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Five Interconnections Of Race And Class, Michael Billeaux-Martinez, David Calnitsky

Sociology Publications

This paper proposes a five-part empirical typology of interconnections of race and class. We describe the mechanisms whereby (1) race is a form of class relation; (2) race relations and class relations reciprocally affect each other; (3) race acts as a sorting mechanism into class locations; (4) race acts as a mediating linkage to class locations; and (5) race interacts with class in determining other outcomes. Rather than insisting on one or another mechanism as the overarching framework for conceptualising the interconnections between race and class, we propose a theoretical integration of all five within a functionalist model. The model …

Staying Power: The Struggle For Space And Place In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Erin E. Lilli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation looks at how gentrification touches down, at the neighborhood and individual scale, in Crown Heights and reproduces experiences of racial inequality in home and place. Taking an historical materialist approach and drawing on residential oral histories, this study frames these reproductions of racial inequality as always-in-tension with ongoing acts of resistance from Black homeowners, renters, and long-term residents. Specifically, the research explores the conditions under which Black residents of a predominantly Afro-Caribbean neighborhood acquire and maintain—and in some cases lose—their housing and sense of place and belonging. These residents resist the varied tactics of anti-Blackness such as landlord …

The Political Consequences Of Racialized Ethnic Identities, Kimberly Cardenas, Heather Silber Mohamed, Melissa R. Michelson

Political Science

Racial classifications are a social construct with no basis in biology; yet, race is an omnipresent and powerful factor in U.S. politics, shaping electoral boundaries, disbursement of resources, and political alliances (Omi and Winant 1994, Haney López 1994). Race, then, is a malleable construct wielded by varying interests, with racial definitions changing in response to social and political battles. Some new immigrant groups initially classified as not white have been reclassified as white over time, thereby benefitting from associated legal, economic, and sociopolitical privileges. More recently, however, some Latinos have sought recognition as a distinct non-white racial group, in acknowledgment …

Commercially Geneticizing Race, Ethnicity, And Nation: The Implications Of The Discourse Surrounding Commercialized Genetic Tests On Identity, Kiara Jacoby

The Compass

No abstract provided.

A Preliminary Investigation Of The Use Of Racial/Ethnic Categories In Emergency Telephone Calls In The United States, Angela Garcia

Natural & Applied Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper uses conversation analysis to investigate how participants in emergency telephone calls in the United States use racial/ethnic categories to describe persons of interest such as suspects, victims, or persons needing assistance. It problematizes the use of racial/ethnic categories in these calls by first analyzing an instance of a caller’s racial profiling (in which racial categories are used to justify the call). This instance of racial profiling is then compared with 15 routine emergency service calls to reveal how callers and call takers routinely introduced racial/ethnic categories. I describe how both deviant and routine uses of these categories could …

White Racial Identity And Its Impact On Punitive Attitudes Towards Juvenile Offenders, Rossol Gharib

Student Theses

White Racial Identity is a relatively new concept with little to no consensus as to the operationalization of such identity. The first ever White Racial Identity model was developed by Janet E. Helms in 1990. The role of White racial identity has been studied in the context of the racial gap in employment and its influence on racial attitudes, but it has yet to be studied in the context of the juvenile justice system. The criminal justice system is racially imbalanced, with Black males imprisoned 5.5 times more than White males. One of the factors contributing to this imbalance is …

How Far Have We Come? A Comparison Of Jamaican Representations In Cool Runnings And Luke Cage, Israel Cariche Ramsay

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Representation of minority groups in popular media has been the cause of many debates in recent years. There has been outcry against the lack of diverse representations, and the kind of representation of minority groups. When powerful media organizations are representing minority groups, imperialism and post colonialism become part of the conversation. To look at the representation of minorities, I examined the representation of Jamaicans in two popular texts. The first is Cool Runnings, a 1993 film, and the second is season two of Luke Cage, a Netflix series released in 2018. In both of these instances, Jamaicans and Jamaican …

The Culture-Structure Framework: Beyond The Cultural Competence Paradigm, Mimi E. Kim

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article provides a framework for understanding the distinctions between culture and structure in its application to the human services. Using intimate partner violence (IPV) as a case study, this article builds upon the contributions of intersectionality, which was first introduced as a critique of white-dominated IPV interventions. It also follows the development of the concept of cultural competence to demonstrate the ways in which it both opened opportunities to discuss cultural differences but also suppressed the analysis of racialized hierarchies of power, which are often muted by the elevation of culture over race. Finally, this article proposes a general …

