For my research I had a few key words/phrases that I was searching for: Black women, perception, trauma, society/social, anything along those lines. A lot of my research provided insight for both men and women as a whole, which Iโm not surprised by because there are lots of things about BIPOC, regardless of gender, that go unmentioned, especially in academic spaces. I wasnโt entirely sure what specifically to look for, I just was searching for something in the general area of โBlack women are affected byโฆโ which I did, and I think I can use them in my paper.
I did however find a source about social theory and trauma, which lines up pretty well with my primary source, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Starr experiences the tragic death of her friend right in front of her eyes, but then later on we realize that Khalilโs death is not the first traumatic experience that Starr has gone through. She bore witness to her other childhood friendโs death at a much younger age, which has no doubt affected her mental state and her desperation to preserve the Starr that goes to a prep school and keep that version of herself separate from the Starr that lives in the โghettoโ.
Socially, Starr has learned which parts of her personality that she needs to dampen in order to survive. She does not want to be seen as weak, so she cannot cry in her prep school. She canโt be seen as ghetto, so sheโs more soft-spoken, not to mention the code-switching that she does verbally, which we know is different because we are able to determine her true thoughts through narration. This pressure to keep these split personalities is a subconscious strain on Starr, and itโs because of the stereotypes surrounding Black women that she feels the need to tailor her words and behavior this way.
Leave a Reply