Navigating a hyperracialized space: exploring the intersections of whiteness, social control, and mental health in st. louis county, missouri

Abstract

Places marred by a legacy of racial violence have contemporary implications for racial and ethnic minorities. However, there is limited work examining how racial and ethnic minorities perceive and navigate these spaces and how they may affect their health. We examine the daily lives of Black residents of St. Louis County, living in what we refer to as a hyperracialized space, or areas characterized by multiple forms of violence, to understand how navigating a hyperracialized space impacts how Black residents negotiate space and make meaning of their health. Qualitative interviews (n = 20) revealed three themes: (1) Whiteness and the maintenance of a hyperracialized space, (2) unspoken rules of police encounters and the embodiment of self-regulation, (3) and hypervigilance. Narratives reveal how individuals and institutions concretize a hyperracialized space through social control. Moreover, participants discussed how their environment influenced how they interacted with and navigated space, the toll of which elicited hypervigilance.

Introduction

Somebody was walking down the street with a Molotov cocktail the other day. I think he was about ten then. That’s when he started getting into it [hating me because of my race]. He was getting older and he noticed that his mom didn’t like me. And he actually was a good kid that was trying to like me, you know. But, he let the cat out the bag. He’s the one who told me what they were planning. (Leanne)

Leanne¹, a Black 50-year-old resident of St. Louis County, Missouri, describes a racist interaction she encountered while living in a predominantly White neighborhood. Leanne recalls how her neighbor’s son, conspiring with his mother, planned to set her house on fire with a Molotov cocktail to acquire her property. While the excerpt above only describes one incident of premeditated violence, Leanne’s interview, like many of the other participants in this study, was replete with racist incidents that exemplify racial violence and the mechanisms through which it is perpetuated. Scholars have noted how individuals and institutions reinforce White supremacy in space and the toll these experiences exact on the life chances of Black individuals (Anderson 2015; Embrick and Moore 2020). Previous studies found places marked by racial violence are associated with contemporary social implications for Black individuals (DeFina and Hannon 2011; Kramer et al. 2017; Messner, Baller, and Zevenbergen 2005; O’Connell 2012; O’Connell 2020; Reece and O’Connell 2016). For example, O’Connell (2012) and Kramer et al. (2017) found that places with a higher concentration of enslaved people exhibit a greater Black–White poverty gap and slower mortality declines in heart disease among Black individuals, respectively. While much is known about the relationship between residing in an environment connected to historical atrocities and poorer contemporary health and social outcomes, there is a paucity of research that explores the pathways through which living and persisting within an environment shaped by historical violence impacts present-day mental health and well-being.

To fill this gap, we used qualitative methods to explore how Black residents of St. Louis, Missouri, living in what we refer to as a hyperracialized space, negotiate this space and make meaning of their environment’s impact on their mental health and well-being. We use the phrase hyperracialized space to descriptively characterize an environment where racial violence was historically used to create and maintain social control, whereby mechanisms are imbued into the present day—similar in meaning to that of “microclimates of racial meaning” (Ward 2016). While we do not test whether residing in a hyperracialized space is associated with poorer health outcomes relative to other spaces, our qualitative inquiry provides rich data that illuminates how interpersonal experiences and the social context can perpetuate adverse mental health outcomes. By exploring the lived experiences of Black individuals within these environments, we can understand how forms of racial violence are transmitted, maintained, and contribute to contemporary health inequities. Moreover, delving into less studied social mechanisms of health can broaden our knowledge of how individuals embody inequalities and the implications for their health (Krieger 2012).

Our objective was to use St. Louis County as a case study to investigate how Blacks perceive and navigate hyperracialized space and its implications for mental health. Although data from the current study came from a larger data collection effort that included three other Missouri counties, we focused on St. Louis County for several reasons. First, the metropolitan St. Louis area, which includes St. Louis City and St. Louis County, is one of the most segregated cities in America (Frey 2018). Second, St. Louis is known for its overt history of racially discriminatory policies and practices, race-based and state-sanctioned violence, and the extrajudicial murders of Black lives and subsequent uprisings (Gordon 2008; Johnson 2020; Rothstein 2014). Third, work by scholars such as Hudson et al. (2016) and Goodman (2016) has illustrated the need for more targeted work to understand the health and well-being of the Black St. Louis community. For example, over a third of St. Louis’ Black population is under the federal poverty line, and 13.1% are unemployed, figures that grossly exceed national averages (City of St. Louis 2019). Black St. Louisans also fare worse than White residents across several indicators of health and well-being and exhibit lower life expectancy (For the Sake of All 2014).

