Racially Just, Trauma-Informed Care for Black Students

Abstract

Anti-blackness precludes Black people from being viewed as rights-bearing individuals and justifies the degradation of Black people, Black history, and Black culture. In this conceptual article, we suggest that (1) anti-blackness is trauma-inducing, (2) schools are often the first sites where Black students encounter anti-blackness and subsequent trauma, (3) anti-black racial trauma deleteriously affects Black youth's holistic wellbeing. Moreover, we contend that schools’ writ-large and teacher education programs can play an important role in providing the knowledge, resources, and dispositions needed to train teachers to recognize the persistence of anti-blackness and play a pivotal role in ameliorating it.