Brendon Beckendorff
529008386
Racism in the African American Community
In this paper I am summarizing the efforts of the writers of "Racism as a Stressor for
African Americans." The authors go into detail about how many African American communities
in the United States today still face racism from outside groups. It defines racism as "beliefs,
attitudes, institutional arrangements, and acts that tend to denigrate individuals or groups because
of phenotypic characteristics." It then goes on to describe how there is evidence regarding the
use of racism to halt the full development of equality amongst all citizens. Common places
where racism is still evident include higher education, the restaurant industry, housing sales, and
even in hiring practices. The article goes into deep details about how racism can eventually result
in psychological and physiological stress as responses. Thus, the African American community
attempted to cope through many different methods. Most of which, were not the true answer and
resulted in further discrepancies between different ethnic communities. The authors make it clear
that more research must happen in this field of study to determine the true affects of racism.
However, the evidence they used stays consistent throughout and shows how the actions of one
ethnic group on another can harm them. An interesting point that the authors made was that often
times intragroup racism was more impactful on those in the group rather than intergroup. They
assume that this is because it is more likely to occur due to communities. For African Americans
in particular, this involves the variations in skin tone from one being darker to lighter.
