Recent orders
The Impact of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination on Adolescent and Early Adult Development (2)
.
The Impact of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination on Adolescent and Early Adult Development
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Course Name and Code
Professor’s Name
Date
The Impact of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination on Adolescent and Early Adult Development
Adolescents’ social identities are heavily influenced by their ethnic and racial identities, which are key elements of social identities. Racial and ethnic identity is a multifaceted concept that includes psychological attachment to and affiliation with a racial or ethnic group (Ginsburg & McClain, 2020). Ginsburg and McClain (2020) further reveal that racialized society has significant impact on adolescents’ identities and development processes. This is because one’s identity influences most of the treatment that they receive. Research further reveals that the 6- to 20-year-old demographic that makes up Generation Z, sometimes referred to as the Postmillennial Generation, is on track to surpass all others in terms of racial diversity (Fry & Parker, 2018). From 39% in 2002, that segment now includes 48% diverse or multiracial individuals. Beyond race, people from various ethnic, sexual, and religious groupings are visibly more prevalent in society. As a result of these demographic changes, there is an urgent significant need to address discrimination, particularly in light of glaring disparities and inequalities along the lines of social identities that are disadvantaged (Fry & Parker, 2018). In order to encourage the members of the society to address discrimination, it is important to inform them of the adverse effects discrimination has on adolescent and early adult development. Thus, this research paper’s main research question seeks to uncover the impact of racial and ethnic discrimination on adolescents and early adult development.
The data for addressing this study’s research question have been extracted from transcripts from qualitative oral history interviews available in the canvas site. Various themes have been generated from these transcripts to showcase how racial and ethnic discrimination impacts adolescent and early adult development. These themes along with citations from literature that will be utilized to interpret the findings in each theme are presented below.
Anxiety Symptoms
One theme that emerged from the data is that racial and ethnic discrimination result in anxiety symptoms among the adolescents. This theme was supported by the participant who stated that:
“No, when we see them (Whites), we were nervous. We had no Whites in school with us. We had to ride in the back of the buses…”
When asked about how seeing the whites felt, the participant further explained;
“Well, we were nervous all the time. When we saw the Whites, we got nervous. There was no telling what they would do to us.”
The following journal articles will be used to interpret the finding in this theme.
Williams, M. T., Printz, D., & DeLapp, R. C. (2018). Assessing racial trauma with the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale. Psychology of Violence, 8(6), 735. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/vio0000212Sosoo, E. E., Bernard, D. L., & Neblett Jr, E. W. (2020). The influence of internalized racism on the relationship between discrimination and anxiety. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 26(4), 570. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/cdp0000320Cheref, S., Talavera, D., & Walker, R. L. (2019). Perceived discrimination and suicide ideation: moderating roles of anxiety symptoms and ethnic identity among Asian American, African American, and Hispanic emerging adults. Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior, 49(3), 665-677. https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12467Lack of Access to Quality Education
Findings also revealed that ethnic and racial discrimination impact adolescents’ access to quality education. Supporting this theme, the participant stated that;
“In high school, we didn’t get all of the good learning, you know”
This is because the school did not receive sufficient funding.
The following journal articles will be used to interpret the finding in this theme.
Trent, M., Dooley, D. G., Dougé, J., Cavanaugh, R. M., Lacroix, A. E., Fanburg, J., … & Wallace, S. B. (2019). The impact of racism on child and adolescent health. Pediatrics, 144(2). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2019-1765Ullah, A. A., & Chattoraj, D. (2018). Roots of discrimination against Rohingya minorities: Society, ethnicity and international relations. Intellectual Discourse, 26(2), 541-565.
Alhusen, J. L., Bower, K. M., Epstein, E., & Sharps, P. (2016). Racial discrimination and adverse birth outcomes: an integrative review. Journal of midwifery & women’s health, 61(6), 707-720. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmwh.12490Increased fear
Furthermore, findings revealed that ethnic and racial discrimination causes increased fear among adolescents and young adult. Supporting this theme, research participant explained that:
“Regardless of how the Whites is doin’ us, just obey them, do as they say and don’t do nothing to start. Because see, at that time, we couldn’t even drink from the same fountain. We walked to the Colored. White. We couldn’t even go past that we would get slapped. We were taught not to do anything that would aggravate the Whites.”
Also, the respondent added that;
“When we saw the Whites, we got nervous. There was no telling what they would do to us.”
The following journal articles will be used to interpret the finding in this theme.
