scholarly journals Race is Still Black and White: Voluntary Racial Phenotypic Change Elicits Meaning Threat and Backlash

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Jordan Seliger ◽  
Avi Ben-Zeev
Keyword(s):  
Elective Surgery ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Phenotypic Change ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Change Condition ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Phenotypic Features ◽  
Social Policing

We offer evidence that a target who voluntarily changes his/her racial phenotypic features causes perceivers to engage in two-pronged social policing of racial group boundaries: (a) vilifying and disliking the target (cognitive and affective backlash; external policing) (Experiments 1a-1b, 2, & 3) and (b) increasing own racial essentialism, in response to a meaning threat (internal policing) (Experiment 3). In all experiments, participants received a vignette of a protagonist that underwent non-elective surgery (white/Asian, Experiments 1a-1b; white/Black, Experiments 2-3). In the voluntary change condition, the protagonist asks that the surgeon change his/her racial features to resemble that of a different race whereas, in the involuntary change condition the protagonist asks that the surgeon keep his/her racial features intact (Experiment 1: eye shape, Experiment 2: Afrocentric features). Findings supported the predictions and showed a dissociation between similarity and categorization judgments, underscoring the essentialized versus socially constructed nature of beliefs about race.

Racial Group Responses to Work and Parent Care

1993 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viola M. Lechner
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Physical Strain ◽  
Environmental Support ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Black Caregivers ◽  
Formal Services ◽  
Employed Caregivers

Utilizing stress theories, the author compared the experiences of 113 black and white employees who worked full time and cared for frail parents. Findings revealed that both racial groups had similar caregiving demands and similar levels of personal, social, work, mental, and physical strain. Their sources of environmental support varied. Black employed caregivers felt closer to their parents, whereas white employed caregivers received more assistance in the workplace. The parents of the black caregivers received more formal services. Black caregivers had less disposable income and were less likely to be married. Within-group comparisons indicated that work interferences (late arrivals, early departures, unscheduled days off, and excessive personal telephoning) significantly predicted more fragile mental health for whites and more fragile physical health for blacks. Implications of the findings are discussed.

scholarly journals Christian America in Black and White: Racial Identity, Religious-National Group Boundaries, and Explanations for Racial Inequality

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel L Perry ◽  
Andrew L Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Racial Inequality ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Group Identities

Abstract Recent research suggests that, for white Americans, conflating national and religious group identities is strongly associated with racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, prompting some to argue that claims about Christianity being central to American identity are essentially about reinforcing white supremacy. Prior work has not considered, however, whether such beliefs may influence the racial views of nonwhite Americans differently from white Americans. Drawing on a representative sample of black and white Americans from the 2014 General Social Survey, and focusing on explanations for racial inequality as the outcome, we show that, contrary to white Americans, black Americans who view being a Christian as essential to being an American are actually more likely to attribute black–white inequality to structural issues and less to blacks’ individual shortcomings. Our findings suggest that, for black Americans, connecting being American to being Christian does not necessarily bolster white supremacy, but may instead evoke and sustain ideals of racial justice.

scholarly journals Christian America in Black and White: Racial Identity, Religious-National Group Boundaries, and Explanations for Racial Inequality

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Perry ◽  
Andrew L Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Racial Inequality ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Group Identities

Recent research suggests that, for white Americans, conflating national and religious group identities is strongly associated with racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, prompting some to argue that claims about Christianity being central to American identity are essentially about reinforcing white supremacy. Prior work has not considered, however, whether such beliefs may influence the racial views of nonwhite Americans differently from white Americans. Drawing on a representative sample of black and white Americans from the 2014 General Social Survey, and focusing on explanations for racial inequality as the outcome, we show that, contrary to white Americans, black Americans who view being a Christian as essential to being an American are actually more likely to attribute black–white inequality to structural issues and less to blacks’ individual shortcomings. Our findings suggest that, for black Americans, connecting being American to being Christian does not necessarily bolster white supremacy, but may instead evoke and sustain ideals of racial justice.

Authoritarianism in Black and White: Testing the Cross-Racial Validity of the Child Rearing Scale

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 398-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efrén O. Pérez ◽  
Marc J. Hetherington
Keyword(s):  
Illegal Immigration ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Racial Gaps ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
Measurement Artifact

Using a scale of child rearing preferences, scholars find that African Americans are far more authoritarian than Whites. We argue that this racial gap in authoritarianism is largely a measurement artifact. The child rearing scale now used to measure authoritarianism is cross-racially invalid because it draws heavily on a metaphor about hierarchy. Akin to someone who favors enforcing conformity in a child, the authoritarian is thought to be inclined toward enforcing conformity in social subordinates. In both cases, one's perspective is drawn from a position of relative power. We believe this metaphor is effective among members of a majority racial group becauseindividualdominance at home meshes withgroupdominance in society. For members of a racial minority, we believe this metaphor breaks down. Using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, we establish that Blacks and Whites construe the child rearing items differently. Consequently, authoritarianism correlates highly with the things it should for Whites, but rarely so for Blacks. Using an illegal immigration experiment, we then show divergent patterns of intolerance based on the same child rearing scale. Our results highlight measurement's role in producing large racial gaps in authoritarianism, while illuminating the racial boundaries of the child rearing scale.

