African American Psychology

“Critical Race Theory Critical Race Theory (CRT) was originally developed in the 1980s as part of legal studies examining civil rights (Crenshaw, 1988). Kimberl Crenshaw developed this theory after noting the racial bias and inequalities found within the criminal justice system. One of the central ideas of CRT is that racism is infused into society. An example of this is the stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995), which suggests that even when there is no perpetrator of racism, individuals can be negatively impacted by it. In the case of stereotype threat, African Americans perform worse on tasks labeled as a measure of intelligence because of stereotypes suggesting that African Americans are deficient in this area. CRT also suggests that ideas like color-blindness (people stating that they do not notice race) and meritocracy (believing that individuals success is within their own power due to their abilities and talents) cover up underlying racial biases because they ignore the significance of race in the United States. Further, CRT discusses White privilege, the fact that being and/or appearing to be White is profitable and advantageous. Finally, CRT espouses that counter-storytelling communicating the stories of those who are oppressed and have different experiences from people who adhere to mainstream culture is an essential tool for identifying and breaking down racism. Elements of Critical Race Theory are found throughout Black psychology. Critical Race Psychology (CRP) combines CRT and critical psychology in order to understand race and racism as well as examine the social realities of oppression. CRP focuses on the examination of how institutions and other parts of society play a role in producing racial power. It does not focus on individuals engaging in racism, instead focusing on more widespread systemic racism. Within CRP, it is essential to examine the influence of the racial environment on individuals (Salter & Haugen, 2017).  Furthermore, CRP suggests that mainstream psychology repeatedly manifests a worldview that is based on the perspective of European American, middle-class people, implying that is the real human experience. Because of this false perception of reality, research and theory concerning African Americans and other people of color are likely inaccurate. One major problem with traditional psychological research from a CRP perspective is that those in power typically middle-class European Americans set the standards for psychology and their ideas are being reproduced as the norm when they often do not consider race or racism. According to CRP, one must examine the influence of race and racism in order to understand the psychology of African Americans.”