Insidious pathways: racism and mental health

Racism operates through various channels and is a fundamental cause of the pronounced and adverse health outcomes Black Americans encounter (Phelan and Link 2015). Evidence suggests that regardless of age, gender, or socioeconomic standing, experiences of racism and racial discrimination are pervasive in the lives of Black Americans (Lewis, Cogburn, and Williams 2015). Racism is conceptualized as a chronic and multifaceted stressor and how these experiences impact the mental health of Black Americans has been the subject of empirical inquiry for decades (see Clark et al. 1999; Lewis, Cogburn, and Williams 2015; Williams et al. 2019). The biopsychosocial model of racism (Clark et al. 1999) has provided a conceptual framework for much of the work illustrating how cumulative experiences of racism and racial discrimination engender harmful physical, psychological, and physiological outcomes. Summative reviews of this literature illustrate that cumulative experiences of racism and racial discrimination contribute to many adverse mental health outcomes such as psychological distress, depression, generalized anxiety, suicidal ideation, and suicide (Goosby, Cheadle, and Mitchell 2018; Paradies et al. 2015). In their meta-analysis of literature exploring perceived racism and the mental health outcomes of Black Americans, Pieterse et al. (2012) found a positive correlation between perceived racism and mental health outcomes, with greater exposure to racism being associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing psychological distress and psychiatric symptoms. Lewis, Cogburn, and Williams (2015) supported these findings in their review and documented a positive association between racial discrimination and measures of depression, psychological distress, and psychiatric disorders. Findings within this vast body of work also revealed that when diagnosed with a mental illness, Black Americans are likely to experience more severe and debilitating episodes that persist for longer periods compared to individuals from other racial and ethnic groups (Breslau et al. 2005). Recent data has found a positive relationship between experiences of major discriminatory events and risk for lifetime psychotic experiences (Oh et al. 2016). For Black Americans, the amalgamation of these persistent and pervasive experiences can result in wear and tear of the body and trigger the genesis of disease progression due to the constant regulation of bodily responses (Geronimus et al. 2006; Goosby, Cheadle, and Mitchell 2018; Ong et al. 2017).

Racism is a ubiquitous reality for Black Americans. Many scholars focus on the relationship between anticipatory stress and coping strategies such as racism-related vigilance (Himmelstein et al. 2015; Hope et al. 2022; Lee and Hicken 2016). Anticipatory stress is involves subjective experiences of stress that precedes an actual experience of stress (Utsey et al. 2013). Anticipatory stress may arouse psychological (e.g. worrying, rumination, or vigilance) or physiological (e.g. sweaty palms or increased heart rate) outcomes (Hope et al. 2022). Research investigating the efficiacy of race-related coping strategies among Black Americans engage indicates that certain coping responses may be associated with poorer mental health outcomes. For example, Lee and Hicken (2016) found that Black adults who were more vigilant to ward off or lessen potential experiences of racism were significantly more likely to experience depressive symptoms. Himmelstein et al. (2015) found that utilizing vigilance as a coping strategy intensified the relationship between discrimination and stress. Studies also indicated a positive correlation between exposure to community and police violence and hypervigilance (Smith et al. 2019).

While there is robust empirical evidence demonstrating that racism is a psychosocial stressor linked to deleterious mental health outcomes, less research has focused on how structures embedded within the social environment impact mental health. Geronimus et al. (2016) posited that systemic and avoidable inequities in health are deeply entrenched and maintained within the “surround.” The “surround” (Turner 2013) includes covert reminders that are embedded in everyday life that denote value based on one’s social group membership and is under-theorized within population health research (Geronimus et al. 2016). We use the framework of hyperracialized space to uncover how understudied mechanisms embedded within the environment or “surround” impact how Black residents interpret and navigate their environment and how their cumulative experiences impact their perceived mental health.

Strange Fruit: racial violence and a hyperracialized space

Strange Fruit is a poem that was written by Abel Meeropol (later popularized by songstress Billie Holiday) in protest of Black lynchings in the early twentieth century. Lynchings and other acts of racial violence are considered a form of social control to maintain White supremacy (DeFina and Hannon 2011; Petersen and Ward 2015; Tolnay, Beck, and Massey 1992). We draw from Blee’s (2005) work when conceptualizing racial violence and its impact on the health of Black residents. Blee’s (2005) reconceptualization of racial violence moves beyond definining racial violence solely based on individual intentional inflictions of harm and also considers the victims’ experiences and understanding of the acts inflicted upon them. Blee’s definition of racial violence “encourages attention to the ways in which larger social relations of subordination and dominance are implicated in both discrete acts and institutional policies of racial violence” (2005, 615). Racial violence also has “communicative, interpretive, and contextual” elements that make it more complex than at first glance (Blee 2005, 607). Scholars, including Blee (2005), argue that racial violence does not disappear; instead, it reconstitutes itself to conform to contemporary forms of White supremacy and informs future oppression (Reece and O’Connell 2016; Wacquant 2001). In the context of policing, racial violence has left an indelible mark on our legal system today (Durr 2015; Spruill 2016). For instance, modern policing in the south dates back to “slave patrolling,” which consisted of White patrollers policing enslaved people to prevent revolts and escapes (Durr 2015; Reichel 1988). Not long after, the Ku Klux Klan often “carried out the unlawful violence whites could no longer legally impose on freedmen by slave ownership and slave patrolling. Many white Southerners who came to see them as true “law enforcers” secretly condoned the Klan’s unrestrained violence against blacks” (Lang and Griffith 1994; as cited in Spruill 2016, 59). As articulated by Durr (2015, 875), “slave patrolling” has evolved into practices such as “stop-and-frisk and racial profiling.”

