race

Photo by USAG- Humphreys, Flickr CC

All parents want the best for their children, but what happens when the best for their own child means disadvantaging many more? In an article recently published in The Atlantic, sociologist Margaret Hagerman shares the story behind her new book, White Kids: Growing Up With Privilege in a Racially Divided America. She spent two years interviewing and observing upper-middle-class suburban white families in a midwestern city in the United States with one goal: to find out how white children learn about race. Hagerman spent a significant amount of time with 36 children between the ages of 10 and 13, and analyzed how homework, games, and conversations with friends and family members influenced their interpretations of race. Hagerman says,

“One of the things I was really struck by was how frequently some of these children used the phrase That’s racist or You’re racist. They were using this word in contexts that had nothing to do with race: They were playing chess, and they would talk about what color chess pieces they wanted to have, and then one of them would say, “Oh, that’s racist”—so things that had to do with colors, but also sometimes just out of the blue, instead of saying, “That’s stupid.” These kids have taken this phrase, That’s racist, and inverted it in a way such that it’s become meaningless.”

Hagerman also observed affluent parents calling schools to demand the best teachers in certain topics and pulling their students out of a public school to enroll them in a private one after a “racist incident.” These actions serve as reinforcing agents, propagating the idea that “your own child is the most important thing”a belief that Hagerman thinks should be reconsidered by all.

“When affluent white parents are making these decisions about parenting, they could consider in some way at least how their decisions will affect not only their kid, but other kids. This might mean a parent votes for policies that would lead to the best possible outcome for as many kids as possible, but might be less advantageous for their own child…I don’t have any grand answer, but I think people could think in bigger ways about what it means to care about one another and what it means to actually have a society that cares about kids.”

Photo of two houses in flooded area. Photo by Mary, Flickr CC

The National Weather Service estimates that Hurricane Florence dropped over 8 trillion gallons of rain across North Carolina, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has just started evaluating how much damage was done. While Hurricane Florence and other natural disasters impact thousands of lives every year, not all groups recover equally. Recent research reported by Mic reveals that non-white households tend to lose wealth after a natural disaster, while white households often profit.

Tracking families from 1999 to 2013, sociologists Junia Howell and Jim Elliot found that white families in the most disaster-hit counties gained $126,000 in wealth on average over the 14 years of the study. By contrast, Back, Latinx, and Asian families in the same counties lost $27,000, $29,000 and $10,000 respectively. “Put another way, whites accumulate more wealth after natural disasters while residents of color accumulate less,” Elliot explained.

After a natural disaster, FEMA provides grants and low-interest loans to offset the cost of property damage. While it would make sense that federal disaster relief would mitigate racial disparity, Howell and Elliot’s research shows that it actually makes it worse. Counties receiving the most FEMA aid experienced the starkest widening of the racial wealth gap. Black families in counties that received the least FEMA aid accumulated $82,000 more wealth on average than Black families in counties that received the most aid. The researchers tried to explain this puzzling finding:

“Based on previous work on disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, we know FEMA aid is not equitably distributed across communities … When certain areas receive more redevelopment aid and those neighborhoods also are primarily white, racial inequality is going to be amplified.”

In other words, one potential explanation for this trend is that white communities within counties receiving federal aid tend to receive more investment for rebuilding after a disaster than non-white communities in the same county. And with climate change increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, this discovery implies worsening racial wealth gaps in the future. However, Howell and Elliot see reason to be hopeful,

“The good news is that if we develop more equitable approaches to disaster recover, we can not only better tackle that problem but also help build a more just and resilient society.”

Two people sitting on a bench in New York City at night, and another person sitting off to the side. Photo by Guian Bolisay, Flickr CC

Few would disagree that the internet — through online dating apps and websites — has significantly changed how people meet romantic and sexual partners. Sociologists have been on the forefront of studying how online dating has changed relationships, and sometimes even working for the companies behind this change. A recent article in The Economist explores some of this research.

