Racist Incidents Research Articles

Saving America

Saving America Jan Garden Castro (bio) Quichotte Salman Rushdie Random House https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612467/quichotte-by-salman-rushdie/ 416 Pages; Print, $18.99 Quichotte (pronounced key-shot) stirs up endless questions as Rushdie's fiction mirrors 2020 world events: the Black Lives Matter movement has blasted the lid off of racism in America and worldwide as targeted violence against non-whites makes headlines. In another direction, drug companies who bribe doctors to overprescribe opioids are being prosecuted: John Kapoor is the first drug company CEO convicted of criminal schemes to induce doctors to hook patients on an addictive form of fentanyl and Purdue Pharma has pleaded guilty and paid eight billion dollars—but so far no Sackler family members have been jailed. (Because they are white?) Quichotte fictionalizes Kapoor and addresses the big story that opioid suicide and overdose deaths in the United States have risen from 21,000 in 2010 to 70,237 in 2017, according to CDC and the NIH (National Institute on Drug Abuse) statistics. Enter Miss Salma R, a strong-willed Indian ex-pat and TV host who becomes a fentanyl addict. Rushdie's cautionary yet hopeful metafiction cloaks hard truths about racism and addiction in America in a tale purportedly written by a second-rate writer named Sam DuChamp or Brother, who explains it this way to his son: He tried to explain the picaresque tradition, its episodic nature, and how the episodes of such a work could encompass many manners, high and low, fabulist and commonplace, how it could be at once parodic and original, and so through its metaphoric roguery it could demonstrate and seek to encompass the multiplicity of human life. Sam's quest novel opens with allusions to Cervantes' 1505 Don Quixote, a saga in which the main character parodies those whose fantasies exceed their capabilities. First, a rambling monologue introduces the inner thoughts of Sam's fictional character Ismail Smile, who selects his own name Quichotte after remembering listening, as a boy, to his father's vinyl recording of the Jules Massenet opera Don Quichotte. In writer Sam's parallel "real" universe, his son has rejected both birth parents, now leads a cult, and wears an "original" mask from Man of La Mancha, the 1965 musical set in a prison where the fictional Cervantes is writing a fictional Don Quixote. Sam's son, or the Son of Sam, is a creepy loner involved in unspecified cult and cyber-spy activities as his character is introduced. The main characters in the novel, both good and evil, come from Bombay or other locations in India, but all are now American citizens with varied careers: Sam is a mystery writer who invents Ismail Smile, a traveling salesman who works for his rich cousin Dr. R. K. Smile, who runs the highly profitable Smile Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company pushing a fentanyl sublingual spray. Dr. Smile's wife Happy Smile delights in being an arts patron and helping others. Salma R., a cinema star in India who moved to New York in her mid-twenties and starred in the Five Eyes spy series, now hosts a popular TV talk show. Smile is a huge Salma fan and addicted to watching TV in general when he's on the road selling drugs. Human Trampoline is Smile's sister in New York; her story has parallels with that of Sam's sister in London. These two women are sensible, have some of the best lines, and their personalities are not as inflated as the men's. Many parallel situations in the lives of Sam the writer and Quichotte have different outcomes but start with each being estranged from his son and sister, embracing a dual American-East Indian identity, and facing unprovoked racist incidents due to their brown skin and features. Ismail Smile, the tall, slender, older East Indian main character, reminds readers of the character Ishmael who opens Melville's Moby Dick (1851)—the only survivor of a captain's insane whale hunt. But Ismael uses an Americanized version of his Indian name, calling himself Smile Smile. Smile's cousin Dr. R. K. Smile is a charming con man who boasts he...

Has the Covid-19 pandemic undermined public support for a diverse society? Evidence from a natural experiment in Germany

ABSTRACT The Covid-19 pandemic has led to widespread worries that the health crisis is resulting in generalized hostility towards minorities and reduced support for a diverse society. Relying on a large survey of diversity attitudes in Germany fielded before and during the pandemic, we employ a quasi-experimental design to evaluate whether such a trend has occurred among the general public. Past work suggests two competing expectations – one anticipating a rise in hostility grounded in threat theories, and one anticipating stability grounded in public opinion research and theories of longer-term value change. Empirical results reveal generally high assent to socio-demographic diversity and minority accommodation, and remarkable stability during the pandemic period. Additionally, survey vignettes show strong and equally stable anti-discrimination norms that are inclusive of Asian-origin populations. Overall, results suggest that surges in racist incidents during the pandemic do not reflect analogous surges in hostility within the population at large.

