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ОглавлениеBlack Males, Racial Identity, and Anti-Black Maleness
Black males stand to draw their greatest source of power from their racial/ethnic identity and solidarity. Yet the opposition and hostility they are confronted with are a direct consequence of the threat they pose to people who benefit from efforts to subordinate Black males. They experience anti-Black maleness which is not only racism but includes a specific kind and level of hostility that the world has reserved for Black men and boys. To perceive this experience, it is important to gain a clear understanding of the various types of racism that confront Black people in general, and how Black males have experienced it both similarly and differently than their female counterparts. This chapter focuses primarily on the unique ways that Black males are impacted by anti-Black-male racism and the tools and steps that have proven effective in maintaining the success, health, and well-being of Black men and boys in hostile, anti-Black male environments.
Race is a socially and culturally defined concept; far more than a biological reference, Black identified people have defined Blackness beyond the ways that Whites have imposed racial designations on them. Blackness is determined by the worldview of those who claim it as their identity (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009). Blackness for Black people who self-identify as such may mean common history, common struggle/resilience, community, common region or nation or origin, pride, culture, ancestry, values, ideals, identity, and/or physical appearance (Markus & Moya, 2010; McDougal & Jayawardene, 2014). Therefore, the hard distinctions between race and ethnicity relative to Blackness are primarily academic (Markus & Moya, 2010).
Black Male Unique Experiences with Racism
Being victimized by racism is not enough to understand how it functions and affects Black males on a systematic level. Many studies find that African American males report more experiences with racism than any other race/sex category (Belgrave & Brevard, 2015; Cogburn, Chavous, & Griffin, 2011; Sellers, Copeland-Linder, Martin, & Lewis, 2006). The anti-Black male racism they face involves their ←29 | 30→being subjugated not because they are Black or because they are male, but because they are Black and male (Allen, 2013). According to many scholars, Black males have experienced the most damaging consequences of structural racial inequality (Howard, 2014; White & Cones, 1999). According to Swanson, Cunningham, and Spencer (2004), Black males are the most highly stigmatized and stereotyped group in the United States. Whites have been found to respond more negatively to minority males compared to minority females in general (Kaiser, Pratt-Hyatt, & Simpson, 2009). Historically, Black males have been the chief targets of racial terrorism because they are more feared. Plus, the patriarchal leadership structure of the Civil Rights Movement made them generally more visible than Black women (Head, 2004).
According to some researchers, the racism males experience is a form of terrorism, in that both racism and terrorism involve the systematic infliction of physical and mental suffering to force or coerce targets to conform to society’s expectations of them (Pierce, 1992). From this position, Black males have been engaged in warfare for hundreds of years. Racist terrorism can result in trauma and trauma-related symptoms. The consequences of racist and traumatic events share qualities such as suddenness, uncontrollability, and negativity (Wong & Schwing, 2014). These traumatic racist experiences can be stored in one’s memory, and be reactivated triggering negative feelings again and again, such as frustration, anger, and helplessness (Booker, 2000). Some conceptualize the racism Black males’ experience in America as a form of warfare—a constant stream of messages portraying Black men as deviant and criminal, accompanied by policies that disproportionately disadvantage them, often with fatal consequences (Moriearty & Carson, 2012).
Reasons it is Important to Study Racism and Black Males
Any strategy to address the social problems that Black men and Black communities face must involve researching methods for challenging and rendering anti-Black male racism ineffective (Wilson, 1990). Understanding anti-Black male racism is critical when attempting to understand the experiences of Black men because it has in part, shaped the economic, educational, political, etc. conditions under which Black men enter societies’ institutions. Contrarily, the color-blind ideology of ignoring race is a way of avoiding the much harder work of respecting difference. That can simply be a technique of evading the effort needed to address racial inequality on a structural/institutional level.
At the heart of racism is the struggle for power. Williams (1994) argues that enslavement emerged because of Europeans’ desire for profits from colonization, and that anti-Black racism emerged from slavery. Racism persists at many levels of society—psychological, cultural, economic, political, etc.—because Whites continue to benefit from the system of power and privilege that racism systemically produces. White males have constructed a system in which they have wealth, power, and privilege and disproportionate influence over politics, economics, and law in American society. This power and privilege expands their spheres of influence in society, including their abilities to reduce opportunities for Black males (White & Cones, 1999).
The Role of Power in Racism
Failure to understand the role of power in racism can lead to ineffective strategies to challenge Black racial oppression. At some points in African American history, Black people have attempted to remedy racial oppression by appealing to the goodwill of their tormentors. An example: Black members of the military who fought in countless wars, hoping to win the respect of Whites who might respond by not ←30 | 31→treating them as inferiors (Gleijeses, 1996). However, Black men and women continue to experience racism upon return to civilian life (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999).
Regarding race and oppression, people of one group often impose negative characteristics on people of another group (usually, but not always those with less power) and subjugate them (Markus & Moya, 2010). White haves historically attached negative meaning to Blackness, while Black people have tried to attach positive meaning to it. However, because power is not distributed in society evenly, some will have more power to shape meaning than others (Markus & Moya, 2010).
Reverse Racism
The perpetrators of racism have also used their power to develop defense mechanisms. The term reverse racism implies that a subordinated group is at fault for discriminating against a dominant group. According to White and Cones (1999), the claim of reverse racism is a defense mechanism used to avoid addressing the real problems: (1) lack of an even playing field; and (2) lack of a mutual commitment to making equal opportunity a reality (White & Cones, 1999, p. 84). Some argue that Blacks are not capable of racism. Rome (2004) argues that Whites own a disproportionate share of the resources that racism requires. Therefore, he explains that when a Black person denies a White person an opportunity (e.g., hiring) because of race, this is discrimination, not racism. Differently, Jones (1991a) does not argue that Black people are incapable of racism or morally superior, but because they control a disproportionately limited share of power in society, they are disproportionately less capable of subjugating other people based on race/ethnicity.
Prejudice and Stereotypes
Racial prejudice is often confused with racism. Historically, prejudice has received the most attention in discussions of racism (Jones, 1991a). But, prejudice exists purely at the level of the mind. It involves positive or negative attitudes and feelings about people belonging to an ethnic group, which are generalized to all members of that group (Reed, 2009; Rome, 2004). Stereotypes are specific exaggerated beliefs, or distorted truths, or false notions about members of a group, such as the way they look, their behaviors, and their abilities. They shape and are shaped by prejudice. Black males face stereotypical images of themselves as (a) super-athletes, (b) criminals or gangster, and/or (c) hypersexual/patriarchal, (d) lazy, unintelligent, and irresponsible (Boyd-Franklin, 2003; Michael-Chadwell, 2014; Swanson et al., 2004).
Stereotypes are primarily used to justify socioeconomic inequality and to perpetuate racial exploitation in ways that maintain power relations (Markus & Moya, 2010). Although prejudice is often cited as the cause of racism, Reed (2009) argues that racism may also reinforce prejudice. Exposure to racism through racist social institutions (church, home, school, work, etc.) can amplify and provide rationales for prejudice by shaping what people think of Black males (Reed, 2009). Racism goes beyond that of prejudice and is more than a feeling or an attitude. Racism refers to the exercise of power against a racial group in ways that subjugate them; it is the behavioral manifestation of struggles for power (Jones, 1972; Reed, 2009). There are many different aspects of racism: individual, institutional, and cultural. However, in American society, the overwhelming emphasis is placed on prejudice and individual acts of racism.
Individual Racism
Individual racism occurs when a Black person is physically attacked because of his race, when a person tells a racist joke, or when a Black person is called by a racial epithet. Reed (2009) explains that individual racism occurs when racial prejudice is expressed in the behaviors of individuals acting alone or in small groups, such as the bombing of a Black church. Persistent individual acts of racism and microaggressions keep Black people constantly vigilant. Most Black men report experiencing racial ←31 | 32→slights and insults targeted at them (Merida & Washington Post Company, 2007). Microaggressions are everyday, subtle, conscious or unconscious acts that denigrate racially underrepresented groups (Allen, 2013; Wong & Schwing, 2014). These subtle encounters are daily reminders for Black males of their marginal status in society (Langley, 1994). Black men experience these microaggressions in many forms: cab drivers who refuse to stop for them; property owners who quote higher apartment rents and deposits to them; real estate agents who steer them away from buying in “White” neighborhoods; police harassment; teachers who refuse to call on them due to low expectations of Black youth; or when they get into an elevator with someone who quickly exits out of fear (Boyd-Franklin, 2003; White & Cones, 1999). Allen (2013) interviewed a Black male high school senior who gave the following account of his experience with microaggressions:
I experienced it with this lady that actually came to our school. She was like a visitor from somewhere else and she had to visit the athletic director and, you can tell she’s one of those people that hasn’t been around a lot of Black people, and you know our school [has a large Black population] so she’s holding her purse all close and stuff and she’s looking around and you can see her eyes are all big and she’s like wow, all these colored people. You could tell she was really nervous and I was the TA and I had to show her where the athletic office was and so I was walking with her and she was talking with me and she was like, “I can tell you’re—what’s your GPA?” I said 3.6. She said, “Yeah I can tell you have a really high [GPA] because of the way you talk and the way you carry yourself, you carry yourself so well!” And I’m like thank you but … it was just this realization of wow; this is how the world sees Black men. (p. 180)
More so than Black people, Whites tend to see incidents of racism as isolated incidents, but not indicators of racial oppression as a larger social condition (Feagin & Sikes, 1994). Remedies to racism are hampered by a widespread belief that the primary practice of racism is individual acts of racial prejudice (Reed, 2009). This leads to thinking about racism as something that is done by occasionally bigoted individuals, and not via larger social structures (Reed, 2009). Not understanding that racism is also institutional leads to the mistaken belief that racism requires personal animus, malice, or hatred for it to occur. When you have a culturally incompetent person who has internalized negative stereotypes about Black males working in a school, and that person is in a position to write and deliver curriculum or classify Black males as having mentally disabilities, you have the formula for institutional racism.
Individual racism gets more attention than other forms of racism and compels people to focus on racist acts driven by intentionality, although individual racism can be both intentional and unintentional (Reed, 2009). For example, teachers may have subconscious attitudes about Black male students’ lack of intellectual ability. This can cause them to unintentionally adopt low expectations of them, provide less feedback on assignments, and call on them less when their hands are raised compared to other students—all without realizing it (Reed, 2009). Those who wish to avoid addressing racism at an institutional level attempt to focus on intent instead of impact (Reed, 2009). Victims of racism often find themselves in a position where they must point out that the most important part of racism is its impact on people’s lives, more so than the intent of the perpetrator, given that racism can be intentional or unintentional. For example, White teachers in particular have been found to have lower expectations of Black and Hispanic children. This may be intentional in some cases and unintentional in others. Nevertheless, the consequences are critical given that they affect Black males’ life chances. For example, over 70% of teachers in American classrooms are White and female (Markus & Moya, 2010). Therefore, racism, according to Jones (1991a), doesn’t require proof of intent, malice, or evil-mindedness, to produce and reinforce race/gendered power differentials in society.
