Critically important to a family’s ability to flourish is their experience with equity, racism, oppression, discrimination, and systems. Since launching the internal Black Families Flourishing (BFF) Flourishing Friday Speaker Series, we have heard from three outstanding researchers with expertise in these areas. Our conversations expanded our perspectives on how racism, oppression, discrimination, and systems impact flourishing, which will strengthen our ability to identify opportunities for data to inform programs and policies that work better for Black families. If you are also interested in this intersection, we encourage you to connect with the researchers below.
Dr. Brianna Daniels, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
During her Flourishing Friday presentation, Dr. Daniels walked us through her research on workplace racial discrimination and its impact on Black Americans’ marriages. She surveyed full-time employed, married Black Americans and found that depressive symptoms and marital warmth mediated the relationship between workplace racial discrimination and quality of marital relationships. Our discussion centered around where Dr. Daniels would like to take this research next, and how she thinks the rollback of federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies is impacting workplace racial discrimination and, indirectly, Black marital relationships.
Tanya Washington, Georgia State University
As the Marjorie F. Knowles Chair in Law at Georgia State University, Tanya has focused her scholarship on children’s rights within schools, the child welfare system, and families. During her meeting with the BFF team, she presented data on the overrepresentation of Black children in the U.S. child welfare system and explained why this is the case, as is understood from research data and through her professional experience. Tanya’s advocacy does not stop in the classroom—she is a co-founder of Rights4Children, a think tank dedicated to justice and equity for children in classrooms, courts, and the community.
Dr. Deadric T. Williams (BFF core advisor), University of Tennessee
A quantitative sociologist, Dr. Williams studies the ideological and structural complexities of American racism. His Flourishing Friday talk focused on a need to reframe the conversation around what accounts for racial inequality into one about the mechanisms (via racism) maintaining Black-White inequality. We also discussed his premise that we should treat structural racism as a system, one with every-changing ideologies and structures.
Are you or other researchers, practitioners, or community leaders in your life doing work that advances understanding of Black families and communities? Share your recommendations with us at blackfamiliesflourish@childtrends.org.
