race

Race and Affirmative Action in Brazil

Lucas Lynch on November 21, 2018
Photo of a march for Dia Consciência Negra in São Paulo. Photo by Central dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras do Brasil CTB, Flickr CC

Historically, Brazil had presented itself as a “racial democracy” where interaction between racial groups formed a utopian, raceless society. In the last few decades, Brazil has come to acknowledge its underlying racism and resulting disparities, leading to the 2001 enactment of race-based affirmative action projects. Social scientific research can help us better understand the functions and necessity of these programs, which are likely to be under threat following the election of right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro who has been openly critical of Blacks and the LGBT community and the policies that serve them.

In Brazil, skin color has been the defining mechanism for racial categorization and identity in between a black and white binary. Some official methods, however, including the Brazilian Census, recognize multiracial identity and a number of racial categories. Multiple methods of classification can be tricky, and this can obscure deeper and more basic racial inequalities. Though pardos (a mixed-race category used in the census) can face similar social situations as dark-skinned Blacks (sometimes referred to as pretos), recent research finds that pardos actually do experience less disadvantage than pretos, complicating decisions about who receives help from affirmative action programs.
Given this complexity, determining who is Black and a possible beneficiary of the racial quota program has differed. Some universities have required applicants to be of African descent to qualify for racial quotas, which has caused complications since many Brazilians could claim African ancestry even though they may have light skin or are not seen as “Black.” In other cases, verification committees at different universities confirm whether an applicant should be considered Black and a beneficiary of the racial quota system. The quota program has now significantly broadened to include applicants from low-income families as well as Indigenous peoples. Independent of skin color or racial group, support for affirmative action programs and race-targeted public policies is strong. Research suggests, however, that the more education someone has, the less likely they are to support racial quotas. It is important to consider what factors affect support and execution of these policies as opponents such as President-elect Bolsonaro attempt to dismantle it.

Table Talk for Thanksgiving

TSP Grad Board on November 19, 2018

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Originally posted November 22, 2016.

For many Americans, this weekend is the time for food, football, and family we don’t see often. Given the heightened tensions surrounding the presidential election, social media is teeming with advice on how to constructively engage with friends and family who have different political views. Avoidance, wine, and crying is one strategy, but thinking about what family meals mean and actually engaging in constructive conversations about political issues may be more fruitful.

We often think of Thanksgiving as a time to have a family meal together and strengthen family bonds. But research shows that family dinner does not actually increase well-being in and of itself – it only works if the meal-time discussion is used to actually engage with those at the table and learn about their day-to-day lives. In other words, “polite” conversation may not be the best way to bring everyone together.
We know that people avoid talking politics because they want to seem polite and avoid conflict. But this does not necessarily mean they don’t have political views. In fact, being “not political” is a cultural performance that people do with different styles. It takes work to not be political and those strategies can be overcome without necessarily causing conflict. In fact, a recent study found that having a 10-minute canvassing conversation about trans-related issues was associated with reduced prejudice, at least in the short term.
For those of us who are academics, it is important to remember that engaging in these discussions does not mean spouting off your best summary of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony or Bonilla-Silva’s take on color-blind racism. We need to do as much, if not more, listening than we do talking, because listening to how others are thinking about and responding to the current political climate can help all of us better understand our shared situation. And if and when we do bring up social science theories and research, we should do it in a way that is approachable, not pedantic. As bell hooks argues, “Any theory that cannot be shared in everyday conversation cannot be used to educate the public.”
That’s not to say that academics cannot effectively draw on their experiences as teachers. There are many strategies we use in the classroom to teach things like race, gender, and class that can be useful outside of the classroom. Relying on personal examples and discussions about family histories instead of facts and figures is one example of how to do this. Focusing on experiences that you or your loved ones have had with racial discrimination, generational mobility, or gender role conflict can help them connect the social construction of race, class, and gender to concrete events and stories from their own lives.

Why the Indian Child Welfare Act Matters

Brieanna Watters and Allison Nobles on November 8, 2018
Photo of a Seminole man holding his child at an American Indian Heritage Month celebration. Photo by Los Angeles District, Flickr CC

After years of debate, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) — which sets minimum requirements for caseworkers handling state child custody proceedings involving Native children — was recently ruled unconstitutional by a Texas federal judge. The judge argued that ICWA violates constitutional rights to Equal Protection because it “elevates a child’s race over their best interest” — despite the fact that Native children are actually citizens of federally recognized tribes. Social science research helps us understand the historical context necessitating ICWA’s creation, with respect to the problematic history of child removal from Native communities as shaped by racialized, gendered, and cultural ideas.