On Racial Barriers, Kayla Rachel Mehl

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My Thesis examines: the nature of racial barriers, by what means racial barriers manifest in society, and the ways in which we can use racial barriers to evolve toward a more just society. I argue that within particular contexts a look of the Other will construct a racial barrier between racialized bodies. More specifically, when one perceives a threat from a look of the Other, one will undertake a particular-what social psychologists call-self-representation, in attempt to exhibit a particular type of persona they feel is called for in that context. Furthermore, I argue in my paper that racial barriers emerge …

Race, The Condition Of Neo-Liberalism, Vikash Singh

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article addresses the social and historical relation between Chicago School neo-liberalism and contemporary racism, and its connections with the formations of racism in classical liberalism and its colonial character. I show the pragmatic and discursive operations of neo-racism in the context of this shift to a neo-liberal discourse, drawing particularly on Michel Foucault’s seminars, Society Must be Defended, and Birth of Bio-politics. Insofar as “race” cannot be understood as a discrete category outside its social, economic, moral, and political embeddedness in liberalism, I argue that methodological individualism and expectations of high-specialization constrain the theorization of race in U.S. scholarship. …

Some Rough Historical Parallels Between South Africa And The United States, Denis Binder

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

"White" Space: The Racialization Of Claremont, California, Emily Audet

Scripps Senior Theses

The City of Claremont, California—a suburb of Los Angeles and the home of the Claremont Colleges—stands out as disproportionately non-Hispanic white in comparison to neighboring cities and counties. This research employs the concept of racialization of place to examine how Claremont has been racialized as “white.” Through an analysis of land-use regulations and descriptions of the city, this research analyzes the structural and ideological processes that racialized the city. The city government used exclusionary zoning ordinances and private citizens employed racially restrictive housing covenants to maintain Claremont’s majority-white status. The city government and local organizations and businesses also implicitly assert …

Ginger Masculinities, Donica O'Malley

Masters Theses

This paper explores white American masculinity within the “ginger” phenomenon. To guide this study, I asked: How is racism conceptualized and understood within popular culture, as seen through discussions of whether or not gingerism constitutes racism? How do commenters respond or interact when their understandings of racism or explanations for gingerism are challenged by other commenters? And finally, what does the creation of and prejudice against/making fun of a “hyperwhite” masculine identity at this social/historical moment suggest about the current stability of the dominant white masculine identity? Through discourse analysis of online comments, I explored discussions of race, gender, and …

Post-Katrina Suppression Of Black Working-Class Political Expression, Taunya L. Banks

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

New Orleans politicians, with the aid of the federal government, used the destruction and displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to implement policies that discouraged low-income and working class black residents from returning to New Orleans. Impacted communities felt the need to revitalize street parades (second-line parades), a traditional communal neighborhood activity, as an instrument of political protest. In response the City used minor municipal ordinances to more vigorously regulate these parades, doubling the fees imposed for street parades and effectively shutting them down. The City’s response raised important constitutional questions about government suppression of speech and freedom of …

The Myth Of The White Minority, Andrew Pierce

Andrew J. Pierce

In recent years, and especially in the wake of Barack Obama’s reelection, projections that whites will soon become a minority have proliferated. In this essay, I will argue that such predictions are misleading at best, as they rest on questionable philosophical presuppositions, including the presupposition that racial concepts like ‘whiteness’ are static and unchanging rather than fluid and continually being reconstructed. If I am right about these fundamental inaccuracies, one must wonder why the myth of the white minority persists. I will argue that by re-envisioning whites as a minority culture struggling against a hostile dominant group, and by promoting …

Constructing Loyalty, Citizenship, And Identity: A Rhetorical History Of The Japanese American Incarceration, Kaori Miyawaki

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reexamines loyalty, citizenship, and identity in the United States by closely reading historical materials about the Japanese American incarceration. The Japanese American incarceration is a unique and important historical event for studying citizenship and identity, since it was a moment in the U.S. history that citizens of the country were incarcerated by their government. This raises a larger question beyond the incarceration. What does it mean to be a loyal American citizen?

