Black-ish*: Exploring Experiences, Attributions, and Emotional Reactions to Racial Discrimination among Monoracial and Biracial African American Adolescents

Abstract

Racial discrimination has been consistently identified as a major stressor associated with poor developmental outcomes for African Americans. Despite a plethora of studies examining the effects and consequences of racial discrimination, relatively few are centered upon the experiences of adolescents and even fewer specifically pertain to biracial youth. The current study aims to fill this gap by examining whether: (1) there are significant differences in self-reports of racial discrimination between monoracial and biracial Black adolescents; (2) racial identity is linked to racial discrimination; (3) attributions of and reactions to discrimination vary due to intrapersonal characteristics and protective factors; and (4) racial discrimination, intrapersonal characteristics, attributions, and youth protective factors predict depressive symptoms during late adolescence. Analyses were conducted using a sample of monoracial and biracial adolescents (N=897, 89% monoracial) from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS). Findings indicate no statistically significant racial group difference in frequency of self-reported racial discrimination across developmental stages. Further, while experiencing racial discrimination, being female, having low regard for one’s racial identity and self-esteem predicted depressive symptoms among monoracial adolescents in the sample, only being female remained in the final model as a significant predictor of depressive symptoms among biracial respondents. These findings raise several concerns regarding the need for further research examining both between and within-group differences among minoritized adolescent populations, giving specific attention to the significance of gender in forecasting depressive symptoms among youth of African descent. Implications for research, clinical practice, and preventive intervention are discussed.