Representations of ethnicity in people's accounts of local community participation in a multi‐ethnic community in England

In this paper we examine the impact of the social construction of ethnic identities on the likelihood of local community participation. We do so in the context of an applied interest in the current policy emphasis on partnerships between government and local communities in initiatives to reduce health inequalities, and a conceptual interest in the role of social representations in perpetuating unequal power hierarchies. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 75 residents of a deprived multi‐ethnic area in south England. Informants described themselves as African‐Caribbean, Pakistani and White English; half men and half women, aged 15–75. We draw attention to the way in which ethnic identities may be constructed in ways that undermine the likelihood of local community participation. Stereotypical representations of ethnically defined ingroups and outgroups (the ethnic ‘other’) constituted key symbolic resources used by our informants in accounting for their low levels of engagement with local community networks. We examine the content of these stereotypes, and highlight how their construction is shaped by historical, economic and social forces, within the context of the ‘institutional racism’ that exists in England. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Racist Discourse in New Zealand and Australia: Reviewing the Last 20 Years

The discursive study of racism has developed considerably over the last 20 years, and the body of work that has emerged from Australia and New Zealand is reviewed. The historical significance and importance of studying racism is discussed. The increasingly subtle face of racism argues for methods that are sensitive to these changes. Critical, discursive approaches are introduced following which the colonial history of both countries is outlined. Race talk in New Zealand and Australia is reviewed with several key summary points being identified. The review concludes with the suggestion that this work has gone some way toward living up to the disciplinary responsibilities we have as social psychologists in seeking a better understanding of the production of racism.     

White Psychologists and African Americans’ Historical Trauma: Implications for Practice

This article reviews and synthesizes literature on the historical trauma of African Americans with an emphasis on how White psychologists can integrate awareness of historical trauma into clinical practice. Research supports that African Americans are affected by White racism in ways that parallel the effects of other interpersonal traumas. How African Americans are affected by racism depends on the individual, although the effects on the individual also occur within a shared cultural context. In addition to negative impacts, the literature also identifies African Americans’ core strengths and coping strategies that have a similarly historical basis. These strengths and coping strategies are discussed in their implications for White psychologists’ role in African Americans’ trauma recovery process.     

‘I have not witnessed it personally myself,but…’: Epistemics in managing talk on racism against immigrants in Ireland

Social psychologists who study racism or prejudice argue that various versions of these are constructed in ways to suppress or minimise their relevance. However, researchers have not particularly examined how knowledge-claims about racism can also be variously made or negotiated in attending to the relevance of racism. We offer such an examination through a discursive psychological analysis of interview talk with Irish nationals on immigration, since in these settings issues of immigration and racism are not readily relevant. Findings show that participants treated how knowledge of racism can be accessed and who has the rights to make knowledge-claims about racism, as relevant. Epistemic access and rights were negotiated in ways that showed sensitivity to possibilities for suppressing alternative claims about racism. These findings are discussed in relation to current social psychological and discursive approaches to racism.     

Normalization of Racism and Moral Responsibility: Against the Exculpatory Stance

In this article, we take the case of racism in contemporary Italy as a starting point for a discussion about moral responsibility for racism in cases where ignorance is involved. We focus on the issue of the normalization of racism and its contribution to different forms of ignorance to assess the extent to which these might potentially mitigate judgments of responsibility for racism, thereby grounding an Exculpatory Stance. After illustrating the phenomenon of the normalization of racism and offering an outline of how the normalization of racism contributes to ignorance, we argue against the Exculpatory Stance by appealing to a socially situated variety of capacitarian approach to the epistemic condition of moral responsibility. This approach provides us with the tools to claim that the moral ignorance favored by the normalization of racism does not mitigate judgments of individual responsibility. Finally, we point out that the interdependence of individual responsibility and the social environment is such that, in addition to backward-looking individual responsibilities for racism, there are also forward-looking, both individual and shared, responsibilities to counter racism in its various manifestations and the increased risk of moral ignorance connected to its normalization.     

A preliminary study of the moderating role of church-based social support in the relationship between racist experiences and general anxiety symptoms

The current study explores the potential buffering effect of church-based social support on the effect of racism on anxiety symptomology in a Black sample. Fifty participants completed a questionnaire packet containing measures of anxious arousal and stress (general anxiety) symptoms, church-based social support, and experience of racist events. Results indicated that church-based social support moderated the relationship between racist experiences and general anxiety symptoms such that at low levels of church-based social support the experiences of racism and stress (general anxiety) symptoms were significantly positively associated. The clinical implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Moral Imperatives for the Millennium: The Historical Construction of Race and Its Implications for Childhood and Schooling in the Twentieth Century