In this paper, we argue that a hyperracialized space is a context where historical racial violence becomes materialized into new forms of oppression. Similar to Wacquant’s (2001) position on how systems of oppression are reproduced—albeit more nuanced—to maintain racial hierarchies, a hyperracialized space has forces that preserve racial status as a means of social control. Three research questions guided our qualitative study: (1) How do Black residents perceive the construction of their environment? (2) How do Black residents navigate this space? (3) How do Black residents make meaning of how their environment impacts their mental health?

Data and research design

Triangulating hyperracialized spaces

This article focused on a subset of the data that illustrates how Black residents living in St. Louis County construct meaning of their experiences with racism and its impact on their mental health. Many spaces fit into what we define as hyperracialized; however, we focused on Missouri counties where certain forms of racial violence (i.e. reported lynchings, sundown towns, and Ku Klux Klan activity) had occurred. Although these forms of racial violence are not mutually exclusive, historically, they have shaped how racial and ethnic minorities navigate space.

To identify these forms of racial violence in Missouri, we collated data from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate group database (2017), racial terror lynchings from the Equal Justice Initiative (2017), and an online repository of “Historical Database of Sundown Towns²” by James Loewen (n.d.). Counties where all three forms of racial violence occurred include Franklin, New Madrid, Scott, and St. Louis County.

Recruitment and data collection

This study was approved by the University of Missouri Institutional Review Board (IRB #2013571 MU). Eligible study participants were recruited with the assistance of community partners (university extension sites) located in the counties of interest. Community partners at each extension site collected the name and contact information of eligible participants who frequented their establishment. Community partners distributed flyers advertising the study around their respective areas to further aid in recruitment. For example, flyers were distributed in local health and community centers. Once the community partners collected a significant number of names, we began contacting potential participants and scheduling phone interviews. Our sampling and recruitment measures resulted in phone interviews with 40 self-identified Black participants, aged 18 and over, who resided in a hyperracialized space in Missouri. Given our focus, the data explored in this article drew from 20 interviews conducted with participants living in St. Louis County.

Individual, in-depth phone interviews guided by a semi-structured interview protocol were conducted to understand how the participants 1) conceptualized living in a hyperracialized space, 2) negotiated residing in these spaces, and 3) how these experiences affected their mental health. The research team conducted the in-depth, individual phone interviews. A semi-structured interview protocol was essential for collecting rich and detailed interview data that aligned with our research questions. Deep reading and exploration of existing interdisciplinary literature that explored the intersections of race, the built environment, and health guided the initial construction of our semi-structured interview protocol. After exploring existing literature and refining how we operationalized concepts related to our research questions, the initial version of the interview protocol was reviewed by the research team and pilot tested. The final version of our protocol consisted of three sections, each targeting a different dimension of participants’ lived experiences.

We conducted forty in-depth phone interviews (May-July 2019). Each audio-recorded interview ranged from 45 to 90 minutes in length. After receiving their consent, the interviewer presented a brief overview of the study’s aim and then asked each participant to complete a short demographic survey (see Table 1). Ethnographic field notes that captured tangential conversations and social cues were also collected during each interview.

Table 1.

Participant sociodemographic characteristics.

Variable		N (%)
Total Age		20
	M(SD)	36.75 (16.68)
Gender
	Female	15 (75%)
	Male	5 (25%)
Marital Status
	Single	11 (55%)
	Married	5 (25%)
	Divorced	3 (15%)
	Widowed	1 (5%)
Highest Education Level
	High School Graduate	5 (25%)
	Some College	9 (45%)
	Bachelor’s Degree	3 (15%)
	Advanced Degree	3 (15%)
Income
	Less than $10,000	10 (50%)
	$10,000–19,999	2 (10%)
	$20,000-$29,999	1 (5%)
	$30,000-$39,999	1 (5%)
	$40,000-$49,999	1 (5%)
	Over $50,000	5 (25%)
Religious Affiliation
	Catholic	1 (5%)
	Christian	14 (70%)
	Other (Spiritual)	4 (20%)
	None	1 (5%)

Professional services were used to transcribe the interview data verbatim. All interview data were managed and coded using ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software. The data discussed in this article were coded using thematic analysis (Braun et al. 2012). Thematic analysis is an analytical method used to identify, analyze, and report thematic patterns within qualitative data (Braun et al. 2012). Thematic analysis provides tools to organize and describe qualitative data with rich and contextual details. We used thematic analysis to interrogate how participants negotiated and navigated living in a hyperracialized space and how they made meaning of its impact on their mental health.