Repeated, Ongoing, and Systemic Incidents of Racism and their Harmful Mental Health Effects:: Addressing Trauma in the Lives of African Americans.

This article will examine the correlation between racial incidents faced by African Americans and the psychological impact these incidents have on members of African American communities, specifically focusing on the correlation between aggressive and frequent law enforcement contact/interaction and the traumatic impacts faced by African Americans as a result of said contacts and interactions. It will also attempt to contextualize the meaning of racial trauma and its ever-present reality for African Americans. Special attention will be paid to African American youth and young adults and the ongoing traumas faced by this group as they navigate through facets of American society, both within and without their communities. A historical analysis will bolster the theory that historical events can and do create trauma (peripheral) for African Americans. The article will then discuss racial trauma as the result of frequent and ever-present forms of discrimination, including how interactions with law enforcement can exacerbate mental health issues related to trauma. Finally, recommendations will be made to reduce and prevent trauma associated with law enforcement contact and interaction.

Repeated, Ongoing, and Systemic Incidents of Racism and their Harmful Mental Health Effects:

Repeated, Ongoing, and Systemic Incidents of Racism and their Harmful Mental Health Effects:

Racial discrimination and posttraumatic stress: examining emotion dysregulation as a mediator in an African American community sample

ABSTRACT Background: African Americans experience more severe and chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms compared to other racial groups, and thus it is important to examine factors that are relevant for the aetiology of PTSD in this population. Although racial discrimination has been implicated as an exacerbating factor in the development and maintenance of PTSD, relatively less is known about mechanisms through which this process may occur. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine one such mechanism, emotion dysregulation, in two independent samples of African American adults. Method: Trauma-exposed participants were recruited in a large, urban community hospital setting (initial sample n = 1,841; replication sample n = 294). In the initial sample, participants completed a unidimensional measure of emotion dysregulation and self-reported PTSD symptoms based on the DSM-IV. In the replication sample, participants completed a multidimensional measure of emotion dysregulation and a diagnostic interview of PTSD symptoms based on the DSM-5. Mediation analyses were used to test our hypotheses. Results: Across both samples, results indicated that racial discrimination was indirectly associated with PTSD symptoms through emotion dysregulation (even when trauma load was added as a covariate). Conclusions: Taken together, these results provide strong evidence that the association between racial discrimination and PTSD symptoms may be partially explained by the association between racial discrimination and worse emotion dysregulation. These findings elucidate the impact of racist incidents on mental health and identify modifiable emotion regulatory processes that can be intervened upon to enhance the psychological and social wellbeing of African Americans.

Feeling Asian Together: Coping With #COVIDRacism on Subtle Asian Traits

Since the onset of COVID-19, incidents of racism and xenophobia have been occurring globally, especially toward people of East Asian appearance and descent. In response, this article investigates how an online Asian community has utilized social media to engage in cathartic expressions, mutual care, and discursive activism amid the rise of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia during COVID-19. Specifically, we focus on the 1.7-million-strong Facebook group “Subtle Asian Traits” (SAT). Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the 1,200 new posts it publishes daily have swiftly pivoted to the everyday lived experiences of (diaspora) East Asians around the world. In this article, we reflect on our experiences as East Asian diaspora members on SAT and share our observations of meaning-making, identity-making, and community-making as East Asians collectively coping with COVID-19 aggression between January and May 2020.

