systemic racism research essay

Search form

• Find Stories
• For Journalists

Stanford scholars examine systemic racism, how to advance racial justice in America

Black History Month is an opportunity to reflect on the Black experience in America and examine continuing systemic racism and discrimination in the U.S. – issues many Stanford scholars are tackling in their research and scholarship.

A pandemic that disproportionately affected communities of color, roadblocks that obstructed efforts to expand the franchise and protect voting discrimination, a growing movement to push anti-racist curricula out of schools – events over the past year have only underscored how prevalent systemic racism and bias is in America today.

What can be done to dismantle centuries of discrimination in the U.S.? How can a more equitable society be achieved? What makes racism such a complicated problem to solve? Black History Month is a time marked for honoring and reflecting on the experience of Black Americans, and it is also an opportunity to reexamine our nation’s deeply embedded racial problems and the possible solutions that could help build a more equitable society.

Stanford scholars are tackling these issues head-on in their research from the perspectives of history, education, law and other disciplines. For example, historian Clayborne Carson is working to preserve and promote the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and religious studies scholar Lerone A. Martin has joined Stanford to continue expanding access and opportunities to learn from King’s teachings; sociologist Matthew Clair is examining how the criminal justice system can end a vicious cycle involving the disparate treatment of Black men; and education scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students.

Learn more about these efforts and other projects examining racism and discrimination in areas like health and medicine, technology and the workplace below.

Update: Jan. 27, 2023: This story was originally published on Feb. 16, 2021, and has been updated on a number of occasions to include new content.

Understanding the impact of racism; advancing justice

One of the hardest elements of advancing racial justice is helping everyone understand the ways in which they are involved in a system or structure that perpetuates racism, according to Stanford legal scholar Ralph Richard Banks.

“The starting point for the center is the recognition that racial inequality and division have long been the fault line of American society. Thus, addressing racial inequity is essential to sustaining our nation, and furthering its democratic aspirations,” said Banks , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and co-founder of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice .

This sentiment was echoed by Stanford researcher Rebecca Hetey . One of the obstacles in solving inequality is people’s attitudes towards it, Hetey said. “One of the barriers of reducing inequality is how some people justify and rationalize it.”

How people talk about race and stereotypes matters. Here is some of that scholarship.

For Black Americans, COVID-19 is quickly reversing crucial economic gains

Research co-authored by SIEPR’s Peter Klenow and Chad Jones measures the welfare gap between Black and white Americans and provides a way to analyze policies to narrow the divide.

How an ‘impact mindset’ unites activists of different races

A new study finds that people’s involvement with Black Lives Matter stems from an impulse that goes beyond identity.

For democracy to work, racial inequalities must be addressed

The Stanford Center for Racial Justice is taking a hard look at the policies perpetuating systemic racism in America today and asking how we can imagine a more equitable society.

The psychological toll of George Floyd’s murder

As the nation mourned the death of George Floyd, more Black Americans than white Americans felt angry or sad – a finding that reveals the racial disparities of grief.

Seven factors contributing to American racism

Of the seven factors the researchers identified, perhaps the most insidious is passivism or passive racism, which includes an apathy toward systems of racial advantage or denial that those systems even exist.

Scholars reflect on Black history

Humanities and social sciences scholars reflect on “Black history as American history” and its impact on their personal and professional lives.

The history of Black History Month

It's February, so many teachers and schools are taking time to celebrate Black History Month. According to Stanford historian Michael Hines, there are still misunderstandings and misconceptions about the past, present, and future of the celebration.

Numbers about inequality don’t speak for themselves

In a new research paper, Stanford scholars Rebecca Hetey and Jennifer Eberhardt propose new ways to talk about racial disparities that exist across society, from education to health care and criminal justice systems.

Changing how people perceive problems

Drawing on an extensive body of research, Stanford psychologist Gregory Walton lays out a roadmap to positively influence the way people think about themselves and the world around them. These changes could improve society, too.

Welfare opposition linked to threats of racial standing

Research co-authored by sociologist Robb Willer finds that when white Americans perceive threats to their status as the dominant demographic group, their resentment of minorities increases. This resentment leads to opposing welfare programs they believe will mainly benefit minority groups.

Conversations about race between Black and white friends can feel risky, but are valuable

New research about how friends approach talking about their race-related experiences with each other reveals concerns but also the potential that these conversations have to strengthen relationships and further intergroup learning.

Defusing racial bias

Research shows why understanding the source of discrimination matters.

Many white parents aren’t having ‘the talk’ about race with their kids

After George Floyd’s murder, Black parents talked about race and racism with their kids more. White parents did not and were more likely to give their kids colorblind messages.

Stereotyping makes people more likely to act badly

Even slight cues, like reading a negative stereotype about your race or gender, can have an impact.

Why white people downplay their individual racial privileges

Research shows that white Americans, when faced with evidence of racial privilege, deny that they have benefited personally.

Clayborne Carson: Looking back at a legacy

Stanford historian Clayborne Carson reflects on a career dedicated to studying and preserving the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

How race influences, amplifies backlash against outspoken women

When women break gender norms, the most negative reactions may come from people of the same race.

Examining disparities in education

Scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students. Annamma’s research examines how schools contribute to the criminalization of Black youths by creating a culture of punishment that penalizes Black children more harshly than their white peers for the same behavior. Her work shows that youth of color are more likely to be closely watched, over-represented in special education, and reported to and arrested by police.

“These are all ways in which schools criminalize Black youth,” she said. “Day after day, these things start to sediment.”

That’s why Annamma has identified opportunities for teachers and administrators to intervene in these unfair practices. Below is some of that research, from Annamma and others.

New ‘Segregation Index’ shows American schools remain highly segregated by race, ethnicity, and economic status

Researchers at Stanford and USC developed a new tool to track neighborhood and school segregation in the U.S.

New evidence shows that school poverty shapes racial achievement gaps

Racial segregation leads to growing achievement gaps – but it does so entirely through differences in school poverty, according to new research from education Professor Sean Reardon, who is launching a new tool to help educators, parents and policymakers examine education trends by race and poverty level nationwide.

School closures intensify gentrification in Black neighborhoods nationwide

An analysis of census and school closure data finds that shuttering schools increases gentrification – but only in predominantly Black communities.

Ninth-grade ethnic studies helped students for years, Stanford researchers find

A new study shows that students assigned to an ethnic studies course had longer-term improvements in attendance and graduation rates.

Teaching about racism

Stanford sociologist Matthew Snipp discusses ways to educate students about race and ethnic relations in America.

Stanford scholar uncovers an early activist’s fight to get Black history into schools

In a new book, Assistant Professor Michael Hines chronicles the efforts of a Chicago schoolteacher in the 1930s who wanted to remedy the portrayal of Black history in textbooks of the time.

How disability intersects with race

Professor Alfredo J. Artiles discusses the complexities in creating inclusive policies for students with disabilities.

Access to program for black male students lowered dropout rates

New research led by Stanford education professor Thomas S. Dee provides the first evidence of effectiveness for a district-wide initiative targeted at black male high school students.

How school systems make criminals of Black youth

Stanford education professor Subini Ancy Annamma talks about the role schools play in creating a culture of punishment against Black students.

Reducing racial disparities in school discipline

Stanford psychologists find that brief exercises early in middle school can improve students’ relationships with their teachers, increase their sense of belonging and reduce teachers’ reports of discipline issues among black and Latino boys.

Science lessons through a different lens

In his new book, Science in the City, Stanford education professor Bryan A. Brown helps bridge the gap between students’ culture and the science classroom.

Teachers more likely to label black students as troublemakers, Stanford research shows

Stanford psychologists Jennifer Eberhardt and Jason Okonofua experimentally examined the psychological processes involved when teachers discipline black students more harshly than white students.

Why we need Black teachers

Travis Bristol, MA '04, talks about what it takes for schools to hire and retain teachers of color.

Understanding racism in the criminal justice system

Research has shown that time and time again, inequality is embedded into all facets of the criminal justice system. From being arrested to being charged, convicted and sentenced, people of color – particularly Black men – are disproportionately targeted by the police.

“So many reforms are needed: police accountability, judicial intervention, reducing prosecutorial power and increasing resources for public defenders are places we can start,” said sociologist Matthew Clair . “But beyond piecemeal reforms, we need to continue having critical conversations about transformation and the role of the courts in bringing about the abolition of police and prisons.”

Clair is one of several Stanford scholars who have examined the intersection of race and the criminal process and offered solutions to end the vicious cycle of racism. Here is some of that work.

Police Facebook posts disproportionately highlight crimes involving Black suspects, study finds

Researchers examined crime-related posts from 14,000 Facebook pages maintained by U.S. law enforcement agencies and found that Facebook users are exposed to posts that overrepresent Black suspects by 25% relative to local arrest rates.

Supporting students involved in the justice system

New data show that a one-page letter asking a teacher to support a youth as they navigate the difficult transition from juvenile detention back to school can reduce the likelihood that the student re-offends.

Race and mass criminalization in the U.S.

Stanford sociologist discusses how race and class inequalities are embedded in the American criminal legal system.

New Stanford research lab explores incarcerated students’ educational paths

Associate Professor Subini Annamma examines the policies and practices that push marginalized students out of school and into prisons.

Derek Chauvin verdict important, but much remains to be done

Stanford scholars Hakeem Jefferson, Robert Weisberg and Matthew Clair weigh in on the Derek Chauvin verdict, emphasizing that while the outcome is important, much work remains to be done to bring about long-lasting justice.

A ‘veil of darkness’ reduces racial bias in traffic stops

After analyzing 95 million traffic stop records, filed by officers with 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police forces from 2011 to 2018, researchers concluded that “police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias.”

Stanford big data study finds racial disparities in Oakland, Calif., police behavior, offers solutions

Analyzing thousands of data points, the researchers found racial disparities in how Oakland officers treated African Americans on routine traffic and pedestrian stops. They suggest 50 measures to improve police-community relations.

Race and the death penalty

As questions about racial bias in the criminal justice system dominate the headlines, research by Stanford law Professor John J. Donohue III offers insight into one of the most fraught areas: the death penalty.

Diagnosing disparities in health, medicine

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color and has highlighted the health disparities between Black Americans, whites and other demographic groups.

As Iris Gibbs , professor of radiation oncology and associate dean of MD program admissions, pointed out at an event sponsored by Stanford Medicine: “We need more sustained attention and real action towards eliminating health inequities, educating our entire community and going beyond ‘allyship,’ because that one fizzles out. We really do need people who are truly there all the way.”

Below is some of that research as well as solutions that can address some of the disparities in the American healthcare system.

Stanford researchers testing ways to improve clinical trial diversity

The American Heart Association has provided funding to two Stanford Medicine professors to develop ways to diversify enrollment in heart disease clinical trials.

Striking inequalities in maternal and infant health

Research by SIEPR’s Petra Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater finds wealthy Black mothers and infants in the U.S. fare worse than the poorest white mothers and infants.

More racial diversity among physicians would lead to better health among black men

A clinical trial in Oakland by Stanford researchers found that black men are more likely to seek out preventive care after being seen by black doctors compared to non-black doctors.

A better measuring stick: Algorithmic approach to pain diagnosis could eliminate racial bias

Traditional approaches to pain management don’t treat all patients the same. AI could level the playing field.

5 questions: Alice Popejoy on race, ethnicity and ancestry in science

Alice Popejoy, a postdoctoral scholar who studies biomedical data sciences, speaks to the role – and pitfalls – of race, ethnicity and ancestry in research.

Stanford Medicine community calls for action against racial injustice, inequities

The event at Stanford provided a venue for health care workers and students to express their feelings about violence against African Americans and to voice their demands for change.

Racial disparity remains in heart-transplant mortality rates, Stanford study finds

African-American heart transplant patients have had persistently higher mortality rates than white patients, but exactly why still remains a mystery.

Finding the COVID-19 Victims that Big Data Misses

Widely used virus tracking data undercounts older people and people of color. Scholars propose a solution to this demographic bias.

Studying how racial stressors affect mental health

Farzana Saleem, an assistant professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education, is interested in the way Black youth and other young people of color navigate adolescence—and the racial stressors that can make the journey harder.

Infants’ race influences quality of hospital care in California

Disparities exist in how babies of different racial and ethnic origins are treated in California’s neonatal intensive care units, but this could be changed, say Stanford researchers.

Immigrants don’t move state-to-state in search of health benefits

When states expand public health insurance to include low-income, legal immigrants, it does not lead to out-of-state immigrants moving in search of benefits.

Excess mortality rates early in pandemic highest among Blacks

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been starkly uneven across race, ethnicity and geography, according to a new study led by SHP's Maria Polyakova.

Decoding bias in media, technology

Driving Artificial Intelligence are machine learning algorithms, sets of rules that tell a computer how to solve a problem, perform a task and in some cases, predict an outcome. These predictive models are based on massive datasets to recognize certain patterns, which according to communication scholar Angele Christin , sometimes come flawed with human bias . 

“Technology changes things, but perhaps not always as much as we think,” Christin said. “Social context matters a lot in shaping the actual effects of the technological tools. […] So, it’s important to understand that connection between humans and machines.”

Below is some of that research, as well as other ways discrimination unfolds across technology, in the media, and ways to counteract it.

IRS disproportionately audits Black taxpayers

A Stanford collaboration with the Department of the Treasury yields the first direct evidence of differences in audit rates by race.

Automated speech recognition less accurate for blacks

The disparity likely occurs because such technologies are based on machine learning systems that rely heavily on databases of English as spoken by white Americans.

New algorithm trains AI to avoid bad behaviors

Robots, self-driving cars and other intelligent machines could become better-behaved thanks to a new way to help machine learning designers build AI applications with safeguards against specific, undesirable outcomes such as racial and gender bias.

Stanford scholar analyzes responses to algorithms in journalism, criminal justice

In a recent study, assistant professor of communication Angèle Christin finds a gap between intended and actual uses of algorithmic tools in journalism and criminal justice fields.

Move responsibly and think about things

In the course CS 181: Computers, Ethics and Public Policy , Stanford students become computer programmers, policymakers and philosophers to examine the ethical and social impacts of technological innovation.

Homicide victims from Black and Hispanic neighborhoods devalued

Social scientists found that homicide victims killed in Chicago’s predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods received less news coverage than those killed in mostly white neighborhoods.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

AI Index Diversity Report: An Unmoving Needle

Stanford HAI’s 2021 AI Index reveals stalled progress in diversifying AI and a scarcity of the data needed to fix it.

Identifying discrimination in the workplace and economy

From who moves forward in the hiring process to who receives funding from venture capitalists, research has revealed how Blacks and other minority groups are discriminated against in the workplace and economy-at-large. 

“There is not one silver bullet here that you can walk away with. Hiring and retention with respect to employee diversity are complex problems,” said Adina Sterling , associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business (GSB). 

Sterling has offered a few places where employers can expand employee diversity at their companies. For example, she suggests hiring managers track data about their recruitment methods and the pools that result from those efforts, as well as examining who they ultimately hire.

Here is some of that insight.

How To: Use a Scorecard to Evaluate People More Fairly

A written framework is an easy way to hold everyone to the same standard.

Archiving Black histories of Silicon Valley

A new collection at Stanford Libraries will highlight Black Americans who helped transform California’s Silicon Valley region into a hub for innovation, ideas.

Race influences professional investors’ judgments

In their evaluations of high-performing venture capital funds, professional investors rate white-led teams more favorably than they do black-led teams with identical credentials, a new Stanford study led by Jennifer L. Eberhardt finds.

Who moves forward in the hiring process?

People whose employment histories include part-time, temporary help agency or mismatched work can face challenges during the hiring process, according to new research by Stanford sociologist David Pedulla.

How emotions may result in hiring, workplace bias

Stanford study suggests that the emotions American employers are looking for in job candidates may not match up with emotions valued by jobseekers from some cultural backgrounds – potentially leading to hiring bias.

Do VCs really favor white male founders?

A field experiment used fake emails to measure gender and racial bias among startup investors.

Can you spot diversity? (Probably not)

New research shows a “spillover effect” that might be clouding your judgment.

Can job referrals improve employee diversity?

New research looks at how referrals impact promotions of minorities and women.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• 09 June 2020

Systemic racism: science must listen, learn and change

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Demonstrators gather in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on 2 June as protests against racism spread across the United States and around the world. Credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty

The killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police department, and President Donald Trump’s crushing of protests across the United States, has angered the world, and led to marches in cities globally. The repeated killings of Black people in the United States serve as reminders — reminders that should not be needed — of the injustice, violence and systemic inequality that Black Americans continue to experience in every sphere of life.

Black people are more likely than white people to die at the hands of the police; more likely to become unemployed; and, as COVID-19 has laid bare, more likely to be burdened with ill health. Black people are similarly marginalized in most nations where they are in the minority.

Nature condemns police prejudice and violence, we stand against all forms of racism and we join others around the world in saying, unequivocally, that Black Lives Matter.

Such statements are necessary, but they are not sufficient. They need to be followed by meaningful action.

Black people, including researchers, are taking to social media to spell out what that action should look like, calling attention to decades of literature on the steps necessary to make academia and science equitable. This outpouring is, in part, because Black researchers have long been denied a space and a platform in established institutions and publications such as this one.

We recognize that Nature is one of the white institutions that is responsible for bias in research and scholarship. The enterprise of science has been — and remains — complicit in systemic racism, and it must strive harder to correct those injustices and amplify marginalized voices.

At Nature , we will redouble our efforts to do so, and commit to establishing a process that will hold us to account on the many changes we need to make.

In addition, we commit to producing a special issue of the journal, under the guidance of a guest editor, exploring systemic racism in research, research policy and publishing — including investigating Nature ’s part in that.

Together with the rest of the research community, we must listen, reflect, learn and act — and we must never shirk our responsibility to end systemic racism.