The first authors adhered to the six phases of thematic analysis, guided by an inductive and constant comparative approach, to code and analyze the interview data (Braun and Clarke 2012). To begin phase 1 (becoming familiar with the data) of thematic analysis, the first authors randomly selected 10 transcripts and independently immersed themselves within the interviews to capture the depth and breadth of the data. After repeated readings of the data, the first authors engaged in open coding to generate a list of inductive codes (phase 2) and begin creating a coding framework. Open coding, or “breaking down, examining, comparing, and conceptualizing the data” (Strauss and Corbin 1998, 61) enabled the first authors to compile and collate a list of codes identified across the interviews. During phase 3 (searching for themes) and 4 (reviewing themes) the first authors identified and constructed relationships between the codes, themes, and different levels of themes (themes and subthemes). Constant comparison was integral to this step of data analysis as it allowed the first authors to strengthen the relationships between themes and subthemes by comparing them to newer themes discovered within the data. After steps 1–4 were complete, the first authors reconvened to discuss similarities and discrepancies in their codes to ensure consistent operationalization of codes. The first authors used the joint probability method of percent agreement to calculate intercoder reliability, which resulted in 90% agreement. The first authors established a finalized coding framework after reaching a consensus regarding how to engage with the data and center the participants’ narratives (phase 5). Analytic memos were created during this phase of coding. Phase 6 of thematic analysis involved using our codebook to analyze the entire data set.

Positionality and trustworthiness

Reflexivity is an integral component of qualitative research because it encourages researchers to assess and unpack the multiple ways in which their social identities and status intersect and influence how they navigate through multiple phases of a research project (Daly 2007). The authors used multiple methods to ensure that they remained reflexive of how their status and shared experiences could influence how they engaged with interview data. Journaling and memoing throughout data collection helped the authors center the participants’ narratives and actively confront unconscious assumptions. They returned to the journal entries and memos when analyzing the participants’ narratives to strengthen the data bracketed during data analysis. Peer debriefing was also employed. Debriefing with established scholars with expertise in race and racism during the data analysis process helped ground the research study’s commitment to centering the participants lived experiences.

Findings

Our study aimed to explore how areas marked by racial violence shape how Black individuals negotiate this space and their perceptions of their mental health and well-being. Participants’ narratives revealed the complexities of their lived experiences. For many participants, their interviews discussed how they make meaning of and navigate their hyperracialized environment and how navigating outside those spaces meant preparing for potential encounters with overt and covert forms of racism. Their narratives also revealed the mental health-related consequences of racism and shed light on the psychological toll of living and persisting in a hyperracialized space and how residents internalized and embodied their experiences to cope and protect themselves. We identified three themes and two subthemes via our analytic approach. In what follows, we explore the following themes: (1) Whiteness and the maintenance of a hyperracialized space, (2) unspoken rules of police encounters and the embodiment of self-regulation, (3) and hypervigilance.

Whiteness and the maintenance of a hyperracialized space

Rich narratives illustrating how participants’ believed Whiteness shaped their predominantly Black St. Louis County neighborhoods were consistent within each interview. We conceptualize Whiteness as a construct that privileges Whites (Harris 1993). How Whiteness operates is multifaceted and shapes “societal conditions, individual social characteristics and experiences, and psychosocial responses to circumstances to influence health outcomes” (Malat, Mayorga-Gallo, and Williams 2018, 148).

The theme of Whiteness and the maintenance of a hyperracialized space emerged from our analysis of participants’ responses to a series of interview questions prompting them to discuss, at length, various aspects of their community. Overwhelmingly, the narratives these questions unearthed detailed participants’ perceptions of how Whiteness—through two central pathways—operated as a mechanism to other and unequally structured their predominantly Black environments. Namely, the participants pointed to how they believed the media was used as a tool to perpetuate anti-Black racism in the form of denigrating stereotypes (subtheme one) and how White flight and fear of their predominantly Black neighborhood (as perpetuated by the media) adversely impacted the resources in their community (subtheme two). While the participants did not explicitly use the term Whiteness, their response to the interview questions about aspects of their community openly critiqued the unquestioned and anti-Black norms that their community was unfairly judged by that resulted in their neighborhoods being deemed less than compared to other areas. Their narratives and shared experiences also illuminated how the economic and ideological benefits (i.e. not being seen as a threat or dangerous) that afforded White’s safety and humanity simultaneously disenfranchised and oppressed Black people. For many of the participants, Whiteness represented cultural and political practices that further marginalized and excluded their communities, which in turn, negatively impacted their health.

