Race, racism, and mental health: elaboration of critical race theory's contribution to the sociology of mental health

Abstract

Critical race theory provides a much‐needed framework for improving the study of race and racism's influence on psychological health and illness. Implicating the mundane and extraordinary, critical race theory explains how racism determines lifestyles and life chances. It also clarifies the individual and institutional nature of racism. Such clarification should be meaningful to sociologists of mental health, especially those interested in how race‐related inequality alters the distribution of psychological health and illness. Towards improving research linking race and racism with mental health, the present essay exposes five weaknesses in the sociology of mental health literature: (1) misspecification of perceived discrimination; (2) neglect of the psychological wages of Whiteness; (3) conflation of race and ethnicity; (4) assumption of mental health measurement invariance; and (5) disregard for narratives about how racism hurts mental health. These weaknesses and the strategies for overcoming them are uncovered by systematically applying select critical race theory tenets.

Keywords:

• critical race theory
• race
• racism
• sociology of mental health

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Chase Lesane‐Brown, Liz Ezell, James Jackson, Linda Nicholas, David Takeuchi, and David Williams for their perpetual encouragement.