Racism and pride in attitudes toward confederate symbols

In this essay, I describe and evaluate the contemporary debate over support for Confederate icons. This debate is often stylized as “heritage” versus “hatred.” In this debate, one side alleges that their favored Confederate symbols represent pride in Southern-Confederate identity, whereas the other urges that Confederate symbols represent racial hatred and white supremacy. I argue that the “heritage versus hatred” framing that typifies the public debate and the academic literature is not helpful. Additionally, the literature has largely ignored the views of Black Southerners, who have far more negative attitudes toward Confederate symbols compared to whites. Thus, many works implicitly assume a distinctly white southern past. Together, these shortcomings mean that existing research has likely overestimated overall public support for Confederate symbols and overstated the importance of Southern pride or heritage in informing that support, while at the same time underestimating the extent to which racial animus undergirds pro-Confederate views among whites.     

Assimilation versus multiculturalism: The views of urban Americans

Parents of children in public schools in a large American urban center, representing a number of different ethnic groups, were interviewed about their personal views and feelings toward cultural and racial diversity in America today. Three main issues were addressed: respondents' attitudes toward the maintenance of heritage cultures versus assimilation; their attitudes toward bilingualism; and their attitudes toward other groups in the community. The analyses revealed important differences in attitudes between ethnic minority groups and established white and black groups. Nonetheless, strong support was shown for the retention of heritage cultures, even among middle-class white and working-class black Americans. The working-class white American sample was distinctive in its rejection of multiculturalism and in its negative attitudes toward other ethnic and racial groups. All groups supported the idea of bilingualism for their children, and certain groups thought that public schools had an important role to play in its promotion. Overall, the results delineate a series of factors that affect intragroup and intergroup harmony and the processes of adjustment that transpire within a social system when it has to cope with ethnic and racial diversity.     

THE MEANING OF RACE TO EMPLOYERS:

The unemployment problems of blacks in the United States have been the subject of considerable research in the social sciences since the 1980s. One way of studying the barriers to employment faced by blacks has been to interview employers, face to face, and directly ask them about their racial attitudes. These studies have concluded that a majority of employers believe that blacks, compared with other racial and ethnic groups, are uncooperative, unreliable, and lack sufficient skills for entry-level employment. The present study critically reexamines employer racial attitudes toward blacks and other groups through a case study of employer hiring in the electronics industry in Los Angeles. Using a different set of interview questions, employers reported (1) that blacks are reluctant to accept unskilled jobs due to a higher reservation wage, not because they lacked skills or a work ethic, (2) that employer racial attitudes varied by level of occupational skill, and (3) that affirmative action regulations modified the hiring process such that employers were less likely to rely on negative racial stereotypes in their hiring and more likely to rely on objective criteria when screening job seekers. I conclude by suggesting that employer racial attitudes are dynamic and, in large measure, shaped by institutional relationships within the workplace.     

“Gay Equals White”? Racial,Ethnic, and Sexual Identities and Attitudes Toward LGBT Individuals Among College Students at a Bible Belt University

While past research has certainly explored a variety of correlates of attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, the current study is among the first in an emerging line of inquiry that examines attitudes toward each of these groups separately utilizing an intersectional framework with special attention to racial, ethnic, and sexual identities. Using a college sample of students from the Bible Belt of the United States (N = 1,940), I investigated the roles of racial and ethnic identities (Caucasian/White, African American/Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American/Alaskan Native, other race, and Hispanic/Latinx), religiosity, patriarchal gender norms, parental perspectives, and the intersections among these identities and experiences as they relate to attitudes toward LGBT individuals among heterosexual (n = 1,551) and LGB respondents (n = 389). This moves beyond explorations of White heterosexual people’s attitudes about “homosexuals” (i.e., away from a focus only on gayness and Whiteness) and expands to include non-White LGB people’s LGBT attitudes. Overall, results indicate that racial, ethnic, and sexual identities play a significant role in southern college students’ LGBT attitudes, and these patterns are further complicated by interacting cultural experiences with religiosity, patriarchy, and family dynamics. Campus policy and program implications are provided.     

The Role of Contact and Information in Racial Attitude Change among White College Students*

While much research has been done on the determinants of change in prejudice among whites, relatively little is known about the process of change in contemporary racial attitudes, variously described as symbolic racism, laissez‐faire racism, or color‐blind racism. This article uses data from a sample of white college students to examine the impact of intergroup contact and exposure to information about racial issues on changes in contemporary racial attitudes and feelings toward blacks (a key component of prejudice), using Pettigrew's (1998) model of the process by which contact produces change in racial attitudes. Results provide support for Pettigrew's model, showing while contact is important in changing whites’ feelings about blacks, both contact and exposure to information about race are important predictors of changes in contemporary racial attitudes. A comparison of longitudinal and cross‐sectional models of contemporary racial attitudes suggests that contact, especially in setting with “friendship potential,” has an impact on attitudes both directly and indirectly, through providing avenues through which racial information can be obtained as well as by providing motivation to pay attention to it.     

Racial Resentment and Attitudes Toward the Use of Force by Police: An Over‐Time Trend Analysis

On the heels of recent police shootings of an unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, and the death of Freddy Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, that stoked racial tensions, this article examines how beliefs about race and racial inequality influence whites’ attitudes toward the use of force by the police since the mid‐1980s. Our main dependent measure is a composite index (“Police Force Index”) constructed from four survey items from the 1986–2012 National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey (GSS). Results show that (1) beliefs about race do indeed significantly predict whites’ attitudes toward police use of force, and more importantly, (2) this effect has remained constant since the mid‐1980s. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings and suggestions for future research.     

