Conclusion: A Multilevel Approach to Addressing Racial Trauma in Black Communities

In concluding this book with a discussion of a multilevel approach to addressing racial trauma in Black communities, it is important to first revisit the book’s five main objectives. First, it used anti-colonial theory (Fanon, 1963; Gilman, 1985; Memmi, 1965) to interrogate and challenge the enduring colonial structures that not only contribute to the legacy of racial trauma in Black communities in Canada, the USA, and the UK but that are also embedded within psychiatry and other mental health professions. Anti-colonial theory was useful in problematising how colonialism has influenced psychiatric discourse and practice, legitimised scientific theories to justify racial discrimination during colonialism and slavery, and energised enduring and harmful ideologies about ‘Blackness’ and ‘madness’. The concept of racial trauma starts from the premise that anti-Black racism is entrenched within every social structure and has enduring impacts on the mental health and well-being of Black people. From labour, employment, and health care to education and criminal justice, the inequalities Black people continue to experience within these structures have increasingly led to more urgent calls over the years to acknowledge racism as a legitimate structural determinant of health and mental health and a public health crisis.