Challenging systemic racism in school board meetings through intertextual co-optation

ABSTRACT In this paper, we apply the concept of intertextuality – which entails a speaker or writer using language from another source – to better understand how a particular discursive strategy can be used to challenge systemic racism and white supremacy. Specifically we examine what we call intertextual co-optation – co-opting another’s words for one’s own purposes – and how this was harnessed by Black community advocates and their supporters in the case of a largely white suburban school district plagued by systemic racism and racist incidents. We employ Sandoval’s concept of meta-ideologizing to demonstrate how intertextual co-optation undermined the ideology of the district’s school board. We analyzed more than 13 hours of videos of school board meetings in this district, in which Black community members and their supporters critiqued the school board’s lack of substantive response to racist incidents. We found 20 instances of intertextual co-optation involving community members using a board member’s words against them. Specifically, this discursive strategy served to (a) expose board members’ hypocrisy and/or (b) discredit board members’ arguments by revealing and refuting unspoken assumptions and false premises. Ultimately, our analysis indicates the potential of intertextual co-optation as a discursive strategy of meta-ideologizing to disrupt dominant ideology and systemic racism.

Doctoral Women of Color Coping with Racism and Sexism in the Academy

Doctoral Women of Color Coping with Racism and Sexism in the Academy

Walking with Asian American Studies

Walking with Asian American Studies Jason Oliver Chang (bio) January was busy for me. As director of an Asian American studies program, I was prepping a new exhibit on the Filipino nurse diaspora in the University of Connecticut's School of Nursing and getting ready for my spring course on Asian American history. It was at this time that I began learning about the epidemic in Wuhan, China, that would become the COVID-19 pandemic. One of my collaborators at the School of Nursing was a grad student from Wuhan, and we were able to talk about his family's experience in the quarantine. That was the first time I imagined what a widespread quarantine in the United States might look like. My first thought was about how my family's lives might be changed by the public health necessity of quarantine, and my second thought was a feeling of dread that anti-Asian racism was going to surge. The signs that the disease was being characterized in racial terms began to pop up in advance of the virus, because it had clearly arrived in other parts of the world by January. In a conversation with my colleague, Professor Tom Long,1 we discussed the value of collecting reported incidents of pathogen racism as we noted the spread of despicable memes and racist incidents targeting Chinese and Asian-descended people in places that did not have any reported cases of the virus. January was a harbinger of the rest of the semester and most likely the remainder of 2020. It was at this point that I began to walk with Asian American studies in ways I hadn't before. By walking, I mean to say putting Asian American studies to work outside the classroom and finding a public pedagogy. After Lunar New Year, I began to collect the newspaper articles reporting on early incidents of pathogen racism. I collected them in an open-source [End Page 329] Google document, entitled "Treating Yellow Peril." On January 27, 2020, I tweeted out a link asking people to help assemble a robust account of the worldwide reporting on racist persecution, attacks, boycotts and harassment related to the development of the COVID-19 pandemic although at that time it was still considered an epidemic localized in China.I knew that I was not going to be able to stay up-to-date with how fast the news changes, so I felt it was important that the resource remain crowdsourced in the hope that people with different experiences would be able to contribute in meaningful ways. My initial goal was to try to gauge the gravity of the situation. I suspected that this was something that could impact UConn, and I wanted to prepare the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, where I serve as director. We needed to be ready to respond to the mental health and social consequences of anti-Asian racism that could accompany the rise of the virus and potential spread to the United States, which increasingly felt like a distinct possibility. I was surprised by the rapid response to my call for help on social media. The original tweet generated more than 40,000 connections to the resource since May 2020. Reporting from around the world in six languages covering Europe and Anglophone Asia all told the same story: Chinese and Asian-descended people were being targeted for harassment, exclusion, and attacks, and institutions were arbitrarily banning Asian people—many singling out Chinese people. Indeed, this story has always been the same and is well scripted. The racist settler narrative of Yellow Peril was being revived on a global scale at the pace of social media. This early phase of collection of incidents showed some interesting patterns. First, anti-Chinese politics served as political currency across East Asia and Southeast Asia. Second, anti-Chinese politics and policies lumped Taiwan together with mainland China. Third, Hindutva Indian nationalists were leaders in anti-Chinese racism in Asia. These early signs suggested that interpretations of the virus would fuel anti-Chinese racism as the pandemic worsened. While the list of sources grew, so too did the uses of this resource. Unexpectedly, the resource...

