race

The Trump administration continues to ramp up policies that not only curb the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States, but also bolster an already formidable deportation system. Currently, many “Dreamers” protected by former president Obama’s executive order are worried that president Trump will overturn this crucial immigration policy, which grants residency status to undocumented individuals that came to the United States as children prior to 2012. This unprecedented move could potentially lead to the detention and deportation of nearly 800,000 people. Surprisingly, social science has found that immigration policy in the United States does not typically follow immigration patterns, but more often shaped by economic and political conditions.

Many legal avenues for migration to the United States were dismantled from the late 1950s through 1965, including the elimination of many temporary worker visas and country and hemispheric quotas. This policy shift resulted in an uptick in undocumented migrants from Latin America until the late 1970s, which subsequently tapered off with the passage of the Immigration and Reform Control Act in 1986. Due to this influx of undocumented immigrants, political rhetoric surrounding immigration took a punitive turn, fueling anti-immigrant sentiment and restrictionist policies with strict enforcement practices, especially during the mid 1990s through the 2000s.

• Douglas S. Massey and Karen A. Pren. 2012. “Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post‐1965 Surge from Latin America.” Population and Development Review 38(1): 1-29.

Deportations of both undocumented and documented immigrants has increased significantly in the past few decades, so much so that under the Obama administration, a record 2 million immigrants were deported by the end of 2013. These unprecedented numbers of deportations typically involved people with no criminal record or those with minor convictions, such as traffic offenses or marijuana possession, and nearly one quarter of the 400,000 deportees in 2012 were parents of U.S. citizens.

• Marie Gottschalk. 2016. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press.

Scholars have demonstrated the parallels between the system of mass deportation and mass incarceration in the United States, both of which disproportionately impact men of color, are rife with punitive rhetoric, and are bolstered by massive government and private expenditures. Tanya Maria Golash-Boza contends that deportation is nested within the current state of global capitalism.  She argues that deportations serve the function of removing surplus labor while keeping undocumented labor populations in the United States compliant and vulnerable. This era of mass deportation and “crimmigration” comes at a significant cost to immigrant communities and families. Unfortunately, if the current political climate of “America First” is any indicator, these social and human costs will only exacerbate in the recent future.

• Tanya Maria Golash-Boza. 2015. Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism. NYU Press.
• Jacqueline Maria Hagan, Nestor Rodriguez, and Brianna Castro. 2011. Social Effects of Mass Deportations by the United States Government, 2000–10. Ethnic and Racial Studies 34(8): 1374-1391.

Trump’s rise to the presidency still has many people wondering why large numbers of whites with low to moderate incomes voted for a candidate who supports policies that are likely to have a negative impact on them. In other words, how is a millionaire real estate developer from New York City seen as an average Joe and a champion of white workers? Two prominent sociological explanations involve the racist attitudes of whites’ and feelings of anger and abandoment in economically struggling rural communities.

Racially coded, and racially explicit, language is particularly powerful for tapping into white Americans’ feelings of displacement, loss, and resentment. Sociological research suggests that racialized attacks on “undeserving” immigrants and people of color who benefit from government “handouts” provide a target for anger and a rationale for why white working class communities are struggling economically (while ignoring the privileges that go along with whiteness). Thus, the emotional appeals of racist and xenophobic campaign rhetoric can contribute to lower income people voting against their economic self-interest.

• Paula Ioanide. 2015. The Emotional Politics of Racism: How Feelings Trump Facts in an Era of Colorblindness. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Ian Haney-López. 2014. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Justin Gest. 2016. The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Much of the public commentary about white working class voters has focused on folks in cities and industrial sectors, but another important population to consider is rural residents. People in rural areas are disproportionately white, are struggling economically due to declines in commodity prices, and are confronting rapid demographic changes. Rural citizens, especially white men, perceive their religious and nationalist beliefs as being looked-down upon by liberals, and they draw on a strong rural identity when they describe feeling ignored and abandoned by politicians and elites who devalue their lifestyles. They see the government as creating policies that favor cities and help undeserving minorities and state bureaucrats, all while ignoring rural people. Thus, conservative politicians like Trump have tapped into people’s anger and resentment through emotional appeals to masculinity and male dignity, American nationalism, and Christian morals.

