Return Migrations of African‐Americans to the South: Reclaiming a Land of Promise,Going Home,or Both?*

Abstract Using samples of census data from the University of Minnesota Population Center's “Integrated Public Use Microdata Series” (IPUMS), we describe trends in African‐American migration to the South across recent decades, and explore the applicability of the concept of “return migration” to various demographic patterns. Our findings suggest that the return movement contains multiple migration streams involving African‐Americans of higher socio‐economic status (compared with both origin and destination populations) moving to both urban and rural destinations. These patterns represent clear differences from the earlier 20^th century's “Great Migration” of African‐Americans from South to North. The recent return migration streams suggest that the South may be replacing the North as a “land of promise” for some upwardly mobile African‐Americans, and may also reflect what Carol Stack (1996) has termed a “call to home” as a motivating factor shaping recent African‐American migration to the rural South.     

HIV/AIDS Prevention in the African American Community:

The high rate of AIDS cases among African Americans, especially women, suggests that HIV risk reduction behavior change programs and messages have not been highly successful in preventing HIV transmission among this population. This paper recommends that the situational and environmental context of African Americans' lives, and their responses to HIV/AIDS be addressed and incorporated into HIV prevention programs in an effort to make these programs more relevant to high risk African Americans. A multilevel system intervention approach grounded in an ecosystem perspective which focuses on the community as the primary target level of intervention is proposed to increase the effectiveness of HIV prevention efforts among African Americans.     

Anger in black and white: race, alienation, and anger

Using data from the 1996 General Social Survey and the 1973 Chicago Crowding Study, we test the hypotheses that African Americans feel and express more anger than whites, that sense of control (versus powerlessness) lessens anger and mistrust increases anger, and that these indicators of alienation affect anger differently for African Americans and whites. We find that when age and gender are controlled, African Americans neither feel nor express more anger than whites, despite having a lower average sense of control and higher mistrust. This is partly because the effects of sense of control and mistrust on anger differ by race. Sense of control reduces feelings of anger and anger expression more for African Americans than whites. Mistrust increases feelings of anger for whites, but not African Americans. The results provide further evidence that, in the stress process, social structural location may moderate the effects of "detriments" and "resources" on emotional upset.     

Exploring the Use of the Stages of Change Model to Increase Organ Donations Among African Americans

Abstract

The success of organ transplants is affected by the degree of antigen match between donor and recipient. With organ transplants among African Americans, finding a good antigen match is difficult. While the consent rate for organ donations among Caucasians is 50%, this rate among African Americans is only 12%. The resulting ratio of donors to “recipients” is 1 to 9 in African Americans. The majority of organs received by African Americans come from Caucasian donors, thereby reducing the probability of an antigen match and increasing the probability of organ rejection. These circumstances could be improved if the organ donation rate eamong African Americans was increased. There is some empirical support for the theory that behavior change occurs through identifiable stages. This paper presents evidence for the construct validity of a stage of change measure suitable for use in designing and evaluating attempts to promote organ donations in the African American community. Use of this measure also permits clinicians to assess how receptive a client will be to organ donation promotional material. Use of this measure offers the possibility of refining approaches to organ donations among African Americans. Increases in the donor rate will result in a larger pool of antigen compatible organs in this subpopulation.     

Racial Identity Matters: The Relationship between Racial Discrimination and Psychological Functioning in African American Adolescents

This study examines the interrelationships among racial discrimination, racial identity, and psychological functioning in a sample of 314 African American adolescents. Racial discrimination was associated with lower levels of psychological functioning as measured by perceived stress, depressive symptomatology, and psychological well‐being. Although individuals who believe that other groups hold more negative attitudes toward African Americans (low public regard) were at greater risk for experiencing racial discrimination, low public regard beliefs also buffered the impact of racial discrimination on psychological functioning. More positive attitudes about African Americans were also associated with more positive psychological functioning. The results further illustrate the utility of a multidimensional framework for understanding the role of racial identity in the relationship between racial discrimination and psychological outcomes among African American adolescents.     

Intergroup marriage: an examination of opportunity structures

Though a number of authors have noted the increase in interracial marriages in the United States over the past few decades, few researchers have systematically examined variables that affect the opportunity for intergroup marriage among several different groups: Whites, African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics. In this paper we examine several "opportunity" variables and their relationship to intergroup marriage for couples age 40 or younger: immigration, military service, metropolitan residency, age, region, college attendance, and socioeconomic status. We examine these relationships for African, White, Asian, and Hispanic Americans. Results for both males and females are presented. The analysis is based on data from the 1990 census. The propensity to marry within one's own group dropped slightly for all groups but Asian Americans from 1980 to 1990. White and Black Americans continue to have the highest endogamy rates. Hispanic and Asian Americans have lower rates, and regional variations are highest for them as well. The results suggest that the opportunity variables are important factors affecting rates of intergroup marriage.     

