"A Person Like Me": Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Gender, and Racial Immunity in the Twentieth-Century United States.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disorder that affects mostly women and disproportionately Black women. Until the 1940s, SLE was rarely diagnosed in Black Americans, reflecting racist medical beliefs about Black immunity. In the 1940s and 1950s, SLE and its treatment were part of a patriarchal narrative of American industrialization. By the 1960s, newer diagnostic techniques increased recognition of SLE, especially among Black women; medical thinking about SLE shifted from external causes like infection or allergy to autoimmunity, which emphasized biological, genetically determined racial difference. In the 1970s and 1980s, an advocacy structure crystalized around memoirs by women with SLE, which emphasized the experiences of able-bodied, economically privileged white women, while Black feminist health discourse and SLE narratives by Black authors grappled with SLE's more complicated intersections. Throughout the twentieth century, SLE embodied immunity as a gendered, racialized, and culturally invested process.

Evaluating the impact of an educational intervention on the history of racism in America for teaching structural competency to medical academicians.

BACKGROUND: A challenge facing many Academic Health Centers (AHCs) attempting to revise health professions education to include the impact of racism as a social and structural determinant of health (SSDoH) is a lack of broad faculty expertise to reinforce and avoid undermining learning modules addressing this topic. To encourage an institutional culture that is in line with new anti-racism instruction, we developed a six-part educational series on the history of racism in America and its impact on contemporary health inequities for teaching structural competency to health professions academicians. METHODS: We developed a six-hour elective continuing education (CE) series for faculty and staff with the following objectives: (1) describe and discuss race as a social construct; (2) describe and discuss the decolonization of the health sciences and health care; (3) describe and discuss the history of systemic racism and structural violence from a socio-ecological perspective; and (4) describe and discuss reconciliation and repair in biomedicine. The series was spread over a six-month period and each monthly lecture was followed one week later by an open discussion debriefing session. Attendees were assessed on their understanding of each objective before and after each series segment. RESULTS: We found significant increases in knowledge and understanding of each objective as the series progressed. Attendees reported that the series helped them grapple with their discomfort in a constructive manner. Self-selected attendees were overwhelmingly women (81.8%), indicating a greater willingness to engage with this material than men. CONCLUSIONS: The series provides a model for AHCs looking to promote anti-racism and structural competency among their faculty and staff.

Everyday Resistance to White Supremacy: Walking and Cycling While Black in Springs, South Africa, 1950s-1970s.

This article explores why white supremacists regard self-directed mobility by people of color as threatening by examining a controversy that unfolded in a mining town called Springs during the apartheid era in South Africa. Drawing on archives, oral histories, and testimonies, it shows how white residents of Selcourt and Selection Park, along with their allies in the town council, prevented Black workers from walking and cycling through the suburbs. Infrastructure and social disciplinary institutions proved effective in forcing Black workers to largely comply. It argues that the white supremacist disciplinary imperative against the workers arose directly from the characteristics of their mode of mobility. In their open embodiment, free from the confines of mechanized transport, and slow speeds, the workers engaged in a sustained refusal of spatial segregation. The article highlights how racial difference as an analytical category sheds light on mobility control within regimes of white supremacy.

Japanese Immigration in America: Fleeing Riots, Escaping Imprisonment, and Assimilating.

When 13-year-old Teruichi Nakayama, my grandfather, came to San Francisco from Osaka in 1906, he was assured of an education in a public school by an 1894 treaty between the United States and Japan that gave the latter most-favored-nation status. In 1906, racist mobs forced a decision by the school board to assign 41 school aged Japanese children, including him, to a segregated school for Asian children in violation of the pact. In 1907, he escaped street violence to work as a migrant laborer on inland farms. Settling in the state's Central Coast, he started a confectionary, the family business he knew from his childhood in Japan. He eked enough money to raise a family with a wife arranged for him in the traditional manner by a go-between in Japan. The school board action opened a diplomatic rift between the 2 countries that never resolved and ended in war in 1941. Just days ahead of the imprisonment of Japanese living in California in 1942, he and his family fled to Colorado, a sanctuary state where he reestablished the confectionery. He faced every misapprehension of the current immigration crisis: racism, unfair labor competition, the impossibility of assimilation, and suspicion of a fifth column. Now 5 generations later, none of the fearful predictions when he first arrived came true. His legacy proves immigration as an essential rejuvenating force in America.