• Arlie Russell Hochschild. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New York, NY: The New Press.
• Katherine J Cramer. 2016. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. 2016. Rural America at a Glance. Washington, DC.
• Daniel T. Lichter. 2012. “Immigration and the New Racial Diversity in Rural America.” Rural Sociology 77(1): 3–35.

For more on why working class whites voted from Trump, see here, here, and here.

President Trump has made several high-profile picks for his cabinet, but he has one of the least diverse cabinets in recent history; there are no Latinos and very few other minorities or women. This has drawn criticism, but why is diversity a good thing for governments and other organizations? Social science research shows how diversity helps, but also how organizations often limit diversity by warping what it means to their members.  

Diversity can be quite beneficial for organizations. For example, schools with a more diverse student body experience superior educational outcomes. Similarly, in business, employee racial or gender diversity predicts higher sales revenue and market share.   

• Nida Denson and Mitchell J. Chang. 2009. “Racial Diversity Matters: The Impact of Diversity-Related Student Engagement and Institutional Context.” American Educational Research Journal 46(2): 322-353.
• Cedric Herring. 2009. “Does Diversity Pay?: Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity.” American Sociological Review 74(2): 208-224.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to questions regarding the lack of diversity by stating that this cabinet is diverse; it has a “diversity of thinking…diversity of ideology.”  This is an example of how diversity acts as “Happy Talk,” a way people can show off their affections for modern equality without any attention to existing inequality. In short, many people talk about “diversity” in abstract ways, but avoid any real discussion of race, gender, and the like.

• Joyce Bell and Douglas Hartmann. 2007. “Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ‘Happy Talk’“ American Sociological Review 72(6): 895-914.

This inattention toward issues of race, gender, sexuality, and other axes of oppression can take the “oomph” out of claims to diversity and misses its original intent: increasing access for marginalized groups. Ellen Berrey succinctly describes the effects of watered down, amorphous diversity as “taming demands for racial justice.” As the remaining 5,000 cabinet sub-positions are filled, pay attention to whether these selections are diverse and what kind of “diversity” they really represent.

• David Embrick. 2011. “The Diversity Ideology in the Business World: A New Oppression for a New Age.” Critical Sociology 37(5): 541-556.
• Ellen Berrey. 2015. The Enigma of Diversity. University of Chicago Press; Chicago, IL.  

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments for Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, a case concerning allegations of racial bias in jury deliberations. Many states prohibit hearing juror testimony following the conclusion of a trial; however, following the deliberations of Peña-Rodriguez’s case, two jurors signed affidavits attesting to racial bias by a fellow juror. They allege that the juror referred to an alibi witness as discreditable because he was “an illegal,” and asserted that the defendant was guilty “because he’s Mexican.” After initially being struck down by both the trial judge and the Colorado Supreme Court, Peña-Rodriguez is now making his case to the highest court, a task which research suggests may prove extremely challenging.

In her book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander illustrates why challenging racial bias in juries is so difficult. Despite the passage of laws such as Batson v. Kentucky, which prohibits prosecutors from discriminating on the basis of race when selecting juries, both prosecutors and defense attorneys are allowed peremptory strikes, or the ability to strike potential jurors for just about any reason they choose. Challenging instances of racial bias is even more difficult following the Supreme Court decision in Purkett v. Elm, which ruled that even if there is a pattern of striking a particular racial group by a prosecutor, providing any race-neutral reason (the prosecutor in this case used hair length) is enough to justify that the decision is not based on race.

• Nijole V. Benokaritis. 1982. Racial Exclusion in Juries. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18(1), 29-47.
• Hiroshi Fukurai. Edgar W. Butler, & Richard Krooth. 1991. Where Did Black Jurors Go? A Theoretical Synthesis of Racial Disenfranchisement in the Jury System and Jury Selection. Journal of Black Studies, 22(2), 196-215.

