The Mental Health behind the Intersectionality of Institutionalization and Racism

Hello everyone, this is Coresair Mack from Mack’s Empowerment Counseling LLC. First off, I want to say Happy Martin Luther King Day. Even though his birthday was on the 15th of January, we have the third Monday off. After watching a lot of his speeches and reading a few of his letters, I thought of a good topic to write about. This mainly focuses on a part of his speech, The Other America, though this is an important topic to discuss. I will do my best to talk about the mental health aspect behind the intersectionality of Institutionalization and Racism.

First, we need to get on the same page between what is the definition of both of those words. The Oxford Languages defines racism as the following: “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.” Oxford Languages also defines institutionalization as the following: “The action of establishing something as a convention or norm in an organization or culture.” This may not be the definitions that everyone goes with, but these are the definitions that I am going with as I move forward with this topic.

Now when it comes to the intersectionality, we understand that there is still racial injustice here in the United States. Racial injustices that include, but not limited to, housing discrimination and redlining, injustices in schools, Racial slurs against Black Americans in person, online and through other means of communication, and other things along and not along those lines. In regards to 2022, this does not happen everywhere. Society has grown to see racism and discrimination as a bad thing, for the most part. Though there are still parts of the United States that still hold onto these negative beliefs and values and often wonder why. We look at those things and note that at one time, this was the norm in the not so long ago past. Institutionalization plays a part, because White Americans were taught that Black Americans were inferior and that justified slavery. After the civil war and Juneteenth 1865, White Americans were still taught that Black Americans were still inferior which resulted in racist laws and segregation. After the civil rights movement even coming into January 2022, White Americans are still being taught that Black Americans are still different in a negative way or inferior, because of the information they were told by either their parents or society. One of the main reasons, in my opinion, this is still going on is due to negative stereotypes. Negative stereotypes of African slaves and Black Americans have been passed down throughout the centuries. Mental health comes in when we face the unknown. As people, we do not like things we do not know about and feel uneasy when the unknown comes into play. We as human beings do our best to fill in that knowledge with either correct or incorrect information. When the information is compiled, generalization happens. Our brain automatically labels and categorizes anything that is related or associated to that thing with that information. With that association, comes biases. In this case, when talking about Black Americans a negative bias is, usually, associated with them. Research shows that a majority of White Americans do not have any non-white friends. Even some of those White Americans with a “token” black or black friends still label them into those negative stereotypes and negative biases. Negative biases that have been passed down through generations ranging back centuries. Again, placing a group of people into one category is a lot easier than taking that first step to getting to know that person, due to the fear of the unknown.

The easiest way for me to explain this is with the concept known as race mixing and interracial relationships. To give some context, interracial marriage has been fully legalized in the United States since 1967, and even to this day there are still White Americans that do not believe in interracial relationships or race mixing, due to the inferiority of Black Americans. This was taught and passed down to White Americans through centuries of negative stereotyping and negative biases against Black Americans. When we look at the intersectionality between this normative mindset and racism, we see an easiness to keep the unknown and the danger away, instead of taking time to learn about other cultures and people. Laws were created to combat this in society, though not every mindset in that society changes with the law. I can go in deeper with the mental health aspect, but I’ll save that for a video.

I will end with this, am I saying all White Americans are like this? No, I am not. Obviously, there are White Americans going back centuries and even up to 2022 that rejected the negative stereotypes that they were taught by either their parents or society. This led them to become more open and understanding of other people, not just in the Black American Community. Can this also relate to other minority races here in the United States? Yes, this can be, and this should be looked at. Overall, this will, hopefully, help reduce the negative stigmatization of minorities in the United States.