STRENGTHENING OLDER INDIGENOUS NEW ZEALANDERS AT END OF LIFE: WHAT ROLE DO HEALTH SERVICES PLAY?

Older indigenous people and their families draw on specific tribal care customs to support end-of-life care as these help to fortify and strengthen older people. New Zealand’s health and palliative care services can either help or hinder families to utilise their care customs. The aim of the Pae Herenga study was to investigate the specific traditional care customs employed by older New Zealand Māori. This involved 60 face-to-face interviews with participants who had a life limiting illness (majority aged over 65), family carers, indigenous healers, spiritual practitioners, and health and palliative care professionals across four key geographical sites. Three digital story workshops involving 16 participants were also included. The study findings show that no matter what the older person’s illness was, their cultural customs and protocols helped to fortify them and kept them spiritually safe at end-of-life. Hospitals and hospices helped families to action their customs by providing rooms large enough to host gatherings of thirty or more people; prayers, songs, speechmaking and communal sharing of food took place. However, incidences of racism, a lack of space, and a lack of support for indigenous plant medicines prevented the use of ancient traditional end-of-life care customs for older people. The findings suggest that health and palliative care services can help older indigenous people maintain their spiritual strength by providing them with culturally supportive care and environments equipped to host the dying and their families.

Roil Britannia! Al Sharpton, the British Press, and the 1991 Murder of Rolan Adams

ABSTRACT Drawing on archival material from the Black Cultural Archives, the British Library, and the Institute of Race Relations, this article sheds fresh light on a largely overlooked 1991 visit to Britain by controversial Black American preacher Al Sharpton following the racist murder of Black teenager Rolan Adams. The extraordinary response to Sharpton’s arrival by the British mainstream press revealed racist patterns of news reporting and a chauvinistic rejection of ‘outside agitators’, while the minister’s intervention drew a mixed response from local activists. However, the furore sparked by Sharpton’s visit also helped to raise public awareness of Adams’ murder and galvanise local Black communities, providing an important insight into anti-racist organising and British media coverage of high-profile racist incidents prior to the death of Stephen Lawrence.

Teaching Note—Time for a Teach-In? Addressing Racist Incidents on College Campuses

ABSTRACTThis teaching note discusses a teach-in organized in response to a racist incident on a college campus. An examination of the history of teach-ins demonstrates that social work educators have been involved with them since the beginning of the profession, and the method is a natural fit for social work given its historic role. Social work educators have unique professional and ethical responsibilities to respond to hate crimes and other racist incidents on campus and to develop the competencies of social work students to do the same. Teach-ins are a model for doing so in ways that demonstrate the profession’s commitments to social justice advocacy, social justice education, and a robust implicit curriculum.

Fans for diversity? A Critical Race Theory analysis of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) supporters’ experiences of football fandom

ABSTRACTOver the last 20 years or so there has been a proliferation of anti-racist organisations, campaigns and interventions across football at all levels, allied to broader social, cultural and political shifts in late modern digital societies. Indeed, relying on certain statistical data, which reports a decline in racist incidents in stadia, might lead many anti-racist policymakers to champion liberal doctrines and to proclaim football fan cultures as quantitatively ‘less racist’. However, in this article, using Critical Race Theory as a guiding theoretical framework, throughout, we foreground the qualitative experiences and stories of BAME football fans to understand why football fandom and spectatorship remain predominantly ‘White’ activities. Using semi-structured interviews and observational techniques, we explore critically the continued significance of ‘race’ as a mediating factor in football fandom, how BAME football fans negotiate-resist belonging in football fandom cultures and the implications of BAME fans’ testimonies for policymakers. We conclude by arguing for an increase in intersectional research across football/football fan studies, to understand better the racialised aspects of football fandom, and we also urge scholars and policymakers, alike, to place greater emphasis on ‘trust building’ innovations, as opposed to ‘diversity’, given the latter has taken on a commercial value of late.