By closely analyzing texts generated by the U.S. government, the Japanese American community, and White American photographers, I identify multiple, conflicting meanings and implications behind the …

A Guest In Someone Else's House : The Construction Of Asian Americans As Foreigners, Deepa Ranganathan

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Social workers, like many people, wrongly tend to think of Asian Americans as beings exempt from the problems of racism. The social work profession considers "race" to be a property inhering almost solely in African Americans. Meanwhile, the profession assigns the property of foreign "culture" primarily to Asian Americans. This thesis uses the work of Critical Race Theory (CRT) scholars to show that social workers, in presuming that Asian Americans are a class of people who are essentially foreign, are actually reproducing a form of exclusionist racism that Asian Americans have faced for generations. A partial solution to this problem …

Chicago's Wall: Race, Segregation And The Chicago Housing Authority, David T. Greetham

Senior Independent Study Theses

When the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) was created in 1937 the organization's mission was to provide decent and affordable housing for low-income people. As thousands of African Americans migrated to Chicago from the South after World War II, a combination of public policy and private exclusion forced them to turn to the CHA for housing. Through political manipulation and racism, the CHA became a tool to segregate, confine, and conceal Chicago's burgeoning African American population. By the 1960s, 99 percent of CHA tenants were African American and over 90 percent of CHA developments were located in predominantly African American neighborhoods. …

Examining The Role Of Race, Gender, And Class In African-American Police Perceptions In Rural Kentucky, Paul Maxwell Blackhurst

Online Theses and Dissertations

Prior research has consistently demonstrated the role of race in understanding racial and ethnic differences in perceptions of the police. This research has overwhelmingly shown that Blacks and Latinos hold lower levels of trust and confidence in the police than do Whites and other racial minorities. The increased skepticism of the police expressed by minority citizens is commonly associated with racial profiling and documented racial disparities in police behavior. Although policing research has empirically demonstrated the influence of race on perceptions of the police, few studies have explored police perceptions from a rural context. By employing the Citizen's Attitudes Towards …

Uphams Corner And "Other" Spaces: Racialized Youth Identities In Boston's Cape Verdean Community, Jessica F. Pires

Honors Theses

While embarking on this thesis project I have begun by viewing Cape Verdean-Americanness and Uphams Corner as linked; to study contemporary Cape Verdean-American lived realities means consulting this neighborhood space, and the area is mutually dependent on its Cape Verdean residents. In the particularly unpredictable world of ethnographic field research, as I focused on the collection of narratives, a new and surprising actor emerged: the neighborhood space, around which crucial tensions revolve. It is vital to understand how neighborhood provides not merely the scenery behind actions but more importantly how, as a conceptual framework, it can also be constitutive of …

Deciphering A Duality: Understanding Conflicting Standards In Sex & Violence Censorship In U.S. Obscenity Law, Rushabh P. Bhakta

Political Science Honors Projects

This research examines the division in US obscenity law that enables strict sex censorship while overlooking violence. By investigating the social and legal development of obscenity in US culture, I argue that the contemporary duality in obscenity censorship standards arose from a family of forces consisting of faith, economy, and identity in early American history. While sexuality ingrained itself in American culture as a commodity in need of regulation, violence was decentralized from the state and proliferated. This phenomenon led to a prioritization of suppressing sexual speech over violent speech. This paper traces the emergence this duality and its source.

Reconstructing Race: A Discourse-Theoretical Approach To A Normative Politics Of Identity, Andrew Pierce

Andrew J. Pierce

This paper aims to get clear on the normative implications of the idea that race is a “social construction,” not just for political practice in non-ideal societies where racial oppression remains, but in “ideal” (presumably non-racist) societies as well. That is, I pursue the question of whether race and/or racial identity would have any legitimate place in an ideally just society, or to state it another way, whether the concept of race can be extricated from the history of racial oppression from which it arose. The position I defend is a version of what has come to be called a …

The Relationship Between The Social Construction Of Race And The Black/White Test Score Gap In, Toriano M. Dempsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research is an investigation into the relationship between the resegregation of American

public schools and the social creation of race. This research is based on the popular notion that

American public schools are failing to produce students capable of competing in today's global society.

