Headline of the Day: “Racism Hurts Kids’ Mental Health”
Doesn’t sound implausible to me, but we have to be careful. The cause and effect here isn’t clear. (It’s a puzzler, hence the image. Oy.) USA Today — best known these days as the paper that clutters your hotel-room doorway — has an article about study results from the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Some excerpts:
There is evidence that racial discrimination increases the odds that adolescents and adults will develop mental health problems, but this is the first study to examine a possible link in children of varied races, says Tumaini Coker, the study co-author and a RAND Corp. researcher and UCLA pediatrician.
It does not prove that discrimination caused the emotional problems, because unlike studies of older people, these children weren’t followed over time. It’s possible that prejudice harms children’s mental health, but it is also possible that troubled kids prompt more discriminatory remarks from peers or that children with emotional problems perceive more bias, says study leader Mark Schuster, a Harvard pediatrician and pediatrics chief at Children’s Hospital Boston.
The link between perceived racism and mental disorders is strong, he adds. For example, Hispanics who report racism are more than three times as likely as other children to have symptoms of depression; blacks are more than twice as likely; and those of “other” minority races have almost quadruple the odds.
Hispanics had the worst mental health effects, the study shows; perceptions of bias significantly increased their symptoms of all four disorders. About four out of five Hispanic children who felt prejudice had foreign-born parents. Black parents may buffer their children better, perhaps preparing them to expect some racism, Schuster speculates.
The study asked students whether they “ever” experienced racism, and that raises a question, says Rebecca Bigler, a University of Texas psychologist. In other research, children who report racism consistently say it rarely happens, she says. “We don’t know if it was a rare occurrence with these kids. Maybe it only has to happen once to be devastating if you’re young.”
liz | 11:11 AM | depression, media
only had to happen a handful of times to me (probably 4 formative incidents in my life) for me to develop a complex over it. ‘rarely’ is still enough to affect your psyche significantly. and i’m a light-skinned half-white half-latina who often passes for white.
when you hear racist comments growing up, and then are targeted directly and also witness racism against family members, combined with what you are exposed to through media/the general culture..it adds up. so even if it ‘rarely happens,’ which i can confirm has been the case for me growing up, the effects can be great and long term.
I think this whole new theory that there are people who “perceive” prejudice and people who do not is bunkum. I’d use another word but hey, I’m nice. I think it is another case of blaming the victims and very convenient for those who do not want to address prejudice. Just say the person who sees prejudice must be disturbed to start with, very convenient. And just wrong. Racism and prejudice are alive and well, people who experience are sometimes not alive and not well. Racial profiling by police, driving while a person of color, have we all forgotten Rodney King already?
yeah…cosign with the other two commenters. i guess i have just lived in this woman of color body so long that i cant imagine that this is could be questioned. i mean the cause and effect is so clear to me. you know there is something fucked up when we live in a society in which the dominant society thinks that there is such an advantage to claiming to have experienced racism that people of color would routinely call something racism just to…i dont..know…why…
–but it is also possible that troubled kids prompt more discriminatory remarks from peers or that children with emotional problems perceive more bias–
what is a troubled kid? and why would other kids say racist things to a troubled kid? is it okay to say racist things to a kid who is ‘troubled’ — does that make the racist things not racist. its basically comes across as ‘he started it!’. so now im allowed to be racist.
when you keep in mind things like 90-95 percent of all foster children are of color…
that black kids are still failing the doll test 40 years after brown v board of education
that study after study has shown that black and brown kids are disciplined more harshly in school than white kids for the same behaviour
that children of color are less likely to be put into competitive college track classes even when their academic performance is equal to the white kids’ who are recommended for those courses
and more and more and more
yeah kids experience racism. its not their over ’sensitivity’ to the micro aggressions they experience every day it is our lack of sensitivity and empathy. and of course they develop mental health issues.
there was a study out in the 90s that showed that on average adult black folk showed most of the signs of ptsd.
because it feels like psychological torture to be a poc in this world.
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