Acting White or Acting Black: Mixed-Race Adolescents' Identity and Behavior

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S Ruebeck ◽  
Susan L Averett ◽  
Howard N Bodenhorn
Keyword(s):  
Interracial Marriage ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Acting White ◽  
White Youth ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Acting Black ◽  
And Behavior

Abstract Although rates of interracial marriage are on the rise, we still know relatively little about the experiences of mixed-race adolescents. In this paper, we examine the identity and behavior of mixed-race (black and white) youth. We find that mixed-race youth adopt both types of behaviors, those that can be empirically characterized as ‘black’ and those that can be characterized as ‘white.’ When we combine both types of behavior, average mixed-race behavior is a combination that is neither white nor black, and the variance in mixed-race behavior is generally greater than the variance in behavior of monoracial adolescents, especially as compared to the black racial group. Adolescence is the time during which there is most pressure to establish an identity, and our results indicate that mixed-race youth are finding their own distinct identities, not necessarily ‘joining’ either monoracial group, but in another sense joining both of them.

scholarly journals Carson McCullers and Lillian Smith : The Intersections of Gender and Race in the Jim Crow South

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Constante González Groba
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Southern Women ◽  
Carson Mccullers ◽  
Racial Categorization ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Lillian Smith ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Jim Crow South

Carson McCullers and Lillian Smith openly rejected a false conception of loyalty to fantasies like southern tradition or white supremacy, a loyalty that veiled a persistent lack of self-analysis. They exposed the cracks in the South’s pretended “unity” and homogeneity and criticized the self-destructive resistance to acknowledge that, as a socially constructed category, race is linked to relations of power and anticipated the instability of racial categorization that would be underscored by historical and scientific research later in their century. These two southern women writers opposed the insistence of their culture on racial purity as vehemently as its demands for rigid sexual definition and its suppression of any deviant form of sexuality. The characters in their fiction are victims of a dichotomic culture that resists the acknowledgement that black and white have always been as inextricably linked as male and female. In Killers of the Dream and Strange Fruit, Lillian Smith showed the interactions of racial and sexual segregation, which she saw as parallel emblems of the South’s cultural schizophrenia. She was one of the first to detect the psychosexual damage inflicted on southern women by the racial discourse, and established a most interesting parallel between the segregated parts of the female body and the segregated spaces of any southern locality. Like any system of differentiation, segregation shapes those it privileges as well as those it oppresses. Excluded from the white parameters of virtue and even from the condition of womanhood, the black woman’s body became the sexual prey of the white man who could not demand sexual satisfaction from his “pure” wife. The culture of segregation privileged the white woman but it also made her powerless; the very conventions which “protected” her deprived her of contact with physicality and locked her into bodilessness.

Making Meaning of Race and Racialization in the Lives of Five International Graduate Students

2016 ◽  
pp. 59-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashlee Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Students ◽  
Student Mobility ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
International Graduate ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Race And Racialization

The author examines the ways in which race and privilege operate on a global scale through the experiences of international students studying in the United States. Specifically, the researcher explores how meanings attached to terms such as “Black” and “White” shift but do not collapse when making sense of students' experiences with race and racial classification in both the U.S. and in the contexts of their home countries. The researcher provides insight into international students' experiences with and understandings of race in both their home countries and in the United States within the broader context of student mobility. Furthermore, student narratives promote an understanding of the ways in which race is socially constructed, historically constituted, and geographically situated. Finally, the study will reveal the dominance of a reductionist “Black and White” portrayal of race in U.S. racial discourse and the ways in which that discourse is damaging to international students.

The Fluid Symbol of Mixed Race

Hypatia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Zack
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Race ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Public Recognition ◽  
The World ◽  
New Material ◽  
Academic Lectures ◽  
Biological Foundation ◽  
Theoretical Reflection

Philosophers have little to lose in making practical proposals. If the proposals are enacted, the power of ideas to change the world is affirmed. If the proposals are rejected, there is new material for theoretical reflection. During the 1990s, I believed that broad public recognition of mixed race, particularly black and white mixed race, would contribute to an undoing of rigid and racist, socially constructed racial categories. I argued for such recognition in my first book, Race and Mixed Race (Zack 1993), a follow-through anthology, American Mixed Race (Zack 1995), and numerous articles, especially the essay, “Mixed Black and White Race and Public Policy,” which appeared first in Hypatia in 1995.1 I also delivered scores of public and academic lectures and presentations on this subject, all of which expressed the following in varied forms and formats: Race is an idea that lacks the biological foundation it is commonly assumed to have. There is need for broad education about this absence of foundation; mixed-race identities should be recognized, especially black–white identities.

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