Labor Market Disparities Between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans: Reexamining the Role of Immigrant Selectivity

Black immigrants from the Caribbean have long attained greater labor market success than African Americans. The most recent studies show that Afro Caribbeans have earnings that are approximately 16% greater than African Americans and that Afro Caribbeans are as much as 21% more likely to be employed than African Americans. The most prominent explanation for greater Afro Caribbean success is that, because they have chosen to migrate, Afro Caribbeans are positively self‐selected on characteristics that are key for success in the U.S. labor market. Proponents of immigrant selectivity argue that migrants have greater levels of both hard and soft skills than nonmigrants. Using data from the National Survey of American Life—the first social survey to provide a nationally representative sample of both African Americans and Afro Caribbeans—this study finds that Afro Caribbeans have greater hard skills than African Americans but split the difference on two measures of soft skills: African Americans and Afro Caribbeans are matched on John Henryism, but African Americans have greater personal mastery than Afro Caribbeans. Contrary to expectations, controlling for differences in hard and soft skills does not provide for a meaningful reduction in labor market disparities between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans.     

African Americans,U.S. Poverty,and International Law

ABSTRACT

Statistical rates of poverty among African Americans often hide the cultural and historical nature of their intended consequences. Unfavorable outcomes for social change can occur when viewing poverty among African Americans in isolation from their unique historical and cultural experiences and U.S. social, political, and capitalistic influences. While pressures to subordinate African Americans continue, African Americans also exert pressure (e.g., social movements) as human agents in their efforts toward self-determination. In order to understand and/or ameliorate poverty in the US, policy makers, researchers, and educators must first deal with the cultural hegemony undergirding it.     

Lifting the Veil: African American Images and the European American Gaze

Patricia Hill Collins presents and discusses gender and gender role norms, behaviors, and ideologies among African Americans in an interdisciplinary diagnostic endeavor that calls attention to health, economic, behavioral, and psychosocial patterns related to social injustice and inequality. Collins presents several popular culture, mass media, and social science literature topics that call for a progressive Black sexual politics necessary for African American empowerment. A most crucial and apparent point of Collins's discussion is that improvement in the lives of African Americans requires inspection and analysis of gender and sexuality related intragroup variation and diversity. I situate this discussion primarily within a post-civil rights ideological revolution related to the European American “gaze,” multiculturalism, and European American emotional ambivalence toward the Black body. It is proposed that Collins's analysis of the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality among African Americans occurs within an American context that reciprocally impacts African American intragroup dynamics.     

Interracial and Intraracial Patterns of Mate Selection Among America’s Diverse Black Populations

Despite recent immigration from Africa and the Caribbean, Blacks in America are still viewed as a monolith in many previous studies. In this paper, we use newly released 2000 census data to estimate log‐linear models that highlight patterns of interracial and intraracial marriage and cohabitation among African Americans, West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites, and their interracial marriage and cohabitation with Whites. Based on data from several metropolitan areas, our results show that, despite lower socioeconomic status, native‐born African Americans are more likely than other Blacks to marry Whites; they also are more likely to marry other Black ethnics. West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites are more likely to marry African Americans than to marry Whites. Interracial relationships represent a greater share of cohabiting unions than marital unions. The majority of interracial unions, including native and immigrant Blacks, consist of a Black man and White woman. The implications for marital assimilation are discussed.     

The social psychological costs of racial segmentation in the workplace: a study of African Americans' well-being

Although several studies have documented how social-structural constraints impair psychological functioning, few have considered how race-related structural constraints impair African Americans' psychological functioning. This study focuses on an under-studied form of race-related structural constraints: racial segmentation in the workplace. Specifically, I examine the association between perceived workplace racial segmentation, conceived and assessed from a social psychological perspective, and African Americans' psychological well-being. The magnitude and consistency of the relationship is evaluated across both a national sample and a local probability sample of African Americans. Findings across the two samples indicate a modest but consistent negative relationship between perceived racial segmentation and psychological well-being. In addition, this association remains significant after controlling for perceived discrimination as well as sociodemographic and occupational characteristics. Consistent with prior research on relative deprivation, the adverse influence of perceived racial segmentation on well-being was stronger among higher socioeconomic status African Americans than lower socioeconomic African Americans.     

Race and Loss of Privilege: African American/White Differences in the Determinants of Job Layoffs From Upper-Tier Occupations

Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics supports predictions from the minority vulnerability thesis concerning the determinants of job layoffs among African Americans and Whites who work in upper-middle-class occupations. Specifically, after controlling for seniority, layoffs for African Americans are relatively unstructured by traditional stratification-based causal factors, namely, background socioeconomic status, human-capital credentials, and job/labor market characteristics. Analyses also indicate that racial differences in the determinants of layoffs are more pronounced in nonservice-based than service-based firms in the private sector and in the private sector relative to the public sector.     

Racial Differences in Exposure and Reactivity to Daily Family Stressors

Using data from the National Study of Daily Experiences, the authors examined racial differences in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors involving family members. Respondents included African American and European American adults age 34 to 84 (N = 1,931) who participated in 8 days of daily interviews during which they reported on daily stressors, affect, and physical health symptoms. The results revealed racial similarities in family stressor exposure. Both races were also emotionally reactive to family arguments and family network events (i.e., events that happen to a family member), whereas African Americans were more physically reactive to family arguments. For African Americans, reactivity to family arguments endured; the increased negative affect and physical symptoms associated with family arguments lasted into the next day. The findings provide evidence for racial similarities and differences, suggesting that family relationships are universally stressful, whereas the negative effects of family stressors are more enduring among African Americans.     

INTERPERSONAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HMONG AMERICANS: Parallels and Variation in Microlevel Racial inequality

Different racial and ethnic minorities are commonly compared across various measures of macrolevel inequality but have thus far not been compared with respect to microlevel inequality. Using data from interviews with forty-eight Hmong Americans, this article systematically extends Feagin's (1991) analysis of interpersonal discrimination against African Americans to the experiences of everyday racism among a group of foreignborn Asian Americans. Hmong Americans report all of the forms of interpersonal discrimination that Feagin documents for African Americans, suggesting that minorities face a common inequality structure in public face-to-face encounters. Nativism and limited English proficiency, two factors that Feagin did not identify as affecting African Americans, are also important components of interpersonal discrimination against Hmong Americans. These additional dimensions of interpersonal discrimination against suggest that macrolevel patterns of racial and ethnic inequality can lead to variation in microlevel inequality.     

CROSSRACIAL DIFFERENCES IN THE RACIAL PREFERENCES OF POTENTIAL DATING PARTNERS: A Test of the Alienation of African Americans and Social Dominance Orientation

Studying interracial romance has been useful for understanding general race relations. Theories of African American alienation and social dominance orientation help explain why previous research has found African Americans to be the least desired racial dating partners. Alienation predicts that African Americans are less willing to interracially date than other racial groups since they are not allowed to participate in the majority culture. Social dominance orientation predicts that African Americans are more willing to interracially date than other racial groups because they occupy the lowest position in our racial hierarchy. This study utilizes an Internet dating website to explore the racial dating preferences of European Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. The theory of African American alienation is upheld, as African Americans are generally less willing to interracially date than other races and are especially less willing to date European Americans.     

Like a River: The Million Man March and the Black Nationalist Tradition in the United States

This article examines the Million Man March in the wider context of black nationalism, a persistent, though inconsistent, factor in African American life, enjoying wider currency at some historical junctures than others. Those periods when black nationalism resonated strongly among African Americans are called black nationalist moments, four of which are identified here. The Million Man March, with its heavy inflection of patriarchy and black capitalism, is seen as the iconic event of the fourth moment. The subsequent Million Woman March is pivoted as a more radical and activist rejoinder to the Million Man March, a response continued by the even more recent Black Radical Congress.     

The Unique Culture of Gullah/Geechee Families on the Southern Coast of the United States

The Gullah/Geechee people are a distinct group of African Americans that have been more successful in maintaining customs and traditions from Africa than any other subset of African Americans. This group's unique language is often the first characteristic that brings them to the attention of outsiders; however, upon closer look, their uniqueness is revealed in their art, folklore, music, religion, food, and overall culture. An exploration of the uniqueness of this subgroup of African Americans can provide valuable insight for social workers assisting clients from the Gullah/Geechee culture.     

The Determinants of Racial Disparities in Perceived Job Insecurity: A Test of Three Perspectives

Why do African Americans report higher levels of perceived job insecurity than whites? We analyze data from the 1996 and 1998 General Social Survey to test alternative predictions from the compositional, inclusive‐discrimination, and dispositional perspectives concerning the sources of the racial gap in perceived insecurity. Results from ordered probit regressions provide most support for the inclusive‐discrimination perspective, which maintains that employment practices associated with “modern racial prejudice” induce perceived insecurity on a widespread and generalized basis among African Americans. Accordingly, compared to whites, African Americans experience perceived insecurity net of human capital credentials and job/labor market characteristics. Additional analyses provide one qualification to these findings: dynamics associated with the inclusive‐discrimination perspective are more pronounced in the private sector than the public sector.     

Racial differences in DSM diagnosis using a semi-structured instrument: the importance of clinical judgment in the diagnosis of African Americans

Schizophrenia is diagnosed more frequently among African Americans while mood disorders are identified more often among whites. Such findings have raised serious questions about the accuracy of clinical judgment. This article analyzes data on 665 African American and white psychiatric inpatients using a semi-structured diagnostic instrument. The paper explores the relationship of patient race to schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, major depression, and bipolar disorder. The paper also explores the extent to which patient race is related to the manner in which clinicians link individual symptoms to diagnoses. Results indicate some significant race differences in diagnosis remain even when a semi-structured instrument and DSM criteria are used, whites, were more likely than African Americans to receive a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and less likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. There were no race differences in major depression. Some patterns of symptom attribution differed by race. The results are consistent with previous sociological research showing that patient race is related to diagnosis even when standardized diagnostic criteria are used. These findings underscore the importance of clinical judgment within the context of cross-race and cross-ethnic diagnosis. Clinical training programs must reduce ethnocentric bias by teaching the appropriate use of the socio-cultural information necessary to employ DSM-IV's Cultural Formulation.