African Americans regularly receive societal messages about their lack of value, powerlessness, and inability to ensure their personal safety. Perpetuated through media stories as well as common, everyday interactions, these microtraumas cause African Americans to experience a heightened sense of cortisol arousal, a pervasive feeling of doom, and a lack of trust in relation to their environment. The result is hypervigilance and intrusive exaggerated flight, fight, and freeze responses.
