Racism as a critical challenge, risk, and adversity for Black youth

Research on resilience, as well as developmental models such as Bronfenbrener’s (Reference Bronfenbrenner1977) socio-ecological framework, highlight adverse environments and circumstances that may emerge generally for all youth. However, in considering the treatment of resilience for Black youth in particular, it is critical to highlight the deleterious role of racism. To understand racism’s impact as a challenge, risk factor, and source of adversity for Black youth, we must first define and operationalize racism. Racism, as defined by Jones (Reference Jones1997), is “a system in which individuals or institutions intentionally or unintentionally exercise power against a racial group defined as inferior” (p.117) and is fueled by an “ideology of superiority and the practice of inequity” (Pieterse & Powell, Reference Pieterse, Powell, Alvarez, Liang and Neville2016). Racism, by this definition, is a social construct that evolves, is perpetuated, and pervasively affects every aspect of our society, as well as individuals within that society. Unlike most stressors examined by resilience theories, including natural disasters – which are finite crises – or personally traumatic experiences, there are continuous and multiple levels upon which racism occurs, ranging from individual bias to inequitable policy enacted on the institutional and systemic levels (Jones, Reference Jones2000). For the individual, racism exacts a unique impact on many parts of their development, including identity formation, character development, interpersonal development, and physical health (Clark et al., Reference Clark, Anderson, Clark and Williams1999; Hope et al., Reference Hope, Hoggard and Thomas2015). The deep rooted history and the social construction of racism provides a nuanced backdrop for how individuals are impacted by this multisystemic determinant, often leading to physical, psychological, and emotional trauma that transcends through generations (Carlson, Reference Carlson1997; Carter, Reference Carter2007).

Jones et al. (Reference Jones, Anderson, Gaskin-Wasson, Sawyer, Applewhite and Metzger2020) categorized racism into three main categories: instrumental (i.e. involving critical development tasks), interpersonal (i.e. interactions with other people), and institutional (i.e. involving systems and policies). Through an instrumental lens, racism impacts Black children and adolescents by them being perceived as older and more dangerous (Goff et al., Reference Goff, Jackson, Di Leone, Culotta and DiTomasso2014), receiving less culturally affirming early education and childcare experiences (James & Iruka, Reference James and Iruka2018), and experiencing harsher treatment, grading, and punishment due to their race from their teachers (Cogburn et al., Reference Cogburn, Chavous and Griffin2011). Interpersonally, Black youth experience direct encounters of racism (e.g., from peers; Seaton & Yip, Reference Seaton and Yip2009) as well as bearing witness to vicarious racism involving caregivers (Dominguez et al., Reference Dominguez, Dunkel-Schetter, Glynn, Hobel and Sandman2008) and peers (Tynes et al., Reference Tynes, Willis, Stewart and Hamilton2019), with these experiences occurring both in person and online. Black youth, and teens in particular, encounter substantial institutional experiences with racism, such as policies that result in higher interactions with and trauma by police (e.g., “stop and frisk; Brunson & Miller, Reference Brunson and Miller2006) and school administrators. Racism also differentially impacts Black youth across gender. Perpetuated stereotypes around race and gender and their intersections often lead to more negative reactions to racial discrimination (Chavous et al., Reference Chavous, Rivas-Drake, Smalls, Griffin and Cogburn2008). Black males are often stereotypically deemed as aggressive or intellectually lacking athletes (Chavous et al., Reference Chavous, Harris, Rivas, Helaire and Green2004; Swanson et al., Reference Swanson, Cunningham and Spencer2003). These stereotypes often lead to Black male youth receiving more negative treatment in schools including harsher discipline, more criticism and more social exclusion compared to their peers (Davis, Reference Davis2003; Noguera, Reference Noguera2003). Similarly, parental racial socialization messages often include more messages around racial barriers and alertness to racial discrimination for Black boys compared to Black girls in reaction to the societal stereotypes of Black males (Coard et al., Reference Coard, Wallace, Stevenson and Brotman2004). While Black girls also report experiencing discriminatory or negative treatment from valued others (e.g., teachers) due to their race, scholars speculate that Black girls have more negative reactions to discriminatory treatment due to more frequent socialization messages focused on relationships, connectedness to community, and approval of others as opposed to messages preparing them for such racial discrimination (Chavous et al., Reference Chavous, Rivas-Drake, Smalls, Griffin and Cogburn2008). This may also lead Black girls to develop negative approaches to their academics (e.g., underperforming) to avoid having such negative interactions and treatment from their teachers and peers (Grantham & Ford, Reference Grantham and Ford1998). These differential impacts of racism on girls and boys in adolescence can have implications throughout their lifetime.