Media and the perpetuation of racist stereotypes

Throughout each interview, participants consistently critiqued how the media and local news outlets pathologized their predominantly Black neighborhoods as “dangerous,” “crime-ridden,” “the ghetto,” and “full of guns and poverty.” While many participants openly interrogated and critiqued the biased nature of how local media portrayed their neighborhood, a recurrent theme within their discussions centered on the historic nature of these racist messages and its impact on how White people perceived Black people and majority-Black neighborhoods. According to Sheila, a 44-year-old resident of multiple predominantly Black communities in St. Louis County,

It’s just historic. It’s so sad to say that, but it is historic when you get it ingrained in your head through media or through news it influences what people have been taught and told. It feeds their ingrained fear of Black people.

As Shelia points out in her excerpt, while anti-Black rhetoric is not a new phenomenon, it can have material consequences and shape how individuals are perceived. Likewise, during her interview, Stacy, a 40-year-old lifelong resident, was forthright in assessing how she believed the media perpetuated racist views about Black communities in St. Louis. However, for Stacy, the media directly impacted how she negotiated and navigated spaces in her community. She stated, “I just think we always have to prove ourselves. I think we always have to prove, no I’m not coming in the store to steal, no I’m not coming here to hold you up”. When asked why she thought people hold such perceptions, she stated,

What they see on TV tells them that we are dangerous, we are monsters, which makes White people look at all Black people the same, oh my god, they dangerous, here they come. But, you know, it’s like what you see on TV becomes the truth. You know, because they [White people] don’t know Black people or don’t work with them or don’t live in that area, so they think everybody’s the same from what you see on TV.

Like Shelia, Stacy’s narrative harkens back to how the media operates as a means to create fear of Black people. Stacy’s internalization of these messages, as evident by the need to prove they [Black people] are not a threat, illustrates how the discourses perpetuated by the media negatively impact her physically and psychologically. Rhonda, a 37-a-year-old lifelong resident, affirmed the assessment above. Cognizant that violence could occur in any environment regardless of race, Rhonda, discussed how she felt as though the media sensationalized occurrences of violence in Black St. Louis communities and its negative impact.

Leave it up to the news, violence is a common daily occurrence here in Black neighborhoods. The news has a powerful influence-But you really don’t know what the extent is because the news is only going to report violence in the areas in which they want you to know that are violent. But it might not necessarily be like that. It’s probably violent but not to the extent that they make it out to be. And it doesn’t help that people in more affluent, White communities, are not willing to understand what’s going on in my community. But they’re willing to talk about it and parrot back whatever they’ve heard on the news without actually stepping foot over here and interacting with these community members.

As evident within Rhonda’s narrative, discussions of the local media allowed participants to reconcile their subjugation and the forces that perpetuate it. Her narrative also highlights the lack of humanity bestowed to Black communities in St. Louis. The narratives within this theme illustrate the insidiousness of racist ideologies perpetrated by local news and media and underscore how such messages feed into a fear of the participants’ communities, which further aids in segregation and divide.

Fear and the disappearance of resources

Within their interviews, many participants openly grappled with the intersections of White flight, fear, and the disappearance of resources within their predominately Black neighborhoods. In line with participants’ critiques of the media’s impact, the narratives highlighted in this subtheme depict the material consequences of Whiteness (i.e. a lack of community resources) due to anti-Blackness and the stereotypes White people place on Black communities. As stated by Candy, a 50-year-old lifelong resident, “ … it’s kind of like a revolving door of, like, White people coming out, and then Black people coming in. They’re in and out and in and out, more White people have gone and more Black people have come in, and the less our community has.” In her interview, Simone, a 25-year-old college student recounted the changes she has seen within her community and its relation to how her community is perceived.

I’m concerned about my neighborhood. Some people, White people, consider areas where there’s a lot of low-income African Americans as the hood. That it’s ghetto, it’s dangerous, that’s where all the gang members are. It makes me concerned about what else we’re going to lose, business-wise. And how hard it is for us to get more, to get more help with things in this community. Like, right now at the corner of Chambers and West Florissant, we have about five payday loan places, maybe four or five. I’m very concerned about resources in my community, it’s very scary.

Within her interview, Simone shared how White peoples’ perceptions of her neighborhood shape its resources. Elyse, a 44-year-old and fairly new resident and native of Illinois, mirrors the sentiments expressed within this theme. Unlike most of the participants who have lived in St. Louis County for the majority of their life, Elyse recounts how over the past year in her new residence, she has noticed a shift in the landscape and resources her community has.

So it’s interesting at the very least, you definitely see the change. You also see a lack of access to health care and grocery stores, and an increase of liquor stores-things that are just not healthy for you. You’ll see more of those and Payday Loans, things like that, than you do health care- Things you wouldn’t find in white neighborhoods.