The ICWA was enacted in 1978, a time when Native children were being removed from their homes and placed in foster care at staggering numbers under the guise of protecting children. At that time, 25-35% of Native children were removed from their homes by state child welfare or by private adoption companies. And the majority (about 85%) of these children were placed outside of their families and communities, even when relatives were willing to take them. Today, despite the minimal protections offered by the ICWA, Minnesota places more Native children in foster care than any other state, making up 20% of children in the system.
The ICWA’s creation and implementation has not only been a response to child-removal through adoption, however. Even earlier, Native children were sent to government or Christian-run boarding schools where teachers forced children to abandon their distinct tribal cultures — they cut Native children’s hair, did not allow them to speak their native languages or participate in cultural practices, and enforced strict discipline through corporal punishment. The boarding school era prevented generations of Native people from learning (and passing on) parenting tools. This separation of families, along with the disruption to Native cultural and spiritual practices, has been linked to symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, increased exposure to physical violence, and substance abuse in Native communities.
The removal of Native children is also couched in deep-set racialized, gendered, and cultural notions of family, specifically the white middle class ideal of the nuclear family, characterized by two married parents and children. Conversely, non-Native supporters of these adoption practices often relied on stereotypes of Native women as sexualized, unmarried, and thus unfit, which pathologized Native families as neglectful. They have also argued that each child’s best interests should be considered on an individual basis, rathering than acknowledging what tribes see as the importance of culture and identity, tribal rights, and belonging. In other words, supporters of Native adoption saw “disadvantaged” Native children that needed to be “rescued” by individual acts of goodwill (from white, middle class Americans).

So what will legal reconsideration of the Indian Child Welfare Act bring? Many tribes fear that the Texas ruling sets a dangerous precedent that could dismantle the federal laws put in place to correct historical injustices like the boarding school system. Other tribal leaders see the ruling as an attempt to destroy their right to political and cultural survival through their children, while simultaneously compromising efforts to heal from the wrongdoings inflicted upon tribal communities. In the context of the current political division over the treatment of immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S. border, such concerns warrant serious attention.

Immigration, Race, and Welfare Attitudes in Europe

Neeraj Rajasekar on November 6, 2018
Photo of a protester holding a sign that says, “we are all immigrants.” Photo by Alisdare Hickson, Flickr CC

Politicians, pundits, and critics in Germany, England, and the Netherlands have recently advocated for harsher restrictions on migrants’ access to social assistance in their countries. This has led scholars to evaluate whether increased immigration is eroding historically strong support for welfare in Europe.

Earlier in the decade, the answer seemed clear. Drawing on basic public opinion data from various European countries, scholars found that rising immigration levels preceded a spike in favorability for restrictive welfare laws. More recent and sophisticated analyses, however, suggest that a rise in restrictive welfare attitudes is not directly connected to increasing immigration. Rather, this relationship appears to be better explained by a combination of factors such as national economic conditions, political ideology, individuals’ self-interest, and prejudice towards racial and ethnic minorities.

This work shows that social attitudes about welfare are complex and linked to a variety of factors. Though critics of immigration in Europe have been vocal, it is unclear exactly whether and how attitudes about immigration and migrants relate to beliefs about welfare.

Global Media Coverage of Immigration

Allison J. Steinke on October 24, 2018
Photo of a protester holding a sign that says, “Stop deportation! I need my daddy,” with a picture of a child. Photo by Fibonacci Blue, Flickr CC

This post was created in collaboration with the Minnesota Journalism Center. 

“A Way Out of the Immigration Crisis.” “Like it or Not, Immigrant Children are Our Future.” “Trump Talks Tough on Immigration in Nevada but it Could Backfire.”

All three of these news headlines were published by mainstream news outlets in the United States in September 2018. All three portray immigration in a negative light. While much news and media coverage across the globe portrays immigration negatively, researchers who study this area also identify media outlets that include more positive coverage. 

One thing scholars have found is that immigration coverage has increased rapidly since 2004. In U.S. coverage, there is a heavy focus on “immigration reform” and “tougher border control” as solutions to the immigration “problem.” Across the pond in the United Kingdom, polls have ranked immigration as one of citizens’ top concerns, with coverage of immigration being overwhelmingly negative and centered on conflict through utilization of crime frames and discussion of immigrants as “illegal” or “failed.”
But not all publications discuss immigration in the same way. For example, scholars have found that African-American media outlets publish immigration stories with racial frames that depict immigrants as allies, while other major mainstream media outlets frequently utilize crime frames that discuss the legal status of immigrants.
Research also shows suggests that the conflict-oriented news coverage of immigration contributes to polarized public opinions about immigration policies in digital spaces as well as comment sections of mainstream news sites. Conversely, social and mobile media in Australia has been used as a platform for asylum-seekers in detention to share their experiences with the public directly. Journalists and citizens alike have collaborated with detained asylum-seekers to create journalistic narratives that raise awareness of human rights violations unfolding in offshore detainment centers. Though not embraced by all consumers, such stories about immigration appear to cultivate expressions of empathy from audiences.

