Black and White
Acting White: A Critical Review
Kitae Sohn
Urban Review, June 2011, Pages 217-234
Abstract:
The hypothesis of acting White has been heatedly debated and influential over the last 20 years or so in explaining the Black-White test score gap. Recently, economists have joined the debate and started providing new theoretical and empirical analyses of the phenomenon. This paper critically reviews the arguments that have been advanced to support and refute the hypothesis. This review particularly covers the analyses in economics because the economic analyses are relatively new and usually neglected in other disciplines. Also, nationally representative data are emphasized, whenever possible, to improve the generalizability of the arguments. This review concludes that although the analyses in both non-economics and economics are thought-provoking and compelling in some respect, a substantial body of empirical evidence is inconsistent with the assumptions of and results from the analyses.
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"What about me?" Perceptions of exclusion and whites' reactions to multiculturalism
Victoria Plaut et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
A 5-study investigation of reactions of dominant group members (i.e., White Americans) to diversity (relative to racial minority reactions) provides evidence of implicit and explicit associations between multiculturalism and exclusion and of a relationship between perceived exclusion and reactions to diversity. In Study 1, Whites but not racial minorities were faster in an implicit association task at pairing multiculturalism with exclusion than with inclusion. This association diminished in Study 2 through a subtle framing of diversity efforts as targeted toward all groups, including European Americans. In Study 3, in a "Me/Not Me" task, Whites were less likely than minorities to pair multiculturalism concepts with the self and were slower in responding to multiculturalism concepts. Furthermore, associating multiculturalism with the self (Study 3) or feeling included in organizational diversity (Study 4) predicted Whites' endorsement of diversity and also accounted for the oft-cited group status difference in support for diversity initiatives. Study 5 showed that individual differences in need to belong moderated Whites' interest in working for organizations that espouse a multicultural versus a color-blind approach to diversity, with individuals higher in need to belong less attracted to organizations with a multicultural approach. Overall, results show that the purportedly "inclusive" ideology of multiculturalism is not perceived as such by Whites. This may, in part, account for their lower support for diversity efforts in education and work settings.
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Stereotype Threat Undermines Academic Learning
Valerie Jones Taylor & Gregory Walton
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two experiments tested whether stereotype threat can undermine the acquisition of academic knowledge and thus harm performance even in nonthreatening settings. In Experiment 1, Black and White students studied rare words in either nonthreatening or threatening conditions. One to two weeks later, participants recalled word definitions, half in a nonthreatening "warm-up" and half in a threatening "test." Replicating past research, Black students performed worse on the test than on the warm-up. But importantly, Black students who had studied in the threatening rather than nonthreatening environment performed worse even on the warm-up. White students were unaffected. In Experiment 2, a value affirmation eliminated the learning-threat effect and provided evidence of psychological process. The results suggest that stereotype threat causes a form of "double jeopardy" whereby threat can undermine both learning and performance. The discussion addresses implications for the interpretation of group differences and for understanding how brief threat-reducing interventions can produce long-lasting benefits.
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John Wertheimer et al.
Law and History Review, May 2011, Pages 471-495
Abstract:
On January 24, 1913, the trustees of the Dalcho School, a segregated, all-white public school in Dillon County, South Carolina, summarily dismissed Dudley, Eugene, and Herbert Kirby, ages ten, twelve, and fourteen, respectively. According to testimony offered in a subsequent hearing, the boys had "always properly behaved," were "good pupils," and "never .exercise[d] any bad influence in school." Moreover, the boys' overwhelmingly white ancestry, in the words of the South Carolina Supreme Court, technically "entitled [them] to be classified as white," according to state law. Nevertheless, because local whites believed that the Kirbys were "not of pure Caucasian blood," and that therefore their removal was in the segregated school's best interest, the court, in Tucker v. Blease (1914), upheld their expulsion.
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Own-Race Bias Among NBA Coaches
Jesse Schroffel & Christopher Magee
Journal of Sports Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article finds that National Basketball Association (NBA) coaches gave greater minutes per game to players of their own race during the 1996-2004 seasons after controlling for player quality using performance statistics and player fixed effects. The authors estimate that having the same race as the coach increased playing time by between 45 and 55 seconds per game on average. One possible explanation for this result is an own-race bias on the part of NBA coaches, in which they subconsciously exhibit a preference for players whose race matches their own. The estimates reveal that the impact of race on playing time was relatively strong in the late 1990s but that it has declined over time since then. The authors hypothesize that racial bias may emerge more strongly in decisions made under pressure, such as substitution patterns during the flow of the game, than in decisions made after careful consideration, such as the choice of which player to start. Empirical tests provide little evidence, however, that deliberation completely removes the own-race bias since coaches both gave more playing time and were more likely to start players of their own race.