When prompted to elaborate about why she thinks those differences exist, Stacy pointed to the “heightened racial tension in St. Louis County” as the cause of the differences in communities. Like the narratives shared above, several participants expressed concern and unease about the gradual change and decline in resources within their community. In her interview Tonya, a 26-year-old community activist and lifelong resident of St. Louis County admitted,

It’s hard, because in St. Louis County, we’ve seen a lot of resources leave since 2000. There is a lot of joblessness in this area. And a lot of that I feel is ultimately fear of this area. I live in an area that is in between unincorporated [St. Louis] and Ferguson, Missouri, and near Jennings, Missouri, which are also considered, low income African American cities. I do think there is a lot of fear about this area hearing white people talk about this area, especially, is always hard, because they talk a lot about, like, it’s dangerous.

When asked a probing question about how she perceived White people’s fear of her neighborhood and the resources found in her community were connected she elaborated by stating,

So, when it comes to how the news portray these areas, they always portray them as violent and scary, and like it’s as soon as you step foot outside, something’s gonna happen to you. And what they don’t understand is that these areas have dealt with a lot of white flight, they’ve dealt with a lot of resources being taken away. And they don’t understand that when a community is in need, and when there is, there is high stress, and you can’t get to the resources you can get to, there tends to be a bit of chaos throughout the area.

Related to the ideas expressed within the first subtheme, Tonya’s quote bridges both subthemes. Tonya’s admission explains why violence may occur within predominantly Black communities – not because these communities are inherently violent, but because violence results from conflict over limited resources. According to participants, resources have disappeared due to fear and White flight.

Unspoken rules of police encounters and the embodiment of self-regulation

Participants openly discussed how police operated as community gate-keepers within their predominantly Black St. Louis County neighborhoods throughout each interview. Participants’ discussions illustrated how they believed that police operated outside the boundaries of protecting and serving their communities, and more so as a structural force to keep Black individuals within their respective neighborhoods and control their behavior. Participants’ narratives detailing their encounters with St. Louis police were unanticipated and emerged from interview questions seeking to learn more about how they navigated their environment. Their accounts of personal and secondhand encounters with St. Louis police illustrated how such occurrences were normalized and quotidian. Analysis of their narratives also revealed how the participants internalized and embodied their frequent encounters with police. Perhaps the most prevalent discussion to emerge within each interview was that for many participants, potential or actual encounters with St. Louis police became an embodied and self-regulatory experience which resulted in participants’ policing their behaviors to mitigate potential encounters. For example, the sentiment below shared by Mia, a 45-year-old lifelong resident, was prevalent across many interviews.

I’m just very aware, like who I am, and who I am with, when I’m driving because I could be pulled over for anything. And if you see me I look very harmless- … like a bookworm but that’s not gonna matter (laughs) to the police-if they’re just pulling you over for anything … So, that’s one of the things that always hangs in the back of my mind when I’m driving. It causes stress that can tax your system because you don’t know when you’re gonna be pulled over by a cop.

Many participants, like Mia, acknowledged that regardless of their appearance, simply being Black was a potential reason for getting pulled over by the police. Mia’s excerpt also touches upon the stress tied to driving while Black in St. Louis and is one of many narratives that shed light on the unspoken rules participants follow to mitigate potential encounters with police. Within her interview, Kelly, a 33-year-old native of St. Louis County, shared advice that she admitted had been instilled in her from a very young age that she credits to helping her avoid potential encounters with police.

There’s rules that we’ve grown up with. Don’t ever ride three or four deep in a car. It was just a rule, never ride, if you have people in your car, ride two people per car. Because you going to get pulled over if there’s more than two black people in the car.

The participants’ narratives speak to the unwritten rules of driving while Black and how residents police themselves to lessen their chances of encountering police. Statements such as “make sure your plates are right, car is registered,” “know who is in your car,” and “don’t speed or drive through White neighborhoods” were common across interviews. Participants’ narratives revealed how they went beyond ubiquitous safety measures (e.g. wearing a seatbelt) to implementing strategies to help mitigate encounters with police due to their race. During her interview, Carol, a 36-year-old longtime resident shared a personal story involving an interaction she witnessed between a family member and the St. Louis police.

I see police randomly pulling people over all day long- … looking in their cars. I’ve even seen police, if they’re chasing someone, they will shoot, and ask questions later. My cousin, he got locked up, and the police, they beat him up really, really bad. He was driving and they thought he had a weapon. They was locking him up, and he was like, “I didn’t have a weapon, I followed directions,” and, you know, and they actually beat him up pretty bad. That’s police brutality, it’s like, why do they have to go to a certain extent just to restrain someone? You know, if they’re complying. It makes me feel pretty sad that they would go to such extreme measures, it’s like they’re trying to send out a message. Like, “You, you need to behave or this will happen to you,” and that’s not how you, they need to do things. They’re still beating us, they’re still shooting us, and asking questions later. It’s sad that a Black man don’t stand a chance in hell. I mean, you can’t just be out here just bull shitting around, you have to be on your Ps and Qs and being a good citizen, a productive citizen or it might not be looking good for you.

