Well, it’s Groundhog Day, again. In case you need another reason to love this holiday, we rounded up social science research on why rituals are important. We’ve also got reflections on race and athlete protests, and new research on parenthood and gang membership.
Well, it’s Groundhog Day, again. In case you need another reason to love this holiday, we rounded up social science research on why rituals are important. We’ve also got reflections on race and athlete protests, and new research on parenthood and gang membership.
Well, it’s Groundhog Day, again. In case you need another reason to love this holiday, we rounded up social science research on why rituals are important. We’ve also got reflections on race and athlete protests, and new research on parenthood and gang membership.
“Missing Crime Data and Why We Need It,” by Caity Curry. After the FBI released the 2016 Uniform Crime Report missing key tables from previous years, we wanted to know how and why researchers utilize this data. Turns out, it’s pretty important.
Hello and happy Friday! This week we’ve got social science research on first-generation students and the crisis in higher education, new research on how anti-immigrant groups exaggerate immigration projections, and sociological perspectives on the civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia.
Welcome sociology friends! This week we’re wrapping up our “Best of 2017” posts and ramping up for 2018! We’ve got new pieces on Trump’s tweets and racial injustice, screen capping news stories, and neighborhood segregation.
“When Your In-Law is an Outlaw,” by Ryan Larson. New research in Criminology finds that previously convicted brothers-in-law increase the likelihood of crime for new husbands — regardless of their own criminal histories.
Happy Friday Everyone! This week we’ve got some new pieces on parole revocations and Alabama’s special election, as well as revisits from 2017 on the immigration-crime paradox and gender gaps in tenure promotion.
“The Immigration-Crime Paradox,” by Ryan Larson. Research shows that even though immigrants and the areas they inhabit are associated with lower levels of crime, both documented and undocumented individuals are more likely to be incarcerated and receive longer prison sentences.
Welcome to our first roundup of 2018! We’re glad to have you. In addition to more “Best of 2017” posts, we’ve got new pieces for you on how children learn rules for romance in preschool, race in adoptive families, and reflections on the NFL protests throughout 2017.
“Children Learn Rules for Romance in Preschool,” by Allison Nobles. New Research in Sociology of Education finds that children in preschool classrooms learn that heterosexual relationships are normal and that boys and girls have different roles to play in them.
In case you were otherwise occupied, on Christmas Day the Associated Press named the “NFL National Anthem Protests” the top sports story of 2017. In a year of many huge sport stories both on and off the field, the AP said the story was the “runaway winner” for its staff. This doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve studied sports-based social activism for a long time, but I’ve never had more media calls and requests for interviews in my career than these past few months.
The single biggest reason for the story, I’m pretty sure, involves our President’s seemingly unprompted and unusually profane attacks in September on football players who had engaged in demonstrations and the NFL. For better or for worse, Trump’s attention provoked a tidal wave of unprecedented gestures of protest and support across the league (and across both racial lines as well as those of management and ownerships) that gave the story its scale, scope, and intrigue. But there’s much more to say about it than that, much more. I’ve been tracking this all fall as part of my own research project on the “new era” of African American athletic activism we are currently witnessing, and I am going to pull some of that together in a commentary with my sport and politics collaborator Kyle Green. We are hoping to run that piece in the lead-up to the Super Bowl here in the Twin Cities at the end of January, so stay tuned!
There are two points I’d like to address here, by way of year-end retrospective: “kneeling” and “remembrance.” On kneeling, why do athletes feel the need to protest?
“Why do they do it?” is far and away the most common question I get from journalists and regular folks alike. Underlying this inquiry is the sense (a) that these demonstrations are disrespectful and (b) that professional athletes are super-rich, superstars who should be so satisfied with their lives and salaries and fame that they’d have no reason to complain or be angry, much less act out in public. At best, they see African American athlete activists as spoiled complainers, more interested in politics, making news, and making money than anything else. For many Americans, athletic protests are as incomprehensible as they are inappropriate.
Based on the athletes I’ve talked to and my earlier research on black athletic activism in the 1960s, I see the issue quite differently. Many athletes, perhaps most, are actually fairly apolitical—more interested in practicing and performing at a high level than anything else. For most, this protest and politics thing has been thrust on them by larger events and commitments. In a society that continues to be plagued by disproportionate police brutality, persistent racial gaps, and overt bigotry and bias, they feel compelled to do or say something. Sometimes it is in support of communities of color—their communities—who continue to face persistent racism and discrimination. Sometimes it is quite personal, stemming from their own ongoing individual experiences with racism and discrimination. And almost always it is quite principled and reasoned, with a clear understanding of the costs and consequences (which are far more real and extensive than most of us realize). Athlete activists don’t take their activities lightly or think of them as disrespectful or anti-American. Quite the contrary, they understand activism as consistent with the higher moral standards, ideals, and aspirations of both American democracy and sport culture.