Nature 582 , 147 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01678-x

Reprints and permissions

Related Articles

• Research management

Hunger on campus: why US PhD students are fighting over food

Career Feature 03 MAY 24

US National Academies report outlines barriers and solutions for scientist carers

Career News 02 MAY 24

We need more-nuanced approaches to exploring sex and gender in research

Comment 01 MAY 24

Japan can embrace open science — but flexible approaches are key

Correspondence 07 MAY 24

US funders to tighten oversight of controversial ‘gain of function’ research

News 07 MAY 24

France’s research mega-campus faces leadership crisis

News 03 MAY 24

How to stop students cramming for exams? Send them to sea

News & Views 30 APR 24

How young people benefit from Swiss apprenticeships

Spotlight 17 APR 24

Ready or not, AI is coming to science education — and students have opinions

Career Feature 08 APR 24

Faculty Positions at the Center for Machine Learning Research (CMLR), Peking University

CMLR's goal is to advance machine learning-related research across a wide range of disciplines.

Beijing, China

Center for Machine Learning Research (CMLR), Peking University

Faculty Positions at SUSTech Department of Biomedical Engineering

We seek outstanding applicants for full-time tenure-track/tenured faculty positions. Positions are available for both junior and senior-level.

Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

Southern University of Science and Technology (Biomedical Engineering)

Southeast University Future Technology Institute Recruitment Notice

Professor openings in mechanical engineering, control science and engineering, and integrating emerging interdisciplinary majors

Nanjing, Jiangsu (CN)

Southeast University

Staff Scientist

A Staff Scientist position is available in the laboratory of Drs. Elliot and Glassberg to study translational aspects of lung injury, repair and fibro

Maywood, Illinois

Loyola University Chicago - Department of Medicine

W3-Professorship (with tenure) in Inorganic Chemistry

The Institute of Inorganic Chemistry in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Bonn invites applications for a W3-Pro...

53113, Zentrum (DE)

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Systemic racism and America today

Subscribe to how we rise, john r. allen john r. allen.

June 11, 2020

Unaddressed systemic racism is, in my mind, the most important issue in the United States today. And it has been so since before the founding of our nation.

Slavery was America’s “original sin.” It was not solved by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, nor was it resolved by the horrendous conflict that was of the American Civil War. It simply changed its odious form and continued the generational enslavement of an entire strata of American society. In turn, the Civil Rights Movement struck a mighty blow against racism in America, and our souls soared when Dr. King told us he had a dream. But we were and still are far from the “promised land.” And even when America rose up to elect its first Black President, Barack Obama, we may indeed have lost ground as a collective nation along the way.

That is our legacy as Americans, and in many ways, the most hateful remnants of slavery persist in the U.S. today in the form of systemic racism baked into nearly every aspect of our society and who we are as a people. Indeed, for those tracing their heritage to countries outside of Western Europe, or for those with a non-Christian belief system, that undeniable truth often impacts every aspect of who you are as a person, in one form or another.

The reality of this history has been on stark display in recent weeks. From the terrible killings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, to the countless, untold acts of racism that take place every day across America, these are the issues that are defining the moment—just as our response will define who we are and will be in the 21st century and beyond. Truly, the very nature of our “national soul” is at stake, and we all have a deep responsibility to be a part of the solution.

For us at Brookings, race, racism, equality, and equity are now matters of presidential priority. Addressing systemic racism is a key component of those efforts, with research also focusing on the Latino and Native American communities; faith-based communities, including our Jewish and Muslim communities; and the threat of white supremacy and domestic terrorism also playing a major role. It will also include work on the important need for comprehensive police reform, to include reform rooted in local community engagement and empowerment. We will not solve systemic racism and inequality over-night, and we have so much work ahead. But in a world where we often spend more time debating the nature of our problems than taking meaningful action, we must find ways to contribute however we can and to move forward as a community.

I firmly believe that we as Americans cannot remain silent about injustice. Inaction is simply unacceptable, and we have to stand up and speak out. And if our elected representatives and our elected leadership deny the problem, and refuse to act, then we must take on the responsibility of reform from the bottom up with special attention at the ballot box.

And especially for those Americans who may look like me – a white American male – or come from a similar background, action begins with reflection, and most importantly listening. It’s also about elevating and supporting the voices of those traditionally underrepresented, or even silenced, throughout society.  How We Rise is an absolutely critical part of that solution.

U.S. Democracy

Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative

Simon Hodson

May 8, 2024

Nicol Turner Lee

August 6, 2024

William A. Galston

May 1, 2024

Studies find evidence of systemic racial discrimination across multiple domains in the United States

Harvard Pop Center faculty member Sara Bleich and her colleagues have published two studies examining experiences of racial discrimination in the United States.

One study found substantial black-white disparities in experiences of discrimination in the U.S. spanning multiple domains including health care, employment, and law enforcement, while a separate study found similar discrimination among Latinos in the United States. Given the connection between racial discrimination and poor health outcomes in both groups of Americans, the study calls for more interventions to address broad racial discrimination.

Race in America

A Smithsonian magazine special report

History | June 4, 2020

158 Resources to Understand Racism in America

These articles, videos, podcasts and websites from the Smithsonian chronicle the history of anti-black violence and inequality in the United States

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

In a short essay published earlier this week, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch wrote that the recent killing in Minnesota of George Floyd has forced the country to “confront the reality that, despite gains made in the past 50 years, we are still a nation riven by inequality and racial division.”

Amid escalating clashes between protesters and police, discussing race—from the inequity embedded in American institutions to the United States’ long, painful history of anti-black violence—is an essential step in sparking meaningful societal change. To support those struggling to begin these difficult conversations, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture recently launched a “ Talking About Race ” portal featuring “tools and guidance” for educators, parents, caregivers and other people committed to equity.

“Talking About Race” joins a vast trove of resources from the Smithsonian Institution dedicated to understanding what Bunch describes as America’s “tortured racial past.” From Smithsonian magazine articles on slavery’s Trail of Tears and the disturbing resilience of scientific racism to the National Museum of American History’s collection of Black History Month resources for educators and a Sidedoor podcast on the Tulsa Race Massacre, these 158 resources are designed to foster an equal society, encourage commitment to unbiased choices and promote antiracism in all aspects of life. Listings are bolded and organized by category.

Table of Contents

1. Historical Context

2. Systemic Inequality

3. Anti-Black Violence

5. Intersectionality

6. Allyship and Education

Historical Context

Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million people were kidnapped from Africa and sent to the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade . Only 10.7 million survived the harrowing two month journey. Comprehending the sheer scale of this forced migration—and slavery’s subsequent spread across the country via interregional trade —can be a daunting task, but as historian Leslie Harris told Smithsonian ’s Amy Crawford earlier this year, framing “these big concepts in terms of individual lives … can [help you] better understand what these things mean.”

Take, for instance, the story of John Casor . Originally an indentured servant of African descent, Casor lost a 1654 or 1655 court case convened to determine whether his contract had lapsed. He became the first individual declared a slave for life in the United States. Manuel Vidau , a Yoruba man who was captured and sold to traders some 200 years after Casor’s enslavement, later shared an account of his life with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which documented his remarkable story—after a decade of enslavement in Cuba, he purchased a share in a lottery ticket and won enough money to buy his freedom—in records now available on the digital database “ Freedom Narratives .” (A separate, similarly document-based online resource emphasizes individuals described in fugitive slave ads , which historian Joshua Rothman describes as “sort of a little biography” providing insights on their subjects’ appearance and attire.)

Finally, consider the life of Matilda McCrear , the last known survivor of the transatlantic slave trade. Kidnapped from West Africa and brought to the U.S. on the Clotilda , she arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in July 1860—more than 50 years after Congress had outlawed the import of enslaved labor. McCrear, who died in 1940 at the age of 81 or 82, “ displayed a determined, even defiant streak ” in her later life, wrote Brigit Katz earlier this year. She refused to use her former owner’s last name, wore her hair in traditional Yoruba style and had a decades-long relationship with a white German man.

How American society remembers and teaches the horrors of slavery is crucial. But as recent studies have shown, many textbooks offer a sanitized view of this history , focusing solely on “positive” stories about black leaders like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass . Prior to 2018, Texas schools even taught that states’ rights and sectionalism—not slavery—were the main causes of the Civil War . And, in Confederate memorials across the country, writes historian Kevin M. Levin , enslaved individuals are often falsely portrayed as loyal slaves .

Accurately representing slavery might require an updated vocabulary , argued historian Michael Landis in 2015: Outdated “[t]erms like ‘compromise’ or ‘plantation’ served either to reassure worried Americans in a Cold War world, or uphold a white supremacist, sexist interpretation of the past.” Rather than referring to the Compromise of 1850 , call it the Appeasement of 1850—a term that better describes “the uneven nature of the agreement,” according to Landis. Smithsonian scholar Christopher Wilson wrote, too, that widespread framing of the Civil War as a battle between equal entities lends legitimacy to the Confederacy , which was not a nation in its own right, but an “illegitimate rebellion and unrecognized political entity.” A 2018 Smithsonian magazine investigation found that the literal costs of the Confederacy are immense: In the decade prior, American taxpayers contributed $40 million to the maintenance of Confederate monuments and heritage organizations.

To better understand the immense brutality ingrained in enslaved individuals’ everyday lives, read up on Louisiana’s Whitney Plantation Museum , which acts as “part reminder of the scars of institutional bondage, part mausoleum for dozens of enslaved people who worked (and died) in [its] sugar fields, … [and] monument to the terror of slavery,” as Jared Keller observed in 2016. Visitors begin their tour in a historic church populated by clay sculptures of children who died on the plantation’s grounds, then move on to a series of granite slabs engraved with hundreds of enslaved African Americans’ names. Scattered throughout the experience are stories of the violence inflicted by overseers.

The Whitney Plantation Museum is at the forefront of a vanguard of historical sites working to confront their racist pasts. In recent years, exhibitions, oral history projects and other initiatives have highlighted the enslaved people whose labor powered such landmarks as Mount Vernon , the White House and Monticello . At the same time, historians are increasingly calling attention to major historical figures’ own slave-holding legacies : From Thomas Jefferson to George Washington , William Clark of Lewis and Clark , Francis Scott Key , and other Founding Fathers , many American icons were complicit in upholding the institution of slavery. Washington , Jefferson , James Madison and Aaron Burr , among others, sexually abused enslaved females working in their households and had oft-overlooked biracial families.

Though Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the decree took two-and-a-half years to fully enact. June 19, 1865—the day Union Gen. Gordon Granger informed the enslaved individuals of Galveston, Texas, that they were officially free—is now known as Juneteenth : America’s “second independence day,” according to NMAAHC. Initially celebrated mainly in Texas, Juneteenth spread across the country as African Americans fled the South in what is now called the Great Migration .

At the onset of that mass movement in 1916, 90 percent of African Americans still lived in the South, where they were “held captive by the virtual slavery of sharecropping and debt peonage and isolated from the rest of the country,” as Isabel Wilkerson wrote in 2016. ( Sharecropping , a system in which formerly enslaved people became tenant farmers and lived in “converted” slave cabins , was the impetus for the 1919 Elaine Massacre , which found white soldiers collaborating with local vigilantes to kill at least 200 sharecroppers who dared to criticize their low wages.) By the time the Great Migration—famously chronicled by artist Jacob Lawrence —ended in the 1970s, 47 percent of African Americans called the northern and western United States home.

Listen to Sidedoor: A Smithsonian Podcast

The third season of Sidedoor explored a South Carolina residence’s unique journey from slave cabin to family home and its latest incarnation as a centerpiece at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Conditions outside the Deep South were more favorable than those within the region, but the “hostility and hierarchies that fed the Southern caste system” remained major obstacles for black migrants in all areas of the country, according to Wilkerson. Low-paying jobs, redlining , restrictive housing covenants and rampant discrimination limited opportunities, creating inequality that would eventually give rise to the civil rights movement.

“The Great Migration was the first big step that the nation’s servant class ever took without asking,” Wilkerson explained. “ … It was about agency for a people who had been denied it, who had geography as the only tool at their disposal. It was an expression of faith, despite the terrors they had survived, that the country whose wealth had been created by their ancestors’ unpaid labor might do right by them.”

Systemic Inequality

Racial, economic and educational disparities are deeply entrenched in U.S. institutions. Though the Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal,” American democracy has historically—and often violently —excluded certain groups. “Democracy means everybody can participate, it means you are sharing power with people you don’t know, don’t understand, might not even like,” said National Museum of American History curator Harry Rubenstein in 2017. “That’s the bargain. And some people over time have felt very threatened by that notion.”

Instances of inequality range from the obvious to less overtly discriminatory policies and belief systems. Historical examples of the former include poll taxes that effectively disenfranchised African American voters; the marginalization of African American soldiers who fought in World War I and World War II but were treated like second-class citizens at home; black innovators who were barred from filing patents for their inventions; white medical professionals’ exploitation of black women’s bodies (see Henrietta Lacks and J. Marion Sims ); Richard and Mildred Loving ’s decade-long fight to legalize interracial marriage; the segregated nature of travel in the Jim Crow era; the government-mandated segregation of American cities ; and segregation in schools .

Among the most heartbreaking examples of structural racism’s subtle effects are accounts shared by black children. In the late 1970s, when Lebert F. Lester II was 8 or 9 years old, he started building a sand castle during a trip to the Connecticut shore . A young white girl joined him but was quickly taken away by her father. Lester recalled the girl returning, only to ask him, “Why don’t [you] just go in the water and wash it off?” Lester says., “I was so confused—I only figured out later she meant my complexion .” Two decades earlier, in 1957, 15-year-old Minnijean Brown had arrived at Little Rock Central High School with high hopes of “making friends, going to dances and singing in the chorus.” Instead, she and the rest of the Little Rock Nine —a group of black students selected to attend the formerly all-white academy after Brown v. Board of Education desegregated public schools—were subjected to daily verbal and physical assaults. Around the same time, photographer John G. Zimmerman captured snapshots of racial politics in the South that included comparisons of black families waiting in long lines for polio inoculations as white children received speedy treatment.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission , a group convened by President Lyndon Johnson, found that white racism, not black anger, was the impetus for the widespread civil unrest sweeping the nation. As Alice George wrote in 2018, the commission’s report suggested that “[b]ad policing practices, a flawed justice system, unscrupulous consumer credit practices, poor or inadequate housing, high unemployment, voter suppression and other culturally embedded forms of racial discrimination all converged to propel violent upheaval.” Few listened to the findings, let alone its suggestion of aggressive government spending aimed at leveling the playing field. Instead, the country embraced a different cause: space travel . The day after the 1969 moon landing, the leading black paper the New York Amsterdam News ran a story stating, “Yesterday, the moon. Tomorrow, maybe us.”

Fifty years after the Kerner Report’s release, a separate study assessed how much had changed ; it concluded that conditions had actually worsened. In 2017, black unemployment was higher than in 1968, as was the rate of incarcerated individuals who were black. The wealth gap had also increased substantially, with the median white family having ten times more wealth than the median black family. “We are resegregating our cities and our schools, condemning millions of kids to inferior education and taking away their real possibility of getting out of poverty,” said Fred Harris, the last surviving member of the Kerner Commission, following the 2018 study’s release.

Today, scientific racism —grounded in such faulty practices as eugenics and the treatment of race “as a crude proxy for myriad social and environmental factors,” writes Ramin Skibba—persists despite overwhelming evidence that race has only social, not biological, meaning. Black scholars including Mamie Phipps Clark , a psychologist whose research on racial identity in children helped end segregation in schools, and Rebecca J. Cole , a 19th-century physician and advocate who challenged the idea that black communities were destined for death and disease, have helped overturn some of these biases. But a 2015 survey found that 48 percent of black and Latina women scientists, respectively, still report being mistaken for custodial or administrative staff . Even artificial intelligence exhibits racial biases , many of which are introduced by lab staff and crowdsourced workers who program their own conscious and unconscious opinions into algorithms.

Anti-Black Violence

In addition to enduring centuries of enslavement, exploitation and inequality, African Americans have long been the targets of racially charged physical violence. Per the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative , more than 4,400 lynchings —mob killings undertaken without legal authority—took place in the U.S. between the end of Reconstruction and World War II.

Incredibly, the Senate only passed legislation declaring lynching a federal crime in 2018 . Between 1918 and the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act’s eventual passage, more than 200 anti-lynching bills failed to make it through Congress. (Earlier this week, Sen. Rand Paul said he would hold up a separate, similarly intentioned bill over fears that its definition of lynching was too broad. The House passed the bill in a 410-to-4 vote this February.) Also in 2018, the Equal Justice Initiative opened the nation’s first monument to African American lynching victims . The six-acre memorial site stands alongside a museum dedicated to tracing the nation’s history of racial bias and persecution from slavery to the present.

One of the earliest instances of Reconstruction-era racial violence took place in Opelousas, Louisiana, in September 1868. Two months ahead of the presidential election, Southern white Democrats started terrorizing Republican opponents who appeared poised to secure victory at the polls. On September 28, a group of men attacked 18-year-old schoolteacher Emerson Bentley, who had already attracted ire for teaching African American students, after he published an account of local Democrats’ intimidation of Republicans. Bentley escaped with his life, but 27 of the 29 African Americans who arrived on the scene to help him were summarily executed. Over the next two weeks, vigilante terror led to the deaths of some 250 people, the majority of whom were black.

In April 1873, another spate of violence rocked Louisiana. The Colfax Massacre , described by historian Eric Foner as the “bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era,” unfolded under similar circumstances as Opelousas, with tensions between Democrats and Republicans culminating in the deaths of between 60 and 150 African Americans, as well as three white men.

Between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s, multiple massacres broke out in response to false allegations that young black men had raped or otherwise assaulted white women. In August 1908, a mob terrorized African American neighborhoods across Springfield, Illinois, vandalizing black-owned businesses, setting fire to the homes of black residents, beating those unable to flee and lynching at least two people. Local authorities, argues historian Roberta Senechal , were “ineffectual at best, complicit at worst.”

False accusations also sparked a July 1919 race riot in Washington, D.C. and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 , which was most recently dramatized in the HBO series “ Watchmen .” As African American History Museum curator Paul Gardullo tells Smithsonian , tensions related to Tulsa’s economy underpinned the violence : Forced to settle on what was thought to be worthless land, African Americans and Native Americans struck oil and proceeded to transform the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa into a prosperous community known as “Black Wall Street.” According to Gardullo, “It was the frustration of poor whites not knowing what to do with a successful black community, and in coalition with the city government [they] were given permission to do what they did.”