The literature has expanded theories and models to account for the influence of racism on resilience across youth development. Both Garcia Coll et al.’s (Reference Garcia Coll, Crnic, Lamberty, Wasik, Jenkins, Garcia and McAdoo1996) integrative model and Spencer et al.’s (Reference Spencer, Dupree and Hartmann1997) phenomenal variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST) extend Bronfenbrener’s socio-ecological model in ways that consider the unique realities youth of color must navigate. By incorporating aspects of intersectionality and developmental identity theory, these theories put the vulnerability of youth into the context of their social position and experiences that are most often linked to systems of oppression and power structures (e.g., Velez & Spencer, Reference Velez and Spencer2018). Moreover, in addition to viewing racism as a detrimental factor to positive outcomes for Black youth, these models center how others within the ecosystem (e.g., adaptive culture, family, social support) can mitigate the stress and vulnerability that racism portends.

Racial-ethnic protective factors for Black youth experiencing racism

Of note, scholars committed to the healthy psychosocial development of Black youth have spent decades elucidating the factors that protect Black youth against the noxious nature of racism in its multiple forms. Even from the earliest conceptualizations of Black youth development (e.g., PVEST, triple quandary; Boykin & Toms, Reference Boykin, Toms, McAdoo and McAdoo1985), racial-ethnic protective factors were named as critical for understanding Black youth resilience and successful adaptation. Three racial-ethnic protective factors have been distinguished as particularly salient for Black youth: (1) racial identity development, (2) the endorsement of a cultural/Africentric worldview, and (3) racial socialization (Jones & Neblett, Reference Jones and Neblett2016; Neblett et al., Reference Neblett, Rivas-Drake and Umaña-Taylor2012).

Historical focus on individual traits

In framing our argument for an alternative approach to supporting the mental health and well-being of Black youth in the context of racism, it is necessary to begin by outlining the ways in which resilience has historically been applied to these young people. Resilience was considered as a way of phenomenologically understanding how youth achieved positive psychosocial (e.g., academic, emotional, psychological) outcomes despite developing in adverse environments and being exposed to potentially deleterious circumstances (Luthar et al., Reference Luthar, Cicchetti and Becker2000; Troy & Mauss, Reference Troy, Mauss, Southwick, Litz, Charney and Friedman2011). This “dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity” (Luthar et al., Reference Luthar, Cicchetti and Becker2000, p. 543), has led researchers over the past several decades to identify and isolate person-centered factors (e.g., self-regulation, grit, racial identity, self-competence, academic self-efficacy; Austin et al., Reference Austin, Jeffries, Winston and Brady2022; Duckworth & Gross, Reference Duckworth and Gross2014; Moffitt et al., Reference Moffitt, Arseneault, Belsky, Dickson, Hancox, Harrington, Houts, Poulton, Roberts, Ross, Sears, Thomson and Caspi2011) that seem most likely to protect against negative outcomes. As such, the lion’s share of resilience literature to date has congregated at the individual level. Masten et al. (Reference Masten, Lucke, Nelson and Stallworthy2021) describes four major waves of resilience research with the first three focused on identifying individual attributes that separate those who did well versus those that did poorly in the context of risk (wave 1), explaining why certain individual attributes lead to better adaptation (wave 2), and targeting the development of these attributes to promote adjustment during adversity (wave 3). Here, it is evident that much of the research on resilience (i.e., three out of the four waves) at the individual level has persisted despite arguments for a multisystem approach, but why? Who does it serve for resilience to be studied as an individual trait? The persistence of research emphasizing grit, hardiness, and self-regulation all maps onto Western ideals of individualism, which consistently places the onus of hardship and or success on the individual rather than considering the multiple societal and historical levels that are primarily at fault.

