Every time someone gaslights you, invalidates your feelings, or questions your experience when you experience racism, they’re not just dismissing your feelings. They’re also ignoring what’s happening inside your body.
Your racing heart. Your rising blood pressure. The stress hormones are flooding your system. The literal physical damage occurs in real time.
This isn’t hyperbole or oversensitivity. It’s science.
Racism doesn’t just hurt your feelings. It hurts your body. It changes your brain chemistry. It shortens your life expectancy. And the data proves it.
I created Randi B. because I saw a pattern that deeply troubled me. As I moved from organization to organization doing DEI work, I witnessed something heartbreaking. Black people were suffering, but they weren’t allowed to talk about it. And that silence only made everything worse.
That’s why Randi B. exists. I wanted to create a safe space where we could finally speak our truth about experiences that are literally making us sick.
Let’s be real about something that doesn’t get discussed enough: racism harms your physical and mental health in measurable, scientific ways. This isn’t just my opinion. The research backs this up.
What Racism Does to Your Mental Health
When you experience racism, whether it’s a “small” microaggression or something more overt, your body processes it as trauma. Yes, actual trauma. This isn’t being “too sensitive” or “making everything about race.” This is your brain and body responding to a genuine threat.
This racial trauma shows up as anxiety that keeps you on edge, wondering when the next incident will happen. It manifests as depression that can make even getting out of bed feel impossible some days. For many, the chronic stress of racism can even trigger symptoms that look exactly like PTSD—hypervigilance, intrusive thoughts, difficulty sleeping.
I’ve seen how racism erodes people’s sense of self-worth, creating feelings of shame that no one should have to carry. And sometimes, when the pain becomes too much, people turn to substances just to cope with a reality that feels unbearable.
Your Body Absorbs What Your Mind Can’t Process
But here’s what many people don’t realize. Racism doesn’t just stay in your head. Your body absorbs every slight, every discriminatory act, every system stacked against you.
That stress shows up as high blood pressure. A recent study found that experiencing racism increases inflammation in your body, which directly contributes to heart disease. Your immune system weakens under this constant pressure, leaving you more vulnerable to illness.
The data from UCLA Health shows that racism leads to higher rates of chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes. These aren’t coincidences or just “genetic predispositions”. They’re the physical manifestation of racism in our bodies.
It Goes Beyond Individual Health
The impacts of racism extend far beyond just our individual bodies and minds. It creates social isolation, cutting people off from the community when they need it most. Discrimination limits access to economic resources, causing financial hardship that creates its own cascade of health problems.
Then there’s the healthcare system itself, where people of color often face discrimination that makes getting quality care nearly impossible. And let’s not forget environmental racism. Our communities disproportionately bear the burden of pollution, leading to respiratory diseases and cancer.
Why We Need to Talk About This
Here’s why I’m so passionate about creating spaces to discuss these realities: silence makes it worse. When we can’t name what’s happening to us, when we’re told our experiences aren’t real or that we’re overreacting, the harm compounds.
Every time someone dismisses racism as “not that serious” or suggests we just need to “toughen up,” they’re ignoring the very real physical toll these experiences take. You can’t just “get over” something that’s actively affecting your cardiovascular system, your immune response, and your brain chemistry.
I believe that acknowledging this reality is the first step toward healing. Creating safe spaces where people can speak honestly about their experiences is about physical survival.
Because racism isn’t just a social issue or a political talking point. It’s a public health crisis that deserves to be treated with the seriousness it demands.
And until we can talk openly about how racism makes us sick, we can’t begin to get well.
