Bearing Psychic Weight and Accountability: Navigating Racism and Microaggressions in Creative Work

Abstract

This article examines how Indigenous, Black, and people of colour (IBPOC) music industry workers navigate moments of racism and microaggressions. Through interviews with musical artists and industry workers ( N = 55), the article identifies two strategies for navigating situational acts of racism: alleviation and confrontation. Those choosing to alleviate reactions to racism express a psychic weight that stays with them, while those choosing to confront racism report that social accountability guides their actions. These strategies reveal both the persistence of and resistance to the music industry’s somatic norm – the corporeal baseline of whiteness against which non-White bodies are perceived and judged. They also result in a longer-term mental load that becomes constitutive of career advancement efforts.