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Police brutality--including the incidents that mobilized collective outrage and action across the world during the summer of 2020--has negatively impacted the psychological health of Black youth for generations. Police harassment is a persistent form of racial discrimination that Black youth frequently navigate (Brunson, 2007), and particularly as a consequence of vicarious trauma via social media, it has been associated with depressive and anxious sequelae (e.g., Tynes et al., 2019). While Black youth are faced with policing experiences in vivo and in vitro, many studies of the psychological impact of policing are contained within traditional retrospective surveys, which limits our understanding of youth's in-the-moment perceptions and desired concurrent actions. To expand the efforts to assess and redress youth's experiences with police encounters, this manuscript details the development of an afterschool program that supports adolescents in the creation of a series of video game and virtual reality (VR) narratives. A participatory design method was utilized to co-create the perception of policing experiences with Detroit high school students enrolled in a computer science course, allowing them to actualize their experiences "on screen" and work towards redressing these experiences through co-construction and virtual activism.

Perceived racial discrimination (PRD) has been documented as a risk factor for worse psychological well-being among African Americans. Yet, most researchers have not examined how trajectories of PRD during emerging adulthood shape psychological well-being in adulthood. Moreover, less is known about whether demographic factors and components of racial identity shape PRD over time. We identified trajectories of PRD among 605 African American emerging adults and examined whether PRD trajectories were associated with depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and perceived lack of control in adulthood. Four trajectories of PRD were identified (i.e., high-stable, moderate-declining, low-rising, and low-stable), and demographic factors and racial identity indicators influenced the likelihood of trajectory classification. In addition, members of the moderate-declining trajectory exhibited higher levels of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and perceived lack of control than members in the low-stable trajectory. Our findings suggest that changes in PRD in emerging adulthood can extend our understanding of psychological well-being in adulthood.

This study examined patterns of (a) observed racial socialization messages in dyadic discussions between 111 African American mothers and adolescents (M[subscript age] = 15.50) and (b) mothers' positive emotions displayed during the discussion. Mothers displayed more advocacy on behalf of their adolescents in response to discrimination by a White teacher than to discrimination by a White salesperson. Mothers displayed consistent emotional support of adolescents' problem solving across both dilemmas but lower warmth in response to the salesperson dilemma. Findings illustrate evidence of the transactional nature of racial socialization when presented with adolescents' racial dilemmas. The role of adolescent gender in mothers' observed racial socialization responses is also discussed. A framework for a process-oriented approach to racial socialization is presented.

