Anti-racist Practices Research Articles

Reflecting on Critical DEI Practices in Spatial Collection Development, Metadata, and Instruction

Knowledge, as it has been shaped in the United States, is grounded in whiteness. As a result, maps and geospatial data can be particularly harmful in perpetuating historically and experientially inaccurate narratives of space. As stewards of knowledge, librarians are uniquely positioned to implement policies advancing antiracist practices. The following paper analyzes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in cartographic collection development, metadata, and instruction, and discusses the opportunities for librarians to employ critical theory in their cartographic and geospatial library praxis.

Black Student-Athletes and racism pandemic: Building antiracist practices in athletics

The year 2020 was filled with injustices, fear, and uncertainty that has disproportionately affected Black communities in the United States and abroad. From the unprecedented number of deaths inflicted by COVID-19, specifically on minority groups, to the horrific murders of Black citizens by those in positions of authority and power, the world was once again reminded that racism is still alive. Black student-athletes are among those enduring trauma that has been consistent over centuries and are contending with the chronic nature of systemic racism as it pertains to being a Black athlete within the world of athletics and their respective schools. Through grounded theory, researchers captured the lived experiences of 14 Black student-athletes through qualitative interviews to ensure that sports psychology practitioners and researchers are equipped with the correct resources, knowledge, and skills, to aid in the healing of Black student-athletes although also advocating for expedited social reform and representation within the realm of education, law enforcement, politics, and mental health services. Five key domains emerged from this study including Identity Development, Perception and Expectations, Mental Health, Privilege, and Systems. The authors offer best practices within each domain in an effort to develop anti-racist practices to be implemented within athletic institutions and beyond. Lay summary: Black student-athletes are faced with systemic racism within all the worlds they live in, and as it pertains to being an athlete of color within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Black student-athletes are also coping with major life stressors and, as such, this paper gathered the lived experiences of student-athletes identifying as Black and explored how they experienced support during their tenure as student-athletes in an attempt to establish anti-racist and supportive practices within athletic communities. Implications for practice Develop strategies for athletes to understand and evaluate their identity. Integrate anti-racist practices into large systems including implicit bias training, undoing racism, and privilege education. Create tools and visuals for athletes of color, illustrating the institution’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Pin Up! The Interactive Documentary

Pin Up! The Movie: An Interactive Documentary uses oral history to explore an international subculture. In it, women and men adopt vintage style and advocate for social and political change. Specifically, they use the subculture to advocate for anti-racist practices, call for body positivity, and lobby for full equity and acceptance of LGBTQI subcultural members. These advocates do this with acknowledgement of historical racism and sexism, which is sometimes echoed in the contemporary subculture. This i-doc intentionally uses non-professional storytelling tactics (vertical video, online video recordings, strait to camera interviews) to transform notions of a proper “aesthetic” within the documentary genre. It also invites subcultural members to take over its social media feeds. This paper argues that actively approaching the i-doc as a shared authority demonstrates how emerging formats, gamification of storytelling, and non-narrative structures can result in a sense of subcultural authenticity: a way to use the documentary format to provide agency to both members of the subculture featured in the project, as well as to audience members.

Structural Racism

Structural Racism

PRETAGOGIA: SUBVERSÃO ATRAVÉS DE UMA EDUCAÇÃO ANTIRRACISTA

Education is one of the most effective combative tools for racism. Aware of this possibility, social, pedagogical and academic movements constantly formulate behaviors that enable the optimization of this fight. In this context, Pretagogy emerged, a theoretical-methodological framework that intends to contribute to the anti-racist confrontation. This article aims to present Pretagogy evidencing its precepts and objectives, through the reading of Petit (2015) and Silva (2019) and to demonstrate its applicability through the analysis of the work of Mendonça (2020). It is hoped that, finally, the exhibition carried out collaborates with the construction of new reflections and anti-racist practices in the educational context.

