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How do people of African descent respond to the trauma of the slave trade?

User Arcreigh
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Answer:

African Americans experience much higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and negative health outcomes compared to Whites in the US. Michael J Halloran writes that the intergenerational cultural trauma caused by 300 years of slavery – alongside poor economic circumstances and social prejudice – has led to the poor state of physical, psychological and social health among African Americans.

In his 1952 semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell it on the Mountain, the esteemed African American author James Baldwin asked the question “Could a curse come down so many ages? Did it live in time, or in the moment?” In my work, I argue that the curse of African American slavery cannot be underestimated; the trauma of enslavement has been carried by African Americans through the ages and generations and is currently shown in many of the health problems experienced by a significant proportion of the African American population in the US. My research focusses on how intergenerational trauma provides an important explanation for the persistence of health problems among African Americans; complementary to the more apparent negative impact of poverty and prejudice on health.

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User Shem
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