Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Health Implications of Black Respectability Politics

Abstract

The authors introduce the concept of “vigilance,” capturing behaviors that reflect attempts to navigate racialized social spaces on a daily basis. Specifically, vigilant behaviors include care about appearance and language to be treated with respect, avoidance of social spaces, and psychological preparation for potential prejudice and discrimination. Furthermore, these behaviors align with those discussed in Black respectability politics debates. Using data from a population-representative sample of Black adults in Chicago, they report that vigilance is associated with poor physical and mental health indexed through chronic health conditions, depressive symptoms, and self-rated health.

Keywords:

• black respectability politics
• health inequalities
• racism
• vigilance

Notes

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 1880–920.

W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920).; Philomena Essed, Everyday Racism: Reports from Women of Two Cultures, 1st ed. (Claremont: Hunter House, 1990); Joe R. Feagin and Melvin P. Sikes, Living With Racism: The Black Middle-Class Experience (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994).

David Yi, “Black Armor: Some Black American Men Are Dressing Up to Deflect Negative Attention, as a Conscious Means of Survival,” Mashable, August 8, 2015, http://mashable.com/2015/08/08/black-men-dressing-up-police/#EbsuKJiRskqy (accessed April 19, 2016).

Ibid. “I like to wear hoodies,” he admits. “But when I put it on, there’s so much more suspicion. I don’t feel comfortable wearing comfortable clothes. I’m worried about what will happen to me. I also see how others see me. People clench their purses, women don’t walk the street when I do. I’ll wave hello and no one waves back.”

Feagin and Sikes, Living with Racism.

Cathy J. Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Brittany Cooper, “Stop Poisoning the Race Debate: How ‘Respectability Politics’ Rears its Ugly Head—Again,” Salon, March 18, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/03/18/stop_poisoning_the_race_debate_how_respectability_politics_rears_its_ugly_head_again/ (accessed April 19, 2016); Paisley Harris, “Gatekeeping and Remaking: The Politics of Respectability in African American Women’s History and Black Feminism,” Journal of Women’s History 15 (2003): 212–20; Shannon M. Houston, “Respectability Will Not Save Us: Black Lives Matter Is Right to Reject the ‘Dignity and Decorum’ Mandate Handed Down to Us from Slavery,” Salon, August 25, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/08/25/respectability_will_not_save_us_black_lives_matter_is_right_to_reject_the_dignity_and_decorum_mandate_handed_down_to_us_from_slavery/ (accessed April 19, 2016); Christopher Lebron, “I’m Fine How I Am: A Response to Randall Kennedy’s Defense of Respectability Politics,” Boston Review, September 25, 2015, https://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/chris-lebron-response-randall-kennedy-respectability-politics (accessed April 19, 2016); Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011); Kosisochukwu Nnebe, “The Modern Black Woman and the Politics of Respectability,” For Harriet, February 24, 2014, http://www.forharriet.com/2014/02/the-modern-black-woman-and-politics-of.html#axzz46sNrvuvW (accessed April 19, 2016); Mary E. Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); Schomburg Center, Stage for Debate: Respectability and Politics. February 2, 2016. http://livestream.com/schomburgcenter/events/4710955 (accessed April 19, 2016); E. Frances White, Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and Politics of Respectability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001).

Mychal Smith, “Respectability Politics Won’t Save Us: On the Death of Jonathan Ferrell,” The Nation, September 16, 2013, http://www.thenation.com/article/respectability-politics-wont-save-us-death-jonathan-ferrell/ (accessed April 19, 2016); The first definition of the “politics of respectability” was introduced in Higginbotham’s Righteous Discontent (1993), where the author described how working- and middle-class Black women engaged in these behaviors through the Black Baptist church club movement. Although, what Higginbotham described as a necessary strategy for Black advancement during the post-Reconstruction 1890s era has been reinterpreted, misinterpreted, and debated by many (Kimberly Foster, “Wrestling with Respectability in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter: A Dialogue,” For Harriet, October 13, 2015, http://www.forharriet.com/2015/10/wrestling-with-respectability-in-age-of.html#axzz46sNrvuvW (accessed April 19, 2016)).

Rodney Clark, Ramona A. Benkert, and John M. Flack, “Large Arterial Elasticity Varies as a Function of Gender and Racism-Related Vigilance in Black Youth,” Journal of Adolescent Health 39 (2006): 562–69; Margaret T. Hicken, Hedwig Lee, Jennifer Ailshire, Sarah A. Burgard, and David R. Williams, “Every Shut Eye Ain’t Sleep: The Role of Racism-Related Vigilance in Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Sleep Difficulty,” Race and Social Problems 5 (2013): 100–12; Margaret T. Hicken, Hedwig Lee, Jeffrey Morenoff, James S. House, David R. Williams, “Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Hypertension Prevalence: Reconsidering the Role of Chronic Stress,” American Journal of Public Health 104 (2014): 117–23; Mary S. Himmelstein, Danielle M. Young, Diana T. Sanchez, and James S. Jackson, “Vigilance in the Discrimination-Stress Model for Black Americans,” Psychology & Health 30 (2015): 253–67.

Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959).

