Activism

Racism and Its Deadly Cousins

Black women and Asian women have often been both fetishized and demonized as hypersexual temptresses threatening the innocence of and purity of white Christian men. Young people raised in churches that emphasize “purity culture” are taught to have deep shame about their sexual feelings, and girls and young women’s bodies portrayed as threats to boys and young men.

Published

4 years ago

April 3, 2021

Mia Lane

What does it say about our country when we don’t have time to absorb the impact of one mass shooting before news of the next one comes across our phones and TV screens?

Grief upon grief.

This column is not about gun culture or laws that make it easier to buy an assault rifle than to register to vote. We need to talk about those things.

But we also need to pay attention to one response to the Atlanta spa killings: the way some conservatives rushed to insist that race and racism had nothing to do with the murders.

It is true that the man who confessed to the Atlanta killings said they were not racially motivated. He reportedly told police that he was struggling with a “sex addiction” and the killings were a way to “eliminate temptation.”

There’s a lot in that statement to unpack, and a lot of smart people have been unpacking it over the past two weeks.

Marcela Howell, who leads In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Agenda, was among the Black women who spoke in solidarity after the killings. “While law enforcement officials have announced that the shooter’s motivation was ‘sex addiction,’ we know that sexual violence and racism are often intertwined when it comes to violence against women,” she said in a statement.

“As Black women, we know that our Asian-American sisters are disparately impacted at the intersections of racism, sexism, and xenophobia,” Howell said.

There is a long history of bigotry and legal discrimination that directly targeted Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. Over the past year, that hostility was inflamed by bigoted rhetoric from former President Donald Trump describing COVID-19 as the “Kung flu” and warning that if he weren’t re-elected Americans would have to learn Chinese.

As Howell and many other activists and scholars have pointed out since the killings, racism in this country is deeply connected to sexism directed at women of color. And racism and misogyny are both intertwined with the history and culture of conservative white evangelicalism in which the Atlanta shooter was apparently steeped.

Kathryn Gin Lum, an associate professor of American religion at Stanford University, said the killings reflected “a toxic brew” of racism, sexism, and religion. That toxic brew has been used to justify anti-Asian laws and stoked anti-Asian violence going back to the 19th Century.

Religion scholar Bradley Onishi and others point out that Jim Crow apartheid and anti-race-mixing laws were not only defended as necessary to protect the sexual purity of individual white women, but also the racial and religious purity of White Christian America.

We don’t yet know, and may never fully understand, just how all these influences combined in the mind of this particular young man who chose to commit multiple murders.

But we can and should push back against law enforcement officials, conservative pundits and religious leaders who dismiss the reality of systemic racism or refuse to recognize the ways that women of color are particularly harmed by the mixture of racism and sexism that plagues our culture.

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation.

Mia Lane

Posts by Mia Lane

Up Next

Low-Income Youth in Marin City Roll for Free at Skate Giveaway

Don't Miss

The Virus, Vaccines and New Variants: Weighing the Threat of a Mutant COVID Strain

Mia Lane

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of May 14 – 20, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 14 – 20, 2025

Published

17 hours ago

May 16, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

The Best Advice for Raising Children: Discipline That Makes Sense

In his book Developing Positive Self Images and Discipline in Black Children, Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu suggests that primary aims for socializing Black children should be: establishing goals related to God and the church; familiarizing children with religious texts like the Bible or Quran; educating them of Black culture like Khemetic (Egyptian) Civilization; enlightening them about Black leaders like Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth; and teaching them to strive to be employers, not employees.

Published

3 days ago

May 13, 2025

Oakland Post

Headshot of Dr. William A. Thomas. Photo courtesy of Dr. William A. Thomas.

By William A. Thomas, Ph.D.

In many African societies, the primary aim of socialization is to raise children to be socially responsible and eventually provide economic support to their parents and extended families. Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye taught that children are raised to be respectful of the wishes of their parents and extended adult family members.

In his book Developing Positive Self Images and Discipline in Black Children, Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu suggests that primary aims for socializing Black children should be: establishing goals related to God and the church; familiarizing children with religious texts like the Bible or Quran; educating them of Black culture like Khemetic (Egyptian) Civilization; enlightening them about Black leaders like Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth; and teaching them to strive to be employers, not employees.

Effective disciplinary strategies appropriate to a child’s age and development teach them to regulate their behavior; keep them from harm; enhance their cognitive, social, and emotional executive functioning skills; and reinforce the behavioral patterns taught by their parents and caregivers.

Below are some specific guidelines for disciplining children.

Listen to what children are talking about with interest and show them you understand their feelings. Remember, children mirror and learn about their emotional selves by hearing their feelings reflected back to them. Staying on target also means avoiding labels. When children fail to do what is expected, discussing it is helpful rather than saying how stubborn, lazy, dumb, or bad they are. By the same token, more positive labels can be helpful.

Dependability is another essential component of the discipline process. When parents are dependable, their children learn what to expect and are helped to feel secure. When parents are consistent, children learn to trust, that is, predict their parents’ behaviors with certainty. A child thinks, “When I spill something, I will always be asked to wipe it up.” A child thinks, “If I use foul language, I will always be corrected.” A child thinks, “If I take something that doesn’t belong to me, I will always have to give it back.” The ability to predict with certainty leads children to rely on their parents and the village/community in which they live. Children feel safe when they know what to expect.

Conclusions

It takes a village/community to raise the divine gift that is the Black child. Parents look to therapists for guidance concerning a variety of parenting issues, including discipline. Keep in mind that evidence suggests that corporal punishment is both ineffective in the long term and associated with cognitive and mental health disorders. When parents want guidance about the use of spanking, a child therapist can explore parental feelings, help them better define the goals of discipline, and offer specific behavior management strategies. In addition to providing appropriate education to families, the Bay Area Association of Black Psychologists (Bay ABPsi) can refer them to community resources, like parenting groups and classes.

About the Author

Dr. Thomas is a licensed clinical psychologist with a private practice in the SF/Oakland Bay Area and Beaumont. He is a member of Bay ABPsi, a healing resource committed to providing the Post Newspaper readership with monthly discussions about critical issues in Black Mental Health. Readers are welcome to join us at our monthly chapter meetings every 3^rd Saturday via Zoom and contact us at bayareaabpsi@gmail.com.