Mourning for Strangers: Black Women, Sequelae, and the Digital Afterlife of Police Violence

Abstract

Based on 32 in-depth interviews with black women, this paper analyzes the racialized and gendered impact of vicarious exposure to police encounters on social media. We draw from Smith’s (2016) sequelae to describe the lingering effects of anti-black state violence, particularly grief and mourning. For Black women, the manifestation of sequelae from online exposure includes: a) amplification of police brutality, b) identification with victims, c) expressions of grief, and d) prolonged mourning. We argue research should contend with the digital landscape when examining psychological effects of police violence to understand anti-black police violence’s impact on gendered racial mental health disparities.