NEWSLETTER JUNE 2021
Police and State Violence Have Secondary Impacts: Complex and Lasting Trauma by: Aislinn Pulley and Cindy Eigler, CTJC Co-Executive Directors
Excerpt from an article by CTJC's co-directors, printed in the online magazine Truthout on May 6, 2021:
These last weeks, months, years and decades we keep on adding names to the list — Adam Toledo, Daunte Wright, Ma’Khia Bryant, Ronald Johnson, Pierre Loury, Rekia Boyd, Nickolas Lee, Laquan McDonald, Archie Lee Chambers, Maurice Granton, Anthony Alvarez.… The list of victims of police murder seems never-ending. Then there is the list of police torture survivors — Gerald Reed, Stanley Howard, Tony Anderson, Darrell Fair, Sean Tyler, Kilroy Watkins, and on and on and on. Many of us speak these names. We show up at the rallies and actions demanding justice. We work tirelessly to dismantle the long-serving systems and structures that brutalize and kill Black and Brown bodies. We feel the anger and the terror. But, we don’t often acknowledge that behind every name, every video, every individual locked up in the United States, every police stop, immense and complex trauma is left behind. For over 70 percent of Chicago’s residents who are Black and Brown, this police presence comes at a high cost. In addition to the lives lost and constant threat of danger, there is a trail of trauma leading to increased states of hypervigilance, unsafety and helplessness. This lived reality for many Black and Brown individuals overwhelms the nervous system, and forces individuals and communities to develop survival strategies and coping mechanisms that seek to mitigate the reality of living with a perpetual threat to life and well-being. These conditions add to the reasons why communities that are surveilled and occupied by policing are also always the poorest and have disproportionate rates of health disparities related to stress. This ongoing stress is state regulated and maintained. Oppression, as defined by Prentis Hemphill, is how society organizes itself to control and distribute trauma. This definition helps us better understand the political nature of health, wellness and trauma, and underscores the important questions of: Who does it serve when we are unwell? Who necessitates and perpetuates our unwellness and our unhealth, and why? The violence — direct and indirect — of racialized policing is both traumatic and trauma-producing. For many, this means that since the point of birth, the outside world has represented a perpetual environment of violence and harm, with government agents being the largest perpetrators and managers of this violence. Danger — and threat to life — is embodied by police, reinforced by politicians who give cover and legitimacy to policing, and enforced through the courts. This can mean then, for some, safety has never been experienced outside of loved ones, family and immediate community. Violence at the hands of police is trauma-producing. Seeing police officer after police officer completely escape any consequence and be able to kill and harm with impunity is trauma-producing. Seeing a court system that allows officers with patterns and practices of abuse and court-verified torture to testify and have their word valued more than those who lived the harm, which is the current reality specifically relevant to CPD torture survivors, is trauma-producing. Witnessing the ongoing existence of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the union representing police officers, which continues to justify police-perpetrated torture and murder, is trauma-producing. In Chicago, FOP leadership alone represents more than at least 142 disciplinary allegations, yet the mayor continues to engage with and pander to the union. Witnessing that pandering is trauma-producing, too. What do we know about systemic trauma, defined by CTJC as repeated, ongoing violation, exploitation, and/or deprivation of groups of people? We know that it overwhelms and breaks down our senses of safety and connection, and leaves us on hyperalert. We know that being in a constant state of hypervigilance can rob us of a feeling of having autonomy or control of our self and our bodies. This tension gets stuck and wreaks havoc — emotional, spiritual, social and physical — if it is not tended to and if we don’t invest attention and resources in mitigating its impact. Increases in blood pressure, sleep disturbances, ability to engage in intimate relationships, and more are just some of the consequences of chronic hypervigilance and persistent and complex trauma. All of these conditions tend to be depoliticized in the dominant narrative — somehow, Black and Brown communities are simply more impacted by “predispositional health factors.” In fact, they are consequences of focused deliberately imposed trauma by the state.
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