Rachel Ishikawa’s excellent paper was recently published online by the journal Psychological Services. Among other findings, Rachel found that the quality of the relationship between primary care providers and their Latino patients was positively associated with intention to follow-up on a mental healthcare treatment recommendation. Moreover, the quality of the relationship mediated the relationship between perceived cultural competence of the provider (by the patient) and intention to follow up on the recommendation. Recent attention to the important role that primary care providers play in the lives of Latinos has raised the possibility that this can be a possible leverage point in addressing/reducing the disparities in mental healthcare utilization. However, Rachel’s findings suggest that training around how to establish strong relationships with patients is important. Nice article, Rachel!
The APA journal, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, just published Monica Sanchez’s research investigating the mental health needs and healthcare experiences of immigrant Latinos, Puerto Ricans, and Brazilians in Massachusetts. You can find this paper here. Monica’s study highlights the importance of attending to diversity within the Latino community. In particular, the Puerto Rican participants endorsed higher rates of depression and anxiety, as well as higher rates of treatment seeking, than either the immigrant Latinos or the Brazilians. Interestingly, acculturation seemed to work differently in the three groups, as acculturation was positively associated with treatment-seeking for Brazilians but not for the Puerto Ricans. Nice job, Monica!
Following the recent verdict in which Michael Dunn was found not guilty of murder in the killing of Jordan Davis, a number of powerful essays were written lamenting yet another example of the criminal system devaluing the lives of African American youth. It is inconceivable that if a Black man had fired seven shots into a van full of white teenagers, a jury would have come to a similar verdict. One of the students in my new class, Race and Racism: Theory and Experience, posted a link to an essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who writes for the Atlantic. I encourage you to read it — it is short, yet powerful in its case.
In his essay, Coates writes,
Spare us the invocations of “black-on-black crime.” I will not respect the lie. I would rather be thought insane. The most mendacious phrase in the American language is “black-on-black crime,” which is uttered as though the same hands that drew red lines around the ghettoes of Chicago are not the same hands that drew red lines around the life of Jordan Davis, as though black people authored North Lawndale and policy does not exist.
This sentiment highlights the problem with liberal thinking about issues of race and racism, which refuses to consider the structural nature of racism. Instead, the focus of liberal thinking (and liberalism more generally) is that the problem can be explained by focusing on racist individuals, and ignores the ways in which we are all complicit in the perpetuation of racist ideologies and inequalities.