However, as the field evolved and the literature on resilience expanded (wave 4), researchers have come to recognize the more prominent role of external factors on a child’s resilience through development (Luthar et al., Reference Luthar, Cicchetti and Becker2000). There has also been a shift to focus on the processes that protect the development of youth from risk exposure instead of the traditional approach of focusing on individual protective factors (Cowen et al., Reference Cowen, Wyman, Work, Kim, Fagen and Magnus1997; Luthar & Cushing, Reference Luthar, Cushing, Glantz and Johnson2002). One key model in supporting this shift from individual to ecological can be traced to Bronfenbrenner’s (Reference Bronfenbrenner1977) socio-ecological framework, which describes a child’s development as a set of complex relationships within a concentric system that includes various levels of environmental influence from and between immediate family, school, cultural values and laws. The various levels of influence not only interact with the child but also interact with each other at different levels, which might explain the extent to which the child, depicted in the center of the model, is protected from nefarious threats to optimal psychosocial well-being.

Multisystemic approaches: a welcome addition to the discourse

The work of Masten (Reference Masten2021), Masten et al. (Reference Masten, Lucke, Nelson and Stallworthy2021), and Ungar and Theron (Reference Ungar and Theron2020) has marked an important departure from the individual focus of resilience to a multisystemic one. An important component of understanding resilience from a multisystemic approach is giving attention to the reciprocal interactions across multiple system levels evident in Bronfenbrenner’s (Reference Bronfenbrenner1977) socio-ecological model. An individual child, depicted as the focal point of the socio-ecological model, engages with a number of systems, but primarily with family systems that include their caregivers, siblings, and other immediate members of the home. As that child develops, engagement with other families, friends, school, and community becomes more evident. Furthermore, that same child is also impacted, albeit indirectly, by other systems such as a caregiver’s workplace and state government. One may speculate that if these dynamic multisystem processes are evident throughout a child’s development, then the same can be applied to advanced resilience science. To this end, Masten et al. (Reference Masten, Lucke, Nelson and Stallworthy2021) offers a new definition of resilience: “the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully through multisystem processes to challenges that threaten the function, survival, or development of the system” (p. 524). Similarly, Ungar and Theron (Reference Ungar and Theron2020) assert that resilience is not an isolated individual quality; rather, it is a quality that leverages access to cultural resources and support at multiple levels to manage adversity.

Why Black youth deserve more than successful adaption to racism

Centering the processes of resilience available to an individual in the face of systemic-level problems like racism is insufficient; systemic adversities and trauma need to be prevented and reduced, thereby lessening the load that processes of resilience are often employed to mitigate (Brown et al., Reference Brown, Ma, Miranda, Eng, Castille, Brockie, Jones, Airhihenbuwa, Farhat and Zhu2019; Dankwa-Mullen et al., Reference Dankwa-Mullan, Rhee, Stoff, Pohlhaus, Sy, Stinson and Ruffin2010). For example, public health evidence that supports focusing on individual-level behaviors, such as eating balanced and healthy meals, is ineffective to address nutrient deficiencies in youth without addressing accessibility of fresh healthy food options (Singh et al., Reference Singh, Siahpush and Kogan2010). Black youth, on the whole, are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to have access to quality education (e.g., high schools that offer college-ready courses) compared to White youth (Charles et al., Reference Charles, Collyer and Wimer2022; US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014), yet are expected to pull themselves up by their “proverbial bootstraps” to both achieve individually and compete collectively. This colloquial expression – to elevate one’s social positioning without assistance – insinuates that there are no systemic barriers in place that prevent success for Black youth such as a lack of sufficient investments in public schools (Darling-Hammond, Reference Darling-Hammond2018), safe and affordable neighborhoods and housing reinforced by historic laws of segregation (Jargowsky, Reference Jargowsky2016), and the criminalization of Black boys in school (Rothstein, Reference Rothstein2017). With systemic racism and structured inequities present in our society, resilience among Black youth will never overcome these oppressive forces due to individual behaviors alone.

