Racial Authenticity and Familial Acceptance Among Transracial Adoptees: A Bothersome Bargain of Belonging

Transracial adoption in the United States has increased significantly in recent years. Crossing the color line within the intimate familial sphere has important implications for how institutions such as the family enable and constrain individuals' identity work. We explore how transracial family members utilize racial stereotypes and racialist understandings in everyday life, employing 30 in‐depth, life‐story interviews with both transracial adoptees and their white siblings. In attempts to accomplish a sense of belonging and authenticity, we argue that both transracial adoptees of color and their white siblings experience divergent and paradoxical expectations of familial and racial authenticity. We find that although they often utilized “color capital” in a quest for racial authenticity, in certain spaces and environments, they were expected to eschew their nonwhite identity and embrace “acting white” as purported by white family members and their “white debt” approach to racial socialization. This study adds nuance to the question of how families navigate the enduring power of the color line in relation to the reproduction of both material inequalities and racial discrimination.     

On the Job: White Employers,Workers of Color,and Racial Triangulation Theory

This article offers that Claire Jean Kim's theory of racial triangulation provides an ideal framework to study workers of color, the racialization of their labor and the ways in which actual and potential employers neglect and discriminate against these workers. Specifically, the piece determines that racial triangulation theory bolsters analysis of race‐based power that employers exert in the construction and maintenance of racial inequality in regard to management of labor and employment possibilities for workers of color. A triangulated approach allows for a sharp focus on employer engineered labor market inequality as they oversee, hire, and refuse to be racially inclusive in hiring practices. Most significantly, racial triangulation theory addresses the forces of racial inequity within the meso‐level of U.S. social structure when applied to study of organizational dynamics such as workplaces. I open the article by assaying historical and contemporary studies on workers of color to illustrate white employer domination and the ways in which workers of color are referenced to each other as inferior and superior workers. Subsequently, the article looks to fresh analytical directions in which sociologists can evaluate racism as a triangulated, multidimensional social force in the workplace and other social contexts.     

Critical standpoint: Leaders of color advancing racial equality in predominantly white organizations

Organizations are often core sites for the production and perpetuation of social inequality. Although the United States is becoming more racially diverse, organizational elites remain disproportionately white, and this mismatch contributes to increasing racial inequality. This article examines whether and how leaders of color within predominantly white organizations can help their organizations address racial inequality. Our analysis uses data from a national study of politically oriented civic organizations and ethnographic fieldwork within one predominantly white organization. We draw on institutional work research, the outsider‐within concept, and insights from critical whiteness theory to explain how leaders of color can use their position and “critical standpoint” to help guide their organization toward advancing racial equality. The qualitative analysis shows how such leaders, when empowered, help their organization address race internally by (a) providing alternatives to white‐dominated perspectives, (b) developing tools to educate white members about racial inequality, and (c) identifying and addressing barriers to becoming a more racially diverse organization. The qualitative analysis also shows how leaders of color help their organization address race externally by (a) sharing personal narratives about living in a white‐dominated society and (b) brokering collaborations with organizations led by people of color. This research has implications for organizations seeking to promote social equality: Organizational leaders from marginalized status groups can help their organizations address social inequality, if those leaders possess a critical standpoint and sufficient organizational authority.     

Racial Bias and Prosocial Behavior

The ways in which people exhibit racially biased attitudes are complex. For instance, social scientists differentiate between explicit bias, or bias that is obvious and conscious, and implicit bias, or bias that is to a degree uncontrollable. Many studies focus on how these forms of racial bias relate to discrimination, however, a growing body of research indicates that racial bias can also relate to prosocial behavior. This paper discusses how social scientists measure different forms of racial bias, as well as the effects of racial bias on prosocial behaviors.     