Milner, Allen, & McGee (2014) argue it is important to move beyond analyzing the acts of individuals because this frames racism as irrational and/or subconscious behaviors and prejudiced acts. In contrast, system-level approaches to racism reveal how pervasive it is. While individual acts of racism gain a lot of attention, other kinds of racism, like institutional racism, go under the radar.
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Institutional Racism
Institutional racism is racism expressed in the form of formal and informal policies and practices. It involves rules, practices, and economic and political structures that systematically disadvantage, subjugate, and ensure power over racially underrepresented groups. Institutional racism happens when these practices consistently lead to racial differences, with Blacks receiving lower status (White & Cones, 1999). Such policies and practices may intentionally or unintentionally produce racial inequalities (Reed, 2009). Racially discriminatory policies and practices in the U.S. are often normative and accepted as ordinary (Reed, 2009). According to Carmichael and Hamilton (1967), Black people are systematically deprived of power in the racialized colonial contexts; thus, “institutional racism is another name for colonialism” (p. 5). Lawrence (1994) claims that African Americans remain the principal targets of institutional racism because of their relatively large population size compared to other racially oppressed groups, and because they have been oppressed longer than any other group in the U.S. context (with the exception of Native Americans). Institutional racism is difficult to identify because unequal outcomes are often justified by racial differences in qualification, abilities, merit, or motivation (White & Cones, 1999). Without understanding institutional racism, Black people may direct energy at fixing other Black people, not realizing the role that institutional racism plays in creating the poverty, unemployment, and poor healthcare that plague this community on a daily basis.
Examining Different Levels of Systems
Institutional racism effects the delivery of critical services to Black people. It shapes how psychologists see Black patients, how teachers see Black students, how politicians see Black citizens, etc. However, recognizing institutional racism requires analyzing multiple levels of social systems. For example, one cannot assess the presence or absence of racism in the criminal justice system by looking only at judges’ rulings in criminal cases. Mauer (1994) explains, as an example, the need to examine multiple levels of the criminal justice system:
The seeming contradiction may depend on which part of the system is being examined. As described previously, much of the disparity in the justice system may lie in the early stages, at the level of arrest and prosecution. Thus, a Black drug offender and a White drug offender may be treated equally at sentencing, but the Black drug offender may be more likely to be arrested and prosecuted in the first place. Thus, we cannot conclude that the system is fair just because sentencing outcomes appear to be. (p. 89)
According to Alexander (2010), the criminal justice system produces racist results at two stages: (1) the discretion that law enforcement officials have regarding their decisions about who to stop, search, arrest, and charge, which allows them to operate based on their conscious and/or unconscious racist beliefs; and (2) by creating barriers against individuals who want to make claims of racial discrimination.
Institutions and individuals often try to avoid addressing institutional racism by reducing clear institutional patterns and cultures of racism to individual random acts. For example, a systemic problem like police brutality is often viewed as the isolated acts of individual bad cops (Reed, 2009). Controversial police killings of unarmed Black males are commonplace (Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, OH, and Eric Garner on Staten Island, NY). Police accountability for taking Black lives is remarkably low, exhibiting clear patterns of targeted abuse, bias, and neglect (Morial, 2015). When these cases occur, officers are often acting on formal and informal institutional policies that condone their aggressive behaviors. Individual and institutional racism are interrelated; therefore, officers’ individual racist acts are only extensions of institutional racism, and law-enforcement perpetrators are rarely convicted.
This has strong implications for possible solutions. Solutions cannot be geared toward punishing racist individuals. Instead, they must involve punishing institutions and changing institutional ←33 | 34→practices and cultures through policies and laws. The portrayal of police brutality as individual random acts is a way of misdirecting attention away from addressing problems at a structural level. Not only does a racist society require the racist writing and teaching of history to support and reinforce its ideology, it also needs a willing mass media to disseminate its values and beliefs (Rome, 2004). Given their wide distribution, racist ideas and images in the media can result in a collective Black experience of racism-related stress and negative self-perceptions (Freeman, 1994; Wong & Schwing, 2014).
Institutional racism occurs when employers systematically deny jobs and promotions to Black workers and when Black people are denied loans or given higher interest rates than Whites who pose the same credit risks. As Alexander (2010) explains, part of instructional racism are the barriers erected that prevent victims from legally challenging the way institutions behave. “Demand that anyone who wants to challenge racial bias in the system offer, in advance, clear proof that racial disparities are the product of intentional racial discrimination, i.e. the work of a bigot” (p. 103). Alexander (2010) explains that it is nearly impossible to prove racial bias in policing because race is rarely the only reason a police officer can site for a traffic stop, i.e., the arrested individual appeared “too calm” or “too nervous” etc. Another example of a barrier lies in the fact that Black youth charged with similar offenses and with similar criminal histories are significantly more likely than their White peers to be sentenced as adults (Poe-Yamagata & Jones, 2007).
Racial profiling is “the use of race as an indicator in a profile of criminal suspects” (Rome, 2004, p. 116). The stereotype of the Black male as criminal leads to Black male motorists being stopped solely or in part because they are both Black and male. A Gallup poll on racial profiling indicated that 72% of Black males between the ages of 18 and 34 reported experiencing being stopped by police because of their race, compared to 40% of Black females in the same age range (Newport, 1999). Weatherspoon (2014) adds that this happens to Black males regardless of their economic success (sports figures, actors, news reporters, and lawyers).
Cultural Racism
Neither individual nor institutional racism capture the way that the values and ideologies of worldview are implicated in racism (Jones, 1991c). U.S. society’s cultural assumptions and social structure are Anglo-American in origin and thus place Black people at a fundamental disadvantage (Jones, 1991c). Kambon (2006) explains that definitions are important because cultures shape the meaning that different people attach to their day-to-day experiences, and then influence how they perceive and respond to events. The shared meanings, beliefs, and values that different ethnic groups represent are what Kambon (2006) refers to as definitional systems. Because power and privilege in society are not distributed evenly, some racial/ethnic groups have more influence than others. For example, White or Euro Americans have been able to institutionalize their definitional systems (beliefs, values, and ways of life) such that they have become habitual, customary, and taken for granted (Kambon, 2006). These systems can create in Black men a loyalty to Whiteness beyond logic. The definitional system governing the cultural space in the U.S. is dominated by Euro-American beliefs and values. The imposition of this Euro-American way of life on people of African descent represents a kind of psycho-cultural warfare (Kambon, 2006). Not only is European cultural reality imposed on non-European people, African people’s socioeconomic security, in large part, depends on their acceptance of European cultural reality, which often includes punishment for embracing their own cultural reality (Kambon, 2006).
Cultural racism is a form of social control that involves the imposition of meaning on others in the form of beliefs, values, priorities, and general ways of life. According to Jones (1991a), it is the most intractable, and perhaps the most critical expression of racism. It involves subjugating, denying opportunity, or harming people based on assumption about their culture. Examples include notions such as classical music is more sophisticated than the blues or hip-hop, that speaking Ebonics or being religious ←34 | 35→or spiritual are indicators of lack of intelligence, that traditionally Black hairstyles are unprofessional, or that collectivist values represent weakness while individualism represents a strength.
Aversive Racism
Aversive racism refers to subtle, unconscious, deceptive acts of racism that can ultimately be more harmful than overt forms of racism (Wong & Schwing, 2014). It can be a part of individual, institutional, or cultural racism. These subtle acts allow people who engage in them to see themselves as fair. Aversive racism explains how individuals who openly endorse color-blind ideologies simultaneously hold deeply ingrained racial biases (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000). It has been well documented that employers often have a specific aversion to hiring Black males, especially in service jobs where most customers are White (Holzer, 2007). Employers may be less willing to hire a Black man with an ethnic-sounding name. This aversion is worst when employers suspect that a potential employee may have a criminal record, simply based on a name (Holzer, 2007). Zero-tolerance school-discipline policies yield racially biased results especially when violations fall under loosely defined categories such as being disrespectful, disorderly conduct, and mischief (Edelman, 2007). As another example, the theory of aversive racism assumes when evaluation criteria are unclear or ambiguous, people will typically treat African Americans with a negative bias (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000). For example, Dovidio and Gaertner (2000) found in situations where Whites are evaluating job applicants via unclear evaluation criteria, qualified African American job applicants are rated poorly compared to similar White applicants. But when the evaluation criteria are clear and just, Black candidates are rated similarly to Whites. Police stop-and-frisk rules are notoriously ambiguous, and therefore, allow police to fall back on their racial biases when deciding who to apprehend. For example, when stop-and-frisk laws allow police to stop someone based on subjective criteria like suspicious behaviors or emotional state, aversive racism explains the likelihood that racist assumptions will drive police actions.
Slightly different from Jones (1991a), Karenga (2010a) explains that racism is, in part, expressed as a pseudointellectual ideology of negative assumptions about people of color that reinforce and justify institutional arrangements, ensuring White power and privilege. A kind of ideology, symbolic racism is found in beliefs such as the idea that Blacks have not obtained successes because of their failure to work hard, and that racism is no longer a social barrier (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). Beliefs like these are symbolic and representative of the presence of racist ideologies that guide and justify racist actions. Symbolic racism is tied to the notion of post-racialism, the belief that racial discrimination is of little or no contemporary significance in an increasingly diverse society. However, it is frequently contradicted by repeated and consistent cases of racism and White supremacy at nearly all levels of social structures, from racism in criminal justice to racism in healthcare. Because of this, post-racialism is often critiqued as an illusion permitting people to overlook the significance of current and past racism, and avert otherwise apparent needs to address racial inequities.
In an example of the role of ideological perception in racism, Goff, Jackson, Di Leone, Culotta, and Ditomasso (2014) conducted a study examining the extent to which Black boys are perceived as children compared to other boys. They found that Black boys were perceived as older and less innocent compared to their White same-age peers. The authors explain that this finding points to a general dehumanization of Black males. According to Goff et al. (2014), some of the disparities that Black people face are the result of being perceived in ways that deny their full humanness. Prejudice is the product of attitudes and beliefs. Dehumanization involves moral exclusion and a denial of basic human protections. For example, prejudice (and pursuit of power) may lead to institutional racism such as a Black person being denied a job because of race. Dehumanization leads to acts of extreme violence or genocide against an individual or group (Goff et al., 2014).
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Characteristics associated with Black boys and distinguishing them from adults are their innocence, vulnerability, and the need for protection. When Black boys are dehumanized, they are afforded fewer protections and are more vulnerable to harsh treatment. For this reason, Black boys are seen as more deserving of adult treatment (Goff et al., 2014). The moral exclusion that comes along with dehumanization makes it acceptable to treat dehumanized people in ways that would otherwise be morally objectionable. For example, the above authors found that the dehumanization of Blacks predicted racial disparities in the use of force against Black boys relative to children of other races. The more that police officers reported perceiving Black boys as less human, the more likely they were to have used force against Black boys relative to White children.
