race/ethnicity

Jessica F. and Dmitriy T.M. alerted us to a really interesting photo project by Duncan McNicholl, a member of Engineers Without Borders Canada. Frustrated with the portrayals of “poor Africans” he saw at home in Canada, he decided to take pictures of his acquaintances in Malawi “dressed to kill” and “dressed very poorly.” He explains his motivation:

We’ve all seen it: the photo of a teary-eyed African child, dressed in rags, smothered in flies, with a look of desperation that the caption all too readily points out. Some organization has made a poster that tells you about the realities of poverty, what they are doing about it, and how your donation will change things.

I reacted very strongly to these kinds of photos when I returned from Africa in 2008. I compared these photos to my own memories of Malawian friends and felt lied to. How had these photos failed so spectacularly to capture the intelligence, the laughter, the resilience, and the capabilities of so many incredible people?

The truth is that the development sector, just like any other business, needs revenue to survive. Too frequently, this quest for funding uses these kind of dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and eventually donations from a largely unsuspecting public…

This is not to say that people do not struggle, far from it, but the photos I was seeing only told part of the story… [To contribute to correcting this,] I am taking two photos of the same person; one photo with the typical symbols of poverty (dejected look, ripped clothes, etc.), and another of this person looking their very finest, to show how an image can be carefully constructed to present the same person in very different ways.

McNicholl asked his acquaintances to participate and to choose their own clothes and pose as they like. Here are two examples of the result:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Justin A. B. drew our attention to a Marie Claire fashion slide show titled “Nude is the New Black.”  By “nude” (ironically) they mean, “white-person-color.”  Every single picture featured a tan or cream item.  Every. Single. One.

We’ve been covering this phenomenon.  See our posts on “flesh-colored,” Michelle Obama’s “nude” colored dress, the new in-color, lotion for “normal to darker skin,” and color-assisted medical diagnosis.

NEW! (July ’10): Anna sent in another example, this time an article about Givenchy’s Fall 2010 collection. According to the article (at style.com), “everything was white, flesh-colored, or gold, with a salon dedicated to each shade.” On the Givenchy website, they use the term “nude.” An example of a “flesh-colored/nude” dress:

A group photo that shows the range of colors; the two in the middle are the “nude” dresses:

Also NEW! (July ’10): Juliana B. pointed out that in the May 2010 issue of Esquire an article on haircuts completely ignored Black men, who might not be able to use the suggestions on their hair…but in the June issue, the editor responded to a letter from a reader by acknowledging “he’s right.” They then included a segment on haircuts for Black men:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In addition to differences in income, there is a persistent wealth gap between black and white families in the U.S. The term “wealth” refers to all of your assets (the home you own, money in savings and investments, etc) minus your debt. According to a new research and policy brief by Thomas Shapiro, Tatjana Meschede, and Laura Sullivan, the wealth gap has increased from $20,000 in 1984 to $95,000 in 2007.

The authors explain the growth in the gap this way:

The [increase in the] racial wealth gap… reflects public policies, such as tax cuts on investment income and inheritances which benefit the wealthiest, and redistribute wealth and opportunities. Tax deductions for home mortgages, retirement accounts, and college savings all disproportionately benefit higher income families.

There are also much variety in how much wealth is held by people within any given race. The figure below, shows that the gap between high-income and middle-income whites has tripled since 1984. Both groups, however, have seen an increase in the amount of wealth they hold.

In contrast, the wealth of middle-income black families has stagnated and the wealth of high-income black families has recently dropped, flattening differences in wealth among middle- and high-income blacks, but dramatically increasing the wealth gap between blacks and whites.

So why don’t we see an increase in the wealth gap among blacks? The authors point to “…the powerful role of persistent discrimination in housing, credit, and labor markets.”

For example, African-Americans and Hispanics were at least twice as likely to receive high-cost home mortgages as whites with similar incomes. These reckless high-cost loans unnecessarily impeded wealth building in minority communities and triggered the foreclosure crisis that is wiping out the largest source of wealth for minorities.

The authors conclude:

Public policies have and continue to play a major role in creating and sustaining the racial wealth gap, and they must play a role in closing it.

Hat tip to Philip Cohen, Family Inequality.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Jessica L. sent in an example that simply and clearly illustrates the way that lighter skin tones that come closest to matching White skin are given the status of neutral, “regular,” unmarked skin. She was shopping for a sports bra and noticed that the colors included white, black, and a beige color, which instead of being called beige or tan or something of that sort is called “skin” (reader May points out that “tan” is used to refer to skin color as well):

For other examples, see our post on “flesh”-colored clothing.

