Can’t Catch Cab

In order to test their hypotheses about the associations between skin color, racism, and mental and physical health, the researchers analyzed the data of 1,722 African Americans who had participated in the CARDIA cohort study. Borrell et al. believed that (1) racism and darker skin color would be associated with poorer health; (2) racism would mediate the relationship between skin color and health outcomes (i.e., skin color leads to racism, which has an effect on health); and (3) skin color would confound the relationship between racism and health (i.e., skin color is individually associated with both racism and health outcomes).

Skin color alone was not predictive of mental or physical health; however, discrimination was, even after adjusting for age, income, education, and skin color. As racial discrimination increased (a score was calculated), mental health decreased (also based on a sum score), with the effect being stronger among women. It was even stronger among those earning less than $75k per year, compared with women earning more. The researchers acknowledge that the compounded discrimination felt by African American women (gender and race) may have effects that are not explained here.

Seventy-five percent of the African American sample reported discrimination in some aspect of their lives. African Americans with darker skin were less likely to have a high school diploma and were more likely to have a lower income than their lighter-skinned counterparts. Lighter skinned African Americans weren’t exempt from discrimination, however; in fact, “highly educated and high income African Americans were more likely to report experiencing discrimination and have light skin when compared to their counterparts.” The authors attribute this effect to increased exposure to discrimination that comes along with being a minority in the upper income and education brackets in the US.

Relevance to documentary: Skin color has everything to do with why I’m making this film. I’m hypothesizing that racism, however subtle, contributes to negative health outcomes. Well, the primary identifier of race in a (face-to-face) social situation is skin color. It serves as a proxy (and trigger) for discrimination.

It’s important to examine the perceptions that people have around skin color. Do certain people view lighter-skinned Black people as “safer,” and therefore are more likely to say ignorant things, which can be interpreted/received as racist? Maybe that contributes to the increased discrimination experienced by light-skinned African Americans with higher educations and incomes. It’s also important to note that more discrimination doesn’t always mean worse health. In the case of higher educated and higher income Black people, the health effects caused by discrimination may be alleviated by access to resources, e.g. health care, knowledge and its consequent healthy behaviors. Ideally, however, these resources would contribute to health and not have to counterbalance racism.

Link (Google Scholar)

Posted by Alejandro on February 20th, 2009 under Research • RSS • Comment, or trackback