The Long History of “Día de la Raza” in Mexico

Lucas Lynch on October 12, 2018
Photo of Indigenous Women, some holding children, outside of a Church in Chiapas, Mexico. Photo by Adam Jones, Flickr CC

More and more Americans have begun observing Indigenous Peoples Day, at least in part to push back against national narratives of “discovery” associated with Christopher Columbus and his commemoration. While a relatively recent development in the United States, other nations of the Americas officially acknowledged the importance of their Indigenous heritage for much longer. For example, in Mexico, Día de la Raza or “The Day of the Race” was officially recognized back in 1928 and was part of a larger national project that emphasized that all Mexicans share a history of racial and cultural mixing — known as mestizaje — since the coming of the Spanish. Sociological research highlights how this recognition of Indigenous people as integral to the formation of the nation has actually had mixed consequences for Indigenous peoples and cultures of Mexico.

The notion of mestizaje emphasized that all Mexicans were fundamentally “mixed” individuals, or “mestizos.” It was adopted by the State in an effort to promote inclusion and national cohesion across racial lines — including Indigenous peoples — and even resulted in the removal of racial categories from the census (after 1921). In this spirit, the Mexican government sought to “improve” Indigenous individuals through education, social integration, and economic development, assimilating them into the newly defined mestizo nation. While some benefited, some lost their language and cultural identity, and many others, especially those with darker skin, faced further marginalization and found themselves pushed underground.
Due to internal and external political pressures in the 1990s, the Mexican government abandoned its assimilationist policies and began instead to protect and promote the languages and cultures of Indigenous peoples. These shifts appear to have contributed to greater ethnic pride and greater likelihood to self-identify as Indigenous, especially for more educated, wealthier, or urban populations. However, skin color continues to carry economic and social weight in Mexico. Non-white Mexicans tend to have lower levels of education and employment and are more likely to live in poverty than their lighter-skinned peers.

So, while Mexico may still celebrate a day to acknowledge its mixed racial heritage, it is worth wondering if there might be other, better ways to recognize and address the challenges that actual Indigenous people in the country face on a day to day basis.

The Rationale and Risks of Child Migration

Lucas Lynch on October 5, 2018
Photo by Eva Cristescu, Flickr CC

Unaccompanied minors have been migrating to the United States from Central America for decades, but media coverage of this harrowing journey rarely focuses on the reasons behind migration. Though violence and economic peril tend to drive these migration patterns, the journey from Central America is dangerous itself, and the backgrounds of child migrants are not always well understood. Fortunately, sociological research on migration can provide context on the difficulty of the decisions and experiences involved in migration.

Structural conditions, like violence or poverty, do not alone predict unaccompanied child migration. Recent analysis finds that when a parent migrates, their child is more likely to follow them — especially compared to children who do not have parents that migrated. Indeed, unaccompanied migrant children are most likely to migrate the same year as their parents. Gender is also a factor — girls are less likely than boys to migrate when they had parents who migrated, and even less likely when these were unauthorized trips.
Some unaccompanied minors make this dangerous journey in order to flee life-threatening gang violence at home, which leads many children to claim asylum or special immigrant status upon arrival in the United States. Upon arrival, however, they may be placed in a detention center or be deported back to their countries of origin. Further, to cover costs for the journey to the United States, Central American families gather their money and take on debt. And this all may be for naught if their child is apprehended and deported back to their country of origin.