How Racism has Changed from the Past to the Present
Contemporary racism is subtler than it was in the present (White & Cones, 1999). There are rarely instances of Ku Klux Klan lynch mobs, hangings, and segregated schools. There some Blacks in professional and managerial positions. There are Black mayors and congresspersons and there has been a Black president. This is, in part, because the Civil Rights Movement reduced the level of up-front or blatant forms of racism. However, racism remains a powerful and enduring presence today. Racism’s change in appearance can be deceiving “like the tip of an iceberg which hides the destructive force below” (White & Cones, 1999, p. 80). In fact, in 2012, when Barack Obama won the presidency for the second time, an Associated Press poll found that more Whites (Democrats 51% and Republicans 56%) harbored overt and covert anti-Black attitudes than they did in 2008 (48% and 49%, respectively) (Junius, 2012). In 2016, 61% of Americans (82% of Blacks, 66% of Hispanics, and 52% of Whites) believed that racism against Blacks was widespread (Jones, 2016). Moreover, as Obama left office, African Americans remained behind Whites on all social indicators including measures of health, wealth, education, and physical longevity (Reid, 2016). Racism as a social phenomenon has remained remarkably persistent.
Laissez-faire racism is a theory that explains the evolution of racial attitudes toward African Americans and the persistence of racial inequality. In the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racism was at its height. African Americans lived mostly in rural southern areas doing agricultural work. During this period, racial discrimination was formally accepted. Most White Americans were comfortable with the notion of Black inferiority, and scientific explanations of Black people’s inherent biogenetic inferiority were common. However, in the post-World War II era, Jim Crow social structures diminished due to Black political agency and changes in the position and power of Black people; the Black population became more socioeconomically diverse and urbanized. Moreover, overt racism became more socially unacceptable, and the country adopted more officially race-neutral policies. Bobo (1999) asserts that this change did not result in an anti-racist society that embraces a popular ideology of egalitarianism, and equal worth and treatment of Black people. Instead, racial inequality is now popularly accepted under the ideology of laissez-faire racism: (1) the persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans; (2) the tendency to blame African American people for their position in the current condition of socioeconomic racial inequality, and; (3) resistance to meaningful policy efforts aimed at resolving racist social conditions because such efforts pose a threat to collective White privilege. According to Bobo, laissez-faire racism has emerged as the popular racial belief system during a time when cultural trends reject notions of biological racism and policies are formally race-neutral and committed to anti-discrimination.
In spite of this outward rejection of racism, race-based inequity persists and has worsened in some respects (Bobo, 1999). As the sociocultural climate has changed, and overt Jim Crow racism is no longer essential to maintaining White privilege, laissez-faire racism defends racial inequality in a socially acceptable manner, thus protecting White privilege. However, Bobo’s (1999) theory does not address ←36 | 37→the role that culture plays in the transformation of racism. Africana people now have greater exposure to White definitional systems relative to the past when, due to segregation, they were more isolated from the Euro-American educational system and other forms of indoctrination (Kambon, 2006). This results in Black people being exposed to a higher level of cultural racism. Bobo’s (1999) theory also doesn’t address how non-Whites who are also not Black benefit from anti-Black racism.
How Black Men Experience Race Differently
Some Black people may experience racism differently than others. Some scholars argue that working-class African Americans may accept racism as a fact of life and try to look past it due to their perceived lack of power to successfully challenge it (Krieger & Sidney, 1996). Middle-class Black males who have had a great deal of economic and professional success also experience racism and its harmful effects for two main reasons: (1) in most White-run, major organizations they experience a glass ceiling to their advancement, and; (2) they are often left out of the informal insider networks among White males that give members key connections and mentorship (White & Cones, 1999). These Black men sometimes don’t speak up about the racism they experience—becoming known as the overly sensitive, angry, hard-to-work-with Black man can be another barrier to professional advancement (White & Cones, 1999). Yet, if they do not speak up they may be considered too passive. To advance in settings like these, some Black men create a workplace persona to become what Hardy (2008) calls GEMM (good, effective, mainstream, model-minorities). This requires them to be like their White coworkers as much as possible. These men often feel separated from African American ways of being, yet also not closely connected to their White peers. Black men also experience racism differently by age. Younger Black males report experiencing more racism than older Black males, although older Black males report more experiences of racism compared to older Black women (Wong & Schwing, 2014).
Black people also experience different levels of prejudice depending on the strength of their racial identification. Kaiser et al. (2009) investigated how Whites’ prejudicial attitudes vary based on how strongly ethnic minorities identify with their ethnic groups. They found that Whites express more negative attitudes toward minorities who identify more strongly with their ethnic identity than others. Kaiser et al. (2009) explain this with the idea of prejudice-distribution account, i.e., Whites react more negatively toward strongly identified ethnic minorities because Whites see them as rejecting the very status hierarchy that generally privileges Whites. This may explain why Black men with higher levels of racial identity report experiencing racism more than those with lower levels. Sellers, Shelton, and Diener (2003) suggest this may occur because Whites are picking up on subtle cues about some Blacks males’ levels of racial identification. Contrarily, Whites may be more positive toward Black men who have status legitimizing worldviews or beliefs in the world as a fair and just place where people occupy their status in society based on their work ethic (Kaiser et al., 2009). These Black males are perceived as less of a threat to White privilege, or the privilege of people in power who are not White.
Blair, Judd, and Chapleau (2004) investigated the relationship between criminal justice sentencing and Afrocentric features. They found that inmates with fewer stereotypically Black physical features (skin color, hair texture, etc.) received less harsh sentences. Eberhardt, Davies, Purdie-Vaughns, and Johnson (2006) investigated the relationship between perceived stereotypicality of Black male defendants and sentencing outcomes. They found that the men who had a more stereotypically Black appearance (broad nose, thick lips, dark skin) were more likely to receive the death penalty when their victims were White. Because stereotypically Black physical features are associated with criminality, Black men with less of those features may be considered less criminal (Eberhardt et al., 2006).
These findings are consistent with findings that skin color is a clear marker for discrimination. Black men with darker skin tones have been found to be 11 times more likely to experience discrimination than those with lighter skin tones (Klonoff & Landrine, 2000). This is rooted in Black people’s ←37 | 38→experiences with White supremacy. Colorism is the favoring of light skin complexion over dark skin complexion (Ryabov, 2013). The skin color discrimination that many African Americans face can affect their quality of life (Uzogara, Lee, Abdou, Jackson, & Levant, 2014). During slavery Whites created hierarchies among the enslaved, favoring those with lighter complexions (usually mixed race and frequently the result of non-consensual sexual relations between White men and Black women) while those with darker skin were treated poorly. White supremacy has led to the construction of skin color as a marker of qualities such as intelligence and morality (Conwill, 2009). During enslavement, lighter-skin-toned enslaved Black people were given more favorable work assignments and physically separated from darker Blacks. Blacks of mixed ancestry were more likely to be given domestic work duties, better food and clothing, more freedom, and educational opportunity (Ryabov, 2013). They were considered more attractive and intelligent and were sold for higher prices than darker skinned Blacks during auctions. As a result, colorism has been ingrained into American society and it is a feature of institutional racism.
Consequences of Racism on Black Males
Franklin (2004) frames the impact of racism on Black males in terms of visibility. According to Franklin (2004), racism can cause Black males to suffer from an invisibility syndrome. Invisibility syndrome is a conceptual model for understanding the intrapsychic processes, behavioral adaptations, and outcomes of African Americans as they manage experiences of racism (Franklin & Boyd-Franklin, 2000). This model is designed for application to African Americans in general, but to African American males specifically because of the real and perceived relationship between their experiences with racism and their exceedingly high social and health risk factors (Franklin & Boyd-Franklin, 2000). Franklin (2004) defines invisibility as “an inner struggle with feelings that one’s talents, abilities, personality, and worth are not valued or recognized because of prejudice and racism” (p. 4). Black men’s true characters are rendered invisible because of the judgments that people make about their race and gender. Black males pick up on the idea that the society they exist in is largely blind to their personhood because Black men are hidden behind a cloak of prejudiced attitudes and racism (Franklin & Boyd-Franklin, 2000). “Conversely, we feel visible when our true talents, abilities, and worth are respected” (p. 4).
As a consequence of experiencing racism, people make attempts to gain visibility in ways that are either consistent with their identity and culture, or in ways that cause them cultural dissonance and distress. According to invisibility theory, the ongoing experience of microaggressions (or subtle acts and attitudes that fit a historical pattern of racial disregard) and efforts to manage them have an additive or cumulative effect creating harmful psychological and behavioral consequences. Leary (2005) adds a multigenerational analysis to investigations of the impact of racism on Black people. Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) is a theoretical framework designed to explain the pattern of psychological and behavioral adaptations among African Americans to the legacy of oppression. Leary (2005) defines PTSS as “a condition that exists when a population has experienced multigenerational trauma resulting from centuries of slavery and continues to experience oppression and institutionalized racism today. Added to this condition is a belief (real or imagined) that the benefits of the society in which they live are not accessible to them” (Leary, 2005, p. 121). The following is a list of the psychological and behavioral effects of racism, drawing on the current literature (Azibo, 2014; Dawkins, 1999), and building on Wilson’s (1991) 12 psychological outcomes of historical and contemporary forms of racism and violence, outlined in his text, Understanding Black Male Adolescent Violence.
Chronic Frustration and Anger
Wilson (1991) explains that racism prevents Black people from achieving desired goals resulting in a chronic sense of frustration. Similarly, Franklin (2004) argues that racism causes Black males to ←38 | 39→experience frustration due to their feeling invisible. Wilson (1991) also argues that Black people experience a chronic sense of anger demonstrated in ways ranging from overt expressions to more repressed, passive and submissive expressions. Through the lens of PTSS, this anger is an emotional response to a persistent legacy of blocked and frustrated access to goals—in addition to violence, degradation, misrepresentation, societal marginalization, and lack of equal opportunity. Franklin (2004) argues that this racism and invisibility-induced anger can also cause Black men to experience immobilization or an increasing inability to be productive. According to Azibo (2014), some Black people may engage in oppression violence reaction, spontaneous or unpremeditated acts of violence rooted in the pent-up anger produced by the variety of racism that Black men face.
