“They Try and Break Us But They Can’t”: The Cultural Ethos Youth of Color Engage and Rely on to Persevere and Navigate Racial Stressors in the U.S. Public Education System

This study aimed to identify factors that contributed to adaptive coping young people of color engage and rely on to navigate racial stressors in the public education system and to persist into college. The study included 20 undergraduate college students between 18 and 22 years who participated in retrospective interviews documenting critical incidents of racial stressors and coping. Participants self-identified as majority Black/African American (68%) and other nationalities including Honduran, Mexican, and Sudanese. A socioecological systems framework guided in-depth coding of interviews and identified college-going cultural ethos, relational ties, sense of agency, and emotional acuity themes. Findings suggest participants existed in an interdependent system of affirmation and validation that geared them toward college aspirations amid racial stressors encountered in the U.S. public education system. Discussion centers on the value of building the capacities of youths’ social ecologies to affirm their identities and validate their presence in the U.S. education system.

Preparing for Racial Discrimination and Moving beyond Reactive Coping: a Systematic Review

Racial discrimination is a commonly experienced stressor among African American that occurs in various forms. The stressful qualities of racial discrimination are highlighted by how such events are often cognitively appraised and the negative mental health outcomes associated with such racial stressors. Traditionally, existing conceptual models of racial discrimination have characterized the reactive experiences of African Americans, particularly identifying how African American typically respond cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally. Moving forward, it is vital that the conceptual models of racial discrimination extend beyond the reactive experience and further identify nuances in the anticipatory and preparatory processes associated with racial discrimination. As such, the current review draws upon a model of proactive coping (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997) to begin conceptualizes how African American may cope with anticipated discriminatory experiences and propose future research directions for generating conceptual models that more comprehensively capture experiences of racial stress among African Americans.

The Role of Sensory Gating in the Racism/Blood Pressure Relationship

African Americans bear a disproportionate burden of hypertension with racism postulated as a unique stressor contributing to the noted disparities. Epidemiological studies have found differences in the prevalence of hypertension among African Americans based on the amount of perceived racism reported, and experimental studies have shown increased cardiovascular reactivity to racially-aversive stressors. A difference in individual response to racial stressors may create subgroups of African Americans at highest risk for hypertension and its complications. Although sensory gating is the brain’s capacity to selectively regulate its sensitivity to environmental sensory stimuli, scant research has been done regarding the role of sensory gating in the stress response, and no research has explored sensory gating with racial stressors. To address this gap, we examined whether P50 sensory gating was associated with cardiovascular and central nervous system responses to an experimentally-induced racial stressor among 15 African Americans. A paired-click paradigm was administered prior to the experimental condition, which involved exposure to a neutral and then a racially-aversive photo stimulus. Participants with weak gating showed a significant within-subjects decrease in alpha-band activity when viewing the racially aversive stimulus and had significantly decreased alpha activity when viewing the aversive stimuli compared to participants with strong gating. Increased cardiovascular reactivity occurred with the aversive stimulus, and gender differences were noted. A gating effect on cardiovascular reactivity could not be determined given the small sample size and the fact that few men qualified as having ‘good’ gating. Although subjects reported no conscious awareness of distress when viewing the racially-aversive stimulus, both cardiovascular and central nervous system reactions occurred, with the responses varying based on the level of sensory gating. These results suggest sensory gating as a potential physiologic factor that may influence the relationship between perceived racial stressors and health outcomes.