1. A Studied Approach
USC PROFESSOR TACKLES CONTROVERSIAL,
PERSONAL SUBJECT
BY EMILY STEVENSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY K. CAMPBELL PHOTOGRAPHY

2. FEBRUARY 2016 GREATER COLUMBIA BUSINESS MONTHLY | 27
S
ome professors worry about
tenure. Dr. Cheryl Armstead has
bigger concerns.
“As a professor, now it’s almost
scary to give a lecture not knowing if
there is another gunman wanting to
shoot me because he doesn’t agree with
what I teach,” she says.“Things were
changing ever so slightly, but now history
is repeating.”
You see,Armstead studies racism.And
that’s not always a popular subject.
She has researched the topic of
racism since 1989, and has been with
the University of South Carolina for the
past 21 years. She is currently a professor
in the department of psychology, as well
as an adjunct professor with the Arnold
School of Public Health.
HEALTH CONCERNS
One of the main focal points of
Armstead’s research is the effect of racism
on stress and health outcomes. She previ-
ously led a study in 1996, but is currently
updating the questionnaire to do another
study.
“I’m attempting to make it fit what’s
going on in the workplace and what’s
going on in South Carolina with some
of the viewpoints and changes that have
occurred,” she explains.“Racism has
moved into something that’s more subtle
but also more violent.”
It’s something that bears studying.
While Armstead has learned that
exposure to institutionalized and
beneficent racism cause higher rates of
depression and stress, it can also lead to
biological health issues, often with severe
consequences.
According to statistics provided by
the American Heart Association/Amer-
ican Stroke Association, cardiovascular
diseases are the leading cause of death for
African-American women, killing more
than 48,000 annually.African-Americans
also have nearly two times the risk of
stroke as white people, and have a signifi-
cantly higher stroke mortality rate.
In a study previously done by
Armstead, she showed African-Americans
neutral images, such as a photo of
someone cooking bread pudding,
followed by an image of someone being
mistreated by racism.When seeing the
images of racism,Armstead says, the
subjects’ blood pressure shot up about 15
points.
“If something in a laboratory is
stressful and can increase blood pressure,
what is it doing on a day-to-day basis?”
she asks.
ON THE JOB
One of the biggest culprits for day-
to-day stressors is experiencing racism on
the job.
Ironically, racism is what led Armstead
to her job.As a psychology student,
her interest lay in an area called physi-
ological psychology, which deals with
animals, behavior, and brain mechanisms.
However, her advisor told her she
shouldn’t go to graduate school in that
area, but instead should study clinical
therapy because that’s what most African-
Americans were doing. Her advisor’s
comments simply fueled her desire to
succeed in her chosen field.
“I was doing rat research on stress
and happened to read an article on blood
pressure, stress, and racism by a professor
at Howard University,” she explains.
“From that day, I put down the rat
research and changed to human beings,
blood pressure, and stress.”
Armstead is quick to explain that
racism in the workplace often isn’t as
overt as that she experienced in her early
career.
“Tolerance,” a buzzword often tossed
around by corporate leadership and HR
teams, is actually perceived as highly
negative to African-Americans, according
to Armstead. Instead of “tolerating”
those who are different from the typical
business culture, she suggests instead that
companies embrace and benefit from
the diversity that African-Americans and
other minorities bring to the table.
“Creativity can come from some of
these sources if you just listen and foster
some of the ideas,” she says.“This person
may not be the norm for your organi-
zation, but they may be a solution to
many of the ideas and challenges you’ve
encountered.”
Mentorship, a typical business prac-
tice, could be another answer to certain
racial issues in the workplace.Armstead
suggests that having at least two mentors
(at least one of whom is black) is key for
African-Americans to succeed in both
academia and the workforce.
“Mentors may not be perfect in
terms of diversity or race relations, but
they can give you an insider’s point of
view about how you’re being viewed,”
she says.“They can provide a framework
of how the system works.”
Armstead emphasized that mentor-
ship should be horizontal as well as
vertical. Even CEOs and other high-level
employees should have mentors to help
them connect with African-Americans
and other minorities to develop a wider
view of what they’re doing in their
company.
FORGIVENESS
For her current study,Armstead is
deviating from her standard protocol.
Because of the nature of what’s happened
in South Carolina in the past year, she
plans to run the final results of her study
past a community of local African-
Americans she’s gathered, and ask for
their blessing on the results.
“I may interpret my findings from a
viewpoint as a scientist that is not how
the community would have seen it at all,”
she explains.“I want to get a community
perspective.”
Armstead also plans to utilize her
community to help develop solutions.
Based on the results of the study and the
community’s feedback, an intervention
could take on a number of modalities,
such as town hall meetings to foster
dialogue about topics such as police
mistreatment. Other approaches could be
at a more individual level. One example
is creating small groups who study the
psychology of racism and identify people
who are at risk for a high level of racism,
such as white individuals who feel they
have been marginalized out of jobs.
One of the most crucial topics in the
study she’s currently undertaking is that
of forgiveness.The new questionnaire
features an entry about forgiveness, an
addition that Armstead felt compelled
to include after the massacre at the
Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston.
“I wanted to include [that question]
because I truly didn’t fully understand
all of the dimensions of forgiveness,”
she says.“I wanted to see if people who
were away from the Charleston massacre
situation really felt forgiveness.”
“Racism has
moved into some-
thing that’s more
subtle but also
more violent.”

3. 28 | COLUMBIABUSINESSMONTHLY.COM FEBRUARY 2016
HEART DISEASE & STROKE PREVALENCE
AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS
• Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death for
African-American women, killing over 48,000 annually.
• Only 36% of African American women and 34% of Hispanic
women know that heart disease is their greatest health risk,
compared with 65% of Caucasian women.
• Of African-American women ages 20 and older, 48.3% have
cardiovascular disease. Yet, only 14% believe that cardiovas-
cular disease is their greatest health problem.
• Only about 50% of African-American women are aware of
the signs and symptoms of a heart attack.
• African Americans have nearly 2x the risk for a first-ever
stroke than white people, and a much higher death rate
from stroke.
• African-Americans have the highest stroke mortality and
are less likely than whites to arrive within 3 hours and receive
the clot-busting drug tPA.
More stats can be found on the 2015 African Americas &
Cardiovascular Disease Statistical Fact Sheet:
www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@sop/@
smd/documents/downloadable/ucm_472910.pdf
HITTING CLOSE TO HOME
As for herself,Armstead acknowledges that
she sometimes has to take a break from her
research to keep from becoming so embroiled
in it that she loses perspective. She has a
research team, comprised of students of several
nationalities, as well as white individuals, that
she can call upon to receive honest feedback
about what needs to go and what is too much a
part of her identity.
“You are trained as a scientist to learn
to detach your emotions from your work,”
she explains.“You develop a passion for the
outcome, but the details of the work become
just that – work.That’s how I’ve been able to
survive doing racism work for so long.
Despite her years of often-negative research,
Armstead remains optimistic that most indi-
viduals don’t purposely intend to be racist to
others. Her location at a university campus has
given her hope for future generations.
She notes that while students still have
conflicts with other students, racism isn’t the
primary reason they’re angry with each other
anymore. Instead, it’s personality conflicts or
other more tangible events.
“I see my students on campus, and they’re
getting to know each other,” she says.“It’s
going to take time and probably generations to
completely achieve what we’re looking for in
terms of a peaceful society, but I think it will
happen.”