverty. That and nothing else.
Of course, how we go about ending poverty is a topic unto itself…
9 Comments
Andrew, I’m glad you pointed out the same flaw that I was sensing from the get-go with this theory.
Although I do not agree with you, I would like to include some of your comments in a research paper that I am doing on the very subject mentioned above. I would like to get more information about you, and I would like to know why this particular subject peaked your interest.
I thank you in advance….
Thanks for stopping by. I’d love to hear what it is we don’t agree on. I’ll shoot you an email with info for your research paper.
Thank you for the e-mail, and thank you for granting permission to quote you. I agree with you that it is a complex issue. My argument is, if PTSS is real, then those people who experienced being brought over here against their will, sandwiched together at the bottom of a ship, lying in their own excrement and vomit, and then put into slavery, must have suffered horrendous trauma.
From what I have read so far, if severe trauma is not treated or at least addressed, there can be ongoing side affects that last for years, with negative behaviors being passed from generation to generation.
Once again, thank yo for taking the time to respond.
Jacquelyn
The experience of slavery would have left many individuals suffering from PTSD. And yes, many of the emotional and behavioral symptoms of PTSD (or any other psychological disturbance) can be passed down to future generations as a result of modeling.
But….there is absolutely no way to prove that the PTSD symptoms experienced by the original generations of slaves is the the direct cause of the social ills of the current generation of African Americans. That’s not saying a connection can’t be made. But, in my opinion the only way a connection can be made is if you minimize the importance of other factors such as poverty,
Point taken…… So, how do we pinpoint the source of the continued poverty?
Gang violence, teen pregnancies, illegal drug trafficking – these are symptoms of poverty. Most people focus on trying to solve the symptoms without ever attacking the root cause. The root cause is poverty.
What is the source of continued poverty? It all depends on your perspective….From a macro point of view the continuation of poverty is a natural result of capitalism – its a necessary result of this economic system; some percentage of the population must always remain in poverty.
But that macro perspective doesn’t address the very specific African-American/inner city issue at all. The real question then is why are so many African-American communities stuck in what seems to be an unending cycle of poverty? In my opinion it is part of the process of transitioning out of segregation. I think its easy to see milestones like the Civil Rights Act and the election of our first black president as milestones of change. But its also easy to dismiss the very real and long process of healing that any all maltreated group must go through before they can achieve successful integration with the majority.
The cycle of poverty that certain African American communities are stuck in can only be solved by a joint effort: The federal government needs to help rebuild infrastructure (better schools, stronger police presence), and the community itself needs to stand up to the issues it has created for itself (gangs, teen pregnancies, etc). The government can’t fix these communities by themselves, but I also think the problem is too big for the communities to fix by themselves.
Given enough time, and with committed effort by both parties, I believe we’ll see real change over the next century. Remember it hasn’t even been 50 years since the Civil Right Act. We should be realistic with our forecasts of change.
You’ve given this a lot of thought. I look forward to continuing our conversation. There are quite a few things that we agree on…….
I think I can sum up what is being said and what is being imagined to be said by Dr. Degruy.
She is not saying we as Afro-Americans have retained memories genetically of being sold, stolen, shipped, and enslaved etc.
What she is saying is that due to all of this and the social and psychic ramifications of these experiences there has been a run-off. It has become deeply imbedded into our culture.
For example, “Soul Food” has already been determined to be extremely bad for our health, and it was basically formed out of a need–we had to eat and this was what we were given to make food from as slaves. However, why do we as black people still eat it?
Answer: The denial within ourselves that we lack a healthy self-esteem. We wouldn’t dare eat healthier “White people stuff”. We know it’s healthier, we wont. It’s a socially constructed mindset. It’s a mindset thats like a ghost. Or maybe like a
victim of rape who constantly taught her daughter to become very paranoid and not trust men due to her experience, and thus created this vicious cycle. Because if the daughter had feared men, she’d avoid them and never find out her mother was just sick and had a bad experience.
There are plenty of things like this holding my community back–even in our efforts to uplift and properly socialize ourselves and each others. Here is my favorite one: lots of my “brothas” saying “the man” prevents their progress–”pulling the race card” when all we need to do is step back from our maladaptive culture, look at it with discerning eyes and see we need to first speak proper english, and not dress and act like gangsters. The list goes on and on depending the families and the regions they come from (not all black families hold the same negating qualities, but
we tend to draw from a large pool of them).
It’s not some fantastical excuse…and to be frank, I venture to say that people who are not discerning people (mostly of non-colour) somehow have pre-determined all black people are into just that: making fantastical excuses for that which we could easily change. SO I’m just saying I can see why people would think Dr. Degruy is claiming we “remember” slave days. Its more like “the ripple” effect, however.
Just think of this as the description of a social phenomenon: something that happens to a culture that is formed during hundreds of years of slavery, and even after that was only socialized in token manner (see: segregation, the civil rights movements). And left up to just a few equipped people, but mostly very ill-equipped people to fix.