ABSTRACT
There is a hidden story about Black love rooted in the attachment nature of human beings. Attachment runs deep in our fiber and is hard to destroy, even if only preserved in the heart and soul, because it is the essence of being human. The structural aspects of race also contribute to increased baseline stress, including segregated housing and schools; a racially influenced implicit bias toward hiring, firing, and promoting in employment; over-policing; and unresponsive policing. Racial events in the lived experiences of African Americans also have been described as racial traumas. Black couples are likely to bring additional challenges to couples work that other racial groups do not bring. Typically, other racial groups do not have the persistent history of racial assaults in their individual backgrounds or in the historical backgrounds of their families. A trauma-based view of African American historical development suggests that there is an unconscious post-traumatic stress syndrome associated with slavery and racial assaults.