Over the course of two days in spring 1921, the Tulsa Race Massacre claimed the lives of an estimated 300 black Tulsans and displaced another 10,000. Mobs burned down at least 1,256 residences, churches, schools and businesses and destroyed almost 40 blocks of Greenwood. As the Sidedoor episode “ Confronting the Past ” notes, “No one knows how many people died, no one was ever convicted, and no one really talked about it nearly a century later.”

The second season of Sidedoor told the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

Economic injustice also led to the East St. Louis Race War of 1917. This labor dispute-turned-deadly found “people’s houses being set ablaze, … people being shot when they tried to flee, some trying to swim to the other side of the Mississippi while being shot at by white mobs with rifles, others being dragged out of street cars and beaten and hanged from street lamps,” recalled Dhati Kennedy, the son of a survivor who witnessed the devastation firsthand. Official counts place the death toll at 39 black and 9 white individuals, but locals argue that the real toll was closer to 100.

A watershed moment for the burgeoning civil rights movement was the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till . Accused of whistling at a white woman while visiting family members in Mississippi, he was kidnapped, tortured and killed. Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, decided to give her son an open-casket funeral, forcing the world to confront the image of his disfigured, decomposing body . ( Visuals , including photographs, movies, television clips and artwork, played a key role in advancing the movement.) The two white men responsible for Till’s murder were acquitted by an all-white jury. A marker at the site where the teenager’s body was recovered has been vandalized at least three times since its placement in 2007.

The form of anti-black violence with the most striking parallels to contemporary conversations is police brutality . As Katie Nodjimbadem reported in 2017, a regional crime survey of late 1920s Chicago and Cook County, Illinois, found that while African Americans constituted just 5 percent of the area’s population, they made up 30 percent of the victims of police killings. Civil rights protests exacerbated tensions between African Americans and police, with events like the Orangeburg Massacre of 1968, in which law enforcement officers shot and killed three student activists at South Carolina State College, and the Glenville shootout , which left three police officers, three black nationalists and one civilian dead, fostering mistrust between the two groups.

Today, this legacy is exemplified by broken windows policing , a controversial approach that encourages racial profiling and targets African American and Latino communities. “What we see is a continuation of an unequal relationship that has been exacerbated, made worse if you will, by the militarization and the increase in fire power of police forces around the country,” William Pretzer , senior curator at NMAAHC, told Smithsonian in 2017.

The history of protest and revolt in the United States is inextricably linked with the racial violence detailed above.

Prior to the Civil War, enslaved individuals rarely revolted outright. Nat Turner , whose 1831 insurrection ended in his execution, was one of the rare exceptions. A fervent Christian , he drew inspiration from the Bible. His personal copy , now housed in the collections of the African American History Museum, represented the “possibility of something else for himself and for those around him,” curator Mary Ellis told Smithsonian ’s Victoria Dawson in 2016.

Other enslaved African Americans practiced less risky forms of resistance, including working slowly, breaking tools and setting objects on fire. “Slave rebellions, though few and small in size in America, were invariably bloody,” wrote Dawson. “Indeed, death was all but certain.”

One of the few successful uprisings of the period was the Creole Rebellion . In the fall of 1841, 128 enslaved African Americans traveling aboard The Creole mutinied against its crew, forcing their former captors to sail the brig to the British West Indies, where slavery was abolished and they could gain immediate freedom.

An April 1712 revolt found enslaved New Yorkers setting fire to white-owned buildings and firing on slaveholders. Quickly outnumbered, the group fled but was tracked to a nearby swamp; though several members were spared, the majority were publicly executed, and in the years following the uprising, the city enacted laws limiting enslaved individuals’ already scant freedom. In 1811, meanwhile, more than 500 African Americans marched on New Orleans while chanting “Freedom or Death.” Though the German Coast uprising was brutally suppressed, historian Daniel Rasmussen argues that it “had been much larger—and come much closer to succeeding—than the planters and American officials let on.”

Some 150 years after what Rasmussen deems America’s “ largest slave revolt ,” the civil rights movement ushered in a different kind of protest. In 1955, police arrested Rosa Parks for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white passenger (“I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn’t take it any more,” she later wrote). The ensuing Montgomery bus boycott , in which black passengers refused to ride public transit until officials met their demands, led the Supreme Court to rule segregated buses unconstitutional. Five years later, the Greensboro Four similarly took a stand, ironically by staging a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter . As Christopher Wilson wrote ahead of the 60th anniversary of the event, “What made Greensboro different [from other sit-ins ] was how it grew from a courageous moment to a revolutionary movement.”

During the 1950s and ’60s, civil rights leaders adopted varying approaches to protest: Malcolm X , a staunch proponent of black nationalism who called for equality by “any means necessary,” “made tangible the anger and frustration of African Americans who were simply catching hell,” according to journalist Allison Keyes. He repeated the same argument “over and over again,” wrote academic and activist Cornel West in 2015: “What do you think you would do after 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow and lynching? Do you think you would respond nonviolently? What’s your history like? Let’s look at how you have responded when you were oppressed. George Washington—revolutionary guerrilla fighter!’”

Martin Luther King Jr . famously advocated for nonviolent protest, albeit not in the form that many think. As biographer Taylor Branch told Smithsonian in 2015, King’s understanding of nonviolence was more complex than is commonly argued. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi’s “passive resistance,” King believed resistance “depended on being active, using demonstrations, direct actions, to ‘amplify the message’ of the protest they were making,” according to Ron Rosenbaum. In the activist’s own words , “[A] riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?… It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. ”

Another key player in the civil rights movement, the militant Black Panther Party , celebrated black power and operated under a philosophy of “ demands and aspirations .” The group’s Ten-Point Program called for an “immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people,” as well as more controversial measures like freeing all black prisoners and exempting black men from military service. Per NMAAHC , black power “emphasized black self-reliance and self-determination more than integration,” calling for the creation of separate African American political and cultural organizations. In doing so, the movement ensured that its proponents would attract the unwelcome attention of the FBI and other government agencies.

Many of the protests now viewed as emblematic of the fight for racial justice took place in the 1960s. On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people gathered in D.C. for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom . Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the march, activists who attended the event detailed the experience for a Smithsonian oral history : Entertainer Harry Belafonte observed, “We had to seize the opportunity and make our voices heard. Make those who are comfortable with our oppression—make them uncomfortable—Dr. King said that was the purpose of this mission,” while Representative John Lewis recalled, “Looking toward Union Station, we saw a sea of humanity; hundreds, thousands of people. … People literally pushed us, carried us all the way, until we reached the Washington Monument and then we walked on to the Lincoln Memorial..”

Two years after the March on Washington, King and other activists organized a march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. Later called the Selma March , the protest was dramatized in a 2014 film starring David Oyelowo as MLK. ( Reflecting on Selma , Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch, then-director of NMAAHC, deemed it a “remarkable film” that “does not privilege the white perspective … [or] use the movement as a convenient backdrop for a conventional story.”)

Organized in response to the manifest obstacles black individuals faced when attempting to vote, the Selma March actually consisted of three separate protests. The first of these, held on March 7, 1965, ended in a tragedy now known as Bloody Sunday . As peaceful protesters gathered on the Edmund Pettus Bridge —named for a Confederate general and local Ku Klux Klan leader—law enforcement officers attacked them with tear gas and clubs. One week later, President Lyndon B. Johnson offered the Selma protesters his support and introduced legislation aimed at expanding voting rights. During the third and final march, organized in the aftermath of Johnson’s announcement, tens of thousands of protesters (protected by the National Guard and personally led by King) converged on Montgomery. Along the way, interior designer Carl Benkert used a hidden reel-to-reel tape recorder to document the sounds—and specifically songs—of the event .

The protests of the early and mid-1960s culminated in the widespread unrest of 1967 and 1968. For five days in July 1967, riots on a scale unseen since 1863 rocked the city of Detroit : As Lorraine Boissoneault writes, “Looters prowled the streets, arsonists set buildings on fire, civilian snipers took position from rooftops and police shot and arrested citizens indiscriminately.” Systemic injustice in such areas as housing, jobs and education contributed to the uprising, but police brutality was the driving factor behind the violence. By the end of the riots, 43 people were dead. Hundreds sustained injuries, and more than 7,000 were arrested.

The Detroit riots of 1967 prefaced the seismic changes of 1968 . As Matthew Twombly wrote in 2018, movements including the Vietnam War, the Cold War, civil rights, human rights and youth culture “exploded with force in 1968,” triggering aftershocks that would resonate both in America and abroad for decades to come.

On February 1, black sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker died in a gruesome accident involving a malfunctioning garbage truck. Their deaths, compounded by Mayor Henry Loeb’s refusal to negotiate with labor representatives, led to the outbreak of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike —an event remembered both “as an example of powerless African Americans standing up for themselves” and as the backdrop to King’s April 4 assassination .

Though King is lionized today, he was highly unpopular at the time of his death. According to a Harris Poll conducted in early 1968, nearly 75 percent of Americans disapproved of the civil rights leader , who had become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Vietnam War and economic inequity. Despite the public’s seeming ambivalence toward King—and his family’s calls for nonviolence— his murder sparked violent protests across the country . In all, the Holy Week Uprisings spread to nearly 200 cities, leaving 3,500 people injured and 43 dead. Roughly 27,000 protesters were arrested, and 54 of the cities involved sustained more than $100,000 in property damage.

In May, thousands flocked to Washington, D.C. for a protest King had planned prior to his death. Called the Poor People’s Campaign , the event united racial groups from all quarters of America in a call for economic justice. Attendees constructed “ Resurrection City ,” a temporary settlement made up of 3,000 wooden tents, and camped out on the National Mall for 42 days.

“While we were all in a kind of depressed state about the assassinations of King and RFK, we were trying to keep our spirits up, and keep focused on King’s ideals of humanitarian issues, the elimination of poverty and freedom,” protester Lenneal Henderson told Smithsonian in 2018. “It was exciting to be part of something that potentially, at least, could make a difference in the lives of so many people who were in poverty around the country.”

Racial unrest persisted throughout the year, with uprisings on the Fourth of July , a protest at the Summer Olympic Games , and massacres at Orangeburg and Glenville testifying to the tumultuous state of the nation.

The Black Lives Matter marches organized in response to the killings of George Floyd, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and other victims of anti-black violence share many parallels with protests of the past .

Football player Colin Kaepernick ’s decision to kneel during the national anthem—and the unmitigated outrage it sparked —bears similarities to the story of boxer Muhammad Ali , historian Jonathan Eig told Smithsonian in 2017: “It’s been eerie to watch it, that we’re still having these debates that black athletes should be expected to shut their mouths and perform for us,” he said. “That’s what people told Ali 50 years ago.”

Other aspects of modern protest draw directly on uprisings of earlier eras. In 2016, for instance, artist Dread Scott updated an anti-lynching poster used by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1920s and ’30s to read “ A Black Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday .” (Scott added the words “by police.”)

Though the civil rights movement is often viewed as the result of a cohesive “grand plan” or “manifestation of the vision of the few leaders whose names we know,” the American History Museum’s Christopher Wilson argues that “the truth is there wasn’t one, there were many and they were often competitive .”

Meaningful change required a whirlwind of revolution, adds Wilson, “but also the slow legal march. It took boycotts, petitions, news coverage, civil disobedience, marches, lawsuits, shrewd political maneuvering, fundraising, and even the violent terror campaign of the movement’s opponents—all going on [at] the same time.”

Intersectionality

In layman’s terms, intersectionality refers to the multifaceted discrimination experienced by individuals who belong to multiple minority groups. As theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw explains in a video published by NMAAHC , these classifications run the gamut from race to gender, gender identity, class, sexuality and disability. A black woman who identifies as a lesbian, for instance, may face prejudice based on her race, gender or sexuality.

Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality in 1989, explains the concept best: “Consider an intersection made up of many roads,” she says in the video. “The roads are the structures of race, gender, gender identity, class, sexuality, disability. And the traffic running through those roads are the practices and policies that discriminate against people. Now if an accident happens, it can be caused by cars traveling in any number of directions, and sometimes, from all of them. So if a black woman is harmed because she is in an intersection, her injury could result from discrimination from any or all directions.”

Understanding intersectionality is essential for teasing out the relationships between movements including civil rights, LGBTQ rights , suffrage and feminism. Consider the contributions of black transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera , who played pivotal roles in the Stonewall Uprising ; gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin , who was only posthumously pardoned this year for having consensual sex with men; the “rank and file” women of the Black Panther Party ; and African American suffragists such as Mary Church Terrell and Nannie Helen Burroughs .

All of these individuals fought discrimination on multiple levels: As noted in “ Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence ,” a 2019 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, leading suffrage organizations initially excluded black suffragists from their ranks , driving the emergence of separate suffrage movements and, eventually, black feminists grounded in the inseparable experiences of racism, sexism and classism.

Allyship and Education

Individuals striving to become better allies by educating themselves and taking decisive action have an array of options for getting started. Begin with NMAAHC’s “ Talking About Race ” portal, which features sections on being antiracist , whiteness , bias , social identities and systems of oppression , self-care , race and racial identity , the historical foundations of race , and community building . An additional 139 items —from a lecture on the history of racism in America to a handout on white supremacy culture and an article on the school-to-prison pipeline —are available to explore via the portal’s resources page .

In collaboration with the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, the National Museum of the American Indian has created a toolkit that aims to “help people facilitate new conversations with and among students about the power of images and words, the challenges of memory, and the relationship between personal and national value,” says museum director Kevin Gover in a statement . The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center offers a similarly focused resource called “ Standing Together Against Xenophobia .” As the site’s description notes, “This includes addressing not only the hatred and violence that has recently targeted people of Asian descent, but also the xenophobia that plagues our society during times of national crisis.”

Ahead of NMAAHC’s official opening in 2016, the museum hosted a series of public programs titled “ History, Rebellion, and Reconciliation .” Panels included “Ferguson: What Does This Moment Mean for America?” and “#Words Matter: Making Revolution Irresistible.” As Smithsonian reported at the time, “It was somewhat of a refrain at the symposium that museums can provide ‘safe,’ or even ‘sacred’ spaces , within which visitors [can] wrestle with difficult and complex topics.” Then-director Lonnie Bunch expanded on this mindset in an interview, telling Smithsonian , “Our job is to be an educational institution that uses history and culture not only to look back, not only to help us understand today, but to point us towards what we can become.” For more context on the museum’s collections, mission and place in American history, visit Smithsonian ’s “ Breaking Ground ” hub and NMAAHC’s digital resources guide .

Historical examples of allyship offer both inspiration and cautionary tales for the present. Take, for example, Albert Einstein , who famously criticized segregation as a “disease of white people” and continually used his platform to denounce racism. (The scientist’s advocacy is admittedly complicated by travel diaries that reveal his deeply troubling views on race .)

Einstein’s near-contemporary, a white novelist named John Howard Griffin, took his supposed allyship one step further, darkening his skin and embarking on a “human odyssey through the South,” as Bruce Watson wrote in 2011. Griffin’s chronicle of his experience, a volume titled Black Like Me , became a surprise bestseller, refuting “the idea that minorities were acting out of paranoia,” according to scholar Gerald Early, and testifying to the veracity of black people’s accounts of racism.

“The only way I could see to bridge the gap between us,” wrote Griffin in Black Like Me , “was to become a Negro.”

Griffin, however, had the privilege of being able to shed his blackness at will—which he did after just one month of donning his makeup. By that point, Watson observed, Griffin could simply “stand no more.”

Sixty years later, what is perhaps most striking is just how little has changed. As Bunch reflected earlier this week, “The state of our democracy feels fragile and precarious.”

Addressing the racism and social inequity embedded in American society will be a “monumental task,” the secretary added. But “the past is replete with examples of ordinary people working together to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges. History is a guide to a better future and demonstrates that we can become a better society—but only if we collectively demand it from each other and from the institutions responsible for administering justice.”

Editor ’s Note, July 24, 2020: This article previously stated that some 3.9 million of the 10.7 million people who survived the harrowing two-month journey across the Middle Passage between 1525 and 1866 were ultimately enslaved in the United States. In fact, the 3.9 million figure refers to the number of enslaved individuals in the U.S. just before the Civil War. We regret the error.

Get the latest History stories in your inbox?

Click to visit our Privacy Statement .

Meilan Solly | | READ MORE

Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history.

• External Advisory Board
• Visiting Committee
• Jobs & Grants
• Senior Research Staff
• Research Staff
• Graduate Students
• Administrative Staff
• Our Approach
• Collaborations
• Research Domains
• Labs and Centers
• PhD Program in Social & Engineering Systems
• Technology and Policy Program
• Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Statistics
• Minor in Statistics and Data Science
• IDSSx: Data Science Online
• MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science (SDS)
• IDSS Classes
• IDSS Student Council
• Newsletters
• Podcast: Data Nation
• Past Events
• IDSS Alliance
• IDSS Strategic Partnerships
• Invest in IDSS
• Initiative on Combatting Systemic Racism

The Research Initiative on Combatting Systemic Racism aims to launch and coordinate cross-disciplinary research on how to identify and overcome racially discriminatory processes across a range of American institutions and policy domains. The effort brings together faculty and researchers from all five schools and the Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT, as well as partner institutions. Building on the extensive social science literature on systemic racism, our focus is to use big data to develop and harness computational tools that can help effect structural and normative change towards racial equity.

Fotini Christia

Director , SSRC Associate Director , IDSS Ford International Professor in the Social Sciences Chair , PhD Program in SES

Munther Dahleh

Founding Director , IDSS William A. Coolidge Professor , Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Steering Committee

The ICSR steering committee comprises faculty members from across MIT’s five schools. Members advise on the activities of the initiative and help disseminate findings beyond MIT. Chancellor Melissa Nobles (Professor of Political Science) has agreed to head this committee. The other members are: Emery Brown (BCS), D. Fox Harrell (CMS), Christine Ortiz (DMSE), Ray Reagans (Sloan), Larry Sass (Architecture) and Collin Stultz (EECS).

