Anti-racism Work Research Articles

Navigating the Unseen Strain: The Hidden Challenges of Black Nursing Faculty in the Fight Against Anti-Black Racism.

As Black faculty members of a majority-White nursing school, we reflected on our unique experiences as part of a Black community engagement project, aimed at addressing anti-Black racism in nursing education. Our positionality created a complex scenario as we navigated emotionally heavy discussions, grappled with our ability to manage competing interests and care for our own well-being. The invisibility of the undue burden of anti-racism work is discussed. Recommendations for alleviating the burden are proposed based on this lived experience. Nursing schools must recognize the uniqueness of Black faculty members' experiences. Proposed strategies include creating mechanisms and resources for emotional support and incorporating anti-racism initiatives into the nursing school's values and strategic plan.

Strategies and Barriers for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Antiracism Work in Family Medicine Departments: A CERA Study.

Medical schools and family medicine organizations have been working on advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism (DEIA). Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) faculty members are disproportionately expected to lead DEIA initiatives, negatively affecting academic promotion and well-being. Our study aimed to describe the existing DEIA initiatives, strategies, and barriers to implementing support for DEIA work, as well as the implications of addressing the minority tax in US and Canadian family medicine departments. We used data collected as a part of the 2023 Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA) study. The survey was delivered to 227 department chairs across the United States and Canada. The survey response rate was 50.2% (114/227). Sixty-two percent of the respondents strongly agreed that advancing DEIA was important, and 55.4% reported having a DEIA leader, with 75.4% of those positions reportedly held by BIPOC faculty. Lack of funding was identified as the most significant barrier (26.2%), followed by lack of faculty expertise (18.7%). Department chairs who strongly agreed that DEIA work was important were significantly more likely to report having a DEIA committee, mentorship for BIPOC faculty, and a holistic review for faculty recruitment than those who did not strongly agree. Though most department chairs perceived advancing DEIA work as important, appropriate compensation and institutional support are often lacking. Further study is needed to explore ways in which departments can enhance their institutional support for DEIA initiatives.

Protection of racism from the anti-racism movement: taking colorblindness racial discrimination as an example

After the emergence of many great anti-racism movements, the supporters of traditional racism have significantly decreased. However, racism, or more precisely, liberal racism, including its specific form - color-blind racism, has replaced traditional racism and still exists in large numbers in society. Racism seems to have found new ways of survival in anti-racism concepts such as liberal racism and color blindness. To analyze the new forms of racism that exist in today’s society, this article takes colorblindness racism as the analytical object. Starting from the dual role of color blindness in the anti-racism movement, it points out that a large number of new forms of racism are prevalent under the guise of anti-racism, revealing the challenges and limitations faced in current anti-racism activities in order to provide assistance for future anti-racism work.

Quest for Equity: Using multiple methodologies to promote collaboration and engagement in anti-racism education

This article explores how multiple methodologies can create new spaces to reimagine anti-racism work and enhance engagement in anti-racist education. Through the combination of two methodologies, namely design-based research (DBR) and gamification, the paper describes the design formation of the game Quest for Equity, a collaborative and engaging speaking tool. The game improved player engagement and effective collaboration, while challenging performative and racist practices in higher education. This paper provides methodological contributions such as the unique use of facilitation observation and presents an interesting way to extract elements of multiple research approaches to suit contextual goals, reimagining new solutions to historical and contemporary problems.

Beyond physical and representational violence: the violence of Black children’s invisibility in public spaces

ABSTRACT George Floyd’s May 2020 murder by police underscored the interconnectedness of violence, systemic racism, and white supremacy in the US. This essay explores violence against Black children as an historical extension of the violence against Black adults and communities that is often at the centre of social justice and anti-racism work. We connect recent social media posts of Black children being ignored, waved away, or pushed by public amusement park performers with the current conservative political climate legislating the erasure or censoring of US history in K-12 schools allegedly to ‘save the [white] children’ from the misnamed ‘Critical Race Theory’.