Operationalizing racialized exposures in historical research on anti-Asian racism and health: a comparison of two methods.

Background: Addressing contemporary anti-Asian racism and its impacts on health requires understanding its historical roots, including discriminatory restrictions on immigration, citizenship, and land ownership. Archival secondary data such as historical census records provide opportunities to quantitatively analyze structural dynamics that affect the health of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. Census data overcome weaknesses of other data sources, such as small sample size and aggregation of Asian subgroups. This article explores the strengths and limitations of early twentieth-century census data for understanding Asian Americans and structural racism. Methods: We used California census data from three decennial census spanning 1920-1940 to compare two criteria for identifying Asian Americans: census racial categories and Asian surname lists (Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino) that have been validated in contemporary population data. This paper examines the sensitivity and specificity of surname classification compared to census-designated "color or race" at the population level. Results: Surname criteria were found to be highly specific, with each of the five surname lists having a specificity of over 99% for all three census years. The Chinese surname list had the highest sensitivity (ranging from 0.60-0.67 across census years), followed by the Indian (0.54-0.61) and Japanese (0.51-0.62) surname lists. Sensitivity was much lower for Korean (0.40-0.45) and Filipino (0.10-0.21) surnames. With the exception of Indian surnames, the sensitivity values of surname criteria were lower for the 1920-1940 census data than those reported for the 1990 census. The extent of the difference in sensitivity and trends across census years vary by subgroup. Discussion: Surname criteria may have lower sensitivity in detecting Asian subgroups in historical data as opposed to contemporary data as enumeration procedures for Asians have changed across time. We examine how the conflation of race, ethnicity, and nationality in the census could contribute to low sensitivity of surname classification compared to census-designated "color or race." These results can guide decisions when operationalizing race in the context of specific research questions, thus promoting historical quantitative study of Asian American experiences. Furthermore, these results stress the need to situate measures of race and racism in their specific historical context.

Dr. Janet E. Helms: Envisioning and creating a more humane psychological science, theory, and practice.

Dr. Janet E. Helms's use of psychological science to engage the field of psychology in radical progressive debates about race and identity is unprecedented. Her scholarship transformed prevailing paradigms in identity development theory and cognitive ability testing in psychology, to name a few. However, mainstream psychology often ignores, dismisses, and minimizes the importance of Dr. Helms's scientific contributions. Despite the numerous systemic barriers she encounters as a Black woman in psychology, Dr. Helms has persisted and made immeasurable contributions to the field and society. The intellectual gifts she has provided have shaped psychology for decades and will undoubtedly continue to do so for centuries to come. This article aims to provide an overview of Dr. Helms's lifetime contributions to psychology and the social sciences. To achieve this goal, we provide a brief narrative of Dr. Helms's life as a prelude to describing her foundational contributions to psychological science and practice in four domains, including (a) racial identity theories, (b) racially conscious and culturally responsive praxis, (c) womanist identity, and (d) racial biases in cognitive ability tests and measurement. The article concludes with a summary of Dr. Helms's legacy as an exceptional psychologist who offers the quintessential blueprint for envisioning and creating a more humane psychological science, theory, and practice anchored in liberation for all. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Novel methodologies using history to document the effects of African American sexual trauma: Perspectives of Gail E. Wyatt, PhD.

This article describes the nearly half a century career of Dr. Gail E. Wyatt, PhD, and her development of novel methodologies and measures of sexual trauma, specifically the Wyatt Sex History Questionnaire and the University of California, Los Angeles, Life Adversities Screener. These approaches broke the silence around experiences of sexual violence, particularly among African Americans, identifying their effects on sexual functioning and mental health. These novel methods are designed without assuming sexual literacy of respondents, knowledge of anatomy, or that discussing sex is easy or common; they include topics that are considered private and may evoke emotions. Trained professionals administering face-to-face interviews can serve to establish rapport and educate the participant or client while minimizing possible discomfort and shame around the disclosure of sexual practices. In this article, four topics are discussed focusing on African Americans, but they may also be relevant to other racial/ethnic groups: (a) breaking the silence about sex, (b) sexual harassment: its disclosure and effects in the workplace, (c) racial discrimination: identifying its effects as a form of trauma, and (d) the cultural relevance of promoting sexual health. Historical patterns of abuse and trauma can no longer be ignored but need to be better understood by psychologists and used to improve policy and treatment standards. Recommendations for advancing the field using novel methods are provided. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Segregation was already hurting Black health 100 years ago.