Alien-Self Disorder
Akbar (1991) defines alien-self disorder as a mental condition manifested in behaviors that represent a rejection of people’s natural selves and threaten their own well-being, becoming alien to themselves. Similarly, Landrum-Brown (1990) argues that racism can lead to a denial of Blackness and/or African heritage. Moreover, when African American men internalize the same negative views of themselves as White Americans have about Black men, it can influence how they think about and interact with other Black people. When this happens, for example, a Black person may find it difficult to see beauty in their own bodies and other Black people’s bodies, especially those parts that have been most stigmatized by Whites, such as their noses, skin tone, lips, and hair (West, 2006). Such individuals are at risk of engaging in harmful reactive coping methods such as changing their physical features (Hammond, Agyemang, Neblett, & Seaton, 2014).
Due to Whites’ discrimination based on skin color, some African Americans have used skin color differences to establish social hierarchies and distinguish themselves from other African Americans. Over time, some lighter-skinned Blacks began to exclude dark-skinned Blacks from their social circles. For example, in the 20th century, some Black people used methods such as paper bag tests (excluding individuals with skin darker than a paper bag) or comb tests (excluding those with hair that a comb could not pass through easily), and establishing blue-vein societies (excluding those whose veins could not be seen through their skin). Continuing the social separation between light-skinned and dark-skinned Blacks, some light-skinned Blacks avoided marriage and socialization with dark-skinned Blacks. In fact, colorism in the U.S. has been so ingrained that it has contributed to contemporary socioeconomic differences (Uzogara et al., 2014).
However, there are advantages and disadvantages to skin complexion depending on context. For example, some research suggests that among African American males, dark skin males represent an alpha-male ideal, associated with characteristics such as strength, virility, confidence, and physical attractiveness (Hall, 1995). However, dark skin is also associated more closely with being labeled as a dangerous “bad boy.” Black males with dark skin complexions report more experiences with racism, they receive longer prison sentences than lighter-skinned counterparts for similar crimes, they experience more job discrimination, and they receive lower wages than Black men with lighter complexions (Blair et al., 2004; Goldsmith, 2006; Kirschenman & Neckerman, 1991; Wade, 1996).
Blacks may engage in more colorism in all-Black settings because they are more likely to distinguish themselves from one another in these contexts (Harvey, LaBeach, Pridgen, & Gocial, 2005). Whereas, in interracial contexts, they are more likely to distinguish themselves from non-Whites, and less likely to engage in colorism. Blacks with medium or brown skin tones are protected from in-group skin-tone discrimination relative to both dark- and light-skinned Blacks (Oyserman, Brickman, Bybee, & Celious, 2006). Uzogara et al. (2014) investigated skin-tone discrimination among African American males using survey data collected through the National Survey of American Life. They found that dark-skinned African American males experienced the most out-group discrimination (from non-Blacks), ←39 | 40→followed by Black males with medium skin tone. Light-skinned Black males experienced the least out-group skin-tone discrimination. They found that light-skinned Black males experienced the most in-group skin-tone discrimination, while medium skinned Black males experienced the least in-group skin-tone discrimination (Oyserman et al., 2006). Light-skinned Black males get the most favorable treatment from Whites today as was the case during slavery (Oyserman et al., 2006).
Anti-Self Disorder
Akbar (1991) defines anti-self-disorder as a mental condition that includes the characteristics of alien-self disorders with the addition of overt and covert hostility toward other Black people. It is easy for Black people to be hostile toward or undermine other Black people because there are very few consequences compared to those for undermining White privilege. A part of the anti-self-disorder is what Wilson (1991) calls displaced aggression, when Black men are provoked to self-destructive anger by racism. This aggressive energy is sometimes directed toward other Black people in self-destructive ways (i.e., Black-on-Black violence or apathy and withdrawal) instead of at its true sources and causes. Experiences with racial discrimination are also associated with violent risk behaviors. For example, research shows that as adolescent Black males’ experiences with racial discrimination increase, the likelihood of them engaging in violent behavior increases (Hammond, Agyemang, et al., 2014). Hammond, Agyemang, et al. (2014) argue that experiencing racism increases risk-taking behavior as a coping mechanism; racism threatens core aspects of traditional masculinity by lowering Black males’ sense of agency and control. Similarly, microaggressions can lead to feelings of isolation and loss of control (Evans, Hemmings, Burkhalter, & Lacy, 2016). The authors theorize that Black males try to recuperate that threatened masculinity by engaging in risk behaviors, including but not limited to violence.
Ego-defense Orientation
The need to constantly protect against the negative effects of racism stimulates African Americans to develop and use ego-defense mechanisms including the unconscious effort to defend against racial anxiety through self-deception, distorting, and denying reality (i.e., embracing the notion that society is post-racial) (Wilson, 1991). Surviving in a racist environment requires a great deal of awareness. When a Black male experiences racism, it is just one of a collection of experiences, not usually single event. Moreover, one experience with racism triggers memories of others (White & Cones, 1999). Repeatedly reliving racist experiences can take a toll and keep one hypervigilant of racism. Among African Americans, the ability to detect subtle racial slights is considered a kind of sixth sense (Franklin & Boyd-Franklin, 2000). Black men are forced to maintain this vigilance due to the prevalence of racism and its intrapsychic consequences. However, some males attempt to avoid awareness of racism through a variety of ego-defense mechanisms. Avoidance may come in the form of denial of the existence of racism or claims of being unaffected by it.
Similarly, Landrum-Brown (1990) argues that racism can lead to a denial of the political significance of race and racism. Azibo (2014) calls it a nepenthe defense mechanism disorder, in which some Black people respond to racial terrorism by being forgetful or oblivious to racism to protect themselves from the associated pain and suffering. Spielberg’s (2014a) research explores a mechanism that some Black males use to cope with racism called trying not to know. Different from the popular belief that Black males see racism in every interaction with Whites, Spielberg notes the Black males he interviewed about racism in their lives actually went out of their way to avoid seeing race on individual, institutional, and cultural levels. According to Spielberg, they try to avoid the emotional pain attached to racially charged experiences by ignoring them until the impact is so overwhelming they can’t ignore them any longer. Spielberg’s research found that young Black males who were in most denial about racism were the least academically successful, while those who indicated an awareness of racism and had ways to cope with it were more academically successful and had more psychological well-being. ←40 | 41→However, awareness of racism alone is not enough. Some Black males avoid conversations about racism because these conversations are mostly unaccompanied by ideas about addressing it and are thus demoralizing if not defeatist (Pierce & Profit, 1994). Some attempt to avoid the trauma of racism by avoiding knowledge or awareness of present or historic abuses (Williams-Washington, 2010). Denial of racism or silence about racism can also be a misguided method of avoiding conflict to protect one’s self from the negative emotional consequences of racism. The act of trying to ignore racism may feel like a viable strategy for protection against its impacts. But it makes things worse by requiring a constant denial of one’s own truth. Attempting to avoid knowledge of racism can leave Black men more vulnerable to historic trauma and subjugation (Williams-Washington, 2010).
Compensatory Striving Through Assimilation and Self-Reduction
According to Wilson (1991), some Black men react to feelings of inadequacy due to racism by disguising, denying or counterbalancing these feelings through intensely striving for social acceptance and identification with their oppressors or those with power. This is similar to the alien-self disorder described previously. This state may also manifest as social over-conformity. Historically, there have always been Black men who respond to racism through conformity. White and Cones (1999) explain how some Black men accept mainstream American values and goals and mainstream methods of achieving them. For example, one of the consequences of internalized racism is the assumption that there is one type of Black male, which leads even Black people to embrace the burden of racial performance to prove themselves—often by performing racially stereotypical behaviors (Young, 2007). In predominantly White environments, this pressure to act stereotypically Black can be greater than usual because Whites may provide social rewards for such behaviors (Brewster et al., 2014). Under Barack Obama’s presidential administration, the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force went into communities across the country and held listening sessions and talked with young men and boys of color. They found many young men engaged in behaviors to compensate for the prejudice others had about them. In their report they explain two heartbreaking admissions that the boys and young men made: (1) they too had internalized negative views of themselves and sometimes feared other boys and young men of color, and; (2) they would often diminish themselves during their daily lives to not appear threatening to others (Johnson & Shelton, 2014).
One type of compensatory striving or self-reduction is the GEMM mentality. Being a GEMM and attempting to assimilate to a racist environment comes at a dangerous cost as some Black men experience stress from attempting to adjust themselves for the comfort of Whites or others. For example, mental health specialist, Paul A. Dawkins (1999) explains that many Black men may experience stress related to altering their behavior to ease the minds of Whites while increasing their own anxiety. Dawkins explains his own experiences with adopting a less threatening posture around White women:
While searching for a public pay phone recently in Durham, North Carolina, I found myself reexperiencing a situation I had encountered several times before in the 15 years I have lived in this, my adopted country. I had spied an available and, I hoped, functioning pay phone in a convenience store’s parking lot and decided to pull in. There were two phones side-by-side. One was being used by a well-dressed, slightly older White woman. As I pulled in and parked my car, I discovered, much to my dismay and chagrin, that I was a bit reluctant to get out of my car and use the phone while this woman was still there. In questioning my hesitation, I came to the puzzling conclusion that I did not want to make her “uncomfortable.” I was surprised, and yet not surprised, by my reaction. Surprised because I hadn’t quite realized to what extent I had allowed others’ perceptions of who I was to seep so pronouncedly into my psyche. Thinking back, while I remained seated in my car, I realized that as an almost 40-year-old Jamaican-born man (who was aware of race relations in the United States before arriving here), I’ve found myself not wanting to make Whites, particularly White women, uncomfortable. I’ve even found myself apologizing, at least internally, for being a Black male. At times I’ve gone so far as to adopt what I consider a less threatening posture whenever I encounter a White woman, especially an older one, in ←41 | 42→places where we are alone together. Sometimes I catch myself slowing down as I walk to my car in a parking lot if there’s a White woman heading to a nearby car-I don’t do this with White males or with men or women of other races, for that matter. I either reach loudly and obviously for my keys or hold back until she is safely in her car, for fear that she thinks I’m a potential rapist, purse snatcher or carjacker. I hold back because I don’t want to relive the dignity bruising experience of seeing her hasten her steps to her car, and/or hear the power locks being quickly, and loudly, activated, which happened once several years ago while I was attending graduate school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Now as I walked up to the pay phone, I realized that this hesitation had, in fact, been coloring my actions over the years almost imperceptibly. I was also angry at myself. Had I been so influenced by the newspaper accounts, studies and opinion polls I had read that indicated that Whites, particularly White women, were fearful of Blacks, particularly Black males, that I felt the need to make constant apologies on behalf of all men of my race? It was an angry burden to carry and it was getting way too heavy. I neared the available phone. The woman had her back to me, and although she might have sensed that someone was approaching to use the other telephone, she did not turn around just then. As I picked up the receiver to dial, she turned, as anyone probably would have, to see her new “neighbor” When she saw me, she turned back around. Almost subconsciously, I continued to observe her as she proceeded to pull the handbag that had been hanging by her side in front of her. I decided that this time, I would not continue to go out of my way to be accommodating. Previously, I would have done something like taking my large business planner with me to the phone to make her aware that I was not a thug. After all, thugs don’t usually carry business planners, I reasoned. Previously, I would have spoken a little louder than necessary on the phone so she could hear not only my accent and diction but also the content of my conversation. Then she would realize I had a legitimate reason for being there-that I was a dignified, purposeful fellow human being! This time, however, I decided I had had enough. I had to let it go. It had become too draining, too taxing, to apologize for being what I could not change, and for trying to apologize for every man with my pigmentation who might have done harm to someone like her at some time in the past. I decided that from that point on I would not edit my actions. I forgot about my neighbor and completed my call, in the same way, I would have if a White male, Black female or Hispanic male had been using a nearby phone. I determined that life was too short and that my self-respect was too valuable. (p. 64)
Relative Powerlessness and Fatalism
Some Black men are compelled to adopt the belief that their fate isn’t in their own hands, but in the hands of their oppressors due to the imbalance of power and privilege in society. Unable to see the fragility of systems of oppression, many Blacks adopt mystic beliefs about the invincibility of their oppressors. Azibo (2014) suggests that this sense of relative powerlessness and hopelessness related to race is a consequence of what he defines as Eurasian supremacy stress. Racism produces a profound feeling of helplessness in Black men, forcing them to abandon hope of the world becoming a better place for them (Head, 2005). Franklin (2004) similarly argues that invisibility can lead Black men to experience feelings of being trapped and without hope. Additionally, it is also important to note that the experience of racism and high-profile racialized killings (i.e., police terrorism) of Black males are not just threats to Black men’s sense of control over their fate and ability to protect themselves, they are also a threat to Black men’s sense of their ability to protect their loved ones from racial hatred (Franklin, 2004).