In addition to varying levels of racialized experiences, Black youth are also currently being exposed to a multitude of societal issues such as exaggerated effects from the COVID-19 global pandemic (Anderson, Heard-Garris, et al., Reference Anderson, Heard-Garris and DeLapp2021), economic uncertainty, and videos and commentary of unjust experiences of racism through media exposure (Harriman et al., Reference Harriman, Shortland, Su, Cote, Testa and Savoia2020; Parker et al., Reference Parker, Haskins, Lee, Hailemeskel and Adepoju2021; Stewart et al., Reference Stewart, Schuschke and Tynes2019). The experience of being subjected to racial discrimination through social media interactions or witnessing others’ experiences with racism and violence is unique for Black youth of today and is a growing population-level public health concern (Cooper & Fullilove, Reference Cooper and Fullilove2016; Tynes et al., Reference Tynes, Willis, Stewart and Hamilton2019). In addition to experiencing vicarious exposure to racism online, some Black youth are on the frontlines fighting against racism through protests, education, and activism (Anyiwo et al., Reference Anyiwo, Anderson, Marchand, Diemer and Garrett2023), taking on a considerable amount of the resistance against racism and oppression, infringing on their ability to devote time and energy to other developmentally relevant activities. A number of positive or protective processes have been documented by engaging in activism (e.g., development of problem-solving coping mechanisms; Brashers et al., Reference Brashers, Haas, Neidig and Rintamaki2002), yet a growing body of evidence is unearthing the toll that this activism takes on the psychological and physical wellness of young people (Hope et al., Reference Hope, Velez, Offidani-Bertrand, Keels and Durkee2018). This double-edged sword demonstrates how prior conceptualizations of resilience miss the damage that may be exacted when Black youth take up the charge to fight back against systems that are disproportionately fashioned against them. As such, the new generation of resilience research must eliminate the undue responsibility for Black youth to fight for the right to be young and grow old; rather, they deserve specific solutions that are necessary for their optimal development.

Where we are and where we need to go: moving from coping and adaptation to agency and transformation

Viewing racism as a multifaceted system that impacts youth development in multiple domains and across development, Jones et al. (Reference Jones, Anderson, Gaskin-Wasson, Sawyer, Applewhite and Metzger2020) place this unique stressor directly in conversation with two of the most prevalent debates in the literature concerning the construct of resilience: whether resilience is (1) defined as a positive developmental response to a singular negative life event or compounded negative events or (2) demonstrated through excelling in one domain or excelling in multiple domains (Luthar et al, Reference Luthar, Doernberger and Zigler1993, Reference Luthar, Cicchetti and Becker2000; Tolan, Reference Tolan1996). For Black youth navigating the adversity and trauma of interpersonal and systemic racism on a consistent basis (Nicolas et al., Reference Nicolas, Helms, Jernigan, Sass, Skrzypek and DeSilva2008), one could speculate that resilience is no longer a characteristic or choice, but rather a forced act to live with, push through, and excel to survive. The ways researchers have studied and discussed resilience, particularly within the context of Black communities, may therefore sensationalize the survival and endurance of these communities, oftentimes not leading to actual or sustained efforts to eradicate the enduring effects of racism. It calls the humanity of the individuals experiencing the race-based trauma into question by essentially viewing them as rubber bands being pulled to their limits and remaining intact despite severe weathering, all while receiving little to no reinforcement or, better yet, coverage, from the systems and institutions that hold the power to prevent the erosion in the first place (Anderson, Jones et al., Reference Anderson, Jones and Stevenson2021).