Carol’s recollection speaks to the embodiment of self-regulation and how such behaviors originate due to encounters with police and are subsequently transmitted through Black communities. Sentiments such as “being a good citizen,” “always being on your P’s and Q’s,” and “you have to behave” communicate the need to self-regulate to be safe and were common across interviews. Within her interview, Hope, a 30-year-old mother of two school-age boys, shared a personal story detailing the anxiety she faces when she gets pulled over. Hope was one of very few participants who discussed how encounters with police impacted her and her children.

When we get pulled over- … my hands are directly on that steering wheel, and I don’t reach for anything. And I know a lot of people do the same thing, but my mind is that I, I have a higher possibility of getting shot than you do. And so when the police officer walks up to me, and they go “License and registration,” I don’t reach for anything. I say, “It’s in my purse. It’s in my glove compartment. Do you mind if I reach for it? It’s in my purse. I’m grabbing it,” and as I’m going, I’m saying it; “I am grabbing my wallet, I am grabbing my license from my wallet. I am grabbing this and that.” I had my kids in the back one time that I got pulled over, and they were doing all their stuff; you know just being kids or whatever like that. And I remember when the cop walked back from my car, that he went back into his car, I yelled at them so loud. I said, “Don’t you ever do that when a cop is there. They will shoot you.” And I stopped, and I was like oh my god. Like where did that come from? I had to stop myself. I’m like they’re kids. They didn’t know. Don’t put that fear in them, that the cop will shoot them. But in my head I’m like it can happen. It could happen.

Like Carol, Hope’s narrative illustrates how embodiment takes place and how participants self-regulate themselves as a means of protection. As shared within her narrative, Hope outlines the meticulous steps she takes to protect herself and her children during a traffic stop. However, the experience Hope shared—particularly, how she interacted with her children during this traffic stop—demonstrates how such encounters have become embodied and how that embodiment impacts her physically and emotionally. Conversations about St. Louis police and the impact of their prescence spanned a significant portion of the interviews. When asked about encounters with the St. Louis police, many participants discussed the unspoken rules they adhere to and how they comport their bodies to withstand such encounters.

Hypervigilance

The participants’ narratives describing their mental health elucidated the toll of navigating a hyperracialized space. Experiences of hypervigilance and the physical manifestations (e.g. discomfort, frustration, nervousness, short and shallow breathing) that accompanied these occurrences permeated each interview, so much so that it seemed second nature to participants. The magnitude at which participants spoke of manifestations of hypervigilance suggests that these behaviors operated as a protective mechanism that helped prepare them for racist encounters whenever they left their homes. This theme emerged from questions that asked participants to discuss how living in St. Louis impacted their mental health. The quote provided by Thomasina, a 40-year-old resident, encapsulates the feelings many of the participants shared.

Being here for so long, you’re used to the oppression that you feel here [you prepare]. I think there’s always some underlying, discomfort being around white people. I think it’s more so you never know what they’re going to say, what they’re going to do, if they’re going to piss you off.

Thomasina’s feelings of constantly being on guard to detect potential danger as a result of navigating White spaces or interacting with Whites is indicative of hypervigilance. Like many of the participants highlighted within this theme, Thomasina engaged in hypervigilance as a survival tactic. Thomas, a 19-year-old out-of-state college student, admitted how traveling within St. Louis County as a Black man made him “hyper-aware of his surroundings, on edge, and defensive”. He also stated, “I always, I’m always on-guard and ready to defend myself … if I need to.” Liam, a 24-year-old native of Illinois, echoed the feelings shared by Thomas when he stated how living in St. Louis County makes him

… very watchful of myself and my behavior. Just because I know that you have people that are lowkey racist, and they will see you and they will get nervous, and they will say something to you. And if someone says … it, it’s frustrating. So, if someone says anything to you, can’t really defend yourself, like- … it’s the one where you get in my face, I wouldn’t be able to, like, hit them or something, because I know that I’d get in trouble more. So, I just get very watchful. I don’t always feel that way, but only in, like, the more affluent the area, the more I’m watchful.

When questioned about how living in St. Louis County impacted her health and well-being, Tiffany, a 25-year-old resident, provided candid details illustrating how hypervigilance manifests for her.

And it starts, it starts that whole dialog in your head where, where you’re telling that story to yourself like oh, my goodness, are they looking at me, or, you know, am I gonna say the wrong thing, or how, how are they gonna think of me and things like that, which when I noticed that I also notice the sensation of like I feel it in the pit of my stomach now- … you know? I feel when my breath is getting shorter and more shallow- … I feel that lump in my throat, I feel those thoughts, you know, like that, that they just close you in.

