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Doll test - The effects of racism on children (ENG)

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lmost every black person in America has experienced the sting of disrespect on the basis of being black. A large but undetermined number of black people feel acutely disrespected in their everyday lives, discrimination they see as both subtle and explicit. Black folk know everyday racism - that becomes powerfully underscored by highly publicized racial incidents like the incident at Starbucks, the recent spate of police killings of black men, or the calling of police on a black female student while napping in a common area of a Yale dormitory.

In the face of these realities, black people everywhere take note and manage themselves in a largely white-dominated society, learning and sharing the peculiar rules of a white-dominated society in which expressions of white racism are becoming increasingly explicit.

While American society purports to be open and egalitarian, or "equal opportunity", such everyday outcomes leave black people deeply doubtful. Moreover, black people are generally convinced that they must work twice as hard to get half as far in life.

Long before the election of Donald Trump, black people believed the average white person was against them and their kind

Among their own, black people affirm and reaffirm these central lessons and, out of a sense of duty, try to pass them along to others they care about, and especially to their children.

For black people, experience holds a dear school, and the knowledge they acquire is based largely on the experience of living while black in a society that is dominated by white people.

Therefore, this cultural knowledge is most often inaccessible to white people, and when confronted with it, most white people are incredulous.

When US supreme court chief justice Roger Taney declared in 1857 that black people had no rights that white people were bound to respect, he was observing the social reality of his day. Slavery effectively established black people at the bottom of the American racial order, a position that allowed every white person to feel superior to any black person.

After Emancipation, as black people migrated to cities in the north and south, their stigma both followed and preceded them. When black people settled in their new communities, their reception was decidedly mixed, but as their numbers grew, local white people worked to contain them. Over time, the lowly position of black people became institutionalized, and passed from racist generation to racist generation.

Thus, black people usually were relegated to the least desirable sections of a city, often "across the tracks" from the white communities, or in the "black sections" of town, the precursor to the iconic black ghetto.

As black people operate in these segregated spaces, they can "be themselves", away from the direct control of white people. Yet, there is still a general sense that white people and their agents ultimately control the ghetto's racial reality, notably the financial, legal and criminal-justice systems.

While American society is often ideologically characterized as privileging equal opportunity, the everyday reality of the masses of black people is that of being peculiarly subordinate in almost every way, but this is especially true when they venture into essentially white spaces.

Following the civil rights movement, a "racial incorporation" process of the 1970s and 1980s was established, and along with "fair housing", school integration, and "affirmative action, it benefited many black people . Many of these people have joined the larger American middle class, and they and their children have become increasingly assimilated. But this assimilation is essentially into what they know and perceive as white space, which they often navigate haltingly, and essentially alone.

Yet, large numbers of black people continue to reside in segregated neighborhoods, and their children attend largely segregated schools. When venturing outside their local neighborhoods, particularly into spaces that are overwhelmingly white, they are often surveilled, and at times questioned, harassed, or occasionally arrested by the police - all for essentially "living while black".

Black voters go to the polls in the 2008 presidential election. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

In navigating these white spaces, they may feel themselves to be tokens, as symbolic representatives of the urban black ghetto. When encountering a white person in this setting, they tend to assume that person is likely to be racially insensitive, if not openly prejudiced, and before giving the person full trust, they hesitate.

In the thinking of many black people, it is a highly unusual or even rare to encounter white people who do not share a negative opinion of them and their kind. At the same time, they know and believe there are non-racist white people; they know that such white people exist and may refer to them as "decent" or "good" white people. Here, black people at times see a class divide - they tend to be biased in favor of the well-off white people, those they guess are less likely express prejudice toward black people.

When navigating the white space, black people are typically on the hunt for this type of person, thinking that such people might be supportive and friendly or serve them as allies in their struggles, are likely to understand, or at least are not so likely to exhibit the kind of racial animus against them which they strongly associate with most other white people.

For black people navigating white space, such allies are critically important, since black folk know there are in fact white people who absolutely hate them but don't say so to their faces. In fact, a major problem for black people is to figure out which white persons are decent and trustworthy and which ones are covertly racist; they worry about misplacing their trust, as they commonly experience "let downs" and racial setbacks.

