scholarly journals Seeing Guns to See Urban Violence: Racial Inequality & Neighborhood Context

Daedalus ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
David M. Hureau

Abstract Guns are central to the comprehension of the racial inequalities in neighborhood violence. This may sound simple when presented so plainly. However, its significance derives from the limited consideration that the neighborhood research paradigm has given guns: they are typically conceived of as a background condition of disadvantaged neighborhoods where violence is concentrated. Instead, I argue that guns belong at the forefront of neighborhood analyses of violence. Employing the logic and language of the ecological approach, I maintain that guns must be considered as mechanisms of neighborhood violence, with the unequal distribution of guns serving as a critical link between neighborhood structural conditions and rates of violence. Furthermore, I make the case that American gun policy should be understood as a set of macrostructural forces that represent a historic and persistent source of disadvantage in poor Black neighborhoods.

Author(s):  
Andrew Valls

The criminal justice system in the United States both reflects racial inequality in the broader society and contributes to it. The overrepresentation of African Americans among those in prison is a result of both the conditions in poor black neighborhoods and racial bias in the criminal justice system. The American system of criminal justice today is excessively punitive, when compared to previous periods and to other countries, and its harsh treatment disproportionately harms African Americans. In addition, those released from prison face a number of obstacles to housing, employment, and other prerequisites of decent life, and the concentration of prisoners and ex-prisoners in black communities does much to perpetuate racial inequality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 1028-1067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob William Faber ◽  
Jessica Rose Kalbfeld

Reports of citizen complaints of police misconduct often note that officers are rarely disciplined for alleged misconduct. The perception of little officer accountability contributes to widespread distrust of law enforcement in communities of color. This project investigates how race and segregation shape the outcomes of allegations made against the Chicago Police Department (CPD) between 2011 and 2014. We find that complaints by black and Latino citizens and against white officers are less likely to be sustained. We show neighborhood context interacts with complainant characteristics: Incidents alleged by white citizens in high–crime and predominantly black neighborhoods are more likely to be sustained. These findings provide context for understanding tensions between communities of color and the CPD. These results are consistent with theories that individual and institutional actors prioritize white victimhood and reflect the neighborhood effects literature stressing the interaction between individual and contextual factors in shaping outcomes.


2020 ◽  
pp. 089976402094192
Author(s):  
Bryant Crubaugh

This article analyzes the relationship between neighborhood development organizations (NDOs) and neighborhood disadvantage in Chicago between 1990 and 2010. NDOs are often seen as interdependent partners with local and state governments in the co-production of social welfare, but not all have equally beneficial effects. Instead, NDOs are associated with lowering rates of disadvantage in majority non-Hispanic White neighborhoods, leaving other neighborhoods behind, especially predominately Black neighborhoods. Organizational resources and residential mobility help explain this inequality. NDOs in majority Black neighborhoods are less likely to have the organizational resources that enable NDOs to affect neighborhood disadvantage. When NDOs are associated with the lowering of neighborhood disadvantage, it is often in neighborhoods with preexisting advantage or high rates of residential mobility. As cities continue to rely on nonprofit organizations such as NDOs for neighborhood development, this research gives a clearer understanding of how this reliance may contribute to perpetuating racial inequalities.


