Racial Discrimination and Mental Health: Black Students' Narratives of Their Experiences With Racial Discrimination and Racialized Comportment

• In Event: 64.086 - MTCC Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 64.086-13 - Black in (and) STEM: Narratives of Resistance and Social-Psychological Outcomes

Abstract

An impressive body of educational literature has documented how the campus racial climate of a predominately White institution (PWI) can adversely impact both the educational attainment and health and well-being of Black students (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Iacovino & James, 2016; James, Hall, Liles, Williams, & Marrero, 2016; McClain & Perry, 2017; Oliver II, Datta, & Baldwin, 2017). PWIs are often characterized by campus racial climates that are rife with racial discrimination and segregation, institutional neglect of students, faculty, and staff of color, and exclusionary and marginalizing policies (Ancis, Sedlacek, & Mohr, 2000; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado, 1992; Rankin & Reason, 2005; Solorzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000).
Black students who attend PWIs consistently report experiences of racial hostility, unjust treatment by faculty and staff, and demands to conform to institutional norms that negate their identity (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado, 1992). These macro and micro level inequalities result in Black students feeling isolated and invalidated, which increases their likelihood of experiencing mental health outcomes such as racism-related stress, psychological distress, and depressive symptomologies (Cokley, Hall-Clark, & Hicks, 2011; Harper, 2013; McGee & Stovall, 2015; Minikel-Lacocque, 2013; Williams & Mohammed, 2009). Such experiences can be profoundly stressful for Black students, especially when they occur regularly and in tandem with the daily college hassles all students face (Banks et al., 2006; McGee & Stovall, 2015). While the aforementioned mental health implications of cumulative experiences of racial discrimination for Black students have been the subject of empirical inquiry for well over a decade (Banerjee, Meyer, & Rowley, 2016; Brown, 2003; Carter, 2007; Hoggard, Byrd, & Sellers, 2015; Iacovino & James, 2016), much less is known about how Black students interpret and make meaning of their experiences with racial discrimination.
This study uses critical race theory (CRT) as a theoretical and methodological framework to examine how Black students’ efforts to navigate the campus racial climate of their PWI takes a toll on their mental health. By placing the students’ narratives at the center of inquiry, this study:
1. Explores how Black students perceive and experience racial discrimination in the context of the university setting.
2. Investigates how Black students make sense of the impact of racial discrimination on their mental health.
The students’ narratives, collected through in-depth interviews illustrate how racial discrimination manifests and persists on their campus, repeated experiences contribute to an array of mental health outcomes, and their experiences with racial discrimination become an embodied dimension of their gendered racial subjectivities. For example, while many of the students openly grappled with the significance race and racism have on their college experience, an unexpected theme emerged from their narratives about racism and their mental health that illustrated how their experiences with racial discrimination got under their skin in such a way that it impacted how they comported their body as a way to cope. The students’ narratives disrupt the dominant assumption that colleges and universities are colorblind, race neutral spaces by illustrating how racism continues to operate in unforeseen ways.

Author

• Kaleea Lewis