Understanding Racial Trauma: How Racism Lives in the Mind and Body

Racial trauma is not just an emotional experience. It is a mind-body response to repeated exposure to racism, threat, and discrimination across a lifetime and across generations. It affects the nervous system, identity, sense of safety, connection to community, and the way people move through the world.

At Little River Psychological Services, we define racial trauma as:

The cumulative impact of racism, discrimination, and systemic oppression on the mind, body, and spirit across your life, your family, and your lineage.

Racial trauma is not imagined.
It is not personal weakness.
It is not “being sensitive.”

It is a real, measurable form of trauma with biological markers, cultural consequences, and intergenerational roots.

Racial Trauma Is Both Personal and Collective

Racial trauma operates on two interconnected levels.

Individual Racial Trauma

This includes daily lived experiences of racism, such as:

• Microaggressions

• Stereotyping

• Discrimination At Work Or School

• Being Followed In Stores

• Medical Racism

• Cultural Invalidation

• Racial Profiling

• Hate Crimes

These experiences activate the brain’s threat system and produce real physiological stress responses in the body.

Collective and Historical Racial Trauma

This refers to trauma carried across generations and shaped by systemic violence, including:

• Enslavement

• Genocide

• Boarding Schools

• Land Theft And Displacement

• Lynching And Racial Terror

• Forced Assimilation

• Segregation

• Environmental Racism

• Police Violence

• State Surveillance

These experiences become embedded not only in family stories, but in nervous systems, community structures, and cultural memory (Brave Heart, 1998; Kirmayer et al., 2014).

Racial trauma is not a past event.
It is an ongoing wound.

How Racial Trauma Lives in the Nervous System

Racism activates the same neurobiological pathways as other forms of trauma. Repeated exposure to threat, even when subtle or chronic, keeps the body in survival mode.

Common nervous system responses include:

• Chronic Hypervigilance

• Emotional Exhaustion

• Anxiety Around Authority Figures

• Fear Of Being Misunderstood Or Targeted

• Feeling Unsafe In Predominantly White Spaces

• Dissociation Or Emotional Numbing

• Anger Rooted In Self-Protection

• Sleep Difficulties

• Racing Thoughts

• Digestive Distress

• Shutdown Or Collapse Responses

These reactions are not overreactions.
They are adaptive responses to real and repeated threat.

The nervous system learns to anticipate danger because danger has been real.

Racial Trauma Across Communities

Black Communities

Racial trauma is often shaped by:

• Generational Survival After Enslavement

• Jim Crow Laws

• Mass Incarceration

• Police Violence

• Cultural Stereotypes

• Medical Neglect And Experimentation

• School-Based Racism

• Daily Microaggressions

• Emotional Monitoring For Safety

These conditions create chronic stress responses in the body.

Indigenous Communities

Racial trauma is deeply collective and often includes:

• Colonization

• Land Removal

• Forced Boarding Schools

• Suppression Of Language, Culture, And Spirituality

• Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women

• Intergenerational Communal Grief

• Environmental Destruction Of Ancestral Lands

This trauma is embodied, spiritual, and relational.

Latinx, Asian, and Other BIPOC Communities

Racial trauma may involve:

• Immigration-Related Trauma

• Surveillance And Policing

• Colorism

• Xenophobia

• Cultural Invisibility

• Language Discrimination

• The Perpetual Foreigner Stereotype

• Community Violence Related To Migration

Racial trauma is woven into systems, not limited to individual interactions.

Hidden and Chronic Forms of Racial Trauma

Not all racial trauma is loud or overt. Some of the most damaging forms are subtle, cumulative, and normalized.

Microaggressions

Repeated comments or behaviors that communicate bias, such as:

• “You’re So Articulate.”

• “Where Are You Really From?”

• “You’re Not Like The Others.”

• Being Avoided Or Watched In Public Spaces

• Assumptions Of Incompetence

• Medical Providers Minimizing Pain

Each moment may feel small. Together, they accumulate into trauma.

Racial Gaslighting

Being told:

• “You’re Imagining It.”

• “It’s Not About Race.”

• “You’re Being Dramatic.”

• “Stop Pulling The Race Card.”

This erodes trust in one’s own perception and reality.

Code-Switching Pressure

Feeling forced to alter:

• Speech

• Tone

• Appearance

• Emotional Expression

• Cultural Identity

In order to be safe, acceptable, or employable.

Role Strain

Being the “only one” in classrooms, workplaces, institutions, or leadership spaces.

Over time, these pressures erode psychological, emotional, and physical health.

Intergenerational Memory and Racial Trauma

Racial trauma is not only experienced.
It is inherited.

Research shows trauma can influence:

• Parenting Patterns

• Stress Responses

• Attachment Styles

• Nervous System Development

• Immune Functioning

• Hormonal Regulation

• Community Narratives

• Gene Expression (Yehuda et al., 2016)

This is not metaphor.
This is neuroscience.

Many people describe this as:

• “This Pain Feels Bigger Than Me.”

• “I Don’t Know Why My Body Reacts This Way.”

• “My Body Remembers What I Cannot Name.”

Intergenerational racial trauma is real, measurable, and deeply human.

Healing Racial Trauma

Healing racial trauma is embodied, cultural, relational, and communal.

At Little River Psychological Services, healing includes:

Naming The Trauma

Language restores clarity, dignity, and truth.

Nervous System Education

Understanding bodily responses reduces shame and self-blame.

Somatic Healing

Grounding, movement, breathwork, and sensory practices support regulation.

Cultural And Ancestral Practices

Storywork
Dream-Based Healing
Prayer
Drumming
Dance
Traditional Healing
Elder Connection
Land-Based Rituals

These practices restore belonging and identity.

Community Connection

Healing is not individual. It happens in relationship.

Building Safe Relationships

Spaces where racialized pain is believed and honored.

Advocacy And Collective Healing

Boundaries, empowerment, and systemic understanding restore agency.

Racial trauma requires both personal healing and collective liberation.

If You Need Support Right Now

• 988 Suicide And Crisis Lifeline: Call Or Text 988

• BlackLine: Call Or Text 1-800-604-5841

• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME Or CONNECT To 741741

• Native-Focused Support: Text NATIVE To 741741

• IHS Suicide Prevention: https://www.ihs.gov/suicideprevention

You deserve spaces where your full humanity is protected and honored.

References

Brave Heart, M. Y. H. (1998). The return to the sacred path: Healing the historical trauma response among the Lakota. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 68(3), 287–305.

Comas-Díaz, L., Hall, G. N., & Neville, H. A. (2019). Racial trauma: Theory, research, and healing. American Psychologist, 74(1), 1–16.

Kirmayer, L. J., Gone, J. P., & Moses, J. (2014). Rethinking historical trauma. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51(3), 299–319.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. Norton.

Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, N. P., Bierer, L. M., et al. (2016). Epigenetic biomarkers of trauma exposure. Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), 327–335.