Using online dating apps, individuals are able to choose which commonalities they want to share with a partner, while searching through a more diverse pool of applicants than they might find at their neighborhood bar. And research by sociologists, Reuben Thomas and Michael Rosenfeld, shows that this really matters — married people who met their partners online reported significantly higher relationship quality than those who met their partners offline. Jess Carbino, the in-house sociologists at Bumble, explains why this might happen:

Offline, people meet others who are like them in various ways—who know the same people and work in the same places. Online they can meet people not like them in those ways, but like them in other ways that may matter more. You can meet people who aren’t like you and select those who are.

However, not all online daters benefit equally. Research by Elizabeth Bruch and Mark Newman shows that women are generally more desirable than men, but women’s desirability drops with age and the more degrees they have, while men’s desirability generally increases with age and education level. And certain groups — especially Asian men and Black women — get fewer responses than others.

In short, while the internet has increased the diversity of the dating pool for many — and with it, relationship quality — it still reinforces many of the same sexist and racist patterns we see in other forms of dating.

Photo of a Trash Bin in Washington D.C. by David Lisbona, Flickr CC

Today, the term “white trash” is used colloquially to identify white people who do not conform to the established ideas about what it means to be “white,” usually indicating they are poor, uneducated, unemployed, or backwards. This term emerged as a racial slur for white indentured servants — poor whites from England and other European countries that came to the United States in search of citizenship in exchange for labor. In a recent segment on NPR’s podcast Code Switch, sociologist Matt Wray discusses why “white trash” remains a powerful insult against poor whites and people of color alike.

Wray argues that although the term is meant to disparage poor whites, it simultaneously demeans other races by maintaining that there is something about being white that is superior to other racial groups. This is why the modifier “trash” is used. Code Switch news assistant Leah Donnella sums up Wray’s argument well:

“. . . ‘white’ is the only racial group that needs a modifier for it to become a slur. There’s no ‘black trash’ or ‘Hispanic trash’ or ‘Native American trash,’  presumably, because for most of American history, those people were assumed by those in power to be poor, uneducated and criminal.”

Wray also suggests that the term is used to reinforce the long-standing idea that poor whites are more racist than middle class or white elites. This allows affluent whites to escape criticism as racists, while stereotyping poor whites as representative  of “real” racism. Accordingly, Wray states:

“Whites who use the term are saying, ‘Look, I’m not racist. The person down the road is racist. The one who drops the N-word, or has the Confederate flag flapping off the back of their truck. That’s real racism.’ “

In short, Wray’s research shows how the term “white trash” reinforces ideas of white superiority, today and throughout history.  Since it first emerged in the colonial era, the term symbolized how important the intersection of race and class was — and still is — for personal belonging and worth in the United States.

Protesters in Minneapolis express their anger at the death of Thurman Blevins at the hands of police. Photo by Fibonacci Blue, Flickr CC

August 12th marked the anniversary of last year’s Charlottesville riots, and White supremacists are organizing once again. When comparing their own beliefs to such overt racism, many White Americans feel comfort in their (supposed) lack of prejudice. But even if Whites believe they are not racist, their attitudes and actions may prove to be so. These forms of implicit bias, though often less pronounced, can be equally harmful. In a recent article in the Washington Post, Megan R. Underhill calls for Whites to take their own implicit racial prejudices seriously and speak up against such bias.

According to previous research, Whites are more likely to trust other Whites and distrust people of color. Both the negative portrayal of Black people from the media and high segregation of the White American population can heighten this implicit bias. Structural inequality and misguided understandings of white victimization may also contribute. According to Underhill,

“Whites’ sense of having been ‘left behind’ has manifested in the emergence of an overtly angry white identity rooted in feelings of victimization. Empirically, whites’ racial anger is misguided. Black Americans continue to lag behind whites on almost every indicator, including but not limited to income, wealth and education. Further, though federal programs like affirmative action have opened doors for people of color, it was actually white women who benefited most from these policies.”