Steele, J. L. (2016). Race and general strain theory: Examining the impact of racial discrimination and fear on adolescent marijuana and alcohol use. Substance use & misuse, 51(12), 1637-1648. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2016.1191513Williams, M. T., Printz, D., & DeLapp, R. C. (2018). Assessing racial trauma with the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale. Psychology of Violence, 8(6), 735. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/vio0000212Lund, E. M. (2021). Even more to handle: Additional sources of stress and trauma for clients from marginalized racial and ethnic groups in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 34(3-4), 321-330. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2020.1766420Lack of Freedom
Finings also revealed that ethnic and racial discrimination causes lack of freedom. Supporting this theme, the respondent explained that:
“…And after we grew up, to see what different way people were living. To me, we were slaves. We were enslaved. But we never knew.”
The following journal articles will be used to interpret the finding in this theme.
Laster Pirtle, W. N. (2020). <? covid19?> Racial Capitalism: A Fundamental Cause of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Inequities in the United States. Health Education & Behavior, 47(4), 504-508.
Craemer, T., Smith, T., Harrison, B., Logan, T., Bellamy, W., & Darity Jr, W. (2020). Wealth implications of slavery and racial discrimination for African American descendants of the enslaved. The Review of Black Political Economy, 47(3), 218-254. https://doi.org/10.1177/0034644620926516Increased Poverty
Also, ethnic and racial discrimination was found to cause increased poverty. One respondent explained that they were living in a segregated area and every black was poor. The respondent further stated that;
“…we didn’t realize that we were poor. Because everybody around us was poor.”
This implies that ethnic and racial discrimination cause poverty.
To support this theme, the participant also added that;
“Most of the time the parents didn’t have the fare, ten cents or fifteen cents. A group of us we would walk together and it was a long, long walk”
The following journal articles will be used to interpret the finding in this theme.
Shim, R. S., & Compton, M. T. (2020). The social determinants of mental health: psychiatrists’ roles in addressing discrimination and food insecurity. Focus, 18(1), 25-30. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20190035Iceland, J. (2019). Racial and ethnic inequality in poverty and affluence, 1959–2015. Population Research and Policy Review, 38(5), 615-654. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-019-09512-7Seider, S., Clark, S., Graves, D., Kelly, L. L., Soutter, M., El-Amin, A., & Jennett, P. (2019). Black and Latinx adolescents’ developing beliefs about poverty and associations with their awareness of racism. Developmental Psychology, 55(3), 509. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/dev0000585Poor self-Esteem
Furthermore, findings revealed that racial and ethnic discrimination causes lower self-esteem among the adolescents discriminated against. Supporting this theme, the respondent claimed that:
“Then, when we got a bus for us to go to school, we had to get on the back of the bus. We get on the bus; we pay our bus fare but we have to get off and walk all the way to the back and just sit on that back seat. We can get on the bus. A few Whites were on. But we still could not sit there.”
The following journal articles will be used to interpret the finding in this theme.
Yang, T. C., Chen, I. C., Choi, S. W., & Kurtulus, A. (2019). Linking perceived discrimination during adolescence to health during mid-adulthood: Self-esteem and risk-behavior mechanisms. Social Science & Medicine, 232, 434-443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.06.012Urzúa, A., Ferrer, R., Godoy, N., Leppes, F., Trujillo, C., Osorio, C., & Caqueo-Urízar, A. (2018). The mediating effect of self-esteem on the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological well-being in immigrants. PloS one, 13(6), e0198413. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198413Benner, A. D., Wang, Y., Shen, Y., Boyle, A. E., Polk, R., & Cheng, Y. P. (2018). Racial/ethnic discrimination and well-being during adolescence: A meta-analytic review. American Psychologist, 73(7), 855.
References
Fry, R. & Parker, K. (2018). Early Benchmarks Show ‘Post-Millennials’ on Track to Be Most Diverse, Best-Educated Generation Yet. Phew Research Website. Accessed from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/11/15/early-benchmarks-show-post-millennials-on-track-to-be-most-diverse-best-educated-generation-yet/Ginsburg, K. R., & McClain, Z. B. R. (Eds.). (2020). Reaching teens: Strength-based, trauma-sensitive, resilience-building communication strategies rooted in positive youth development. American Academy of Pediatrics.
Racial construct
Racial constructRace is a social construct as according to sociologists, race is not based on some innate as well as immutable scientific facts, but instead, a social construct is used to describe the racial categories such as Asians, blacks and whites. Race is, therefore, a category that tends to group together people with similar or who share biological traits believed by the society to be socially significant. The shared traits do not only involve the biological traits but also the people’s understanding of the biological differences as shaped by the culture which they are associated.
A clinal variation refers to the gradual change in an inherited characteristic across a geographical range of species that are usually correlated with an environmental transition that include latitude, moisture, and temperature. Clinal variations makes more sense and helps understand better the difference in groups of people in that it helps define race as a social construct in different geographical regions, for example, a black person in Sudan cannot be categorized the same as that black person in Australia, as they are two geographically different regions with different characteristics in regard to temperature, moisture and latitude hence there has evolved a gradual change in the inherited characteristics among the people involved.