Randall Kennedy, “Lifting as We Climb: A Progressive Defense of Respectability Politics,” Harper’s Magazine, October 2015, https://harpers.org/archive/2015/10/lifting-as-we-climb/ (accessed April 19, 2016). Furthermore, recent discussions have included presentation of self to increase political currency. In a Washington Post article veteran civil right leader, Barbara Reynolds (“I Was a Civil Rights Activist in the 1960s. But It’s Hard For Me to Get Behind Black Lives Matter,” Washington Post, August 24, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com /posteverything/wp/2015/ 08/24/i-was-a-civil-rights activist-in-the-1960s-but-its-hard-for-me-to-get-behind-black-lives-matter/?postshare = 5221440433170944 [accessed April 19, 2016]), opined against the lack of respectability politics behaviors being used in the Black Lives Matter movement with regard to a lack of attention to “proper” presentation of self: “In the 1960s, activists confronted white mobs and police with dignity and decorum, sometimes dressing in church clothes and kneeling in prayer during protests to make a clear distinction between who was evil and who was good. But at protests today, it is difficult to distinguish legitimate activists from the mob actors who burn and loot. The demonstrations are peppered with hate speech, profanity, and guys with sagging pants that show their underwear. Even if the BLM activists aren’t the ones participating in the boorish language and dress, neither are they condemning it.”

Cooper, “Stop Poisonoing the Race Debate.”

Leah Donnella, “Where Does the ‘Pull Up Your Pants’ School of Black Politics Come From?” NPR, October 22, 2015. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/10/22/450821244/where-does-the-pull-up-your-pants-school-of-black-politics-come-from (accessed April 19, 2016).

Ellis Cose, The Rage of a Privileged Class, 1st ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1993); Joe R. Feagin, “The Continuing Significance of Race—Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places,” American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 101–16; Feagin and Sikes, Living with Racism; Jennifer Lee, “The Salience of Race in Everyday Life - Black Customers’ Shopping Experiences in Black and White Neighborhoods,” Work and Occupations 27 (2000): 353–76; Amani Nuru-Jeter, Tyan P. Dominguez, Wizdom P. Hammond, Janxin Leu, Marilyn Skaff, Susan Egerter, Camara P. Jones, and Paula Braveman, “‘It’s the Skin You’re In’: African-American Women Talk About Their Experiences of Racism. An Exploratory Study to Develop Measures of Racism for Birth Outcome Studies,” Maternal and Child Health Journal 13 (2009): 29–39.

William E. Cross and Linda Strauss, “The Everyday Functions of African American Identity,” in Prejudice: The Target’s Perspective, edited by Janet K. Swim and Charles Stangor (San Diego: Academic Press, 1998), 267–79; Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life; Douglas Guiffrida, “African American Student Organizations as Agents of Social Integration,” Journal of College Student Development 44 (2003): 304–19; Susan. R. Rosenbloom and Niobe Way, “Experiences of Discrimination Among African American, Asian American, and Latino Adolescents in an Urban High School,” Youth & Society 35 (2004): 420–51.

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Ford, “Race, Gender, and Bodily (Mis)Recognitions,” 467.

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Lee, “The Salience of Race in Everyday Life.”

Ibid., 368.

Rod K. Brunson and Jody Miller, “Young Black Men and Urban Policing in the United States,” British Journal of Criminology 46 (2006): 613–40; Lee, “The Salience of Race in Everyday Life.”

Daphna Oyserman and Janet K. Swim, “Stigma: An Insider’s View,” Journal of Social Issues 57 (2001): 1–14.

Social scientists have, for decades, described the anticipation of racial discrimination as a feature of Black American life (e.g., Du Bois, Anderson, and Eaton; Feagin; Feagin and Sikes). This type of discrimination-related anticipatory stress has been identified in different disciplinary literatures (Grace Carroll, Environmental Stress and African Americans: The Other Side of the Moon [Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998]; Robert T. Carter, “Racism and Psychological and Emotional Injury: Recognizing and Assessing Race-Based Traumatic Stress,” Counseling Psychologist 35 [2007]: 13–105; Clark Rodney, Ramona A. Benkert, John M. Flack, “Large Arterial Elasticity Varies”; Cross and Strauss, “The Everyday Functions of African Identity”; W. E. B. Du Bois, Elijah Anderson, and Isabel Eaton, The Philadelphia Negro : A Social Study, 1996 Edition [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996]; Feagin, “The Continuing Significance of Race”; Anderson J. Franklin and Nancy Boyd-Franklin, “Invisibility Syndrome: A Clinical Model of the Effects of Racism on African-American Males,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 70 [2000]: 33–41; Nuru-Jeter Amani, Tyan Parker Dominguez, Wizdom Powell Hammond, Janxin Leu, Marilyn Skaff, Susan Egerter, Camara P. Jones, and Paula Braveman, “‘It’s the Skin You’re In’”; Chester Pierce, “Psychiatric Problems of the Black Minority,” in American Handbook of Psychiatry, edited by Silvano Arieti (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 512–23; Elizabeth C. Pinel, “Stigma Consciousness: The Psychological Legacy of Social Stereotypes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(1) [1999]: 114–28; Claude Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us, 1st ed., Issues of Our Time [New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010]). Often identified by various terminologies, these references to vigilance all reflect, to some extent, a state of persistent worry or threat and preparation for possible experiences with interpersonal discrimination on a day-to-day basis.

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Ibid., 198.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hedwig Lee

Hedwig Lee is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Center for Research on Demography and Ecology, the West Coast Poverty Center, and the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences. She is broadly interested in the social determinants and consequences of population health and health disparities.

Margaret Takako Hicken

Margaret Takako Hicken is a Research Assistant Professor in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. She is also a faculty affiliate at the Population Studies Center and the Division of Nephrology in the Department of Internal Medicine. She is interested in the ways in which structural and cultural forms of racism are transduced into health inequities.