The San Francisco Chronicle recently published an article on how presumptive democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has raised the profile of mixed-race Americans. When the social scientists weigh in, they add a level of complexity to Tyche Hendricks’ report on the issue:

The debate over what to call Obama – and the growing recognition of mixed-race Americans – is also a reminder that there’s no such thing as racial purity and, indeed, that “biologically, race is a fiction,” said sociologist Jorge Chapa, the director of the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society at the University of Illinois.

Still, prejudices based on conceptions about race continue, said Michael Omi, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley. “The prospect of having an African American presidential candidate has led some people to think we’re now in a post-racial society,” Omi said. “What’s disturbing are the ways in which that ignores the persistence of racial inequalities – in health care, home-mortgage loan rates – it shouldn’t make us think we’ve gotten beyond that.”

But the expanding conversation about race that has been prompted by Obama’s candidacy and his complex heritage could advance America’s understanding about race. “I want the history of miscegenation to be part of our discussion, and I think Barack Obama could catapult us there,” said Vest, the iPride co-director. “If these (mixed race) kids are able to normalize their difference by looking at Obama, then my work is done.”

The Columbus Dispatch looks back to the 1968 olympics where a famous image of two men with raised fists left a legacy with important implications for the relationship between race and athletic competition. See image.

David Davis of the Columbus Dispatch writes: 

United they stood, two men with black-gloved fists thrust into the night. In solidarity, they bowed their heads as the national anthem played. Together, in harmonious synchronicity, they defied history. On Oct. 16, 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos finished first and third in the 200 meters at the Olympics. Smith set a world record with a time of 19.83 seconds, powering through the thin air of Mexico City and across the finish line, arms upraised, with a mark that endured for 11 years. But it was their demonstration on the victory podium afterward, medals dangling around their necks, that still resonates today. Their purpose was to draw attention to the plight of blacks at the height of the civil rights movement. As Smith told ABC announcer Howard Cosell, “My raised right hand stood for the power in black America. Carlos’ raised left hand stood for the unity of black America. Together they formed an arch of unity and power.”

Although the two athletes had a rocky relationship with one another, their symbolic gesture still holds an important place in olympic history… and is worthy of sociological commentary…

The backlash was immediate. The International Olympic Committee pressured the U.S. Olympic Committee to banish both. The Associated Press accused them of a “Nazi-like salute.” Brent Musberger, then a columnist with the Chicago American newspaper, called them “black-skinned storm-troopers.”

“It was a polarizing moment,” said University of Minnesota sociology professor Doug Hartmann, author of Race, Culture and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath, “because it was seen as an example of black power radicalism. Mainstream America hated what they did.”

A recent article from the LA Daily News discusses the Alvarez death penalty case in California and the recent verdict to sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Juan Manuel Alvarez, 29, was charged with eleven counts of murder in connection with the Glendale train crash that occurred just north of downtown Los Angeles in 2005. The crash was the deadliest in MetroLink history, killing 11 people. 

More about the Glendale train crash…

The LA Daily News writes: 

University of Colorado at Boulder sociologist Michael Radelet, one of the nation’s leading criminologists and most-cited experts on the death penalty, said that often the extent or even the depravity of the crimes alone does not guarantee death sentencing convictions.

“This case reminds me a great deal of the Jeffrey Daumer case in Wisconsin where so much emotional testimony was allowed during the sentencing phase but Daumer wound up (with) 15 life terms in prison and eventually died there,” said Radelet.

“In this case, the jury agreed that this guy is going to die – it’s just going to be in prison and a few years down the road.”

Read the full article. 

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports on the difficulty graduates face finding employment after completing college. Some of these students are choosing programs like the Peace Corps which are becoming increasingly difficult to be placed in.

Star-Tribune reporter Emma Carew writes:

This year, as the economy hit a downturn and employers cut jobs instead of creating them, a record number of graduates applied to programs that try to change the world — something experts believe is a top priority for today’s youth.

At Teach For America, a two-year program that places college graduates in low-performing schools around the country, the number of applicants fell in 2007 but this year jumped 36 percent to nearly 25,000 would-be teachers. Only 3,700 are placed. When the program began in 1990, 2,500 students applied. Even the Peace Corps, now in its 47th year, has had a 14 percent increase in applicants so far this year over last.

And the sociological commentary…

Teresa Swartz, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, said current college graduates are experiencing an extended period of adolescence, as the gap between high school and adulthood widens.