This essay argues strongly that racism in the United States hurts thefuture of all children. To eradicate this pernicious mindset inits institutional forms requires that we understand that race,as an idea that shapes social organization in this country,is a unique historical product dating from the colonial periodof the southern colonies of mainland British North America.Further, the mythology about American history, as it is taughtin school, excuses and legitimates continued inequality,oppression, and racism today. This essay traces the historyof class oppression from the 17th century, when the institutionof slavery was invented as a means of securing the unpaidchattel bonded labor of Anglo-Europeans, to the emergenceof unfree labor as a form of racial oppression, and subsequently the institutionalization of racial slavery inthe 18th century. Racial slavery, which elevated whitesupremacy and privilege, was still not synonymous with themodern form of pseudo-scientific racism that emerged as adefense of slavery in the antebellum period and its aftermathin the Civil War and Reconstruction. Racism and the legacyof white privilege is still used as a means of social controlto mask class relations and to thereby control and diminishcollective social action that potentially would occurin the absence of the color line. Knowledge of race as anhistorical construct created by human beings in particularcircumstances raises the possibility that race, racism, and its effects can also be changed by human beings acting in opposition to the conditions that artificially separate us.     

Racism as a stressor for African Americans. A biopsychosocial model.

Various authors have noted that interethnic group and intraethnic group racism are significant stressors for many African Americans. As such, intergroup and intragroup racism may play a role in the high rates of morbidity and mortality in this population. Yet, although scientific examinations of the effects of stress have proliferated, few researchers have explored the psychological, social, and physiological effects of perceived racism among African Americans. The purpose of this article was to outline a biopsychosocial model for perceived racism as a guide for future research. The first section of this article provides a brief overview of how racism has been conceptualized in the scientific literature. The second section reviews research exploring the existence of intergroup and intragroup racism. A contextual model for systematic studies of the biopsychosocial effects of perceived racism is then presented, along with recommendations for future research.     

Contemporary racism in australia: the experiences of Aborigines

In recent decades, social psychologists have suggested that contemporary racism is more subtle in nature than it had been in previous times. However, such theorizing has been from the perspective of the perpetrators. The present study follows a small number of other studies that have focused on the perspective of the victims of racism. It investigated the experiences of racism reported by 34 Aboriginal Australians during semi-structured, open-ended interviews. The data suggest that racism is experienced commonly and frequently by the participants and that much of it is overt or old-fashioned rather than subtle and modern. It is argued that if the data are reflective of what happens in intergroup encounters, social scientists may have embraced the theories of modern racism too readily. This may have contributed to the maintenance of social institutions that impact negatively on the minority populations in the community.     

When the seemingly innocuous "stings": racial microaggressions and their emotional consequences

Commonplace situations that are seemingly innocuous may nonetheless be emotionally harmful for racial minorities. In the current article the authors propose that despite their apparent insignificance, these situations can be harmful and experienced as subtle racism when they are believed to have occurred because of their race. In Study 1, Asian Americans reported greater negative emotion intensity when they believed that they encountered a situation because of their race, even after controlling for other potential social identity explanations. Study 2 replicated this finding and confirmed that the effect was significantly stronger among Asian Americans than among White participants. These findings clarify how perceptions of subtle racial discrimination that do not necessarily involve negative treatment may account for the "sting" of racial microaggressions, influencing the emotional well-being of racial minorities, even among Asian Americans, a group not often expected to experience racism.     

Racism: What It Is and What It Isn't

The words `racist' and `racism' have become so overused that they nowconstitute obstacles to understanding and interracial dialogue aboutracial matters. Instead of the current practice of referring tovirtually anything that goes wrong or amiss with respect to race as`racism,' we should recognize a much broader moral vocabulary forcharacterizing racial ills – racial insensitivity, racial ignorance,racial injustice, racial discomfort, racial exclusion. At the sametime, we should fix on a definition of `racism' that is continuouswith its historical usage, and avoids conceptual inflation. Isuggest two basic, and distinct, forms of racism that meet thiscondition – antipathy racism and inferiorizing racism. We should alsorecognize that not all racially objectionable actions are done froma racist motive, and that not all racial stereotypes are racist.     

One ring to rule them all: Master discourses of enlightenment—and racism—from colonial to contemporary New Zealand

We interrogated historical continuity and change in discourses of enlightenment and racism through the analysis of 160 years of New Zealand Speeches from the Throne (1854–2014, 163 speeches). Enlightenment discourses of benevolence and perfectibility were prevalent in all periods, much more so than racism. ‘Old‐fashioned’ racism took the form of an assumed civilizational superiority (including accusations of ‘barbarism’) during colonization, with ‘modern’ racism taking forms like blaming Māori for not ‘productively’ using the land. Both declined to almost zero by the 20th century, undermining the idea of ‘old‐fashioned’ versus ‘modern’ racism. Utilitarian discourses peaked in the late 19th to early 20th centuries as justification for Māori land alienation. ‘Master discourses of enlightenment’ consisted of a central core of social representations that changed at the periphery, with a gradual expansion of symbolic inclusion of Māori in discourses of national identity to the point where biculturalism is the dominant discourse for elites today.     

Agency,Structure, and Power: An Inquiry into Racism and Resistance for Education

This paper argues that the agency/structure dichotomy thatpredominates in racism discourse is problematic because itobscures how racism is produced and resisted at the local sitesof relations between individuals and between individualsand institutions. Racism permeates social relations,ensured by `knowledge' and guaranteed through self-regulation. Resistance to racism requires arecognition of racism's `local' character. As aresult, educators, particularly in classrooms,play important roles in resistance-practices.     

Why are they being so nice to us? Social identity threat and the suspicion of Whites’ motives

Abstract

Stigmatizing racism has made Whites’ kindness attributional ambiguous to people of color (POC). When this ambiguity is experienced in domains where stereotypes are active, POC may experience praise from Whites as a form of social identity threat. The current article reviews how POC are predicted to respond to Whites’ positivity as a function of their beliefs about Whites’ motives. To the extent that POC are suspicious of Whites’ motives and chronically discount positivity from Whites, praise and positive overtures from Whites were predicted to be threatening. Evidence suggests that POC suspicious of Whites motives are the most sensitive to positive responses from Whites, reacting with both greater threat and social accuracy compared to non-suspicious POC. The current work reviews the empirical evidence on suspicion and highlights avenues for future research that explores suspicion’s origins and capacity to shape the academic and professional identities of POC.     

Healing internalized racism: the role of a within-group sanctuary among people of African descent

This article addresses the role of a "within-group" sanctuary for healing internalized racism among people of African descent. Internalized racism is distinguished from racism, juxtaposing the different experience of those who are oppressed and those who are privileged by racism. It is suggested that a context consisting exclusively of persons of African descent can provide an optimally safe space for initial stages of healing from internalized racism. The anxiety that a collective of African descendants can generate among whites, and subsequently among those of African descent, is examined by raising questions as to its possible meanings. Whites are encouraged to use their privilege to support such self-determined sanctuaries, rather than to obstruct them. People of African descent are encouraged to tolerate the anxiety that can be generated without "changing back," and to examine whether internalized racism is also implicated.     

Exploring the Psychology of White Racism Through Naturalistic Inquiry

This article reports on the use of naturalistic inquiry methods to study the psychology of White racism. As a result of spending 16 years investigating this form of social pathology among more than 1,200 White people who came from diverse backgrounds and residential locations, the investigators identified 5 psychological dispositions that characterized the way White people cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally responded to White racism.     

Accounting for Racism Against Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand: A Discourse Analytic Study of the Views of Maori Adults

Previous discursive studies on the construction, reproduction and justification of racism have focussed on the accounts of perpetrators to the exclusion of the targets of racist talk. The current study redresses this imbalance by exploring the talk of targets of racism in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Interviews were conducted with 24 participants, 19 Māori and five Pākehā partners. Our social constructionist discourse analysis identifies four primary discourses that participants drew on to account for racism, two of which resonated strongly with the literature and two which spotlighted new areas of interest. A discourse of ignorance functioned to allow participants to account for racism by highlighting Pākehā ignorance of Māori people and culture, and of racism itself. The second discourse implicated the media for emphasising negative Māori news, avoiding positive Māori achievements and promoting negative stereotypes. A third discourse constructed Pākehā as possessing an innate sense of superiority which contributed to racism, and fourthly, institutionalised racism was used by participants to construct a colonial society which continued to marginalise Māori. Finally we consider the implications of these findings with respect to existing literature, some implications around the intersectionality and relationship between these discourses, and the importance of potential gains in understanding made possible through the study of targets' perspectives. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Empowering Ethnically and Racially Diverse Clients Through Prejudice Reduction: Suggestions and Strategies for Counselors

This article focuses on the persistent problems of prejudice in multicultural societies. Various theories of prejudice and other psychological, social, and political factors that contribute to prejudice are discussed. The salient feature of this article is the demonstration of several counseling theories and techniques as applied to case vignettes dealing with prejudice and racism.     

Cognitive Complexity and the Perception of Subtle Racism

The present research demonstrated that cognitive complexity is related to the perception of contemporary, subtle racism. Results indicated that the perception of subtle racism was related to attributional complexity. Further, greater attributional complexity was also related to greater racial complexity, defined as the ability of individuals to overcome the normative assumption that racism is no longer a major social problem in the United States and the extent that individuals think about racism. The relationship between attributional complexity and racial complexity held even when accounting for need for cognition, perspective taking, empathy, and political ideology. Finally, we found that racial complexity mediated the effect of attributional complexity on the perception of subtle racism. Taken together, the results of these three studies contribute a general cognitive mechanism related to the perception of subtle racism; an extension of cognitive and attributional complexity; and a new construct, racial complexity, related to the perception of contemporary, subtle racism.     

The challenge of professional identity for Chinese clinicians in the process of learning and practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy: the discussion on the frame of Chinese culture

One important element in psychoanalysis, which is derived from Western culture, is individualization: the independency and autonomy of an individual are highly valued. However, one of the significant essences in Chinese culture is that the collective interests transcend the individual interests and the interests of social groups are more important than those of families. Therefore, when learning and practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy, Chinese clinicians inevitably experience conflicts derived from this difference of cultural values. This article attempts to use a historical perspective to discuss the current challenges of professional identity for Chinese clinicians learning and practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.