race

Best of 2019: Safety is Social

Jillian LaBranche on December 30, 2019
A woman walks alone in a dark alley. Photo by renee_mcgurk via Flickr.
While opinions of particular environments, situations, or objects may appear to be objectively dangerous or safe, sociologists argue otherwise. Instead, they find that opinions about safety are subjective. While there is a physical reality of harm and fear, beliefs about safety and danger spread through socialization, rather than direct observation. For example, Simpson notes that snakes and turtles can both cause illness and death through the transmission of venom or bacteria, yet snakes are seen as dangerous and turtles as benign. In other words, danger and safety do not exist on their own; they are contextual.
Socialized beliefs about safety and danger are also raced, classed, and gendered. While statistics indicate that men are predominantly the victims of violent crime, women express greater fear of crime. This fear often acts as a form of social control by limiting women’s daily activities, like when they leave the house and what they wear. Furthermore, the construction of fear and crime is often tied to racist legacies. In the United States, white women express prejudicial fear about areas marked as “dangerous” or “sketchy,” due to the occupation of this space by men of color.
Safety and danger are also constructed at the international level, as national security is politicized. For example, instances of large-scale political violence, such as genocide, war, and acts of terrorism revolve around the social construction of an enemy. More generally, national enemies are constructed as dangerous and a threat to the safety of a nation’s people. This construction of the enemy and perception of fear can move people to join terrorist organizations, participate in genocidal regimes, and enlist in state militaries.

Safety is Social

Jillian LaBranche on November 13, 2019
A woman walks alone in a dark alley. Photo by renee_mcgurk via Flickr.
A woman walks alone in a dark alley. Photo by renee_mcgurk via Flickr.
While opinions of particular environments, situations, or objects may appear to be objectively dangerous or safe, sociologists argue otherwise. Instead, they find that opinions about safety are subjective. While there is a physical reality of harm and fear, beliefs about safety and danger spread through socialization, rather than direct observation. For example, Simpson notes that snakes and turtles can both cause illness and death through the transmission of venom or bacteria, yet snakes are seen as dangerous and turtles as benign. In other words, danger and safety do not exist on their own; they are contextual.
Socialized beliefs about safety and danger are also raced, classed, and gendered. While statistics indicate that men are predominantly the victims of violent crime, women express greater fear of crime. This fear often acts as a form of social control by limiting women’s daily activities, like when they leave the house and what they wear. Furthermore, the construction of fear and crime is often tied to racist legacies. In the United States, white women express prejudicial fear about areas marked as “dangerous” or “sketchy,” due to the occupation of this space by men of color.
Safety and danger are also constructed at the international level, as national security is politicized. For example, instances of large-scale political violence, such as genocide, war, and acts of terrorism revolve around the social construction of an enemy. More generally, national enemies are constructed as dangerous and a threat to the safety of a nation’s people. This construction of the enemy and perception of fear can move people to join terrorist organizations, participate in genocidal regimes, and enlist in state militaries.

#SayHerName and Black Women’s Experiences with Police

Amber Joy Powell on November 7, 2019
Photo shows a large sign that reads, Stop Murder by Police, and shows pictures of women and girls killed by police.
Photo by The All-Nite Images, Flickr CC

Earlier this month another Black American, Atatiana Jefferson, was fatally gunned down by a Fort Worth police officer in her own home. In the weeks since her death, community activists and residents have called for law enforcement accountability and reform of the police department’s use of force policies. As the Fort Worth community continues to grieve and fight for justice, Jefferson’s death reminds us Black women must be included in conversations around police violence, reform, and accountability. After a decades long struggle for visibility, Black women activists created the hashtag #SayHerName to bring awareness to the growing number of Black cis- and transgender women killed by law enforcement — a list Jefferson has now joined at just 28-years-old. A small but impressive group of sociological works have highlighted Black women’s experiences with police and the racialized and gendered challenges that lie ahead in developing police-community trust.

Similar to Black men and boys, Black women and girls also hold higher levels of legal cynicism (distrust) in law enforcement than whites. They report being stopped and facing verbal harassment for traffic incidents or, in the case of Black girls, breaking curfew — especially when in the presence of Black male peers. Black women and girls also distrust police due to their unresponsiveness to serious calls involving interpersonal, domestic, and sexual violence. For many Black women and girls living in low-income communities, police violence is simply one form of a larger “matrix of violence,” where they must also navigate interpersonal and neighborhood violence. At times, police are the perpetrators of these gender-specific forms of violence. These matrices remain interconnected, as cynicism towards law enforcement hinders reliance on police to address other forms of violence.
Motherhood also brings distinct challenges that shape Black women’s attitudes towards police. Black women are targeted through “family criminalization,” where they fear law enforcement will target both their children and themselves for being “bad mothers.” Since motherhood places Black women responsible for the safety of their children, they attempt to protect Black youth from police suspicion by sharing cautionary tales, sheltering them, and teaching them to comply with police demands. Black women’s cautionary tales, however, often emphasize the police assaults against Black sons, while treating police violence against Black daughters as improbable and less violent. While Black mothers often view police as illegitimate and unresponsive, they may also use police services to help (mostly male) loved ones when other resources remain scarce.

