A Systematic Review of Black People Coping With Racism: Approaches, Analysis, and Empowerment

Abstract

This article reviews the current research literature concerning Black people in Western societies to better understand how they regulate their emotions when coping with racism, which coping strategies they use, and which strategies are functional for well-being. A systematic review of the literature was conducted, and 26 studies were identified on the basis of a comprehensive search of multiple databases and reference sections of relevant articles. Studies were quantitative and qualitative, and all articles located were from the United States or Canada. Findings demonstrate that Black people tend to cope with racism through social support (friends, family, support groups), religion (prayer, church, spirituality), avoidance (attempting to avoid stressors), and problem-focused coping (confronting the situation directly). Findings suggest gender differences in coping strategies. We also explore the relationship between coping with physical versus emotional pain and contrast functional versus dysfunctional coping approaches, underscoring the importance of encouraging personal empowerment to promote psychological well-being. Findings may help inform mental-health interventions. Limitations include the high number of American-based samples and exclusion of other Black ethnic and national groups, which is an important area for further exploration.

Keywords: Black people; coping; emotion regulation; racial discrimination; racism.

Fig. 1.

Process of screening and selecting studies for inclusion in this review.

Fig. 2.

Coping-strategies model. Types of racism are depicted as a linked circle. Categories of strategies used by Black individuals are wielded preferentially in a specific way to cope with each of the three types of racism.

Fig. 3.

Coping strategies for pain and effect sizes. As shown by the reconceptualized graph of data from Meints et al.’s (2016) meta-analysis of the effect sizes for coping strategies as utilized differentially between Black and White Americans (a), Black people (blue bars) used more types of coping strategies than White people (orange bars), and although there were some commonalities, each race largely had specific coping-strategy preferences. The asterisk indicates significance. Black people (blue bars) used cognitive, emotion-focused, problem-focused, and passive strategies more than White people (b). Mean sizes below 0.1 (light blue bars) were not significant. As one of the only significant empirical meta-analyses focused on responses of Black individuals, there is a recognizable overlap between Black-specific coping strategies for physical pain and emotional responses, providing some indication for the validity of current findings, although it is not divided by gender.