Ethnically and racially underrepresented adolescents are experiencing pubertal development earlier in life than prior cohorts and their White American peers. This early onset of puberty is partly attributable to ethnic–racial discrimination. To contribute to adolescents' resilience and posttraumatic growth in the face of ethnic–racial discrimination, parents' ethnic–racial identities may spill over into their parenting beliefs and practices. Parents who have a sense of belonging with and commitment to their ethnic–racial identities may be aware of discrimination and actively and consistently engage in practices that build supportive home environments to support their children's development in the context of ethnic–racial discrimination. To assess whether parents' ethnic–racial identity commitment predicted adolescents' resilience against ethnic–racial discrimination, we used multiple waves of survey data from adolescent siblings and their parents participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (N-adolescents = 1,651; N-families = 805; 35% Black, 37% Latinx, 3% Asian, 25% other ethnically and racially underrepresented youth; 49% boys, 50% girls, 1% gender nonconforming youth; Mage = 11.49, SD = 0.51). Results indicated that adolescents who experienced more frequent ethnic–racial discrimination than their siblings showed more advanced pubertal development. Parental ethnic–racial identity commitment reduced the relation between discrimination and pubertal development within a family. Results suggest that ethnic–racial identity commitment in parents can protect children when they experience ethnic–racial discrimination. Building on extant propositions related to resilience (Infurna & Luthar, 2018), the present study amplifies the depiction of resilience, yields recommendations for analysis of future research, and provides implications regarding the role of ethnicity–race in familial practices. Public Significance Statement: With a within-family design, the present study found adolescents who reported more ethnic–racial discrimination than their siblings showed more advanced pubertal development (i.e., a proxy of accelerated biological aging). Within the household, a parent's sense of belonging and commitment to their ethnic–racial group weakened this within-sibling effect and conferred the more discriminated sibling with protection and resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial socialization is a dynamic process for youth of color, especially for Black adolescents. What is less known is how the provision of racial socialization practices and messages may differ for varying ethnic groups of Black adolescents and what sociodemographic factors contribute to this difference. As such, this cross-sectional study investigated how African American and Black Caribbean adolescents are racially socialized by parents and support systems, including socialization frequency, sociodemographic contributors, and content. A sample of 1170 adolescents (Black Caribbean: n = 360; African American: n = 810) from the National Survey of American Life-Adolescents were assessed. Latent class analysis depicted two classes of socialization provision in both African American and Black Caribbean samples, as adolescents with greater provision received it most from family members across ethnic groups while friends were a distinguishing socializing agent across classes and ethnicities. Further, Black Caribbean adolescents socialized at a high frequency were not often socialized by other adults or friends, just parents and other family members. Some key demographic differences differentiated this provision, with region and income being the most prominent for African American and Black Caribbean families respectively. Finally, messages were fairly consistent across ethnic groups, save the advice to "keep it real" being significantly more provided to African American adolescents. Implications of these findings are relevant for interventions seeking to bolster socialization efforts across support systems and ethnic groups within the Black diaspora, with specific attention towards adolescents receiving "low" levels of socialization across their support system. Highlights: racial socialization messaging for African Americans is largely dependent on their social support networks; the patterning of racial socialization among Black Caribbean youth differed from that of African American youth driven by families; key sociodemographic characteristics differentiated patterns of racial socialization for African American and Black Caribbean youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are known disparities in the burden of illness and access/quality of care for African, Latino/a, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) patients diagnosed with depressive disorders, which may occur because of health inequities. Racial stress and trauma (RST), or the significant fear and distress that can be imparted from exposure to racism, is one such inequity linked to the development of depression. The current review summarizes past research examining the association between racism, RST, and depression, as well as avenues in which RST becomes biologically embedded in ALANA individuals. We describe multimodal research that supports vigilance as a potential mediator of the association between RST and depression and consider the nuanced role that vigilance plays during experiences with racism. Finally, we describe methodological advances in the assessment of vigilance evoked by RST and the clinical implications that may be generated by future improvements. In each of these areas, we present examples of how ongoing and future research can be leveraged to provide support for psychosocial programs that facilitate autonomous community healing and resilience, increase calls for public policy changes, and support clinical interventions that lessen the burden of racism on ALANA communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To help their children survive and thrive in our unequal society, parents of color must engage in the process of ethnic–racial socialization (ERS) or teaching about race, ethnicity, and racism. Equally important to the provision of ERS messages are parents' confidence, skills, and stress levels around delivering ERS (i.e., ERS competency). Currently, little work speaks to how different aspects of parental ERS competency and the content of the messages they give are related to each other. This is important to better understand not only for the continued refinement of theory but also to inform newly developed and future interventions intervening upon parental ERS. The present study, therefore, utilizes network analysis, an analytical tool not yet applied to the study of ERS but with the capabilities of illustrating the interrelations between specific aspects of ERS content and competency. Among 576 Black, Asian American, and Latinx parents (Mage = 44.52 years old, SDage = 9.16, 59.5% mothers) with adolescent children (Mage = 14.31, SDage = 2.48), we found evidence for relatively sparse interconnections between dimensions of ERS content and competency. However, we identified parental messages about racism and coping (preparation for bias), the celebration of diversity (cultural pluralism), the history and values of one's ethnic–racial group (cultural socialization), and parents' levels of socialization-related stress as particularly central, important aspects of ERS; these central components of ERS may have the potential to serve as particularly powerful intervention targets. Specific findings and the potential for network analyses to add to our understanding of the complex process of ERS are discussed. Public Significance Statement: This study identifies how different messages parents give to their kids about race/ethnicity and discrimination and how parents feel about giving these messages are related to one another. In a sample of Black, Latinx, and Asian American parents, parental messages about discrimination awareness and coping, the celebration of diversity, the history and values of one's ethnic–racial group, and parental feelings of stress around the socialization process were particularly important aspects of socialization. Different parental messages around race, ethnicity, and culture were not all highly related to one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]