The proof most often used to assert the failure of American public schools is the Black/White Test Score

Gap. For the purposes of this research the Black/White Test Score Gap is defined as the gap between

the scores on academic standardized tests between Black public school students and White public school

students regardless of …

Hands On Hips, Smiles On Lips! Gender, Race, And The Performance Of Spirit In Cheerleading, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West

Emily E. West

Cheerleading has long been synonymous with “spirit” because of its traditional sideline role in supporting school sports programs. In recent decades, however, cheerleading has become more athletic and competitive - even a sport in its own right. This paper is an ethnographic exploration of the emotional dimensions of cheerleading in light of these changes. We argue that spirit is a regulating but also flexible concept that is deployed in order to manage and uphold ideologies of emotion, and that these ideologies are central to how cheerleading reproduces racialized gender difference. On the one hand, the performance guidelines for spirit stabilize …

“Good Politics Is Good Government”: The Troubling History Of Mayoral Control Of The Public Schools In Twentieth-Century Chicago, James C. Carl

Education Faculty Publications

This article looks at urban education through the vantage point of Chicago’s mayors. It begins with Carter H. Harrison II (who served from 1897 to 1905 and again from 1911 to 1915) and ends with Richard M. Daley (1989 to the present), with most of the focus on four long-serving mayors: William Hale Thompson (1915–23 and 1927–31), Edward Kelly (1933–47), Richard J. Daley (1955–76), and Harold Washington (1983–87). Mayors exercised significant leverage in the Chicago Public Schools throughout the twentieth century, making the history of Chicago mayors’ educational politics relevant to the contemporary trend in urban education to give more …

Strutting It Up Through Histories: A Performance Genealogy Of The Philadelphia Mummers Parade, Corey Elizabeth Leighton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the cultural performances of the parade community in one of the oldest and largest parades in the country: the Philadelphia Mummers Parade. The modern parade celebration consists of groups of mostly working-class white men from South Philadelphia who dress up in extravagant sequined and feathered costumes and, beginning in South Philadelphia, march toward City Hall on one of the largest streets in the city on New Year’s Day. The parade is competitive and marked by performance competitions at the end of each parade. The parade’s history in the city of Philadelphia is extensive but contested. Many locals …

Towards A Bibliography Of Critical Whiteness Studies, Tim Engles

Tim Engles

As the title implies, this book offers a multi-disciplinary overview of the explosion of work in scholarly critical whiteness studies. The contributing bibliographers acknowledge that this work follows and builds upon a great deal of whiteness critique previously provided by African American writers, and by those writing from other racialized positions. Each section provides a solid introduction to key concepts and practices regarding whiteness in a particular field, including: philosophy, history, literature, cinema, the visual arts, psychology, education, media studies, qualitative inquiry, personal narratives, and international and comparative approaches.

Toward A Bibliography Of Critical Whiteness Studies, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

As the title of this list implies, the following is a sampling of works that could serve as an initiation to the recent explosion of work in scholarly critical whiteness studies. Like many of these writers, we acknowledge that this work follows and builds upon a great deal of whiteness critique previously written by African American writers, and by those writing from other racialized positions. For an extensive sampling of such earlier work, see David Roediger’s anthology listed below, Black on White (and for discussion of such analysis as conducted by other racialized minorities, see Stephen Knadler’s The Fugitive Race: …

Towards A Bibliography Of Critical Whiteness Studies, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

As the title implies, this book offers a multi-disciplinary sampling of works that could serve as an initiation to the explosion of work in scholarly critical whiteness studies. The contributing bibliographers acknowledge that this work follows and builds upon a great deal of whiteness critique previously provided by African American writers, and by those writing from other racialized positions. Each section provides a solid introduction to key concepts and practices regarding whiteness in a particular field, including: philosophy, history, literature, cinema, the visual arts, psychology, education, media studies, qualitative inquiry, personal narratives, and international and comparative approaches.

The Color Of Crime: The Case Against Race-Based Suspect Descriptions, Bela August Walker

Bela August Walker

Law enforcement in the United States relies on racial identifiers as a crucial part of suspect descriptions. Unlike racial profiling, this practice is regarded as both an essential tool for law enforcement and as an unproblematic use of race. However, given the racial history of the United States, such descriptors, particularly “Black,” have developed in such a way to create an extremely large and unreliable category. Due to these factors, the use of race as a physical descriptor in suspect decisions is both discriminatory and inefficient. Employing race as an identifying characteristic allows law enforcement officers broad discretionary powers that …