Existing research has shown racial discrimination and systemic inequity across essentially all sectors of society. While we recognize that these sectors are often highly interrelated, research under the initiative will be organized into multiple ‘verticals’ including the following:

• Antiracism, Games, and Immersive Media
• Social Media

Additional verticals will be added in the future as the initiative grows.

Foundational to this work will be the creation of a data lake of observations from a wide array of U.S. institutions where systemic racism is known to or has the potential to affect decision-making and lead to inequitable policies, services and other outcomes based on race. This repository of data will provide a platform for the computational research conducted, to improve on scholarship and policy proposals addressing systemic racism.

In addition, we will establish connections and directly collaborate with URM researchers and students. We will also connect with community organizations in minority neighborhoods that often bear the brunt of the direct and indirect effects of systemic racism, as well as with local government offices that work to address inequity in service provision in these communities to see how our research can help inform relevant policy decisions.

Project Teams

Project teams will bring together researchers with expertise in causal inference and mechanism design, domain experts in various aspects of race, and humanists and social scientists with expertise in collective human and institutional behavior particularly in relation to racial issues.

The  IDSS/SSRC   Combatting Systemic Racism Seed Fund Program  supports innovative, early-stage cross-disciplinary research projects with a focus on combatting systemic racism. Through these grants, IDSS and SSRC seek to encourage researchers from across MIT to collaborate in bringing together new ideas from information and decision systems; data sciences and statistics; and the social sciences to identify and overcome racially discriminatory processes and outcomes across a range of U.S. institutions and policy domains.

MIT scholars awarded seed grants to probe the social implications of generative AI

The 27 finalists include many IDSS faculty and research within the IDSS Initiative on Combatting Systemic Racism. 

AI can help shape society for the better – but humans and machines must work together

IDSS core faculty D. Fox Harrell says collaboration rather than command-and-control is key to creating culturally and ethically positive systems.

Study finds bot detection software isn’t as accurate as it seems // MIT Sloan Ideas Made to Matter

MIT Sloan’s Ideas Made to Matter highlights the Social Media vertical’s recently published study that shows “general-purpose bot-detection algorithms trained on a particular data set may be highly error-prone when applied in real-world contexts.”

AWS Machine Learning – The Grad Project

Ben Lewis and Jessy Han represented the Policing vertical in an online event on Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at 2:00pm. Ben and Jessy discussed their work on creating datasets using criminal justice, housing, social media, and other public data linked to areas in our society most influenced by systemic racism.

Get involved

Interested in participating? Reach out to [email protected] .

MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 617-253-1764

• Accessibility
• IDSS COVID-19 Collaboration (Isolat)
• Energy Systems
• Health Care
• Social Networks
• Urban Systems
• SES Admissions
• SES Program and Resources
• SES Funding
• SES + Statistics
• SES Graduates
• Data Science and Machine Learning: Making Data-Driven Decisions
• Online Programs and Short Courses
• Conferences and Workshops
• IDSS Distinguished Seminar Series
• IDSS Special Seminars
• Stochastics and Statistics Seminar Series
• Research to Policy Engagement
• IDS.190 – Topics in Bayesian Modeling and Computation
• Online Events
• Other Events
• Great Learning
• Partnerships in Education
• Partnerships in Research

Research Topic Starters

• Aggressive/Distracted Driving
• Climate Change
• Depression & Postpartum Depression
• E-Cigarettes and Vaping
• Freedom of Speech
• Gender Equity
• Gun Control
• Prescription Medication Abuse
• Psychological Disorders
• Systemic Racism
• Trigger Warnings

Contacting the STCC Library

STCC LIBRARY

Contact: Building 19, 2nd Floor Springfield Technical Community College One Armory Square Springfield, MA   01102

CIRC ULATION  EMAIL:  L [email protected]

CIRCULATION VOICEMAIL:  413-755-4532

EMAIL A LIBRARIAN :   [email protected]

Call a librarian:  (413)755-4549  

Library Staff available  during  Library  Hours

Topic and Articles

• Race & Ethnicity
• White Privilege
• Microaggressions & Implicit Bias
• Criminal Justice
• Economic Justice
• Rights & Activism

11-Step Guide to Understanding Race, Racism, and White Privilege

https://citizenshipandsocialjustice.com/11-step-guide-to-understanding-race-racism-and-white-privilege/

Racism Defined

https://www.dismantlingracism.org/racism-defined.html

Race does not equal DNA

http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/Race%20does%20not%20equal%20DNA%20-%20TT50.pdf

On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/on-views-of-race-and-inequality-blacks-and-whites-are-worlds-apart/

Race in America

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/

5 charts reveal key racial inequality gaps in the US

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/us-race-economy-education-inequality/

Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race

What is white privilege, really?

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2018/what-is-white-privilege-really

10 Things you should know about white privilege

https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2016/10/13/10-things-you-should-know-about-white-privilege

The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_standards

White Supremacy Culture

https://www.dismantlingracism.org/white-supremacy-culture.html

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/

Paying Attention to White Culture and Privilege: A Missing Link to Advancing Racial Equity

https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/2_Gulati_AB3.pdf

Robin DiAngelo: How 'white fragility' supports racism and how whites can stop it

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/health/white-fragility-robin-diangelo-wellness/index.html

Disarming Racial Microaggressions: Microintervention Strategies for Targets, White Allies, and Bystanders https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2019-01033-011.html

Don’t Talk about Implicit Bias Without Talking about Structural Racism

https://medium.com/national-equity-project/implicit-bias-structural-racism-6c52cf0f4a92

How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them [TED talk]

https://www.ted.com/talks/verna_myers_how_to_overcome_our_biases_walk_boldly_toward_them?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

Racial Microaggressions Are Real. Here’s How to Navigate Them

https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2019/10/23/racist-racial-microaggressions/

How to Respond to Racial Microaggressions When They Occur

https://diverseeducation.com/article/176397/

Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry

https://www.splcenter.org/20150125/speak-responding-everyday-bigotry

10 things we know about race and policing in the U.S.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s

Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/

18 Examples Of Racism In The Criminal Legal System

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/18-examples-of-racism-in-criminal-legal-system_b_57f26bf0e4b095bd896a1476?utm_source=everydayfeminism.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange_article

ABC News analysis of police arrests nationwide reveals stark racial disparity

https://abcnews.go.com/US/abc-news-analysis-police-arrests-nationwide-reveals-stark/story?id=71188546

The Code Switch Guide To Race And Policing

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/09/873066989/the-code-switch-guide-to-race-and-policing

Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide

https://ips-dc.org/report-racial-wealth-divide-solutions/

From Jobs To Homeownership, Protests Put Spotlight On Racial Economic Divide

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/866794025/from-jobs-to-homeownership-protests-put-spotlight-on-economic-divide

Racial Economic Inequality

https://inequality.org/facts/racial-inequality/

Examining the Black-white wealth gap

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/

Racial Wealth Equity

https://prosperitynow.org/topics/racial-wealth-equity

Why we need reparations for Black Americans

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/why-we-need-reparations-for-black-americans/

The case for reparations

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

What the Racial Data Show:The pandemic seems to be hitting people of color the hardest.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-exposing-our-racial-divides/609526/

What Would It Take to Reduce Inequities in Healthy Life Expectancy?

https://next50.urban.org/question/health-related-social-needs

Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2020/05/07/484742/health-disparities-race-ethnicity/

Inequity and Health

https://inequality.org/facts/inequality-and-health/

Minority Population Health Profiles

https://www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlid=26

In Focus: Reducing Racial Disparities in Health Care by Confronting Racism

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-article/2018/sep/focus-reducing-racial-disparities-health-care-confronting

Why Racism, Not Race, Is a Risk Factor for Dying of COVID-19

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-racism-not-race-is-a-risk-factor-for-dying-of-covid-191/

Racial and Ethnic Health Care Disparities

https://medicareadvocacy.org/medicare-info/health-care-disparities/

4 Ways Racial Inequity Harms American Schoolchildren

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/11/875023672/4-ways-racial-inequity-harms-american-school-children

RACE, DISCIPLINE, AND SAFETY AT U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS

https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/school-prison-pipeline/race-discipline-and-safety-us-public-schools?redirect=issues/juvenile-justice/school-prison-pipeline/doing-math-devos

Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/

Inequality at school: What’s behind the racial disparity in our education system?

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school

Teachers Are as Racially Biased as Everybody Else, Study Shows

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/06/09/teachers-have-racial-biases-too-study-shows.html

Racial Equity Tools

https://www.racialequitytools.org/home

14 Black Activists and Authors Providing Crucial Insight Into Racial Justice in the US

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/black-activists-authors-us-racial-justice/

10 YOUNG RACIAL JUSTICE ACTIVISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

https://www.dosomething.org/us/articles/10-racial-justice-activists-you-should-know

Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston

http://citizenshipandsocialjustice.com/2015/07/10/curriculum-for-white-americans-to-educate-themselves-on-race-and-racism/

Being Antiracist

https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/being-antiracist

Western Mass Showing Up for Racial Justice

http://www.wmsurj.com/

FOR OUR WHITE FRIENDS DESIRING TO BE ALLIES

https://sojo.net/articles/our-white-friends-desiring-be-allies

On Being Comfortable with Discomfort: Tiffany Jewell Explains What It Means To Be Anti-Racist

https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=tiffany-jewell-anti-racism-childrens-nonfiction-author-interview

White allies: Here's a basic list of do's and don'ts to help you with your helplessness

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/01/white-allies-dos-donts-racism-black-lives-matter-protest/

75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234

An Ally’s Guide to Issues Facing the LGBTQ Community

https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/Allys-Guide-Issues-Facing-LGBT-Americans-Dec2012.pdf

Key Terms Defined

Anti-Racist : Someone who opposes and actively fights against racism. ( Source )

BIPOC : An acronym that stands for Black, Indigenous, People of Color

Colonialism: Domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation; the practice of extending and maintaining   a nation's political and economic control over another people or area. ( Source )

Implicit Bias : Attitudes towards or stereotypes associated with people that exist without our conscious knowledge ( Source )

Intersectionality: The idea that individuals are shaped by and identify with a vast array of cultural, structural, sociobiological, economic, and social contexts. ( Source )

Micro aggressions: The everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership . ( Source )

People of Color : A term generally used to describe anyone who is not white. The term encompasses all people who experience systemic racism. However, when able, it is best to refer to people by their individual identities, rather than referring to them as a group, which can sometimes be dehumanizing and invalidate individual experiences. ( Source )

Racism: A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race ( Source )

Restorative Justice: A theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior ( Source )

Social Justice : Fair treatment of all people in a society, including respect for the rights of minorities and equitable distribution of resources among members of a community . ( Source )

Systemic Racism  (Also known as institutional racism ):  Policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair and harmful treatment of others based on race. ( Source )

White Fragility: T he tendency among members of the dominant white cultural group to have a defensive, wounded, angry, or dismissive response to evidence of racism. ( Source )

White Privilege:   The unearned and mostly unacknowledged societal advantage that members of the dominant white racial group have and members of nonwhite groups do not, separate but compounding with wealth, income, class, education, and other demographic factors that form individua identities. ( Source )

White Supremacy:  T he belief, theory, or doctrine that white people are inherently superior to people from all other racial and ethnic groups, especially Black people, and are therefore rightfully the dominant group in any society. ( Source )

• << Previous: Psychological Disorders
• Next: Trigger Warnings >>
• Last Updated: Jan 19, 2024 11:23 AM
• URL: https://libguides.stcc.edu/ResearchStarter

• Open access
• Published: 17 March 2022

Racism in Australia: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

• Jehonathan Ben   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0732-887X 1 , 2 ,
• Amanuel Elias 1 , 2 ,
• Ayuba Issaka 1 , 2 , 3 ,
• Mandy Truong 1 , 4 , 5 ,
• Kevin Dunn 1 , 6 ,
• Rachel Sharples 1 , 6 ,
• Craig McGarty 1 , 7 ,
• Jessica Walton 1 , 2 ,
• Fethi Mansouri 1 , 2 ,
• Nida Denson 1 , 6 &
• Yin Paradies 1 , 2  

Systematic Reviews volume  11 , Article number:  47 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

25k Accesses

9 Citations

13 Altmetric

Metrics details

Racism has been identified as a major source of injustice and a health burden in Australia and across the world. Despite the surge in Australian quantitative research on the topic, and the increasing recognition of the prevalence and impact of racism in Australian society, the collective evidence base has yet to be comprehensively reviewed or meta-analysed. This protocol describes the first systematic review and meta-analysis of racism in Australia at the national level, focussing on quantitative studies. The current study will considerably improve our understanding of racism, including its manifestations and fluctuation over time, variation across settings and between groups, and associations with health and socio-economic outcomes.

The research will consist of a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Searches for relevant studies will focus on the social and health science databases CINAHL, PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Two reviewers will independently screen eligible papers for inclusion and extract data from included studies. Studies will be included in the review and meta-analysis where they meet the following criteria: (1) report quantitative empirical research on self-reported racism in Australia, (2) report data on the prevalence of racism, or its association with health (e.g. mental health, physical health, health behaviours) or socio-economic outcomes (e.g. education, employment, income), and (3) report Australian data. Measures of racism will focus on study participants’ self-reports, with a separate analysis dedicated to researcher-reported measures, such as segregation and differential outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. Measures of health and socio-economic outcomes will include both self-reports and researcher-reported measures, such as physiological measurements. Existing reviews will be manually searched for additional studies. Study characteristics will be summarised, and a meta-analysis of the prevalence of racism and its associations will be conducted using random effects models and mean weighted effect sizes. Moderation and subgroup analyses will be conducted as well. All analyses will use the software CMA 3.0.

This study will provide a novel and comprehensive synthesis of the quantitative evidence base on racism in Australia. It will answer questions about the fluctuation of racism over time, its variation across settings and groups, and its relationship with health and socio-economic outcomes. Findings will be discussed in relation to broader debates in this growing field of research and will be widely disseminated to inform anti-racism research, action and policy nationally.

Systematic review registration

PROSPERO CRD42021265115 .

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Racism is an enduring structural phenomenon that detrimentally impacts the social fabric of societies, human relations and community wellbeing across time [ 1 , 2 ]. While debates remain regarding what constitutes racism, in this protocol, we define racism as a historical and ongoing system of oppression, which creates hierarchies between social groups based on perceived differences relating to origin and cultural background [ 1 , 3 ]. These hierarchies disadvantage some groups and advantage others, generating and exacerbating unfair and avoidable inequalities [ 4 ]. Racism is multi-faceted and is manifest in structural, institutional, interpersonal and internalised forms. It is expressed and reinforced through policies, practices, media representations, stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. Racism draws on characteristics such as ‘race’, ethnicity, nationality and religion and is related to constructs such as Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and xenophobia [ 5 ].

Racism has recently drawn more attention worldwide, whether in relation to increased protest against institutional discrimination and social and health inequities affecting Black and Indigenous peoples or xenophobic sentiments under COVID-19. In Australia, as in other parts of the world, racism has been entwined with European colonialism and emerged from the use of race as a system of rule (e.g. [ 6 , 7 ]). Racism in Australia has endured since British colonisation in 1788 and has derived initially from the relations of extraction, exploitation, expropriation and competition between British colonisers and Indigenous peoples (e.g. [ 8 ]), which were later extended to discriminate against and exclude different immigrant populations. In relation to the past decade or so, racism in Australia has been directed in different ways towards numerous ethnic, racial, national, religious and migrant groups, with each racialised differently under colonial rule and targeted by various forms of racism. These have included (but have not been limited to) violence against South Asian students, inflammatory rhetoric and inhumane policies towards asylum seekers, Islamophobia and racist incidents targeting Muslim Australians, mediatised racialisation and episodic criminalisation of African Australians, the spread of race-based hatred online, attacks against Asian Australians in the context of COVID-19 and the Australian government’s use of heavy border restrictions to police and contain those people whom it deems undesirable (e.g. [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]). Meanwhile, colonisation and profound structural racism towards Indigenous peoples persist, manifesting in all areas of life, including intergenerational traumas, non-recognition of Indigenous rights, health inequalities, poverty and poor education, over-incarceration and deaths in custody [ 14 ].

While racism remains among the most profound social and public health issues of our times, recognition of its ill effects and new anti-racism initiatives are growing too. Racism research continues to evolve and accumulate, which parallels these developments (see recent reviews in [ 15 , 16 ]). This includes many empirical, quantitative studies that are often based on surveys of participants’ self-reports and gather data about both experiences and expressions of racism [ 15 ]. Despite the accumulation of such studies over at least four decades, this body of research has yet to be comprehensively reviewed and collectively analysed within a single study focused on racism in Australia. This means that important questions discussed in this literature have yet to be considered, including, for instance, about how the prevalence of racism may change over time, the extent to which it may vary depending on racism’s diverse forms and settings, and how different racial, ethnic and other social groups experience and/or perpetrate it. Questions examining the nuances in racism’s prevalence disaggregated by groups, cohorts and time periods (duration and spells), need further considerations, as they are critical for better understanding of racism’s intersectional and longitudinal impacts. Likewise, the impact of racism on health and its connection to various socio-economic phenomena such as education and employment have yet to be jointly synthesised and discussed within the Australian context.

Australia is unique in its cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the Indigenous peoples of Australia, represent 3.3% of Australia’s population and comprise over 250 Australian Indigenous language groups [ 17 , 18 ]. Almost half (45% or 10.6 million) of the population were either born overseas or have one or both parents who were born overseas [ 19 ], a higher proportion than the USA, Canada and Britain. Twenty-one percent of Australians speak a language other than English at home and increasing proportions of migrants arriving in Australia are coming from China and India. Furthermore, greater than two thirds of all Australians report religious affiliation. The most common religious affiliation reported is Christianity (52%), followed by Islam (2.6%) and Buddhism (2.4%). Australia’s religious diversity is increasing, with the proportion who report a religious affiliation other than Christian growing from 5.6% in 2006 to 8.2% in 2016. This was spread across most non-Christian religions, with Islam (1.7% to 2.6%) and Hinduism (0.7 to 1.9%) showing the highest increase [ 20 ].