Policing the Behavior of Minority Girls

Amber Joy Powell on September 21, 2018
Photo by Mike Baird, Flickr CC

The recent treatment of superstar tennis player Serena Williams provides plenty for discussions of discrimination against women of color in sports and more broadly, in public. Even before this most recent incident involving her technical violations for supposedly “aggressive” behavior against the match’s umpire, Williams received a violation in the French Open for her black athletic catsuit, despite numerous instances of white players sporting similar wear at the French Open in prior years. Serena Williams’ experience is not only familiar to adult women of color, but also to girls of color. Social science research highlights how enduring patterns of policing and regulating racial minorities begins at an early age — often within educational institutions

Schools have long served as sites for social control and discipline that hinder the educational attainment of minority youth. Girls of color experience a unique set of institutional discriminatory practices that are coded in both racialized and gendered controlling images. All too often, these images depict girls of color as overly aggressive, hypersexual, and too adult-like. One two-year ethnographic study showed that while some teachers appreciated Black girls’ assertiveness in the classroom, by and large, teachers and administrators discouraged Black girls from talking in “loud” or aggressive manners, especially when such behaviors threatened teachers’ authority. They attempted to incentive Black girls into more quiet and docile behavior in order to achieve status as young “ladies” — a status shrouded in ideals of white female innocence.
Dress code enforcement serves as one of the primary ways educational institutions police girls of color. In one study, girls were told, “Don’t come in here with no hoochie-mama dress all tight up on your butt!” Similar remarks demanded that girls “Close [their] legs” and act like ladies. At times, girls resisted these policies and the racialized and gendered stereotypes that emerged alongside them. Still, girls also participated in the regulation of their female peers’ clothing by degrading those who wore “sleazy clothes.” Such policies and practices reinforce educational institutions as sites that perpetually reproduce simultaneous race, gender, sexuality, and class inequalities.

Immigration, Welfare, and the Role of Race

Neeraj Rajasekar on September 17, 2018
Sign in a store that says “We Accept SNAP.” Photo by ajmexico, Flickr CC

Recently, Trump advisor Stephen Miller announced plans to bar documented immigrants from citizenship if they or their families have ever used social assistance programs such as food stamps or welfare. Such action reflects stereotypes about who uses social assistance — in the United States, people of color take the blame. Not only are these stereotypes often incorrect, they are also deeply rooted in a long history of race and racism in America.

It is important to understand that racial minorities and immigrants do not necessarily use more public resources than native-born whites. Racial minorities and immigrants do tend to have lower incomes and levels of education than native-born whites, but research shows that they do not excessively use social assistance programs when compared with other groups.
Americans’ attitudes towards welfare — particularly myths that certain groups overuse programs such as welfare and food stamps — are heavily rooted in politics of race and racism. In fact, several scholars have illustrated how political and ideological opposition to social spending are shaped by racial appeals. Even in the post Civil Rights era, political figures use implicit messaging and coded language to attack social spending programs and recipients of these programs, subtly implying racial minorities overuse such programs, thus perpetuating these racist narratives.
Miller’s plan to bar citizenship for immigrants who have used social spending programs must also be understood as a consequence of historical racism in the American welfare state. During the 19th and 20th centuries, white working-class immigrants from a variety of European countries accessed social spending programs, opportunities for home ownership, and union membership due to their racial privilege.  On the other hand, Blacks and other non-white groups — including non-white immigrants– were denied the same opportunities. This heightened racial inequality while simultaneously validating racist beliefs about minorities and immigrants. In short, while Miller’s plan seems to primarily focus on immigration, it most certainly also about race.

Restorative Justice in the Classroom

Sarah Catherine Billups on September 14, 2018
Photo by Steven Depolo, Flickr CC
Photo by Steven Depolo, Flickr CC

Originally Posted September 14, 2016.

It’s September, which means students are zipping up their backpacks and sharpening their pencils for a new school year. For many kids, however, disciplinary actions like suspension and detention make school feel less like a place of learning and more like a minefield for getting into trouble. Some schools are experimenting with restorative justice practices to address disruptive behavior in lieu of more traditional means that often mean missing class. These new policies tend to take a lot of time and effort to implement, and very little research has been done regarding the efficacy of these restorative justice initiatives. However, research points to an array of problems with the more traditional, exclusionary methods educators have relied on in the past. 

Many schools have increased their use of punitive discipline and zero tolerance policies, despite drops in school-based delinquency. A shift in school disciplinary procedures would likely result in fewer days of missed tests and lectures for African American students, who are the most likely to receive suspension as a punishment in schools, especially in more racially diverse schools. Research shows that black students are more likely to receive the brunt of disciplinary action when overall delinquent behavior in school is low because teachers and administrators perceive them as threatening day-to-day proceedings.  
Educators often evaluate certain behaviors and mannerisms like punctuality, quiet voices, and particular styles of dress as indicative of being good students. These perceptions of good behavior often stem from teachers’ raced and classed biases regarding what a model student looks like. But many of the characteristics that teachers think make bad apples, like tardiness and attendance inconsistencies, are in fact the same red flags that a student is at risk of dropping out of school. And new research finds that exclusionary punishments like detention and suspension lead to lower test scores and increased tensions between teachers and students.