The Trauma of the Routine: Lessons on Cultural Trauma from the Emmett Till Verdict - Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Abstract

  • “This article analyzes the interplay between the history or accumulation of the “routine” harm at issue, the shocking or unusual occurrences that frequently precede such “routine” harms, the harm itself, and public discourse about such harm’s meaning in cultivating a cultural trauma narrative.” (335)

Introduction (main argument here)

  • Cultural trauma is a socially mediated process

  • Cultural traumas arise out of shocks to routine, real or imagined) → just interpreted as a shock = a shock

  • Author SEEKS → “to build on this framework for understanding cultural trauma by highlighting how cultural trauma narratives can arise not only when the routine is disrupted but also when regularly expected occurrences—the matters that communities have come to know and take for granted—occur and in fact get reaffirmed in a public or official manner” (336)

  • Author thinks that widespread publicity is a condition that results from these shocking events → causes individuals to focus and pay attention to the actual occurrence of the routine harm

  • 3 elements must be present for a cultural trauma to materialize from an expected, negative occurence

    • Longstanding history of the routine harm → the group to expect nothing other than the routine (still cultural trauma)-inducing injury

    • Underlying facts related to the routine injury that have garnered the type of widespread media attention that makes a large audience take notice of the routine occurence

    • Must be public discourse about the meaning of the routine harm → occurs in the form of governmental or legal affirmation of the subordinated group’s marginal status

      • Therefore, narratives of cultural trauma arise because public/official sanctioning of everyday denigration/subjugation of the subordinated group reinforces that group’s historically support view that neither they nor their rights are protected and respected in society (336) → this “reignites the subordinated group’s consciousness of its second-class citizenship and punctuates its already existing distress and suffering → resulting in tension and pain to lay a foundation for cultural trauma narrative (337)


Understanding Collective and Cultural Trauma

  • Kai Erikson → suggests “trauma contains both ‘centripetal’ and ‘centrifugal’ dimensions, setting individuals apart from others who have not sustained the same surprising experiences while at the same time pulling them toward persons who will be better able to relate to them as a result of shared realities.” (338)

  • Eyerman → “it is not the experiences itself that produces traumatic effect, but rather the remembrance of it.” → “What mattered was how the narrative was made and remade for African Americans around art, music, literature, and speeches and after the occurrence of events that both created pain and reactivated the pain of past injuries for the group.” (339)

  • Author → “I focus solely on past incidents and thier impact, and I seek to extend cultural trauma theory by rethinking the notion that collective and cultural traumas based on past events occur only when cultural expectations are shattered.” (340)

    • → Reveal how position and societal status (and thus how individuals experience routine occurrences) → shape the emergence of the cultural trauma process (340)

      • The accumulation of routine harms and corresponding publicity (rather the disruption of the harm itself) are what enable narratives about routine injury and thus cultural trauma (340)

  • Author → 3 necessary elements

    • institutionally oppressive structures, along w conscious/unconscious individual behaviours, work to demean and subjugate less powerful social groups in ways that leave them feeling excluded, powerless, or hopeless. → leaving the group to not expect much other than a continuation of past harms even if they are trying to fight against these harms.

    • routine harms that are unpunished deepen and increase pain./suffering felt by a group

    • Cultural trauma emerges when one specific routine harm garners enough media attention for a regional, nationwide, or worldwide audience to take note of its occurrence

  • Therefore, ultimately, “well-publicized routine harm ends up causing the everyday simmering of distress, tension, and psychological trauma of group members to boil over” → leading to discourse about the meaning and creating a space for cultural trauma narrative to form. (342)

Collective Trauma Out of the Acquittal of Milam and Bryant

  • PG 344