The rest of this protocol is organised as follows. The next sub-sections discuss previous Australian racism research, and the rationale, aims and key hypotheses guiding our study. The ‘ Methods and design ’ section outlines the review methods and protocol that will be followed. The ‘ Data analysis and critical appraisal ’ section describes the analytical and critical appraisal strategy that will be used, while the study’s limitations and dissemination strategy are discussed in the protocol’s final section.

Previous studies

Previous quantitative research in Australia has provided considerable attention to identifying racism’s nature and measuring its prevalence and impact. Various empirical, survey-based studies have examined racism and related phenomena using different conceptualisations and research questions, focussing also on phenomena such as discrimination, prejudice, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. Their differential concepts, wide-ranging measures and diverse study designs, likely affect the prevalence rates they report. For example, the Scanlon Foundation’s nationally representative Mapping Social Cohesion (MSC) survey found that experiences of discrimination based on skin colour, ethnicity or religion have ranged between 9 and 20% in 2007–2020 [ 21 ], while other studies have usually reported higher rates. In the 2014 national General Social Survey (GSS), 34% of respondents reported experiencing racial/ethnic discrimination [ 22 ], whereas the 2015–2016 national Face Up to Racism survey found that forms of everyday racism such as name-calling, mistrust and disrespect were reported by 34–40% of participants [ 23 ]. However, in response to questions about racism more generally, respondents have acknowledged that the prevalence of racism is much higher. In Face Up to Racism, 79% agreed that racial prejudice exists in Australia in general, though only 11% self-identified as racist [ 24 ], while 86% in the national Geographies of Racism survey agreed with this proposition [ 25 ]. Similar findings about individuals as perceiving more discrimination towards their group than personally have been discussed elsewhere (e.g. [ 26 ]).

Various studies have focused on experiences of racism across particular social groups. They have discussed the variable circumstances, contexts and arrangements that shape forms and experiences of racism and that appear to affect variabilities in the prevalence and impact of racism across groups. Face Up to Racism, for instance, found that concerns about one’s closest relative marrying a person from different racial, national and other out-groups varied tremendously across nine groups and peaked at 36–63% for Indigenous, African, Jewish and Muslim out-group members [ 23 ]. Variations can also be found among studies focused on specific groups, for instance, Indigenous peoples, who have been among the most widely studied in racism research [ 15 ]. National studies of mixed age groups using repeated cross-sectional designs have found different rates of unfair treatment of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, including 15% in the 2012–2013 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) [ 27 ], 35% in the 2014–2015 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) [ 28 ], and 37% in the 2018 Mayi Kuwayu Study ([ 29 ], p. 5).

Another group of surveys has measured different racist attitudes against immigrants. For example, across Australian Values Study (AVS) data collected between 1981 and 2019, between 5 and 11% of participants indicated dislike of having immigrants or foreign workers as neighbours [ 30 ], whereas 29% of participants in a study focussed on Melbourne said they would be reluctant to move into a neighbourhood where many new migrants are living [ 31 ]. In November 2020, Markus ([ 21 ], p. 76) found that 18% of respondents agreed that it should be possible to reject immigrants on the basis of their race or ethnicity and that 24% agreed that rejection should be possible due to religion. Finding about migrants’ experiences vary as well. The Longitudinal Study of Immigrants in Australia (LSIA) found in the mid-2000s that over 40% of respondents thought racism existed in Australian society ([ 32 ], p. 3), while more recently, another study found that experiences ranged considerably, from 2 to 32% among eight different groups (e.g. Caucasian Australians, Indian, Chinese, Arabic-speaking) [ 33 ]. Anti-asylum seeker sentiment has also been measured across a number of surveys. The Face Up to Racism report found that 43% agreed that asylum seeker boats should be turned back [ 23 ]. The 2019 MSC found that 47–50% of the population were ‘not concerned’ that Australia is too harsh in its treatment of asylum seekers and refugees ([ 34 ], p. 65).

Recent racism research has also given considerable attention to Muslim Australians. A national survey showed that 20% of non-Muslim participants stated that they would rather not live in a place ‘where there are Muslims’ [ 35 ], while another study found unfavourable opinions about Muslims and about Islam among 12% and 27% of participants, respectively [ 36 ]. In other surveys, as many as 63% and 56% of participants were concerned about marrying someone of a Muslim faith [ 23 , 37 ].

Children and young people are another group who are increasingly focused on in recent research. One longitudinal study found differences in the prevalence of racial discrimination as experienced by children aged 10–11 of various groups, including among children of Anglo/European background (8%), visible minority background (18%) and Indigenous background (25%), with a reduction in these rates occurring in ages 14–15 [ 38 ]. Meanwhile, in another study, caregivers reported racial discrimination (conceived as being bullied or treated unfairly due to being Aboriginal) by 20% of Indigenous children aged 4–11 at school [ 39 ]. Other research, on school students in years 5–9 from Victoria and New South Wales, showed that 50% of Indigenous students experienced direct discrimination. Rates were lower for young people from European (38%) and Anglo (25%) backgrounds and higher for various migrant groups (58–67%) [ 40 ].

Studies also suggest that experiences of racism vary across settings. Face Up to Racism, for example, found that experiences were more common in settings such as public transport/on the street, workplaces, education and shops/restaurants, all of which were reported by over 30% of respondents. This finding is consistent with other studies, for example from the state of Victoria, where these same settings were noted as most common, with the prevalence of racism ranging between 23 and 35% [ 41 ]. However, other studies suggest rates may be higher in schools and neighbourhoods and may vary greatly across exposure types (e.g. direct, vicarious) (e.g. [ 31 , 40 ]). Meanwhile, a national study focussed on online settings demonstrates the potential gap between direct and indirect experiences in these settings; while only 5% were personally targeted, 35% witnessed cyber racism ([ 42 ], p. 72).

Racism research in Australia has also examined its impact, with an important focus given especially to health. Multiple studies show that racism is negatively associated with depression and distress/worry (e.g. [ 43 , 44 , 45 ]) and with emotional difficulties and wellbeing (e.g. [ 40 , 46 , 47 ] and see subgroup analysis among Australian adolescents in [ 48 ]). For physical health, results are more mixed. For instance, in a study of Indigenous children, exposure to racial discrimination was associated with sleep difficulties and obesity, but not with being underweight [ 39 ], while among Australian children, exposure to racism was associated with an increased risk of being overweight or obese and with higher body mass index (BMI) measures [ 38 ], and experiences of religious discrimination were associated with socioemotional adjustment and sleep outcomes [ 49 ]. Divergence between the results for mental and physical health may be in line with international analysis (e.g. [ 50 , 51 ]), yet this remains to be tested.

Finally, associations between racism and socio-economic status indicators, such as education, employment and income, may be complex. For example, research conducted internationally found that racism may inhibit access to employment (e.g. [ 52 , 53 ]) or negatively affect academic performance and achievement [ 47 , 48 ], impose significant health economic cost [ 54 ] and reduce workplace productivity [ 55 ]. Education may also play a key role in awareness regarding racism. Some studies have shown that a higher level of education is associated with increased awareness and perception of racism and that education fosters more adherence towards structural than individualist explanations of racial inequality [ 56 , 57 ], thus propelling us to further consider racism in relation to multiple possible causes and effects.

Despite ongoing concerns about racism in Australia, and a recent surge in quantitative research that find racism to be pervasive and harmful, the cumulative evidence base on the prevalence and effects of racism has yet to be systematically reviewed or meta-analysed. To date, the majority of racism research has focussed on the USA, as indicated by reviews and meta-analyses of this scholarship. These studies’ findings may not be applicable to the Australian context given numerous cross-country differences, from immigration history to present day demographics. A few small-scale, group-specific reviews and meta-analyses have been conducted that centre specifically on Australia. One meta-analysis found associations between racism and academic and socio-emotional wellbeing outcomes among Australian adolescents, which, for academic outcomes, were stronger than for the USA [ 48 , 50 ]. Another systematic review found links between racism and negative schooling experiences among Indigenous peoples [ 47 ]. An additional study is currently underway, which will focus on the impact of racism on mental and physical health among Indigenous peoples as well [ 58 ]. Meanwhile, individual national empirical studies using primary data are, inevitably, limited to specific research questions and study designs and focus on certain measures of racism. For example, the MSC, conducted annually since 2007, provides extensive data on experiences over time and across states and subgroups. However, it focuses on a general measure of discrimination based on skin colour, ethnic origin or religion, which may underestimate the extent of discrimination compared with questions about specific locations ([ 21 ], p. 87), is rarely reported in peer-reviewed articles, and does not examine racism’s associations with phenomena such as health.

There remain other unanswered questions about racism. As discussed in the previous sections, the prevalence of racism ranges widely between studies, based on different study designs, participant characteristics and the adopted measures of racism. Furthermore, while racism in Australia operates mostly subtly (e.g. [ 59 , 60 ]), the experience of many people, especially Asian migrants, during the COVID-19 pandemic, may suggest that blatant forms of racism are alive and well, while increased awareness is nowadays given to vicarious, structural and online racism [ 61 , 62 ]. Structural racism, which has received increasing coverage in the literature, particularly in USA [ 63 ], remains to be systematically studied in Australia. Emerging studies on Indigenous deaths in custody, and on housing, healthcare and workplaces, indicate that racism occurring at the structural level can significantly impact the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples and migrants [ 7 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. What is more, while there are indications that racism is more commonly experienced in some settings (e.g. workplaces, schools, media, sport, shops and healthcare), its prevalence varies across settings [ 25 , 68 , 69 ]. Understanding such patterns of reporting racism, including instances where racism occurs but remains unreported or underreported, may have serious implications for anti-racism agendas.

Another research gap concerns the fluctuation of racism over time, which may reflect changing social, economic and political processes and events, as well as changes to how racism is conceptualised or to how it is understood over time (e.g. [ 47 ]). Different racial, ethnic, national and religious groups may be subject to variable exposures to and effects of racism, but some groups have been less considered (e.g. various religious groups), while others have been more widely studied, but evidence from individual studies has yet to be synthesised (e.g. Muslim Australians, Asian Australians). Statistical comparisons across racial, ethnic, national and religious groups are uncommon in Australia as well. Intersections between these and other demographics such as age and socio-economic status are being increasingly examined, especially in health research [ 28 , 70 ], and may now be possible to meta-analyse.

This project will provide a timely and critical synthesis of existing quantitative data to enhance our understanding of racism in Australia. The study has three principal aims: (1) to examine the key characteristics of quantitative studies on self-reported racism in Australia. This will include study locations, periods, designs, sampling techniques and sample sizes; study participants’ age, sex and racial/ethnic/national backgrounds; racism measures used, including instruments, timeframes, number of items, types (e.g. interpersonal, vicarious, structural) and forms (e.g. blatant/subtle; physical, verbal, mistrust, disrespect) of racism. We will also discuss study types and data that are currently lacking; (2) to examine the prevalence of racism, as experienced and expressed by study participants, across different types and forms, over time periods, across states and in various settings and institutions (e.g. work, education, public, policing and justice), and between groups (e.g. racial, ethnic, national, religious). Measures of structural and systemic racism that are not based on study participants’ self-reports, such as researcher-reported ecological measures of segregation and differential outcomes in settings such as the labour market or the justice system, will be reviewed separately and synthesised descriptively; (3) to examine the direction and magnitude of associations between reported racism and key health outcomes, including negative mental health, positive mental health, physical health and general health and between reported racism and socio-economic outcomes, including education, employment status and income.

Based on the aforementioned findings from previous individual studies conducted in Australia, and on international reviews and meta-analyses, we propose the following hypotheses: (1) the prevalence of racism will vary considerably depending on study designs, locations and measures of racism; (2) reported experiences of racism will become more prevalent over time; (3) ‘subtle’ forms of racism (e.g. exclusion, mistrust) will be more prevalent than ‘blatant’ forms (e.g. physical attack, slurs) and reports of structural and systemic racism more prevalent than reports of interpersonal racism; (4) racism will be more prevalent in settings that relate to work, education and public spaces, and the prevalence of racism online will rise most significantly over time, especially since COVID-19; (5) Indigenous peoples and migrants from various minority backgrounds will report more racism than white/European Australians, and experiences of racism will be most prevalent among Indigenous peoples and Muslim Australians; (6) racism will have the strongest associations with mental health outcomes and weaker associations with general and physical health outcomes; and (7) racism will be associated with higher education level, employment and income.

Methods and design

The research will consist of a systematic literature review and meta-analysis, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and criteria [ 71 ].

Criteria for considering studies

Type of studies.

We will include empirical studies that examine racism’s prevalence and/or associations with health and socio-economic outcomes in Australia. The review and meta-analysis will focus on survey-based studies reporting quantitative data. Empirical data will be collated from a variety of sources, including past and ongoing datasets, national surveys and other survey-based quantitative studies. While our focus will be primarily on published studies (including articles, books and book chapters), we will also include reports that have been published and copyrighted, where the data reported in them have not been otherwise discussed in peer reviewed publications. Dissertations, conference papers, presentations and public opinion polls will be excluded. All study populations will be included, regardless of participants’ demographics.

Exposure measures

This study will focus on measures of exposure to racism, based on study participants’ self-reports. We focus on participants’ self-reports, and particularly on survey-based designs, as a central way of learning about racism directly from people who may experience and perpetrate it, and as measures that are widely used in quantitative studies of racism, which would make them amenable to meta-analysis. We will use a broad definition of racism, in line with the definition in the ‘ Introduction ’ section, to account for differential conceptualisations across studies. Both experiences and expressions of racism by study participants will be included. The study will include reports of interpersonal exposure, vicarious reports (e.g. witnessing or knowledge of racism as experienced by someone else) and reports about structural racism (e.g. as existing in Australia or generally in certain settings or towards specific groups). Self-reported expressions of racism will include measures of attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Researcher-reported measures of structural and systemic racism (e.g. racial segregation, differential outcomes among racial/ethnic groups in the labour market, housing market and in relation to the justice system) will be reviewed separately from studies using participants’ self-reports, and descriptively synthesised, but since they rely on different measurement types, they will not be meta-analysed. All timeframes of exposure to racism will be included. Measures of discrimination or prejudice in general and forms that do not meet our definition of racism (e.g. discrimination based on gender, age) will be excluded. Measures of researcher-reported racism such as experimental exposures (e.g. videos, vignettes, tasks) will be excluded as well.

Prevalence measures

All measures of the prevalence of racism will be included, including its different forms, time periods, settings and affected groups.

Outcome measures and covariates

A growing amount of data is available on the relationship between racism and other phenomena. In this study, we are especially interested in key health and socio-economic outcomes, whose links with racism have been relatively widely discussed and measured. The following health outcomes will be included: (1) negative mental health (e.g. depression, psychological distress, stress, anxiety, social and emotional difficulties); (2) positive mental health (e.g. self-esteem, life satisfaction, control, well-being); (3) physical health (e.g. high blood pressure, obesity); (4) general health (e.g. feeling unhealthy, sleep, combined measures of physical and mental health); and (5) health behaviours (e.g. alcohol, tobacco or substance use). We will also include measures of the following socio-economic outcomes among study participants, where studied as covariates alongside racism measures: (6) education (e.g. highest qualification, level completed); (7) employment (e.g. labour force status); and (8) income/finances (e.g. income scales). We will examine these as proxies of class and will consider their intersection with race and the prevalence and effects of racism. Measures of health and socio-economic outcomes will include both self-reports and researcher-reported measures (e.g. cortisol for stress, BMI for obesity).

Identification of eligible studies and data extraction

Search strategy.

Our searches will cover the following major online, social and health science databases: CINAHL, PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Searches will only include materials published in English. They will not specify an earliest search date and will run to the present. For a list of search terms that will be used, please see Additional file 1. Existing reviews and meta-analyses will be manually searched for other relevant studies.

Selection of studies

All search results will be imported into the software Covidence [ 72 ]. Once duplicates are deleted, two reviewers will independently screen all titles and abstracts to assess eligibility for inclusion. The full texts of potentially eligible studies will be obtained and screened to confirm they meet the following criteria: (1) report empirical research and quantitative data, (2) report racism’s prevalence or its association with socio-economic outcomes (e.g. education, employment, income) or health outcomes (e.g. mental health, physical health, health behaviours, general health) and (3) report Australian data. Any discrepancies between reviewers during the screening process will be resolved by consensus, and further disagreement will be resolved by a third reviewer.

Data extraction

Two independent reviewers will review and extract data from each paper using Covidence. Disagreements will be resolved by consensus between the reviewers or by a third reviewer. Where the same study appears in multiple publications, we will retain as much data as possible without ‘double-counting’ such studies. Each study will be reported once. Data will be extracted in five different categories or levels, namely (1) study data, (2) participant data, (3) racism exposure data, (4) prevalence data and (5) association data. We provide details for each level next.

(1) Study level data will include the study’s full reference, type of publication (e.g. book chapter, journal article), data source name (e.g. GSS, LSIA), study location (e.g. state and/or city or other location, or nationally), study setting (e.g. healthcare, schools), year/s of racism data collection, data type (e.g. longitudinal, cross-sectional) and sampling procedure (representative or non-representative). (2) Participant data will include the overall sample size, participant age range, participant sex, and participant racial, ethnic, and/or national background. (3) Racism exposure data will include the instrument name, type of racism measured, settings (e.g. workplaces, healthcare) and the timeframe of exposure to racism (e.g. ‘over the past 12 months’). (4) Prevalence data will include data such as event rates and sample sizes, events and non-events, and means, standard deviations and sample sizes. Where the same study reports data separately for different exposure measures (e.g. racism of different types, racism experienced in different settings), exposure timepoints (e.g. baseline/post 12 months exposure to racism) and subgroups who experience or express racism (e.g. males/females, Indigenous/non-Indigenous), data for each measure will be recorded separately, and the specific exposure measure, timepoint and subgroup will be noted. (5) Association data will include data on the associations between racism and health and socio-economic outcomes, including the exposure name, outcome name, timepoint when the association was measured, subgroup, and whether the association is unadjusted or adjusted for other variables. For adjusted associations, we will note the names of all other variables included in the most elaborate multivariate model. We will extract sample sizes, test results and the types of data reported, including, for example, correlations; odds ratios (ORs) and confidence intervals (CIs); counts of events and non-event; means and standard deviations; and standardised mean differences (Cohen’s d ).