Breaking the racial silence: putting racial literacy to work in Australia

ABSTRACT Race structures the lives of Indigenous peoples and other negatively racialized people in Australia. The language of race permeates institutions, workplaces, and is embedded in everyday life. Racial literacy as pedagogical praxis resists the racial contract that secures whiteness as a structure of possessive power. We explore the state of racial literacy in Australian education, and the obstructions and opportunities for educators to do anti-racism work. To this end, we draw on the preliminary findings from an ongoing research project, Breaking the Racial Silence, and use them to inform a theoretical framework for conceptualizing educators’ racial literacy practices. We bring to the fore effective strategies, practices, and programmes used to interrogate race and racism. Despite the efforts of educators, racial literacy in formal and informal education is oftentimes suppressed and concealed by languages and practices that sustain the practices and pedagogies of whiteness.

Gender and Sexuality Center Professionals' Narrative Accounts of Racialized Institutional Resistance to Anti-Racism Work

Abstract: Using data from a narrative study investigating the experiences of 20 gender and sexuality center (GSC) practitioners, this study examined how professionals described the racialized nature of institutions and its influence on their engagement with anti-racist practices. Findings revealed how participants perceived the foundations of GSC work as grounded in whiteness, how resources upheld whiteness, and the impacts of racialized organizations on professionals across racial identity. We provide implications for research and practice, arguing that a major contribution is to consider how the racialized nature of organizations of higher education is intricately connected to other forms of marginalization (e.g., queer and trans oppression).

Research with Black Communities to Inform Co-Development of a Framework for Anti-Racist Health and Community Programming.

The effects of systemic racism were exacerbated and amplified throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The resurgence of the "Black Lives Matter" movement in North America brought awareness to the public, especially white people, of the impacts of systemic racism in society and the urgent need for large-scale and institutional anti-racism work. In collaboration with a local Community Health Centre, this research focused on identifying priority areas for tailored and co-developed anti-Black racism interventions in health services and community programming, as well as examining how purposeful relationships can be created with African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) communities in London, Ontario. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in either French or English with nine formal or informal leaders from London's ACB communities. Interpretive description methodology guided analysis and interpretation. Participants indicated that anti-Black racism is ever-present in the community and in their lives, with systemic racism causing the most harm. Racism should be addressed by creating ACB-specific services, and education for non-Black communities; increased representation, inclusion, and engagement of ACB people within organizations, especially in leadership roles, are essential. A framework based on study findings to guide how organizations can develop authentic and purposeful relationships with ACB communities is presented. Organizations will continue to perpetuate systemic racism unless they actively seek to be anti-racist and implement strategies and policies to this end. The proposed framework can guide partnerships between health and community organizations and ACB communities, and support co-development of strategies to address anti-Black racism.

Addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion: A response of professional nursing organizations to the future of nursing: 2020-2030 recommendations.

One way in which professional nursing organizations have chosen to address the social determinants of health (SDoH) is through policy work focused on diversity, health equity and anti-racism activities. The recent report, Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity (FON 2020-2030), calls on professional nursing organizations and/or nursing coalitions to focus on addressing the SDoH to mitigate health inequities, including a focus on addressing racism and promoting practices to ensure the diversity of the nursing workforce. While these recommendations highlight issues of high importance to nursing and the broader society, they assume that professional nursing organizations or coalitions have not been sufficiently engaged in this work to date. Our goal was to better understand the current and/or ongoing activities of professional nursing organizations around their anti-racism work of diversity, health equity, and inclusion (DEI) activities recommended in the FON 2020-2030 report. To address this goal, we conducted a needs assessment of professional nursing organizations to document their DEI activities and the timing of these activities relevant to the recommendations in the report. The 26 responding organizations indicated they had been engaged in work addressing DEI issues for periods ranging from 4months to 51years. Minimal funding was the major barrier to advancing this work. Creating a vigorous shared DEI agenda across the profession, as suggested in the FON 2020-2030 report, will require input from nurses across the profession, as well as identification of resources to support this critical endeavor.

Public Health Accountability in Action: The King County Pandemic and Racism Community Advisory Group.

