Black Emotions Matter: Understanding the Impact of Racial Oppression on Black Youth’s Emotional Development

Abstract

Black US Americans’ emotions are subject to stereotypes about the anger and aggression of Black people. These stereotypes are readily applied to Black adolescents’ emotions. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to operationalize racial oppression in the emotional lives of Black adolescents through an application of García Coll et al.'s (1996) ecological model for minority youth development. We specify emotionally inhibitive features of Black adolescents’ schools, the adaptive culture of Black Americans in the United States that responds to emotional inhibition, Black families’ emotion socialization processes, and Black adolescents’ emotional flexibility behaviors. Throughout, we integrate findings from research on Black adolescents’ emotional adjustment with research on cultural values, emotion and racial socialization, school‐based racial experiences, and theory on emotion and cultural navigation.

Parents’ and friends’ responses to discrete negative emotions: Associations with adolescent emotional experiences

“…We note that our sample was primarily White, which may limit nuance in the ES adolescents receive about anger. For example, Black families in the US may provide direct and elaborated ES about context‐specific anger expression to protect their children from authority figures’ harmful responses to Black youths’ developmentally‐appropriate expression (Lozada et al., 2022).…”

“…Though African American, European American, and Lumbee American Indian parents expressed similar views about the acceptability of children's negative emotions, only European American parents brought up concerns about emotions interfering with responsibilities (Parker et al., 2012). Lozada and colleagues (2022) describe how Black families engage in racial and cultural socialization of emotion to foster their children's emotional flexibility and other competencies in the face of emotionally inhibiting environments created by racial oppression, with particular reference to over‐attribution of anger to Black adolescents. It will be vital for future research to examine ways that ethnoracial and cultural contexts influence parent and friend ES and their relations to youth outcomes.…”

A Resistance Framework for Racially Minoritized Youth Behaviors During the Transition to Adulthood

“…As a result, these marginalizing systems can shape racially minoritized youth's self‐perceptions, expectations, and behaviors (Spencer et al., 1997) and their development of sense of purpose (Sumner et al., 2018). Although these processes facilitate the formation of identity, the differentiation and dehumanization as a part of marginalization can limit and maintain how emotions and their respective behaviors are expressed (Lozada et al., 2022). Because racially minoritized youth identity development occurs in the context of racial discrimination, these marginalizing systems can further potentiate racial stress with negative consequences for health and well‐being (Hope et al., 2015).…”

Spotlighting Black Adolescent Development in the Shadow of Racism: A Commentary

“…Lozada et al. ( 2022 ) thoughtful and compelling conceptual paper reflects the surging interest in emotion regulation and development in Black children, coming on the heels of extensive attention to these domains in White children and children belonging to cultures outside the United States (Cole & Tan, 2007 ). Studies of Black samples and subsamples have given attention to emotional development in relation to parents’ emotion‐related beliefs and attitudes, emotion expressiveness, discussion of emotion, and responses to children’s emotion.…”