Invisible Scars from Racism
Social stigma and discrimination have been a nationwide concern that has motivated many social movements and organizations to forefront changes. Despite these efforts, it is still a recognized problem with a prevalence varying in different cities and neighborhoods. As a result, a lack of awareness and recognition on how racism can be easily imposed on one and another makes this issue so impactful on the mental health.
In Experiencing Racism May Damage Memory Cognition, scholar Kat McAlpine exploits a longitudinal study on African American women and their lifelong health risks imposed by discrimination to shed light on such health and wellness concerns. Conveyed as the main point, McAlpine reiterated the connection between “exposure to racism and lower cognitive functions later in life” (2020). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its collaboration with a systematic review in 2015, racism is associated with higher rates of stress, increasing the risk of high blood pressure and a weakened immune system (2021). Further studies suggest that a constant exposure to racism can provide gateways to unhealthy coping behaviors, such as smoking, alcohol use, drug use, and excessive eating habits (Frellick, 2021).
These behaviors, psychologically, suggest that people who experience race-based stress and trauma frequently have similar experiences to people who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Kleinman & Russ, 2020). While the psychiatric disorder commonly occurs in people who have experienced or witnessed traumatic events, typically seen in disasters, war, and sexual violence, the rising experience of both direct and indirect systematic racism has left serious impacts to the mental and physical health of victims.
Beyond the community initiatives to combat against questionable policing and outbreaks of racially motivated physical and verbal attacks, systematic racism has made racial displacement, exclusion, and segregation an ongoing issue in all communities. The reason for this likely falls on transmitted traumatic stressors, a stressor that is transferred from one generation to the next—coming from historically racist sources or may be personal traumas passed down through families and communities (Mental Health America, 2021). This becomes an important concept highlighted by the social bond theory in which theorist Travis Hirschi argued that elements of social bonding includes the attachments to families and commitments to social norms and institutions (1969). How can understanding this systematic issue help victims of racism?
Like many topics in the field of criminal justice, racism, is also a complex phenomenon. Racism stems from individual experiences, systematic faults, direct traumatic stressors, vicarious traumatic stressors, and transmitted stressors (Mental Health America, 2021). The following statistics are a few examples of some of the prevalent nature of racism:
- In 2018, approximately 38% of the Hispanic community were verbally attacked simply for speaking Spanish. They were told to “go back to their countries,” called a racial slur, and/or treated unfairly by others (Lopez et al., 2020).
- The lack of cultural competency in resources for Native American communities have resulted rates of suicide to be 3.5 times higher than ethnic groups with the lowest rates of suicide (Leavitt et al., 2018).
- African Americans make up around 33% of the total prison population; this highlights an overrepresentation of racist arrests, policing, and sentencing in the criminal justice system (FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2019).
While communities have already and continued their efforts to address racism on many platforms, it is important to remember to maintain the awareness and recognition that racism is more than the definition of prejudice and discrimination against a person, it is a physical, emotional, and mental health issue, and allowing such racial trauma to control a victim’s life should be enough evidence for every level of government to intervene in their highest capabilities.
References
Frellick, M. (2021). CDC declares racism a serious public health threat. CDC. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210412/cdc-declares-racism-a-serious-public-health-threat
Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://criminology.fandom.com/wiki/Social_Bond_Theory#:~:text=The%20four%20basic%20elements%20of,an%20individual%20holds%20in%20society
Kleinman, B., & Russ, E. (2020). Systematic racism can leave black people suffering from symptoms similar to PTSD. Courier Journal. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2020/06/12/racial-trauma-can-leave-black-people-ptsd-symptoms/3160232001/
Leavitt, R. A., Ertl, A., Sheats, K., Petrosky, E., Ivey-Stephenson, A., & Fowler, K. A. (2018) Suicide among American Indian/Alask Natives – National violent death reporting system. MMWR. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6708a1
Lopez, M. H., Gonzalez-Barrera, A., & Krogstad, J. M. (2020). Latinos’ experiences with discriminations. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2018/10/25/latinos-and-discrimination/
McAlpine, K. (2020). Experiencing racism may damage memory, cognition. Boston University: The Brink. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2020/experiencing-racism-may-damage-memory-cognition/
Mental Health America. (2021). Racial trauma. https://www.mhanational.org/racial-trauma
Uniform Crime Report. (2019). Table 43. https://www.ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/tables-43