Racial gaslighting

“It’s Not in Your Head”: Gaslighting, ‘Splaining, Victim Blaming, and Other Harmful Reactions to Microaggressions

“…Stewart (2019) argued that affective responses to victim blaming can lead to a feedback loop, whereby the victim’s display of emotions is used to justify the undermining of the victim’s credibility—which may lead to further victim blaming by reinforcing that the victim is “too emotional” or “too angry.” Furthermore, emotions are used to create new stereotypes that affect credibility and result in repeated testimonial injustice (e.g., the trope of the angry Black woman; Stewart, 2019). Dismissing victims’ challenges to oppression because of their communication style and emotionality has colloquially been referred to as tone policing—and can lead to hypervigilance and self-policing in targets (Davis & Ernst, 2019). Thus, Black women in academia report filtering their communication or self-silencing to avoid the social cost of being perceived as angry and evade being revictimized through victim blaming (Corbin et al, 2018; Dotson, 2011).…”

“…Scholars in both psychology and sociology have argued that the definition of gaslighting can be extended to include a single act or series of acts perpetrated by any person in a position of power designed to manipulate less powerful others to doubt themselves or question their own sanity or memory (Davis & Ernst, 2019; Tobias & Joseph, 2020). Sweet (2019) noted that gaslighting is embedded in a larger system of social inequality and can take place in relationships that are power laden.…”

“…Davis and Ernst (2019) defined racial gaslighting as “the political, social, economic and cultural process that perpetuates and normalizes a white supremacist reality through pathologizing those who resist” (p. 763). In this instance, stereotypes about particular racial and ethnic groups are used to make the target and/or others (e.g., bystanders) believe that the target’s reality cannot be trusted.…”

Intersectional trauma: COVID-19, the psychosocial contract, and America’s racialized public health lineage.

“…In the months after the water source switch, Flint residents took to Facebook and other digital channels to document concerns over discolored, odorous water flowing from their faucets, and began attending local town hall meetings to show public officials their brown jugs of water, their skin rashes and their balding scalps (Krings et al, 2019)—all suspected consequences of the abrasive water they were not only drinking, but cooking with, washing their hands with, and showering and bathing in (Craft-Blacksheare, 2017; Masten et al, 2016). In turn, Flint residents were intermittently ignored and belittled (Levengood, 2017; Morckel & Terzano, 2019)—as processes of psychological gaslighting (Davis & Ernst, 2019)—by state and local media and politicians and indeed their own health care providers (Hanna-Attisha, 2019). Contentious beliefs about the water being effectively “poisoned” and the water source switch being a plot for racial or class genocide in Flint have further contributed to residents’ unease and civic distrust (Morckel & Terzano, 2019; Muhammad et al, 2018).…”

Signifying Aggrieved White Selves: Trump Supporters’ Racial Identity Work

“…The contemporary movement against police brutality, which interviewees referenced as "Black Lives Matter," is a "racial event" that fosters cultural debate (Doane 2017). Drawing on the Trump campaign's discourse of racial gaslighting that discredits movements for racial justice (Davis and Ernst 2019), interviewees projected white selfhood by blaming Black victims and portraying protesters as ignorant and disrespectful aggressors. Such rhetoric symbolized irritation with and indignation toward BLM activists, whom they framed as needing more forceful policing and incarceration.…”