An Issue of Racial Justice: Black Mothers' Experiences of Community Violence and Perceptions of Community Safety

Background and Purpose: Several socioecological factors have been studied as determinants of mental health disparities among Black Americans. However, while recognizing the unique challenges of mothering within urban neighborhoods characterized by concentrated disadvantage, the relation between the experience of intersectional oppression and mental health among Black mothers has been understudied and undertheorized. Building on an important body of neighborhood and health research this paper centers the experiences of Black mothers to advance understanding of how neighborhood perceptions are influenced by dimensions of racism, and to examine how exposure to community violence and racial discrimination in the context of neighborhoods characterized by socioeconomic disadvantage relate to individual mental health experiences of Black mothers.

Methods: Sixteen in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with low-income Black mothers living in high-burden urban communities. This sample of Black women were between the ages of 23 and 50 (M = 35), 53% completed some college or beyond, and they all reported a total family income of $40K. All the mothers had at least one elementary aged child. Participants were recruited via electronic flyers and my attendance at community meetings in educators, youth-serving organizations, and parents were present. Drawing on a phenomenological approach to qualitative research, I used a hybrid coding process for deductive and inductive thematic analysis to interpret raw data and text on the lived experiences of Black mothers engaged in motherwork in the context of communities characterized by socioeconomic disadvantage. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded using MAXQDA qualitative software.

Findings: Data analysis reveals that low-income Black mothers perceive and experience racism as embedded in place (i.e., community contexts) and through their experience of community violence exposure. Black mothers also experience racism through their perception of inequities between predominately Black and predominately White neighborhoods. Analysis also suggests motherhood and the task of mothering in these community contexts is dominated by the fear of keeping children safe from violence which leads to experiences of depression and anxiety. Many mothers described a range of feelings in response to their everyday lived experiences of racism in the context of their neighborhoods including, sadness, disappointment, frustration, injustice, powerlessness, and angry. Further, mothers were explicit in their belief that living in a safer community would immediately provide relief from this constant fear and worry. Mothers offered described the ability to feel “calm” and have “the chance to breathe” when asked to imagine mothering in safer community contexts.

Conclusion and Implications: This study provides evidence of how Black mothers perceive and experience community violence as a form of racial injustice. Findings also provide insight into how Black mothers envision safety for themselves, their children and the broader community. Findings from this study have important implications for the development of culturally relevant mental health interventions for urban dwelling Black mothers. These findings can also help to inform social work research, practice and policies concerned with understanding and reducing the detrimental effects of neighborhood-level stressors among marginalized people and communities and dismantling structural racism to achieve mental health equity for racially marginalized communities.