Expressions Of Racism Research Articles

School bullying, school mindfulness and school academic performance: A structural equation modelling study

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to test the effects of school bullying on school mindfulness and school academic performance through a structural equation model. The study was framed around the correlational design method; school bullying was taken as the independent variable and school mindfulness and school academic performance were used as the dependent variables. The study participants consisted of 156 high school teachers working in three of the schools selected from various school districts by means of the maximum variation sampling method. The data were collected via the School Bullying Scale (Tintorer, 2004), the School Mindfulness Scale (Hoy, Gage, & Tarter, 2006), and the average scores on the Higher Education Transition exam for each school. Path analysis was conducted to enable associating measurement errors in both latent and observed variables. Our study findings show that school bullying negatively affects school mindfulness and academic performance and that school mindfulness positively affects academic performance. In addition, the findings reveal that verbal bullying, consisting of behaviours such as harassing phone calls, taking someone’s money or belongings by force, intimidating actions with violent threats, name calling, racist expressions and teasing, swearing, lying to others or insulting them, is more frequently observed than other bullying types.

FOOTBALL AND HATE SPEECH IN SOCIAL MEDIA: MESUT ÖZİL EXAMPLE

Sosyal medyanın gelişmesi ile birlikte geleneksel medyanın sınırlı etkileşimi, tek yönlü bilgi akışı sağlayan ve kullanıcı katılımına olanak tanımayan pasif yapısı yerini kullanıcıların yorumlarını, ürettikleri içerikleri ve kişisel görüş ve deneyimlerini paylaşmasına izin veren yeni medya araçlarına bırakmıştır. Sosyal medya uygulamaları birçok olumlu özelliği beraberinde getirmesine karşın birtakım sosyal sorunlara da neden olduğu söylenebilir. Sosyal medya platformları aracılığı ile tekrardan dolaşıma sokulan ırkçı, cinsiyetçi ve şiddet içerikli söylemlerin kullanıcılar tarafından sanal ve kamuya açık ortamlarda paylaşılması da günümüzde önemli bir sorun olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. İnsanlar sosyal medyada daha fazla etkileşim, beğeni ya da karşıt görüş alma amacıyla kendi görüş ve fikirlerini çok daha sert, direkt ve hedef göstererek belirtebilmektedirler. Nefret söylemi olarak kabul edilen bu tarz söylemler insan haklarına yönelik önemli bir tehdit unsuru olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Nefret söylemlerinin en çok kullanıldığı alanlardan birisi de futboldur. Kimi kullanıcılar sosyal medya ortamları vasıtasıyla şiddet dilini kullanarak futbolculara ya da futbolun diğer unsurlarına yönelik nefret içerikli söylemler üretmektedir. Nefret söylemleri yüzünden mağduriyet yaşayan futbolcuların başında ise Türk asıllı Alman futbolcu Mesut Özil gelmektedir. Mesut Özil’in 2018 yılında Rusya’da düzenlenen Dünya Kupası sonrasında kendisine yönelik ırkçı ifadeler yüzünden Milli Takımı bıraktığını açıklamasından sonra sosyal medyada konu ile ilgili kullanıcıların paylaştıkları içerikler söylem analizi yöntemi ile incelenmiştir. İnceleme sonucunda Özil’in nefret söylemi olarak adlandırılabilecek birçok ifadeye maruz kaldığı tespit edilmiştir. Bu çalışma sosyal medyada yer alan futbola ilişkin nefret söylemlerini ortaya çıkarmak ve bu konuda en azından futbol seyircisinde ve futbol medyasında farkındalık oluşturmak açısından önemlidir.

“She has promised never to use the N-word again”: Discourses of racism in a Swedish media debate

In Sweden, as in most European countries, antiracist discourses co-exist with new racism and right-wing populism. Self-images as antiracist are maintained through the strategy to deny racism and accusations of racism. This article addresses discourses of racism in a Swedish media debate that started with a YouTuber being accused of using the N-word. Through a categorization analysis of newspaper articles, that report on and debate the incident, the management of accusations and denials, as well as language ideologies and different perspectives on racism, are examined. The analysis shows how the YouTuber, and journalists, deny racism by claiming that the racist expression was an unintentional “gaffe”, thus categorizing the YouTuber as a non-racist. This understanding of racism, as an individual and intentional phenomenon, dominates the debate. However, some debaters advocate a structural discourse of racism, focusing on racist activities rather than racist individuals. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that the media context does not provide room for a nuanced discussion about structural racism and racist language. Instead, the category work indicates that the maintenance of social relations and an antiracist self-image is the core activity of the interaction.