MTSS for Suicide Prevention and Intervention: Considerations for School Counseling Preparation

Youth mental health concerns have reached crisis-level with the American Academy of Pediatrics (2021) reporting a 51% increase for reported suicide attempts for 12-17 year old youth. School counselors play a pivotal role within the conversation on mental health and suicide specifically (ASCA, 2016; ASCA, 2020). In this article we outline how school counselors can organize their suicide prevention and intervention efforts with Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), grounded in a model by Dr. Rebecca Pianta, as well as prioritizing culturally sustaining, antiracist practices, data, prevention, and screening in all tiers. Specifically, at Tier 1, school counselors educate stakeholders, including students, on the warning signs. While at Tiers 2 and 3, school counselors identify and support students at risk of suicide. We highlight ethical considerations throughout, in the context of the article Suicide Intervention in Schools: If Not School Counselors, Then Who?

From Fiction to Knowledge

European institutions perpetuate a one-dimensional understanding of history, science, and society while sub-narratives remain invisible and silenced. Based on the life of the Ghanaian philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo, who lived and worked as an Enlightenment thinker in eighteenth-century Germany, and who has been neglected in German philosophical tradition, this article traces how museums and other cultural organizations continue exerting institutional power by reproducing dominant narratives and forms of knowledge. The example of Amo underlines remarkably how history is a construction of those in power. Incorporating anti-racist practices in museums and other cultural institutions requires a deep analysis of institutional history and its effects today. This paper draws on theories of, among others, Walter D. Mignolo, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot to uncover the existing racist dynamics and discriminating structures which persist through the merely superficial treatment of racism as a thematic focus rather than a starting point for building a fair and equal society for all.

Teaching Anti-Racism in an Aging Services Course: Lessons Developed and Lessons Learned

Despite high levels of racial disparities in health and well-being among older adults, curricula addressing how aging services systems contribute to or work to ameliorate these disparities are scarce. This paper introduces a module on inequalities and anti-racism in aging developed for an online course on aging services within a Master of Social Work program. First, materials that help students identify and understand racial inequalities in aging and in the programs that serve older adults are presented. Next, students are introduced to the applied context of how COVID-19 has exacerbated these inequalities. Finally, students critically engage in reflections and assessments of the available resources within aging services and advocacy organizations, providing recommendations for how these systems may better incorporate anti-racist practices. Challenges and opportunities will be discussed, including piloting this module in a virtual, asynchronous environment.

A Trauma- and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)-Informed Approach to Suicide Prevention in School: Black Boys’ Lives Matter

Black boys have been dying by suicide at an increasing rate. Although the reasons for this increase are unknown, suicide in Black boys is likely influenced by multiple, intersecting risk factors, including historical and ongoing trauma. Schools can serve as an important mechanism of support for Black boys; however, without intentional antiracist frameworks that acknowledge how intersecting identities can exacerbate risk for suicide, schools can overlook opportunities for care and perpetuate a cycle of racism that compromises the mental health of Black youth. By recognizing their own implicit biases, modeling antiracist practices, listening to and recognizing the strengths and diversity of Black youth, and fostering school-family-community partnerships, school psychologists can help transform the school environment to be a safe and culturally affirming place for Black youth. This paper outlines how school psychologists can apply a trauma- and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)-informed approach to suicide prevention in order to more holistically support Black boys, disrupt patterns of aggressive disciplinary procedures, and improve school-based suicide prevention programs. By applying this lens across a multitiered systems of support (MTSS) framework, school psychologists can help to prevent the deaths of Black boys and begin to prioritize the lives of Black boys. Impact Statement This article calls on school psychologists to take a trauma- and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)-informed approach for school-based suicide prevention and interventions. The sociopolitical context of suicide risk and protective factors in Black boys, as well as the influence of intersecting identities on these factors, underscores the importance of antiracist approaches towards building school-community-family partnerships. A trauma and JEDI-informed approach to suicide prevention necessitates a culturally responsive collective impact team and culturally grounded approaches to prevention and intervention across a multitiered systems of support for prioritizing Black boys’ lives.