Further, police’s reactions to Black individuals have proven fatal on a number of occasions. Though these issues are vast, Underhill suggests some constructive steps forward:

“White people who feel triggered by the sight of an unfamiliar black person in a space they consider theirs should understand that what they’re feeling is implicit bias. Think about the repercussions of picking up the phone and calling the police. White people who witness needless harassment of people of color should speak up and try to de-escalate the situation. Blackness is not criminal.”

Photo by Fibonacci Blue, Flickr CC

The current immigration policies and practices of the Trump administration have received significant scrutiny. Many detainees are subjected to inhumane treatment in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities around the nation, demonstrated in recent reports of  sexual assault and the potential death of a migrant child upon release from detention. In a recent article in The Conversation, sociologist Tanya Golash-Boza argues that the criminalization and deportation of immigrants is nothing new, but rather that the Trump administration’s actions are part of a broader pattern of mass deportation.

In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security was created, and upon its inception housed both ICE (which was also formed in 2003) and Customs and Border Protection to enforce immigration laws. According to Golash-Boza, the transferral of immigration law enforcement from the Department of Justice to the Department of Homeland Security served two purposes: changing the tone of immigration enforcement as an issue of national security and a massive cash flow to immigration law enforcement agencies.

Even though immigration is central to Trump’s image and platform, deportations were actually highest under President Obama, with three million people deported during his tenure. Tough immigration enforcement has occurred across party lines and is about more than just ICE. Golash-Boza expands,

“For the past 20 years, aggressive immigration law enforcement has been a constant across Democrat and Republican administrations. Democratic President Bill Clinton signed laws in 1996 that greatly expanded deportations. Republican George Bush created the Department of Homeland Security and, in effect, ICE. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security led to a spike in the number of people deported from the U.S.”

Golash-Boza’s research demonstrates that ending mass deportation in the United States will require more than just standing up to Trump and ICE, but addressing our history of aggressive immigration policies and its connections to the “war on terror.”

Photo by R/DV/RS, Flickr CC

Intimate depictions of human suffering often make headlines. When 12 young boys became stuck in a cave in Thailand for over two weeks, media across the globe dedicated extensive coverage to their precarious rescue. In an interview with Vox, sociologist Tim Recuber explains why so many people watch coverage of disasters. According to Recuber, the key to this puzzle is “empathetic hedonism.” Recuber explains,

“There’s a certain kind of pleasure in really feeling for someone else, even if those feeling are bad. That’s what that term is trying to name. In a culture that tries to venerate empathy, being able to say, ‘I saw that footage, it’s really horrible, I feel horrible for those kids’…it does mark you as a moral person…People get to demonstrate they have this ability.”

However, not all victims of disaster receive the same level of empathy. People generally feel more empathy towards people they can relate to:

“Empathy is really partial. We’re more inclined to be empathetic to people who we feel are like us. Identifiable victims, relatable victims. And oftentimes racial, class, and gender biases get in the way of empathetic identification. There are even studies that show that people viewing a person’s skin being pricked by a needle will have more of a [physiological] reaction when the skin is the same color as theirs.”

In his interview, Recuber also grapples with the ethics of such media consumption. What may be most important, he concludes, is to allow victims the agency to decide whether or not to be in the spotlight. Recuber finds no harm in caring about suffering kids, but cautions that privacy invasions can deepen trauma.

Photo by ShironekoEuro, Flickr CC

Among America’s history of race and racism, one particularly ugly violent memory is the practice of lynching in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. White mobs would often capture and kill Black men on false accusations as part of a system of racial domination and oppression. While lynching is often cast as a distinctly Southern problem, a recent article in The New York Times by sociologist Charles Seguin discusses how newspaper coverage in both the South and the North used racist language and symbolism when reporting on lynching incidents.