For Profit Prisons and the Immigrant Industrial Complex

Caity Curry on October 16, 2019

Photo by the euskadi 11, Flickr CC

Originally posted April 2017. We’re reposting this in light of California’s recent decision to prevent the renewal of contracts with for-profit prison companies.

Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinstated the use of private prisons in the federal system. This move is welcome news to top corrections corporations such as CoreCivic, but human rights activists are concerned about this shift. Opponents claim that these corporations bring in large profits while their prisons remain rife with safety and healthcare deficiencies, as well as underpaid employees. While these concerns are important to consider, the private prison industry represents a small segment of the American correctional system. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only 17% of inmates in federal prisons and 7% in state prisons were held in private facilities in 2015.

During their initial inception, private prisons were believed to be a cost-effective option that could provide better services than government facilities. Despite these goals, much of the current evaluative research suggests that private facilities are no more cost effective than public facilities. Likewise, private prisons appear to perform worse in reducing recidivism than public correctional facilities and have similar (and sometimes worse) conditions than public facilities. In contrast, some evidence suggests that private prisons may be less overcrowded. Due to these ambiguities, scholars of the privatization debate are calling for more research into the qualitative differences between the private and public sector of prisons.
Regardless of their effectiveness, research suggests that the demographic composition of private prisons is racially disparate. In an analysis of adult correctional facilities in 2005, private prisons had significantly fewer white and more Hispanic populations when compared to their public counterparts. As to why racial and ethnic disparities exist, research points to the role of private prisons in immigrant detention, which has lead some scholars to argue that the private prison industry is just a small segment of a massive immigrant industrial complex. This line of research posits that this complex perpetuates the criminalization and stigmatization of immigrants, especially among Latinos, and as a result comes at a significant cost to immigrant families and communities.

Why We Honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Allison Nobles on October 14, 2019

The Dishchii’ Bikoh’ Apache Group from Cibecue, Arizona, demonstrates the Apache Crown Dance. Photo by Grand Canyon National Park, Flickr CC

Originally posted October 9, 2017

In recent years,  an increasing number of Americans are celebrating Indigenous People’s Day to honor those who suffered at the hands of explorers like Christopher Columbus. Social science research helps us understand the underlying gender and racial components of colonial settlement in the United States.

In what is now the United States, Andrea Smith argues that sexual conquest — the rape of native women — was closely tied to the conquest of land. Europeans perceived the indigenous people that inhabited the Americas as uncivilized. Ideas of white civility deemed native women as hypersexual and uncontrollable, unlike white women, whose perceived purity they could not match. These ideas of native women’s sexuality allowed for European males to rape native women without consequence.
Ideas about native men’s and women’s  inferiority were also important for white men’s identities. In the U.S., white settlers believed themselves to be superior to indigenous peoples, bringing enlightenment to an empty wilderness. White, male identity was thus closely tied to the control of land and ownership of property.  
Colonizers viewed land as a metaphor for women’s subjugation. Land – similar to women – was something to be taken and possessed by European men. For example, Europeans who colonized parts of Africa referred to the continent as “virgin land.” Just as virginity was used to describe young women who are perceived as pure and untainted by sex, referring to unconquered land as “virgin” reflects the European’s beliefs that it was also pure, untainted, and ripe for European colonization.

White Nationalism in the 21st Century

Neeraj Rajasekar on October 1, 2019
Photo by Sasha Kimel, Flickr CC

We at The Society Pages have written about the study of “white supremacy” in social science. This term can be used to describe overarching patterns of privilege and power that favor whites or a term that bigotry, prejudice, and belief that whites are a superior race. It may be easy to think that this latter meaning has become less relevant in the contemporary, “post-racial” world, but this is not the case.

In recent years, beliefs about the superiority of whites have actually re-emerged within the political mobilization of populist attitudes, anti-immigrant sentiment, and Right-wing political beliefs in Western democracies. To capture these distinctive and troubling realities, scholars, reporters, and cultural commentators have increasingly begun to use the term “white nationalism.” White nationalism is not just a remnant of outdated, obsolete prejudice; rather, it is has been reconfigured and revitalized for the new global world.

