by Eve Rosenfeld, M.A., University at Buffalo, SUNY
In light of recent instances of police brutality against Black Americans, many outraged psychologists and trainees are faced with a dilemma. Do we speak up against police brutality and potentially face professional repercussions? Or do we protect our careers by staying silent about racial injustice?
Traditional wisdom says that we remain “apolitical” in professional spaces. But this culture of silence has allowed racial injustice to percolate through the academy.
Psychologists and psychologists-in-training are viewed as experts by the public. Our voices are respected. So, it is our ethical and professional responsibility to speak out against racial injustice and play an active role in building a society that refuses to tolerate police brutality, racial injustice, and the traumatization of Black Americans.
This is not a political issue; it is a human rights issue.
It is crucial that we be brave enough to use our power and privilege to effect social change by taking a strong stance against police brutality and racial injustice.
Online platforms offer an opportunity to do so while generating institutional and social change. These platforms can be used to share empirical information about the consequences of racial trauma and disseminate psychological resources to the public. They also create a space to connect and collaborate on racial justice initiatives. And by visibly taking a stand online, non-Black (particularly White) academics may help reduce the likelihood that their Black colleagues will be reprimanded for speaking out against racial injustice, as is often the case.
Here are tips for creating impactful content on racial justice:
- Choose the right platform. It’s important to select a platform that you are comfortable using and effectively delivers your message to the intended audience. To reach both academics and laymen, for example, consider Twitter. To reach other psychologists, consider writing blog posts on platforms like Psychology Today. For longer-form discussions, consider a podcast or YouTube series.
- Elevate Black voices. Too often, Black voices are silenced and discounted. If you are non-Black, your goal must not be self-promotion, but to elevate Black voices by sharing their content and giving credit.
- Elevate Black research. Beyond elevating voices of Black social media users, elevate their research by sharing it. A significant portion of the research that addresses race and inequality is qualitative research. As clinical scientists, we are often trained to view qualitative research as methodologically inferior to quantitative methods. Qualitative research is often as rigorous as quantitative research and is frequently necessary to capture experiences of discrimination. Qualitative research is often turned away from high impact journals. Commit to regularly (e.g., once per week) reading journals that publish this research (e.g., Journal of Black Psychology, Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, Transcultural Psychiatry). Share these articles, even when they are outside the scope of your typical research interests.
- Use Hashtags wisely. Popular hashtags (e.g., #BlackLivesMatter, #AcademicTwitter, #BlackMentalHealthMatters, #CBTworks) can make your post visible to a wider audience, but risk getting lost among the many posts also using it. The best practice is to balance popular and highly-specific hashtags on posts. You should also limit yourself to a few hashtags per post, depending on the platform (e.g., fewer on Twitter versus longer-form platforms) and consider readability.
- Create a professional account. Your posts will have greater credibility coming from a professional account, rather than a personal one. Certain platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) even allow you to promote posts from “business” accounts to reach wider audiences, which is worth considering, too.
- Engage creators with large followings of your target audience. You can, for example, collaborate with creators who have large followings for YouTube or podcasts. Or you might simply tag them in a Tweet if they seem likely to share it with their audience. Engaging with their content (e.g., likes, comments) can also increase the likelihood that they will do the same for you.
- Promote engagement on your posts. Ask questions, share photos, and respond to commenters to keep followers engaged. Note that you can and should shut down racist responses and report the users on the platform.
- Tailor it to your audience. If your goal is to inform the public about the consequences of racial trauma, avoid jargon. If your audience is other psychologists, don’t oversimplify (this can be infantilizing).
- Share impactful petitions. Use your platform to model meaningful activism by signing petitions and explicitly asking your followers to do the same. For example, sign and share this petition calling for justice for Breonna Taylor.
- Post your plans. Are you spearheading diversity and inclusion initiatives at your institution? Altering your recruitment methods to improve representativeness? Setting a personal goal to read three BIPOC-authored papers per week? Post about it to hold yourself accountable and disseminate ideas.
- Vet sources before you share content. Someone may share poignant anti-racism content, yet have a history of homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or colorism. We must elevate Black voices,. At the same time, we should try to avoid promoting content created by individuals who have also used their platform to disparage members of other marginalized communities.
- Call in and call out. When you see racist rhetoric on social media, don’t ignore it. Instead, call-in or call-out. Both strategies aim to change problematic behaviors. Calling-in involves compassionately and gently pointing out the issue. It is best used when someone with good intentions slips up. Calling-out involves direct confrontation of the issue; it’s appropriate when behavior is overtly racist or lacks good intention.
- If/when you mess up, apologize and do better. When we are called-out, we sometimes react defensively. This is particularly true for those with privilege who are unaccustomed to having our behavior challenged. When called-out, pause. Reflect on your behavior and listen to the people you have upset. Apologize and develop an action plan to do better in the future.
As you use these platforms to speak out against racial injustice, it’s important to promote specific actions to fight racism (e.g., attend protests, sign petitions, volunteer for anti-racism organizations) and embody what you promote. This is how #Activism translates to real-world change.
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS).