Saturday, May 18

Tag: racial

According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster
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IN OTHER NEWS

According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster

I’m part of a research team that has been following more than 800 Black American families for almost 25 years. We found that people who had reported experiencing high levels of racial discrimination when they were young teenagers had significantly higher levels of depression in their 20s than those who hadn’t. This elevated depression, in turn, showed up in their blood samples, which revealed accelerated aging on a cellular level. Our research is not the first to show Black Americans live sicker lives and die younger than other racial or ethnic groups. The experience of constant and accumulating stress due to racism throughout an individual’s lifetime can wear and tear down the body – literally “getting under the skin” to affect health. These findings highlight how stress from racism, pa...
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Four Trends Of The Boom In Racial Justice Giving
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Four Trends Of The Boom In Racial Justice Giving

The tragic, high-profile killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans in 2020 have sparked a reckoning on race. As researchers of philanthropy, we’re keeping an eye on how this national awakening is affecting charitable giving across the nation. We are seeing an outpouring of donations from individuals, corporations and foundations that began to grow as soon as protests and other activities in support of racial and social justice started to spread across the country. Much of this funding will likely support Black-led groups engaged in criminal justice reform and fighting for education equality. Wealthy donors in the first half of the year gave nearly US$6 billion in donations of $1 million or more, but people of at various income and wealth levels are also increasingly supporting r...
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Homes are flooding outside FEMA’s 100-year flood zones, and racial inequality is showing through
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IN OTHER NEWS, Journalism

Homes are flooding outside FEMA’s 100-year flood zones, and racial inequality is showing through

When hurricanes and other extreme storms unleash downpours like Tropical Storm Beta has been doing in the South, the floodwater doesn’t always stay within the government’s flood risk zones. New research suggests that nearly twice as many properties are at risk from a 100-year flood today than the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps indicate. Unfortunately, many of the people living in those properties have no idea that their homes are at risk until the floodwaters rise. I am a sociologist who works on disaster vulnerability. In a new study, I looked at the makeup of communities in Houston that aren’t in the 100-year flood zone, but that still flood. What I found tells a story of racial disparities in the city. Research in other cities has shown similar flooding problems in ...
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Microaggressions aren’t just innocent blunders – new research links them with racial bias
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IN OTHER NEWS

Microaggressions aren’t just innocent blunders – new research links them with racial bias

A white man shares publicly that a group of Black Harvard graduates “look like gang members to me” and claims he would have said the same of white people dressed similarly. A white physician mistakes a Black physician for a janitor and says it was an honest mistake. A white woman asks to touch a Black classmate’s hair, is scolded for doing so and sulks, “I was just curious.” It’s a pattern that recurs countless times, in myriad interactions and contexts, across American society. A white person says something that is experienced as racially biased, is called on it and reacts defensively. These comments and other such subtle snubs, insults and offenses are known as microaggressions. The concept, introduced in the 1970s by Black psychiatrist Chester Pierce, is now the focus of a fierce deba...
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Black Voters Know Climate Justice Is Racial Justice
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Journalism, POLITICS

Black Voters Know Climate Justice Is Racial Justice

It’s not only been a summer season (now autumn) of a deadly pandemic, toxic politics, and social unrest, but the nation has been rocked by a nonstop series of environmental calamities triggered by the human-pressed climate crisis. Hurricane Sally was a destructive slow-moving mix of high winds and epic flooding battering the Gulf Coast and other parts of the South. That was after Hurricane Laura and ahead of an unprecedented number of cyclones forming in the Atlantic for what’s building up into one of the most active—if not the most active—hurricane season on record. The entire West Coast is either, literally, on fire or under a blanket of choking smoke from said fire. This summer was the fourth hottest on record, with nights no longer cooler and city neighborhoods burning up because of l...
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Studies of Other Countries Show Truth-Telling Leads to Racial Healing
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Journalism, SOCIAL JUSTICE

Studies of Other Countries Show Truth-Telling Leads to Racial Healing

As the U.S. prepares to celebrate another year of its independence, the country is paying renewed attention to the founders, and how their legacy of slavery is linked to systemic racism. Calls for reform to policing across the nation can help to directly reduce police violence against civilians but don’t address the centuries-old underlying problems in American society. Our research indicates that the country is not likely to escape its historic cycles of violence and racial oppression without addressing this painful and troubled history. Sparked by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, protests have emerged across the United States demanding police and criminal justice reform. Reform efforts abound—including Minneapolis city councilors declaring they will d...
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Growing Up Black In America – Racial Prejudice
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Growing Up Black In America – Racial Prejudice

Black Americans have certainly faced many challenges trying to live the American Dream and partake in the many blessings other races have enjoyed here. One of the biggest hindrances black Americans have to continue facing in this country is the constant racial prejudice sent their way by white people. The original black people in this country were taken by force from Africa on ships to America where they were subjected to extreme abuse. They were made slaves, had their families separated, women violated and men whose self- esteem was reduced to nothing. They had no rights and were considered personal property. You may ask "how can a civilized people like the English fall to such abhorrent behavior? What reason could they possibly have to partake in behavior that treated a whole race o...
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Finding Racial Healing During the Pandemic
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Finding Racial Healing During the Pandemic

As a kid growing up in White America, learning to embrace my Asianness has often felt like rebellion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it feels more political than ever. Added anxiety over the rise in anti-Asian violence has shaken my community’s sense of security. I’ve heard and seen plenty of advice on how to stay physically safe—most of which prescribes assimilation and exceptionalism, which has proven ineffective for BIPOC throughout history. Rather than performing useless acts that take us further away from ourselves, I recommend practicing a form of radical acceptance. We can and should call out racism, defend ourselves, and work towards policy change to improve racial justice. But with radical acceptance, we let go of the idea that it’s our job to prove our worth as humans; to change...
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Addressing Racial And Gender Bias In Facial Recognition Surveillance
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TECHNOLOGY

Addressing Racial And Gender Bias In Facial Recognition Surveillance

The dystopian surveillance state of science fiction media is within reach—and some privacy activists argue that it’s already here. Facial recognition advancements have spiked fear and uncertainty over misuse and civil liberties infringements, but with the alarm comes a wave of activists bringing solutions. What is facial recognition? Facial recognition is a form of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence broadly refers to the development of computers to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence. If you have an email, you are indebted to AI for directing spam to a separate folder instead of flooding your inbox—the computer learned to recognize the pattern of spam and filter it accordingly. If you have a YouTube account or music streaming service, your personalize...
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Nonprofits that empower leaders of color are more apt to do something about racial inequality
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Journalism

Nonprofits that empower leaders of color are more apt to do something about racial inequality

The U.S. is becoming more racially diverse. Since 2010, 96% of all U.S. counties registered an increase in their percentage of nonwhite residents. Yet the people who lead nonprofits in the U.S. remain disproportionately white. This mismatch can make it difficult for such organizations to understand and address racial inequality in their community and throughout the country. As a scholar of diversity, I know most nonprofits want to become more racially diverse. However, many struggle to achieve this goal. While researchers, funders and community leaders often highlight the dismal levels of racial diversity among nonprofit boards, an even greater disparity often goes overlooked. Not mentioned is the fact that scarcely 10% of nonprofit executive directors are people of color. Current reali...
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