Teaching Field Educators About Courageous Conversations Concerning Racism and Religious Bigotry

This article describes a pilot workshop designed by a social work program to help field educators and their students respond more effectively to two forms of injustice, expressions of racism and religious bigotry (RRB). The workshop comprised an interactive presentation about how to engage clients and colleagues in constructive RRB conversations, foster courageous environments for meaningful conversation, and employ specific strategies for addressing expressions of RRB. The workshop evaluation included focus groups inviting participants to provide feedback on their expectations for the workshop, what they learned, and how the workshop could be improved. Participants provided concrete suggestions for enhancing the workshop.

The Legal Regulation of Hate Speech: The International and European Frameworks

Hate speech is a threat to the proper functioning of a democratic society and a damning force to central values such as respect and solidarity. It harms us on an interpersonal, community and societal level and ‘is speech that intentionally attacks a person or a group based on race, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, or any other prohibited criterion.’ In a world of rising populism and far-right extremism, hate speech, as a by-product of such phenomena needs seriously to be addressed. On an international and European level, the tools that have been developed to this end are mechanisms, which directly prohibit certain types of speech. At the same time, international and European documents provide for the restriction of free speech if such speech, inter alia, violates the rights of others. The documents that will be discussed in this paper also include non-destruction clauses, an avenue which has been used predominantly by the European Court of Human Rights to oust negationst and revisionist speech from Convention protection. This paper will assess the relevant provisions that exist on an international (United Nations) and European (European Union and Council of Europe) level, to tackle hate speech. As a first step, the paper will elaborate on the definitional and contextual arena of hate speech and will proceed to look at the United Nations (UN). In particular, it will analyse Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which prohibits, amongst others, the dissemination of ideas of racial superiority. It will then assess Article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on the prohibition of any advocacy for religious, national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence. As well as the substance of the aforementioned articles and the related jurisprudence of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Human Rights Committee (HRC), the paper will also consider other documents such as General Recommendations and Concluding Observations. Following the UN framework, the paper will look at the Framework Decision on Combating Certain Forms and Expressions of Racism and Xenophobia by means of Criminal Law, which is the only legal tool existing at a European Union (EU) level to tackle hate speech. As reflected in its title, it is limited to racist and xenophobic speech. The paper will subsequently consider the Council of Europe’s Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime, Concerning the Criminalisation of Acts of a Racist and Xenophobic Nature Committed through Computer Systems as the only tool on this level, to tackle hate speech directly, albeit only that appearing online. It will close with the key case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which sets out the position of the Court in interpreting the limits of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) when such speech is deemed to be hate speech. One of the key premises, on which the analysis of the above will be effectuated, is that all the relevant hate speech legislation available on the above mentioned levels is inherently flawed due to what I refer to as the hierarchy of hate resulting from the prohibition of certain types of hate speech, for example racist speech but not others, such as homophobic speech.

Silenced Realities: The Significance of the “Old Racism” in Contemporary Australian Society

ABSTRACTThis article revisits the “old/new” conceptualisation of racism within race scholarship from Western liberal democracies. Contemporary race scholars argue that racism in Australia, when not denied among the populace at large, is marked by subtle and covert forms. Often termed the “new” racism, these “racisms” are categorised as founded upon a belief in cultural superiority, where the particular out-group's supposed values are held against “Australian values” and deemed incompatible or inferior. This shift in Australian race scholarship is often contrasted against the “old” racism, defined as expressions of racism overtly delivered and based upon a belief in a biological and genetically inherent racial hierarchy. In drawing upon both global and historical enactments of white supremacist racism, and viewing this particular form of racism as always an amalgamation of religio-cultural and biological ascriptions of inferiority of the Other, along with being overt/covert in delivery, this article seeks to highlight the limitations inherent within the terms old and new when conceptualising racism. The experiences of three main racially minoritised out-groups in contemporary Australian society are utilised to illustrate the contemporary significance of the supposed old racism, signalling a call towards better representation within Australian race scholarship for these often under-represented groups.

