'Because SLAVERY': Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome | Ep 130

[Music] hey guys welcome back to the show today we're gonna be talking about post-traumatic slave syndrome and odds are you've never heard of that term before and I'm guessing that by the end of this video you're gonna wish you never had but you know what with this show I kind of see myself as your guide to the darker parts of cultural and political happenings so if that being said let's do this but first I want to tell you guys about the amazing folks over at bowl and branch guys imagine these scenarios for me you've just taken a shower and to dry yourself off you reach for a roll of sandpaper or at the end of a long day you go and flop yourself onto a bed of nails covered with fire ants hurts to even think about doesn't it we all know that when it comes to betting mattresses and towels things we put against our delicate skin comfort matters softness and quality matter so if you're looking for bedding a mattress or towels look no further than bowl and branch their products are made without harmful chemicals pesticides or GMOs and from sustainable raw materials 100% of their packaging is made from recycled paper and can be recycled and or repurposed I love Bowlin bran sheets because they're the softest and most comfortable sheets in the world seriously they feel like being caressed by newborn teddy bears yeah you heard me newborn teddy bears shipping is always free you can try them for 30 nights risk-free and right now you get $50 off your first set of sheets at Boland branch calm with the promo code Chen again get $50 off at Boleyn branch calm with the promo code Chen spelled Bo ll and branch calm with code Chen so post-traumatic slave syndrome is a theory that this woman dr. joy de Croy has apparently spent at least 12 years working on and dr. dubrow whose name I'm almost definitely butchering by the way if you've watched the show before you'll know I am terrible with saying names correctly I just I I kind of pronounce from the heart I guess but anyway dr. Dubrow for the record has a master's degree in social work another master's degree in clinical psychology and a PhD in social work research I mean I don't even know how much credence people give to academia but for what it's worth no she's not some random crazy person off the street she's a random crazy person from the ivory tower recently she did a video with aj+ explaining the basics of post traumatic slave syndrome or PTSS and I found it very enlightening post traumatic slave syndrome is an explanatory theory that really looks at multi-generational trauma what I did was I started to look at the african-american experience starting with slavery as a real clear long enduring promise I started to see that there were clear connections between that survival behavior and contemporary living in African American experience I started to see common behaviors that I took for granted as well cultural as someone who really does love history and even the study of different cultures I did some area studies classes in college I've got to say on the surface in the most broadest general way what this lady is saying actually does make some sense history does affect culture especially when that history is traumatic the Great Depression for example absolutely affected American culture at the time and continued to for generations have you ever wondered why your grandparents insists on doing extremely time-consuming things that only end up saving pennies if that's like trying to wash and reuse disposable Ziploc bags that's one I've caught my grandmother doing several times or just collecting random buttons they find that way if they ever need to replace a button and they won't have to go out and buy buttons they do stuff like that because they didn't grow up in the same environment that a lot of us are in today either they or their parents depending on how old you are needed to be frugal in the extreme because for a lot of them their survival depended on it and of course that's gonna affect their culture dr. dubrow is right to say that practices or behaviors learn for survival reasons will be passed on from parents to children perhaps even beyond when they're actually useful or needed in the u.s. there's no question that the history of slavery has had lasting impacts on the country in many different ways I would never try to argue otherwise however however the thing about dr. dubrow's theory of post-traumatic slave syndrome is that the specific behaviors she attributes to slavery are very strange and it doesn't really seem like she has that much evidence if any to back up what she's saying here's what I mean this is an example of how dr. Dogra says slavery has affected the way black people today behave there's adaptive behaviors survival behaviors well what are they let's to say 2019 you have a black mother and a white mother the black mother leans over to the white mother and says I just wanted to mention to you that I notice that your son is really doing quite well and the white mothers response is oh thank you she begins to go on and on about he won the science fairs uncles an astronaut she's just oozing and she says wait a minute your son's the one that's really coming along and the black mother responds oh my god he's a handful but oh he just works my nerves now when I'm working with african-american people it doesn't matter what the audience is it doesn't matter what class if I were to ask is she's very proud while she's saying those denigrating things and everybody laughs and goes of