Racism can make you sick

Meryam Schouler-Ocak knows the looks first-hand: "I was on a train recently, sitting across from two older women, who kept looking me up and down the whole time, staring."

At first, she thought they may have seen a stain on her clothes, or that she had left a button open somewhere. But it wasn't that. It was the fact that she had dark hair and was of Turkish descent. "Microaggression" is how Schouler-Ocak describes such forms of racial discrimination.

"Many people with a migration background, dark skin or dark hair, experience it almost every day," she said.

Dismissive stares, dumb jokes and jibes – racial discrimination like that can accumulate and make people who experience it clinically sick, she explained.

Schouler-Ocak, who is a specialist in psychiatry, psychotherapy and neurology at the Charite University Hospital and St. Hedwig Hospital in Berlin added, "It can get as bad as post-traumatic stress syndrome or other psychiatric illnesses."

Racism can lead to depression and anxiety

Like any form of discrimination – be it sexism or anti-Semitism – racism is designed to hurt. Racists subject people to demoralising and alienating insults about their cultural or geographical background, their hair colour or just about anything that's part of their personality.

The problem is deeper than snarky remarks in person or online. There are structural and institutional forms of racism that disadvantage people looking for a place to live or find a new job.

"If you have dark skin, a foreign-sounding name, or wear a headscarf, you've been dealt a bad hand" in cultures where those things aren't true for the majority, said Schouler-Ocak. And when the insults and hurt are constant, they can leave lasting effects.

"Racial discrimination can have a significant impact on a person's health," said Schouler-Ocak. People who experience this kind of discrimination are twice as likely to suffer from mental illness than people who don't experience it, she said.

The risk of developing anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), addiction or a psychosis increases. This is because racial discrimination influences brain activity, said Schouler-Ocak. "Certain brain regions get dysregulated, just as with other forms of psychiatric illness."

Living in collective housing centres

People living in collective housing or migration shelters appear to face an elevated risk of developing mental health issues, said Schouler-Ocak, who researches the effects of intercultural migration on mental health.   

In addition to the trauma of having fled their homes, leaving family and friends behind, there's the stress of unemployment, lack of privacy and private spaces – and discrimination.

"Experiences like that, which can follow someone who has fled their home country, have a cumulative effect," said Schouler-Ocak. And the more of it there is, the worse it gets.

The psychiatrist said the consequences of such psychological illnesses are often underestimated. Mental health illnesses rarely come alone. The stress experienced through racial discrimination can manifest physically, too: high blood pressure and overweight are common symptoms, said Schouler-Ocak. It can also lead to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

"Pregnant women are at higher risk of pre-term births and their babies can have a low birth weight," Schouler-Ocak said.

Higher death rates due to discrimination

All this can lead to higher death rates among those who are subjected to racial discrimination – that's according to findings published in The Lancet Psychiatry. Researchers studied the mental health effects of racism on Black people in the United States.

There are other indications to suggest that racial discrimination can also affect the health of a person's children or even grandchildren. While there is insufficient data at this point, epigeneticists are looking at how experiencing racism can affect a person's genes. 

"Racism and racist structures have grown through history and are therefore tightly bound up with society," said Schouler-Ocak. 

Human rights organisation Amnesty International, meanwhile, says that whether intentional or not, most white people behave in racist ways. So, it is important, Schouler-Ocak said, to be aware of all the various forms of racism to be able to change one's behaviour and language.

Julia Vergin

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