Racial Trauma and Racism

Black mental health consumers do not get culturally sensitive care when clinicians fail to recognize racism and racial trauma.  Cultural incompetence of health care providers contributes to underdiagnosis and/or misdiagnosis of mental illness in People of Colour.  Stigma of mental illness among People of Colour, and cultural presentation of symptoms are some of the many barriers to care that explain these errors in the diagnostic process. 

People of color and all those whose lives have been marginalized by those in power experience life differently from those whose lives have not been devalued. They experience overt racism and prejudice far too often, which leads to a greater mental health burden than others face.    

Past trauma is prominently mentioned as the reason that people experience serious mental health conditions, obvious forms of racism and bigotry are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to racial trauma, as every day, people of color experience far more subtle traumas such as