Challenges in Promoting Race Dialogues in Psychology Training: Race and Gender Perspectives

Given today’s racial diversity and the ongoing racial tensions in our communities as a result of police shootings of unarmed Black men, terrorist acts in the United States and globally, and expressions of racism and xenophobia in the political arena, it is essential for psychologists to be culturally competent. Four diverse faculty members engaged in a self-study of their multicultural teaching practices to explore the challenges inherent in participating in authentic race dialogues. In this article, we discuss the findings from our independent and collective analysis of faculty narratives and provide recommendations for facilitating honest and courageous race dialogues in graduate psychology training.

Freedom of racist speech: Ego and expressive threats.

Do claims of "free speech" provide cover for prejudice? We investigate whether this defense of racist or hate speech serves as a justification for prejudice. In a series of 8 studies (N = 1,624), we found that explicit racial prejudice is a reliable predictor of the "free speech defense" of racist expression. Participants endorsed free speech values for singing racists songs or posting racist comments on social media; people high in prejudice endorsed free speech more than people low in prejudice (meta-analytic r = .43). This endorsement was not principled-high levels of prejudice did not predict endorsement of free speech values when identical speech was directed at coworkers or the police. Participants low in explicit racial prejudice actively avoided endorsing free speech values in racialized conditions compared to nonracial conditions, but participants high in racial prejudice increased their endorsement of free speech values in racialized conditions. Three experiments failed to find evidence that defense of racist speech by the highly prejudiced was based in self-relevant or self-protective motives. Two experiments found evidence that the free speech argument protected participants' own freedom to express their attitudes; the defense of other's racist speech seems motivated more by threats to autonomy than threats to self-regard. These studies serve as an elaboration of the Justification-Suppression Model (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003) of prejudice expression. The justification of racist speech by endorsing fundamental political values can serve to buffer racial and hate speech from normative disapproval. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Right to Be Racist in College: Racist Speech, White Institutional Space, and the First Amendment

Throughout the post–civil rights era, colleges and universities across the United States have periodically experienced explicitly racist incidents on their campuses. From the hurling of racial slurs at students of color, to the hanging of nooses on campus, to students donning Ku Klux Klan outfits or throwing “ghetto” parties that caricaturize communities of color, these incidents challenge the notion that modern racism has changed to a more subtle form, referred to as color‐blind racism. We place these incidents within a broader context of race and institutions, suggesting a connection between overt racist expressions and the more covert elements of neoliberal color‐blind racism. Through a critical discourse analysis of news stories about these incidents, the website of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and the controlling legal cases involving racist expression on campuses, we suggest that explicitly racist incidents operate in tandem with neoliberal educational policies and color‐blind racism to mark and reinscribe colleges and universities as white institutional spaces.

On the back of blackness: contemporary Canadian blackface and the consumptive production of post-racialist, white Canadian subjects

ABSTRACTThis article is based on a qualitative research project examining the phenomenon of contemporary Canadian blackface. It addresses the discursive juxtaposition of blackface with the claim to Canadian racial progressiveness that typically attends public debates about blackface. I argue that blackface and the discourses defending it are forms of racial consumption through which ostensibly progressive white subjectivities are secured. I further argue that contemporary Canadian blackface discourse is postracialist in its ability to juxtapose racist expression with claims of racial transcendence, and I identify this postracialism as a long-standing feature of Canadian national narratives that are partially constructed through revisionist understandings of the nation’s relationship to blackness, and against an ostensibly more virile racism in the US. This analysis reminds us of the symbiotic relationship between racial fetishization/fascination as found in contemporary blackface, the foundational white supremacy of the Canadian settler-colonial context, and the always uneven terms upon which blackness is included in Canada. It clarifies what is at stake for Canadians who participate in blackface and in defending it, and helps us to understand the pedagogical import of both blackface and Canadian egalitarianism for perpetuating anti-blackness in Canada.

Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice by David Pilgrim

Reviewed by: Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justiceby David Pilgrim P. Nicole King Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice. By David Pilgrim. Foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr.(Oakland, Calif.: PM Press, 2015. Pp. xii, 187. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-62963-114-1.) David Pilgrim is the author of Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justiceand the founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. The museum is “the nation’s largest publicly accessible collection of racist artifacts,” which are “used as tools to facilitate a deeper understanding of historical and contemporary patterns and expressions of racism” (p. 172). The book is organized, clear, and engaging, with many high-quality color images from the museum’s collection, making it an important and affordable book for teaching the history of racism and aspects of social justice to undergraduate students in many fields. Pilgrim writes, “I am a garbage collector—racist garbage” (p. 1). The museum’s primary goals are to document and provide a safe space for the discussion of the social and historical implications of structural racism in the United States through directly engaging racist material culture. Pilgrim’s collections primarily focus on everyday objects—salt and pepper shakers, postcards, matchbooks, and popular culture items—where racism has been made material in quotidian ways. Both the museum and the book point toward a truth and reconciliation process, as Henry Lewis Gates Jr. states in the foreword, to confront how racism is embedded in the history of this country. The first two chapters of the book are fascinating and original explorations of why Pilgrim came to collect racist objects and how these objects can function as unorthodox teaching tools. In the second chapter, Pilgrim shares the basic pedagogical premise of the book. First, “you have to reach people where they are,” and second, “intellectually beating down someone makes teaching them improbable” (p. 34). Understanding Jim Crowis an example of the importance of public history projects that bring difficult social issues out from the shadows. Chapter 4 explores the caricatured black family—mammies, Uncle Toms, and pickaninnies. Chapter 5 offers a more detailed investigation of “Flawed Women,” and chapter 6 addresses “Dangerous Men” in breaking down different racial stereotypes and addressing issues of gender, class, and region. [End Page 199]While these later chapters provide a necessary context for the book, and especially its many images from the museum collection, they break no new scholarly ground. The final chapter, “A Night in Howell,” is a fascinating conclusion that returns to the narrative approach of exposition used in the earlier chapters. The reader is taken to a Ku Klux Klan memorabilia auction in Howell, Michigan—an area known as a historic hotbed of the Klan and white supremacy—where Pilgrim bid on a Klan robe. The Livingston County Diversity Council invited Pilgrim to bid on the Klan robe so it could be used to promote social justice. The skillful dramatization of the racism Pilgrim experiences in Howell and the attempts by some in the community to overcome the past of white supremacy is a fitting conclusion to a book that speaks to both the hard-fought progress toward justice and how very far we, as a country, still have to go to challenge white supremacy in its many forms. Pilgrim’s book is an important read for publicly engaged scholars. He writes, “I learned that a scholar could be an activist, indeed must be” (pp. 4–5). It is vital for scholars in the humanities and social sciences to engage with Pilgrim’s perspective in the same way it is important for visitors to the Jim Crow Museum to engage in an act of envisioning justice. Understanding Jim Crowfunctions as a traveling exhibition, expanding the reach and audience of the museum. Some of the images in Pilgrim’s book are disturbing. However, that is the point. P. Nicole King University of Maryland, Baltimore County Copyright © 2017 The Southern Historical Association

Monitoring racist and xenophobic extremism to counter hate speech online: Ethical dilemmas and methods of a preventive approach

The rise of racism in Europe In recent years online racism has seen a quick and serious growth in many European and non-European countries, till to become a worrying global phenomenon. One of the most striking examples of such process is the rise of White Supremacist Movements online. Their strategy mainly consists in disguising their hidden political agenda and attempting to subvert and destroy civil rights by presenting their standpoints through an overturn of the rhetoric of the civil rights movement. Undoubtedly, the increasing racism which is rotten in hidden racist expressions, is exploiting “favorable” conditions as the financial crisis, the increase of social conflicts and the rise of populist issues in politics. In Italy, as an example, UNAR, the Italian national anti-discrimination Office, documented that complaints for online racism weighed for 30.9% of the overall cases involving the media (UNAR, 2013). Similar situations also occurred in other European countries such as Slovenia, Finland, Hungary and United Kingdom, as it emerged by part of the research carried out within the framework of the European project LIGHT ON. Nowadays, racist claims are often hidden under a subtle and sophisticated rethoric. In fact, a huge amount of disguised racist contents is currently published on the Internet in form of occasional bigotry or individuals’ outburst, whereas they are, as a matter of fact, intended to foster racist attitudes among people and to support the “normalization” of racism. Some scholars defined as “common sense racism” or “rational racism” talking against immigrants, refugees, minority members (as well as homosexuals and disabled) as undesirable and avoiding to be labeled as “racist”.

Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through World War II. By Elliott Young.

Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through World War II . David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History. By Elliott Young. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. xvii + 360 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, charts, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95, paper.) This is a fruitfully ambitious attempt to understand Chinese migration to important destinations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, and Cuba in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its remarkably extensive scope represents a pathbreaking contribution, as an international perspective helps readers understand the varied experiences of Chinese immigrants in different countries. For example, while the Chinese became victims of nationalistic xenophobia in Mexico, their compatriots’ disproportionate participation in the wars of independence “helped to mitigate the most virulent expressions of racism” in Cuba (p. 13). But this book is not merely a traditional comparative study. Rather, … y3chen{at}uci.edu

I ett antirasistiskt rum

Anti-racism in contemporary Sweden is often manifested in protests against explicit racist expressions and acts. However, anti-racism also concerns the attention to and questioning of structures, prejudices and norms. This approach to anti-racism is often emphasised by those who are themselves victims of racism. One example is MAKTHAVARNA (“the power holders”), an anti-racist platform on the social networking site Instagram. MAKTHAVARNA targets those who are directly affected by racism. White followers of the account are asked not to post comments or contribute to the discussions. From a postcolonial perspective and with linguistic methods, this study examines the interactions on MAKTHAVARNA , where victims of racism share their experiences of white supremacy and where white people interfere in the discussions despite the separatist rules. The analysis shows how norms of whiteness are translated in speech acts made by white followers who ask questions, make judgments and expect information, which results in the (re)production of asymmetric relationships. The position of those affected by racism is formed by the linguistically (re)produced normative white position. However, the hierarchical relationship between these positions is dislocated when the victims of racism reclaim precedence, by for example citing and interpreting white people’s utterances from their own perspectives. Furthermore, the analysis shows how the terms for participation in platform discussions are set up linguistically and technically in the digital social media. Consequently, through this media, a public space and precedence in defining anti-racism are provided for the target audience of MAKTHAVARNA . White followers, on the contrary, cannot participate actively on the platform – not even with good intentions – without linguistically reproducing hierarchical relationships and norms of whiteness.

Analysis of a Racism Hoax at Oberlin College

It is often alleged that American society is racist, even though it is acknowledged that overt expressions of racism are extremely rare. How do people know that it is racist, then? This chapter raises the possibility that this claim of racism is often based on a projection. The value of the father’s accomplishments, through which he attempted to gain mother’s love, has been denied and assertions of their value are projected onto the father and experienced as white supremacy and racism. Among those who adopt this view, it provides the basis for their experience of the world, and of their proper place within it, but this view of the world is entirely in the mind and hence rests on faith. They need to keep this faith constantly renewed. I illustrate this through an analysis of the response, centering around an anti-racist convocation, to an efflorescence of racist material at Oberlin College in 2013. In fact, the material had been produced as part of a hoax. The administration knew that, but let the convocation proceed anyway. Why was that? I compare the convocation to a religious revival meeting, for which the provenance of the provocative material was not an important consideration. Within exclusively maternal psychology, by playing along with this, the administration was just doing what it thought was its job.

