ABSTRACT
The spring of 2020 was characterized by highly visible acts of police brutality and a heightened attention to systemic racism that created a macro-stressor for Black-identifying individuals. The current study aimed to capture college students' perceptions of campus racial climate, subjective well-being, and race-based trauma symptoms during this time. Results indicated that racial identity was associated with students' mental well-being, perceptions of campus racial climate, and experiences of traumatic stress symptoms. Monoracial Black and biracial Black students differed from non-Black students in their perceptions of campus racial climate and their traumatic stress symptoms. Monoracial Black and biracial Black students differed from one another on reports of subjective well-being. A unique pattern of correlations among the study variables emerged for each group. Our findings document the race-based trauma symptoms experienced by monoracial Black and biracial Black students in the spring of 2020 and provide a foundation for future research to examine factors that uniquely contribute to the well-being of monoracial Black and biracial Black students.
