Racial Insensitivity Research Articles

Diversity training experiences and factors associated with implicit racial bias among recent genetic counselor graduates of accredited programs in the United States and Canada.

Implicit racial bias in healthcare settings can impact delivery of patient care. Exploration of this bias is necessary to improve patient experiences. We sought to understand implicit racial bias among graduates of accredited genetic counseling programs in the United States and Canada in the class of 2020 as they enter the genetics workforce and assess how this bias is associated with training and life experiences. Implicit racial bias was quantified through use of the Black-White Implicit Association Test (BW-IAT). Participants also completed an online survey focused on didactic and clinical training and personal experiences with diverse populations. Participants (n=100) were majority White (88%), and 44% demonstrated an implicit bias favoring White individuals. Respondents reported a lack of interaction with Black healthcare professionals during their training. A concerning proportion (38%) reported experiencing or witnessing racial insensitivity perpetrated by genetic counselors or physicians in supervisory roles. Graduates reported diversity coursework as significantly less effective overall than other general genetic counseling coursework. This study reveals prevalence of implicit racial bias among genetic counselor graduates, lack of exposure to diverse populations within and outside of graduate training, and concerns regarding racial insensitivity and effectiveness of didactic and clinical genetic counseling training. Employers and program directors should implement revisions to ongoing training and graduate curriculum with consideration of these findings.

Beyond "Red Man Syndrome": A Case for American Indian Health Equity.

Sitting in the lecture hall, the first-year medical student, an American Indian first-generation college graduate, was shocked and dismayed when learning about antimicrobial agents and their side effects as the professor described “red man syndrome” (RMS). The student was relieved when other students in the course discussed the racial insensitivity of this term and cited recent articles calling for the removal of this language. However, this feeling of isolation and damage was already inflicted. Unfortunately, this experience is not rare. Minority medical trainees experience microaggressions and bias daily.1 As a medical community, we must do better. Konold et al present a strong example of using rapid-cycle quality improvement methodology to purge the antiquated, racially insensitive term RMS from the medical record.2 They describe how the documentation of 274 pediatric patients who had been diagnosed with RMS within their hospital was successfully removed from charts.2 In addition, the success of this intervention is supported by the reduction of the use of this language 3 months after the intervention, with only 29 of 65 charts with vancomycin allergies listed citing RMS. Importantly, the rate of use revealed a statistically significant difference preintervention and postintervention ( P < .001).2 This approach is used to substitute more medically descriptive and correct terminology, “vancomycin flushing reaction” or “vancomycin infusion reaction”, as recently recommended by the Infectious Diseases Society of America and Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.3–5 The quality improvement project by Konold et al serves as a simple and disseminatable action that other hospitals can emulate.2 They describe how others can use electronic medical records to address the racial injustice of terminology with further education to continue to make positive changes toward equality in the …

Is microaggression an oxymoron? A mixed methods study on attitudes toward racial microaggressions among United States university students.

To best understand the possible negative health and social consequences associated with racial microaggression, in-depth understanding of how people judge these events is needed. People of Color (POC) and White participants (N = 64) were recruited for a mixed-methods study that incorporated quantitative attitude ratings and focus group interviews. Participants read and discussed their attitudes toward five vignettes that reflected microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation scenarios. Semantic differential ratings showed that participants judged microassaults to be most unacceptable, followed by microinsults and then microinvalidations. Using a grounded theory approach, our qualitative analysis of interview data revealed five thematic categories. First, participants judged receivers’ psychological harm to be a critical consideration for their attitudes toward microaggression scenarios; they discussed factors associated with individual differences in appraisals, prior exposures to discrimination, and sensitivity to race. Second, participants were less consistent in their opinion about the role of the deliverers’ intent on their judgment of microaggressions; many considered microaggression events to be results of deliverers’ cultural ignorance and racial insensitivity. Third, our analysis revealed the central importance of contexts that shaped participants’ attitudes toward microaggression. Fourth, participants also discussed the notion that receivers of microaggression were racist for calling attention to race issues. Finally, POC participants tended to relate to the vignettes and use their lived experiences to contextualize their opinions about racial microaggression. The current results raise concerns regarding the conceptualization and utility of the word “microaggression,” especially within the broader contexts of racism and major discrimination. Other empirical and practical implications are discussed.