School Leaders’ Use of Social-Emotional Learning to Disrupt Whiteness

Purpose: This article examines how school leaders connect Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) with anti-racist practices. Current literature has yet to explain how leaders support race conscious approaches to SEL that promote marginalized students’ well-being, particularly with White teachers who often resist learning about race and Whiteness. Research Approach: We conducted a qualitative study of three leaders in one district in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. The first data collection and analysis phase drew from interviews, observations, and artifacts from a larger study to identify anti-racist SEL intersections and the leaders associated with these intersections. In the second phase, we conducted additional interviews with three leaders and performed a critical frame analysis to characterize the frames used by leaders to shape what SEL means and who it serves. Findings: We describe three anti-racist SEL intersections in which leaders made explicit connections between SEL and broader anti-racist goals within their work with White teachers. We found that leaders framed SEL strategically to address White teachers’ emotions, and as tools teachers might use to understand and address students’ racialized classroom experiences Implications: Findings provide illustrative examples of leadership that connects anti-racist practice with SEL and explore how leaders’ novel understanding of SEL and anti-racism undergirds this leadership approach.

Polite responses to stigmatization: ethics of exemplarity among French Muslim elites

ABSTRACT Anti-Muslim hostility in Europe operates in a variety of forms and settings. While a rich body of work has highlighted the multifaceted stigmatization of Islam in European societies, little is known on how Muslims respond to it. Based on an ethnographic case study of a group of French Muslim activists, this article describes how they explain, rebut and cope with anti-Muslim hostility. Drawing on sociological research on antiracist practices, the article expands understandings of non-confrontational strategies designed to dispel prejudices gradually and educate racist people tactfully. More precisely, the French Muslim activists I interviewed urge their coreligionists to display good manners and exemplary behaviour in response to stigmatization, mobilizing a middle-class set of values encompassing politeness, discretion, socio-economic uplift and self-discipline. In doing so, these activists offer oppositional space to anti-Muslim hostility but also reinforce some of the hegemonic values of colour-blind French republicanism.

Structuring Poverty: How Racism Shapes Child Poverty and Child and Adolescent Health.

Black, Native, and Latinx populations represent the racial and ethnic groups most impacted by poverty. This unequal distribution of poverty must be understood as a consequence of policy decisions-some that have sanctioned violence and others that have created norms-that continue to shape who has access to power, resources, rights, and protections. In this review, we draw on scholarship from multiple disciplines, including pediatrics, public health, environmental health, epidemiology, social and biomedical science, law, policy, and urban planning to explore the central question-What is the relationship between structural racism, poverty, and pediatric health? We discuss historic and present-day events that are critical to the understanding of poverty in the context of American racism and pediatric health. We challenge conventional paradigms that treat racialized poverty as an inherent part of American society. We put forth a conceptual framework to illustrate how white supremacy and American capitalism drive structural racism and shape the racial distribution of resources and power where children and adolescents live, learn, and play, ultimately contributing to pediatric health inequities. Finally, we offer antipoverty strategies grounded in antiracist practices that contend with the compounding, generational impact of racism and poverty on heath to improve child, adolescent, and family health.

A Framework for Anti-Racist Publication in Palliative Care: Structures, Processes, and Outcomes

Systemic or structural racism describes an embedded pattern of explicit and implicit racial biases that, through policy and action, systematically confer advantage to white people and disadvantage Black, indigenous, and other people of color. Hospice and palliative care journals participate in this broader system of racial discrimination. Building on palliative care's explicit focus on patients’ goals and values, which may in and of itself comprise a form of social justice in healthcare, palliative care journals and their publishers have an opportunity to lead others in cultivating anti-racist practices and explicitly promoting equity. The publication life cycle of submission and solicitation, manuscript peer-review, and publication provide a framework for examining the structures, processes, and outcomes by which palliative care and other journals might address systemic racism. We describe the current academic publishing landscape, which diminishes the voices and experiences of racial and ethnic minority patients and undermines the careers of under-represented scholars. We then propose reforms that we believe will improve publication equity and quality as well as healthcare outcomes. These include an Equity in Publication checklist, solicitation of manuscripts on equity-relevant topics, promotion of scholars through editorial structures and peer review processes, and a standard Equity Rating for publications. Greater efforts to include non-dominant voices in every aspect of publication, through appropriate recognition of their scholarship and remuneration for their efforts, will drive equity in health outcomes. By pursuing an anti-racist and equity-focused publishing agenda, hospice and palliative medicine journals and their publishers have an opportunity to transform healthcare.

