Black Trauma Porn: How Other Ethnicities Learn about Black Americans

Black trauma porn caters to an unhealthy voyeuristic, irresistible desire for, or interest in, a particular subject.

In his book, “Black Victim to Black Victor”, Adam B. Coleman shares Census data that show 60% of black Americans (27,273,482) live in 10 of our 50 states. These 10 states, according to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau are New York, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, and Louisiana.

The other 40% (18,182,322) of people who identify as black, live in the other 40 states.

That means in 10 states, the average black population is 2,727,348 and in the other 40 states the average population is 454,558. However, there are states such as Wyoming, that have a black population of 11,306 (2%), Montana with 12,007 (1%) and Vermont with 12,936 (2%). There are twelve states that have a black population comprising less than 5% of their total population.

Black Americans are about 13.6% (45,455,804) of the total American population (334,233,854).

This data suggests most white Americans have not had a meaningful interaction with a black person.

The manipulation media consistently portrays blacks in the worst possible light. Unfortunately, this happens because black people create their own bad situations. A shooting at Jacksonville Beach, Florida involved mostly black individuals at what was supposed to be a community event. This event occurred over the weekend and continued as the lead story on the local morning news 6 days later. The media continued to show pictures of the mostly black crowd at the beach as they opined about the shootings. If it was not for the shootings, this community event probably would not have been featured on the morning news.

Kathy Barnette points out in her book “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain” that black people have been reduced to a group of people characterized by a culture of saggy pants, broken English, rap music and crime-ridden, vulgarity-slinging loudmouths with chips on their shoulders. Black people morph into these caricatures the media creates and help bring them to life in the states and communities they live in. This becomes how whites who live in the 40 states with low black populations are educated about the black experience.

This degrading black behavior, that many blacks embrace, is broadcast throughout America feeding the hunger white Americans have as they try to understand the black experience. This bad black behavior teaches people of other ethnicities how black people want to be treated. Unfortunately, as Barnette states, this poor behavior also reveals how blacks think about themselves as a community.

This constant diet of bad behavior by black Americans fed to the masses by the manipulation media is black trauma porn.

Black trauma porn is defined as experiences that produce psychological injury or pain usually via some sort of media outlet. The injury or pain continually broadcasted, caters to an unhealthy voyeuristic, irresistible desire for, or interest in, a particular subject.

Black Americans are the stars in their own “porn” and help write the script with their continued bad behavior. Then just like stars of actual porn movies, they wonder why people look at and treat them differently.

What other way is there for a white person, who has little to no exposure to black people, to learn about who we are today, as black men and women? How do we educate people we might encounter who come from one of the 40 states with a low black population but are fed a steady diet of black trauma porn? Instead of sharing the many success of black Americans through the media, they use traumatic experiences to educate Americans about black people. This continued diet of black trauma, like porn movies, creates an unhealthy voyeuristic, irresistible desire for, or interest in, a particular subject, mainly black Americans.

There really is no definitive answer to this dilemma. I can only suggest that every time we encounter someone of a different ethnicity, we present ourselves how we want to be seen and treated as a person. Sometimes we have the opportunity to educate someone through adult conversations about who we are as a people. Obviously, there is no guarantee we will change anyone’s idea of what an entire group of people are like; however, we can be that agent of change that begins to open their hearts and minds to a new narrative.  

In addition to enhancing our own self-respect we have to be respectful of other people.  No matter where you live or who you are, present yourself how you want to be seen. If you want to be seen as a professional, then act professional. If you want to be seen as a good neighbor, then act like a good neighbor. Show the people you encounter that you respect yourself.

Don’t give the manipulation media the opportunity to use black trauma porn as a way to characterize black people. We must stop being the caricatures of mayhem and foolishness the media portrays us to be.  Whether we find ourselves in the 10 states populated by 60% of the black population or the 40 states that have a black population of 10% or less, we have to remember we owe it to those who came before us and those who will come after us, to represent black people in a constructive light.

We need to live so that no opinion or conclusion will be made about who we are because of our ethnicity. The final conclusion about who we are, should be based on the information and experiences we have lived that have formed our individual nature as a person.

If we live by those words, black American lives will change.