Data analysis and critical appraisal

The characteristics of studies that meet our inclusion criteria will be summarised, and studies using self-reported measures and relevant metrics (e.g. prevalence data, association data) will be meta-analysed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) Version 3.0 [ 73 ]. We anticipate that racism prevalence data will be mainly reported as event rates (i.e. percentages) and sample sizes, and therefore, rates will be the final metric used in the analysis of prevalence. Where possible, other prevalence metrics will be converted into rates. For the analysis of associations between racism, health and socio-economic outcomes, we anticipate that correlation coefficients and sample sizes will be the most widely used metric across studies, and we will therefore use them as our final metric. Where possible, other metrics will be converted into correlations, including, for example, odds ratios (ORs) and confidence intervals (CIs); means, standard deviations and sample sizes for two groups (racism and no racism); and standardised mean differences (Cohen’s d ) and sample sizes for two groups. Studies that do not report appropriate and sufficient association data will be reported in the review but excluded from the meta-analysis.

We anticipate that the main analysis will use random effects models and mean-weighted effect sizes. In line with previous meta-analyses on racism and health (e.g. [ 51 , 74 ]), we anticipate that random effects models will be more appropriate for aggregating effect sizes than fixed effects models, because of the various differences expected across studies, and since we aim to generalise findings to the population of studies reporting quantitative data on racism in Australia. Weighted effect sizes will be calculated using CMA, to account for variation in sample sizes, thus giving more weight to effects from larger samples. We will assess the heterogeneity of effect sizes among studies that focus on similar health outcomes or socio-economic covariates by using the Q and I 2 statistics. Moderation analyses will be used to further explain heterogeneity between studies. Using mixed effect models, we will compare racism’s prevalence and associations over time and across exposure measures, forms and settings. Subgroup analyses will be conducted to examine prevalence and associations based on ethnic, racial, national and religious backgrounds, as well as age and sex. Should enough studies be available, the review will also consider subgroup analysis comparing the prevalence of racism in Australia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially against people from Asian backgrounds.

The prevalence and effects of researcher-reported measures of structural and systemic racism will be synthesised descriptively. Vote counting will be used to synthesise findings of multivariate models for health and socio-economic outcomes. Such models would likely consist of diverse sets of variables that would pose challenges to meta-analytic methods such as meta-regression which require a standard set of covariates.

Publication bias

Three methods will be used to assess publication bias (that is, the possibility that significant results may be more likely to be published): (1) Egger’s weighted regression method will be used, and we will examine the regression intercept’s significance for statistical evidence of bias; (2) Failsafe N will be calculated to estimate how many additional, unlocated studies (with an average effect size of zero) would be required to change a significant result to a non-significant one [ 75 ]. Where we find publication bias, Duval and Tweedie’s trim-and-fill method will be used which adjusts for unreported, missing studies [ 76 , 77 ]; (3) We will also assess the symmetry of funnel plots of study prevalence and effects as visual evidence of bias. These methods will draw on tests and visualisations available on CMA.

Critical appraisal

Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tools [ 78 ] will be used to determine study quality, accounting for different study designs . We will also gauge study quality by conducting moderation analyses of study quality indicators. We will compare racism’s prevalence and associations between publication types (published versus unpublished), study designs (representative versus non-representative), study sampling (random versus non-random), sample sizes (larger samples versus smaller samples) and characteristics of exposure measures, such as instrument type and number of items.

Strengths and limitations of the review

A major strength of this study is its novelty, as the first comprehensive overview of the prevalence and effects of racism in Australia. While findings on racism as pervasive and harmful are commonplace, for the first time, we will be able to look across this evidence base, and quantify racism’s prevalence and effects cumulatively. Our comprehensive approach will allow us to draw wider conclusions beyond current reviews and beyond individual studies focused on national samples. We will be able to summarise and synthesise findings rigorously and to characterise this growing field and its current state of affairs to date. Methodologically, this study will draw on robust, established practice in systematic reviews and meta-analysis. We will build on previous scholarship by members of our team, such as reviews and meta-analyses on racism globally [ 51 , 74 , 79 ], and analyses and reviews on racism in Australia (e.g. [ 10 , 37 ]). Another strength of this study is its national scope. While racism remains a strongly interconnected global phenomenon, given the present consolidation of nationalisms under COVID-19, and the recent increase in Australian studies, a national-level investigation may be particularly useful to researchers, community groups, activists, policymakers and others working to combat racism in Australia.

One limitation of this review is its focus on participants’ self-reports. While we have explained the reasons for this focus earlier, we are aware that self-reports may be highly variable, can be shaped by response biases and may be at odds with how racism operates and manifests more broadly (e.g. institutionally, structurally). For example, despite evidence about the existence of racism, participants may deny, downplay and under-report expressing or experiencing it (e.g. [ 80 , 81 ]). By reviewing and synthesising researcher-reports in addition to self-reports, the study will provide a broader picture of the prevalence and impacts of racism. Possible discrepancies in findings across study designs and types of reporting will be discussed, and we will further analyse them where feasible methodologically. Another possible limitation to this review may be that some publications of racism data are available only as ‘grey literature’ (e.g. research reports) and may not meet standards for peer-reviewed research. Our current work in this field suggests that this literature is sizable [ 15 ] and that various important data are not discussed outside of such reports. We will consider this possibility through assessment of study quality and publication bias, although we may be limited due, for example, to reports’ minimal discussions of study methodologies. Another limitation may be heterogeneity in conceptualisation and measurement of racism across studies, with studies reporting results that may not be readily summarised in a meta-analysis. In addition, while adequate data may be available on some forms and settings of racism, and for some subgroups, it may be more limited for others, which may inhibit certain analyses. Finally, we acknowledge that the review will provide only a partial picture of racism research in Australia since it will not cover the substantial qualitative scholarship on the topic. A review of qualitative racism research would be able to illuminate additional questions that cannot be addressed in the current review and remains an important undertaking for future research.

Dissemination

This study will provide a novel and comprehensive synthesis of the quantitative evidence base on racism in Australia. Findings will be widely disseminated to inform anti-racism research, action and policy nationally. The review will also inform the fight against racism in other countries, particularly countries in the Global North shaped by settler colonialism and intensive migration (e.g. Canada, New Zealand, USA). Researchers in other countries may replicate this study at the national level. The study will be accessible to academics and the wider public through publication in an open-access peer-reviewed journal. A summary of the results will be made available also through factsheets and potentially discussed in a Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS) policy paper. Findings will be further disseminated through CRIS and university communications channels, as well as through conference presentations.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

Australian Values Study

Body Mass Index

Confidence interval

Comprehensive Meta-Analysis

Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies

General Social Survey

Joanna Briggs Institute

Longitudinal Study of Immigrants in Australia

Mapping Social Cohesion survey

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses

Bonilla-Silva E. Rethinking racism: toward a structural interpretation. Am Sociol Rev. 1997;62(3):465–80.

Article   Google Scholar  

Gee GC, Ford CL. Structural racism and health inequities: old issues, new Directions1. Du Bois Rev. 2011;8(1):115–32.

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Williams DR. Race and health: basic questions, emerging directions. Ann Epidemiol. 1997;7(5):322–33.

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Berman G, Paradies Y. Racism, disadvantage and multiculturalism: towards effective anti-racist praxis. Ethn Racial Stud. 2010;33(2):214–32.

Seth V. The origins of racism: a critique of the history of ideas. History Theory. 2020;59(3):343–68.

Moreton-Robinson A. Race and cultural entrapment: critical indigenous studies in the twenty-first century. In: Moreton-Robinson A, editor. Critical indigenous studies: engagements in first world locations. Tucson: University of Arizona Press; 2016. p. 102–18.

Google Scholar  

Wolfe P. Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. J Genocide Res. 2006;8(4):387–409.

Reynolds H. Dispossession: black Australians and white invaders. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin; 1996.

Dunn K, Pelleri D, Maeder-Han K, Class. Attacks on Indian students: the commerce of denial in Australia. Race Class. 2011;52(4):71–88.

Elias A, Mansouri F, Paradies Y. Racism in Australia today. Singapore: Palgrave MacMillan; 2021.

Book   Google Scholar  

Kamp A, Denson N, Atie R, Dunn K, Sharples R, Vergani M, et al. Asian Australians’ experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic: Deakin University: Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS); 2021. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d48cb4d61091100011eded9/t/60f655dd3ca5073dfd636d88/1626756586620/COVID+racism+report+190721.pdf . Accessed 25 Jul 2021

Weng E, Mansouri F. Contemporary Australian media representation of ethnic and religious minorities. Continuum. Media Cult Stud, DOI. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2021.1888881 .

Watkins J. Australia’s irregular migration information campaigns: border externalization, spatial imaginaries, and extraterritorial subjugation. Territor Polit Govern. 2017;5(3):282–303.

Lowitja Institute. Close the gap campaign report. Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee for Indigenous Health Equality. 2021. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-social-justice/publications/close-gap-2021 . Accessed 25 Jul 2021.

Ben J, et al. Identifying and filling racism data gaps in Victoria: a stocktake review. Deakin University: Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS). (in press)

Cave L, Cooper MN, Zubrick SR, Shepherd C. Racial discrimination and child and adolescent health in longitudinal studies: a systematic review. Sociol Sci. 2020;250:112864.

Australian Bureau of Statistics. Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Australians, June 2016. ABS cat. No. 3238.0.55.001. Canberra: ABS; 2018. Accessed 20 Jul 2021

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people . Accessed 25 Jul 2021.

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2071.0 - census of population and housing: reflecting Australia - stories from the census, 2016. Canberra: Australian Government; 2017. https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/2071.0 . Accessed 27 Jul 2021

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2016 census: religion. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics; 2017. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/7E65A144540551D7CA258148000E2B85 . Accessed 27 Jul 2021

Markus A. Mapping social cohesion: the Scanlon foundation surveys: ACJC Monash; 2020. https://scanloninstitute.org.au/publication/2020-mapping-social-cohesion-report . Accessed 26 Jul 2021

Blackham A, Temple J. Intersectional discrimination in Australia: an empirical critique of the legal framework. Univ New South Wales Law J. 2020;43(3):773–800.

Blair K, Dunn KM, Kamp A, Alam O. Challenging racism project 2015-16 national survey report; 2017.

Sharples R, Blair K. Claiming ‘anti-white racism’in Australia: victimhood, identity, and privilege. Sociology. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783320934184 .

Habtegiorgis AE, Paradies YC, Dunn KM. Are racist attitudes related to experiences of racial discrimination? Within sample testing utilising nationally representative survey data. Soc Sci Res. 2014;47:178–91.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Dunn K, Nelson JK. Challenging the public denial of racism for a deeper multiculturalism. Int Stud. 2011c;32(6):587–602.

Cave L, Cooper MN, Zubrick SR, Shepherd C. Racial discrimination and allostatic load among first nations Australians: a nationally representative cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health. 2020b;20(1):1–14.

Temple JB, Kelaher M, Paradies Y. Prevalence and context of racism experienced by older Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders. Australasian J Ageing. 2019;38(1):39–46.

Thurber KA, Walker J, Batterham PJ, Gee GC, Chapman J, Priest N, et al. Developing and validating measures of self-reported everyday and healthcare discrimination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander adults. Int J Equity Health. 2021;20(1):1–10.

World Values Survey Association (2020). Online data analysis. Available from: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp . Accessed 25 Jul 2021.

Wickes R, Grossman M, Forbes-Mewett H, Arunachalam D, Smith J, Skrbis Z, et al. Understanding the context of racial and cultural exclusivism: a study of Melbourne neighbourhoods; 2020.

Commonwealth of Australia. New migrant outcomes: results from the third longitudinal survey of immigrants to Australia. Canberra: DIAC, ACT; 2007.

Cain P, Daly A, Reid A. How refugees experience the Australian workplace: a comparative mixed methods study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(8):4023.

Markus A. Mapping social cohesion: the Scanlon foundation surveys: ACJC Monash; 2019. https://scanloninstitute.org.au/publication/2019-mapping-social-cohesion-report . Accessed 26 Jul 2021

Gravelle TB. Explaining Islamophobia in Australia: partisanship, intergroup contact, and local context. Aust J Polit Sci. 2021;56(2):132–52.

Ewart J, O’Donnell K, Walding S. Australians’ divergent opinions about Islam and Muslims. Sociology. 2022;58(1):45–58.

Dunn KM, Sharples R, Diallo TM, Derbas A, Vergani M, McGarty C, et al. Understanding varied attitudes towards Muslims, July 2020. Sydney: Western Sydney University. https://doi.org/10.26183/bkkk-0195 . Accessed 26 Jul 2021

Priest N, Kavanagh A, Bécares L, King T. Cumulative effects of bullying and racial discrimination on adolescent health in Australia. Health Social Behavior. 2019;60(3):344–61.

Cave L, Cooper MN, Zubrick SR, Shepherd C. Caregiver-perceived racial discrimination is associated with diverse mental health outcomes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander children aged 7–12 years. Int J Equity Health. 2019;18(1):1–10.

Priest N, Chong S, Truong M, Alam O, Dunn K, O'Connor M, et al. Racial discrimination and socioemotional and sleep problems in a cross-sectional survey of Australian school students. Arch Dis Child. 2020;105(11):1079–85.

Ferdinand AS, Paradies Y, Kelaher M. Mental health impacts of racial discrimination in Australian culturally and linguistically diverse communities: a cross-sectional survey. BMC Public Health. 2015;15(1):1–14.

Jakubowicz A, Dunn K, Mason G, Paradies Y, Bliuc A-M, Bahfen N, et al. Cyber racism and community resilience: Palgrave Macmillan; 2017.

Bodkin-Andrews G, Lovelock R, Paradies Y, Denson N, Franklin C, Priest N. Not my family: understanding the prevalence and impact of racism beyond individualistic experiences. Indigenous children growing up strong: Springer; 2017. p. 179–208.

Priest N, Paradies Y, Stewart P, Luke J. Racism and health among urban Aboriginal young people. BMC Public Health. 2011;11(1):1–9.

Priest N, Perry R, Ferdinand A, Kelaher M, Paradies Y. Effects over time of self-reported direct and vicarious racial discrimination on depressive symptoms and loneliness among Australian school students. BMC Psychiatry. 2017;17(1):1–11.

Grigg K, Manderson L. Building harmony: reducing and measuring racism in Australian schools. Australian Commun Psychol. 2014;26(2):68–89.

Moodie N, Maxwell J, Rudolph S. The impact of racism on the schooling experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander students: a systematic review. Aust Educ Res. 2019;46(2):273–95.

Benner AD, Wang Y, Shen Y, Boyle AE, Polk R, Cheng Y-P. Racial/ethnic discrimination and well-being during adolescence: a meta-analytic review. Am Psychol. 2018;73(7):855.

Sharif MZ, Truong M, Alam O, Dunn K, Nelson J, Kavanagh A, Paradies Y, Priest N. The association between experiences of religious discrimination, social-emotional and sleep outcomes among youth in Australia. SSM-population health. 2021;15:1–7.

Carter RT, Johnson VE, Kirkinis K, Roberson K, Muchow C, Galgay C. A meta-analytic review of racial discrimination: relationships to health and culture. Race Soc Probl. 2019;11(1):15–32.

Paradies Y, Ben J, Denson N, Elias A, Priest N, Pieterse A, et al. Racism as a determinant of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2015;10(9):e0138511.

Quillian L, Pager D, Hexel O, Midtbøen AH. Meta-analysis of field experiments shows no change in racial discrimination in hiring over time. Natl Acad Sci. 2017;114(41):10870–5.

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Zschirnt E, Ruedin D. Ethnic discrimination in hiring decisions: a meta-analysis of correspondence tests 1990–2015. Ethnic Migration Stud. 2016;42(7):1115–34.

Elias A, Paradies Y. Estimating the mental health costs of racial discrimination. BMC Public Health. 2016;16(1):1–13.

Triana MC, Jayasinghe M, Pieper JR. Perceived workplace racial discrimination and its correlates: a meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior. 2015;36(4):491–513.

Wodtke GT. The impact of education on intergroup attitudes: a multiracial analysis. Soc Psychol Q. 2012;75(1):80–106.

Wodtke GT. The effects of education on beliefs about racial inequality. Soc Psychol Q. 2018;81(4):273–94.

Kairuz CA, Casanelia LM, Bennett-Brook K, Coombes J, Yadav UN. Impact of racism and discrimination on the physical and mental health among Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples living in Australia: a protocol for a scoping review. Systematic Reviews. 2020;9(1):1–6.

Dunn K, Loosemore M, Phua F, Ozguc U. Everyday ethnic diversity and racism on Australian construction sites. Int J Divers Org. 2011;10(6):129–47.

Hollinsworth D. Race and racism in Australia. Melbourne: Thomson with Social Science Press; 2006.

Addo IY. Double pandemic: racial discrimination amid coronavirus disease 2019. Soc Sci Human Open. 2020;2(1):100074.

Biddle N, Gray M, Lo Y. The experience of Asian-Australians during the COVID-19 pandemic: discrimination and wellbeing. Centre for Social Research and Methods. Canberra: Australian National University; 2020. Available from https://csrm. cass. anu. edu. au/research/publications/experience-asian-australians-during-COVID-19-pandemic-discrimination-and. Accessed 25 Jul 2021

Groos M, Wallace M, Hardeman R, Theall KP. Measuring inequity: a systematic review of methods used to quantify structural racism. Health Disparit Res Pract. 2018;11(2):13.

Cunneen C. Institutional racism and (in) justice: Australia in the 21st century. Decoloniz Criminol Justice. 2019;1(1):29–51.

Fuller D, Howard M, Cummings E. The impact of institutional racism upon indigenous economic and human development in Australia. J Dev Pract. 2004;14(4):559–68.