Because of these challenges, many black people are suspicious of white spaces and hesitate to invest in relationships with white people they find there. Finding such relations too problematic, they tend to disengage with white people both in public and in private, keeping such relations somewhat superficial.

Given the rigid distinctions between black and white people, black people know very little about how white people actually live, and vice versa.

In fact, profound borders between ordinary white people and ordinary black people have always existed in this country. Since black and white people have lived apart for centuries, their coming together in a cosmopolitan urban society is often a major challenge, and it presents many issues for black people as they move about. Black people tread lightly and exit from stressful situations as soon as they can.

For black people navigating white space allies are critically important. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

In the white space, white people and others often stigmatize anonymous black persons by associating them with the putative danger, crime and poverty of the iconic ghetto, typically leaving black people with much to prove before being able to establish trusting relations with them. Accordingly, the most easily tolerated black person in the white space is often one who is "in his place"- that is, one who is working as a janitor or a service person or one who has been vouched for by white people in good standing. Such a person may be believed to be less likely to disturb the implicit racial order - white people as dominant and black people as subordinate.

Strikingly, a black person's deficit of credibility - a function of history of white supremacy, but also their more recent association with the iconic ghetto - may be minimized or tentatively overcome by a performance, a negotiation, or what some black people derisively refer to as a "dance", through which individual black people may be required to show that the ghetto stereotypes do not apply to them; in effect, they perform to be accepted. This performance can be as deliberate as dressing well and speaking in an educated way or as simple as producing an ID or a driver's license in situations in which this would never be demanded of white people.

As black people move about the white space, often the first thing they note is the number of black people present. The presence of familiar faces, or simply other black faces, brings a measure of comfort.

Being generally outnumbered by white people, black people feel a peculiar vulnerability, and they assume that other black people understand the challenges of this space in ways that white people cannot. Since the white space can turn hostile at any moment, the implicit promise of support black people sense from other black people serves as a defense, and it is part of the reason that black people acknowledge one another in this space, with the racial nod - an informal greeting serving as a trigger that activates black solidarity in this space.

Most white people have little idea, and many are willfully ignorant, of challenges black people face in white spaces

First, the strangers' eyes meet. If both "pass inspection", mutual nods likely follow, communicating, "I see you." Those who project negative images of the iconic ghetto will be ignored. This differentiation reflects how today's black ghetto differs from the ghetto under the rule of Jim Crow. Then the ghetto included upper-class, middle-class and working-class people, as well as the poor. Excluded from white neighborhoods, all black people lived there, as a caste apart from white society. While desperately poor black people resided in that community, it also included well-educated professional people, supportive social structures, and a strong focus on propriety and decency.

Today, black people inhabit all levels of the American class and occupational structure. They attend the best schools, pursue the professions of their choosing, and occupy various positions of power, privilege and prestige. But for the ascendant black upper middle class, in the shadows lurks the specter of the urban ghetto. The iconic ghetto is always in the background, shaping Americans' conception of the anonymous black person as well as the circumstances of black people in all walks of life.

Elijah Anderson is William K Lanman professor of sociology at Yale University. This article is adapted from his forthcoming book, Black in White Space

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This is what it feels like to be black in white spaces | Elijah Anderson

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lmost every black person in America has experienced the sting of disrespect on the basis of being black. A large but undetermined number of black people feel acutely disrespected in their everyday lives, discrimination they see as both subtle and explicit.

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"If I wasn't hearing bad things about myself, I wouldn't think "oh, I'm a bad person, I can't do this, I am not going to do it". Whereas if no one said anything bad about me, I would push myself harder into doing things and knowing that I can do it, no matter what happens I will do it ... but I just can't."
- Ekta, 15

Racism can cause a lot of damage to both individuals and communities.

Individuals

A study of over 800 Australian secondary school students found that racism had huge mental health impacts on young people who experience it, including:

ongoing feelings of sadness, anger, depression and being left out

headaches, increased heart rate, sweating, trembling and muscle tension

a constant fear of being verbally or physically attacked

not wanting to go to school

having little or no trust in anybody apart from family. ¹

These impacts can reduce people's ability to work or study, and to achieve their future goals.

Racism also affects people's general wellbeing when they are denied equal access to jobs, services and education.