While hypervigilance has been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, Tiffany’s narrative illustrates the physical consequences of hypervigilance. Experiences of hypervigilance were a daily and pervasive occurrence for the participants of this study. As evidenced by their narratives, such intense manifestations of hypervigilance shaped their mental health and how they navigated their environment. The physical manifestations that accompanied participants’ experiences of hypervigilance also provide evidence regarding how this state of hyperarousal may be linked to adverse mental and physical health outcomes.

Discussion

Our findings contribute to health disparities literature by illustrating how manifestations of racism and Whiteness embedded within an environment shape how minoritized populations, in this case, Black residents, navigate and negotiate White spaces and how these adaptions evoke deleterious psychological outcomes such as chronic hypervigilance. Using qualitative methods, we centered participants’ lived experiences to understand how manifestations of racial violence—perpetuated through the media, by contact with police, or through the siphoning of neighborhood resources—produced harmful psychological, social, and material consequences. Participants’ narratives revealed how manifestations of Whiteness othered and unequally structured their predominately Black environments through institutional and individual practices. As evidenced by participants’ responses, these acts may make Black residents more vulnerable to negative social and health-related consequences.

Participants’ narratives also emphasized how cumulative experiences of negative encounters with police become an embodied experience that adversely impacts how they drive, walk, and interact within their environment. Strategies used to traverse space were often direct responses to how individuals and institutions treat Black residents. Like Elijah Anderson’s work (2015), participants engaged in a “dance” to dispel Black stereotypes as a survival mechanism. These strategies included “always being on your Ps and Qs,” or “hands are directly on that steering wheel” when being approached by a police officer. These results are not suprising given recent findings from the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into the Ferguson Police Department, which highlighted a pattern of discriminatory and for-profit policing of the city’s Black residents. Although Black residents comprise 67% of the city’s population, in 2013 they made up 85% of vehicle stops, 90% of citations, and 93% of arrests (USDJCRD 2015). The DOJ concluded their report by noting that Ferguson’s history of racially-biased police enforcement and excessive use of force by a predominantly White police staff has undermined public safety and contributed to a climate of resentment and mistrust between police and the city’s Black residents (USDJCRD 2015).

For many respondents, their mental health was also impacted by residing in a hyperracialized space. Findings suggested that daily interactions within hyperracialized spaces may catalyze anxiety, fear, and stress. For example, when asked to describe how living in a hyperracialized space affected their mental health, participants underscored how these spaces induced a chronic state of hypervigilance or anticipation of exposure to racial discrimination. As Smith, Hung, and Franklin (2011) articulate, “racism and racial microaggressions operate as psycho-pollutants in the social environment and add to the overall race-related stress for Black men, Black women, and other racially marginalized groups” (67). Consequently, residence in these spaces often triggered defensive psychosocial responses—such as being more watchful or always having one’s guard up—that aimed to reduce the prevalence of racial discrimination or, at minimum, to psychologically prepare an individual for encountering racial stressors.

Despite harboring important implications regarding hyperracialized space, racism, and health, the current study has limitations. First, our data are limited to respondents in Missouri. Future research should examine the association between space, coping, and mental health in other areas marked by a legacy of racial violence. Second, our county selection only reflects reported or suspected incidents of racial violence; therefore, we cannot account for any under- or over-reporting (see Tolnay and Beck 1995) in the state. Third, we could not empirically test whether living in a hyperracialized space operates as a more robust conduit for poorer health outcomes relative to residence in other areas. Scholars should consider adopting a case study approach to address the issues posed, particularly to compare the physiological and psychosocial responses of individuals residing inside and outside of hyperracialized space. Fourth, our sample was primarily comprised of female participants (75%). We acknowledge that additional recruitment efforts could have been put in place, such as snowball sampling, to recruit more men to participate in the in-depth phone interviews. In addition to recruiting a more balanced sample, future research should also examine how race, gender, and other axes of oppression intersect to engender heterogeneity in the nature, frequency, and severity of exposure to race-related stressors within hyperracialized spaces. Lastly, given the psychosocial significance of residence in hyperracialized space, it may be fruitful to devote future empirical work to examining the underpinnings of these spaces, and specifically, how the legacies of historical racial atrocities become mobilized within present-day interactions and perceptions.

Conclusion

This study examined how Black residents of St. Louis County perceive and navigate living in a hyperracialized space and its mental health implications. We posited that occupying hyperracialized space may foster psychological responses that engender poor mental health outcomes due to exposure to institutional and interpersonal racism. We found that hyperracialized spaces are sustained through individual and institutional acts, which shape how Black residents perceive and navigate space. For many respondents, living in a hyperracialized space elicited psychological responses—including anxiety, stress, and hypervigilance—due to the persistent racial stressors that permeated the environment. Policy efforts should focus on interventions that can help ameliorate racial health inequalities.