After a tumultuous 3 years of pandemic-, political-, and race-related unrest in the United States, the public is demanding accountability to communities of color (defined here as American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic people) to rectify historic and contemporary injustices that perpetuate health inequities and threaten public health. Structural racism pervades all major societal systems and exposes people to detrimental social determinants of health. Disrupting structural racism within public health systems is essential to advancing health equity and requires organized partnerships between health departments and community leaders. As those who are most affected by structural racism, communities of color are the experts in knowing its impacts. This case study describes the King County Pandemic and Racism Community Advisory Group (PARCAG) and its use of an innovative accountability tool. The tool facilitated institutional transparency and accountability in the adoption of community recommendations. PARCAG was influential in shaping Public Health-Seattle & King County's COVID-19 and antiracism work, with 66 of 75 (88%) recommendations adopted partially or fully. For example, a fully adopted recommendation in May 2020 was to report King County COVID-19 case data by race and ethnicity, and a partially adopted recommendation was to translate COVID-19 information into additional languages. PARCAG members were recruited from a 2019 advisory board on Census 2020 and were adept at shifting to advising on COVID-19 and equitable practices and policies. Organizations that have made declarations that racism is a public health crisis should center the experiences, expertise, and leadership of communities of color in accountable ways when developing and implementing strategies to disrupt and repair the effects of structural racism and efforts to promote and protect public health.

By Medical Students, for Medical Students: A Narrative Medicine Antiracism Program.

Medical schools have sought to incorporate concepts of race and racism in their curricula to facilitate students' abilities to grapple with healthcare disparities in the United States; however, these efforts frequently fail to address implicit bias or equip students with cultural humility, reflective capacity, and interpersonal skills required to navigate racialized systems in healthcare. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate an antiracism narrative medicine (NM) program designed by and for preclinical medical students. Preclinical medical students at a single center were eligible to participate from June-July 2021. Program evaluation included a postprogram qualitative interview and electronic survey. The semistructured interview included questions about program experience, lessons learned, and perspectives on antiracism curricula in medical education. Interviews were qualitatively analyzed using open and axial coding. Survey data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. A total of 30 students registered. All (100%) respondents reported "somewhat true" or "very true" in the postprogram survey when asked about their ability to reflect on their own racial identity, racial identity of others, and influence of their racial identity on their future role as a healthcare worker through the program. Qualitative analysis revealed 3 themes: (1) curricular engagement; (2) racism and antiracism in medicine; and (3) group experience. Subthemes included: meaningful theoretical content; multimodal works and unique perspectives; race, identity, and intersectionality; deeper diversity, equity, and inclusion engagement; reconstructive visions; future oriented work; close reading and writing build confidence in discomfort; community and support system; and authentic space among peer learners. This virtual, peer-facilitated antiracism NM program provided an engaging and challenging experience for participants. Postprogram interviews revealed the program deepened students' understanding of racism, promoted self-reflection and community building, and propagated reconstructive visions for continuing antiracism work.

Inclusion and anti-racism work as performance or deep work? It literally is either-or: A qualitative study in the CFT field.

This study explores the experience of promoting inclusion and anti-racism work as either performance or deep work in the couple and family therapy (CFT) field through narrative qualitative analysis. While performance-based approaches focus on meeting external expectations and diversity quotas, deep work involves critical self-reflection, ongoing learning, and a commitment to addressing systemic inequalities. The paper prioritizes how deep inclusion assists with developing new approaches to creating meaningful and lasting change in teaching, research, and clinical work in the CFT field. Some professionals in the field include educators, researchers, and therapists who are engaged in anti-racism work, a recognition of the impact of systemic racism on family dynamics and therapeutic interventions, and a commitment to centering the voices and experiences of marginalized individuals and communities. Implications present a need for ongoing education, training, and support for professionals in the CFT field and other family science and family mental health-related professions. This study also identifies limitations and future directions for research in promoting inclusion and anti-racism work in family science and family mental health-related fields. It is essential to promote inclusion and anti-racism as deep work to create more inclusive and equitable teaching, research, and therapeutic environments that value the experiences of all individuals and communities. Challenges include resistance from shaking systems and making ourselves and others vulnerable with uncomfortable and continuous conversations. Our primary goal is to contribute to and inspire dialogue about the perspectives CFTs and other mental health-related professionals are taking in the relationship to inclusion and anti-racism work.

At whose cost? Racialised differences in how domestic violence and sexual violence advocates adapted to COVID-19

Much of the research on COVID-19 and violence against women and girls (VAWG) has focused on the impacts on victim-survivors or on organisations offering support. This qualitative study aimed at documenting the coping strategies of, and the impacts on, support workers, specifically domestic and sexual violence advocates (independent domestic violence advisor [IDVA] and independent sexual violence advisors [ISVA]), in two London based organisations. The findings revealed a double load of supporting others while coping with the impacts of the pandemic on themselves and their families. An unanticipated but revealing finding was that the conjunction of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement made visible and visceral the daily work that Black women do to manage everyday racism, including in the VAWG sector. For these women ‘returning to normal’ was an unwelcome and unacceptable prospect, making anti-racism work in the VAWG sector an urgent priority.