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The Sword's Other Edge: Perceptions Of Discrimination And Racial Policy Opinion After Obama
Nicholas Valentino & Ted Brader
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study explores the impact of a momentous political event, the election of the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008, on perceptions of racism and opinions about racial policy. A representative panel study of Americans interviewed immediately before and after the election reveals a roughly 10 percent decline in perceptions of racial discrimination. About one quarter of respondents revised their perceptions of discrimination downward. We explore several explanations for this decline. First, motivated-reasoning theory would predict larger declines among those whose priors tell them that racism was a diminished force to begin with. Second, changes could be concentrated among those who have the least contact with out-group members, or who are less knowledgeable about politics, and therefore weight Obama's victory heavily in deciding how much racism exists in America. Third, based on theories of emotion and cognition, anxiety but not anger before the election might trigger substantial updating of beliefs. We found the drop in perceived discrimination to be widespread across groups in the population, with conservatives but not necessarily racially resentful whites exhibiting somewhat larger declines. Residential racial context had no effect on changes in perception, though declines were larger among the least politically knowledgeable. More notably, those citizens anxious but not angry before the election displayed much larger declines in perceived discrimination. Finally, declines in perceived discrimination were associated with increases in negative opinions of blacks and heightened opposition to both affirmative action and immigration.
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Implicit race attitudes predict trustworthiness judgments and economic trust decisions
Damian Stanley et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10 May 2011, Pages 7710-7715
Abstract:
Trust lies at the heart of every social interaction. Each day we face decisions in which we must accurately assess another individual's trustworthiness or risk suffering very real consequences. In a global marketplace of increasing heterogeneity with respect to nationality, race, and multiple other social categories, it is of great value to understand how implicitly held attitudes about group membership may support or undermine social trust and thereby implicitly shape the decisions we make. Recent behavioral and neuroimaging work suggests that a common mechanism may underlie the expression of implicit race bias and evaluations of trustworthiness, although no direct evidence of a connection exists. In two behavioral studies, we investigated the relationship between implicit race attitude (as measured by the Implicit Association Test) and social trust. We demonstrate that race disparity in both an individual's explicit evaluations of trustworthiness and, more crucially, his or her economic decisions to trust is predicted by that person's bias in implicit race attitude. Importantly, this relationship is robust and is independent of the individual's bias in explicit race attitude. These data demonstrate that the extent to which an individual invests in and trusts others with different racial backgrounds is related to the magnitude of that individual's implicit race bias. The core dimension of social trust can be shaped, to some degree, by attitudes that reside outside conscious awareness and intention.
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"You might be a redneck if..." Boundary Work among Rural, Southern Whites
Carla Shirley
Social Forces, September 2010, Pages 35-61
Abstract:
Using 42 in-depth interviews with rural, Southern whites in Mississippi, I examine the intra-racial boundary work respondents use to construct their regional and racial identities in relation to other whites in their communities, particularly rednecks. I find that rednecks are defined and categorized in multiple ways based on the respondents' conceptions of Southerners, social statuses (i.e., age, gender, class and residential history), and intra-racial comparisons around these social characteristics. Primarily, they draw intra-racial distinctions to separate themselves from negative characterizations and to claim positive associations with being rural, Southern whites. Nonetheless, the multi-faceted intra-racial boundary work around redneck maintains the general hegemony of whiteness by marginalizing "lesser whites" and forms of whiteness and claiming an ideal type of whiteness that is considered untainted, normative and superior.
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Andrew Hanson & Zackary Hawley
Journal of Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper tests for racial discrimination in the rental housing market using matched pair audits conducted via e-mail for rental units advertised on-line. We reveal home-seekers' race to landlords by sending e-mails from names with a high likelihood of association with either whites or African Americans. Generally, discrimination occurs against African American names; however, when the content of the e-mail messages insinuates home-seekers with high social class, discrimination is non-existent. Racial discrimination is more severe in neighborhoods that are near "tipping points" in racial composition, and for units that are part of a larger building.