Our perspective here mirrors discourse by prior scholars. Bottrell (Reference Bottrell2009) notes that so-called mainstream approaches to resilience, particularly through an individualistic lens, “may shift the emphasis from positive adaptation despite adversity to positive adaptation to adversity” (p. 334). We contend that such an approach, adaptation to racism, has been rampant for far too long. We assert, as we outlined in the foregoing section, that Black youth should not have to adapt to racism. In fact, we contend that in some ways, our willingness to allow Black youth to adapt to racism is more deleterious than desirable. Again, as Masten (Reference Masten2021) rightly notes, resilience is “the dynamic capacity of a complex adaptive system to respond successfully to challenges that threaten the function, survival, or development of the system” (p. 155). This begs the question, however, of what happens when we consider that racism is also a complex, adaptive system? What does it mean to imagine that racism, as such a system, responds “successfully” to our current and historical attempts to thwart its survival? As we have outlined in previous discourse (see Anderson & Jones, Reference Anderson and Jones2021; Anderson et al., Reference Anderson, Heard-Garris and DeLapp2021), the system of racism is savvy and virulent. Thus, responding to racism in the same way – by asking Black youth to be resilient – represents a form of systematic insanity, or doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. An illustrative and contemporaneous example includes the machine learning algorithms found within powerful tools such as ChatGPT. This predictive text relies on script from large bodies of knowing, being, and doing and generates a response that is aligned with such prior input. It can therefore “learn” the ways to both embody and respond to discourse. While youth response to racial stressors has changed over time and proved beneficial in many regards, racism has also been able to study and learn from these efforts and waged new strategies and tactics in response, therefore dictating the input and the output of processes with which to contend. Laws enacted in 2022 and 2023 which point to fears around discussion of racism within classrooms or in libraries benefitted from understanding the fears of voters in the 2016 election, that is, the evolution of racial policy learned from the hope of the 2008 and 2012 elections (Fuller, Reference Fuller2017). If we rely solely on individuals to fight against these larger machines, we will be woefully unprepared when that machine is stronger and bigger than even the programmers intended it to be.

Though we acknowledge that a multisystem approach provides a welcomed improvement from the individual perspective, we express concern that this merely shifts from Black boys needing to have joy and Black girls needing to be magic, to Black families, Black teachers, and Black communities needing to be exceptional, all with only the mere promise of adapting to the nefariousness of racism. Holding these perspectives then, what is our recommendation for where we must ascend in consideration of supporting the optimal well-being of Black youth beset by racial prejudice, discrimination, and oppression? What follows is our attempt to begin answering this question, knowing that our response will be incomplete, and hoping that it will encourage those reading to also consider a world where adaptation is not the end goal.

Of note, we organize our charge by re-centering the goals of resilience research from a psychological perspective, while also integrating the recommendations and considerations made by scholars in adjoining fields of social work, ecology, and public health. Masten (Reference Masten2021) reminds us that an ultimate goal of resilience research through a psychological perspective was to better understand positive adaptation in the context of adversity as a means of informing practices and policy. This begs the question of which are the practices and policies that need to emerge from our understanding of Black youth resilience in the face of racism? Although it is tempting to argue for deepening our understanding of practices such as racial socialization (Jones et al., Reference Jones, Anderson and Stevenson2021) and racial identity (Rivas-Drake et al., Reference Rivas-Drake, Pinetta, Juang and Agi2022), or even elevating policies that affirm racial pride in educational spaces (Iruka et al., Reference Iruka, Curenton, Sims, Harris and Ibekwe-Okafor2021), we maintain that such practices and policies are insufficient on their own. Rather, we offer a question from the field of social work, akin to what Bottrell (Reference Bottrell2009) posed in their critique of individual approaches to resilience:

We find this question particularly important to consider in the context of Black youth’s navigation of racism. For instance, we can conceptualize the cascading impacts of racism, such that individual experiences of racism (e.g., being called a racial epithet) intersect with institutional experiences of racism (e.g., being unduly suspended for responding verbally to the peer levying the epithet). We also know through the conceptual work of Elder et al. (Reference Elder, Johnson, Crosnoe, Mortimer and Shanahan2003) and the empirical work of Jones et al. (Reference Jones, McNeil Smith, Shepard, Sutton and Winchester2023) that Black youth experience racism in dynamic, “linked lives'' ways, such that both experiences with and sequelae associated with racism travels in families, communities, and across generations. From this perspective then, even adopting a multisystemic resilience framework may omit the reality that Black parents, siblings, neighbors, educators, and clergy are similarly attempting to adapt despite the adversities of racism.

