I. Critical Psychology and Racism as Abuse
“I had to meet the [W]hite man's eyes. An unfamiliar weight burdened me. In the [W]hite world the man of colour encounters difficulties in the development of his bodily scheme. . . . I was battered down by tom-toms, cannibalism, intellectual deficiency, fetishism, racial defects. . . . I took myself far off from my own presence. . . . What else could it be for me but an amputation, an excision, a hemorrhage that spattered my whole body with [B]lack blood?”
The study of abuse and its consequences has preoccupied many mental health practitioners throughout the last century. The repercussions of abuse are not limited to the manifestations of physical battery. Rather, like the many forms of abuse, there are many consequences.
The recognition of racism as abuse is consistent with traditional and contemporary definitions. Mental health practitioners have identified common consequences of exposure to mental and physical abuse, including psychological sequelae, which some believe are even more serious than the physical effects. In domestic violence cases, for instance, the abuse often erodes women's self-esteem and puts them at a greater risk for a variety of mental health problems, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, suicide, and alcohol and drug addiction. Such abuse has additional consequences for families. Children who witness marital violence face increased risk for emotional and behavioral problems including anxiety, depression, poor school performance, low self-esteem, disobedience, nightmares, and physical health complaints. Children exposed to abuse are also more likely to act aggressively.
Critical psychology reveals widespread racial discrimination against Blacks. Studies have found that Blacks continue to be discriminated against in a variety of arenas, ranging from face-to-face interactions to discrimination in housing, health, and social services. Such discrimination is not limited to low-income or uneducated Blacks, but is also reported by Black middle-class professionals. Indeed, one analysis drawing on the National Study of Black Americans suggests that recent experiences with racial discrimination may be associated with “higher levels of chronic health problems, disability and psychological distress, and lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction.” Membership in the Black race has been described as entailing exposure to highly stressful experiences, triggered essentially by race.
While education alone does not diminish the discrimination experienced by Blacks in America, Blacks are 1.6 times more likely than Whites to have completed less than twelve years of education. Education is positively related to well-being. A similar pattern is evident for income. The racial distribution by social class follows the pattern noted for education and income. Blacks are more likely than Whites to be workers (61 percent vs. 51 percent); equivalent percentages of Blacks and Whites are supervisors, but Whites are almost twice as likely as Blacks to be managers (24 percent vs. 13 percent). Blacks are more than twice as likely as Whites to report major experiences of discrimination in employment and police interactions. Levels of financial stress are significantly higher for Blacks than for Whites. Further, poverty and ethnicity have been found to be two of the most important consequential factors contributing to stress.
Critical psychology has expanded models of stress to account for racially predicated social hierarchies and the mechanisms through which they contribute to differences in mental and physical health. Unlike traditional psychology, critical psychology makes the implicit explicit by acknowledging race-related mental health issues. Critical psychology explicitly recognizes that race, ethnicity, social class, community, family, and work environment are independent contributors to the chronic stress burden of a racialized person. This chronic stress burden, which has cumulative implications, includes both generic life stresses and ethnicity and race-related stresses. A racially disparate vicious circle is generated which contributes over time to cumulative vulnerability. This in turn creates disparate vulnerabilities to mental and physical disease and dysfunction.
Mental health implications of racial abuse reveal several points of departure including stress, distress, the humiliation dynamic, anxiety, and depression, and coping. This Article will examine stress, distress, coping, and the humiliation dynamic as points of departure within the critical psychology for incorporation into mitigatory criminal law defenses.