On ESPN on May 17th, Jesse W. was subject to this little piece of advertising bookending an article.  According to this advertising, women decide to buy a new car because they know it in their heart; men, in contrast, know it in their mind:

UPDATE! In the comments, Kit M. and others noted that you could apply a race analysis to this ad as well. For hundreds of years darker-skinned people have been argued by Europeans to be closer to animals, more instinctual, and tied more tightly to their emotions. Whereas rationality has been granted largely to white men of the upper classes. So the use of a Black woman to represent heart and a White man to represent mind also fits neatly with familiar stereotypes.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Sanguinity sent in an interesting, if disheartening, report by Insight Center for Community Economic Development. The report looks at the assets owned by women of color and the wealth gap between them and men of different racial/ethnic groups.

An overview of wealth (the value of all assets minus the value of debts) broken down by race/ethnicity and type of household:

Of course, the most striking finding there are the major disparities by race, particularly how much wealth White non-Hispanics have compared to all other groups (largely due to owning more valuable homes). Notice that single White men and women have higher median household wealth than married Black or Hispanic couples. This is astounding.

Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than Whites to have no wealth at all, or to have debts outweigh all assets; again, unmarried Whites are better off in this regard than are married Blacks and Hispanics:

Among single parents, women appear to bear a disproportionate amount of the financial hardships of caring for children. White single mothers with children of any age (second column) have only 57% as much wealth as White single fathers; the equivalent ratio for Blacks is 0.4% and for Hispanics, 5%. Read that again: 0.4% and 5% as much wealth as single fathers from the same race! And take a look at the actual cash value: median wealth for Black women is $100, and for Hispanic women, it’s $120!

But then look at that third column! If you’re a single mother and have children under the age of 18 — who are more likely to be living with you than with their father — your financial picture is pretty dismal. Black and Hispanic women with children under age 18 have a median wealth of zero, meaning half have no wealth at all or owe more than all their assets combined are worth. Even White women, who are absolutely wealthy by comparison, have only 14% as much wealth as White single fathers with children under age 18.

Thinking about the implications of those numbers — the very meager financial resources available to many families, the particularly difficult situation of single mothers of all races, what this means for a family’s ability to cope with a crisis such as a car breaking down or a medical emergency, the ability to come up with deposits for an apartment — is mind-blowing.

The report has quite a bit of other information too, so if you’re interested in this topic, go check it out.

Oh my. Inés V. just let us know about a contest on WTVN, a conservative talk radio station in Ohio (reader Scapino clarifies that the conservative tone is mostly due to syndication of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, not really the local DJs). Just…see for yourself:

Inés says,

This campaign is a response to Columbus mayor Michael Coleman who boycotted AZ by banning all city-funded travel after SB1070, and the mayor is depicted as a holder of a green card [that’s him shown on the ID card].

It’s an astounding example of dehumanizing undocumented immigrants — being a proud American is linked to “illegals” (a term that somehow seems more stigmatizing than terms like “illegal immigrants” or “illegal aliens,” even — a linguistic erasure of personhood altogether) being scared, presumably of all the proud Americans they encounter, and the lucky winner gets to go “spend a weekend chasing aliens”. It’s like you’re getting to go on a safari.

Groups in Columbus have organized a response and will be delivering letters to the station this afternoon, before the contest ends, in protest.

I’d add more commentary, but what can you really say?

K. sent in a trailer for a new comedy called Outsourced.  In it, a white call center manager is sent to India to  manage a company full of Indian workers who take orders for gag items (including jingle jugs).  I think the it is both troubling and promising at the same time.  My thoughts after the trailer:

On the one hand, a lot of prior experience and several aspects of this trailer make me worry that this show is going to capitalize on negative stereotypes of Indians, especially ones that suggest that they are goofy and nerdy and are hilariously unfamiliar (e.g., “stupid” names and “scary” food)… with a handful of stereotypes about Americans thrown in for good measure.  The show threatens to reaffirm a binary where the U.S. and India are completely different in every way.

On the other hand, I am encouraged by the fact that the show includes a wide range of Indian characters.  In some cases, our stereotypes are upset by traits that Americans are conditioned not to expect in Indians (such as the guy who likes to dance); in other cases, characteristics are clearly attributed to individuals instead of “Indians” (such as the girl who is afraid to talk).  Further, it becomes clear in the trailer that the employees in the manager’s office are misfits because they’re misfits, not because they’re Indian.  The competitor call center employees are not misfits at all.  They are clearly super-effective and excellently-trained (though, perhaps, also Westernized).  The ridiculousness of the main ensemble cast, then, isn’t attributed to their Indianness per se.

So, yes, I fear that this is going to be a show that makes (white) Americans laugh by suggesting that Indians are dorky and weird.  At the same time, I see promise in a show that actually casts Indians as individuals instead of representatives of their nation/race.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.