Participatory Video: An Apparatus for Ethically Researching Literacy, Power and Embodiment

This article describes participatory video, a method originated in documentary filmmaking and global development, and suggests it can be used to ethically study literacy, technology and embodiment. By putting the camera in the hands of participants, participatory video makes knowledge-making collaborative and empowers participants to tell their literacy histories on their own terms. Drawing on findings from a longitudinal study that investigated university students’ literacies across contexts, this article describes how two women of color used the camera rhetorically to redress racist incidents from their literacy histories and to protect themselves from the gaze of white audiences by using digital avatars. The study also found that the camera exerts its own agency and shapes what reality emerges. When used ethically, participatory video keeps the researcher accountable for their positionality, power, and privilege in the process of creating knowledge about literacy and embodiment.

Mediating empathy: The role of news consumption in mitigating attitudes about race and immigration

Controversies over racism and xenophobia during and after the campaign of President Donald Trump contributed to big increases in media consumption—and racist incidents. This study examines whether and how much news media consumption mitigates perceptions of 12 measures of attitudes about race and immigration, using a national instrument of 64,600 cases. Selective exposure played an outsized role in media consumption during this election cycle and was highly predictive of partisan attitudes, which predicted attitudes on race and immigration. News media use—especially newspaper use—does soften attitudes about race and immigration, although it is not as predictive as party identification.

Discourse within University Presidents’ Responses to Racism: Revealing Patterns of Power and Privilege

BackgroundRecent incidents of racism at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have gained increased national attention. The backlash to individuals speaking out against racialized practices is often masked through discourse that dismisses the adverse effects of racism. Because university administrators often center their responses to incidents of racism on upholding free speech, scholars should analyze the ways that administrators’ responses might reinforce the existence of such racist behaviors and affect marginalized students.Purpose and Research QuestionsRather than placing the burden on students to disrupt institutionalized racism, the author critically analyzed the discourse administrators utilized in their responses to understand the role of power in language. The following research questions informed the study: (a) what are the various characteristics of the discourse of university administrators as they respond to incidents of racism? and (b) how do university administrators’ responses to racism support or disrupt larger patterns of social power and privilege?Research DesignThe author utilized critical discourse analysis (CDA) to deconstruct relationships between the speech patterns of university presidents and larger Discourses about social power. Through a process of description, interpretation, and explanation, the author sought to reveal the underlying ideologies that go beyond surface-level discourse about free speech.Data Collection and AnalysisBased on the context of increased police brutality and student protests on college campuses, the author reviewed data on recent incidents of racism at PWIs. The three final cases chosen for analysis represented varying approaches utilized by administrators to respond to racist incidents. Through multiple phases of coding, the author interpreted relationships between textual patterns to reveal a larger narrative about administrative accountability.FindingsEach university president utilized a different approach to campus racism. The major discourse patterns represented were (a) a direct reproach of individuals as accountable for racism; (b) an indirect and theoretical approach to the reality of racism; and (c) a denial of or diversion from racism through authority.Conclusions and RecommendationsAcross the cases, administrators utilized speech that either downplayed the existence of racism or defined it through privilege or colorblind ideology. With the last incident resulting in the firing of the president, the analysis revealed ways that presidents can utilize emotional speech without substantial action. In order to be more responsive to marginalized communities, administrators need to intentionally engage with marginalized groups who are often silenced because their beliefs do not fit the standard of the dominant norm.