Walker, Spohn, and DeLone described three major types of discrimination that exists within the criminal justice practices, which include; race, ethnicity, and gender bias. Examples include, for racial discrimination, blacks are prone to incarceration than other races, regarding ethnicity include African Americans arrested disproportionately for violent crimes while whites are arrested for burglaries and violent crimes. Gender bias involves the disproportionate arrest of men who commits the same crime as women.
Racial Conflict and Violence
Racial Conflict and Violence
Students Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Name and Code
Professors Name
Date
Racial Conflict and Violence
In a society that constitutes white and black people, the topic of racism is inevitable. Racism is the discrimination suffered by a group or individuals for belonging to a specific ethnic inferior community. Over the years, blacks have faced racism against their white counterparts. In the book entitled A Few Red Drops, written by Claire Hartfield, there are several incidences where racial differences result in conflict and violence. In the book, there are incidences that prove that treating different races unequally may result in conflict and violence.
The first act of racism is clearly shown at the beginning of the book when a young black man, John Turner Harris, and his friends were swimming at the beach of Lake Michigan (Hartfield, 2018). A white man was unhappy since the young men seemed to be swimming too near the beach’s white part. The man was very agitated because there was no official border separating the white part of the beach from the blacks. He started throwing stones at the young boys and ended up killing one of the young men. This was the beginning of all the conflict and violence in the book. The black people became so angry that they started riots all over Chicago (Hartfield, 2018). The white man threw stones mainly because the young men were blacks. If the young men could have been whites, the white man would not have thrown stones at them. Throwing stones at a person is violence since it can cause harm. In this case, one of the young men lost his life.
The author writes of how the white man who threw the stones was not arrested. However, black men who took in riots and demonstrations that followed the young man’s death at the beach were arrested. This proves that racism is evident. Murder, whether committed by a black or white person, is an offense (Hartfield, 2018). The black people also had the right to riot since one of them had been killed for an insignificant offense. The different parts of the beach were not under official laws, and the beach was public property, so it cannot be termed trespassing. The black men arrested for being involved in riots were not supposed to be arrested unless they caused harm.
Hartfield goes ahead to illustrate the history of black people in urban Chicago. Black people had faced racism and discrimination for years before. The Union Stock was responsible for ensuring that black people and other white immigrants got appropriate jobs. However, many politics took place in the union administration, causing racial tension as much as it tried to keep everything equal (Hartfield, 2018). The less fortunate people of the society were most affected. The differences between the black people and the white people had begun during this time. There is a possibility that the two races had stored their anger and passed it from generation to generation, later blowing up, leading to conflict and violence.
The book also talks about the journey the black people had to take from the South to the North. During the journey, black workers faced several challenges which still manifested themselves in urban Chicago. Among the challenges was housing (Hartfield, 2018). Most black workers could not afford lavish apartments for their families; hence they had to live in poor houses. Being poor and black is double trouble. This created much tension among the two races since white people have always felt more entitled than their white counterparts. Black people, since the migration, have always tried to find better lifestyles to avoid being discriminated against based on poverty other than race.
Following the incident at the beach, which led to the death of a young black man, Black people felt that the act was unfair and that someone had to pay. The blacks and the whites had had previous issues in their history, so violence was inevitable. Each race found the other guilty of the murder (Hartfield, 2018). The blacks argued that the young man was not wise enough to find out the difference in beach sides and that the violence was started by the white man who threw stones. The whites blamed the blacks for not staying at the part of the beach. The young man had, however, not even crossed to the white part of the beach. It is likely that the blacks felt tired of being discriminated against and wanted to avoid future deaths based on race discrimination. They, therefore, decided to have riots (Hartfield, 2018). There were also gang violence and mob demonstrations. Much political incapability made the situation worse.
The last chapters followed the progression of violence and its eventual end when the wave of extreme feelings subsided and the harm was assessed. Multiple of the casualties of the rioters in Chicago were black, while only a few of the criminals who were convicted were white. Hartfield highlights this disparity in the justice process in Chicago after the rioting. Mainly ending allows the author to elaborate on the knowledge gained from the Chicago racial riots, which she feels is essential in today’s similarly turbulent moment in America (2018). Hartfield also finds both apparent injustices holding back part of America occupied by blacks and the ample power in black societies based on the author, who cites the civil rights era accompanying these 1919 occurrences (2018).
In conclusion, the author showed that racism has always been a factor that can contribute to conflict and violence. The history of racism in urban Chicago was evident many years before the beach tragedy when black workers moved from the South to the North. It is also clear that governance’s political administrations impact the racial discrimination that occurs. Racism history has been passed on from generation to generation, causing conflict and violence in case blacks and whites have differences.
Reference
Hartfield, C. (2018). A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919. Clarion Books.