Moreover, it is not just legal precedents that solidify racial bias, but also the initial selection process itself that is discriminatory. Potential jurors are drawn from registered voters or Department of Motor Vehicle lists, which contain fewer minorities. Forty-seven states also restrict the rights of felons to serve on juries, which disproportionately limits the presence people of color. Most states and the federal government place a lifetime exclusion for felonies, which automatically bans nearly 30 percent of adult black men from jury service.

• Brian C. Kalt. 2003. Exclusion of Felons from Jury Service. American University Law Review, 53, 1-149.
• Darren Wheelock. 2005. Collateral Consequences and Racial Inequality: Felon Status Restrictions as a System of Disadvantage. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 21(1), 82-90.

In short, jury selection is not only inherently racially biased, but many Supreme Court decisions appear to support a system of racial discrimination rather than dismantle it. As a result, legal precedents such as the rules of evidence may bolster, or at the very least shield, racial bias within jury deliberations.

The ways that non-Western victims of violence and poverty are portrayed in the news is problematic. For example, on the 6th of October this year, The New York Times had an above-the-fold image of migrants on its front page. The image was of several dead and dying African migrants on a boat and, troubling as this may be, the image was not an anomaly. Consider the images we have recently seen from Syria — from the drowned child on the beach to the dazed child covered in dust pulled out of a bombed building. Social scientists explains how the choice to use these kinds of images is neither an objective nor an accidental process.

News images are rarely meant to teach us something new, rather, they are meant to reaffirm what we already know while tugging at our heartstrings. Nowhere is this more evident than during instances of instability and violence in the Global South. Even in death and suffering, non-Western victims are denied their privacy; their pain is meant to be consumed by the audience while reaffirming real and symbolic differences.

• Barbara Rosenblum. 1978. “Style as Social Process.” American Sociological Review 43:422–38.
• Keith Greenwood and C. Zoe Smith. 2007. “How the World looks to Us: International News in Award-winning Photographs from the Pictures of the Year, 1943-2003.” Journalism Practice 1(1): 82-101.
• Marta Zarzycka and Martijn Kleppe. 2013. “Awards, Archives, and Affects: Tropes in the World Press Photo Contest, 2009-11.” Media Culture and Society 35(8): 977-995.

Images of pain and suffering are less about an increase in “bad” things happening and more about how  we understand the consumption of pain, suffering, and death of victims that are “Other.” They allow us to consume the pain of others from the comfort of our living rooms while reminding us of how “good” we have it.

• Kari Andén-Papadopoulos. 2008. “The Abu Ghraib torture photographs: News frames, visual culture, and the power of images.” Journalism 9(1): 5-30.
• Alexander Nikolaev. 2009. “Images of War: Content Analysis of the Photo Coverage of the War in Kosovo.“ Critical Sociology 35(1):105-130.

In the case of Africa and Africans especially, the use of images has a long and troubled history. Research continually shows that images of Africans are often steeped in stereotypes of Africans as simplistic, tribal, “noble savages,” and primitive.

• Guy Berger. 2010. “Image Revisions: South Africa, Africa, and the 2010 World Cup.“ Equid Novi: African Journalism Studies 31(2):174-190.
• Melinda Robins. 2003. “‘Lost Boys’ and the Promised Land: US Newspaper Coverage of Sudanese Refugees.“ Journalism 4(1): 29-49

The defining images of 1960s Africa are of starving Biafran children. The image of the 1990s is that of a vulture stalking an emaciated Sudanese child near the village of Ayod in South Sudan by Kevin Carter. Such images often reaffirm stereotypes of the continent and its peoples as ‘starving’, ‘chaotic’, or ‘sick’. This history makes it possible to plaster images of dead and dying migrants on a boat across the front page of an American newspaper with little to no discussion of the structural factors leading to their deaths.