Serial authentication: Gamifying Hong Kong action cinema in Sleeping Dogs

This essay investigates how the open-world action adventure video game Sleeping Dogs constructs cultural authenticity as a feature of its narration and digital game play. Not only does the game avoid accusations of racial insensitivity but also producers and fans promote the game as an ‘authentic’ Hong Kong experience. Using digital seriality to analyze Sleeping Dogs, which occupies a fertile intersection between game studies and film studies, I argue that Sleeping Dogs justifies its appropriation of Hong Kong action cinema by subjecting the player to serial authentication.

Image Repair Campaign Strategies Addressing Race: Paula Deen, Social Media, and Defiance

This multi-method study examines how the use of social media in a crisis campaign involving race-related issues may affect a public figure’s credibility and perceived response appropriateness. First, image repair theory is used to analyze Paula Deen’s image repair campaign in the wake of the National Enquirer’s revelation that she admitted to using the “N-word” during a lawsuit deposition. Our analysis shows her response strategies were unsuccessful because her apology did not center on the allegations, and she was contradictory in her bolstering, minimization, and mortification strategies. We build on the Deen case study results by exploring the effectiveness of tweeted message strategies in a race-related crisis via Twitter. We use a mixed-design experiment examining how public figure type (politician v. TV celebrity) and response strategy (moral defense, performance defense, defiance defense, no defense) affect perceptions of a female public figure’s credibility and perceptions of the appropriateness of the response. Results show that any of the three responses are better than no response when addressing charges of racial insensitivity. A defiance defense, as newly tested strategy, and moral defense worked better for the TV celebrity condition than the politician condition. Implications are discussed.

Color Blindness, Meta-Ignorance, and the Racial Imagination

AbstractDrawing on contemporary epistemologies of ignorance, I analyze the American ideology of color blindness as a recalcitrant form of active ignorance that operates at a meta-level. I contend that the meta-ignorance involved in color blindness operates through distorting second-order attitudes about one's cognitive and affective attitudes, resulting in cognitive and affective numbness with respect to racial matters: ignorance of one's racial ignorance and insensitivity to one's racial insensitivity. I contend that the black/white binary that has dominated the American racial imagination has contributed tremendously to establish and maintain meta-blindness about racial differences. I suggest that overcoming the black/white binary demands that we expand current conceptions of racial lucidity and that we go beyond the notions of double consciousness that critical race theorists have defended since Du Bois and Fanon. According to a more expansive social pluralism, lucidity with respect to racial differences requires a kaleidoscopic consciousness that does not reinscribe the black/white binary in one's racial imagination.

The Native American mascot controversy: a handbook

Sports mascots have been a tradition for decades. Along with the usual lions and tigers, many schools are represented by Native American images. Once considered a benign practice, numerous studies have proved just the opposite: that the use of Native American mascots in educational institutions has perpetuated a shameful history of racial insensitivity. The Native American Mascot Controversy provides an overview of the issues that have been associated with this topic for the past 40 years.

On Post-Racial America in the Age of Obama

Amina Gautier reflects on her childhood tendency to ask when, not if, there would be a black president. Growing up in the post-civil rights era, she was influenced by knowledge of earlier presidential bids by African Americans as well as references to the idea of a black president in popular culture, including television programs of the 1970s and 1980s that often saw adult characters project the ability to run for office onto black youth. However, Gautier cautions against conflating Barack Obama's historic election to president with the beginning of a “post-racial” era. She uses a personal experience of racial insensitivity to observe the distance we have yet to go before we are truly post-anything.

Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede (review)

Reviewed by: Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede Keith Walden Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede. Edited by Max Foran. Edmonton: AU Press, 2008. Pp. 354, $85.00 cloth, $29.95 paper While the concluding section – an interview with the current ceo of the Stampede – leans towards boosterism, the other twelve essays in this collection are solid contributions to the history of Calgary’s signature event. Although the organization operates year-round exhibition facilities, most of the articles are focused on aspects of the annual ten-day festival. These include Glen Mikkelsen’s informative discussion of the evolution of the rodeo and the obstacles limiting its popularity; Aritha van Herk’s passionate elucidation of the intricacies of chuckwagon racing; Fiona Angus’s tracing of midway arrangements and the controversies surrounding them; Lorry Felske’s exploration of the city’s early parading tradition; Don Wetherell’s take on the Stampede as an invented tradition that, from its very inception, distorted the realities of Calgary’s past; and Hugh Dempsey’s review of Native participation, which argues that despite some racial insensitivity, the event has contributed to the preservation of traditional cultures. Some authors are interested in what might be termed aesthetic and contemplative aspects of the show. Fritz Pannekoek, searching for evidence of the impact of southern Alberta’s ranching heritage in Calgary’s built environment, finds that it is acknowledged mainly in commercial signage rather than public art, except on the exhibition grounds themselves. Reacting to suggestions that the Stampede impedes the growth of cultural sophistication in cowtown, Brian Rusted points out that as patron, client, and collector, the show has always been connected to the vibrant genre of western art, which has its own distinct conventions, standards, and institutions. Tamara Palmer Seiler wonders how an American figure, the cowboy, has come to be the predominant symbol of this Canadian institution, concluding that his presence derives both from the fact that the Canadian ranching frontier was an extension of the American one and from the influence of America’s powerful machinery of popular culture. As a regional figure, he embodies the ‘maverick’ identity of Alberta, while remaining [End Page 588] meaningful to those in other parts of the country and beyond. In a related piece, she and Robert Seiler dissect the symbolic meaning of the cowboy as he appeared on Stampede posters, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s, arguing that while traces of local culture have been progressively removed from these publicity devices, the figure continues to address tensions across the nature/culture and past/present divides. Only one article deals with the more purely administrative history of the organization. In his own contribution, Max Foran investigates the link between the Stampede and the municipal government, especially regarding attempts to expand and improve the exhibition grounds, which are owned by the city. While the two entities have disagreed on occasion, their shared interest in the success of the enterprise and the prestige of the Stampede board and management have kept the relationship generally harmonious. There is some overlap among many of the articles, particularly descriptions of the origins of the event and the influence of Guy Weadick, the American-born showman who invented the show and eventually signed on as a key manager of it. There are also some divergent interpretations. For example, Aritha van Herk is impressed by the extent of popular interest in the chuckwagon races, which is growing if commercial sponsorship is an indication, while Glen Mikkelsen is more conscious that the appeal of rodeo is losing ground. More surprisingly, Tamara Seiler argues in one of her articles that the ranching industry ‘is clearly more the product of continental forces than of national ones,’ and in the other (with Robert Seiler) that the Canadian ranching enterprise ‘was in marked contrast to that of the American.’ It is unfair to speak of an omission in the book since it is not intended to be comprehensive in its treatment of the Stampede, but it would be interesting to know more about what transpired in the wider city during the show among ordinary Calgarians. Mikkelsen remarks that when he was growing up during the 1970s and 1980s, the whole community...

The challenge of increasing minority-group professional representation in the United States: intriguing findings

Census statistics highlight the increasing diversity of the populace in the United States. However, minority-group Americans continue to be under-represented in professional occupations. Six propositions for low minority-group professional presence in US organizations are that under-representation is due to leader racial insensitivity, discrimination, the (small) pipeline of minority-group professional employees, (un)equal opportunity theory, rational person economic theory, and low organizational diversity strategic priority. We describe and explore these six arguments with related empirical tests. Results indicated that leader-rated importance of cultural change, above and beyond leader racial awareness, influenced representation. The more specific strategies of diversity recruitment and provision of performance feedback also predicted minority-group representation, while diversity as an organizational strategic priority did not. We discuss the implications of these findings and present directions for future research.

