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Older Black Americans’ Perspectives on Structural Racism—Resilience as a Form of Resistance

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to develop a deep understanding of the lived experiences of structural racism and discrimination among older Black Americans’ and their perceptions of structural racism across their lives. We also considered individual and community resilience capacity and response in the face of systemic racism.

Methods

In-depth interviews were conducted with Black community–dwelling adults aged 55 and older in and around Baltimore City. The interview guide used nine contexts to explore perceptions and experiences with structural racism over the life course. Two researchers used reflexive thematic analysis to code and analyze the data.

Results

Participants endorsed structural racism to varying degrees across contexts of education, employment, neighborhood, healthcare, and income/wealth. Participants who denied structural racism placed blame for Black underachievement on factors such as personal and community deficiencies, unsafe neighborhoods, and institutional indifference. There was broad agreement about the existence of structural racism within the domains of policing and violence but participants were largely ambivalent about other domains such as environment, media, and civics. Resilience factors that helped individuals to resist and rebound from racism emerged as an unexpected and important theme.

Conclusions

We used Public Health Critical Race Praxis and the Cells to Society frameworks to contextualize these findings. Due to the ubiquitous nature of racism, individuals may not fully appreciate the impact of structural racism and its impact on Black well-being. This ordinariness of racism is harmful but may simultaneously contribute to resilience within Baltimore’s Black community.

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Data Availability

The data for this study is available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (1DP1AG069874-01), and S. LaFave was supported by the National Institute of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (TL1-TR003100) and by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholars Program. A. Bergman was supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research (1F31NR020588-01) and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing Discovery and Innovation Award. R. Thorpe was supported by P30AG059298, K02AG059140, and U54MD000214.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Alanna J. Bergman, Sarah L. Szanton & Janiece L. Taylor

  2. Center for Infectious Disease and Nursing Innovation - Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Alanna J. Bergman

  3. University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Sarah E. LaFave

  4. University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Shekinah A. Fashaw-Walters & Manka Nkimbeng

  5. Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Roland J. Thorpe Jr.

Authors
  1. Alanna J. Bergman
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  2. Sarah L. Szanton
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  3. Sarah E. LaFave
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  4. Shekinah A. Fashaw-Walters
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  5. Janiece L. Taylor
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  6. Roland J. Thorpe Jr.
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  7. Manka Nkimbeng
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Contributions

AB co-led the data analysis, including codebook development, transcript coding, interpretation, and writing with MN. SLS, RJTJ, JT, and MN provided mentorship throughout the conceptualization, data collection, and analysis. SEL designed the study and conducted the qualitative interviews. SF-W contributed to writing and conceptualizing the study results within contemporary theoretical framings. All authors contributed to the development and revision of this manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alanna J. Bergman.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine institutional review board approved the study (IRB00206642).

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent to publish

The authors affirm that human research participants provded informaed consent for publication of their responses in the form of blinded quotations from the interviews.

Competing Interests

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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Bergman, A.J., Szanton, S.L., LaFave, S.E. et al. Older Black Americans’ Perspectives on Structural Racism—Resilience as a Form of Resistance. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-023-01870-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-023-01870-5

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