Stress
Resulting from prolonged exposure to racism, stress occurs at the unconscious and conscious levels, ranging from mild to extreme. Blacks report greater stress related to racism than any other ethnic group (Wong & Schwing, 2014). The more racial discrimination is experienced, the greater the decrease in self-esteem, academic performance, happiness, and life satisfaction (Wong & Schwing, 2014). According to Wilson (1991), this stress is sometimes due to a chronic sense of threat and vulnerability due to a history of unprovoked, irrational racist hostility and psychological abuse. The consequence ←42 | 43→may be that many Black males maintain a chronic sense of stress while anticipating harm and rejection (Wilson, 1991).
Low Self-Confidence, Worth, and Motivation
Majors and Billson (1992) argue that White racism can ultimately debase Black men’s sense of self because they must carry the weight of White-originated stereotypes of them at every moment of their lives. When internalized, this weight can ultimately affect their confidence and motivation. According to Leary (2005), Black people can experience low self-esteem as a consequence of the pronouncements of Black inferiority from three key spheres of influence: society, community, and family. According to Azibo (2014), this lack of self-worth can emerge from Black people using White American cultural standards and definitions to evaluate themselves.
Similarly, Franklin (2004) argues that the sense of invisibility that Black men experience can also cause them to question their own worth. It can cause them to question their deservingness. The imposter phenomenon is a sense of intellectual and professional phoniness experienced by high-achieving individuals (Clance, 1985). These feelings are found to be related to depression symptoms (McGregor, Gee, & Posey, 2008). Head (2005), a Black male psychologist, offers a glimpse into the phenomenon—an anti-Black male racism-induced sense of un-deservingness. He explains that racism fed his own feelings of un-deservingness of his accomplishments:
As I’ve said, many would argue I’ve led a life in which a long series of good luck and accomplishments has been strung together. In my mind, however, there was one thread running through all the good things in my life: I didn’t deserve them. I thought of myself as a phony, an imposter who was certain to be found out in the end. Any praise directed at me was a generous lie. I was destined for spectacular failure, but mere fate for some reason kept preventing it from happening. I believed in my heart that eventually I would fall and get what I really deserved. (p. 8)
Cultural Misorientation
One aspect of racism’s impact on Black men, and Black people in general, is its pressure to adopt Western values like materialism and individualism at extreme levels (Wilson, 1991). Kambon (2006) also argues that there are cultural consequences to racism. Cultural misorientation is a psychological condition that develops due to African people’s experience with Eurocentric cultural oppression (Kambon, 2006). From a prolonged and intense exposure, many Black people internalize and promote a Eurocentric consciousness. According to Kambon (2006), European cultural imposition has not been completely successful; therefore, Black people are affected by cultural imposition in varying degrees, some severely, most moderately, and few minimally. When internalized, Black communities themselves may engage in socialization practices that promote cultural ideals that are harmful to them. Leary (2005) calls this racist socialization, or the adoption of racist standards and the enslaver’s value system, i.e., all things associated with Whiteness are superior and all things associated with Blackness are inferior. Cultural imposition can prevent Black males from envisioning a world outside of the one the people in power have created based on their own values and beliefs.
Self-Blame and Perfectionism
While some argue that racism results in system-blaming among African Americans (Landrum-Brown, 1990), others argue that self-blame in the collective and individual sense is more common. According to Wilson (1991), the internalization of racist miseducation and misinformation causes some Black people to mistakenly conclude that their suffering is caused by their Blackness or personal inadequacies, instead of the psychopathology of their oppressors. Having internalized stereotypes about themselves, and an attraction to their oppressor’s way of life, some Blacks become instigators of disunity ←43 | 44→among Black society. Research on African American males also shows that some engage in harmful levels of self-blame. Experiences with racism, without a protecting shield of self-worth, can produce a sense of unworthiness hidden behind a seeming nonchalance. This is true for Black boys as well as adult males. For example, nonchalance about racism actually undermines Black boys’ abilities to effectively cope with racism, as they often redirect their anger toward themselves. Contrary to the notion that African American males blame the system, Spielberg’s (2014a) research shows that many African American males blame themselves for any lack of success in school or life. Through his interviews with young makes, Spielberg also found that the shame created by racism can also lead to a damaging sense of perfectionism among Black males:
Many young African American males we interviewed reported numerous examples of microaggression. Jamal, a 25-year-old stockbroker, works in a large office building. Even though he dresses well and looks the part of a young professional, he is frequently followed by security officers when he enters boutique stores in the mall of his office complex. When he rides the elevators, he can “feel the fear in most Whites.” Although he claims to have become “used to it,” later in our interview he expressed awareness of “being angry,” and that he has often wished he had “given them something to make them afraid.” The cumulative effect upon Jamal of the many microaggressions he has experienced is “hard to know.” However, one can argue that the toll has been enormous, as it is possible to trace much of his perfectionism and shame about mistakes to an underlying fear that he indeed might be “dangerous and untrustworthy.” (p. 52)
Racism can certainly produce an unhealthy perfectionism in Black males, leading to depression. Lambert, Robinson, and Ialongo (2014) conducted a longitudinal investigation into the relationship between racial discrimination, socially prescribed perfectionism, and depression among African American adolescents. Maladaptive perfectionism refers to holding excessively high standards, being extraordinarily self-critical. This kind of perfectionism has been linked to depression. There are other types of perfectionism, one of which is socially prescribed perfectionism. Socially prescribed perfectionism is different from self-prescribed perfectionism because it comes from other people’s unrealistic expectations imposed on a person. Some social scientists believe that this kind of perfectionism is worse because it is understood to be less. The notion of a “good Black man” assumes that this is a rare, exceptional condition. Yet the slightest misstep can land a Black man in the category of “no good” like all the rest, because this is the only other option which is implied in the popular anti-Black male phrasing “Black men ain’t shit.” Lambert et al. (2014) sampled 492 African American adolescents at grades 7, 8, and 9. At each grade the youth explained: (1) how often they experienced racial discrimination; (2) the extent to which they had socially prescribed perfectionist beliefs, and; (3) the extent to which they had experienced anxiety and depressive symptoms. The research suggests that the experience of racism in the seventh grade led to socially prescribed perfectionist beliefs in the eighth grade, which led to depressive symptoms in the 9thgrade. Implicit in Black men’s experiences with racism is the assumption that they have not lived up to the social standards or expectations of them. Externally imposed standards cause Black men to negatively evaluate themselves based on racist standards beyond their control—often leading to depressive symptoms.
Substance Abuse
Substance abuse can be a symptom of the invisibility syndrome associated with racism, according to Franklin (2004). The experience of racism is associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in cigarette smoking (Landrine & Klonoff, 1999). Hammond, Agyemang et al. (2014) explain that racism is related to risk behaviors like cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and other drug use, especially among adolescents.
←44 | 45→
Consumer Orientedness
Due to being reduced to the statuses of wage earners and consumers, many Blacks adopt a consumer-mindedness, seeking status symbols to compensate for feelings of inadequacy. This only compounds the problems of unemployment, underemployment, poverty, and the poor quality of received social services.
Restricted and Conflicting Affectionate Relations
Internalized negative racist perceptions of themselves cause Blacks to be vulnerable to certain conflicts and fear in their affectionate relationships with one another (Wilson, 1991). While some Black males respond to racism by engaging in violence, substance abuse, and other risk behaviors, other Black males may respond by suppressing their emotions, hampering the ability to form strong friendships and partnerships (Evans et al., 2016).
Physical Illness
The experience of racism has been linked to increased aging and physical illness in Black men (Chae et al., 2014). Many hypertension-related illnesses (i.e., heart attack, strokes, kidney damage) are related to the experiences of racism (Hall, 2007).
Resistance Confusion
According to Pierce (1988), the chronic experience of racist microaggressions can lead to confusion about when, where, and how to resist oppression versus when, where, whether and how to accommodate it (p. 27). The old proverb of picking one’s battles can easily turn into never entering battle at all.
Liberatory Responses to Racism/White Supremacy
Franklin (2004) explains the solution to invisibility racism must happen as a result of a collective effort. Visibility is something that the Black community, and Black men among themselves, can create “by the sense of belonging provided by other Black men and the activities, institutions, traditions, and practices of the brotherhood of Black men that typify the uniqueness of being an African American man” (Franklin, 2014, p. 16). According to Franklin (2004), the keys to surviving invisibility and nurturing a sense of personal power are (1) recognition—the power of feeling you are being acknowledged by others; (2) satisfaction—the satisfaction of feeling rewarded for what you do; (3) legitimacy—the feeling that you belong; (4) validation—the power of feeling that others share your views and values; (5) respect—the power of feeling that you are being treated as a person of value and worth; (6) dignity—the power of feeling that you are a person of value and worth, and; (7) identify—the power of feeling comfortable with the way you are and with who you are. Franklin and Boyd-Franklin (2000) explain that Black males engage in microaggression repair and achieve visibility through many different methods. To heal from the multigenerational impacts of anti-Black racism, Leary (2005) suggests that Black people know themselves and/or restore their historical memory, identifying and building on their strengths. Daniel (2000) argues that it is erroneous to refer to the distress suffered by people of African descent using the term “post-traumatic” because racism has proven to be ongoing, not a specific, time-limited event. The following are several important factors that may be used to address the challenges of racism and White supremacy and to enhance the well-being of men and boys of African descent.