course alright so in this example we're drawing distinctions between how in general white Americans versus black Americans refer to their children according to dr. dubrow a black parents tend to be less affirming about their children's abilities now cross-cultural parenting differences are interesting to me I grew up in a couple different countries with parents and friends from different cultural backgrounds so those differences are something I've definitely seen firsthand and I think they absolutely affect how children end up turning out obviously I'm not saying dr. Grey's explanation here is wrong but here's her explanation for it which I find questionable so now let's roll that scene back 300 years and let's say this black mother is working in the fields and a white slave owner comes through and says wow that boy is really coming along what is she gonna say no he's not he's he's stupid he's he's shiftless he can't work because I don't want you to sell him so identify em to protect them that is called appropriate adaptation when living in a hostile environment and Trey looks at his mom and wonders why can't she be proud of me because he doesn't understand the secret yet and by the time he learns the secret he will already been injured by post-traumatic slave syndrome to clarify dr. Dogra posits that black parents now are more denigrating toward their children because black people 300 years ago did that to prevent their children from being sold off by slave owners and now since that lack of affirmation hurts black children they are suffering from post-traumatic slave syndrome basically black parents are hurting black children but they're only doing so because of slavery hmm I feel like if you put forward a theory about something you you kind of need like proof to back up that theory and there's this whole little rule in statistic that says correlation does not equal causation like just because you might be able to give a two minute explanation about how two things might be related that doesn't actually mean that they are like was denigrating children really a common practice during slavery like she states it is their proof of this and has that practice been documented to have existed in African American communities for the 250 years since slavery and are there any differences in the way black people refer to their children and the way the many other cultures who are also less affirming refer to their children because I feel like historically for better or worse being hard on your kids was more than norm I mean it's really only lately that parents have gotten better at verbally showing their kids they're proud of them and on our website dr. to grow a lists more examples of how PTSS manifests among black people and frankly those make even less sense on your websites dr. dubrow writes that key patterns of behavior reflective of post traumatic slave syndrome include quote vacant esteem insufficient development of what dr. dubrow refers to as primary esteem along feelings of hopelessness depression and a general self-destructive outlook all those feelings she lists are hard to unpack as a whole but if we look at depression specifically black people are less likely to be depressed than white people so I don't know the American Psychiatric Association says that the rate of depression among whites is thirty four point seven percent compared to just twenty four point six percent of blacks they do note however that depression in blacks is more likely to be persistent and in the 2003 American Journal of Public Health one study noted that quote after control for confounders Hispanics and whites exhibited similar rates and african-americans exhibited significantly lower rates of depression than whites and here they noted that apparently elevated depression rates among minority individuals are largely associated with greater health burdens and lack of health insurance factors amenable it's a public policy intervention so if black people are depressed because of intergenerational trauma but more white people than black people are depressed does that mean that white people have worse intergenerational trauma although you know what now that I'm explaining all of this I'm guessing that dr. Dogra would probably argue that the decreased likelihood of black people having healthcare is the result of slavery therefore it does tie into post-traumatic slave syndrome see I'm I'm getting this whole grievance study thing and we've got more to talk about but before we do I have a quick message from our awesome sponsor equip equip the makers of the equip electric toothbrush want you to know the one single discovery that matters most for good oral health it's simply this have good habits that means brushing your teeth for two minutes twice a day and flossing regularly no matter what brand you use and equip makes that simple starting with an electric toothbrush refillable floss and anti cavity toothpaste quips electric brush has sensitive sonic vibrations with a built-in timer and 30-second pulses to guide a full and even clean Plus equip delivers a new brush head floss and toothpaste refills to your door every three months with free shipping so your routine is always right join over 3 million healthy mouth and get quit today starting at $25 and if you go to get quick comm slash Chen right now you'll get your first refill completely free that's your first feel free at ghek whip calm / chen spelled g ET q UI p.com / Chen quip the good habits company anyway so far with PTSS we've got black parents mean because slavery and also black people