Colorism and U.S. Immigration: Considerations for Researchers

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (14) ◽  
pp. 2037-2054
Author(s):  
Carla R. Monroe ◽  
Ronald E. Hall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cultural Self ◽  
Intraracial Discrimination ◽  
Group Stratification ◽  
Research Studies

Research on colorism in the United States frequently focuses on people of color who were born in the country such as African Americans. Globalization, however, requires social scientists to consider new dimensions of intraracial discrimination as research studies must attend to realities and standpoints about race, as well as other forms of categorization, that are not traditionally represented in conversations about in-group stratification. In this article, we consider how colorism acts as a force that propels many immigrants toward identification with whiteness. Based on historical and contemporary snapshots of immigrant trends in the United States, we discuss how and why some groups opt to self-identify as racially White and/or align themselves with the ideological status quo regardless of their racial, phenotypic, and/or cultural self-ascriptions.

“Your Views Cross the Atlantic”

2021 ◽  
pp. 195-222
Author(s):  
Robert Murray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Free People Of Color ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
Racially Ambiguous ◽  
Free People

Chapter 5 examines the overwhelming rejection of colonization by free people of color in the United States, the evolution of the colonization societies, and the agency of the settlers in enacting these changes. For the majority of African Americans rejected colonization’s principal arguments. Those few who saw potential in Liberia emphasized the performative possibilities of the colony, the ability to act in ways previously denied to them on account of race. Significantly, the small number of African Americans who willingly chose to emigrate to Liberia were often racially ambiguous. They saw opportunity in the undefined and evolving racial identities offered by moving to Liberia. The chapter also examines the settlers’ roles in changing the colonization societies. For many settlers, there was no difference between abolition and colonization. Settlers worked with colonizationists committed to black uplift and attempted to drive out those who did not favor such reforms; they changed how the societies’ governed their colonies.

Advising the Race

2021 ◽  
pp. 86-114
Author(s):  
Julie Golia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Women Readers ◽  
Racial Uplift ◽  
Black Newspapers ◽  
The Many

This chapter examines the advice column “Advice to the Wise and Otherwise,” which ran in the Chicago Defender, one of the most successful black newspapers in the United States. In the early twentieth century, black publishers recognized the many ways that mainstream newspapers reinforced the racial status quo in America and failed to address the needs of African American readers. They also sought to offer more feature content to women readers. “Advice to the Wise and Otherwise” was one of the country’s most widely read black advice columns. Columnist Princess Mysteria, a vaudeville mentalist, embraced the Defender’s mission of racial “uplift” and advocacy. But her counsel also reflected a unique sensitivity to the dual prejudices that her female readers faced as African Americans and as women. The columnist offered a worldview very different from that of white columnists, one that doled out assertive, even feminist advice.

Stories of Servitude

2019 ◽  
pp. 86-124
Author(s):  
Cati Coe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Place Of Origin

Most of the African research participants in northern New Jersey and the Washington DC metropolitan area told stories of deliberate humiliation or diminishment in which their place of origin or Blackness was used against them. Through these interactions and stories about these interactions, African care workers were becoming familiar with American racial categories, in which they were Black, mixed in with stereotypes about Africans as non-human and about immigrants stealing jobs from citizens. These insults incorporated them into American racial categories as “Blacks” and “people of color,” social categories of person that made little sense in their home countries. As a result, African care workers were becoming more sensitive to the experiences of African-Americans. Care workers take stories of racism to be paradigmatic of their experiences in the United States.

The World of Hosea Easton and David Walker

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Archer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
New England ◽  
African Descent ◽  
Black Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
David Walker ◽  
The World ◽  
Free People

Hosea Easton and David Walker described and analyzed racism in New England during the late 1820s. New England had initially been more receptive to its black population than were other sections of the United States, but as their populations of free people of African descent dramatically increased, states began to reverse themselves. By the 1820s, laws forbade free people of African descent from marrying whites, employment was limited to the most menial jobs, and education—where available—was inadequate. African Americans could not serve on juries or hold public office. Their housing opportunities were restricted, and they were segregated in church seating. They were barred from theaters, hotels, hospitals, stagecoaches, and steamships. Worst of all, whites denied blacks their humanity. Their belief that people of color were inferior to themselves underlay slavery and racism.

scholarly journals The Unceasing Significance of Colorism: Skin Tone Stratification in the United States

Daedalus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-90
Author(s):  
Ellis P. Monk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Skin Tone ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Past Century ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Life Chances

Abstract For many decades now, social scientists have documented immense ethnoracial inequalities in the United States. Much of this work is rooted in comparing the life chances, trajectories, and outcomes of African Americans to White Americans. From health to wealth and nearly every measure of well-being, success, and thriving one can find, White Americans remain ahead of Black Americans. What this focus on ethnoracial inequality between “groups” obscures, however, is long-standing skin tone inequality within groups. In this essay, I trace the trajectory of colorism and skin tone stratification in the United States over the past century. Next, I high-light the contemporary persistence of skin tone stratification, not only among African Americans, but among Latinx and Asian Americans as well. I conclude by arguing that future research on colorism will be essential to understand comprehensively the significance of race/ethnicity in a demographically shifting United States (such as immigration and “multiraciality”).

A Prudent Alternative or a Dangerous Diversion?

2019 ◽  
pp. 261-317
Author(s):  
Paul J. Polgar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
American Colonization Society ◽  
Black Abolitionists ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
Direct Threat

The emergence of colonization as a potential antislavery tool drove a wedge between competing factions among abolition societies. a long and at times divisive debate that fractured the abolition societies and signaled the rising influence of colonization among white reformers as an answer to ending slavery. With their claims to American citizenship under direct threat from the ideology of the American Colonization Society, black abolitionists more readily distinguished colonization from emancipation. People of color and the abolition societies of the Mid-Atlantic had jointly discredited the ACS soon after its founding. But by the beginning of the 1830s, it was black activists who had become the foremost champions of first movement abolitionist values, advancing the cause of combating slavery by overturning white prejudice and improving the condition of African Americans within the United States.

scholarly journals Double Consciousness in the 21st Century: Du Boisian Theory and the Problem of Racialized Legal Status

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 345
Author(s):  
Tiffany Joseph ◽  
Tanya Golash-Boza
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Double Consciousness ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Du Bois

In W.E.B. Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folk, he argued that the problem of the 20th century in the United States was the problem of the color line. Given that de facto and explicit racial discrimination persist, anti-immigrant rhetoric is intensifying, and legal status has become more salient, we argue Du Boisian theory remains relevant for understanding social and political cleavages in the 21st century United States. The intersection of race, ethnicity, and legal status or “racialized legal status” represents a new variation of Du Bois’ “color line,” due to how these statuses generate cumulative disadvantages and exclusion for citizens and immigrants of color, particularly the undocumented. We begin with a review of Du Bois’ double consciousness theory, highlighting the marginalization of African Americans. Next, we apply double consciousness to the 21st century U.S. context to empirically demonstrate parallels between 20th century African Americans and the marginalization faced today by people of color. We close with a discussion about how double consciousness enhances our understanding of citizenship and has also generated agency for people of color fighting for socio-political inclusion in the contemporary United States.

Questions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The U.S

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.

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