Modern white nationalist rhetoric constructs the image of a historically white country and populace under attack amidst a world of 21st-century immigration, globalization, and shifting racial landscapes. By advancing nativist rhetoric and mobilizing such sentiments in the political arena, white nationalist organizations forwarded understandings of “white” that draw on the idea that the Western world is meant for white people. This has had important political consequences in the USA and Europe; politicians and parties who advance anti-immigration platforms have been bolstered by these dynamics.
Even though relatively few politicians and political parties have openly endorsed white nationalist statements, research shows that white nationalist rhetoric and nativist messages can impact political discourse even among moderate groups. In essence, the presence of white nationalist rhetoric can shape the contours of political discourse more generally. Research has studied such dynamics with an eye to common digital media of the 21st century; the discursive impacts of white nationalist rhetoric are particularly visible in studies of the Internet, social media, and other such platforms. In the 21st century, prominence in the digital sphere is important to how contemporary white nationalist groups make their presence felt. 
It is important to remember white nationalism and right-wing beliefs are not simply empty rhetoric without material consequence. Authors have described how white nationalist rhetoric and organization can affect electoral results — the “Brexit” vote being one of the most obvious current examples. In addition, upticks in white nationalism and nativist sentiment have been paralleled by increased hostility and violence against minority and immigrant populations, as well as the institutionalization of laws that restrict such groups’ rights by targeting their cultural and religious practices. For example, the push for “burqa bans” in several European countries reflects mobilization by nativist groups that has cast the burqa as a symbolic challenge to national identity. This and example and ones like it highlight the white nationalist belief that the nation should be defined by whiteness and designed for whites.

Who Gets a Special Education?

Amy August on September 26, 2019
An elementary school student shows her younger friend how to sign using American Sign Language. Photo by daveynin, Flickr CC.

Since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) in 1975 and the more comprehensive Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990, the number of children receiving special education services has increased dramatically. Today, seven million children in the United States receive special education to meet their individual needs, with more than ever attending their neighborhood schools as opposed to separate schools or institutions.

Because special education has become so institutionalized in schools over the past three decades, we often take for granted that the categories we use to classify people with special needs are socially constructed. For instance, Minnesota has thirteen categorical disability areas, ranging from autism spectrum disorders to blind-visual impairment to traumatic brain injury. But these categories differ from state to state, as do states’ definitions for each category and their protocols for determining when a child meets the diagnostic criteria in a given area. A more sociological take suggests that the “special ed” label does more than just entitle children to receipt of services. For better or worse, it also helps to establish their position within the structure of the mass education system, and to define their relationships with other students, administrators, and professionals.
Research suggests that children of color are overdiagnosed and underserved. They are more likely to be referred for special education testing and to receive special education services than others. This disproportionality occurs more often in categories for which diagnosis relies on the “art” of professional judgment, like emotionally disturbed (ED) or learning disabled (LD). It occurs less often in categories that require little diagnostic inference like deafness or blindness. The attribution of labels can be particularly concerning for children of color, as these labels can be associated with lower teacher and peer expectations and reduced curricular coverage. Even when appropriately placed in special education classes, children of color often receive poorer services than disabled white children. Some research suggests that this happens because the culture and organization of schools encourages teachers to view students of color as academically and behaviorally deficient.
Given the disproportionate representation of students of color in special education, sociologists have investigated whether a child’s race or ethnicity elevates their likelihood of special education placement. By controlling for individual-, school-, and district-level factors, researchers have found that race and social class are not significant predictors of placement. However, school characteristics — like the overall level of student ability — play a role in determining who gets diagnosed. And, because children of color tend to be concentrated in majority-minority schools, they are less likely to be diagnosed than their white peers.

You may also be interested in a previous article: “Autism Across Cultures.”

For more information on children and youth with disabilities, check out the National Center for Education Statistics.

Racial Bias and the Death Penalty

Allison Nobles on September 12, 2019
Photo by World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Flickr CC

Recently, the Trump administration announced they would continue federal executions this coming year, despite the fact there had been no federal executions in nearly two decades. This announcement comes soon after a recent Supreme Court decision reversing Curtis Flower’s death penalty conviction for racial bias in jury selection by a Mississippi prosecutor. This is not the first case about racial bias that has made it to the Supreme Court (see: Furman v. Georgia, McCleskey v. Kemp), nor will it be the last. Social science research demonstrates racial disparities are common in death penalty cases, but racism is not the only factor.

Racial bias in jury decisions is one way black defendants are disadvantaged in capital punishment cases. Research by Mona Lynch and Craig Haney shows that white male jurors are more likely to sentence black defendants to death than women and jurors of color. These jurors often use emotion-based tactics to sway other jurors to their side — and to racially-biased outcomes.
The race of the victim — perhaps more than the race of the defendant — plays an extremely important role in the probability a defendant will face the death penalty, and the likelihood the defendant will eventually be executed. Research finds that black and Hispanic death row inmates convicted of killing white victims face a higher likelihood they will be executed than others on death row. 
Data comes from the Death Penalty Information Center and the General Social Survey. Click to enlarge
Racist histories — like the presence of lynchings — as well as a higher percentage of blacks living in the area increase the number of death sentences. Beyond race, political factors, like public support for the death penalty and Republican strength, also influence yearly executions. Other factors include national level Republican strength, presidential elections that emphasize law and order, economic inequality, and higher murder rates. Further, the presence of liberal political values may explain the absence of death sentences. 

