Cognitive reappraisal of oppression rather than structural change is ethically problematic and demobilizing

Evidence

These biased perceptions may very well require a reappraisal of the situation and cognitive changes that are proposed in the target article as a key strategy in achieving indirect emotion regulation. However, many of the situations just described entail not imagined or exaggerated but actual conditions of victimization and injustice. For example, it is a fact that the Turkish government denies the Armenian genocide, and not a biased perception (Ak¸cam, 2007; Bilali, 2013). Palestinians undeniably have been subjected to killing of civilians, arbitrary arrests, severe restriction of movement, destruction of properties, and other human rights violations due to the Israeli occupation (Human Rights Watch, 2009, 2010, 2012). Ongoing racism in the United States resulting in structural and direct violence against African Americans has real consequences for African Americans’ life expectations, mental and physical health, and opportunities (Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999; Pager & Shepherd, 2008; Pieterse, Todd, Neville, & Carter, 2012). Encouraging a reappraisal of these situations as anything else than oppression seems problematic for ethical reasons, and focusing on cognitive rather than structural change can undermine the potential for ending these unjust conditions. — Johanna Ray Vollhardt and Michelle Sinayobye Twali, Emotion-Based Reconciliation Requires…, 22

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the stated reading purpose on asymmetry: reappraisal framed as symmetrical fails when groups differ in whether their grievance is fact vs. bias. Connects to critical consciousness literature (Freirean) and cognitive reappraisal in emotion-regulation theory. — connects to: Remorse about injustice functions as moral self-validation while oppression continues; Blaming the system and revolting against it are effective adaptive responses to discrimination; Framing discrimination as individual hate obscures its structural and policy-based causes — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 34
• DEEPTHINKING: The core structural-asymmetry insight: a cognitive strategy lifted wholesale from individual emotion regulation presumes the appraisal to be reappraised is a distortion, but for subordinate groups the appraisal is accurate — the same technique therefore functions as ideology when transferred across power lines.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what distinguishes ‘healthy’ reappraisal of genuine oppression (per some therapy literatures) from the demobilizing reappraisal the author warns against — is the line drawn by whether structural change remains on the agenda?

Broader Connections

• Blaming the system and revolting against it are effective adaptive responses to discrimination #corroborates (0.78)
• Remorse about injustice functions as moral self-validation while oppression continues #corroborates (0.75)
• Framing discrimination as individual hate obscures its structural and policy-based causes #expands (0.72) — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 34