Racial Sensitivity Research Articles

“We’re Not Lab Rats”: Analysis of Netizens’ Response to BCG Vaccine-Test Proposal Against COVID-19 in Africa

In April 2020, two French scientists proposed Africa as the site for testing a BCG tuberculosis vaccine for treating COVID-19. This sparked social media outrage with some describing the gaffe as a hangover of colonial mentality. This study examined netizens’ interpretation of the faux pas and how the social media activism that followed it shaped the narrative about Africa’s identity. The study found that netizens interpreted the discourse as racism against Africa, colonialism, and a breach of medical ethics. These created an avenue for social media activism by a new generation of African netizens to assert their independence, protect their humanity, and promote the idea of Africa for Africans. The study recommends the need for ethics of care and racial sensitivity in public and global health discourses that have the potential to reopen scars of historical trauma in subjugated populations who may be geographically or socially affected by pandemics.

Thriving Together: An Innovative Approach to Cultivating Wellness, Emotional Health, and Lifelong Success in Graduate Nursing Students.

The rigors of graduate nursing education create significant stress for nurse anesthesia students. The taxing background of an intensive care nurse, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, compounds the inherent pressures of doctoral study. Students often experience symptoms of burnout, complicating their ability to learn and retain critical information. We created the Thrive initiative to encourage the development of emotional wellness. Thrive's success is attributed to the blend of relevant information including emotional intelligence skills and racial sensitivity support, engaged student participation, and the desire to help the next generation of graduate nurses develop sustainable emotional health.

"Let’s Pivot": Co-leading Organizational Group Therapy in a Nonprofit Setting

The increase in racialized violence against Black, Asian, and other People of Color was concurrent with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The national Black Lives Matter protests that coalesced after the murder of George Floyd resulted in demands for racial literacy consultation and group support for companies across the United States. Traditionally, diversity, equity, and inclusion organizational consultants have focused on didactic approaches and consciousness raising. What is the best response when a significant rupture has occurred across racial lines that affects the experience of community within a workplace? This article examines group principles that informed the process of co-leading a multisession combined didactic and therapeutic racial literacy group. In collaboration with corporate leaders, an intentional, group therapeutic approach was taken, which focused on interpersonal dynamics and behavior change to address systemic racism. It was developed to facilitate healing for all staff in a nonprofit organization. Centering group principles of leader transparency, establishing group agreements, intentionality, and racial sensitivity, the authors collaborated and made several key decisions that created a learning and healing environment for group members. The authors examine their assumptions, modifications, missteps, and successes in a group process that occurred over a six-month period. This article also provides insights and recommendations for group leaders who wish to provide group therapy and consultation in traditionally nontherapeutic spaces.

Exploring racial performance disparities with the Modified Mini-Mental State Exam (3MS) in an acute brain injury rehabilitation setting.

The Modified Mini-Mental State Exam (3MS) is a brief, widely used cognitive screening tool. This study examined differences in 3MS performance between Black and White individuals undergoing acute brain injury rehabilitation. Participants were Black (44.1%; n = 78) and White (55.9%; n = 99) individuals admitted over a 2-year period to inpatient rehabilitation for an acute neurological injury or illness at a major, urban mid-Atlantic medical center. An attending psychologist administered the 3MS during assessment at admission, and demographic and injury-related information was extracted from electronic medical records. While there were no significant racial differences in the subsamples' gender, employment status, marital status, years of education, or days on the rehabilitation unit, Black participants were older and had a higher proportion of focal injuries or stroke. There were no significant racial differences in 3MS total scores. At the item level, Black participants scored lower on abstract reasoning, repetition, visuospatial construction, and comprehension. When adjusting for age and type of injury, significant differences remained in repetition and comprehension. The 3MS's internal consistency was adequate and comparable across races, as were item-total correlations, with the exception of White participants having a larger item-total correlation for the basic attention item. These findings underscore a point of caution about interpreting the results of a cognitive screening measure like the 3MS without the context of an individual's neurological history and race. Black individuals might be at risk for being inappropriately screened to be cognitively impaired, and some level of racial sensitivity should be taken at the item level for repetition and comprehension constructs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Racial and Treatment Center Differences on Time to Treatment Initiation for Nonsmall Cell Lung Cancer Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy As an Initial Treatment.

