Discrimination Makes African-Americans Stronger

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In the past, research has shown that the black-American community’s exposure to social inequality and discrimination has had a negative impact on their mental health. To summarize this general theory, Dr. Kwame McKenzie states, “In the USA, interpersonal discrimination has been associated with increased rates of hypertension, depression and stress” (Chakraborty). Despite the several social and technological advances that the United States has made over the past few decades, we have not necessarily freed ourselves from the constraints of racism. In a 2009 study evaluating the rates of perceived discrimination among blacks, 60.9% claimed to have experienced day-to-day racism (Keyes). Past studies have used these statistics to prove that this perceived discrimination is a stressor that can cause a variety of mental illnesses, ranging from anxiety, to depression, to phobia. However, a recent paradigm shift has occurred, changing the way researchers are looking at black-American psychology.

Psychologists have recognized a certain fortitude within the black community, leading them to believe that discrimination, in actuality, has not had as much of a deteriorating effect as previously understood. To prove this theory, researchers compared the psychological health of both blacks and whites and discovered that in today’s society, blacks actually have better mental health than whites (Keyes). But why do black-Americans have such high psychological health? Since blacks experience significantly more racism than whites, shouldn’t blacks have worse mental health? Psychologists infer that despite dis...

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...e Paradox in Mental Health? Diss. University of Rutgers, 2010.

Olivarez, Brittany. “Racial Discrimination Shown to Cause Depression in Teens | Helping Psychology.” Psychology Degrees | Helping Psychology. 9 May 2010. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.

Primm, Dr. Annelle, Dr. William Lawson, and Farai Chideya. Mental Health in the Black Community. National Public Radio. 26 Mar. 2008.

NPR, 26 Mar. 2008. Web. 7 Nov. 2011. Transcript.

Rockett, Ian, Shuhui Wang, Steven Stack, Diego De Leo, James L. Frost, Allan Ducatman, Rheeda Walker, and Nestor Kepusta. “Race/ethnicity and Potential Suicide Misclassification: Window on a Minority Suicide Paradox?” BioMed Central (2010): 1-8.

Suskind, Ron. A Hope in the Unseen: an American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.

“The Debate on Affirmative Action.” NAACP. 4 Apr. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

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