Title: Racism's Effects on Black Mental Health | Psychology Today
Headings: Racism's Effects on Black Mental Health
Jade Wu Ph.D.
Racism's Effects on Black Mental Health
An unflinching look at the ways racism affects Black mental health.
309 - How Does Racism Affect Black Mental Health?

Content: Sadly, repeated encounters of racism may make a person begin to believe racial stereotypes about themselves. Even without consciously realizing it, you begin to absorb the idea, and it affects your sense of self. This process is called internalization. For marginalized people, internalizing society’s negative attitudes about them creates stress and lowers self-esteem while allowing for feelings of shame and humiliation to take root. article continues after advertisement
4. Racial trauma can be passed down through the generations. Slavery was, and racism continues to be, a chronic form of trauma. And trauma can be biologically transmitted across generations through a process scientists call epigenetics. Epigenetics boils down to environments and experiences “getting under the skin” by changing the way our genes are expressed and passed on. For example, research has shown that trauma survivors’ children have altered flight-or-flight systems in their brains, similar to people who have PTSD.