Antisemitism in Political Parties (AIPP)—Aims and Methodology

Historically, antisemitism does not lead to wide- spread violence and institutional discrimination against Jews except where it is politically encour- aged by institutional leaders. Examples include the role of the Catholic Church and aristocracy in the persecution of Jews in Medieval Spain, the role of the Tsarist bureaucracy in supporting pogroms in the Russian Empire, and the role of the Nazi Party in organizing the violent repression of Jews in 1930s Germany. In his history of the notorious antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Norman Cohn writes as follows: "[T]he men who propagated the Protocols were often pogromshchiki at heart, waiting hungrily for the chance to organise massacre. Whether they ever got that chance or not depended entirely on what happened to their countries during the Second World War. In the embattled democracies, such people lapsed into obscurity, when they did not disappear into jail – but in those parts of Europe where the Nazi leaders were able to implement their plans for geno- cide, various dingy figures, hitherto known only as editors or publishers of the Protocols, were suddenly transformed into important administrators, with responsibility for drafting and implementing antisemitic legislation." Cohn’s point is that, without political support, antisemites remained on the fringes of society, but with such support, they were able to cause terrible suffering. Therefore, political parties’ attitudes to allegations of antisemitism among their own officers are of the greatest impor- tance. Do they take such allegations seriously, investigate them thoroughly, and (where neces- sary) apply sanctions—or do they brush them aside as if unimportant? AIPP is an ongoing monitoring and research project set up by a charity, Campaign Against Antisemitism, in 2016 to monitor both antise- mitic discourse in the public statements of offi- cers of UK political parties and the subsequent disciplinary handling of such cases by the par- ties themselves. In an increasingly febrile polit- ical atmosphere surrounding issues relating to Israel and antisemitism following the Gaza war of 2014 and the elevation of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party in 2015, the authors of the project realized that there was a clear need for an evidence-based record to be kept of incidents of political antisemitism, using a clear and objective set of criteria. It was realized that few, if any, UK political parties had clearly set out, transparent disci- plinary processes for dealing with incidents of racism (including antisemitism) as are common in other institutions, such as professional bodies, businesses, or other large and influential mem- bership-based organizations. In light of the fact that officers of political parties are public fig- ures with a public mandate, the absence of such disciplinary processes would have an effect on the propagation of antisemitic discourse. This project assesses the roles of political parties in dealing with antisemitism.

España, frontera de color. El racismo como síntoma del fracaso necesario de la identidad nacional

Al contrario de lo que suele pensarse, la raza no es la matriz en que se gesta el racismo, sino que es el racismo el que inventa la raza, su condición de posibilidad. Solo así puede entenderse la manera en que este fenómeno ha apelado a distintos órdenes de nuestra realidad para generar el conjunto de normas, ideas y emociones que constantemente nos atraviesan como sociedad. En este artículo se intentará evaluar la incidencia del racismo en España, analizando el impacto reciente de la inmigración ilegal en sus redes sociales y medios de comunicación. Partiendo del reconocimiento del papel que ha jugado la colonialidad a lo largo de su historia, así como de la perturbadora necesidad que esta ha impuesto para excluir a su otredad racializada, se tratará de demostrar el papel que ha jugado el país como frontera de color, como límite que separa a las poblaciones del continente africano y europeo. El objetivo es señalar, por medio de la teoría psicoanalítica, el carácter contingente del racismo como mecanismo adscrito a su identidad nacional, además de constatar su fracaso como afluente y como límite de su condición simbólica y libidinal.

Agents of dissent: African student organizations in the German Democratic Republic

AbstractAfrican students in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) often belonged to national student clubs (NHG) that were arranged for them by the East German government. Many were also members of an umbrella organization for all African students and workers in the GDR (UASA). While the GDR authorities thought that the NHG and UASA would adopt political positions that reflected those of the GDR, this article demonstrates that the students instead used them to criticize both their own governments and their host country. It shows that the students often held positions contrary to the GDR's, and were not shy about expressing them. Although they were usually unable to organize as openly as students in the West, African students in the GDR held meetings and wrote letters to protest about a variety of issues, including Sékou Touré’s repression of a teachers’ strike in Guinea, the Biafran crisis in Nigeria and ethnic separatism in Kenya. They also took the GDR to task for the racist behaviour of East German citizens. The GDR's Socialist Unity Party claimed that the country was anti-racist and anti-imperialist, and that all vestiges of Nazism had been expunged; the students, however, were able to point out multiple racist incidents, and through the UASA demanded that the GDR address its racism problem.

Northern Ireland and the limits of the race relations framework

Anti-immigrant racism has become a prominent issue in Northern Ireland since 1998. It is an issue that is routinely understood and tackled through a ‘race relations’ framework. The first part of this article outlines and discusses the data on immigration and on recorded racist incidents in Northern Ireland, within a race relations framework. The second part of the article argues that the race relations framework is inherently limited because it treats racism as a crime to be punished, rather than as a manifestation of contradictions within capitalism as a social system.