"They Just Don't Get It": Towards Social Technologies for Coping with Interpersonal Racism

Over 35% of Americans belong to racial minority groups. Racism targeting these individuals results in a range of harmful physical, psychological, and practical consequences. The present work aims to shed light on the current sense-making and support-seeking practices exhibited by targets of racism, as well as to identify the core needs and barriers that future socio-technical interventions could potentially address. The long-term goal of this work is to understand how CSCW researchers and designers could best support members of marginalized groups to make sense of and to seek support for experiences with racism. Narrative episode interviews with targets of racism revealed a number of key entry points for intervention. For example, participants’ personal stories confirmed that uncertainty, both about the nature and consequences of the experience of racism, is a key motivator for support-seeking. In addition, despite the need for support, participants largely do not trust public forms of social media for support-seeking. We discuss how participants’ accounts of the complex labor involved in determining who "gets it" in identifying potential supporters, and in navigating the complexities of trust and agency in sharing their experiences, present clear implications for the design of new socio-technical platforms for members of racial minority groups.