Objective:Because time to treatment has been shown to be associated with increase in the risk of death for Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) patients, we examined the prevalence and magnitude of racial disparities in mean time to radiation therapy (TTRT) for Stage I-III non-small cell lung cancer patients across a variety of treatment facilities.Methods:Utilizing the United States National Cancer Database (NCDB), we determined differences in TTRT between different races and different treatment facilities.Results:Concordant with past research, we found that non-White patients and patients treated at academic facilities, regardless of race, have longer mean TTRT, and that racial disparities in TTRT extend across all treatment facilities (all p<0.05).Conclusions:These findings shed light on the potential presence of and impact of structural racism on patients seeking cancer treatment, and the need for further investigation behind the reasonings behind longer TTI for non-White patients. To elucidate the real-world applicability of these results, further investigation into the societal determinants that perpetuate disparity in time to radiation therapy, and potential interventions in the clinical setting to improve cultural and racial sensitivity among healthcare professionals is recommended.

“A [B]lack Baudelaire”: Linguistic Panic and Symbolism in Amiri Baraka’s 1960s Life and Work

In his infamous Dutchman (1964), Amiri Baraka evokes Baudelaire, the famed forefather of French Symbolism: building upon Véronique Lane’s 2017 monograph, Baraka, a member of the Beat Generation, has a French Genealogy, a practiced knowledge of French Symbolism which begs the application of a Symbolist paradigm to Baraka’s theory, works, and lived experience. In this essay, I justify this Baraka-Symbolist connection before undertaking a structuralist close-reading of both Dutchman and A Black Mass to suggest one understanding of Baraka’s mid-1960s transition from “[B]lack Baudelaire” to Black Muslim. This developmental narrative is founded within the contemporaneous scholarship of Franz Fanon and Baraka’s written take on the Civil Rights Movement. I unpack Baraka’s lived experience through a semiotic rereading of his autobiography alongside Pierre Quillard’s Symbolist play, The Girl With Cut-Off Hands (1891), applying James Harding’s notion of “linguistic panic” to these case studies to narrate Baraka’s development: like the Girl in Quillard’s play, Baraka’s self-genesis is a tale of cutting off (white) extremities, necessarily enacted in both the dramatic and the domestic. Lastly, I accept Baraka’s invitation to interrogate the racial politics of French Symbolism, informed by Mike Sell’s scholarship on the avant-garde, highlighting the Symbolists’ lack of racial sensitivity and the ways in which Baraka’s work draws our eyes to these shortcomings. I conclude that Baraka’s understanding of Symbolism offers us further insight into his radical artistic practices and personal transformation, while demonstrating how Baraka’s use and usurpation of French Symbolism lay bare the racial aporias of the historical avant-garde.

THE ETHOS OF TOLERANCE OF DIVERSITY IN POST-APARTHEID JURISPRUDENCE

This article examines the South African judiciary’s understanding, interpretation, and application of the ethos of tolerance of diversity. The case law analysis shows that the courts treat tolerance of diversity as a constitutional value that derives from the Preamble and founding values of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. It also reveals that the courts moreover deduce the ethos of tolerance of diversity from the Bill of Rights, which entrenches rights and protects freedoms that could be classified as the building blocks of tolerance and diversity. Four major themes emerge from the analysis of the judiciary’s conceptualisation of the ethos of tolerance of diversity. These are the principles of reasonable accommodation; the right to be different; racial sensitivity; and transformation.

Racial sensitivity training: An inadequate solution to systemic racial disparities in child protection systems

Calls continue for staff training as an instrumental response to racially based differences in rates of child protection system interactions and outcomes. These recommendations echo a reliance on implicit bias and diversity training (referred to broadly as “anti-bias and racial sensitivity training”) across disciplines of social and human services in the United States as a feasible and politically expedient solution to racial disparities. But focusing on anti-bias training to address racial disparities in child protection systems will almost certainly fail to achieve desired objectives for at least three reasons: (a) there is no evidence that implicit bias or racial sensitivity trainings change behavior; (b) personnel training initiatives misapply an individual behavioral solution to an institutional and structural problem; and (c) an emphasis on internal training initiatives distracts and reduces the accountability of other systems of care better positioned to produce change. We conclude that if the goal is to reduce racial disparities, systemic innovations and broader policy reforms both internal and external to the child protection system are needed. Training will not meaningfully shift the downstream effects of structural racism.