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Cheryl Kaiser et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined the role of Blacks' level of racial identification in understanding how Blacks and Whites behaved, both verbally and nonverbally, toward each other in interracial interactions. The more Blacks identified with their racial group, the more nonverbally friendly they behaved toward their White partners. Paradoxically, Whites behaved less nonverbally friendly toward Blacks who were strongly racially identified relative to those who were weakly identified. Thus, Blacks who tried the hardest in these interactions were treated the worst by Whites. Blacks' racial identification did not predict Whites' and Blacks' verbal behavior, suggesting that Whites' biases emerge only on behaviors that are difficult to control and not on behaviors that are more amenable to control.
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The End of Court-Ordered Desegregation
Byron Lutz
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2011, Pages 130-168
Abstract:
In response to three Supreme Court rulings in the early 1990s, numerous court-ordered desegregation plans have been terminated. Using a unique dataset and an event study research design, this paper explores the impact of these terminations. The results suggest that termination produces a moderate increase in racial segregation. Outside of the south, dismissal also increases the rate at which black students drop out of school and attend private school. In the south, in contrast, there is no change in the school attendance patterns of blacks. Finally, evidence is presented that whites re-enter dismissed districts in large numbers in the south.
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Targeting Lynch Victims: Social Marginality or Status Transgressions?
Amy Kate Bailey et al.
American Sociological Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article presents the first evidence based on a newly-compiled database of known lynch victims. Using information from the original census enumerators' manuscripts, we identify individual- and household-level characteristics of more than 900 black males lynched in 10 southern states between 1882 and 1929. First, we use the information for successfully linked cases to present a profile of individual- and household-level characteristics of a large sample of lynch victims. Second, we compare these characteristics with a randomly-generated sample of black men living in the counties where lynchings occurred. We use our findings from this comparative analysis to assess the empirical support for alternative theoretical perspectives on the selection of individuals as victims of southern mob violence. Third, we consider whether the individual-level risk factors for being targeted as a lynch victim varied substantially over time or across space. Our results demonstrate that victims were generally less embedded within the social and economic fabric of their communities than were other black men. This suggests that social marginality increased the likelihood of being targeted for lynching. These findings are generally consistent across decades and within different sociodemographic contexts.
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Aprile Benner & Robert Crosnoe
American Educational Research Journal, June 2011, Pages 621-646
Abstract:
This study attempted to untangle how two dimensions of school racial/ethnic composition - racial/ethnic diversity of the student body and racial/ethnic matching between children and their peers - were related to socioemotional and academic development after the transition into elementary school. Analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort revealed that school racial/ethnic composition was more strongly associated with children's academic, as opposed to socioemotional, outcomes. Students had higher achievement test scores in more diverse schools, especially when they also had more same-race/ethnicity peers in these diverse schools. These patterns were particularly strong for White students. Having more school peers of the same race/ethnicity, regardless of the overall level of diversity in the school, was associated with positive socioemotional development.
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"How Do I Bring Diversity?" Race and Class in the College Admissions Essay
Anna Kirkland & Ben Hansen
Law & Society Review, March 2011, Pages 103-138
Abstract:
In the first systematic study of what college applicants invoke when required to submit a diversity essay, we revisit many settled assumptions on both the left and the right about how such an essay would operate after Grutter and Gratz as well as after the passage of anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives. Our data are a sample of 176 diversity essays submitted to the University of Michigan in the immediate aftermath of the University's Supreme Court win, analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively with special attention to the differences that the essay writer's race and class position make. We find that in many respects the essays are similar when written by applicants from similar backgrounds but different races, and that conservative critics were wrong to assume the essay would function simply as a way of announcing oneself as an under-the-table affirmative action candidate. Rather than suggesting a straightforward lineup of advantage and disadvantage, we suggest rather that the essay is a vehicle for the youngest generation of citizens to both receive and send back a new conception of difference that has some essentializing elements but overall is turning in a postracial, cosmopolitan direction.
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Clayton Rose & William Bielby
Social Science Research, May 2011, Pages 841-859
Abstract:
Drawing on institutionalist theory, we conceptualize the racial composition of the boards of directors of large American companies as shaped in response to social and political norms. We use new longitudinal and cross-sectional data to test hypotheses about factors that shape the degree of racial inclusion on boards of directors among large public corporations, and we draw upon in-depth interviews with key participants to gain insights into the mechanisms that are likely to have generated the patterns we detect in our statistical models. We find evidence suggesting that large American corporations manage the racial composition of their elite leadership groups in response to these norms.
