African American Students’ Reactions to the Confederate Flag: A Social-psychological Approach to Integrate Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome and Microaggression Theory

To our knowledge no study thus far has explored how the confederate flag as a symbol triggers the elements of the Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) and microaggression (MA) within an African American person. This paper attempts to understand the effects of the confederate flag as a stressor of PTSS and MA. Specifically, this paper tried to achieve two objectives: first, to examine generational differences in the perceptions of general African American public and those of college students toward the Charleston shooting and confederate flag and other confederate symbols; and second, to understand the perceptions of our student respondents through an integrated approach of post traumatic slave syndrome and the racial microaggression theory. The study findings indicate that not only many African American students perceive the shootings as a hate crime and terrorism, but also they acquire repressing feelings and beliefs associated with historical experiences of slavery and racism through multigenerational socialization (post traumatic slave syndrome). Racial microaggressions trigger those dormant feelings and beliefs to react by drawing a close parallel between historical and current victimizations.