The death penalty’s role in deterrence is contested, but its racial impact is not. Using research on racial bias, social scientists have helped change death penalty policy in the United States. A report by Katherine Beckett and colleagues played a key role in Washington’s decision to abolish the death penalty in 2018. The report found that prosecutors were significantly more likely to file a death notice in a county with a relatively large black population, and juries were 4.5 times more likely to sentence black defendants to death than defendants of other races. 

You may also be interested in a previous article: Racial and Regional Differences in Support for the Death Penalty.”

For more information and data on the death penalty, check out the Death Penalty Information Center.

How Students Benefit from After-School Programs

Neeraj Rajasekar on August 27, 2019

Photo by woodleywonderworks, Flickr CC

Originally posted April 26, 2017.

The Trump administration recently announced plans to cut federal public school programs designed to help students who need financial assistance. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney explained that, although programs like free and reduced lunches and after-school activities are supposed to help kids do better in school, “there’s no demonstrable evidence that they’re actually doing that.” Well, social science begs to differ.

To start, research does show that programs providing low-income students with free or reduced-cost lunches have positive impacts, as proper nutrition is essential for academic achievement and educational success. And providing these lunches has been found to lead to a decrease in disruptive behavior. Importantly, research shows that cutting programs like these would mean that the poorest, most at-risk youth would bear the brunt of the blow, losing observed benefits to academic and social skills that subsidized lunches have been shown to provide.
In addition to lunch programs, extracurricular and after-school activities are threatened under the proposed Trump budget. But there is research that finds these programs can be beneficial. Students involved in after-school programs have been found to experience a variety of positive effects, such as increased attendance at school, a jump in reading comprehension, and a drop in disciplinary referrals. Participating in these programs can predict lower disciplinary measures for students, even for students who are at higher-risk for delinquency. Notably, though there is often a narrative that black students in urban environments are the most “at-risk” and in need of such programs, research shows that African-American students are actually more likely to be involved in after-school activities than white students
However, getting at risk-youth to participate in after-school programs is not always easy. There are a wide variety of programs available, but those intended to provide non-delinquent options to at-risk youth often face the greatest uphill battle. Factors determining youth delinquency, such as issues at home, are difficult for extracurriculars to overcome. On a more individual basis, however, extracurricular programs can have meaningful, positive impacts in the long run by giving participants skills, passions, and experiences that prove useful later in life. This complicates the Trump administration’s assertion that  these programs should be cut because they “don’t work.” Rather, paying attention to how they work can lead to more positive impacts and greater availability for America’s students.

Injustice and Indigenous Women in Canada

Allison Nobles on June 28, 2019
Photo shows a crowd of people holding signs. The sign in focus is green and says "Missing Murdered" and shows photos of Indigenous women.
Photo by JMacPherson, Flickr CC

A historic inquiry into missing and murdered women in Canada has determined that the nation committed genocide against Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people. The violence stems from a long history of colonial and patriarchal violence, according to the report’s authors. Moreover, they suggest that “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence” still today. Recent sociological research shows that the heightened risk of violence faced by Indigenous women in Canada is also deeply entwined with social stigmatization, poverty, and the lingering impacts of reservations on housing and schools.

With racism and colonization, Indigenous women in Canada have long been labelled as promiscuous, immoral, and sexually available. Today, these stereotypes contribute to victim-blaming and a lack of attention to cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people. More specifically, law enforcement regularly dismisses reports of missing women and girls as runaways or partiers and, with the media, use these stereotypes to blame these women for making bad choices that contribute to their own victimization.
Yet many women who hitchhike
do so for social and material reasons. Ever since the creation of reservations, these women face barriers to transportation and mobility. Such challenges are only exacerbated by poverty and homelessness. For Indigenous women and girls in other words, hitchhiking a logical, even necessary form of travel.
Then, there is also the
problem of violence committed by law enforcement officers themselves. Even when publicized (as one egregious such case from 2011 was) police officers rarely face prosecution — further reinforcing the idea that Indigenous women and girls can be exploited with impunity. These abuses of power are part of systemic injustices in the criminal justice system, from denial of medical care while incarcerated to jury acquittals in murder trials. 

Prime Minister Trudeau has assured the Canadian public that his government will take action in response to this report. But with a history of abuse and broken promises, it should not be surprising that many Indigenous people are skeptical that anything will really change.

For in-depth reporting on more of these cases, listen to the CBC podcast, Missing & Murdered.