Sexual Orientation Differences in Whites’ Racial Attitudes

Historical and anecdotal accounts present a contradictory image of predominantly white lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ ) communities in the United States: a unique celebration of racial and other forms of diversity, yet pervasive racial discrimination and exclusion that mirrors racism of the broader society. However, no study to date has compared the racial attitudes of white heterosexual and white LGB Americans. Using nationally representative data from the American National Election Survey 2012 Times Series Study, I investigate the effect of sexual orientation on whites’ racial attitudes in the domains of symbolic, color‐blind, and old‐fashioned racism. Compared to white heterosexuals, white LGB people hold more favorable attitudes toward black people, most notably in the domain of symbolic racism. On average, over 40% of sexual orientation gaps in whites’ racial attitudes is explained by white LGB respondents’ more liberal political ideology; their greater awareness of homophobic discrimination explains, on average, one‐fifth of these sexual orientation gaps. These findings suggest that white LGB racial attitudes must be examined at the intersection of their privileged racial and disadvantaged sexual identities.     

Role of the Black Grandmother in the Racial Socialization of their Biracial Grandchildren

The current study was conducted with seven Black grandmothers who have a biracial (Black and White) grandchild or grandchildren examining their role in the racial socialization process of their grandchild or grandchildren. Racial socialization is defined as how these grandchildren of biracial parentage came to understand their blackness. The following criteria had to be met; born before 1975 as this would ensure the grandmothers experienced the 70s. Black pride movement and they need to have contact with the identified grandchild. Qualitative methods with a phenomenological lens were used. The results revealed the perspective and methods they exercised in racially socializing their biracial grandchildren fell into eight themes. The themes that emerged were community influence, spirituality, social adjustment, feelings toward “the other,” social perception, cultural indoctrination, grandma’s burden, and the road ahead. Although each grandmother had a different journey and the “why” behind viewpoints varied, their conclusion regarding the proper racial socialization of their biracial grandchildren was to socialize them, as Black was unanimous.     

It's the Message,Not the Messenger: The Declining Significance of Black–White Contact in a “Colorblind” Society*

We argue that due to the modern‐day prevalence of colorblind racism, the impact of interracial contact on whites’ racial consciousness is limited. By comparing two qualitative data sets of white antiracists and whites who have a close black friend, we find there are a good number of whites for whom relationships with people of color are not the prime impetus for becoming antiracist. Whites often bracket out their black friends from their limited understandings of racism, and white antiracists often adopt progressive ideologies from other whites. Even when interracial contact is part of white antiracists’ experiences, it often is but one small step in a process of sensitization to an antiracist counterideology. The bearers of this antiracist ideology (the “message”) may or may not be persons of color (the assumed “messengers”) so we explore a variety of ways that this “message” takes hold (or not) among whites. While not discounting contact theory altogether, we make plain that colorblindness is a major factor limiting its explanatory power. We conclude by discussing the methodological and theoretical implications of our findings for sociological race relations research.     

The Impact of Intersecting Dimensions of Inequality and Identity on the Racial Status of Eastern African Immigrants1

In this article, we examine how immigrants from eastern Africa to the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area understand and navigate the U.S. color line and its implications for nonwhites. Although these immigrants are subject to constraints based on their racial status as black, they mobilize other intersecting aspects of their identities to manipulate racial classifications in the hopes of attaining upward mobility in the United States, even when doing so creates other social costs for them. Eastern African immigrants draw on their ethnicity and, among Muslim immigrants, their religion to differentiate themselves from African Americans, who occupy the lowest position in the U.S. racial hierarchy. In challenging their categorization as racially black and seeking to move up the racial hierarchy, Eastern African immigrants refine the color line to distinguish between African‐American blacks and non‐African‐American blacks.     

