Confronting Racism

This book proposes a comprehensive approach to confronting racism through a foundational framework as well as practical strategies to correct and reverse the course of the past and catalyze the stalled efforts of the present. It will do so by focusing on those specific aspects of law and legal theory that intersect with psychological research and practice. In Part I, the historical and current underpinnings of racial injustice and the obstacles to combating racism are introduced. Part II examines the documented psychological and emotional effects of racism, including race-based traumatic stress. In Part III, the authors analyze the application of forensic mental health assessment in addressing race-related experiences and present a legal and policy framework for reforming institutional and organizational policies. Finally, in part IV the authors advocate for a close, collaborative approach among legal and mental health professionals and their clients to seek redress for racial discrimination. Confronting Racism provides a framework for legal, mental health, and other related social science professionals and leaders to acknowledge and act on the harmful aspects of our societal systems.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Confronting Racism in Teacher Education aims to transform systematic and persistent racism through in-depth analyses of racial justice struggles and strategies in teacher education. By bringing together counternarratives of critical teacher educators, the editors of this volume present key insights from both individual and collective experiences of advancing racial justice. Written for teacher educators, higher education administrators, policy makers, and others concerned with issues of race, the book is comprised of four parts that each represent a distinct perspective on the struggle for racial justice: contributors reflect on their experiences working as educators of Color to transform the culture of predominately White institutions, navigating the challenges of whiteness within teacher education, building transformational bridges within classrooms, and training current and inservice teachers through concrete models of racial justice. By bringing together these often individualized experiences, Confronting Racism in Teacher Education reveals larger patterns that emerge of institutional racism in teacher education, and the strategies that can inspire resistance.

The contributors to this volume identify the cognitive and motivational influences on the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup processes that lead to racism. Confronting Racism establishes a unique link between public discourse on race and social scientific analysis. Covering theory, implications for policy and applications to education, employment, crime, politics, and health; the book provides a collective account of the variety of racial outcomes and dynamics that result from the complex and multifaceted nature of racism and race relations.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

Racism and ignorance churn on college campuses as surely as they do in society at large. Over the past fifteen years there have been many discussions regarding racism and higher education. Some of these focus on formal policies and dynamics such as Affirmative Action or The Dream Act, while many more discussions are happening in classrooms, dorm rooms and in campus communities. Of course, corollary to these conversations, some of which are generative and some of which are degenerative, is a deafening silence around how individuals and institutions can actually understand, engage and change issues related to racism in higher education. This lack of dialogue and action speaks volumes about individuals and organizations, and suggests a complicit acceptance, tolerance or even support for institutional and individual racism. There is much work to be done if we are to improve the situation around race and race relation in institutions of higher education. There is still much work to be done in unpacking and addressing the educational realities of those who are economically, socially, and politically underserved and oppressed by implicit and overt racism. These realities manifest in ways such as lack of access to and within higher education, in equitable outcomes and in a disparity of the quality of education as a student matriculates through the system. While there are occasional diversity and inclusion efforts made in higher education, institutions still largely address them as quotas, and not as paradigmatic changes. This focus on “counting toward equity rather” than “creating a culture of equity” is basically a form of white privilege that allows administrators and policymakers to show incremental “progress” and avoid more substantive action toward real equity that changes the culture(s) of institutions with longstanding racial histories that marginalize some and privilege others. Issues in higher education are still raced from white perspectives and suffer from a view that race and racism occur in a vacuum. Some literature suggests that racism begins very early in the student experience and continues all the way to college (Berlak & Moyenda). This mis-education, mislabeling and mistreatment based on race often develops as early as five to ten years old and “follows” them to postgraduate education and beyond.

A “persuasive . . . heartfelt and vividly written” call to counter systemic racism and build national solidarity in America (Publishers Weekly). The American Promise enshrined in our Constitution states that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet racism continues to corrode our society. If we cannot overcome it, Theodore Johnson argues, the promise that made America unique on Earth will have died. In When the Stars Begin to Fall, Johnson presents a compelling blueprint for the kind of national solidarity necessary to mitigate racism. Weaving together history, personal memories, and his family’s multi-generational experiences with racism, Johnson posits that solutions can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. Understanding that racism is a structural crime of the state, he argues that overcoming it requires us to recognize that a color-conscious society—not a color-blind one—is the true fulfillment of the American Promise. Fueled by Johnson’s ultimate faith in the American project, grounded in his family’s longstanding optimism and his own military service, When the Stars Begin to Fall is an urgent call to undertake the process of overcoming what has long seemed intractable.