Notes on Race-Based Stress Over Time and Resilience

Race-Based Stress Over Time and Resilience (SW355: Addressing Ageism and Health)

This presentation by Andrea Miller, LMSW, explores race-based stress, its historical and systemic roots, and the concept of resilience in coping with its effects.

The "Pyramid" of Race-Based Stress

• Visible "Tip of the Iceberg": Race-based stress is presented as the visible manifestation of systemic racism.

• Underlying Components (The Submerged "Iceberg"):

  • Historical race-based trauma and stress: Refers to the profound, enduring mental and emotional injury inflicted by past racial injustices.

  • Collective and community trauma: Involves shared psychological and emotional harm experienced by entire groups or communities due to systemic racism.

  • Individual cumulative lifelong stress: Encompasses the ongoing, accumulating stress experienced by individuals over their lifespan due to racial prejudice and discrimination.

Historical Context of Race-Based Stressors

• Native Americans:

  • Presence in North America for over $20,000$ years.

  • Forced relocation to reservations.

  • Traumatic experiences in boarding schools aimed at assimilation.

• Enslaved Africans:

  • Period of enslavement from $1619$ to $1865$.

  • Legacy of slavery and the Civil War.

  • The $13$th Amendment abolished slavery but was followed by other forms of oppression.

• Asian Immigrants:

  • Significant immigration period from $1843$ to $1882$.

  • Enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act, severely restricting Chinese immigration.

• Post-Slavery to Civil Rights Era:

  • Jim Crow laws: Legally enforced racial segregation and discrimination.

  • Systemic segregation in housing, education, and public spaces.

  • Brown v. Board of Education: Landmark Supreme Court case challenging school segregation.

  • Civil Rights Act: Legislation aimed at ending discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Systemic Racism

• Roots: Fundamentally rooted in colonialism and capitalism.

• Nature: It is not merely a matter of individual bias but represents persistent, structured inequity embedded within institutions and society.

• Impact: Creates collective and generational trauma, affecting the well-being of entire communities across generations.

• Fueling Factor: Zero-sum thinking—the belief that one group's gain is another's loss—fuels white supremacy (McGhee, $2021$).

Racism as a Cumulative Stressor

• Definition: Racism is characterized as a chronic, unjust, and cumulative stressor.

• Multi-level Impact: Affects health at individual, community, and generational levels.

• Consequences: Leads directly to significant health inequities and profound human rights violations.

Racial Microaggressions

• Definition (Sue et al., $\,2007$): Subtle, everyday verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.

• Three Types of Microaggressions (Sue et al., $\,2007$):

  • Microassaults: Explicit racial derogatory attacks or slurs, often conscious and intentional discriminatory acts.

  • Microinsults: Subtle communication or snubs that convey rudeness or insensitivity and demean a person's racial heritage or identity, often unconsciously. Example: "How did you get this job?" implying they might not have earned it.

  • Microinvalidations: Communications that subtly exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person of color. Example: "I don't see color," which dismisses the lived racial experiences of individuals.

• Impact: Microaggressions collectively undermine identity, erode mental health, and contribute to chronic stress.

Cumulative Inequality Theory

• Core Principle: Early disadvantages accumulate over time, leading to significant disparities in later life.

• Significance of Exposure: The timing and duration of stress exposure are critical factors influencing long-term outcomes.

• Consequence: Cumulative stress ultimately leads to functional limitations in later life.

• Demographic Disparities: This theory shows stronger indirect effects for Black and Hispanic older adults, indicating they experience greater accumulated disadvantage.

Resilience: Individual

• Definition: The ability to bounce back, maintain health, and effectively recover from stress or adversity.

• Role: Acts as a crucial protective factor against the detrimental impacts of racism and trauma.

• Measurement: Often measured using tools such as the Brief Resilience Scale (Smith et al., $\,2008$), which assesses an individual's perceived ability to recover from stress.

• Key Factors Contributing to Individual Resilience:

  • Self-efficacy: Belief in one's capacity to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task.

  • Optimism: A general expectation that good things will happen.

  • Mastery: The belief that one has control over life circumstances.

  • Empowerment: The process of becoming stronger and more confident.

  • Social support: Access to networks of people who can provide emotional, practical, and informational aid.

  • Coping strategies: Effective methods used to deal with stressful situations.

  • Spirituality: Connection to something larger than oneself, providing meaning and purpose.

Resilience: Collective

• Definition: Community resilience refers to the ability of a community to absorb strain and build collective capacity in the face of adversity.

• Protective Processes in Collective Resilience:

  • Storytelling and creativity: Means of processing trauma, affirming identity, and transmitting cultural knowledge.

  • Solidarity and sense of community: Developing strong bonds and mutual support among community members.

  • Spirituality: Shared spiritual practices or beliefs that provide comfort, meaning, and collective strength.

  • Hope for change: A collective belief in the possibility of a better future and motivation to work towards it.

Becoming an Antiracism Practitioner

• Self-Examination: Crucial to self-examine one's own values, beliefs, and behaviors in relation to race and equity.

• Commitment to Action: Involves a dedication to practices that actively promote equity and human rights.

• Definition of Anti-racism: Anti-racism is understood as proactive action against racism, going beyond mere absence of racist acts or beliefs.

References

• Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. ($\,2008$). The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, $15$($3$), $194$*-$200.

• Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (\,2007$). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Multidimensional explorations of a phenomenon. <em>American Psychologist</em>, <em>$62$</em>($4$),$271*-$286.