Trauma has a specific meaning; confronting something life-threatening.

Trauma is an impact on the body or psyche that is greater than someone knows how to handle. This can be a very significant, single event that has a lasting negative impact (1x “Trauma”), or a series of harmful events that occur over that course of time (10x “trauma”). Often, trauma that occurs during childhood continues to affect people throughout their lives (even in ways they do not realize) until it is healed. 

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a diagnosis caused by exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence, whether as a victim, a bystander, or even from exposure to news of the event.  Symptoms of PTSD include an ongoing feeling that the traumatic event is still occurring (flashbacks), negative differences in thinking and moods (being irritable or angry, being easily startled, engaging in reckless behavior, hypervigilance, problems with sleep and thinking), and having memory loss around the traumatic event. Some people with PTSD experience Depersonalization - a feeling of detachment from their own body and senses or Derealization: feeling like the world is unreal, dreamlike, distant, or distorted.

Racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), refers to the mental and emotional injury caused by encounters with racial bias and ethnic discrimination, racism, and hate crimes. Any individual that has experienced an emotionally painful, sudden, and uncontrollable racist encounter is at risk of suffering from a race-based traumatic stress injury [3]. In the U.S., Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC), non-English speaking people, and Asian Americans/ Pacific Islanders are all vulnerable to racial trauma, due to living under a system of white supremacy.