Research links structural racism of 1900s U.S. society to striking disparities in childhood mortality.

Os impactos dos racismos nas ocupações da população negra: reflexões para a terapia e a ciência ocupacional / The impacts of racisms on the occupations of the Black population: reflections for occupational therapy and science

Resumo No Brasil, os racismos são estruturais e estruturantes, pois estão enraizados nos arcabouços das sociedades, nas relações interpessoais e nas instituições, atravessando as ocupações significativas dos sujeitos e coletivos. Isto explica as disparidades em diversos setores da sociedade brasileira, notadamente na empregabilidade das pessoas negras, bem como nos seus modos de adoecer e morrer. Entendendo o papel que os racismos desempenham nas ocupações das pessoas negras, este estudo propõe sistematizar observações que nos permitam compreender o fenômeno da produção de injustiças, com base em relações racializadas e, eventualmente, sugerir formas de enfrentamento dessa realidade. Desta forma, discutimos como os racismos foram instaurados no Brasil, reunindo elementos para a compreensão da ocupação humana e seus condicionantes. Em seguida, refletimos sobre os conceitos de justiça e injustiça ocupacional, que evidenciam os processos ocupacionais vivenciados pelas pessoas negras. Considerando que na terapia ocupacional e na ciência ocupacional brasileira ainda são incipientes os estudos que relacionam racismos e ocupação, apontamos algumas estratégias para reorientar as práticas profissionais de terapeutas ocupacionais, de modo a torná-las proativas e transformadoras.

Abstract In Brazil, the many forms of racisms are structural and structuring, since they are rooted deep within society, in interpersonal relationships, and in institutions, traversing significant occupations of subjects and collectives. This explains the disparities in various sectors of Brazilian society, notably in the employability of Black people, as well as in their forms of getting sick and dying. In understanding the role that racisms play in the occupations of Black people, this study proposes to systematize observations that allow us to understand the phenomenon of the production of injustices based on racialized relations and, eventually, suggest ways to confront this reality. Thus, we discuss how racisms were established in Brazil, gathering elements for the understanding of human occupation and its conditioning factors. We then reflect on the concepts of occupational justice and injustice, which bring light to the occupational processes experienced by Black people. Considering that, in occupational therapy and in Brazilian occupational science, studies relating racisms and occupation are still incipient, we point out some strategies to reorient occupational therapists, practices to make them proactive and transformative.

A Legacy of Scientific Racism: William Osler's "An Alabama Student".

William Osler's essay "An Alabama Student" made John Young Bassett (1804-1851) a widely admired avatar of idealism in medicine. However, Bassett fiercely attacked the idea that all humans are members of the same species (known as monogenesis) and asserted that Black inferiority was a justification for slavery. Antebellum physician-anthropologists bequeathed a legacy of scientific racism that in subtler forms still runs deep in American society, including in the field of medicine.

William A. Hinton (1883-1959): Diagnosing and Confronting Racism in the Medical Profession.

Racism impacts every aspect of medicine, including the careers and lives of Black physicians. The story of William Augustus Hinton (1883-1959), who invented the Hinton Test for syphilis before becoming the first African American full professor at Harvard University in 1949, offers an instructive perspective on the intersection of interpersonal and systemic racism, and personal determination, just over our historical horizon. Yet there are sobering and instructive lessons throughout this history. Hinton had to navigate prejudice throughout his career. Indeed, while there is much to be inspired by in the telling of Hinton's story, the forms of racism faced by Hinton and his contemporaries remain persisting features of academic medicine. This article focuses on encounters with racism that affect the course of medical careers and scientific innovation. Hinton's story holds important implications for many health professionals in the twenty-first century and provides unique insights into the history and impact of interpersonal and systemic racism alike in academic medicine.