Sula’s Compromise: Toni Morrison and the Editorial Politics of Sensitivity

Abstract An accomplished editor in her own right, Toni Morrison made no secret of her dissatisfaction with the editing of Sula (1973), whose opening pages she critiqued as a regrettable concession to white publishers and white readers. Yet despite Morrison’s prominence in recent studies of African American book history, scholars have yet to fully explore how the contested revisions to Sula impact the novel and what they reveal about racially motivated editing practices in mainstream US publishing. This article situates Sula’s publication history as an exemplary archive of editorial conflict, one that illuminates shifting editorial approaches to race in American fiction amid the rise of US multiculturalism. Tracing Morrison’s responses to editorial disputes about Sula and Beloved (1987), this article argues that her career indexes the emergence of racial sensitivity as an editorial concern in contemporary publishing, anticipating contemporary conflicts over formal sensitivity editing as a specialized mode of manuscript review.

Teaching the U.S. civil rights movement and its legacy in Taiwan: an exploration of racial awareness in a Taiwanese high school class

ABSTRACT This article analyzes a Taiwanese learning experience about the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, launching an educational project with 18 Taiwanese high school students to discuss their understanding of race, racism, and social justice. The rationale of analyzing the student participants’ comments rests on critical race theory. After analysis, this study found that Han ethnocentrism functions as a hidden identity and value system to influence the student participants to respond to racial issues. Han ethnocentrism caused the participants focusing on the racial experiences in Han groups and narrowed their understandings to the world. However, the result of this research also indicated that with a proper introduction, participants were willing and capable of developing racial sensitivity and affirmative attitudes about social justice toward minorities in Taiwan, such as Taiwanese Aboriginals and Southeast Asian migrant workers.

All Voices Must Be Heard and Respected

All Voices Must Be Heard and Respected

PROTOCOL: Online interventions for reducing hate speech and cyberhate: A systematic review.

PROTOCOL: Online interventions for reducing hate speech and cyberhate: A systematic review.

The Last Stages of Gentrification: Washington, DC, Mayoral Elections and Housing Advocacy

ABSTRACTFor seven decades from the establishment of home rule and largely independent local government in Washington, DC, mayoral politics, as well as socioeconomic change in city life, have been substantially defined by efforts to protect housing access and to protect vulnerable African American communities against the loss of their homes. Housing policy and racial sensitivity have been intertwined in a on-again off-again struggle against persistent gentrification. The mayoral politics seem to be successful only when factors of racial/economic inequality are integrated with housing policy. Ironically, the more narrow the emphasis on low income housing, the more sensitive has been the decline of black residential retention in the city. To some extent, low-income housing policy has become a public warning against the rising tide of gentrification.

White Voters, A Key Piece of the Puzzle: Education, Race, and Electoral Politics

ABSTRACTIn 2004, Jennifer L. Hochschild challenged political scientists to give greater attention to education policy and politics. Although it challenges Hochschild’s interpretation of the politics of school vouchers, this article demonstrates her central assertion that the era of school desegregation continues to impact American politics. Internal campaign strategy documents from presidential election campaigns reveal how the two parties have arrived at different school voucher positions because of the different challenges each party faced as a result of the battle over school desegregation. Republican strategists were concerned that white voters believed their candidates did not care about people of color. Supporting vouchers for urban Black children allowed Republicans to reassure white voters of their racial sensitivity. In contrast, Democratic candidates were more concerned that they might alienate white voters by taking another position that seemed to pander to Black voters. Strategists’ perceptions of white voters’ attitudes toward education and race comprise the thread that connects the past to the present.

Addressing Racial Awareness and Color‐Blindness in Higher Education

Racial awareness is a critical foundation to racial sensitivity, and it is a necessity for future professionals who want to be prepared to succeed in an increasingly diverse society. Several factors have been shown to influence racial awareness in professionals including their own race, their personal experience with racism, and the amount/quality of training they receive on the topic of race. Institutions of higher education that pride themselves on preparing students to work in a global and diverse market should make a purposeful effort to teach students how to address issues related to race and racism. This chapter offers recommendations for how to transform traditional programs into programs with a focus on antiracism using a Critical Race Theory paradigm. For example, curricula should be designed to challenge students to focus on their personal experiences of racism and racial identity rather than simply studying others’. Student resistance can be minimized by recruiting faculty and students with not only racial diversity, but with diversity of experiences with racism. Finally, by purposefully engaging in interdisciplinary work on campus, smaller departments or more homogeneous departments can provide racial minority students with much needed opportunities for racial identity development and cross‐racial interactions.

