SOCIAL ALEXITHYMIA AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AMONGST BLACK COMMUNITIES

When it comes to racial and ethnic politics in 21st century America, advocacy for change and advancement in racial equity at times falls to deaf ears by some and is deemphasized by others. In a research blog titled "Social Alexithymia and White Response to Police Brutality" by two professors at the University of Florida Joe (No Last Name), and Hernan Vera, the writers address this issue by discussing the resistance culture amongst people of the white race who ignorantlly choose to ignore the systemic injustices against those in the black community by advocating for antagonistic like campaigns like All Lives Matter. Based on this, Joe and Vera have configured the term Social Alexithymia. As alluded to in Ryder et al. (2008) research study entitled, "Unpacking Cultural Differences in Alexithymia: The Role of Cultural Values Among Euro-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian Students", alexithymia is a trait that characterizes ones difficulty in having the ability to experience clearly identifiable emotional states and being able to easily communicate these states to others. From this, Joe and Vera imply that the insinuation of racial biases amongst whites affect their capacity to have empathy for those of other races. In parallel to Joe and Vera's excerpt, to help support one of my predictions mentioned in the podcast that racial discrimination will always be a recurring preeminent issue until provisions of the justice system ensure and pursue systemic equality, the evidence from the Avenanti et al. (2010) study using a participant pool of African Americans and White Italians help demonstrate how the influence if racial biases effect one's empathic levels. 

Artifact IV: In the preiminent part of the Avenanti et al. (2010) study, the researchers used a set of human hands of various races being black, white, and purple . Giving a visual representation to participants, they showed each set of different hands being pricked which would in turn relay signals to the brain by activating neurons that would help operationalize participants sensitivity and empathy levels. Evidence concluded from this experiment showed that participants whose hands were the same color of the hand being pricked showed signicant levels of empathy.  

Artifact V: However, when seeing hands that were not of their race, participants indicated no levels of empathy. To help support this evidence, participants in the Avenanti et al. (2010) study were asked to complete an Implicit Association Test allowing researchers to recognize and pinpoint biases and stereotypes amongst participants. This was measured based on how people associated positive and negative phrases amongst various ethnical groups. Unsurprisingly, the results showed that white Italians easily associated the positive phrases with Italians and African Americans with negative phrases therefore supporting the overall hypothesis that racial biases do in fact influence ones empathy over other races.