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Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing
Michael Norton & Samuel Sommers
Perspectives on Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although some have heralded recent political and cultural developments as signaling the arrival of a postracial era in America, several legal and social controversies regarding ''reverse racism'' highlight Whites' increasing concern about anti-White bias. We show that this emerging belief reflects Whites' view of racism as a zero-sum game, such that decreases in perceived bias against Blacks over the past six decades are associated with increases in perceived bias against Whites - a relationship not observed in Blacks' perceptions. Moreover, these changes in Whites' conceptions of racism are extreme enough that Whites have now come to view anti-White bias as a bigger societal problem than anti-Black bias.
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Coleman Revisited: School Segregation, Peers, and Frog Ponds
Pat Rubio Goldsmith
American Educational Research Journal, June 2011, Pages 508-535
Abstract:
Students from minority segregated schools tend to achieve and attain less than similar students from White segregated schools. This study examines whether peer effects can explain this relationship using normative models and frog-pond models. Normative models (where peers become alike) suggest that minority schoolmates are a liability. Frog-pond models (where students benefit from recognition) suggest that minority schoolmates are an asset. Data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study and the Census show that students from minority-concentrated schools attain less education in the long run than students from White-concentrated schools net of many covariates. Both normative processes and frog-pond processes (especially from class rank) help explain attainment, but they tend to cancel each other out and make the net effect of peers in minority and white concentrated schools small.
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The Birth of a Nation and the Making of the NAACP
Stephen Weinberger
Journal of American Studies, February 2011, Pages 77-93
Abstract:
With the appearance of D. W. Griffith's 1915 racist epic, The Birth of a Nation, the six-year-old NAACP reluctantly organized a campaign to ban the film entirely or at least to censor its most offensive elements. Although this struggle was a failure, it helped transform the association in ways no one could have imagined at the outset. Up to this point, the issues the NAACP had taken up, such as housing segregation and lynching, focussed primarily on southern or border states. The Birth of a Nation, however, was a national event. As the film moved from major population centers to smaller ones throughout the country, so too did the protests and countless meetings between local NAACP leaders and mayors, city councils, censors, and governors. In the end, this failed campaign had the effect of providing local association members with invaluable political experience and of elevating the NAACP to a position of national stature and indeed prominence in the struggle for civil rights in America.
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William Sites & Virginia Parks
Politics & Society, March 2011, Pages 40-73
Abstract:
Racial earnings inequalities in the United States diminished significantly over the three decades following World War II, but since then have not changed very much. Meanwhile, black-white disparities in employment have become increasingly pronounced. What accounts for this historical pattern? Sociologists often understand the evolution of racial wage and employment inequality as the consequence of economic restructuring, resulting in narratives about black economic fortunes that emphasize changing skill demands related to the rise and fall of the industrial economy. Reviewing a large body of work by economic historians and other researchers, this article contends that the historical evidence is not consistent with manufacturing- and skills-centered explanations of changes in relative black earnings and employment. Instead, data from the 1940s onward suggest that racial earnings inequalities have been significantly influenced by political and institutional factors - social movements, government policies, unionization efforts, and public-employment patterns - and that racial employment disparities have increased over the course of the postwar and post-1970s periods for reasons that are not reducible to skills. Taking a broader historical view suggests that black economic fortunes have long been powerfully shaped by nonmarket factors and recenters research on racial discrimination as well as the political and institutional forces that influence labor markets.
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Jason Grissom & Lael Keiser
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies of race representation in public organizations illustrate the importance of bureaucrat race in determining client-level outcomes. Building "upward" from this research, this study examines how supervisor race impacts outcomes for street-level bureaucrats using data from a nationally representative sample of public schools. Employing multiple estimation methods, we find that, consistent with the predictions of representation theory, teachers report higher job satisfaction and turn over less often when supervised by an own-race principal. We also find that race congruence impacts the tangible and intangible organizational benefits teachers receive, and, moreover, that race congruence impacts white and African American employees differently. Most troubling, we find evidence that black teachers earn substantially less in supplemental pay when they work for a white principal, even when compared to white teachers in the same school.
