Boniuk Institute research offers new insights into how Christians of different racial groups use faith to cope with perceived racial discrimination at work. Findings conclude that Christians of color and White Christians primarily draw on religious frames such as forgiveness and divine sovereignty to cope with perceived discrimination; however, further probing also reveals some unintended consequences of faith as a coping mechanism.
Faith offers practices and principles that allow Christians of color to survive structural racism - offering comfort and hope; sublimating hurt, anger, and frustration; and providing frames such as divine purpose or protection that enable survival and sustainability within racialized systems. For Christians of color, drawing inner strength from one's faith functions as a coping strategy in work contexts where they are structurally disadvantaged. Christians of color credit faith with helping them manage their emotions amid demeaning situations and to persevere without reacting. In doing so, faith practices and principles help individuals process and release emotions that might have significant material, social, and personal repercussions if expressed openly in the workplace as well as negative mental health impacts if internalized.
Faith also aids the production of ignorance about the experiences of people of color and the resistance of White dominance in the workplace, even while reinforcing a narrative of a White aggrieved self. For White Christians, faith in divine sovereignty and forgiveness is credited with helping them accept instances where they feel they are victims of stereotypes, unjust censure, and denial of opportunities.
Religion offers supportive frames for both White Christians and Christians of color, and affirms religion as a coping mechanism, confirming religion as a sources of comfort and agency for individuals experiencing perceived workplace racial discrimination. The authors also find that religion tends to support schemas that encourage forbearance rather than resistance to racial discrimination. This, religion operates as a compensatory coping resource and a schema to legitimize racial hierarchy and White dominance.
In the rare cases where participants reported being motivated by religion to challenge workplace discrimination, the study reports that the cases were limited by the realities of the workplace where organized action in resistance to authority are often discouraged or penalized. Thus, even if respondents were motivated by religion to challenge racial discrimination, these responses may not have led to significant structural, institutional, or ideological changes in their workplace.
This research was funded by "Faith at Work: An Empiracal Study," Lilly Endowment, Inc, #2017 0021, Elaine Howard Ecklund, PI, Denise Daniels, Co-PI.