White Racial Socialization: Progressive Fathers on Raising “Antiracist” Children

For the past 30 years, the definition of racial socialization has referred to how parents prepare children of color to flourish within a society structured by white supremacy. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with eight white affluent fathers, this study explores fathers' participation in white racial socialization processes. The article focuses on fathers who identify as “progressive” and examines the relationship between fathers' understandings of what it means to raise an “antiracist” child, the explicit and implicit lessons of racial socialization that follow from these understandings, and hegemonic whiteness. Findings illustrate how these fathers understand their role as a white father, how their attempts to raise antiracist children both challenge and reinforce hegemonic whiteness, and what role race and class privilege play in this process.     

Still Life in Black and White: Effects of Racial and Class Attitudes on Prospects for Residential Integration in Atlanta

I use the 1993 Atlanta Survey of Urban Inequality to evaluate the effects of five types of racial and class attitudes on assessments of the desirability of residential integration: (1) preferences for neighbors of the same race, (2) perceived racial differences in social class characteristics, (3) Whites'perceptions of group threat from Blacks, (4) Blacks'perceptions of discrimination, and (5) negative racial stereotypes. For Whites the strongest predictors of resistance to integration are negative racial stereotypes and perceptions of group threat from Blacks. For Blacks in-group preferences, negative racial stereotypes and, to a small extent, beliefs that Whites tend to discriminate against other groups are positively associated with resistance to integration. I conclude by arguing that since racial attitudes are linked to attitudes about residential integration, open housing advocates should focus their efforts on addressing persistent racial mistrusts and prejudices.     

A culture of whiteness: How integration failed in cities,suburbs, and small towns

As America's neighborhoods have become more racially diverse in the last half century, are these shared spaces fulfilling the “promise of integration”? In this study, I review the literature on desegregation as it occurs in urban, suburban, and rural places, illuminating how a culture of whiteness works in each of these types of places to reproduce racial domination. The literature on multiethnic urban areas demonstrates how a culture of whiteness reframes gentrification as ‘revitalization’ and nostalgia, which result in social control and cultural displacement of non-white residents. In suburban places, I draw out the ways a culture of whiteness is expressed as ‘niceness’ and ‘governmentality’, resulting in symbolic exclusion and forced assimilation of people of color. Finally, in rural places, a culture of whiteness uses narratives of ‘pollution’ and ‘parasitism’ to understand often low-income migrants of color, which renders them invisible and reproduces their structural disadvantage in the community. Revealing the subtle and obscure mechanisms through which a culture of whiteness reproduces racial domination in diverse places ultimately provides the key to their undoing and opens the door to the promise of integration.     

The Role of Perceived Racial Discrimination in the Marriage Gap Between Black and White People

Abstract

Many explanations offered for the gap in marriage rates between Black and White people are economic and cultural. Less often considered are how racial social psychological factors influence marriage rates. In this study, we use critical race theory and the life course perspective to investigate how perceived racial discrimination impacts the likelihood of marriage for Black and White people. Data for the study are taken from the Portraits of American Life Study (N?=?678). The results of logistic regression analyses show that among people who report perceived racial discrimination, White people generally have a higher probability of being married compared to Black people. Analyses by age demonstrate that among younger adults, Black people who perceive racial discrimination are equally likely to be married as White people and have a higher probability of being married than Black people who do not report perceptions of racial discrimination. A negative influence on the odds of marriage related to perceived racial discrimination for Black people becomes clearer as respondents age. The findings highlight the importance of considering perceptions of racial discrimination to better understand the marriage gap between Black and White people across the life course.     

Rethinking the “buffering” theory of neighborhood racial transition

In metropolitan areas with significant numbers of Latinx and Black people, Santiago (1991) hypothesized that Latinx groups may “buffer” white neighborhoods from Black ones. Farley and Frey (1994, https://doi.org/10.2307/2096131 ) subsequently suggested that Latinx and Asian groups provide a social or spatial “buffer” that enables White and Black neighborhood coresidence. In predominantly White spaces, increases in the neighborhood shares of Latinx and Asian populations moderates White resistance to the presence of Blacks, and this helps explain growing neighborhood racial diversity in the United States. This essay suggests expanding the thesis in several ways. We first consider reversing the theory wherein Latinx and Asian groups provide a “buffer” enabling White and Black coresidence because Blacks are cushioned from the actions of Whites. This view requires us to include not only White tolerance but also White intolerance in the buffering logic. Second, we point out that racially mixed neighborhoods may also come about because people want to live in such diverse environments. Third, this leads to a consideration of processes of neighborhood racial mixing that include the roles of real estate markets actors in shaping neighborhood outcomes as well as the motivations of Latinx, Asian, and mixed-race populations.     

