Leading the Charge: A Look Inside the Behavior Analysis in Practice Emergency Series of Publications on Systemic Racism and Police Brutality

Denisha Gingles; Jomella Watson-Thompson; Kaston D Anderson-Carpenter; Jonathan Tarbox; Stephanie M Peterson

doi:10.1007/s40617-022-00759-9

Leading the Charge: A Look Inside the Behavior Analysis in Practice Emergency Series of Publications on Systemic Racism and Police Brutality

Behav Anal Pract. 2022 Dec 5;15(4):1015-1022. doi: 10.1007/s40617-022-00759-9. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Authors

Denisha Gingles¹, Jomella Watson-Thompson², Kaston D Anderson-Carpenter³, Jonathan Tarbox⁴, Stephanie M Peterson⁵

Affiliations

¹ Signature Behavioral Health, Windsor Mill, MD USA.
² Applied Behavioral Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS USA.
³ Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI USA.
⁴ FirstSteps for Kids, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA USA.
⁵ Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI USA.

Abstract

This article introduces the "Behavior Analysis in Practice Emergency Series of Publications on Systemic Racism and Police Brutality." After the murder of George Floyd, the behavior analytic community was charged to respond in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King's challenge to social scientists. The charge of Dr. King was to explain real life phenomena negatively affecting the Black community. This series covered a wide range of topics with the intent of creating solutions that may be used to address remnants of the overarching impact of systemic racism and anti-Blackness. In this editorial, we provide an overview of the major themes of the accepted articles, some personal accounts of the editorial team, context for the special issue, discuss the contributions of the included articles, and a discussion of the areas in need of further work.

Keywords: Behavior analysis; Police brutality; Racism; Systemic racism.

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