If we all agree that a people can experience trauma on a large scale and that trauma can then pass onto the descendants, then the reverse must also be true – a people who have inflicted trauma on a large scale pass that experience onto the descendants.
People who are descended from people from slave-owning and imperialist nations carry with them the scars of slave ownership, genocide, oppression. It shows in the way they act, speak, think. Their worldview is informed by their history as masters of “lesser people”.
I don’t think this is the correct way of framing this idea. Using the words “People who are descended from people…” makes it sound like eugenics.
Generational trauma is a shorthand explanation of the flow on effects of trauma and the feedback loops it can cause. If you have trauma to your arm you can’t use it properly. Mental and emotional trauma impedes people from thinking and acting rationally. Generational trauma is when truma isn’t mentally and emotionally healed properly and then the trauma prevents the protection of the next generation. Each generation using coping mechanisms that inflicti the same wounds their parents inflicted on them.
Having your worldview shaped by oppressors can warp one’s morality but it doesn’t impede one’s ability to think critically and act rationally. People born to horrible people do have a higher chance of turning out horrible. The inherent irrational immorality of racial supremacy leads to its decay but improved material wealth because of said racial supremacy can tip the scales. Throw some trauma in there and the immorality becomes acceptable to the emotionally crippled individual even without any material benefits.
The western world is founded on slavery, colonialism and genocide. All its institutions are founded in white supremacy and chattel slavery. Yet, the majority of western white people are only passively in support of white supremacy as far as it is material beneficial to them. They don’t mind the treats but they want to have plausible deniability. They want their government to act like it is addressing racism as long as their standard of living isn’t threatened.
The ones who are frothing for the blood of POC are the Rich who benefit the most from the oppression and exploitation and… The poorest white people. Their trauma (often generational from substance abuse or physical or sexual abuse) and their constant stresses obtaining the minimums of food and shelter make them less rationally and emotionally equipped to correctly apply morality and ethics.