Friday Roundup

Cinco de Mayo should bring about excitement, as should “May the Fourth Be with You” and May Day, for that matter. But around here, they’re signaling the winding down of a semester and the ramping up of all those projects shunted aside when professors and students are too busy in classrooms to tie up the loose ends on their dissertations and articles and books (oh my!). The good news is that this brings a bumper crop of great material for TSP, too, and we have lots of great articles coming your way in the next few weeks—so long as we manage to get our next two book manuscripts to press! In the meantime, here’s what’s going on across our (luckily) vast site.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Donald Sterling Sociology,” by Doug Hartmann. “I still have no idea how this guy was set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP in L.A.” more...

Pretense: Dropped.

That’s right, we’re just going with it. I sometimes don’t have time to do the Roundup on Fridays, but I know you, the adoring TSP public, need to know! Hence, most likely the Friday Roundup will continue on Mondays for a bit, but hey, sometimes I’ll mix it up. Isn’t that what good Internetz users do? Wait. I’ve gotta go check with the hip kids…

Here’s what’s happened on TSP in the last week!

Brilliance: Also Dropped.

Features:

“Music and the Quest for a Tribe, with Jenn Lena,” by Sarah Lageson. From rockabilly kids to dubsteppers and punks, finding our musical tribe can be a key part of creating identity. more...

A tag-cloud for this week’s roundup might be astounding and jarring, since it runs the gamut from candy and cohabitation to affirmative action revision, diversity trends among the powerful, community health centers in Texas, and 20 years of remembrance in Rwanda. Herewith: what we’ve been up to this week.

Features:

“Trends at the Top: The New CEOs Revisited,” by Richie Zweigenhaft and Bill Domhoff. A look at who’s sitting in the corner office—or just outside it, nose pressed to the glass—reveals a new trend in diversity.

“How Recent Immigration Complicates Our Racial Justice Policies,” by Asad L. Asad. Should affirmative action be reformed to include newer, but still marginalized, groups within the U.S.?

Office Hours:

“Samira Kawash on Candy,” with Kyle Green. The self-proclaimed @candyprofessor joins us for a look at the rise and fall and rise and fall—oh god, is this a sugar high?—of candy’s rep in American culture. more...

What’s up with what’s up on The Society Pages this week:

Features:

“Health, Science, and Shared Disparities with Brian Southwell,” by Sarah Lageson. Social networks may be great for getting the word out, but that’s highly dependent on the network. more...

Okay, let’s be real. It’s not Friday. But wouldn’t that be fun? We could annoy ourselves with that Rebecca Black song, merrily chirp “T.G.I.F.!” at passers-by, and dream of our weekend plans… none of which I was doing this past Friday, when I was so mired in work I couldn’t look ahead, let alone behind to sum up the week on TSP. Now’s the time for a little reflection!

Features:

“Same-Sex, Different Attitudes,” by Kathleen Hull. A lot’s changed in just a few years—why are American attitudes on same-sex marriage moving so quickly? more...

Spring Break. March Madness. Yet another snow storm. A new volume in production and two getting ready to go to the press. There are lots of great reasons that TSP’s HQ has been quiet this week, but of course, our ambitious grad students, dedicated SSN fellows, and dogged bloggers have been spreading the soc, rain, shine, or sleet (all of which have fallen on us, by the way… we get all the weather). more...

Sometimes, time gets away from you! As does debt, as shown in this week’s contribution from Dr. Jason Houle, showing the increase and changes in debt over three generations. Other things that can get away from you: March Madness (I mean, it’s called Madness), the reproduction of sexism and racism, and parental worry.

Features:

“Out of the Nest and Into the Red,” by Jason N. Houle. Three generations of debt reveal changing ideals and life courses. Oh, and debt. more...

This week we talked about American debt and folded a whole new and incredibly interesting sector of debtors into the conversation: those who’ve gone through the criminal justice system. That’s careful wording, by the way, because you don’t even have to be convicted—just charged—to start racking up legal fees with compounding interest and compounding effects on your future. We also got a look at how race affects school suspensions and the oft-overlooked problem of homelessness among college students. No, it’s not all good news, but with the right information and appropriate action, we can keep moving toward the good news, right? That’s worth something! For palate cleansers, we offer the annual Mardis Gras archive, the DRM-coffee-bot, and why we shouldn’t let law enforcement end up based on the quality of business owners’ gaydar. mesothelioma more...

This week TSP featured great content on immigration, drugs, and healthcare reform from heavy hitters, as well as the incredibly popular Sociological Images monthly recap and a caveat from our editor, keen even with one eye on the Klout scores.

Features:

“Crimmigration”: A Roundtable with Tanya Golash-Boza, Ryan King, and Yolanda Vàsquez, by Suzy McElrath, Rahsaan Mahadeo, and Stephen Suh. What happens when criminal and immigration enforcement come together?

“Are Mexicans the Most Successful Immigrant Group in the U.S.?” by Jennifer Lee. If the American Dream is about upward mobility—doing better than your parents’ generation—we’re looking to the wrong racial and ethnic groups for success stories. more...

Reporting live from a snowbank, I’m here to share this week’s picks from The Society Pages! Send provisions—or at least snowblowers—if you can. Or, take a cue from us and hunker down to devour the latest spotlight on the Scholars Strategy Network website: “Lone Star Debacle: The High Price of Obstructing Health Reform.” As their introduction puts it:

Almost a quarter of Texans do not have health insurance—and 13% of all uninsured Americans live in the state. Millions could gain coverage through the Affordable Care Act. But ultra-conservative Texas authorities are doing all they can to block and sabotage reform – hurting health and wellbeing and imposing unnecessary costs on hospitals, community clinics, and state finances.

SSN scholars have looked closely at the extra and unnecessary costs Texas people and health care institutions are paying because of the state’s decisions to obstruct exchange enrollments and refuse new federal funds to expand Medicaid. The picture is not pretty—and the juxtaposition of America’s two largest states, California and Texas, dramatizes the impact of state-level cooperation versus obstruction on the progress of health reform.

more...