Seguin argues that work by activists — including sociologist Ida B. Wells and especially newspaper coverage on American lynchings around the globe — led to international embarrassment for the United States, questioning America’s image as an advanced nation and model democracy. With this increased scrutiny in the international spotlight, many Northern newspapers became more critical of lynchings, framing it is a shameful part of the South. As he describes,

What these outside agitators — Wells, the British press and the Italian Embassy — accomplished was to embarrass the Northern newspapers, which eventually denounced lynching communities as barbarous and anarchic with headlines like “More Southern Savagery.”

Seguin’s article provides a rich discussion of how the intersections of racism, region, and press shaped the history of newspaper coverage surrounding lynching in the United States. Though Southern newspapers such as the Montgomery Advertiser have made public apologies for their role in racist coverage regarding lynchings, it is important to remember that this issue was not just confined to the South.

Star of David marker at Bikernieku Forest mass grave site in Latvia. Photo by Adam Jones, Flickr CC

The White House recently published a press release decrying the violent behavior of MS-13 members, referring to the group as “animals” 10 times throughout the short post. In response, researchers Aliza Luft and Daniel Solomon wrote a Washington Post article discussing how dehumanizing language can enable violence. They draw upon historical examples, referencing animalistic rhetoric used in Nazi Germany and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. As Luft and Solomon explain, dehumanizing language alone cannot directly incite violence:

“Recent research suggests that promoting negative views of others can go only so far in motivating people to kill. In Rwanda, for example, Hutu militants issued calls on the radio to exterminate inyenzi, the Kinyarwanda word for ‘cockroach.’ But some Hutus refused to kill, saved Tutsis, or shifted stances from killing to not killing neighbors. This suggests that the decision to commit murder and other violence was difficult for Hutu civilians. Dehumanizing propaganda alone didn’t persuade Hutus to suddenly turn on their Tutsi peers.”

However, the researchers describe a number of ways dehumanizing language can, in fact, heighten tensions or lessen the cost of violent behavior:

“Language is not innocent. Dehumanizing propaganda helps to normalize extreme perspectives on how to address social problems. It grants legitimacy to those who do believe that certain others are inherently threatening, dangerous and ought to be eliminated from the community…Dehumanizing propaganda alters norms of what is and isn’t perceived as acceptable views or behavior. Even when people don’t believe what they hear on the radio or on TV, dehumanizing propaganda might make them hesitate more to speak out against it.”

In closing, Luft and Solomon argue that public action can counter the negative potential of dehumanizing language. They note, for example, that protest by Catholic leaders in Nazi Germany mobilized otherwise complacent members of the public into resistance. In an American context where communities of color face daily systemic violence, protest against dehumanizing language may serve a protective function.

Photo by Art01852, Flickr CC

U.S. census estimates indicate that babies of color are now the majority and that by 2020, the majority of children under 18 will be non-white. Despite this growing diversity, many parts of the United States remain deeply segregated by race. A recent article in the Washington Post draws on U.S. census data and insights from sociologists Michael Bader, Kyle Crowder, and Maria Krysan to visually depict and explain the persistence of residential segregation in the United States.

Bader points out that the persistence of segregation is tied to the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining practices against Black communities. Cities that have large African American populations, like Chicago and Detroit, have entrenched patterns of segregation. However, Krysan and Crowder argue in their book that housing policies and practices do not alone reproduce segregation. Daily routines and connections to others can also result in inequalities. As Krysan describes,

“We don’t have the integrated social networks. We don’t have integrated experiences through the city. It’s baked-in segregation, [Every time someone makes a move they’re] not making a move that breaks out of that cycle, [they’re] making a move that regenerates it.”

On the other hand, diversity in many suburbs has increased over the past decades. The D.C. metro saw a 300 percent increase in Hispanic American and a 200 percent increase in Asian American populations from 1990 to 2016. Bader connects this diversity in the suburbs to policy, arguing that both lower housing costs and the implementation of the Fair Housing Act helped to circumvent segregation,

“A lot of those areas were developed after the Fair Housing Act was implemented…If you’re building housing and you’re subject to the Fair Housing Act, you shouldn’t have, in those particular units, the legacy effects of segregation.”

While policy cannot address all residential segregation, it may lessen its reach.