Teaching About Race in the Historically White Difference, Power, and Discrimination Classroom

Drawing from in-depth interviews with 18 white, black, Latinx, and multiracial parents whose children attend a Spanish immersion elementary school, the author examines the politics of race, class, and resistance in a historically white community that is experiencing an influx of nonwhites. Parental narratives reveal that many whites enrolled their children in Spanish immersion to capture cultural and economic benefits they associate with bilingualism and diversity. Interviews also suggest that white support for diversity is contingent on the condition that nonwhites provide carefully controlled diversity: one that benefits whites without threatening race and class hierarchies. The maintenance of white spatial and social segregation allowed whites to engage with families of color at the school primarily through consumptive contact, a form of interracial contact predicated upon whites’ perceptions about the material benefits their children will acquire through exposure to diversity and bilingualism. Consumptive contact allows whites to selectively consume aspects of Latin American cultures without facilitating the social and institutional inclusion of the groups associated with those cultures. Findings illuminate distinct economic motivations behind whites’ engagement communities of color, adding a material dimension to our understanding of whites’ racialized consumptive practices.

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Can Cross-Group Friendships Influence Minority Students' Well-Being at Historically White Universities?

Psychological Science ◽

10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02179.x ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 19 (9) ◽

pp. 933-939 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton ◽

Elizabeth Page-Gould

Keyword(s):

Minority Students ◽

Well Being ◽

Historically White

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Just Miles Away but Worlds Apart: Examining Jewish Participation in Integration Programs at Black Mountain College and Highlander Folk School, 1933–1964

AJS Review ◽

10.1017/s0364009417000095 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 203-233

Author(s):

Wendy F. Soltz

Keyword(s):

North Carolina ◽

Civil Rights ◽

Black Students ◽

Liberal Arts ◽

Colleges And Universities ◽

Historically White ◽

Black Mountain College ◽

White Schools ◽

Highlander Folk School ◽

Black Mountain

Small liberal arts and folk schools attempted desegregation decades before other southern colleges and universities. Historians have long argued that Jews were active and influential in the fight for civil rights in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, but were Jews involved in these early attempts to enroll black students in historically white schools? If they were, were they successful and how did their Jewishness affect the efficacy of their attempts? In order to answer these questions, this article compares and contrasts two such schools, Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which established “integration programs” in the 1940s. This research reveals that when Jews saturated a school, and were visibly involved in desegregation, their attempts to desegregate the institution were ultimately unsuccessful. When Jews supported a school through donations behind the scenes and occasional visits, however, the institution successfully desegregated.

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Racial Differentials in the Components of Population Change and Neighborhood Transitions in New York City, 1980–2010: The Distinct Role of Asian Net Inflows in the Age of Net Outflows of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics

Urban Affairs Review ◽

10.1177/1078087418755012 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 55 (5) ◽

pp. 1456-1486 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Arun Peter Lobo ◽

Ronald J. O. Flores ◽

Joseph J. Salvo

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Population Change ◽

Natural Increase ◽

Historically White ◽

Racial Hierarchy ◽

Net Migration ◽

Racial Differentials ◽

White Neighborhoods ◽

The City

We examine New York’s components of population change—net migration and natural increase—by race and space to explain increases in integrated and minority neighborhoods, in this era of greater ethnoracial diversity. The city has net outflows of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, and net Asian inflows, a new dynamic that has reordered its neighborhoods. Asians, often joined by Hispanics, moved into White neighborhoods without triggering White flight, resulting in integrated neighborhoods without Blacks. These neighborhoods constitute a plurality, furthering Black exclusion. Minority neighborhoods saw net outflows, an overlooked phenomenon, but expanded thanks to natural increase, which maintains the existing racial structure. White inflows have helped transition some minority neighborhoods to integrated areas, though integrated neighborhoods with Blacks declined overall. As Asians and Hispanics occupy historically White spaces, this warrants a reconceptualization of race and the emerging racial hierarchy, and a focus on the gatekeeper role of Asians and Hispanics.

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