• Jo Ellen Fair and Lisa Parks. 2001. “Africa on Camera: Television News Coverage and Aerial Imaging of Rwandan Refugees.” Africa Today 48(2): 35-57.
• Minabere Ibelema. 2014. “Africa’s Otherness: Changes and Resilience in News Coverage.“ Journalism & Communication Monographs 16(2): 162-217.
• Austin Okigbo and Bellarmine Ezumah. 2015. “Media Health Images of Africa and the Politics of Representation: A South African AIDS Choir Counter-Narrative.” Journal of Asian and African Studies.

Marvel’s new series focusing on superhero Luke Cage debuted on Netflix in late September to critical acclaim. The show boasts a 95% rating on RottenTomatoes and was called “one of the most socially relevant and smartest shows on the small screen you will see this year,” by Deadline.com’s Dominic Patten. Aside from its artistic merits, commentaries also praise the prominence of Luke Cage as a “bulletproof black man in a hoodie,” with the show’s star Michael Colter telling The Huffington Post: “It’s a nod to Trayvon, no question … Trayvon Martin and people like him. People like Jordan Davis, a kid who was shot because of the perception that he was a danger. When you’re a black man in a hoodie all of a sudden you’re a criminal.”

Comic books and comic book culture have slowly become more diverse as companies like Marvel have begun prioritizing the inclusion of racial minorities in their stories. Kamala Khan, a Muslim teen, has replaced the white hero Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel. The hero replacing Iron Man is a black teen named Riri Williams. And Miles Morales, a black Hispanic teen, replaced the white Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Yet despite its recent progressive slant, Marvel and other comic companies have had issues with racial stereotyping, particularly with their black heroes. Marc Singer describes how the medium of comics relies on racialized representations, with appearance being a major way to distinguish characters from one another. 

• Marc Singer. 2002. “Black Skins” and White Masks: Comic Books and the Secret of Race.” African American Review 36(1), 107-119.
• Adilifu Nama. 2011. Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Super Heroes. University of Texas Press.
• Herman Gray. 2013. “Subject(ed) to Recognition.” American Quarterly (65:4), 771-798.

This is also heavily tied up in the portrayal of superheroes as super-masculine. When the racial aspect of this dynamic is uncovered, we see a complicated history. Rob Lendrum traces these heroes to the “blaxploitation” era of film/media in the 1970s, arguing that many superheroes were influenced by this culture, including Luke Cage. Jeffrey A. Brown sees these images as one-note and compares them to the black-owned works of Milestone Media Inc. comics.

• Jeffrey A. Brown. 1999. “Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero.” African American Review 33(1), 25-42.
• Rob Lendrum. 2005. “The Super Black Macho, One Baaad Mutha: Black Superhero Masculinity in 1970s Mainstream Comic Books.” Extrapolation 46(3), 360-372.

Today some cities are celebrating Indigenous People’s Day in an attempt to counter the celebration of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas that led to years of disease, death, and the removal of native peoples from their homes. One thing to reflect on is how this turbulent past has had lasting health effects for Native Americans. According to the Indian Health Service (IHS), Native Americans and Alaskan Natives have a lower life expectancy than any other US racial group and they are more likely to die from heart disease, cirrhosis, and suicide.

Social science researchers point to a number of social and historical factors that help explain the high suicide rates for Native Americans, including racial discrimination, a long history of colonial exploitation, poor health outcomes, and poor communities. Many of these communities also lack access to quality reproductive healthcare, a disparity that researchers associate with high rates of c-sections among Native American women giving birth.

• Nicholas A Guittar. 2012. “On and Off the Reservation: A Discussion of the Social, Physical, and Mental Health Indicators of Suicide in the Native American Community.” Sociology Compass 6(3):236-243.  
• Louise Marie Roth and Megan M. Henley. 2012. “Unequal Motherhood Racial-Ethnic and Socioeconomic Disparities in Cesarean Sections in the United States.” Social Problems 59(2):207-227.

Poor health outcomes are also closely related to environmental injustice. The remote areas of land originally chosen for Native American reservations tended to be lands that were least attractive to White Americans, but perfect for military testing. The US military used adjoining lands and sometimes seized reservation lands to test military equipment, leaving toxic and dangerous materials in close proximity to Native American land. Native Americans living in areas with high levels of pollution attribute various health problems in their communities to pollutants, but are often unable to validate their concerns through institutional channels.