"Racism makes me question myself and why things have to be this way ... I wondered one day what it would be like to be white and how much better my life would probably be. That was a low point."
- Andrew, 19

Communities

Australia is now a very culturally diverse country - about half of us were born overseas or had one or more parents born overseas. When racial tensions develop, they don't just affect one or two of us - they affect us all... as neighbours, workmates, friends and fellow Australians.

Racism creates a society where people don't trust and respect each other.

When it's allowed to flourish, it lessens us as a people. Remember the Stolen Generations... the White Australia policy... these are the ugly times in our history. We need to be vigilant in making sure that these kinds of things are never allowed to happen again.

There are no reasons or excuses for racism. It's just wrong. And in many cases, racism is against the law. For more information, see the "What does the law say" factsheet.

If racism happens to you, find out what you can do in the "What can you do?" factsheet.

If you see racism happening at school, in public or online, stand up to it. There's lots of safe ways that you can help. Find out more in the "What you can do?" factsheet.

You can also get support or advice to deal with a difficult situation from organisations like Kids Helpline and ReachOut.com

Why is racism a problem? (PDF)

Why is racism a problem? (Word)

¹ Foundation for Young Australians, The Impact of Racism Upon the Health and Wellbeing of Young Australians: At a Glance (2009).

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"If I wasn't hearing bad things about myself, I wouldn't think "oh, I'm a bad person, I can't do this, I am not going to do it". Whereas if no one said anything bad about me, I would push myself harder into doing things and knowing that I can do it, no matter what happens I will do it ...

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We need to face racism head-on in order to have healthy communities and a strong country. Racism and gaps among racial and ethnic groups affect education, housing, health care, the justice system and job opportunities. If we're going to make progress in our communities and in our country, people from all backgrounds and views must work together to address racism and inequities.

Dialogue-to-change programs can help people from a variety of racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds examine the gaps among racial and ethnic groups where they live, explore approaches to creating greater equity, and create lasting change in their community.
Why addressing racism is important to building a strong democracy:

Racism is rooted in our history and embedded in our culture

Racism is one of the greatest barriers to solving all kinds of public problems

Because of this, we help communities pay special attention to how structural racism and other structural inequities affect the problems they want to address

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We need to face racism head-on in order to have healthy communities and a strong country. Racism and gaps among racial and ethnic groups affect education, housing, health care, the justice system and job opportunities. If we're going to make progress in our communities and in our country, people from all backgrounds and views must work together to address racism and inequities.

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Cops And Ex-Felons Seek To Find Common Ground

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It seems as though every single day, the list grows.

Waiting in a coffee shop while black. Selling real estate while black. Moving in while black. Napping while black. Working out while black.

Ever since a Starbucks in the Philadelphia area came under national scrutiny for calling the police on two black men waiting for a business associate in one of the company's coffee shops, new attention has been focused on the long list of mundane activities that black Americans can't confidently engage in without being treated as suspicious or having the police called.

"It's just part of daily living. It's what you expect as a person of color when you head out the door in the morning," said Jeff Chang, the author of Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America. "A moment like this just sort of galvanized folks to be able to express all the different ways in which they've been impacted by daily racism."

In many ways the newly energized conversation parallels how Black Lives Matter emerged as an ideological clearinghouse for the problem of racialized police violence several years ago. Neither phenomenon was new, but in both cases a stream of high profile incidents managed to snowball into its own trope, in part thanks to social media and smartphone videos. In this case that's the trope of "everyday racism".

A national, widespread effort to reorient Americans' racist ideas - that has never happened before

For experts, the genesis is clear. While the US has ended the formal, legal codes of enslavement and segregation that stood for most of the nation's history, little has been done to change the minds of too many about the racist ideas that those structures rested on.

"There has not been a society-wide and intensive challenge to racist ideas in the US," said Ibram Kendi, the director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University. "You've had people saying we need to have 'national conversations', You've have people calling for 'healing', because in their minds it's just that people are hateful and they need to start loving ... But in terms of a national, widespread effort to reorient Americans' racist ideas - that has never happened before."

And those ideas run deep, said Jamilah Lemieux, a cultural critic and writer. "Non-black people in this country have been fed a steady diet of propaganda from their parents, their schools, their churches, and from the media that tells them that people of color, and particularly black folks and Latinx people are not to be trusted.

