A Note from the Coeditors-in-Chief

Just as we were wrapping up this special issue—with its focus on racism in our psychoanalytic community—America exploded. On May 25, in Minneapolis, a Black man, George Floyd, was brutally murdered, unleashing frustration, anguish, anger, and protests in the streets of our cities. Captured by a witness, the graphic crime video showed Mr. Floyd begging for his life as a police officer dug a knee into his neck. You know the rest: floodgates opened to the insidious problem of racism in all aspects of American life.

Insidious indeed, and it was not only Mr. Floyd. While we were in the final stages of editing, there were other shocking examples of systemic and sometimes violent bigotry throughout our nation: On February 23, Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, jogging through a predominantly White neighborhood in Georgia, was shot and killed by a White father and son who believed Arbery was stealing from a house under construction; and on March 13, Breonna Taylor, an EMT in Louisville, was at home, in bed asleep, when police broke in without warning and fired eight shots, killing her. Also, on May 25, the day of Floyd’s murder, in New York’s Central Park, an encounter—not physically but psychically violent—occurred. A White woman from a prominent investment firm was reminded by a Black man to leash her dog, as is the rule. Her response? She called the police claiming that an “African-American male” was “threatening” her. In fact, she was not being threatened at all.

These events occurred while the country was already grappling with COVID-19, a virus that—as Jean Petrucelli in this issue notes—continues to afflict people of color, including Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, at a rate more than double that of Whites (APM Research Lab, 2020). There is no question that this disparity is due to racial, social, and economic discrimination: people of color are more likely to live in crowded housing, often have less access to affordable health care, tend to work in essential fields that require close contact with others, and—in general—suffer more chronic health conditions and higher levels of stress than Whites. (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2020). Such inequity, combined with the unending list of racially motivated outrages, underscores the pervasiveness of bigotry in our country, in our institutions, and in ourselves.

Yet, this is nothing new. Throughout our history, racism and inequality have been un-attended: swept under the rug. No wonder, once again, people of color and their allies took to the streets to make us all pay attention: to hear, and see, and listen, to what is, and has been for so long.

As Co-editors of this journal, we feel compelled to highlight the climate in which this special issue about “Changing the Conversation” finds itself. Sadly, we expect that by the time the issue is published, there will be other injustices to report. But we also hope that this time will be different. That this time the protests will be heard and felt by enough of us, that minds will be opened, that action will be taken, and that change will occur. To us, as human beings, as Americans—indeed as psychoanalysts, writers, and editors—the time is now.

Thank you for reading this important issue of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and for joining us on the journey to examine ourselves in these days of strife and sadness.