Embodying antiracist White Latinidad in medieval studies

AbstractThis essay presents an autoethnographic account of my coming to acknowledge my own whiteness while my Puerto Rican mother stressed that I was Boricua above all and my non‐LatinX White grandfather called me “the best kind of mix, a Texa‐Rican.” In my presentation at the inaugural RaceB4Race symposium, which was titled “How to Begin Embodying Antiracist Whiteness in Premodern Studies,” I began with a brief history of the United States Census forms since 1970 to demonstrate the socially constructed nature of the panethnic categories “Latino” and “Hispanic” that led to my mother's emphasis on my Latinidad rather than my whiteness, which, in turn, led to my own ethnoracial confusion. I draw upon research in medieval studies, LatinX studies, critical race studies, raciolinguistics, and critiques of institutional diversity work. One of this essay's goals is to stress that the violent identity erasure that Black LatinX, as well as other Black, Indigenous, People of Color, experience in addition to the racism they face every day is different from the ethnolinguistic exclusion and erasure that I experience. I share my narrative of learning to own my white identity to emphasize our need for truly intersectional practices within scholarship and institutional work with the hope that more White colleagues will reflect on the ways that their whiteness not only hinders their ability to see whiteness as a racial identity, but also contributes to the ongoing violence we perpetuate on our colleagues of color, even those of us who identify as white LatinX. These hindrances prevent us from fully embodying and enacting antiracist practices within medieval studies and academia more broadly.

9.3 ADOLESCENT IDENTITY AND RACISM

A focus on identity and an increasing capacity for abstract and moral reasoning are hallmarks of adolescent development. Following the deaths of George Floyd and others, along with the structural inequities noted in the infection rate and deaths of minorities secondary to COVID-19, there has been a societal reckoning on the effect of racism. This has attracted constant media attention to which adolescents have been inundated, leading to increasing anxiety, depression, and vicarious trauma. This is on top of the chronic stress those of marginalized communities might have experienced from direct exposures to racism. This presentation will explore the concept of race from the developmental perspective of the adolescent. We will discuss the different levels of racism, the unique lens that the pandemic has given on its influence on the social determinants of mental health in adolescents, and the role that child and adolescent psychiatrists can play. Brandon Newsome, MD, will ground the session with clarifying terminology such as racism, antiracism, prejudice, and social determinants of health, to ensure a common language. We will highlight key issues in the current syndemic of racism and COVID-19 and the way in which it has influenced outcomes of physical, mental, and social determinants of health in adolescents. We will then showcase how these issues might present in clinical encounters with adolescents. Finally, we will discuss how child and adolescent psychiatrists converse with teens on racism, social determinants of health, and antiracism. The audience will be engaged with questions, polls, and cases. Participants will be able to: 1) meaningfully discuss the different forms of racism and understand the social determinants of health; 2) recognize stressors of the current syndemic on behavioral and social determinants of health, in particular as it relates to adolescent development; and 3) discuss unique opportunities of psychiatrists in engaging and advocating for antiracist practices when working with adolescents and their families. This presentation will highlight specific challenges that 2020 and 2021 has brought regarding concerns of racism as experienced by adolescents, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and unique opportunities to address this with our adolescent patients.

Promoting Culture Change Within Organizations.

Promoting Culture Change Within Organizations.