Masten (Reference Masten2021) invokes several stakeholders in the research on resilience, including clinicians, educators, research institutes, and philanthropic foundations. Of note, each of these constituents, it can be argued, wields significant relative power in the fight against racism compared to the Black youth experiencing it. Thus, we would submit that the social arrangements that upheld racism as a nefarious threat to Black youth be targeted for intervention, and invite the various stakeholders in positions of power offering the first lines of intervening rather than Black youth or their families. It is important to note that our call is not unique. Rather, it joins and aligns with a recent call for paradigmatic shifts in the approach to resilience as utilized in health services research and public health (Suslovic & Lett, Reference Suslovic and Lett2023). Similar to these authors, we agree with the limitations of a “resilience as treatment” framework, and elevate the consideration that resilience represents an “adverse event” and “scar tissue” as a result of structural harm, often to the most marginalized, such as Black youth (p. 2).

In imagining alternative approaches to resilience in the face of racism, notions of agency (i.e., a capacity for action) and transformation (i.e., substantial change) loom large. Of note, agency is seen through a collective and relational, rather than individualistic lens (Lister, Reference Lister2015). Moreover, Lister (Reference Lister2015), in their discussion of poverty, an apt social system when considering racism, offers multiple forms of agency, viewed through two axes. The first axis concerns a continuum between everyday and strategic forms of action. The second axis concerns a continuum between personal and more political or collective forms of action. As such, Lister argues that actions in response to adversity can be personalXeveryday, collectiveXeveryday, personalXstrategic, and collectiveXstrategic. Indeed, Brown and Westaway (Reference Brown and Westaway2011) in their discussion of environmental and climate change offer a useful taxonomy, which employs this axial approach. As seen in Figure 1, Brown and Westaway utilized the aforementioned axes to draw distinctions among coping (personalXeveryday), self-help (collectiveXeveryday), adaptation (personalXstrategic), and transformation (collectiveXstrategic). Although both coping and adaptation are familiar in the psychological discourse on resilience, we wish to briefly define transformation as offered by Hackman and St Clair (Reference Hackman and St Clair2012). According to these scholars, transformation is a process of altering the fundamental attributes of a system, which can include (infra)structures and institutions, finances, attitudes and practices, policies, and power dynamics.

Figure 1.

A taxonomy of response to climate change. Reprinted from Brown & Westaway, Reference Brown and Westaway2011.

In the consideration of Black youth’s navigation of racism as adversity, we focus on the distinctions among coping, adaptation, and transformation. We conceptualize Black youth’s ability to read, recast, and resolve racially stressful encounters in their everyday lives (Anderson & Stevenson, Reference Anderson and Stevenson2019); to employ both emotion- and problem-focused approaches to experiences with racism (Anderson et al., Reference Anderson, Jones, Anyiwo, McKenny and Gaylord-Harden2019); and to adopt culturally relevant practices as key indicators that these youth demonstrate a remarkable ability to cope with racism. We also concede that the impressive, nearly four-decade research on racial socialization as a process and a practice, centering content and competency (Hughes et al., Reference Hughes, Rodriguez, Smith, Johnson, Stevenson and Spicer2006; Jones et al., Reference Jones, Anderson and Stevenson2021; Umaña-Taylor & Hill, Reference Umaña-Taylor and Hill2020), as well as the companion legacy of positive racial identity development (Rivas-Drake et al., Reference Rivas-Drake, Pinetta, Juang and Agi2022) serve as preeminent examples that Black youth and the families from whence they come are able to adapt to racism. And yet, we contend that coping and adaptation are insufficient, and that, ultimately, transformation – fundamental changes to navigating racism – is not only what is needed, but is what is due Black babies, children, and adolescents.