A Tall Tale of The Brethren

In their book Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong tell a small but striking story of the racial insensitivity of Justice Harry A. Blackmun. It happened during the drafting and circulation of opinions in Flood v. Kuhn, the 1972 baseball antitrust case. As the story goes, when Blackmun circulated the first draft of his opinion in Flood, with its famously romantic introductory salute to the good old days of baseball and list of celebrated...names from the history of the game, the list of names was as segregated as the Topeka public schools in 1954. Blackmun had excluded African Americans from his list of baseball celebrities. It was only when pressed to do so by Justice Thurgood Marshall that he added black players to the list - Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, and Roy Campanella. It has been said that this story from Brethren makes no sense, but that is not enough to make it false. Brethren accurately reports some pretty nonsensical behavior by people who worked at the Supreme Court during the period covered by the book (1969 to 1976). Moreover, the authors of Brethren claim there is documentary proof of their story of Blackmun-versus-Marshall in Flood. Nevertheless, the story is false. The document from which the authors quote - Blackmun's allegedly racially exclusive circulated first draft in Flood - does not exist and never did. Paige, Robinson, and Campanella were present in the first circulated draft and thereafter. And thus Marshall's objection to the offending draft never occurred either. There was nothing to object to.

A Tall Tale of The Brethren

In their book The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong tell a small but striking story of the racial insensitivity of Justice Harry A. Blackmun.1 It happened during the drafting and circulation of opinions in Flood v. Kuhn, the 1972 baseball antitrust case.2 As the story goes, when Blackmun circulated the first draft of his opinion in Flood, with its famously romantic introductory salute to the good old days of baseball and list of “celebrated… names” from the history of the game, the list of names was as segregated as the Topeka public schools in 1954. Blackmun had excluded African Americans from his list of baseball celebrities. It was only when pressed to do so by Justice Thurgood Marshall that he added black players to the list—Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, and Roy Campanella.

When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House

Theodore Roosevelt's last decade has posed a problem for his biographers. Those ten years, from the time he left the White House in 1909 until his unexpected death at the beginning of 1919, saw him at his best and at his worst. In domestic affairs, his pursuit of another presidential nomination and candidacy as a third-party nominee afforded his greatest opportunity for developing and pursuing his reform ideas. In foreign affairs, his travels abroad and his reactions to World War I offered his widest scope for expounding his ideas about international order and the proper role of the United States in the world. At the same time, his courtship of southern whites opened him to charges of racial insensitivity or worse, while his furious attacks on Woodrow Wilson exposed him to allegations of envy and malice. Withal, Roosevelt made his greatest impact on American politics during this decade, even more than he had done as president. Yet this time remains a period neglected or slighted by most of his biographers, a recent exception being Kathleen Dalton in her excellent work, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (2002).

Building Cultural Bridges in Schools: The colorful flags model

The complexion of society is changing. The constant migration of immigrants to our metropolitan centers has made 'Making Diversity Work' one of the most crucial topics on national agendas. How to make diversity work in an increasingly multicultural society is one of the biggest challenges for many nations. The magnitude of the problem is captured by the international media. Headlines of racial polarization, racial bias, racial insensitivity, and hate crimes recur with alarming frequency. Today, educators are groping for strategies to deal with these dire problems. This article will discuss the proactiveinteractive human relations approach as a strategy to mitigate ethnic tension in urban schools. More specifically, it will highlight the Colorful Flags Program as an example of this approach. Today, this Los Angeles-based program has serviced approximately 130,000 K-12 students in 17 school districts in California. This program has also been implemented in police departments, hospitals, and various other organizations.

Racial Inquiries in Depositions and Trials

When allegations of racial insensitivity or discrimination become part of a case, attorneys need to confront racial issues head on. While serving as consultants for the defense in a civil case involving allegations of discrimination by a private business, we developed a set of general principles and guidelines to prepare attorneys and defendants to address and handle sensitive racial issues. The objectives were (1) to prepare the defendants to comfortably and honestly answer difficult questions involving racial views; and (2) to assist the attorneys in developing a line of questioning that would not be perceived as threatening or racist, but would allow them to explore fully the plaintiffs' racial beliefs. The resultant protocol for addressing racial issues provides a practical and conceptual framework that can be employed by consultants and attorneys in cases involving charges of racial discrimination.