sad not as sad as white people but still sad because slavery what else you got to grow the next behavior listed is marked propensity for anger and violence extreme feelings of suspicion perceived negative motivations of others violence against self property and others including the members of one's own group ie friends relatives or acquaintances mmhmm okay saying that black people are angry and/or violent because of slavery is weird for many reasons first off patterns of violence among African Americans just like violence among I mean literally every other group has gone up and down as we've moved away from slavery if this theory is right shouldn't violence and anger either be consistent or consistently diminishing the further we get from slavery depending on how strong the effect of slavery was and I'm not even sure if that makes sense but I don't think any of this makes sense and second violence is hugely regional are the black people in Chicago and Detroit and st. Louis more affected by slavery than the black people and I don't know Kansas and does this theory account for how fatherlessness and poverty have actually been proven to be statistically connected to violence and anger and all those other things she mentioned maybe it's explained in the book that de Croy wrote about this which is called post-traumatic slave syndrome America's legacy of enduring injury and healing but I really don't want to read that book and finally deGruy writes that racist socialization and internalized racism is a symptom of pts learned helplessness literacy deprivation distorted self-concept antipathy or aversion for the following the members of one's own identified cultural / ethnic group the mores and customs associated with one's own identified cultural / ethnic heritage and the physical characteristics of one's own identified cultural / ethnic group the truth is black people on average have the strongest in-group preference of any race according to a 2018 survey black people had a stronger in-group bias than Hispanic people Asian people or non liberal white people the only group surveyed that on average actually had negative feelings toward their own group like dr. gray seems to be describing we're white liberals if anyone is suffering from a syndrome that due to slavery now causes them to hate their own race it's white people I mean if this is really how post-traumatic slave syndrome manifests then perfect because it doesn't seem like many people aren't even afflicted by it but in any case let's see how she recommends fixing this problem I think the first order of business is beginning to have a conversation and the other is to educate the larger society you have to stop the assault so this is not purely a clinical thing this requires social justice and change we got to work with some of those clinical things some of those issues of panic and anxiety and we also have to deal with the fact that you have a system that is set up to oppress you and to continue to interview both those things have to be dealt with wanting to help struggling communities including many black communities out there is a noble goal and I don't want to discourage anyone from doing that or act like that help isn't needed but and I've said this before to solve a problem you first need to accurately identify it I support criminal justice reform educational reform health care reform there are so many problems with the system in those areas but even then I don't think it's accurate to say that it's been designed or that its function is specifically to oppress and injure black people and what kind of policies would even lend themselves to fixing a system like that because I feel like if a system is racist then the answer should be to ensure that there are no racial biases at all but anytime the phrase social justice arises I feel like people are instead about to introduce more in their eyes corrective racial biases which I don't think is good and part of me is glad that she mentions clinical and personal treatments for people who are struggling in life not just big government top-down solutions kind of similar to what dr. Peterson does but unlike what dr. Peterson does it seems like dr. goiz clinical treatment doesn't focus on improving the cell it only focuses on dealing with how you feel about the outside world with this whole PTSS thing I feel like dr. dubrow has just taken a bunch of negative characteristics many of which aren't even displayed disproportionately by black people and said it's because of slavery that were like this I mean that's one way to deal with it I guess that's pretty much all I have to say though but as always I would love to know what you guys think do you think there's any merit to the idea of post traumatic slave syndrome are there any behaviors negative or positive actually that are displayed by black people today that you believe are learned adaptive behaviors from when their ancestors or slaves gosh I don't know even asking that question feels racist to me don't don't like any of this let me know though that's it for now thank you guys so much for tuning in and I'll see you next time

Channel: Lauren Chen

Views: 67,034

Rating: 4.8433762 out of 5

Keywords: Roaming millennial, conservative, conservative vs liberal, conservative news, republican, republican party, commentary channels, current events, conservative commentary, lauren chen, blaze tv, crtv, political commentary, social commentary, post traumatic slave syndrome

Id: qzVm-yyXk94

Length: 16min 14sec (974 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 25 2020