A Hole in the Soul of Austin: Black Faculty Community Engagement Experiences in a Creative Class City

The arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director of the Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University the summer of 2009 captured the attention of many academics (Stripling, 2009). It drove home the point that the proposition of a postracial America after President Obama's inauguration was not on the horizon. The idea that highly educated, professional Blacks were somehow insulated from significant experiences of racial strife-if ever credible-was completely eradicated. For Black academics, who often analyze social interactions considering race as a factor, event was particularly chilling, as they concurrently wrestle with many challenges predominantly White institutions (PWIs) (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Turner & Myers, 2000). Gates' experience reified concerns that race casts a shadow over professors' lives. As Professor Stephen Carter of Yale opined, If it can happen to [Gates]... then it can indeed happen to any of us (Stripling, 2009).Background LiteratureThat event, and the surrounding media coverage, served as the genesis of research project. The city of Austin, Texas, seemed to be the sort of locale that another Gates-gate could occur: as the home to a major research university, a number of leading high-tech firms and a vibrant entertainment scene Austin has generated a buzz as a destination city for progressive, collegeeducated workers and entrepreneurs. Among medium-sized U.S. cities, Austin (10.0%) has similar demographics to Cambridge (11.9%), Denver (11.1%), and Las Vegas (10.4%) regarding its percentage of Blacks (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Austin additionally boasts high placements on Best Places lists (Austin Convention Center Department, 2009); however, a Black business organization states that a perception among Black Austinites is that this town is a less than ideal city to live in (Blackpages, 2006).In many cities like Austin, Black professionals negotiate a Du Boisian doubleconsciousness (Du Bois, 1903), unable to reconcile Blackness and comfort the sociocultural milieu-an experience that one extends to encompass multiple aspects of identity through the use of an intersectional framework. In conversations with professionals academia, politics, and nonprofit organizations, we heard similar stories: Black professionals moved to Austin for professional opportunities and advancement, then moved to other cities such as Washington, DC, Atlanta, or Houston where they felt there was a more congruent sociocultural mix.Several noteworthy incidents have occurred the Austin area that may contribute to perception. Similarly to many cities the American South, Austin has a long history of discriminatory and racist practices directed toward Blacks and other communities of color (Duren & Iscoe, 1979). However, racial profiling continues to be a concern-for example, a recent study found that Black motorists are 1.8 times more likely to be stopped and 2.3 times more likely to be searched than White motorists, although, White Austinites were twice as likely to be found with contraband following a consent search. In addition, the deaths of several youths of color involving law enforcement have cast a pall of suspicion regarding racial sensitivity the city (Smith, 2005). While it might be argued that these incidents specifically affect a certain segment of the Austin Black community, such incidents serve as a canary the coalmine for other segments of the community as well; specifically, Black upwardly mobile professionals, who perhaps think that similar events could befall them or youth they care for, or who simply feel such incidents are indicative of a lack of care and concern for the Black community at large.At the same time, The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) has taken strides addressing long-standing concerns of Black academic professionals with the development of the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement (Vincent, 2007) and the strengthening of the John L. …

Abstract ADV02: Black voices on health: Exploring possibilities for community-based research on cancer and co-morbidities amongst rural California Central Coast African Americans.

Abstract Carmelita Austin-Schreher, a breast cancer survivor who wanted to connect African-Americans to early detection education, support and services formed the African-American Community Health Group of the Central Coast with-in 4 months of her diagnosis. Beginning in 1998, we responded as a self-help group to the disproportionately high breast cancer mortality rates of African-American women, and the need for ethnically sensitive services. Carmelita and community members envisioned a group that would not only educate the African-American community about cancer, but one that would provide one-to-one and group support, a safe and comfortable environment for discussion, and would respect the cultural needs of our community. In order to provide its participants with the highest level of care and education, African-American Community Health Group is committed to staying on top of the latest news in health and cancer screening, treatment and research. African-American Community Health Group is proud of being a “grassroots” organization and is therefore dedicated to providing comprehensive screening outreach, health education, and long-term advocacy to empower all African-Americans in the central coast community. We continue to provide crucial cancer education and prevention services as well as peer support for people with cancer through targeted projects. However, in addition to these activities we expanded health promotion and disease prevention activities of our organization to providing broad-based health education to the larger African-American and underserved communities including men and families, through office hours, library, support groups, seminars, peer and leadership training, and health fairs. The mission of the African-American Community Health Group is to empower the African-American community of the central coast to be active and informed health consumers and survivors through self-help activities, advocacy training, and health education. Additionally, we work to create a dialogue with the community at large about racial disparities in health and the need for increased cultural and racial sensitivity. Citation Format: Carmelita Austin-Schreher. Black voices on health: Exploring possibilities for community-based research on cancer and co-morbidities amongst rural California Central Coast African Americans. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr ADV02. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-ADV02