K-Pop nationalism: Celebrities and acting blackface in the Korean media

Growing internet exposure of Korean media and popular culture has highlighted a phenomenon common to Korea for more than 30 years: media celebrities ‘acting black’ for public consumption, while denying accusations of racism. This paper analyses the link between media representations of Korean nationalism and celebrity blackfacing by analysing recent blog and website debates on the phenomenon and argues a direct correlation to a form of Korean nouveau-riche nationalism. It looks at public commentary – both Korean and international – produced over blackfacing acts by ‘K-Pop’ groups such as Girls' Generation, Beast and Bubble Sisters, which debate reasons for the media idols' expressions of racism, ethnocentrism and attitudes towards the others, and whether these attitudes are expressed (un)knowingly, and with/without malice. Historically, Korean media has included such negative depictions of African-Americans for more than 30 years, with the depictions generally taken at face-value and as ‘normal’ comedy by Korean audiences. During the pre-internet 1980s, Korean comedians regularly performed skits with Rasta wigs and darkened faces without attracting criticism. However, increasing internet viewerships have focused critical attention on K-Pop celebrity blackfacing, particularly on its active manifestation of Korean nationalism and African-American mimicry.

Denial of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity in the Jurisprudence of Human Rights Monitoring Bodies

In 2008, the EU Council after long disagreement adopted a Framework Decision (FD) on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law. The principal aim of the decision was to institutionalise at the EU level a framework to halt the growing instances of Holocaust denial. However, proposals from central and eastern European member states led that concept of denial to be applied to other historical issues. The EU example has inspired debates about ‘memory laws’ also in countries outside the EU and stimulated discussions on widening the existing limitations on freedom of expression in some of the member states. This has led to alarm among historians that increasingly legal regulation will construct views of historical events. This article traces the evolution and comparative assessment of ‘memory laws’ in the jurisprudence of the two human rights monitoring bodies: the Human Rights Committee (HRC) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It analyses the arguments in favour of limitation of free speech in the jurisprudence of both bodies and gives a critical appraisal of their jurisprudence in the light of the new claims for expanding ‘memory laws’.

Alienation and empathy as mediators of the relation between Social Dominance Orientation, Right-Wing Authoritarianism and expressions of racism and sexism

Prior research has established a link between Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), empathy, and generalized measures of prejudice. Whether empathy functions as a mediator for more specific forms of prejudice has not been studied. Furthermore, alienation and its role in predicting prejudice have been given little attention in the literature. Our results found that empathy functioned as a mediator for SDO, but only for sexism, not racism. Alienation was found to act as a mediator between SDO and both racism and sexism. The relation between Right-Wing Authoritarianism and racism and sexism was not mediated by alienation.

Racist Language in Society and in Dictionaries: A Pragmatic Perspective

After a reference in the Introduction to action by pressure groups against derogatory language used by the speech community when referring to particular social groups or social convictions, mention is made of various unprotesting social groups. The whole of section 2 is devoted to a discussion of racist language in society. Seven different categories are illustrated with examples from various languages. The important question of how racist language should be handled in dictionaries is examined in section 3. Examples of protests by ethnic pressure groups are given, followed by a wide-ranging discussion of subjects such as the inclusion or exclusion of racist lexical items, definitions and usage labels of racist items, and the utilization of usage examples of racist items with definientia. Where applicable, suitable definitions and effectual usage labels are suggested. <b>Keywords:</b> definientia, ethnic, examples of racist language, fauna and flora, geographic names, inclusion or exclusion, interracial, multicultural and polyethnic societies, pragmatic perspective, pressure groups, race, racist, racist expressions, racist language, racist language in dictionaries, racist language in society, racist secondary senses, school dictionaries, unprotesting social groups, usage examples, usage labels

How should nurses deal with patients' personal racism? Learning from practice

This paper aims to promote practice development in the difficult area of managing patients' expressions of personal racism within the clinical environment. Racism is a global phenomenon and it is well documented that nurses experience racism within their routine practice. Nurses face unpleasant dilemmas in managing racist patients who are also vulnerable because of their health status. The paper is based on the ethnography of acute mental health nursing, conducted within a UK hospital. The study found that nurses conceptualized patients' expressions of racism as a consequence of their mental ill-health and that they managed this difficult issue through nursing methods of direct engagement, trouble avoidance and the minimization of strangeness. It is concluded that patients' racism cannot be managed by following simple, procedural rules but neither should it be managed 'behind closed doors'. A culture should be facilitated in which nurses can feel secure that colleagues and managers will take their concerns about personal racism extremely seriously and engage with, and value their contribution in working out just what to do in specific cases. The nursing methods discussed can be used as a basis for practice development in this unpleasant and uncomfortable area.