It’s harder for students to make livable wages right out of school, so they spend a few years exploring, she said.

Read more.

Check out this past Sunday’s episode of ‘Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,’ on National Public Radio where one of the quiz questions references the work of Contexts Magazine contributor, sociologist Robin Simon.

Listen online.

The Times Online (UK) recently published an article entitled, ‘Paranoia has taken over child protection,’ marking yet another alarming reflection on the fear that grips so many parents in the 21st century.

Times writer India Knight writes,

We don’t even trust ourselves to raise our own children: we need books written by childcare “professionals” and television programmes featuring advice from child-less “experts”. In actual fact we know a great deal more than these charlatans, but since we don’t any longer trust instinct we genuinely believe that our vast repository of knowledge (and that of our mothers, sisters, aunts, grannies, friends) is worthless and that a newborn baby is better off with a strict routine dreamt up by someone with a financial motive.

In a report co-authored with Jennie Bristow a few weeks ago, the sociologist Frank Furedi, lamenting the demise of trust, mentioned as an example a mother whose child was invited over to play at a new friend’s house. The parents reassured the mother that they were “cool” – they’d passed a CRB check. I find this chilling.

Visit Furedi’s website and learn more about this sociologist’s new book.

The latest issue of Newsweek surveys a number of recent economic studies which suggest that economic growth may have a great deal to do with attitudes of a nation’s people. Newsweek writer Stefan Theil writes,

Much of the worldwide economic and political debate these days circle around ensuring continued growth—which, it’s hoped, will help various countries escape the global downturn, create more jobs and finance the rising cost of social services. What the conversation overlooks is that it turns out some countries might not want to grow.

These recent studies have been best summarized by Meinhard Miegel, of the think tank Denwerk Zukunft, who found that “while two thirds of Germans favor economic growth in principle, only about a sixth of them are willing to work for it. The rest value leisure, safety and early retirement over work and achievement. Given these attitudes, says Miegel, the popular idea that a low-birthrate country like Germany can grow its way out of the rising costs associated with an aging population ‘is reckless and built on sand.'”

But where does Weber come in? Theil continues…

Miegel might be unduly pessimistic, but he is part of a growing movement of experts who argue that economic growth is actually dependent on a state of mind. In fact, the idea goes back to Max Weber, the German sociologist who argued more than a century ago that England’s Protestant work ethic gave rise to modern capitalism. Today’s Weberians aren’t sociologists wielding historical arguments, however, but economists, pollsters and biologists working with actual numbers and data sets. Their interest in how personal attitudes might affect growth is part of the broader reinvention of economics, in which the classical view—that people make rational choices in a world of perfect information—is coming under increased scrutiny. The movement also reflects rising concern over whether growth can be increased—especially now with the ugly specter of stagflation in large parts of the globe.

Economists now claim Weber as their own…sociologists don’t work with ‘actual numbers and data sets?’

Read on.

CNN reports:

From the frontiers of mirth research, scholars offer these words of comfort: If you are mortified of dancing for fear of being the butt of jokes, don’t worry, you are far from alone. There’s even a word for it — gelotophobia. Sound like a disease involving Italian ice cream? No, it’s the potentially debilitating fear of being laughed at. This condition — the term comes from gelos, Greek for laughter — was among the topics discussed this week at a four-day meeting of the International Society for Humor Studies, an Oakland, Calif.-based collective of psychologists, sociologists, linguists and other academics who probe funniness from every conceivable angle

The setting for all this debate is the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of “Don Quixote,” the mad knight who was always good for a laugh as he tilted at windmills. The president of the humor society, British sociologist Christie Davies, offered insights Tuesday on the state of humor in today’s world. Among other things, he said, jokes in eastern Europe were a lot better when the communists ran the show.

“Once you have a democracy with free speech, you have fewer jokes,” said Davies, an emeritus professor at the University of Reading, in England. “Jokes, in many ways, are a way of getting around restrictions on what you can say. That was a very important factor in eastern Europe.”

The full story.

A recent broadcast from Minnesota Public Radio‘s Midmorning program, titled “Women, Earning Power, and the Economy,” took an in-depth look at the complex factors that determine how women are faring in today’s economy. In an attempt to discern the what has the greatest impact on women’s earning potential, this piece discusses a number of possible reasons beyond conventional explanations such as marital status and number of children.

This broadcast includes commentary from two sociologists: Leslie McCall, professor of sociology at Northwestern University and Maria Kefalas, professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Violence Research and Prevention at St. Joseph’s University.

Listen online.