I speak with facts supporting me.
“Bryant-Davis and Ocampo (2005) noted similar courses of psychopathology between rape victims and victims of racism. Both events are an assault on the personhood and integrity of the victim. Similar to rape victims, race-related trauma victims may respond with disbelief, shock, or dissociation, which can prevent them from responding to the incident in a healthy manner. The victim may then feel shame and self-blame because they were unable to respond or defend themselves, which may lead to low self-concept and self-destructive behaviors. In the same study, a parallel was drawn between race-related trauma victims and victims of domestic violence. Both survivors are made to feel shame over allowing themselves to be victimized. For instance, someone who may have experienced a racist incident may be told that if they are polite, work hard, and/or dress in a certain way, they will not encounter racism. When these rules are followed yet racism persists, powerlessness, hyper vigilance, and other symptoms associated with PTSD may develop or worsen
(Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2005).”
“On occasion, the emotional weight of racism can lead African Americans to engage in maladaptive coping, such as remaining in denial, engaging in substance use, aggression, self-blame – even in extreme cases suicide (i.e., Black Lives Matter activist Marshawn McCarrel) and terrorism (i.e., Dallas shooter Micah Xavier Johnson). These responses are harmful and lead to negative, long-term consequences.”
Findings from large-scale national studies indicate that, while African Americans have a lower risk for many
anxiety disorders, they have a 9.1% prevalence rate for PTSD, compared to 6.8% in Whites (Himle et al, 2009). That means that
almost one in ten Black people becomes traumatized, and I think these rates may actually be higher since diagnosticians are usually not considering the role of racism in causing trauma
(Malcoun, Williams, & Bahojb-Nouri, 2015)
Racism is part of the fabric of life for African Americans and is among the causes of enduring negative health outcomes. There is really nothing new or startling in the assertion that social circumstances encountered as part of day-to-day experience influence physical health. At the turn of the last century,
W. E. B. Du Bois (1906) and Kelly Miller (1897) proposed in separate manuscripts that oppressive social conditions encroaching on the lives of African Americans contributed to poor health and premature death.
Fifty years later, Frantz Fanon’s classic studies (1967, 1968) examined the effects of oppression and included a recognition of “psychosomatic”—that is physical—consequences. Currently, social epidemiologists, health psychologists, and medical sociologists have extended the insights of these important early scholars by showing how racism generates systems and practices that contribute to persistent disparities in health outcomes
(Paradies 2006a; Pascoe and Richman, 2009; Williams 1997).
Estimates indicate that the failure to erase these disparities costs tens of thousands of African American lives each year
(Levine et al., 2001; Williams and Mohammed, 2009). As long as the rates of the leading causes of death differ along racial lines
(Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, 2008), the specter of racism will haunt the United States. The persistence of racial health disparities and of racism in any form calls scholars, therapists, activists, and political leaders to vigorous action.
“Racism and associated trauma and violence contribute to mental health disorders, particularly depression, anxiety and PTSD, and chronic health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, maternal mortality/infant mortality and morbidity in African Americans. Racism is considered a fundamental cause of adverse health outcomes for racial/ethnic minorities and racial/ethnic inequities in health. The primary domains of racism - structural/institutional racism, cultural racism, and individual-level discrimination— are linked to mental and physical health outcomes. Racism and violence targeting a specific community is increasingly associated with complex trauma and intergenerational trauma, all of which have physical and behavioral health consequences.”
“This study demonstrates adverse effects of structural racism—specifically state-level racial disparities disadvantaging Blacks in political representation, employment, and incarceration —on past 12-month myocardial infarction. These adverse effects, however, were specific to Blacks, and among Whites, indicators of structural racism appear to have a benign or even beneficial effect on cardiac health. It is important to note that individual-level risk factors including age, sex, education, income, and medical insurance do not account for these findings. Furthermore, lending support to the construct validity of our measures of structural racism, the effects persist above and beyond those of state-level racial disparities in poverty.
Measures of structural racism pertaining to job status did not follow the expected pattern of association, and were inversely associated with myocardial infarction among Blacks. While this finding was unexpected, it is in line with results from previous studies that have documented that Black Americans in high status positions report greater exposure to interpersonal discrimination (Paradies, 2006). This increased exposure, coupled with potential pressures to assimilate and to defy negative racist stereotypes, may in turn place high status Blacks at greater risk for adverse health outcomes. Our results similarly suggest that Black Americans in states with greater representation of Blacks in high status positions are at higher risk for heart attack.”
Ryan C.T. DeLapp, MA, and Monnica T. Williams, Ph.D., “Proactively Coping With Racism, Getting back to our lives in the aftermath of racial violence in the media.”,
July 18, 2016, www.psychologytoday,com
Ryan C.T. DeLapp, MA, and Monnica T. Williams, Ph.D., “Proactively Coping With Racism, Getting back to our lives in the aftermath of racial violence in the media.”,
July 18, 2016, www.psychologytoday,com
Dennis R. Upkins,
Denying Racism And Other Forms Of Gaslighting, Aug 24, 2016, Mental Health Matters, derived from:
Denying Racism And Other Forms Of Gaslighting - MHM
Is Racism a Public Health Issue? Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health, October 9, 2017,
Is Racism a Public Health Issue? — Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Camara Jules P. Harrell,
Tanisha I. Burford,
Brandi N. Cage,
Travette McNair Nelson,
Sheronda Shearon,
Adrian Thompson, and
Steven Green, Multiple Pathways Linking Racism to Health Outcomes, US National Library of MedicineNational Institutes of Health
Trauma, Racism, Chronic Stress and the Health of Black Americans, Compilation by the SAMHSA Office of Behavioral Health Equity, June 3, 2020,
https://www.mhanational.org/sites/default/files/AfricanAmericansRaceViolenceandHealth SAMHSA OBHE 6.3.20.pdf
Lukachko, Alicia & Hatzenbuehler, Mark & Keyes, Katherine. (2014
). Structural racism and myocardial infarction in the United States. Social science & medicine (1982). 103. 42-50. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.07.021.
The only people with the victim card are you racists.
