Trauma From Slavery Can Be Passed Down Through Your Genes
On face value, it’s easy for a non-black person to wonder why African Americans, over a century removed from slavery, can still harbor such strong feelings just from watching a TV show. And, to be fair, I think we even wonder that about ourselves sometimes. It’s a question that has been tackled by some of our greatest and most eloquent writers, but apparently it’s also addressed by a component of our society that many of us never expected: science.
Dr. Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has conducted a depth of research into epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. In layman’s terms, she is researching how serious incidents of trauma (i.e. slavery, holocaust, etc.) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be passed down through generations in shared family genes. Her research has revealed that when people experience trauma, it changes their genes in a very specific and noticeable way, so when those people have children and their genes are passed down to their children, the children also inherit the genes affected by trauma.