Race, Racism, and CBPR: Taming the elephant in the room

Community-based participatory research partnerships occur in a social context that is unequal. Recently, these community-academic partnerships have focused on racial and ethnic health disparities, bringing together predominantly White institutions with communities of color. The inequities in power, resources and funding opportunities are not only based on the institutional differences but the racial context as well. The goal of this presentation is to describe how the larger context of racism can influence the processes and outcomes of partnerships. Mistrust, miscommunication and initially weak relationships that are common in community-academic partnerships are rooted in the social context of race and racism. These factors shape the interactions that occur between parties and the experiences each brings to the interactions. The socialization that occurs in people's lives prior to their embarking on these partnerships, the experiences that People of Color have had with predominantly White institutions, and the experiences academic partners have had with communities of color have important implications for the health and functioning of community-academic partnerships, though these factors frequently go unexamined. We will utilize a framework for understanding structural and institutional racism and examples from our partnership to illustrate how racism can exacerbate problems rooted in power differences, and how these problems can be addressed. We will argue that it is critical to the health of multi-racial partnerships to explicitly discuss and address race, racial differences, and racism, and we will offer suggestions on how to understand and address racism in community-based participatory research partnerships.