When Bourgeois Utopias Meet Gentrification: Community and Diversity in a New Urbanist Neighborhood*

Abstract

Scholars have recently begun to explore how social and politically liberal gentrifiers make sense of the classed and racial inequalities linked to gentrification. In this article I ask how residents of one new urbanist “bourgeois utopia”—the Mueller Development in Austin, Texas—experience and give meaning to their neighborhood in a context of gentrification. Drawing on 31 in-depth interviews I explain how new urbanism has reimagined and marketed “diversity” and “community” to middle-class and wealthy consumers and provides these to affluent people as neighborhood amenities. I show how residents draw on diversity ideology and multicultural capital to neutralize what they see as their neighborhood’s role in gentrification. In doing so this article adds to our theoretical understanding of how contemporary urban development exploits pursuits for the social good as rhetorical tools to assuage privileged guilt while promoting profitable enterprises.     

Barack Obama,the New Politics of Race,and Classed Constructions of Racial Blackness

Based upon an analysis of the print and online media, this article examines the discourse of the “new politics of race” between 2007 and 2014. Part of the politics of postracialism, the new race politics first emerged as a set of guidelines for candidate Barack Obama, concerning how he should and should not handle racial matters if he hoped to win the presidency. In a larger sense, however, the new race politics is a class‐specific discourse of racial color blindness, one which positions the black upper middle class as a 21st‐century model minority, racialized in contradistinction to the black poor.     

Queers in the Line of Fire: Goffman's Stigma Revisited

Using data from in‐depth interviews with young queer people, this article proposes revisions for four areas of Goffman's classic work, Stigma. Interviews reveal a situation between complete acceptance of queer identity and outright hostility, which I term “being in the line of fire,” and three strategies participants use to manage their identity in this situation. Unlike classical identity management, this project considers how their “double consciousness” allows them to respond to stigmatizing situations while remaining insulated from the negative appraisals of others. Instead, they orient toward educating the stigmatizer, minimizing interaction by tailoring their identity, or disengaging. I use these strategies to demonstrate that identity management theory does not properly consider possible responses to hostile reactions, the diversity of stigmatized groups, Goffman's so‐called sympathetic others, or different frames of reference on stigmatized attributes. Orienting to the point of view of the marginalized, this article demonstrates how one manages an accepted identity when one is in the line of fire.     

Race scholarship “with,by, and for” children: How critical youth studies can inform research on race

Children's perspectives on race and their own racialized experiences are often overlooked in traditional social scientific race scholarship. From psychological and child development studies of racial identity formation, to social psychological survey research on children's racial attitudes, to sociological research conducted on children in order to quantify racially disproportionate child outcomes, the unique perspectives of young people are often marginalized. I explore some of the key themes in existing sociological and psychological research involving race and young people and demonstrate the important contributions of this expansive body of scholarship but also highlight limitations. I argue that when it comes specifically to the sociological study of young people and race, much can be learned from an emerging field known as “critical youth studies.” Further, I argue that more research on race that, as Kate Telleczek (2014, p. 16) describes, is “with, by, and for” young people, grounded in the epistemological and methodological tenants of critical youth studies, can lead to new sociological understandings of race and childhood, serve to inform public policies and practices intended to improve children's lives, and provide a platform for young people to express their own concerns and ideas about the racialized society in which they live.