**5. Conclusion**

Black Americans make use of a variety of coping strategies to respond to racism. These usually include problem-focused coping strategies such as social support and emotion-focused coping strategies like religion/spirituality. Gender differences exist in this response as Black American women tend to prioritize social support as well as religion/spirituality to cope. Also, similarities can be found between how Black Americans cope with physical and emotional stress. As presented in this paper, people typically rely on active strategies when coping with racism, and active strategies mitigate the loss of agency which is a hallmark of racism. Approaches to racism should deemphasize avoidance to synergize with successful coping strategies already being used by the Black community.

### **Funding**

This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Grant Number 950-232127 (PI M. Williams).

### **Conflicts of interest**

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

## **Publication**

Effective Elimination of Structural Racism, IntechOpen E-Book, Erick Guerrero (Ed). (ISBN 978-1-83969-283-3).

*Gender Differences in Coping with Racism: African American Experience and Empowerment DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99930*