1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Winant

Introduction: the Repudiation of the Centenário13 May 1988 was the 100th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil. In honour of that date, various official celebrations and commemorations of the centenário, organised by the Brazilian government, church groups and cultural organisations, took place throughout the country, even including a speech by President José Sarney.This celebration of the emancipation was not, however, universal. Many Afro—Brazilian groups staged actions and marches, issued denunciations and organised cultural events repudiating the ‘farce of abolition’. These were unprecedented efforts to draw national and international attention to the extensive racial inequality and discrimination which Brazilian blacks – by far the largest concentration of people of African descent in any country in the western hemisphere – continue to confront. Particular interventions had such titles as ‘100 Years of Lies’, ‘One Hundred Years Without Abolition’, ‘March for the Real Liberation of the Race’, ‘Symbolic Burial of the 13th of May’, ‘March in Protest of the Farce of Abolition’, and ‘Discommemoration (Descomemoraçāo) of the Centenary of Abolition’.1 The repudiation of the centenário suggests that Brazilian racial dynamics, traditionally quiescent, are emerging with the rest of society from the extended twilight of military dictatorship. Racial conflict and mobilisation, long almost entirely absent from the Brazilian scene, are reappearing. New racial patterns and processes – political, cultural, economic, social and psychological – are emerging, while racial inequalities of course continue as well. How much do we know about race in contemporary Brazil? How effectively does the extensive literature explain the present situation?


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Marlene Almeida De Ataide

O presente artigo tem como objetivo refletir criticamente acerca da categoria juventude negra que vive em condições precárias e que permanece à margem da sociedade, pois encontra dificuldades para existir como sujeitos de direitos no que se refere à inclusão no âmbito das políticas públicas consagradas de direitos, pois essas atuam de costas para esses jovens. Parte-se do pressuposto de que o racismo e as desigualdades sociais se constituem nos principais fatores que influenciam e que atingem principalmente as juventudes negras e pobres expressas a partir da segregação sócio-espacial, da discriminação racial e da vivência de pobreza. Os jovens afrodescendentes, além de vivenciarem as dificuldades tradicionais impostas socialmente, encontram barreiras adicionais devido às relações sociorraciais brasileiras. Assim, neste artigo, busca-se um espaço de reflexão, partindo do princípio de que as políticas públicas de cunho universalista têm um papel importante na redução da pobreza, porém limitado no combate à desigualdade racial. Em decorrência disso, somente com a adoção de políticas específicas é que se logrará reverter o quadro da iniquidade racial. Um dos grandes desafios que se impõe ao Estado brasileiro é de criar condições mais igualitárias para a inclusão de jovens no âmbito das políticas públicas de direitos que se destinam a eles.Palavras chave: Juventude. Juventude negra. Desigualdades raciais. Políticas públicas.Black youth(s) and the reproduction of racial inequalities in Brazil: public policies for equality? AbstractThis article aims to reflect critically about black youth category living in poor conditions and remain on the margins of society, for they find it difficult to exist as subjects of rights with regard to the inclusion in the scope of the dedicated public rights policies because they operate with his back to these young people. This is on the assumption that racism and social inequality constitute the main factors that influence and primarily affects poor black youths expressed from the socio-spatial segregation, racial discrimination and poverty of experience The young African descent as well as experience traditional difficulties imposed socially; are additional barriers due to the Brazilian socio-racial relations. So in this article, we seek a space for reflection, assuming that public policies of universal nature play an important role in reducing poverty, but limited in combating racial inequality; as a result, only with the adoption of specific policies is that it will achieve reverse the situation of racial inequality. A major challenge that requires the Brazilian government is towards creating more equal conditions for the inclusion of young people within the public policy of rights that are meant to them.Keywords: Youth. Black youth. Racial inequalities. Public policy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Rizzo ◽  
Tobias Britton ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes

Anti-Black racism remains a pervasive crisis in the United States today. Racist social systems are rooted in prejudicial beliefs that reinforce and perpetuate racial inequalities. These beliefs have their developmental origins in early childhood and are difficult to change once entrenched in adolescence and adulthood. What causes children to form prejudicial beliefs and racial biases—and what steps can be taken to preempt them from forming—remain open questions. Here we show that children’s exposure to and beliefs about racial inequalities predict the formation of anti-Black biases in a sample of 712 White children (4-8 years) living across the United States. Drawing from constructivist theories in developmental science, we outline a novel account of the emergence of racial bias in early childhood: As children observe racial inequalities in the world around them, they develop beliefs about the causal factors underlying those inequalities. Children who believe that inequalities reflect the inherent superiority/inferiority of racial groups develop biases that perpetuate this worldview, whereas those who recognize the extrinsic causes of racial inequalities develop attitudes geared towards rectification. Our results demonstrate the importance of early intervention to disrupt problematic beliefs before they emerge and highlight children’s awareness of structural racism as an important target for anti-racist intervention.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Saggioro Garcia