Henry BR, Houston S, Mooney GH. Institutional racism in Australian healthcare: a plea for decency. Med J Aust. 2004;180(10):517–20.

Plater S, Mooney-Somers J, Barclay L, Boulton J. Hitting the white ceiling: structural racism and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university graduates. Sociology. 2020;56(3):487–504.

Dunn K, Forrest J, Pe-Pua R, Hynes M, Maeder-Han K. Cities of race hatred?: the spheres of racism and anti-racism in contemporary Australian cities. Cosmopol Civil Soc Interdiscipl J. 2009;1(1):1–14.

Kelaher MA, Ferdinand AS, Paradies Y. Experiencing racism in health care: the mental health impacts for Victorian Aboriginal communities. Med J Aust. 2014;201(1):44–7.

Schuch HS, Haag DG, Bastos JL, Paradies Y, Jamieson LM. Intersectionality, racial discrimination and oral health in Australia. Commun Dentistry Oral Epidemiol. 2021;49(1):87–94.

Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ. 2021;372:n71. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71 .

Covidence systematic review software, Veritas Health Innovation, Melbourne, Australia. Available from www.covidence.org . Accessed 25th July, 2021.

Borenstein M, Hedges L, Higgins J, Rothstein H. Comprehensive meta-analysis (version 3.3. 070)[computer software]. Biostat. 2014.

Ben J, Cormack D, Harris R, Paradies Y. Racism and health service utilisation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2017;12(12):e0189900.

Quintana SM, Minami T. Guidelines for meta-analyses of counseling psychology research. Couns Psychol. 2006;34(6):839–77.

Duval S, Tweedie R. Trim and fill: a simple funnel-plot–based method of testing and adjusting for publication bias in meta-analysis. Biometrics. 2000;56(2):455–63.

Duval S, Tweedie R. A nonparametric “trim and fill” method of accounting for publication bias in meta-analysis. Am Stat Assoc. 2000;95(449):89–98.

Aromataris E MZ. JBI manual for evidence synthesis. JBI; 2020. https://synthesismanual.jbi.global . Accessed 25 Jul 2021

Paradies Y. A systematic review of empirical research on self-reported racism and health. Australasian J Ageing. 2006;35(4):888–901.

Ruggiero KM, Taylor DM. Why minority group members perceive or do not perceive the discrimination that confronts them: the role of self-esteem and perceived control. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1997;72(2):373.

Van Dijk TA. Discourse and the denial of racism. Discourse Soc. 1992;3(1):87–118.

Download references

Acknowledgements

Research for this study was supported by a programme grant from the Victorian State Government, through the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS). Jessica Walton was supported in writing the manuscript by an ARC DECRA Fellowship (DE160100922).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Jehonathan Ben, Amanuel Elias, Ayuba Issaka, Mandy Truong, Kevin Dunn, Rachel Sharples, Craig McGarty, Jessica Walton, Fethi Mansouri, Nida Denson & Yin Paradies

Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Jehonathan Ben, Amanuel Elias, Ayuba Issaka, Jessica Walton, Fethi Mansouri & Yin Paradies

School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Ayuba Issaka

School of Nursing and Midwifery, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Mandy Truong

Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin, NT, Australia

School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

Kevin Dunn, Rachel Sharples & Nida Denson

School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

Craig McGarty

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

All the authors have contributed to the study’s conceptualisation and to writing and reviewing the study protocol. The authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jehonathan Ben .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate, consent for publication, competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Additional file 1..

Racism in Australia.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Ben, J., Elias, A., Issaka, A. et al. Racism in Australia: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis. Syst Rev 11 , 47 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-022-01919-2

Download citation

Received : 30 July 2021

Accepted : 02 March 2022

Published : 17 March 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-022-01919-2

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Racial discrimination
• Systematic review
• Meta-analysis
• Health outcomes

Systematic Reviews

ISSN: 2046-4053

• Submission enquiries: Access here and click Contact Us
• General enquiries: [email protected]

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

• Black Americans Have a Clear Vision for Reducing Racism but Little Hope It Will Happen

Many say key U.S. institutions should be rebuilt to ensure fair treatment

Table of contents.

• Black Americans see little improvement in their lives despite increased national attention to racial issues
• Few Black adults expect equality for Black people in the U.S.
• Black adults say racism and police brutality are extremely big problems for Black people in the U.S.
• Personal experiences with discrimination are widespread among Black Americans
• Black adults see voting as the most effective strategy for moving toward equality in the U.S.
• Some Black adults see Black businesses and communities as effective remedies for inequality
• Black Americans say race matters little when choosing political allies
• The legacy of slavery affects Black Americans today
• Most Black adults agree the descendants of enslaved people should be repaid
• The types of repayment Black adults think would be most helpful
• Responsibility for reparations and the likelihood repayment will occur
• Black adults say the criminal justice system needs to be completely rebuilt
• Black adults say political, economic and health care systems need major changes to ensure fair treatment
• Most Black adults say funding for police departments should stay the same or increase
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Supplemental tables
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand the nuances among Black people on issues of racial inequality and social change in the United States. This in-depth survey explores differences among Black Americans in their views on the social status of the Black population in the U.S.; their assessments of racial inequality; their visions for institutional and social change; and their outlook on the chances that these improvements will be made. The analysis is the latest in the Center’s series of in-depth surveys of public opinion among Black Americans (read the first, “ Faith Among Black Americans ” and “ Race Is Central to Identity for Black Americans and Affects How They Connect With Each Other ”).

The online survey of 3,912 Black U.S. adults was conducted Oct. 4-17, 2021. Black U.S. adults include those who are single-race, non-Hispanic Black Americans; multiracial non-Hispanic Black Americans; and adults who indicate they are Black and Hispanic. The survey includes 1,025 Black adults on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) and 2,887 Black adults on Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Respondents on both panels are recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses.

Recruiting panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. Black adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). Here are the questions used for the survey of Black adults, along with its responses and methodology .

The terms “Black Americans,” “Black people” and “Black adults” are used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to U.S. adults who self-identify as Black, either alone or in combination with other races or Hispanic identity.

Throughout this report, “Black, non-Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as single-race Black and say they have no Hispanic background. “Black Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as Black and say they have Hispanic background. We use the terms “Black Hispanic” and “Hispanic Black” interchangeably. “Multiracial” respondents are those who indicate two or more racial backgrounds (one of which is Black) and say they are not Hispanic.

Respondents were asked a question about how important being Black was to how they think about themselves. In this report, we use the term “being Black” when referencing responses to this question.

In this report, “immigrant” refers to people who were not U.S. citizens at birth – in other words, those born outside the U.S., Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories to parents who were not U.S. citizens. We use the terms “immigrant,” “born abroad” and “foreign-born” interchangeably.

Throughout this report, “Democrats and Democratic leaners” and just “Democrats” both refer to respondents who identify politically with the Democratic Party or who are independent or some other party but lean toward the Democratic Party. “Republicans and Republican leaners” and just “Republicans” both refer to respondents who identify politically with the Republican Party or are independent or some other party but lean toward the Republican Party.

Respondents were asked a question about their voter registration status. In this report, respondents are considered registered to vote if they self-report being absolutely certain they are registered at their current address. Respondents are considered not registered to vote if they report not being registered or express uncertainty about their registration.

To create the upper-, middle- and lower-income tiers, respondents’ 2020 family incomes were adjusted for differences in purchasing power by geographic region and household size. Respondents were then placed into income tiers: “Middle income” is defined as two-thirds to double the median annual income for the entire survey sample. “Lower income” falls below that range, and “upper income” lies above it. For more information about how the income tiers were created, read the methodology .

More than a year after the murder of George Floyd and the national protests, debate and political promises that ensued, 65% of Black Americans say the increased national attention on racial inequality has not led to changes that improved their lives. 1 And 44% say equality for Black people in the United States is not likely to be achieved, according to newly released findings from an October 2021 survey of Black Americans by Pew Research Center.

This is somewhat of a reversal in views from September 2020, when half of Black adults said the increased national focus on issues of race would lead to major policy changes to address racial inequality in the country and 56% expected changes that would make their lives better.

At the same time, many Black Americans are concerned about racial discrimination and its impact. Roughly eight-in-ten say they have personally experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity (79%), and most also say discrimination is the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead (68%).  

Even so, Black Americans have a clear vision for how to achieve change when it comes to racial inequality. This includes support for significant reforms to or complete overhauls of several U.S. institutions to ensure fair treatment, particularly the criminal justice system; political engagement, primarily in the form of voting; support for Black businesses to advance Black communities; and reparations in the forms of educational, business and homeownership assistance. Yet alongside their assessments of inequality and ideas about progress exists pessimism about whether U.S. society and its institutions will change in ways that would reduce racism.

These findings emerge from an extensive Pew Research Center survey of 3,912 Black Americans conducted online Oct. 4-17, 2021. The survey explores how Black Americans assess their position in U.S. society and their ideas about social change. Overall, Black Americans are clear on what they think the problems are facing the country and how to remedy them. However, they are skeptical that meaningful changes will take place in their lifetime.

Black Americans see racism in our laws as a big problem and discrimination as a roadblock to progress

Black adults were asked in the survey to assess the current nature of racism in the United States and whether structural or individual sources of this racism are a bigger problem for Black people. About half of Black adults (52%) say racism in our laws is a bigger problem than racism by individual people, while four-in-ten (43%) say acts of racism committed by individual people is the bigger problem. Only 3% of Black adults say that Black people do not experience discrimination in the U.S. today.

In assessing the magnitude of problems that they face, the majority of Black Americans say racism (63%), police brutality (60%) and economic inequality (54%) are extremely or very big problems for Black people living in the U.S. Slightly smaller shares say the same about the affordability of health care (47%), limitations on voting (46%), and the quality of K-12 schools (40%).

Aside from their critiques of U.S. institutions, Black adults also feel the impact of racial inequality personally. Most Black adults say they occasionally or frequently experience unfair treatment because of their race or ethnicity (79%), and two-thirds (68%) cite racial discrimination as the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead today.

Black Americans’ views on reducing racial inequality

Black Americans are clear on the challenges they face because of racism. They are also clear on the solutions. These range from overhauls of policing practices and the criminal justice system to civic engagement and reparations to descendants of people enslaved in the United States.

Changing U.S. institutions such as policing, courts and prison systems

About nine-in-ten Black adults say multiple aspects of the criminal justice system need some kind of change (minor, major or a complete overhaul) to ensure fair treatment, with nearly all saying so about policing (95%), the courts and judicial process (95%), and the prison system (94%).

Roughly half of Black adults say policing (49%), the courts and judicial process (48%), and the prison system (54%) need to be completely rebuilt for Black people to be treated fairly. Smaller shares say the same about the political system (42%), the economic system (37%) and the health care system (34%), according to the October survey.

While Black Americans are in favor of significant changes to policing, most want spending on police departments in their communities to stay the same (39%) or increase (35%). A little more than one-in-five (23%) think spending on police departments in their area should be decreased.

Black adults who favor decreases in police spending are most likely to name medical, mental health and social services (40%) as the top priority for those reappropriated funds. Smaller shares say K-12 schools (25%), roads, water systems and other infrastructure (12%), and reducing taxes (13%) should be the top priority.

Voting and ‘buying Black’ viewed as important strategies for Black community advancement

Black Americans also have clear views on the types of political and civic engagement they believe will move Black communities forward. About six-in-ten Black adults say voting (63%) and supporting Black businesses or “buying Black” (58%) are extremely or very effective strategies for moving Black people toward equality in the U.S. Smaller though still significant shares say the same about volunteering with organizations dedicated to Black equality (48%), protesting (42%) and contacting elected officials (40%).

Black adults were also asked about the effectiveness of Black economic and political independence in moving them toward equality. About four-in-ten (39%) say Black ownership of all businesses in Black neighborhoods would be an extremely or very effective strategy for moving toward racial equality, while roughly three-in-ten (31%) say the same about establishing a national Black political party. And about a quarter of Black adults (27%) say having Black neighborhoods governed entirely by Black elected officials would be extremely or very effective in moving Black people toward equality.

Most Black Americans support repayment for slavery

Discussions about atonement for slavery predate the founding of the United States. As early as 1672 , Quaker abolitionists advocated for enslaved people to be paid for their labor once they were free. And in recent years, some U.S. cities and institutions have implemented reparations policies to do just that.

Most Black Americans say the legacy of slavery affects the position of Black people in the U.S. either a great deal (55%) or a fair amount (30%), according to the survey. And roughly three-quarters (77%) say descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid in some way.

Black adults who say descendants of the enslaved should be repaid support doing so in different ways. About eight-in-ten say repayment in the forms of educational scholarships (80%), financial assistance for starting or improving a business (77%), and financial assistance for buying or remodeling a home (76%) would be extremely or very helpful. A slightly smaller share (69%) say cash payments would be extremely or very helpful forms of repayment for the descendants of enslaved people.

Where the responsibility for repayment lies is also clear for Black Americans. Among those who say the descendants of enslaved people should be repaid, 81% say the U.S. federal government should have all or most of the responsibility for repayment. About three-quarters (76%) say businesses and banks that profited from slavery should bear all or most of the responsibility for repayment. And roughly six-in-ten say the same about colleges and universities that benefited from slavery (63%) and descendants of families who engaged in the slave trade (60%).

Black Americans are skeptical change will happen

Even though Black Americans’ visions for social change are clear, very few expect them to be implemented. Overall, 44% of Black adults say equality for Black people in the U.S. is a little or not at all likely. A little over a third (38%) say it is somewhat likely and only 13% say it is extremely or very likely.

They also do not think specific institutions will change. Two-thirds of Black adults say changes to the prison system (67%) and the courts and judicial process (65%) that would ensure fair treatment for Black people are a little or not at all likely in their lifetime. About six-in-ten (58%) say the same about policing. Only about one-in-ten say changes to policing (13%), the courts and judicial process (12%), and the prison system (11%) are extremely or very likely.

This pessimism is not only about the criminal justice system. The majority of Black adults say the political (63%), economic (62%) and health care (51%) systems are also unlikely to change in their lifetime.

Black Americans’ vision for social change includes reparations. However, much like their pessimism about institutional change, very few think they will see reparations in their lifetime. Among Black adults who say the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid, 82% say reparations for slavery are unlikely to occur in their lifetime. About one-in-ten (11%) say repayment is somewhat likely, while only 7% say repayment is extremely or very likely to happen in their lifetime.

Black Democrats, Republicans differ on assessments of inequality and visions for social change

Party affiliation is one key point of difference among Black Americans in their assessments of racial inequality and their visions for social change. Black Republicans and Republican leaners are more likely than Black Democrats and Democratic leaners to focus on the acts of individuals. For example, when summarizing the nature of racism against Black people in the U.S., the majority of Black Republicans (59%) say racist acts committed by individual people is a bigger problem for Black people than racism in our laws. Black Democrats (41%) are less likely to hold this view.

Black Republicans (45%) are also more likely than Black Democrats (21%) to say that Black people who cannot get ahead in the U.S. are mostly responsible for their own condition. And while similar shares of Black Republicans (79%) and Democrats (80%) say they experience racial discrimination on a regular basis, Republicans (64%) are more likely than Democrats (36%) to say that most Black people who want to get ahead can make it if they are willing to work hard.

On the other hand, Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to focus on the impact that racial inequality has on Black Americans. Seven-in-ten Black Democrats (73%) say racial discrimination is the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead in the U.S, while about four-in-ten Black Republicans (44%) say the same. And Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to say racism (67% vs. 46%) and police brutality (65% vs. 44%) are extremely big problems for Black people today.

Black Democrats are also more critical of U.S. institutions than Black Republicans are. For example, Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to say the prison system (57% vs. 35%), policing (52% vs. 29%) and the courts and judicial process (50% vs. 35%) should be completely rebuilt for Black people to be treated fairly.

While the share of Black Democrats who want to see large-scale changes to the criminal justice system exceeds that of Black Republicans, they share similar views on police funding. Four-in-ten each of Black Democrats and Black Republicans say funding for police departments in their communities should remain the same, while around a third of each partisan coalition (36% and 37%, respectively) says funding should increase. Only about one-in-four Black Democrats (24%) and one-in-five Black Republicans (21%) say funding for police departments in their communities should decrease.

Among the survey’s other findings:

Black adults differ by age in their views on political strategies. Black adults ages 65 and older (77%) are most likely to say voting is an extremely or very effective strategy for moving Black people toward equality. They are significantly more likely than Black adults ages 18 to 29 (48%) and 30 to 49 (60%) to say this. Black adults 65 and older (48%) are also more likely than those ages 30 to 49 (38%) and 50 to 64 (42%) to say protesting is an extremely or very effective strategy. Roughly four-in-ten Black adults ages 18 to 29 say this (44%).

Gender plays a role in how Black adults view policing. Though majorities of Black women (65%) and men (56%) say police brutality is an extremely big problem for Black people living in the U.S. today, Black women are more likely than Black men to hold this view. When it comes to criminal justice, Black women (56%) and men (51%) are about equally likely to share the view that the prison system should be completely rebuilt to ensure fair treatment of Black people. However, Black women (52%) are slightly more likely than Black men (45%) to say this about policing. On the matter of police funding, Black women (39%) are slightly more likely than Black men (31%) to say police funding in their communities should be increased. On the other hand, Black men are more likely than Black women to prefer that funding stay the same (44% vs. 36%). Smaller shares of both Black men (23%) and women (22%) would like to see police funding decreased.

Income impacts Black adults’ views on reparations. Roughly eight-in-ten Black adults with lower (78%), middle (77%) and upper incomes (79%) say the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should receive reparations. Among those who support reparations, Black adults with upper and middle incomes (both 84%) are more likely than those with lower incomes (75%) to say educational scholarships would be an extremely or very helpful form of repayment. However, of those who support reparations, Black adults with lower (72%) and middle incomes (68%) are more likely than those with higher incomes (57%) to say cash payments would be an extremely or very helpful form of repayment for slavery.