Ethical guidelines for antiracism work in medicine: lessons from the antiracist healing collaborative

An explosion of antiracism in medicine efforts have transpired since 2020. However, no ethical guidelines exist to guide them. This oversight is concerning because the racism and white supremacy rife...

The Five Labours of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism Work by Racialized Academic Librarians

The Five Labours of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism Work by Racialized Academic Librarians

Keynote: Story Culture Live: Black American Story Spaces as Actionable Antiracism Work

Keynote: Story Culture Live: Black American Story Spaces as Actionable Antiracism Work

Gender and Sexuality Center Professionals’ Narrative Accounts of Racialized Institutional Resistance to Anti-Racism Work

Using data from a narrative study investigating the experiences of 20 gender and sexuality center (GSC) practitioners, this study examined how professionals described the racialized nature of institutions and its influence on their engagement with anti-racist practices. Findings revealed how participants perceived the foundations of GSC work as grounded in whiteness, how resources upheld whiteness, and the impacts of racialized organizations on professionals across racial identity. We provide implications for research and practice, arguing that a major contribution is to consider how the racialized nature of organizations of higher education is intricately connected to other forms of marginalization (e.g., queer and trans oppression).

Diminishing defensiveness in anti-racist discourse: Common pushbacks to online anti-racism content and suggestions for strategic maneuvers

When students are confronted with the knowledge that racism exists and detrimentally impacts the lives of others, there can be a sharp pushback experienced by anti-racist educators. However, not providing anti-racist education can lead to radicalization which causes further harm. However, by analyzing common “pushback” responses, educators can enter these spaces with knowledge to help strategize ways to guide people away from defensiveness, fear, and other strategies of resistance. Thus, our article aims to address the question: “What are common push-back maneuvers encountered in response to anti-racist education on social media?” This article draws on social media comments listed in response to four anti-racism educational films developed by the authors, which encompass both the racism expressed in response, and the ways that some commenters dealt with this pushback. The films were viewed nearly half a million times, and inspired many comments, both positive and negative. We analyzed these comments and noted a strong theme of push-back to anti-racism work, which we broke into specific categories. This article details the categories of this push-back, along with ways to move against its flow. We would like to remind readers that the content in this article involves direct quotations from public comments which include racism and hate and can be difficult or triggering to read.

FORWARD: Building a Model to Hold Schools of Public Health Accountable for Antiracism Work.

Schools of public health have increasingly adopted programs, praxis, and competencies for antiracist work. Fighting Oppression, Racism and White Supremacy through Action, Research and Discourse (FORWARD) was founded to accelerate antiracist work at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. Seven action corps reporting to an accountability cabinet were established with 183 participants. FORWARD achieved progress across five core pillars. We describe how an iterative, dynamic structure and explicit framework for accountability can guide future antiracism work. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(10):1086-1088. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307356).

Promoting anti-racism in the legal system: an application of the STYLE framework.

Racism is a critical social problem, and we present a framework to guide professionals in engaging in anti-racist practices. Professionals on the frontlines in psychology and related fields such as social work and public health have a responsibility to engage in anti-racist practices. Part of the professional role must be to advocate for justice through increased proximity to the issues and engagement in anti-oppressive practices. The current discourse introduces a framework through which people working in psychology and other related professions can promote anti-racism work, highlighting the legal system for illustrative purposes. While some professionals in psychology may not have direct experience with the legal system, many of the individuals served by psychologists do (e.g., clients/patients, students, community members). Our framework is represented by the acronym STYLE (Self-examination, Talk about racism, Yield time to anti-racism work, Learn about structural racism, Evaluate policies and practices). The goal of STYLE is to expand anti-racism science and practice within psychology and related fields. We describe new roles for professionals in dismantling health inequities and offer specific pathways to develop critical partnerships toward this aim. STYLE explicitly encourages active, intentional involvement of affected community members in the development and evaluation of approaches to health services. To achieve equity and to promote individual and organizational growth in anti-racism and ultimately anti-oppression work, professionals must focus on changing their STYLE.