What has historically been the role of the nonwestern semiperiphery (what was it expected to do and what did it really do) and how has this role changed in recent years? In their article “Moving toward Theory for the 21st Century: The Centrality of Nonwestern Semiperiphery to World Ethnic/Racial Inequality”, Wilma Dunaway and Donald Clelland provide important contributions to the efforts to rethink global inequalities and the potential to transform the capitalist world-system. Presenting a wealth of data compiled in graphs and tables, the article aims to decenter analysis of global ethnic/racial inequality by bringing the nonwestern semiperiphery to the foreground. In their examination of the rise of the nonwestern semiperiphery, the authors question the popular “global apartheid model”, which identifies “white supremacy” as the sole cause of global ethnic/racial inequality. Their goal is to demonstrate that the nonwestern semiperiphery intensifies and exacerbates ethnic and racial inequalities in the world further by adopting political and economic mechanisms to exploit territories and workers both within and beyond their borders.


2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (6) ◽  
pp. 1013-1036 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Melamed ◽  
Christopher W. Munn ◽  
Leanne Barry ◽  
Bradley Montgomery ◽  
Oneya F. Okuwobi

Racial stratification is well documented in many spheres of social life. Much stratification research assumes that implicit or explicit bias on the part of institutional gatekeepers produces disparate racial outcomes. Research on status-based expectations provides a good starting point for theoretically understanding racial inequalities. In this context it is understood that race results in differential expectations for performance, producing disparate outcomes. But even here, the mechanism (i.e., status-based expectations) is often assumed due to the lack of tools to measure status-based expectations. In this article, we put forth a new way to measure implicit racial status beliefs and theorize how they are related to consensual beliefs about what “most people” think. This enables us to assess the mechanisms in the relationship between race and disparate outcomes. We conducted two studies to assess our arguments. Study 1 demonstrates the measurement properties of the implicit status measure. Study 2 shows how implicit status beliefs and perceptions of what “most people” think combine to shape social influence. We conclude with the implications of this work for social psychological research, and for racial stratification more generally.


Author(s):  
Carole Bennett ◽  
Ellen Hamilton ◽  
Haresh Rochani

Discussing racial inequalities is challenging for nursing faculty and students of all races. Faculty report feeling inadequately prepared to systematically address this topic within clinical and classroom learning environments. This article reports student attitudes of race and health following a case study discussion of racial inequalities present in nursing and healthcare in Charleston, South Carolina between the years of 1883 to 2016. Forty-two students completed a 10-item visual analog scale (VAS) measuring their level of agreement regarding the issues of race and health before and after a classroom lecture. Most students reported an increase in racial tolerance following the lecture. A few students, however, indicated a decrease in racial tolerance following the lecture. Strategies for integrating the curriculum with learning experiences regarding issues of race are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youngmin Yi

The prevalence, consequences, and unequal racial distribution of the experience of parental and own imprisonment have been well documented in scholarship on mass incarceration in the United States. However, much of our knowledge of the reach of mass incarceration into family life is focused on incarceration of a parent, romantic partner, or child, to the exclusion of other important relationships. Using data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (N=2,029), this study introduces a set of new descriptive measures of family incarceration to provide a comprehensive picture of the demography of family incarceration and its unequal distribution across racial/ethnic groups: degree, generational extension, and permeation. The analysis shows that Black adults in the U.S. are not only more likely to have ever experienced family incarceration but are also likely to have had more family members incarcerated and to have had family members from more generations ever incarcerated than those of other racial and ethnic groups.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document