The Conversation – US: The unique harm of sexual abuse in the black community.
https://theconversation.com/the-unique-harm-of-sexual-abuse-in-the-black-community-114948
The underlying core of these questions is: What really makes trauma traumatic?
https://theconversation.com/the-unique-harm-of-sexual-abuse-in-the-black-community-114948
Decades of research on trauma, or physical, sexual or psychological violence, have shown the same thing: Victimization hurts people. Sexual assault in particular can be painful to all who experience it.
However, as a trauma expert who has studied the effect of violence for over a decade, I have found that there is a unique harm for black people and other minorities whose perpetrators are of the same minority group.
To understand this harm, I created cultural betrayal trauma theory.
The general idea of cultural betrayal trauma theory is that some minorities develop what I call “(intra)cultural trust” – love, loyalty, attachment, connection, responsibility and solidarity with each other to protect themselves from a hostile society. Within-group violence, such as a black perpetrator harming a black victim, is a violation of this (intra)cultural trust. This violation is called a cultural betrayal.