Knowing and Defining Self
During slavery, Black people who escaped were considered to have engaged in a theft of self because their escape represented loss of power and privilege, a financial loss, and a loss of knowledge and skill ←45 | 46→to their captors (Landers, 1990). This reveals that Black self-determination was and is fundamentally tied to a loss of power and privilege to those who benefit from their subordination. Moreover, one of the first aspects of Black self-determination is self-definition, which is an act of opposition. When African people were enslaved, many of the actions of their enslavers were guided by the effort to dislocate African people’s sense of self by separating them from their ethnic groups, their families, and their cultures and traditions. Knowledge of self may help diminish the ability of White supremacy to reward Black men for undermining collective Black well-being. The first step in challenging racial oppression is self-definition based on one’s own social-cultural perspective (White & Cones, 1999). This is a necessary step for a Black man to achieve his potential (White & Cones, 1999). Akbar (1991) explains Malcolm X’s emphasis on the importance of self-definition:
He was vehemently determined to define himself. He said (in words), “It is better to be called ‘X’ than to be named Williams or Smith or any other name they gave you on the plantation. It’s better to be an unknown quantity than to be walking around with your slavemaster’s name. Eventually, you’ll discover and take on some name that came from your own land, but in the meantime just be ‘X’. The idea is absolutely critical for you to define yourself.” Not only that, but he went on to redefine everything about himself. What should be eaten, when it should be eaten, how it should be eaten. He was the first one to teach us that the Black man was the original man. Everybody is talking about this subject now, but he was the only one who made it popular. The middle-class scholars looked at him in disbelief. They didn’t even believe what their own White historians had told them in passing. They didn’t believe that they were the original people of the earth. It was that message that became critical in changing the self-definition of the people who studied with him. He was defiant in defining himself. If you are going to be a man, you’ve got to be willing to take your own name, your own place, your own definition of reality and accept nobody else’s unless it is compatible and synchronized with your own. (p. 70)
For Black men, gaining knowledge of self is not just to boost morale, but to prepare them for the quest for empowerment and collective self-determination.
Racial Identity Development
Positive racial-gender identity is an important protecting factor that Black men must possess to lead them to stronger self-acceptance and to neutralize the effects of anti-Black male racism (Franklin, 2004). One African proverb found in different languages across the African continent is I am because we are, and because we are, therefore I am. This proverb is an excellent point of departure for discussing the importance of Black racial identity and consciousness. Black ethnic/racial identity is the sense of attachment, knowledge, and connectedness to one’s ethnic/racial group. The combination of circumstances that shape Black males’ self and their identity challenges are unique compared to African American females, or any other ethnic group (Belgrave & Brevard, 2015). Many scholars assert that Black men experience a greater share of negative myths, images, and stereotypes compared to any other subpopulation in America (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009; White & Cones, 1999). These images include uncivilized creatures, brutes, buffoons—unintelligent and unemotional. These images, of course, are based on Eurocentric understandings of what Black males are and should be (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009). In fact, society’s expectations of what behaviors, personalities, and ways of life Black men should possess are largely based on a body of Eurocentric ideas (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009). True to a history of racism, many Whites and other non-Blacks continue to impose their performance expectations on Blacks (Young, 2007). Therefore, Black males must reconcile with the extent that they hold any negative self-images and then remove those false understandings.
How does the development of racial identity work for Black males? The Nigresence Model is a framework characterized by movement through a series of stages in which a person develops a psychological alignment with Black racial/ethnic consciousness (White & Cones, 1999). Nigrescence is a resocialization process of discovery and transformation through which a non-aligned person develops a ←46 | 47→new ethnic consciousness. The stages consist of pre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion, internalization, internalization-commitment. Black men at the pre-encounter state are likely to have little awareness of what it means to be a Black man in America. A person at this stage could be of any class and any profession, who believes that he or she is judged solely based on his or her intelligence and work ethic. According to White and Cones (1999), “Malcolm X’s pre-encounter view of the world, for example, was formed by the assassination of his father in Lansing, Michigan by local Whites, by the breakup of his family after his mother was committed to a mental hospital, and by the racist advice from a White teacher that Black boys should not aspire to become lawyers” (p. 122).
The encounter stage consists of the experience of an event or series of events that call(s) into question a person’s pre-encounter beliefs. For example, a person may deal with instances of racism at work, school, or in public. Sometimes high-profile national events can impact racial consciousness, such as the assassination of Martin Luther King, the Black Power movement, the Million Man March, high-profile police killings of Black people, or Black resistance movements. These events spark a great deal of emotion (and sometimes anger) that prompt Black men to reject their pre-encounter beliefs and recognize the importance of struggling on behalf of Black people. Malcolm X’s arrest was his encounter experience, causing him to examine the roles of racism, power, and economics and how they shaped the lives of Black people. “He was convinced that he received a longer sentence than usual because two members of his burglary gang were White females” (White & Cones, 1999, p. 123).
In the immersion stage, the transition of consciousness takes place. At this stage, a person moves away from their pre-encounter beliefs and embraces new ones that haven’t been fully formed. They may join groups about Black people’s advancement, embrace Black-oriented reading preferences, African American and African styles of clothing and adornment, and attend Black cultural, social, and political events (White & Cones, 1999). A person may attempt to cast off pre-encounter beliefs by adopting a thought process of “everything Black is good and everything White is bad.”
As a person enters the emersion stage, they begin to become less intense, and more calm and reflective. White and Cones (1999) explain that when Malcolm X entered the emersion stage “he examined seriously the Black Nationalist philosophy to which he was introduced by his brother, who was a member of the Nation of Islam, the Black Muslims. And he began correspondence with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam” (p. 124).
In the internalization stage, a person integrates Black consciousness into his daily life with an inner strength and intelligence. No longer does he feel compelled to prove his Blackness and judge the Blackness of others based on surface-level manifestations (clothing, speech, etc.). His definition of Blackness is more multidimensional and rooted in knowledge of history and cultures. At this stage, an individual is able to determine when an outcome is the result of institutional racism or irresponsible behavior (White & Cones, 1999). More secure in their Blackness, a person at this stage exercises more discretion rejecting and struggling against racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression, rather than rejecting all Whites.
In the internalization-commitment stage, a person becomes committed to the long-term struggle for liberation and to help others. White and Cones (1999) explain that in his internalization-commitment phase, Malcolm X took on a leadership position in the Nation of Islam, spoke nationally, and ultimately became a global Pan Africanist open to organizing with others geared toward challenging oppression. However, people can recycle through or go back to stages due to new crises and challenges that trigger a refocusing of values. Reaching the internalization stage can help resolve racism-related challenges.
Phinney (1990) developed a stage-wise model of ethnic identity development. Stage one, diffusion, is when one’s racial identity has yet to be explored (unexamined). In stage two, the foreclosed stage, one is dependent upon the positive or negative views of others about their ethnic identities. Stage three, ←47 | 48→moratorium, is when the person begins to become aware of their ethnic identity and explore it. The fourth stage, the achieved stage, is characterized by a person being secure and comfortable in their ethnic identity.
Phinney and Chavira (1995) formulated a typology of three main ethnic minority responses to racial discrimination. Active responses are those that involve challenging racism in an assertive and non-hostile manner. Aggressive responses are those that involve hostile responses to perpetrators of racism. Passive responses do not address racism. Instead, they represent acceptance. Wakefield and Hudley (2005) studied the relationship between African American adolescent males’ ethnic identity and their outcomes and responses to racial discrimination. They found that African American adolescent males who were in the diffusion stage (unexamined) of exploration more strongly endorsed passive responses to racism, while those who were in the achieved stage engaged in more active responses. Achieved identity is likely to develop as a result of parental racial socialization.
The Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI) is a non-stage-wise (non-sequential, non-linear, or non-chronological) model that conceptualizes racial identity as multidimensional with four dimensions. The first dimension, salience, refers to how important race is in a person’s overall self-concept. The second dimension, centrality, refers to how central race is to a person’s self-concept. The third dimension, ideology, refers to attitudes about how African Americans should act in relation to society. There are four different ideologies in the third stage: nationalist (being distinctively African American), being a minority (seeing African American oppression as linked to other people’s oppression), assimilationist (emphasizing how African Americans are like other Americans), and humanism (emphasizing the shared qualities among all humans). The last dimension is regard, divided into two segments. Private regard refers to the extent to which an individual feels positively about other African Americans and about being African American. Public regard refers to the extent to which an individual feels that others view African Americans positively or negatively (Wester, Vogel, Wei, & McLain, 2006).
Racial Identity as a Protective Factor
Caldwell, Kohn-Wood, Schmeelk-Cone, Chavous, and Zimmerman (2004) investigated racial identity as a protective factor against violence among African American adults. They found that, for men, the safeguarding effects of racial identity were more salient than for women. The more central race was to their identity, the less violent behaviors Black men engaged in. Males with lower race centrality engaged in more violent behaviors. Barnes, Burton, Best, and Bynum (2008) conducted an investigation to test how effective racial identity is in reducing the effects of the internalization of racist experiences on African American males. They found that racist experiences did indeed predict feelings of anxiety. However, African American males with higher private regard (feeling positive about being African American) reported fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety (Barnes et al., 2008). This means that African American males who felt positively about being Black are protected by their private regard and are less likely to experience psychological distress. When these males encounter racism, they are able to access positive attitudes about being Black, which serves as a psychological buffer against anxiety. Conversely, African Americans with low private regard experienced more depressive symptoms. Clinicians are in positions to facilitate activities that enhance and boost Black males’ private regard.
Evidence demonstrates that racial identity can serve as a buffer against the harmful psychological effects of racism (Belgrave & Brevard, 2015; Franklin, 2004; White & Cones, 1999). Positive racial identity prevents Black youth from internalizing the negative messages that experiences with racism produce (White & Cones, 1999). They explain that a strong sense of racial identity prevents the need to “rely on supermacho behavior, womanizing, drug use, or other forms of maladaptive coping to deal with the frustrations of institutional racism” (p. 125). When Black males do attach pride to their ethnic identity, they are likely to have more self-confidence because they are defining themselves beyond ←48 | 49→Eurocentric definitions about them. On college campuses, Black male identity development improves when Black males have more opportunities for positive interactions with one another (Palmer & Strayhorn, 2008). On campuses with small numbers of Black males, college staff and student leaders should create programs that allow Black males to come together through organizations and activities—opportunities for learning about one another and forming relationships (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009).