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Multi-Scale Residential Segregation: Black Exceptionalism and America's Changing Color Line
Domenico Parisi, Daniel Lichter & Michael Taquino
Social Forces, March 2011, Pages 829-852
Abstract:
America's changing color line is perhaps best expressed in shifting patterns of neighborhood residential segregation-the geographic separation of races. This research evaluates black exceptionalism by using the universe of U.S. blocks from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses to provide a single geographically inclusive national estimate (Theil's H) of black residential segregation from whites and other groups, which can be additively decomposed into its within (e.g., neighborhood segregation within places) and between components (e.g., racial differences between places). The results show that America's blacks are living in blocks that are roughly two-thirds less racially diverse than the U.S. population overall. Nationally, neighborhood segregation processes account for half, or even less, of blacks' segregation from whites, Hispanics and Asians. Declining big-city micro-segregation has been muted by increasing or persistent macro-segregation. Moreover, with growing neighborhood segregation in the suburbs and fringe, America's central cities-the focus of most previous studies-now account for only a minority share of all neighborhood or micro-level segregation between blacks and whites. Evidence of black incorporation or spatial assimilation must account for other levels of geography that extend beyond the traditional focus on neighborhood segregation in big cities.
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Community Influences on White Racial Attitudes: What Matters and Why?
Marylee Taylor & Peter Mateyka
Sociological Quarterly, Spring 2011, Pages 220-243
Abstract:
Tracing the roots of racial attitudes in historical events and individual biographies has been a long-standing goal of race relations scholars. Recent years have seen a new development in racial attitude research: Local community context has entered the spotlight as a potential influence on racial views. The race composition of the locality has been the most common focus; evidence from earlier decades suggests that white Americans are more likely to hold anti-black attitudes if they live in areas where the African-American population is relatively large. However, an influential 2000 article argued that the socioeconomic composition of the white community is a more powerful influence on white attitudes: In low-socioeconomic status (SES) locales, "stress-inducing" deprivations and hardships in whites' own lives purportedly lead them to disparage blacks. The study reported here reassesses this "scapegoating" claim, using data from the 1998 to 2002 General Social Surveys linked to 2000 census information about communities. Across many dimensions of racial attitudes, there is pronounced influence of both local racial proportions and college completion rates among white residents. However, the economic dimension of SES exerts negligible influence on white racial attitudes, suggesting that local processes other than scapegoating must be at work.
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Wendy Tam Cho & Neil Baer
American Politics Research, March 2011, Pages 414-436
Abstract:
Although scholars have long been interested in how context shapes racial attitudes, research in this area has fallen short of a consensus. Instead, the results span a wide range, with some studies finding that racial understanding is promoted by intergroup contact whereas others claim that racial and ethnic outgroups are perceived as a threat to economic and political interests. These varying results arise from research rooted in different conceptualizations of context. Our analysis is unique in the attention we pay to the measure of context for our particular data set. Employing a sociodemographic definition of neighborhood social context, we find that contextual socioeconomic status plays a critical role in mediating the effects of intergroup contact on racial attitudes. These contacts are more likely to produce racial harmony in high-status neighborhoods than in neighborhoods marked by low income and low levels of education.
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Jason Plaks et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
What role do folk beliefs about human genetic variation play in racial categorization and evaluation? In two studies, the authors assessed or manipulated participants' estimates of the percentage of genetic material that human beings have in common and examined whether this variable would predict categorization (Study 1) and evaluation (Study 2) of faces that varied monotonically in Black-White racial composition. In both studies, participants with low (vs. high) genetic overlap beliefs implicitly perceived the boundary between races to be more discrete. These results remained significant even when controlling for such variables as Need for Cognition, political ideology, essentialist beliefs, and "entity" beliefs. These findings suggest that believing that all people possess similar (vs. different) genetic makeup may serve as a key assumption that shapes racial categorization.
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Matt Lamkin
Bioethics, May 2011, Pages 185-191
Abstract:
Darker skin correlates with reduced opportunities and negative health outcomes. Recent discoveries related to the genes associated with skin tone, and the historical use of cosmetics to conform to racist appearance standards, suggest effective skin-lightening products may soon become available. This article examines whether medical interventions of this sort should be permitted, subsidized, or restricted, using Norman Daniels's framework for determining what justice requires in terms of protecting health. I argue that Daniels's expansive view of the requirements of justice in meeting health needs offers some support for recognizing a societal obligation to provide this kind of 'enhancement,' in light of the strong connections between skin tone and health outcomes. On balance, however, Daniels's framework offers compelling reasons to reject insurance coverage for skin-lightening medical interventions, including the likely ineffectiveness of such technologies in mitigating racial health disparities, and the danger that covering skin-lightening enhancements would undermine public support for cooperative schemes that protect health. In fact, justice may require limiting access to these technologies because of their potential to exacerbate the negative effects of racism.