Frequent Exposure to Shootings of Black People Can Cause Ptsd-Like Trauma
Frequent Exposure to Shootings of Black People Can Cause PTSD-Like Trauma, Research SaysIn the last two years there has been a rise of deaths in African Americans by police officers. These deaths have caused a lot of controversy and have opened a lot of peoples eyes. In a recent article I read entitled “ The Atlanta Black Star” talked about how the shootings of the African American males are psychologically affecting the black community(Kenney, T. (2016, September 22 Frequent Exposure to Shootings of Black People Can Cause PTSD-Like Trauma, Research Says). One clinical psychologist by the name of Monica Williams is the  Director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Louisville,talked about how, “that these graphic images, coupled with lived experiences of racism, can lead to severe mental health issues and PTSD-like trauma.” ( Kenney, T. (2016, September 22). Frequent Expose to Shootings of Black People Can Cause PTSD-Like Trauma, Research Says).Which is true, most African American males who come into contact with police automatically feel threaten by the officer. Fear is put in there heads because they feel like they are being targeted and some feel as though they could be killed my them.
The article also talked about how these situations and images are dehumanizing the African American community. This is due to the lack of censorship. Every time a situations where an officer kills a black person the videos are being shared all over the internet without any qualms; this can cause they community to panic and become so angry that it can lead to negative things. All these events just cause flashbacks in the minds of black people of the events that took place years ago. One will even make the argument that the problems of the past are still true to this day.In the past week these events  unfortunately continued. Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, NC. The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about these stories was, “here we go again.” Its sad that when things like this happen it becomes the norm to most people. It shouldnt be that way at all. This is a problem and it needs to be fixed. Something needs to be done so that theses issues can be resolved and not continue to take place.To tie this into what we talked about in class was a little difficult. I wanted to talk about something that was important to me but still tie it back to something in class. So we talked about the different goals of science. Describing behavior,predict behavior, the cause of the behavior, and to understand behavior.