Inventing racist roads not taken: The licensing effect of immoral counterfactual behaviors.

Six experiments examined how people strategically use thoughts of foregone misdeeds to regulate their moral behavior. We tested 2 hypotheses: 1st, that people will feel licensed to act in morally dubious ways when they can point to immoral alternatives to their prior behavior, and 2nd, that people made to feel insecure about their morality will exaggerate the extent to which such alternatives existed. Supporting the 1st hypothesis, when White participants could point to racist alternatives to their past actions, they felt they had obtained more evidence of their own virtue (Study 1), they expressed less racial sensitivity (Study 2), and they were more likely to express preferences about employment and allocating money that favored Whites at the expense of Blacks (Study 3). Supporting the 2nd hypothesis, White participants whose security in their identity as nonracists had been threatened remembered a prior task as having afforded more racist alternatives to their behavior than did those who were not threatened. This distortion of the past involved overestimating the number of Black individuals they had encountered on the prior task (Study 4) and exaggerating how stereotypically Black specific individuals had looked (Studies 5 and 6). We discuss implications for moral behavior, the motivated rewriting of one's moral history, and how the life unlived can liberate people to lead the life they want.

Single-dose pharmacokinetics of lenalidomide in healthy volunteers: dose proportionality, food effect, and racial sensitivity

Lenalidomide is an immunomodulatory drug with efficacy in various hematological malignancies. The purpose of these studies was to evaluate the single-dose pharmacokinetics of lenalidomide, including dose proportionality, food effect, and racial sensitivity. Three studies were conducted including a total of 58 healthy subjects: a randomized, single-blind, alternating group, single-ascending dose study; a randomized, two-way crossover food effect study; and a randomized, double-blind, two-group, within-subject, single-ascending dose study. Oral absorption of lenalidomide was rapid and the maximum plasma concentration (C (max)) was observed approximately 1h post-dose. Co-administration with a high-fat meal reduced the area under the concentration-time curve (AUC) and C (max) by approximately 20 and 50%, respectively, and delayed time to C (max) (t (max)) by 1.63h. However, phase III trials were dosed without regard to food; therefore, clinical relevance of the food effect was minimal. The terminal elimination half-life (t (½)) was 3-4h at doses up to 50mg and was not affected by food. The AUC and C (max) were proportional to lenalidomide single doses (5-400mg), and total and renal clearance were dose-independent. The R- to S-lenalidomide ratio in plasma was stable over time, approximately 45-55% of total drug. There were no differences in pharmacokinetic parameters, dose-exposure relationship, or enantiomeric ratio, between Japanese and Caucasian subjects. Lenalidomide displayed linear pharmacokinetics from doses 5-400mg in healthy subjects. Although food reduced bioavailability, this was not considered clinically relevant. Lenalidomide was generally well tolerated in both ethnic groups.

Inventing Racist Roads Not Taken: The Licensing Effect of Immoral Counterfactual Behaviors

Six experiments examined how people strategically use thoughts of foregone misdeeds to regulate their moral behavior. We tested the hypothesis that people made to feel insecure about their morality will exaggerate the existence of immoral alternatives to their prior behavior. Supporting this hypothesis, White participants whose security in their identity as a non-racist had been threatened remembered a prior task as having afforded more racist alternatives to their behavior than did those not so threatened. This distortion of the past involved overestimating the number of Black individuals they had encountered on the prior task (Study 1), and exaggerating how stereotypically Black specific individuals had looked (Studies 2 and 3). Follow-up studies found that when White participants could point to racist alternatives to their past actions, they felt they had obtained more evidence of their morality (Study 4), they expressed less racial sensitivity (Study 5), and they were more likely express preferences a...