Access to mental health for Black youths in Alberta

Introduction The objective of this study was to examine the barriers that influence access to and use of mental health services by Black youths in Alberta. Methods We used a youth-led participatory action research (PAR) methodology within a youth empowerment model situated within intersectionality theory to understand access to health care for both Canadian-born and immigrant Black youth in Alberta. The research project was co-led by an advisory committee consisting of 10 youths who provided advice and tangible support to the research. Seven members of the advisory committee also collected data, co-facilitated conversation cafés, analyzed data and helped in the dissemination activities. We conducted in-depth individual interviews and held four conversation café-style focus groups with a total of 129 youth. During the conversation cafés, the youths took the lead in identifying issues of concern and in explaining the impact of these issues on their lives. Through rigorous data coding and thematic analysis as well as reflexivity and member checking we ensured our empirical findings were trustworthy. Results Our findings highlight key barriers that can limit access to and utilization of mental health services by Black youth, including a lack of cultural inclusion and safety, a lack of knowledge/information on mental health services, the cost of mental health services, geographical barriers, stigma and judgmentalism, and limits of resilience. Conclusion Findings confirm diverse/intersecting barriers that collectively perpetuate disproportional access to and uptake of mental health services by Black youths. The results of this study suggest health policy and practice stakeholders should consider the following recommendations to break down barriers: diversify the mental health service workforce; increase the availability and quality of mental health services in Black-dominated neighbourhoods; and embed anti-racist practices and intercultural competencies in mental health service delivery.

Applying an ecosocial framework to address racial disparities in suicide risk among black youth

AbstractSuicide in Black youth is a major public health crisis. Given that racism is a core aspect of the lived experience of Black students in educational settings, efforts to reduce racial disparities in suicide risk must identify and address sources of racism in school contexts and facilitate culturally relevant coping strategies. This article highlights patterns associated with the emergence of risk in Black children and adolescents, applies the Ecosocial Theory of Disease Distribution to conceptualize a strategic approach to reducing racial disparities in suicide, and integrates empirical literature on the relations between racism and suicidality. Extant research findings are applied to conceptualize strategies specifically oriented towards reducing the incidence of suicidal behaviors in Black youth through treatment utilization and engagement strategies for school mental health services, the application of culturally relevant factors within school‐based prevention and treatment programs, culturally relevant risk assessment, and universal prevention using antiracist practices in schools.

Attempting to disrupt racial division in social work classrooms through small-group activities

Abstract
 The notion of racial difference and racial segregation has continued to be problematic in higher education studies. Students belonging to Ethnic Minority groups often feel segregated even in courses and classrooms that promote anti-discriminatory and anti-racist practices. This paper presents a study that investigated seventy-five students from the BA and MA student cohorts within a London-based university. Students were encouraged to integrate and interrogate matters of race and belonging during a seminar on protected characteristics designed to disrupt racial division. Qualitative surveys were conducted to understand participants' views about racial disruption and experiences after the activities. Findings revealed ongoing segregation after the activity in and out of the classroom, fear of approaching racialised spaces, the need for additional brave reflective spaces that disrupt racial segregation and foster better understanding about race. The paper concludes by stressing the significance and value of racially disruptive teaching activities and racial assimilation in social work programmes as a means of tackling racial bias, segregation and decolonisation.

“Did you get placed with all white ladies in your group?”: reflections on co-creating an anti-racist social work (virtual) classroom

ABSTRACT As a white social work instructor and therapist committed to anti-racist practice, I reflect on my experiences teaching group work virtually during a pandemic. I provide an example of how I inadvertently perpetuated white supremacy through a mistake I made in creating groups that isolated students of color. I discuss how I addressed this mistake with the class and worked with the students to co-create an anti-racist and anti-oppressive classroom setting through our group process. I offer strategies for how I will continue to deepen group processes centered in anti-racist practices, such as building trust through transparency, acknowledging mistakes, including opportunities for race caucuses, and creating continual optional check-ins with students of color in order to maximize and center their learning in my courses.