• Black adults in the September 2020 survey only include those who say their race is Black alone and are non-Hispanic. The same is true only for the questions of improvements to Black people’s lives and equality in the United States in the October 2021 survey. Throughout the rest of this report, Black adults include those who say their race is Black alone and non-Hispanic; those who say their race is Black and at least one other race and non-Hispanic; or Black and Hispanic, unless otherwise noted. ↩

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

• Black Americans
• Discrimination & Prejudice
• Economic Inequality
• Race, Ethnicity & Politics

A look at Black-owned businesses in the U.S.

8 facts about black americans and the news, black americans’ views on success in the u.s., among black adults, those with higher incomes are most likely to say they are happy, fewer than half of black americans say the news often covers the issues that are important to them, most popular, report materials.

• American Trends Panel Wave 97

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Age & Generations
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Economy & Work
• Family & Relationships
• Gender & LGBTQ
• Immigration & Migration
• International Affairs
• Internet & Technology
• Methodological Research
• News Habits & Media
• Non-U.S. Governments
• Other Topics
• Politics & Policy
• Race & Ethnicity
• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Settings

Reprints, Permissions & Use Policy

ESSAY SAUCE

FOR STUDENTS : ALL THE INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD ESSAY

Essay: Unveiling the Legacy of Systemic Racism of America

Essay details and download:.

• Subject area(s): Sociology essays
• Reading time: 2 minutes
• Price: Free download
• Published: 3 October 2015*
• File format: Text
• Words: 425 (approx)
• Number of pages: 2 (approx)
• Tags: Essays on racism

Text preview of this essay:

This page of the essay has 425 words. Download the full version above.

Systemic racism refers to an ingrained culture of racisms afflicts a particular society over a long period of time. Such discriminatory practices afflict both the white and black members of community. In most case, however, the black sections of a society face the worst racist practice. This can possibly by marginally higher populations of white persons compared to white individuals. This assertion is proved because on localized regions where white person are discriminated against because of being the minority group. Racism usually involves prejudges and disintegration of the members of the community. Manifestations of racism can be traced to attitudes view points cultivated form childhood. Therefore eradicating systemic racism proves extremely difficult. The American has experienced a long-running culture of systemic racism. The roots of racism can be understood by reviews the history of migrations into and out of the country. They prominence and source of slave trade resulted in an increase in number of black persons with the US. White person served as the masters of black slaves obtained through human trafficking from African countries. Therefore, the master-slave relationship between whites and blacks led to an inflated sense of superiority on the past of the white. Black people were perceived as inferior to human beings. Plenty of harsh treatment was accorded to black persons crumbling under the yoke of white people. During the mid-1950, racial inequality was interview into the fabric of American society and culture. In the decade of 1965-1964. Americans grappled with racial inequality. The widespread nature of racial segregation impacted almost all areas with the country. The threat posed by racism was reflected in daily activities. For instance, modes of transportation were segregated so as to cater for black and white persons. Specific sidewalks and restaurants became predominantly either black or white. Institutional racism was also developed in hiring firms and other companies. Blacks become synonymous with certain job description, especially those offered by construction companies. While the blacks grappled with blue-collar jobs, white person reveled in white-collar opportunities. In some instance, blacks were denied medical services in certain institutions. The white received preferential treatment in several establishments within the American society. The growing number of black persons within the US posed a threat to the superiority and dominance of the community. Consequently, all types segregation measures were adopted so as to suppress the growth and morale of black communities. Element of master-slave relationships still existed within the society. The extent of racism inequality became extreme when blacks began suffering injustices from institutions enacted to support all citizens within the country.

...(download the rest of the essay above)

Discover more:

• Essays on racism

Recommended for you

• Martin Luther King Jr.’s letters from Birmingham Jail
• Are Police Heroes or Villains? Examining Their Role in Society
• Explore Brinton’s Revolution Analysis with South Africa’s Apartheid as an Example

About this essay:

If you use part of this page in your own work, you need to provide a citation, as follows:

Essay Sauce, Unveiling the Legacy of Systemic Racism of America . Available from:<https://www.essaysauce.com/sociology-essays/essay-systemic-racism/> [Accessed 12-05-24].

These Sociology essays have been submitted to us by students in order to help you with your studies.

* This essay may have been previously published on Essay.uk.com at an earlier date.

Essay Categories:

• Accounting essays
• Architecture essays
• Business essays
• Computer science essays
• Criminology essays
• Economics essays
• Education essays
• Engineering essays
• English language essays
• Environmental studies essays
• Essay examples
• Finance essays
• Geography essays
• Health essays
• History essays
• Hospitality and tourism essays
• Human rights essays
• Information technology essays
• International relations
• Leadership essays
• Linguistics essays
• Literature essays
• Management essays
• Marketing essays
• Mathematics essays
• Media essays
• Medicine essays
• Military essays
• Miscellaneous essays
• Music Essays
• Nursing essays
• Philosophy essays
• Photography and arts essays
• Politics essays
• Project management essays
• Psychology essays
• Religious studies and theology essays
• Sample essays
• Science essays
• Social work essays
• Sociology essays
• Sports essays
• Types of essay
• Zoology essays

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

The Happiness Gap Between Left and Right Isn’t Closing

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

Why is it that a substantial body of social science research finds that conservatives are happier than liberals?

A partial answer: Those on the right are less likely to be angered or upset by social and economic inequities, believing that the system rewards those who work hard, that hierarchies are part of the natural order of things and that market outcomes are fundamentally fair.

Those on the left stand in opposition to each of these assessments of the social order, prompting frustration and discontent with the world around them.

The happiness gap has been with us for at least 50 years, and most research seeking to explain it has focused on conservatives. More recently, however, psychologists and other social scientists have begun to dig deeper into the underpinnings of liberal discontent — not only unhappiness but also depression and other measures of dissatisfaction.

One of the findings emerging from this research is that the decline in happiness and in a sense of agency is concentrated among those on the left who stress matters of identity, social justice and the oppression of marginalized groups.

There is, in addition, a parallel phenomenon taking place on the right as Donald Trump and his MAGA loyalists angrily complain of oppression by liberals who engage in a relentless vendetta to keep Trump out of the White House.

There is a difference in the way the left and right react to frustration and grievance. Instead of despair, the contemporary right has responded with mounting anger, rejecting democratic institutions and norms.

In a 2021 Vox article, “ Trump and the Republican Revolt Against Democracy ,” Zack Beauchamp described in detail the emergence of destructive and aggressive discontent among conservatives.

Citing a wide range of polling data and academic studies, Beauchamp found:

More than twice as many Republicans (39 percent) as Democrats (17 percent) believed that “if elected leaders won’t protect America, the people must act — even if that means violence.”

Fifty-seven percent of Republicans considered Democrats to be “enemies,” compared with 41 percent of Democrats who viewed Republicans as “enemies.”

Among Republicans, support for “the use of force to defend our way of life,” as well as for the belief that “strong leaders bend rules” and that “sometimes you have to take the law in your own hands,” grows stronger in direct correlation with racial and ethnic hostility.

Trump has repeatedly warned of the potential for political violence. In January he predicted bedlam if the criminal charges filed in federal and state courts against him damaged his presidential campaign:

I think they feel this is the way they’re going to try and win, and that’s not the way it goes. It’ll be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very bad precedent. As we said, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box.

Before he was indicted in New York, Trump claimed there would be “potential death and destruction” if he was charged.

At an Ohio campaign rally in March, Trump declared, “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole country.”

In other words, Trump and his allies respond to adversity and what they see as attacks from the left with threats and anger, while a segment of the left often but not always responds to adversity and social inequity with dejection and sorrow.

There are significant consequences for this internalization.

Jamin Halberstadt , a professor of psychology at the University of Otago in New Zealand and a co-author of “ Outgroup Threat and the Emergence of Cohesive Groups : A Cross-Cultural Examination,” argued in his emailed reply to my inquiry that because “a focus on injustice and victimhood is, by definition, disempowering (isn’t that why we talk of ‘survivors’ rather than ‘victims’?), loss of control is not good for self-esteem or happiness.”

But, he pointed out:

this focus, while no doubt a part of the most visible and influential side of progressive ideology, is still just a part. Liberalism is a big construct, and I’m reluctant to reduce it to a focus on social justice issues. Some liberals have this view, but I suspect their influence is outsized because (a) they have the social media megaphone and (b) we are in a climate in which freedom of expression and, in particular, challenges to the worldview you characterize have been curtailed.

Expanding on this line of argument, Halberstadt wrote:

I’m sure some self-described liberals have views that are counterproductive to their own happiness. One sub-ideology associated with liberalism is, as you describe, a sense of victimhood and grievance. But there is more than one way to respond to structural barriers. Within that group of the aggrieved, some probably see systemic problems that cannot be overcome, and that’s naturally demoralizing and depressing. But others see systemic problems as a challenge to overcome.

Taking Halberstadt’s assessment of the effects of grievance and victimhood a step farther, Timothy A. Judge , the chairman of the department of management and human resources at Notre Dame, wrote in a 2009 paper, “ Core Self-Evaluations and Work Success ”:

Core self-evaluations (C.S.E.) is a broad, integrative trait indicated by self-esteem, locus of control, generalized self-efficacy and (low) neuroticism (high emotional stability). Individuals with high levels of C.S.E. perform better on their jobs, are more successful in their careers, are more satisfied with their jobs and lives, report lower levels of stress and conflict, cope more effectively with setbacks and better capitalize on advantages and opportunities.

I asked Judge and other scholars a question: Have liberal pessimists fostered an outlook that spawns unhappiness as its adherents believe they face seemingly insurmountable structural barriers?

Judge replied by email:

I do share the perspective that a focus on status, hierarchies and institutions that reinforce privilege contributes to an external locus of control. And the reason is fairly straightforward. We can only change these things through collective and, often, policy initiatives — which tend to be complex, slow, often conflictual and outside our individual control. On the other hand, if I view “life’s chances” (Virginia Woolf’s term) to be mostly dependent on my own agency, this reflects an internal focus, which will often depend on enacting initiatives largely within my control.

Judge elaborated on his argument:

If our predominant focus in how we view the world is social inequities, status hierarchies, societal unfairness conferred by privilege, then everyone would agree that these things are not easy to fix, which means, in a sense, we must accept some unhappy premises: Life isn’t fair; outcomes are outside my control, often at the hands of bad, powerful actors; social change depends on collective action that may be conflictual; an individual may have limited power to control their own destiny, etc. These are not happy thoughts because they cause me to view the world as inherently unfair, oppressive, conflictual, etc. It may or may not be right, but I would argue that these are in fact viewpoints of how we view the world, and our place in it, that would undermine our happiness.

Last year, George Yancey , a professor of sociology at Baylor University, published “ Identity Politics, Political Ideology, and Well-Being : Is Identity Politics Good for Our Well-Being?”

Yancey argued that recent events “suggest that identity politics may correlate to a decrease in well-being, particularly among young progressives, and offer an explanation tied to internal elements within political progressiveness.”

By focusing on “political progressives, rather than political conservatives,” Yancey wrote, “a nuanced approach to understanding the relationship between political ideology and well-being begins to emerge.”

Identity politics, he continued, focuses “on external institutional forces that one cannot immediately alleviate.” It results in what scholars call the externalization of one’s locus of control, or viewing the inequities of society as a result of powerful if not insurmountable outside forces, including structural racism, patriarchy and capitalism, as opposed to believing that individuals can overcome such obstacles through hard work and collective effort.

As a result, Yancey wrote, “identity politics may be an important mechanism by which progressive political ideology can lead to lower levels of well-being.”

Conversely, Yancey pointed out, “a class-based progressive cognitive emphasis may focus less on the group identity, generating less of a need to rely on emotional narratives and dichotomous thinking and may be less likely to be detrimental to the well-being of a political progressive.”

Yancey tested this theory using data collected in the 2021 Baylor Religion Survey of 1,232 respondents.

“Certain types of political progressive ideology can have contrasting effects on well-being,” Yancey wrote. “It is plausible that identity politics may explain the recent increase well-being gap between conservatives and progressives.”

Oskari Lahtinen , a senior researcher in psychology at the University of Turku in Finland, published a study in March, “ Construction and Validation of a Scale for Assessing Critical Social Justice Attitudes ,” that reinforces Yancey’s argument.

Lahtinen conducted two surveys of a total of 5,878 men and women to determine the share of Finnish citizens who held “critical social justice attitudes” and how those who held such views differed from those who did not.

Critical social justice proponents, on Lahtinen’s scale,

point out varieties of oppression that cause privileged people (e.g., male, white, heterosexual, cisgender) to benefit over marginalized people (e.g., woman, Black, gay, transgender). In critical race theory, some of the core tenets include that (1) white supremacy and racism are omnipresent and colorblind policies are not enough to tackle them, (2) people of color have their own unique standpoint and (3) races are social constructs.

What did Lahtinen find?

The critical social justice propositions encountered

strong rejection from men. Women expressed more than twice as much support for the propositions. In both studies, critical social justice was correlated modestly with depression, anxiety, and (lack of) happiness, but not more so than being on the political left was.

In an email responding to my inquiries about his paper, Lahtinen wrote that one of the key findings in his research was that “there were large differences between genders in critical social justice advocacy: Three out of five women but only one out of seven men expressed support for the critical social justice claims.”

In addition, he pointed out, “there was one variable in the study that closely corresponded to external locus of control: ‘Other people or structures are more responsible for my well-being than I myself am.’”

The correlation between agreement with this statement and unhappiness was among the strongest in the survey:

People on the left endorsed this item (around 2 on a scale of 0 to 4) far more than people on the right (around 0.5). Endorsing the belief was determined by political party preference much more than by gender, for instance.

Such measures as locus of control, self-esteem, a belief in personal agency and optimism all play major roles in daily life.

In a December 2022 paper, “ The Politics of Depression : Diverging Trends in Internalizing Symptoms Among U.S. Adolescents by Political Beliefs,” Catherine Gimbrone , Lisa M. Bates , Seth Prins and Katherine M. Keyes , all at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, noted that “trends in adolescent internalizing symptoms diverged by political beliefs, sex and parental education over time, with female liberal adolescents experiencing the largest increases in depressive symptoms, especially in the context of demographic risk factors, including parental education.”

“These findings,” they added, “indicate a growing mental health disparity between adolescents who identify with certain political beliefs. It is therefore possible that the ideological lenses through which adolescents view the political climate differentially affect their mental well-being.”

Gimbrone and her co-authors based their work on studies of 85,000 teenagers from 2005 to 2018. They found that

while internalizing symptom scores worsened over time for all adolescents, they deteriorated most quickly for female liberal adolescents. Beginning in approximately 2010 and continuing through 2018, female liberal adolescents reported the largest changes in depressive affect, self-esteem, self-derogation and loneliness.

In conclusion, the authors wrote, “socially underprivileged liberals reported the worst internalizing symptom scores over time, likely indicating that the experiences and beliefs that inform a liberal political identity are ultimately less protective against poor mental health than those that inform a conservative political identity.”

From another vantage point, Nick Haslam , a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne, argued in his 2020 paper “ Harm Inflation: Making Sense of Concept Creep ” that recent years have seen “a rising sensitivity to harm within at least some Western cultures, such that previously innocuous or unremarked phenomena were increasingly identified as harmful and that this rising sensitivity reflected a politically liberal moral agenda.”

As examples, Haslam wrote that the definition of “trauma” has been

progressively broadened to include adverse life events of decreasing severity and those experienced vicariously rather than directly. “Mental disorder” came to include a wider range of conditions, so that new forms of psychopathology were added in each revision of diagnostic manuals and the threshold for diagnosing some existing forms was lowered. “Abuse” extended from physical acts to verbal and emotional slights and incorporated forms of passive neglect in addition to active aggression.

Haslam described this process as concept creep and argued that “some examples of concept creep are surely the work of deliberate actors who might be called expansion entrepreneurs.”

Concept expansion, Haslam wrote, “can be used as a tactic to amplify the perceived seriousness of a movement’s chosen social problem.” In addition, “such expansion can be effective means of enhancing the perceived seriousness of a social problem or threat by increasing the perceived prevalence of both ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators.’”

Haslam cited studies showing that strong “correlates of holding expansive concepts of harm were compassion-related trait values, left-liberal political attitudes and forms of morality associated with both.” Holding expansive concepts of harm was also “associated with affective and cognitive empathy orientation and most strongly of all with endorsement of harm- and fairness-based morality.” Many of these characteristics are associated with the political left.

“The expansion of harm-related concepts has implications for acceptable self-expression and free speech,” Haslam wrote. “Creeping concepts enlarge the range of expressions judged to be unacceptably harmful, thereby increasing calls for speech restrictions. Expansion of the harm-related concepts of hate and hate speech exemplifies this possibility.”

While much of the commentary on the progressive left has been critical, Haslam takes a more ambivalent position: “Sometimes concept creep is presented in an exclusively negative frame,” he wrote, but that fails to address the “positive implications. To that end, we offer three positive consequences of the phenomenon.”

The first is that expansionary definitions of harm “can be useful in drawing attention to harms previously overlooked. Consider the vertical expansion of abuse to include emotional abuse.”

Second, “concept creep can prevent harmful practices by modifying social norms.” For example, “changing definitions of bullying that include social exclusion and antagonistic acts expressed horizontally rather than only downward in organizational hierarchies may also entrench norms against the commission of destructive behavior.”

And finally:

The expansion of psychology’s negative concepts can motivate interventions aimed at preventing or reducing the harms associated with the newly categorized behaviors. For instance, the conceptual expansion of addiction to include behavioral addictions (e.g., gambling and internet addictions) has prompted a flurry of research into treatment options, which has found that a range of psychosocial treatments can be successfully used to treat gambling, internet and sexual addictions.

Judge suggested an approach to this line of inquiry that he believed might offer a way for liberalism to regain its footing:

I would like to think that there is a version of modern progressivism that accepts many of the premises of the problem and causes of inequality but does so in a way that also celebrates the power of individualism, of consensus and of common cause. I know this is perhaps naïve. But if we give in to cynicism (that consensus can’t be found), that’s self-reinforcing, isn’t it? I think about the progress on how society now views sexual orientation and the success stories. The change was too slow, painful for many, but was there any other way?

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here's our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Wednesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post. @ edsall