The incredible resiliency of spirit enslaved black people possessed has often deflected attention away from the legacy of psychological woundedness the experiences of enslavement generated. In the past, black leaders were so eager to insist that black folks had triumphed over the evils of slavery and the brutality of racial apartheid that there was little cultural space to talk psychoanalytically about post-traumatic stress and negative scars on the psyche.

— Salvation by bell hooks (Page 97)