"They've been taught that we are criminals, that we are violent that we are predators and think we need to be monitored."

Barack Obama's 2008 election was seen by much of white America as the dawning of a new, post-racial age. The logic held that, if a black man could attain the highest office in the land, then no goal could be considered out of reach for an individual black person in modern America.

The election of Obama in 2008 seemed to herald a 'post-racial era'. Photograph: Jason Reed / Reuters/Reuters

This post-racial framing, of course, belies not just the inherited and institutional disadvantages black Americans face in housing, education, wealth, and other socioeconomic concerns, but also the emergence of what some have described as a "newer, slicker" form of racism. After the 2008 election, the anti-racist activist and writer Tim Wise described it as one where whites "hold the larger black community in low regard" but "carve out acceptable space for individuals like Obama who strike them as different".

And insofar as Obama's eight years in power fueled a renewed sense of purpose and organization among white nationalists, and triggered what the CNN pundit Van Jones famously described as a "whitelash", some, including Obama himself, have wondered if his presidency actually set the project of racial equality back - at least temporarily. "Maybe we pushed too far," Obama worried aloud to an aide shortly after the election, according to a forthcoming book. "Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe."

That racial tribalism is part of what propelled Trump's victory, despite the fact that he would go on to repeatedly describe himself as the " least racist person". Trump's popularity with unabashed white supremacists stems fromthings like his frequent ill-informed tweets and comments about inner city violence, and his reported use of the the phrase "shithole counties" in speaking about immigrants from black and brown nations.

After the Starbucks incident, numerous other examples quickly emerged via news reports and social media. In New Jersey, two black men had police called on them by staff at a gym after being falsely accused of working out without proper memberships. Police in California swarmed three black women leaving an Airbnb when a neighbor concluded they were in the midst of a robbery. A woman in Oakland called the police on black residents for barbecuing in a park, and, at Yale University, a white woman called police on a black fellow student for falling asleep in a dorm common area.

Starbucks recently closed more than 8,000 stores for employee training to address racial bias. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

The presence of police is not the defining factor for everyday racism, or what some call "microaggressions", but it is one of the harshest escalations. For Phillip Atiba Goff, a leading researcher on racial bias in policing and the president of the Center for Policing Equity, part of this has to do with the fact that black people and white peopleoften share space in places like a university campus or a rapidly gentrifying city such as Oakland, California, but don't always share bonds. "When you have people living close to each other who are not in community with each other, that breeds fear," Goff said.

He worries about what it means that in cases where officers functionally become "deputized as a kind of personal racism valet" - armed respondents to unfounded suspicions by white Americans. But from the perspective of law enforcement it's a hard circle to square.

"You can't very well instruct your 911 operators to be like 'yeah Mrs Smith, I know you said there were gangbangers but we know you're probably just racist," Goff said.

Police have to respond, and are trained to treat every scenario as though it could become dangerous. "So they're going to show up, and they're generally going to be aggressive," Goff added. "And by the time they figure out that you are not the issue, your dignity has been so assaulted that it really is difficult to have a pleasant conversation. For the cops and for the resident."

Thus, more than anything, what needs to be challenged to make real progress on everyday racism is racial bias, whether conscious or unconscious. "The only way we actually win, is to change the social norms," Goff said.

And for Kendi, like many race scholars, an important part of that is paying closer attention to social, economic and political policies that have a biased impact, rather than case by case negative exchanges individuals have with one another. "Policies are the cradle of the racist ideas circulating in people's minds that are leading to those interpersonal situations that are negatively affecting people," Kendi said.

"If people are really serious about being able to live freely and black in the United States, then the way really to do that is to be a part of the movement against racist policies."

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Oppression in America: 'To root this out we need a movement against racist policies'

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It seems as though every single day, the list grows. Waiting in a coffee shop while black. Selling real estate while black. Moving in while black. Napping while black. Working out while black.

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Villy Wang is in the business of rewriting stereotypes, empowering youth of color to take back their narratives through storytelling. In this moving talk, Wang explains how she developed a program to train kids in filmmaking so they can create new, authentic stories and break the cycle of bias perpetuated in media.