• Gregory Hooks and Chad L. Smith. 2004. “The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans.” American Sociological Review 69(4):558-575.  
• Thomas E. Shriver and Gary R. Webb. 2009. “Rethinking the Scope of Environmental Injustice: Perceptions of Health Hazards in a Rural Native American Community Exposed to Carbon Black.” Rural Sociology 74(2):270-292.

In lieu of the recent fatal police shootings in cities such as Tulsa, Charlotte, and most recently, El Cajon, California, communities are coming together to demand changes in law enforcement interactions. Of particular concern is police surveillance and the subsequent criminalization of minor offenses. “Problem-oriented policing” – which focuses on a community’s “hot spots” and requires police to be more proactive in identifying where crime might happen, as opposed to just reacting after a crime takes place – has been offered as a possible solution. But does problem-oriented policing actually reduce crime? Social science research helps us sort out the potential benefits and pitfalls to problem-oriented policing.

The research record is mixed. Studies evaluating problem-oriented policing programs in Jersey City and Los Angeles showed reductions in serious crimes, such as property crime, robbery, and drug selling, as well nuisance crimes associated with homelessness. Others, however, show no signs of decrease in the number of reported crime rates. Scholars suggest that problem-oriented policing may only have an impact in areas of severe crime and distrust of law enforcement.  

• Anthony A. Braga, David L. Weisburd, Elin J. Waring, Lorraine Green Mazerolle, William Spelman, and Francis Gajewski. 1999. “Problem‐oriented Policing in Violent Crime Places: A Randomized Controlled Experiment.” Criminology 37(3): 541-580.
• Richard Berk and John McDonald. 2010. “Policing the Homeless: An Evaluation of Efforts to Reduce Homeless-related Crime.” Criminology and Public Policy, 9 (4): 813-840.
• David Weisburd, Nancy A. Morris, and Justin Ready. 2008. “Risk-Focused Policing at Places: An Experimental Evaluation.” Justice Quarterly 25(1): 163-200.

Additional concerns with problem-oriented policing is its effect on marginalized communities. Both observed environmental cues and implicit racial and ethnic biases affect people’s perception of neighborhood disorder. As such, neighborhoods with high concentrations of racial/ethnic minorities are perceived as having more disorder, and consequently viewed as more dangerous and violent. Residents living in neighborhoods marked by perceived disorder are themselves labeled as threats by law enforcement, perpetuating and reproducing urban inequality and cultural stereotypes.

• Robert Sampson and Stephen W. Raudenbush. 2004. “Seeing Disorder: Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of ‘Broken Windows.’” Social Psychology Quarterly 67(4): 319-342.
• George Kelling and Catherine Coles. 1996. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. New York: Free Press.

Last month marked the centennial of the National Park Service, which is tasked with preserving natural and cultural resources and protecting outdoor spaces for recreation, like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite. The most recently designated park is an ocean park where 4,900 square miles of deep sea volcanoes and canyons in the Atlantic ocean are now prohibited from commercial fishing and other types of resource extraction. While the idea behind the national park system is that everyone should be able to enjoy nature, the reality is that the working class and people of color are less likely to use national parks and the history of the parks has involved the displacement and exclusion of Native American, African American and immigrant communities.

Unequal access to resources – including money for entrance fees and transportation, equipment for exploring the parks, and leisure time – have resulted in race and class differences in who can actually enjoy the national parks.

• Jason Byrne and Jennifer Wolch. 2009. “Nature, Race, and Parks: Past Research and Future Directions for Geographic Research.” Progress in Human Geography 33(6): 743–65.
• Paul H. Gobster. 2002. “Managing Urban Parks for a Racially and Ethnically Diverse Clientele.” Leisure Sciences 24(2): 143–59.
• Myron Floyd. 1999. “Race, Ethnicity and Use of the National Park System.” NPS Social Science Research Review 1(2): 1–24.

