“White People Stress Me Out All the Time”: Black Students Define Racial Trauma

Objective: Using a constructivist–interpretivist paradigm and a Black feminist qualitative framework, this study investigated how Black students at a predominantly White university in the southeast defined racial trauma. Method: A purposive sample of 26 participants (10 men and 16 women, aged 18–27) participated in a semistructured interview about their definitions of race-based stress and racial trauma. Data analysis consisted of a six-phase inductive, latent thematic analysis. Researcher reflexivity, interviews, observations, and research memos contributed to trustworthiness. Results: Participants’ understandings of race-based stress and racial trauma-informed two composite definitions of racial trauma. Participants conceptualized racial trauma and race-based stress as related and identified three salient components of racial trauma: (a) “Sticking with”: temporal component, (b) “Suffering severely”: intensity component, and (c) “Repeating regularly”: frequency component. Conclusions: The findings of this study contribute to the existing literature by providing an academic and community definition of racial trauma grounded in the voices of Black collegians.