Black religious/spiritual institutions tend to support positive racial identity. For example, Black people who attend church are more likely to think positively of themselves as African Americans and African Americans as a group (Mattis & Watson, 2009). This is in large part due to how Black religious leaders read and interpret scriptures, focusing on themes of liberation and overcoming oppression. Moreover, Black religious leaders often identify the presence of Black people in scripture and relate the historic and present struggles of African Americans (S. Floyd-Thomas et al., 2007). Placing Black people at the center of religious interpretation may be supportive of healthy racial identity (S. Floyd-Thomas et al., 2007).
Racial Socialization
It is important for Black communities to engage in early racial socialization with Black males (Leary, 2005). Most research shows that African American adolescents score higher on measures of self-esteem than other racial/ethnic groups (Birndorf, Ryan, Auinger, & Aten, 2005; Belgrave & Brevard, 2015; Sullivan & Evans, 2006) and have high self-esteem generally (Freeman, 1994). But how do African American parents ensure high self-esteem among their children in racially hostile environments? They must also find ways to give their children knowledge and skills that will allow them to be successful in a hostile environment.
Dottolo and Stewart’s (2008) research on race and racial identity noted that many Black people think frequently about their ethnic identity because of frequent experiences with racism. Racial socialization allows parents to provide their children with racial/ethnic pride and prepare them for racism, providing a positive sense of self and a foundation for success in a social context where being an African American and male is viewed negatively in distinct ways. Without racial socialization, a racist mainstream society will direct the evolution of Black children’s identities. Most African American parents engage in racial socialization (Coles, 2009), but there are differences in the strategies undertaken. McHale et al. (2006) found that older African American fathers were more likely to convey racial socialization messages about potential racial barriers than younger fathers. Fathers with relatively higher levels of education were more likely to send racial socialization messages of cultural pride, and coping with racial discrimination, and encouragement of intergroup interaction (Brown, Tanner-Smith, Lesane-Brown, & Ezell, 2007). Compared to their non-married counterparts, married fathers engage in more frequent racial socialization (Thornton, Chatters, Taylor, & Allen, 1990). Parents are more likely to transmit racial socialization messages to older children because older children are more apt to understand racism in abstract ways, and report experiencing it (McHale et al., 2006). However, the content of racial socialization messages is just as important to the degree to which parents racially socialize.
Murray and Mandara (2002) explain four different approaches to racial socialization: the proactive approach refers to parents who initiate the act of discussing race, but also, teaching children to deal with racial issues; the active approach happens when parents openly discuss issues of race and discrimination; the reactive approach, occurs when parents take a defensive position on racial issues or discuss racial issues after cases of racial discrimination arise; and the passive approach describes when parents never talk about racial issues. Murray and Mandara (2002) investigated the racial socialization messages received by one hundred sixteen 14- to 16-year-old African American youth and found that they had experienced varying degrees of four basic racial socialization messages. Race empowerment messages stressed ←49 | 50→having a positive racial identity and being able to overcome obstacles in life despite racism. Racial awareness messages actively taught children to be proud of being Black. Race-defensiveness includes messages to children that they should dislike another racial group. It also involves teaching children the usefulness of imitating White behavior. Race naiveite minimizes race, saying that racism is a thing of the past or a minimal issue in the modern era (Murray & Mandara, 2002). Those who were exposed to the race empowerment approach were high in racial identity and self-esteem. The reverse was found for those who were exposed to race-defensiveness messages. According to Murray and Mandara (2002), high self-esteem for Black youth is acquired through recognizing Black achievements, having effective strategies to deal with racism, and having a feeling of belonging to and responsibility toward communities of people of African descent. Race naiveite and racial awareness were not found to significantly predict high self-esteem and only moderately predicted racial identity (Murray & Mandara, 2002).
Cooper, Smalls-Glover, Neblett, Banks, and Levant (2015) investigated racial socialization patterns among African American fathers and used the results of their investigation to develop profiles of Black fathers’ approaches to racial socialization. To assess fathers’ racial socialization practices they used the Racial Socialization Questionnaire–Parent Version, which measures racial socialization across six dimensions: racial pride (telling children they should be proud to be Black); racial barrier socialization (making children aware that they will face racial discrimination and teaching them to effectively cope with it); egalitarian views (telling children that they should treat everyone equally); behavioral socialization (exposing children to Black culture); negative values (sending children negative messages about what it means to be Black); and self-development (sending children messages that they must be self-disciplined to be successful. They discovered five profiles: (1) infrequent racial socializers; (2) negative racial socializers; (3) positive racial socializers; (4) low race salience socializers, and; (5) race salient socializers (Cooper et al., 2015).
Infrequent racial socializers are those Black fathers who have low levels of racial socialization. Negative racial socializers include fathers who are low in the self-development messages they send, but high in the negative messages they send. Positive racial socializers are fathers who are high on all dimensions of racial socialization, except negative values. Low race salience socializers are those who are high on all messages except self-development. These fathers didn’t overtly address racial barriers or encourage racial pride, but they did send moderate messages about personal development and racial equality, seeming to focus on individual assets of the child. Race salience socializers are those fathers who score high on racial pride, barrier orientation, egalitarian, and behavioral messages. However, this group was also found to have a high frequency of negative messages (Cooper et al., 2015).
In general, the Black fathers who participated in the study were above average in all dimensions of racial socialization except negative-value messages. Cooper et al. (2015) found that parents of boys were less likely to talk about race; parents of girls are more likely to engage in racial socialization. It is important to note that some Black fathers indicate a reluctance to engage in racial socialization because they think it may lead their children to believe that: they cannot achieve what they want, that they are victims, that they have a reason to fail (Coles, 2009). Others believe that their Blackness is a given and therefore doesn’t need to be discussed (Coles, 2009). However, racial socialization has been linked to more positive racial identity and less depression (Stevenson, Reed, Bodison, & Bishop, 1997). When parents proactively discuss race and racism with their children, the children do better academically, socially, and emotionally compared to children whose parents avoid the subject (Brewster et al., 2014, p. 97). As a cautionary note, African Americans must be aware that racism has the power to erode even protective factors like racial identity and racial socialization when it is not sufficiently supported and reinforced.
Brewster et al. (2014) discuss how most African Americans engage in one of five racial socialization practices. One, preparation for bias is a racial socialization practice that between two-thirds and 90% ←50 | 51→of African American parents engage in. These parents make their children aware of racism and prepare them with strategies for how to handle it. They may engage in telling their sons to “be on time, to avoid wearing sagging pants or hoodies, and to work extra hard” (Brewster et al., 2014, p. 97). However, what Black children are taught about racism may vary. They need to know that racism is more than individual acts and be aware of institutional racism. Two, the egalitarian approach is one that more than two-thirds of Black parents practice by telling their children that everybody is equal, everyone is the same, and that color doesn’t matter. Middle-class and affluent Black parents in particular deliver messages like this. Three, cultural socialization involves messages consistent with the African worldview, such as the idea that self-knowledge is the basis of all knowledge. About one-third of African Americans send these messages. These parents teach their children to know their heritage, cultural values and traditions, and to have ethnic pride. They may do so by taking their children to cultural performances, having cultural symbols in their homes, and even giving their children ethnic names. Cultural socialization balances out what is lacking in a simple awareness of racism. Four, promoting mistrust is a socialization practice that only 3% of Black parents engage in. This involves telling their children that they can’t trust other racial groups (i.e., you can’t trust Whites). Five, silence about race is an approach not many Black parents take. Black children in this scenario are left unarmed to deal with stereotypes and negative treatment based on race. Relative to Black parents’ racial socialization of Black girls, racial socialization messages to Black boys concentrate more on strategies for self-regulating behaviors and defusing racial encounters (Bentley, Adams, & Stevenson, 2009). Black boys undergoing early physical maturation may prompt their parents to initiate conversations about how to manage possible racially charged encounters without sustaining physical or mental harm, because they are at heightened risk for violent racial encounters (Bentley et al., 2009).
There is much that the parents of Black youth can and often do to prevent racism from leading to depression. African Americans can prevent the harmful effects of racism on their children by exposing them to Black history and culture, teaching them how to interact appropriately with other racial groups, and instructing them on how to respond to racist situations and oppression in general. Without this kind of racial/ethnic socialization, Black children remain excessively vulnerable to the harmful effects of racism. Bynum, Burton, Best, and Nagayama Hall (2007) discovered that racial socialization messages reduced the stress that can accompany experiences of racism. To raise psychologically and emotionally healthy children, African American parents cannot afford taking the color-blind approach. Social science suggests that African American parents protect the psychological well-being of their children through early racial/cultural socialization. Failure to do so leaves Black children more vulnerable to the psychological effects of living in an oppressive environment.
Studies of multiracial parenting tend to focus on the accounts of White women, while information about Black fathers continues to be addressed indirectly through accounts of the mother or children (Childs & Dalmage, 2010). Childs and Dalmage (2010) conducted interviews with Black fathers of biracial children about their parenting experiences. Among their findings was the fact that Black fathers feel the need to actively challenge popular stereotypes of Black men and Black people in general for their children. These fathers are concerned that stereotypes might cause their biracial children to not embrace their Black identity, and they make extra efforts to expose their children to Black culture, pride, and identity. This is intensified by the worry that their children might not get these messages from their non-Black mothers who often feel less capable of racially socializing their children (Childs & Dalmage, 2010). Black fathers’ efforts to racially socialize their mixed children often brought them into conflict with their White spouses who may be less inclined to expose children to Black culture and peer groups. Moreover, parents can often clash over parenting styles, given that Black fathers tend to be authoritarian while White mothers tend to be more permissive (Childs & Dalmage, 2010).
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According to Spielberg (2014a) young Black males need the help of parents and communities to assist them in developing psychological shields against racism. Psychological shields include: teaching males about their own family and ethnic/cultural history; encouraging free expression and independent thought; exposing them to positive and supportive Black teachers; ensuring that they are a part of a constructive peer group that discusses racial issues; ensuring they are exposed to positive role models and mentors; teaching them healthy conflict-resolution skills; monitoring their access to media, and; ensuring that they have constructive cultural definitions of manhood. Therapeutic support groups can be an effective intervention because they allow Black men to share coping strategies in a fraternal atmosphere focusing on self-empowerment.
A method that some Black men use to resist racism and maintain their well-being is sanity checks or seeking validation and understanding from other Black people about their experiences with racism (Franklin, 2004). Franklin (2004) explains how important it is that Black men have the support of other African Americans who share experiences with microaggressions and feeling invisible (Franklin, 2004).
