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IPFS News Link • Racism

The Physical Damage Racism Inflicts on Your Brain and Body

• http://www.wired.com

Giving out parking tickets in New York does not usually inspire goodwill. If anything, it inspires a steady stream of insults from angry drivers. So several years ago, Elizabeth Brondolo, a psychologist at St. John's University, came to counsel the city's traffic agents, most of whom were African-American.

"We could do standard behavior therapy things about being called a 'fat pig' or 'get a real job,'" says Brondolo. Her team ran through relaxation exercises and skits, which usually worked. "But the racial insults involved so much despair that we couldn't do the same kind of intervention."

That experience set Brondolo on a path studying the psychological and physical toll of racism. African Americans face disproportionately high levels of diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. And when it comes to mental health, studies show that reporting more incidents of racism is linked to more signs of depression and anxiety. But does racism cause health problems? Hard to tell. Other factors like socioeconomic status confound the data. But one thing is more certain: Racism causes stress, and stress can wreak havoc on a person's body and mind.

A growing body of research now links experiencing racism to poorer health outcomes—from depression to low-birth weight to cardiovascular disease.Racism, blatant or subtle, marks the bodies of those who have to live with it. Much of the research, though not all, comes from the experience of African Americans in the US.  "The literature is quite consistent," says Naa Oyo Kwate, a psychologist and professor of Africana studies at Rutgers. "The more racism you experience, the worse your health experience in a number of domains."

Experiencing racism, whether it's violence or insults or more subtle snubbing, makes life more difficult. That added stress becomes "allostatic load," which disrupts the normal function of the body: more stress means more cortisol in the body means more cardiovascular disease. "You're continually having to respond to this kind of stress in the body and this kind of wear and tear," says Kwate.

Duke sociologist Sherman James has coined another, more evocative term for this: John Henryism. It refers, of course, to the African American folk hero John Henry, who raced against a steel drill blasting rock through a mountain. He wins, but his exhausted heart gives out.


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