Beyond access, there are a variety of cultural definitions of “the wilderness,” “the outdoors,” and recreation that are shaped by race. Racial norms and ideologies impact how people perceive leisure time and values of natural beauty, and activities like hiking and camping are often seen as “white hobbies.” Yet, these differences are largely due to a history of exclusion, discrimination, and segregation that kept people of color from using public outdoor space, particularly in the Jim Crow South.

• Cassandra Y. Johnson, Patrick M. Horan, and William Pepper. 1997. “Race, Rural Residence, and Wildland Visitation: Examining the Influence of Sociocultural Meaning.” Rural Sociology 62(1): 80–110.
• Cassandra Y. Johnson. 1998. “A Consideration of Collective Memory in African American Attachment to Wildland Recreation Places.” Human Ecology Review 5(1): 5–15.
• Dorecetta Taylor. 1989. “Blacks and the Environment:  Towards an Explanation of the Concern and Action Gaps Between Blacks and Whites.” Environment and Behavior 21(2): 175- 205.

The parks themselves were created through colonialism, as much of the land that is now “protected” was of course taken from Native Americans. The idea of a pristine wilderness is historically linked to white racial purity and the need for Europeans to save the land, which justified U.S. expansion into the West. The conservation movement was also led by white men, such as John Muir, who often overlooked the struggles of racial minorities and issues of equity.

• Mark David Spence. 1999. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
• Mark Daniel Barringer. 2002. Selling Yellowstone: Capitalism and the Construction of Nature. Lawrence, Kan: University Press of Kansas.
• Dorcetta Taylor. 2016. The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

More and more athletes are joining the San Francisco 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick in kneeling during the “Star Spangled Banner” at the beginning of sporting events. Though this phenomenon has spurred controversy and heated exchanges, sports stars using their celebrity for civic action is not entirely new. After the police shootings of Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and other unarmed black people, numerous members of the NBA and NFL wore hoodies that read “I Can’t Breathe,” (Eric Gardner’s last words); others entered the game while making the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” gesture championed by #BlackLivesMatter. Indeed, today we are witnessing a resurgence of athlete advocacy.

A common criticism of these athletes is that “they should just stick to sports!” or that “they aren’t supposed to talk about politics!” In reality, however, athletes have been at the forefront of protests and civic action for some time now, particularly in the 1960s. TSP Editor Doug Hartmann’s popular book describes how the Civil Rights Movement provided the context for athletes to begin using their celebrity for greater causes. Similarly, Ben Carrington describes how racism has shaped the international black-athlete-experience. Colonialism and contemporary globalization have made sports a site where racism is enacted and solidified, meaning athletes have had to think about these concepts–and fight against them–for a long time.

• Douglas Hartmann. 2003. Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and their Aftermath. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Ben Carrington. 2010. Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora. Sage Publications.

After the Civil Rights movement, athlete protests became less common, especially as athletes expanded into areas like merchandising and marketing, which meant that they were more likely to avoid “rocking the boat” and jeopardizing their business. But because of #BlackLivesMatter and a greater national focus on police killings of unarmed black people, athletes are once again getting into the fray. As Herbert Ruffin describes, politicizing college sports has led student athletes to protest for their own rights and demands — remember the events at Ole Miss last year? Similarly, Emmett Gill describes actions (and reactions) surrounding the “Ferguson Five” — the St. Louis Rams football players who showed solidarity with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. 

• Herbert G. Ruffin II. 2014. “Doing the Right Thing for the Sake of Doing the Right Thing”: The Revolt of the Black Athlete and the Modern Student-Athletic Movement, 1956-2014. Western Journal of Black Studies, 38(4).
• Emmett E Gill Jr. 2016. “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” or Shut Up and Play Ball? Fan-generated Media Views of the Ferguson Five. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 26(3-4): 400-412.

This research shows that while athlete activism is often met with criticism, it does not mean that their tactics will prove unsuccessful. If history or recent events have shown us anything, the opposite may be truer. One thing is for sure — athlete protest in the contemporary era is just warming up.

For even more readings on race, sports, and athlete activism, check out the  #ColinKaepernickSyllabus created by NewBlackMan (in Exile).