Culturally Grounded Healing
People find different ways of making sense of racist experiences and dealing with the stress that may come from those experiences. Utsey, Adams, and Bolden (2000) define Afrocultural coping as “as an effort to maintain a sense of harmony and balance within the physical, metaphysical, collective/communal, and spiritual/psychological realms of existence” (p. 197). There are four primary components of Afrocultural coping: cognitive/emotional debriefing, spiritual-centered coping, collective coping, and ritual-centered coping. Cognitive/emotional debriefing is an adaptive reaction that African Americans use to manage perceived environmental stress, such as discussing a racist co-worker with a supervisor, seeking out someone who might make one laugh, and holding out hope that things will get better. Spiritual-centered coping methods, like praying, represent African Americans sense of connection to spiritual aspects of the universe. Collective coping, grounded in a collectivist value system, is the use of group-centered activities to manage perceived racial stress such as discussion experiences with family or friends. Ritual-centered coping involves the use of rituals such as acknowledging the role that ancestors play in life, celebrating events, and honoring religious or spiritual deities. Ritual-centered coping might also involve playing music or lighting candles. Constantine, Donnelly, and Myers (2002) found that when African American adolescents believed their cultural group was a significant part of their self-concept, the more likely they were to use coping methods such as collective and spiritual-centered coping to deal with stress.
Resistance
An early step in resistance is acknowledgment; resistance is impossible without coming to grips with the reality of anti-Black male racism. For a Black man, ignoring racism and believing in the existence of a state of justice, fairness, and equal opportunity in the U.S. requires a constant effort of self-delusion. It is important to find intelligent ways of challenging and neutralizing racialized gender oppression (Leary, 2005). There are (and historically have always been) Black males who engage in rebellion against oppression (White & Cones, 1999). They may seek to challenge mainstream society and increase opportunity for Black people by using methods within or outside the system (i.e., Civil Rights Movement or the Black Liberation Army).
Fighting against oppression is healthy. Fanon (1965) asserts that healing must also include challenging the social, cultural, and political processes by which people of African descent are subjugated. There is some research to support Fanon’s (1965) assertion. Krieger and Sidney’s (1996) research on the effects of racial discrimination on blood pressure revealed that African Americans who reported experiencing unfair treatment and typically accepted it without challenge had significantly higher blood ←52 | 53→pressure as compared to those who fought against unfair treatment. Findings like this support Fanon’s (1965) assertion that the process of fighting oppression is an act of healing for the oppressed.
Challenging racism comes with its own set of choices and Black men resist in various ways. Some middle-class Black men respond to workplace racism by living in Black neighborhoods, moving into careers that involve service to Black communities, and/or making efforts to develop Black consciousness and knowledge (White & Cones, 1999). White and Cones (1999) explain that Black men must learn to turn the raw emotion generated by racism into constructive energy to challenge it. Channeling this energy can be done in constructive and non-constructive ways. Constructive methods empower people and their communities, while non-constructive ones make problems worse and ultimately harm people and communities. Non-constructive ways include gang violence that primarily harms other Black people. Constructive ways can include acts of artistic creation—the way men like Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright did through their great literary works, Invisible Man and Native Son respectively. In addition, others have channeled their energy through poetry like Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Oron Kenyetta, Gil Scot-Heron, or Saul Williams. For a Black man to seek empowerment, he must be able to see past the immediate movement or condition and imagine the long-term solutions. According to White and Cones (1999), he must be able to dream of possibilities not yet visible, then develop a strategy to make them a reality. Psychologically, Black men cope constructively by planning to achieve goals to advance themselves, their families, and communities. Constructive methods of resistance are not limited to these artistic examples. They are all interconnected and include intellectual, political, spiritual, economic and other methods. Armed resistance/rebellion or revolution are forms of resistance as much as cultural reclamation.
Resistance must also include culture. Because culture naturally resists racism and the act of oppression requires eliminating resistance, culture becomes a target of racism (Nobles, 2006). Nobles (2006) takes the position that two twin pillars must be addressed in the process of liberating African consciousness: minimizing destructive forces and maximizing productive forces in terms of African cultures. African people’s resistance to cultural imposition is not always intentional or carefully planned. However, Kambon (2006) argues that collective, conscious resistance is required to resist psycho-cultural oppression. Black liberation and challenging racism must also include structural and institution level actions including institution building. According to Kambon (2006), to challenge and resist cultural racism, Black people have to build institutional support systems and engage in early socialization to instill African self-consciousness in Black people. African self-consciousness is the conscious level expression of Africanity, including (1) recognizing themselves as persons of African descent; (2) prioritizing the development and advancement of people of African descent; (3) actively engaging in efforts to improve the well-being of people of African descent, and lastly; (4) engaging in efforts to resist forces that oppress people of African descent (Kambon, 2006).
Culturally Grounded Service-Providing
The large majority of racially motivated hate crimes in the U.S. (the largest category of hate crimes) are committed against African Americans (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014b). African Americans also file more complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about racism, gender, sexual orientation, or religious orientation discrimination (Evans et al., 2016). Repeated and continued experiences like these can cause African Americans to experience Race-Based Trauma and/or sub-threshold Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomology, including emotional stress, physical harm and/or fear (Evans et al., 2016). Repeated experiences with anti-Black-male racism are assaults on the self-hood of Black men and can lead to feelings of restrictive emotionality, low self-worth, and depressive symptoms (Evans et al., 2016). Williams and Williams-Morris (2000) explain three aspects of the relationship between racism and mental health: (1) institutional racism creates ←53 | 54→barriers to accessing mental health treatment; (2) experiences with racial discrimination impact one’s identity and mental health, and; (3) internalizing racist messages impairs one’s perception of self and the world.
However, Black males are less likely than Black females to seek out counseling and psychotherapy, in part because society expects them to be self-reliant (Evans et al., 2016). One way to address the post-traumatic stress that Black men experience is by applying Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) strategies in counseling services for Black men. Using PTG, individuals who experience trauma can achieve growth and resilience by identifying the meaning or purpose of the traumatic events that they experienced. The outcomes of PTG can include a greater sense of compassion toward others, enhanced personal relationships, and an overall appreciation for life, including resilience (Evans et al., 2016). The philosophy of PTG assumes that individuals process negative events in both productive and non-productive ways and that active styles of processing are more productive than passive ones. PTG consists of three constructs: (1) deliberate rumination; (2) disclosure of Race-Based Trauma, and; (3) social and cultural factors. Deliberate rumination involves counselors helping Black men to reduce their stress and derive meaning from their experiences. This might include countering racist misperceptions, the teaching of relaxation techniques, identifying ways of overcoming racial trauma and helping Black men celebrate their racial/gender identity. Other techniques might include narrative therapy and collective memory exercises.
It is important for providers of social services to acknowledge the normality of stress due to trauma and the prevalence of racism to justify the individual’s experience. Disclosure of Race-Based Trauma should involve trying to help men identify the trauma and find significance in the experience through discussions about resilience and purposeful living. Counselors should also help Black men to acknowledge the skills and knowledge they gain through their suffering, which might include empathy for other diverse individuals, their potential as a change agent, and leaving a legacy for future generations of African American men. Social and cultural factors are important because they provide a network of support (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, clergy, etc.). To facilitate this support, counselors can bring together family members, ethnic group members, and individuals who have had similar experiences so that they can communicate as a means of coping. Spiritual and intellectual communities can provide guidance for effective coping and resilience, and explanations for negative events. These methods of coping have proven successful in protecting individuals from PTSD symptomology.
Braxton-Newby and Jones (2014) introduce authentic engagement as a method for human service practitioners working with African American males. African Americans have a unique history of treatment and are often ignored or rendered invisible by racial/gender stereotyping. In addition, in professional literature Black male voices or firsthand accounts are rare. As a result, many African American males feel that social service agencies are not friendly to them. Authentic engagement includes five constructions: the Afrocentric perspective, the parallel story, the cool pose, soul, and the intersectional African American male. The Afrocentric perspective places African Americana males in the context of African history and culture. Placing Black males in their own history and culture challenges the context of mainstream stereotypes about them. The Afrocentric perspective allows service providers to evaluate African American males through a cultural system that values communalism and spirituality. It also protects Black males from internalizing racist perceptions of themselves.
The idea of parallel stories refers to the idea that Black males must be given the opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words, especially since society so often tells their stories for them. Techniques like narrative therapy allow Black males to relay their own stories and discuss all the factors that contribute to the development of the challenges they face. This is important because so often Black males are seen as being the problems themselves.
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Cool pose is a cultural tool that Black males use to bring vitality to their lives, transforming mundane, everyday aspects of their lives (Black, 1997). Cool pose is known as a strategy for combatting racism via hiding attitudes and beliefs and controlling outward behavior. Using this strategy, Black males show little emotion and act tough and cool so that they are not taken advantage of in a world that is uniquely hostile toward Black males. Service providers need to recognize and understand this tendency and to assist Black males in adopting alternative styles. They must understand that behind the cool pose may be hurt, pain, and a range of other emotions. They must not fail to recognize Black males’ needs for help. Majors and Billson (1992) describe cool pose as “ritualized forms of masculinity that entail behaviors, scripts, physical posturing, impression management, and carefully crafted performances that deliver messages of pride, strength, and control” (Majors & Billson, 1992, p. 4). According to Majors and Billson (1992), cool pose involves Black males masking their true feelings (i.e., anxiety and self-doubt) in the face of racial injustice. The theory suggests that cool pose encourages Black males to promote hypermasculine activity like athletics over intellectual pursuits like academics.
However, the theory of cool pose is critiqued because it presents Black male culture as primarily reactive, negative, and one-dimensional (Beasley et al., 2014). In some ways, it reduces Black male culture to a defense mechanism. Beasley et al. (2014) suggest that cool pose is only relevant to certain subgroups of African American males, and fails to take into consideration other factors that influence Black male masculinity such as class, sexual orientation, and environment. Many Black males exhibit the same cultural styles and also embrace academic achievement.
Soul refers to the special ways that African American males may express their racial pride through language, dance, music, or even manner of walking. To cultural outsiders, these styles may be misinterpreted as clownish, dangerous, or criminal. Service providers must be careful to avoid rushing to judgments of Black males by placing their cultural styles in context.
The intersectional Black male is a reference to the fact that Black males are multidimensional—there is no single Black male archetype or way of being. Many factors may influence Black male behavior (i.e., race, economics, gender, religion, etc.) depending on the situation. Service providers must be careful to see Black males as multidimensional despite stereotypes that paint them as one-dimensional. Black males exist at the intersection of many identities and social realities that each influence one another (Dottolo & Stewart, 2008).
People of African descent experience oppression in various ways and on multiple levels. Black males have a unique experience of those forms of oppression and their different levels. They have unique psychological, behavioral, and physiological responses to anti-Black male racism, not only as individuals but as critical components of Black families and communities. Many of these responses are misguided or self-destructive efforts to survive and be human in an environment that is constantly trying to kill Black males in ways both slow and more immediate. However, Black males have always found methods to not only survive this hostility but to be creative, productive, confident, and healthy. To do so, they clearly require the right family and community nurturing and support. This kind of support provides Black males with a healthy consciousness of who they are, the forces they are likely to be confronted with, and how they can achieve their destinies in spite of opposition while uplifting their communities. Culturally grounded approaches to healing and recovering from the damage done by anti-Black-maleness is crucial.
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