But there is something else here too: It is also the fact that many African American athletes feel like if they don’t speak out, don’t say or do something, then they and their athletic success will be used to justify or rationalize the racial status quo —to make it seem like everything is okay. This was a major motivator for the African American athletes who participated in protests in the year leading up to the 1968 Olympic Games. As high jumper Gene Johnson explained in support of the “Olympic Project for Human Rights:”
“The United States exalts its Olympic star athletes as representatives of a democratic and free society, when millions of Negro and other minority citizens are excluded from decent housing and meaningful employment” (Race, Culture, and the Revolt, 2003, p. 84).
Or, as the OPHR organizing pamphlet put it: “We must no longer allow this country to use black individuals of whatever level to rationalize its treatment of the black masses.”
So, that’s kneeling, now for remembrance. A few weeks back I was interviewed by a Time reporter for a special 50th anniversary retrospective issue on the tumultuous year of 1968. Among other things, the reporter asked me what my research on Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s iconic victory stand demonstration taught me about the meanings and implications of the protests of Colin Kaepernick and his NFL brethren. “How will we remember what is going on today, 50 years from now,” she wanted to know?
Social scientists like me, I told her, are loath to make predictions. However this topic is one where I was willing to make an exception. I’m pretty confident that one day in the not-to-distant near future, Kaepernick and company will be remembered far more positively across the American populace than is currently the case. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, once the specifics of this moment and the larger racial politics that are unfolding are behind us, these athlete activists come to be revered as courageous, admirable, or even heroic—certainly ahead of their time. If you’re interested, my little quote to this effect can now be found in print on page 92 of the latest issue of Time (dated Dec. 25/Jan. 1) as well as online here.
Such historical re-remembering is a familiar pattern in American culture. It happened to our collective conceptions of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad Ali. Perhaps most pertinent to this discussion are the memories that surround the perpetrators of one of the most iconic sports demonstrations of all time, Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s 1968 clenched first, victory stand demonstration at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Today, most Americans celebrate Smith and Carlos as heroes of the Civil Rights Movement; back in 1968, they were seen as villains, traitors, and worse.
History and memory—what happened and how we think about what happened—are two different things. All too often, the way we remember and romanticize images, individuals, and events comes at the cost of forgetting all of the actual social issues and context that gave rise to them in the first place. As this year draws to a close and we begin to look to the future, let us not lose sight of the racial disparities and social injustices at the root of the biggest sports story of 2017.
Looking to bring in the new year with some sociological perspective? We’ve got you covered. This week we’ve got some great new pieces and some of our best from over the year.
“Shining a Light on Lower Crime in Brazil,” by Caity Curry. New research in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology finds that electricity policies in areas that previously had little to no access to electricity can be an essential tool for crime control.
*~* Best of 2017 *~*
“Minority Men doing ‘Women’s Work’,” by Allison Nobles. Research in The Sociological Quarterly finds that all groups of racial minority men are more likely than white men to work in female-dominated jobs.
Looking for some reading material for your winter break? You’ve come to the right place. We’ve got some great new pieces this week, as well as a new issue from Contexts and a brand new TSP volume, Give Methods a Chance. We’ll also be rolling out our *Best of 2017* over the next few weeks, so you can catch up on all the great posts from the year. Enjoy!
“Showing Off Your Sacred Side,” by Evan Stewart. New research in Sociological Science finds that Muslim women who have children aren’t necessarily more religious, but they are more likely to signal their religiosity to others in public.
Welcome to another week at TSP! We’ve got some great work on LGBT parents, how parole officers define work for formerly incarcerated Black women, and how the Census categorizes multiracial individuals in the United States.
Welcome back everyone. This week we’ve got new pieces on tax reform and inequality, whiteness on American television, and sexual harassment in sports media. See below for that and more from this week at TSP.
Welcome sociology friends! This week we’re wrapping up our “Best of 2017” posts and ramping up for 2018! We’ve got new pieces on Trump’s tweets and racial injustice, screen capping news stories, and neighborhood segregation.
