Internalized Racial Oppression in the African American Community

Internalized Racism: A Systematic Review of the Psychological Literature on Racism's Most Insidious Consequence

“…Similarly, the development of schools or similar educational spaces (e.g., workshops, after‐school programs, etc.) that promote cultural recovery and empowerment seem promising ways to address internalized racism among Native Americans (e.g., see Gonzalez, Simard, Baker‐Demaray, & Iron Eyes, , for a review), Pacific Islanders (e.g., see Salzman & Laenui, , for a review), African Americans, (e.g., see Bailey, Williams, & Favors, , for a review), and Asian Americans (e.g., see Millan & Alvarez, , for a review) largely because such efforts tend to address power imbalances in the larger society. Further, in addition to strengthening individual and systemic factors that may serve as protection against the development of internalized racism, these community‐level efforts attempt to develop critical awareness among Peoples of Color and spark collective action to challenge racially oppressive social systems—the root cause of internalized racism.…”

“…The importance of understanding and addressing internalized racism has been expressed by other scholars as well (e.g., Bailey, Williams, & Favors, 2014;Banks & Stephens, 2018;Gonzalez, Simard, Baker-Demaray, & Iron Eyes, 2014;Hipolito-Delgado, Gallegos Payan, & Baca, 2014;Millan & Alvarez, 2014). For example, noted sociologist Karen Pyke (2010) stated that "to forge effective methods of resistance, it is necessary to understand how oppression is internalized and reproduced" (p. 552).…”

Internalized Oppression and Its Varied Moral Harms: Self‐Perceptions of Reduced Agency and Criminality

“…). Additionally, repeated exposure to guilt and similar feelings has been linked with a range of health challenges such as “dysfunctional coping, abdominal obesity, and glucose intolerance complicit in the development of Type 2 diabetes” (Bailey, Williams, and Favors , 149). On top of mental‐ and physical‐health obstacles, an internalized feeling of guilt can also result in a damaged moral identity.…”

Attending to Meaning in Life in the Lives of Marginalized Individuals

“…The fundamental mechanism to reduce meaning frustration is one's attitude toward a situation, and Frankl () surmised that any person in any situation can have an attitude of meaningfulness. This supposition about people would indeed include African Americans, whose very bodies are soaked in the trauma of enslavement (Bailey, Williams, & Favors, ), and lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people, who have been branded diseased abominations for the way they love (Nadal & Mendoza, ). Although African Americans and LGB people, among others, continue to live in social settings that aim to reinforce their subservience and powerlessness, they do overcome meaning frustration and discover and create a stable and sustainable sense of meaning in life (Bronk, ).…”

“…Within the umbrella term of internalized oppression, an individual can experience, for example, internalized racial oppression, internalized homophobia, or internalized transphobia. Although the internalization of oppression might manifest in qualitatively different ways between and among different minority groups, there seem to be some common elements (Bailey et al, ; Nadal & Mendoza, ). For example, internalized racial oppression and internalized homophobia can result in a pattern of degradation toward one's own identities, coupled with a drive to fit in with the dominant group.…”