Families, educators, and mental health experts say affirming identity helps young people process racism without internalizing harm.
As a child, Jacinay Coleman-Shelton struggled to understand her racial identity, but her curiosity often led her to ask outspoken questions when racial issues arose.
Shelton, of both Black and Hispanic heritage, found navigating discussions about race especially complicated.
“Having a space to talk to your family first about race is really important,” the 22-year-old says. “I was always taught that being Black is beautiful.”
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That early messaging became a foundation — one that helped her affirm who she was before the world tried to define her. While interning on Capitol Hill this past summer, Shelton recalled those words as she walked through the nation’s halls of power.
“I’m going to walk through these halls, my heels are going to click-clack, and this is who I am,” she told herself.
Shelton’s experience reflects a growing understanding among mental health professionals and educators: conversations about race aren’t just preparation for bias or discrimination. They can also be a form of racial healing — helping young people process racism without internalizing harm, and affirming their identity in a society where Black youth encounter racism early and repeatedly.
Family Conversations: The Foundation for Healing
Her family, Shelton believes, gave her the confidence to approach conversations about race with an open mind and heart, and she says young people should be taught to do the same.
“What’s really important is affirming their identity every chance you get,” says Dr. Matthew S. L. Duncan, a fourth-year psychiatry resident at Ocean University Medical Center in New Jersey.
Duncan began his public health career at the Newark Department of Health and Community Wellness and in the Family Medicine Department at Rutgers Medical School. Born and raised in North Jersey to West Indian parents, Duncan learned early the importance of community strength and giving back. Those values now fuel his work, which focuses on making mental health care more accessible, culturally relevant, and stigma-free.
Understanding Racial Trauma
Duncan advocates proactive conversations about race to support mental health and healing among children of color. These conversations can interrupt cycles of harm before they harden into trauma.
Providing positive representation and affirming race are strong ways to rebuild and heal after harm is done. When young people see themselves reflected positively in school leadership or the media, it “leads to a stronger sense of pride, belonging, and self-worth,” he says.
Duncan studies how racial trauma affects Black youth and how repeated exposure to racism can become a psychological injury — one that shapes how young people see themselves and the world around them.
In psychiatry, racial trauma is referred to as race-based traumatic stress and is considered a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, Duncan says.
Race-based traumatic events can become chronic stressors that, over time, lead to anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, and sleep problems.
“This can start affecting things like academic performance and mistrust of institutions, such as people not wanting to go to the hospital or see a mental health professional,” he explains.
Duncan says cultural competency, a core component of medical education, involves understanding patients’ cultural backgrounds and psychosocial stressors.
“At a young age, you notice that people do not look like you, and subconsciously you’re already building stereotypes,” he says. “Silence doesn’t protect our kids from racism, but preparation does.”
Preparing Young People With Truth and Context
Similarly, other young adults credit family guidance for preparing them to navigate racial identity and recover from moments of racial trauma.
A’markis Johnson, 22, recalls entering high school and realizing that, unlike middle and elementary school, most students weren’t Black.
“I grew up in East Orange, New Jersey, around a lot of people who looked like me,” he shares. “It wasn’t a pressing issue until high school, when I started interacting with people who were other races… and by that point, I already understood my racial identity.”
He credits his mother for engaging him in discussions about race in a way that felt natural rather than intrusive. These conversations enabled him to enter new environments without losing his sense of self.
As an educator, Maera Ochieng-Onyango, 29, says she struggles to balance how much to share with students who are curious about racial identity and how to discuss it in a thoughtful, balanced way.
She is a museum educator and arts education advocate who believes truth-telling with younger generations is “the best defense against future generations of painful patterns.”
Onyango says preparing students for discussions about race also means making sure they understand their rights in different settings. She has taught young men about their legal rights, as well as students about their education rights and the CROWN Act.
“Racial trauma is real, but so is Black resilience. We’ve always found ways to not just survive, but also to create and thrive,” Duncan says.
“Encourage these conversations. Be parents, educators, and leaders who normalize conversations about race, start them early, celebrate race, and build spaces where young people feel safe to be themselves.”
Based on reporting by Inner-City Newspaper.
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