Introduction: a symposium on social justice

In recent years South African studies have been radically transformed by a new school of work. The essential thrust of this new Marxist school has been to reconceptualise, retheorise and reanalyse the relationship between the economic system and the racial system in South Africa. The traditional liberal school has failed to see the ways and the extent to which important forms of racial domination have actually been integral and functional components of South African capitalism. The Marxist school must not let its strengths in political economy numb it from a sensitivity to cultural, ideological and psychological factors that are not always reducable to, or subsumable within, questions of political economy.     

Colonialism as a continuing project: The portuguese experience

The end of the American Civil War began a lengthy period of Southern inferiority vis-?-vis the North-a period so lengthy that some Southerners argue that it lasts to this day. Not until Woodrow Wilson's election in 1913 did the United States have a Southern-born president after the Civil War. Southerners sought novel means to assert some degree of superiority over their Northern neighbors. College football became a primary means of reasserting a Southern sense of identity and superiority. In inter-regional games in the 1920s and 1930s, the martial spirit of college football allowed Southerners to reassert their sense of honor, which had been maligned since defeat in the Civil War. As Bertram Wyatt-Brown (1982) has shown, the concept of honor defined Southern males' outlook; secession from the Union and civil war occurred when Southerners perceived Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency as the culmination of anti-slavery assaults upon their honor. Such racial definitions of Southern identity became problematic as the civil rights movement gained impetus in the 1950s and 1960s. To remain competitive with teams from other regions, Southern football teams began to recruit black players; The University of Alabama fielded its first black football player in 1971. However, transition from segregation to inclusion has not been easy. Symbols of white Southern pride highlight lingering racial difficulties, as a 1997 controversy over use of the "Rebels" nickname and fans' waving of the Confederate battle flag at The University of Mississippi illustrates. Controversies like this raise troubling questions about Southern identity, namely "Whose South is it?" and "Can expressions of Southern nationalist feelings possibly escape racial implications?"     

Victimization at school and attitides toward violence among early adolescents (1)

Previous research and theory on the impact of criminal victimization upon attitudes toward defensive violence are inconsistent, both within the school context and in society at large. While theory suggests that victims may become more positive toward defensive violence because of their victimization experiences, the data are inconclusive. One flaw in prior research is its cross‐sectional nature. This research utilizes a longitudinal design in which change in attitudes toward violence from 6th to 7th grade is compared to victims and non‐victims of robbery and theft at school. There is no difference in the pattern of change for victims and non‐victims, although both groups become more approving of interpersonal violence as they move from the 6th to the 7th grades.     

Intergenerational Experiences of Discrimination in Chinese American Families: Influences of Socialization and Stress

In this longitudinal study, we investigated the mechanisms by which Chinese American parents' experiences of discrimination influenced their adolescents' ethnicity‐related stressors (i.e., cultural misfit, discrimination, attitudes toward education). We focused on whether parents' ethnic‐racial socialization practices and perpetual foreigner stress moderated or mediated this relationship. Participants were 444 Chinese American families. Results indicated no evidence of moderation, but we observed support for mediation. Parental experiences of discrimination were associated with more ethnic‐racial socialization practices and greater parental perpetual foreigner stress. More ethnic‐racial socialization was related to greater cultural misfit in adolescents, whereas more perpetual foreigner stress was related to adolescents' poorer attitudes toward education and more reported discrimination. Relationships between mediators and outcomes were stronger for fathers than for mothers.     

The idealized cultural identities model on help-seeking and child sexual abuse: a conceptual model for contextualizing perceptions and experiences of South Asian Americans

In this paper, we propose an interdisciplinary framework to study perceptions of child sexual abuse and help-seeking among South Asians living in the United States. We integrate research on social marginality, intersectionality, and cultural psychology to understand how marginalized social experience accentuates South Asian immigrants' desire to construct a positive self-identity. Using model minority ideology as an example of such a construction, we highlight its role in silencing the topic of child sexual abuse within this immigrant community as well as its impact on attitudes towards professional mental health services. We contend that our framework, the idealized cultural identities model on help-seeking and child sexual abuse, provides a unique analytical model for clinicians and researchers to understand how South Asian Americans process, experience, and react to child sexual abuse.     

Relocating Prejudice: A Transnational Approach to Understanding Immigrants' Racial Attitudes

Immigration is changing the racial composition of many societies. Yet leading theories of racial prejudice, even in a multiracial context, focus on dynamics in a single nation‐state and fail to account for the experiences of the foreign‐born. We adopt a transnational approach that incorporates processes creating prejudice from both inside and outside the receiving society and that shows how attitudes move across borders through immigration, transnationalism, and globalization. We draw upon two in‐depth studies of immigrants and those who stay in the home countries, focusing on Koreans' and Dominicans' attitudes toward Black Americans. By situating existing theories of racial prejudice within a transnational framework, we illustrate how models of transnationalism are relevant not just within immigration scholarship, but to more general processes of social change.     

The Idealized Cultural Identities Model on Help-Seeking and Child Sexual Abuse: A Conceptual Model for Contextualizing Perceptions and Experiences of South Asian Americans

In this paper, we propose an interdisciplinary framework to study perceptions of child sexual abuse and help-seeking among South Asians living in the United States. We integrate research on social marginality, intersectionality, and cultural psychology to understand how marginalized social experience accentuates South Asian immigrants' desire to construct a positive self-identity. Using model minority ideology as an example of such a construction, we highlight its role in silencing the topic of child sexual abuse within this immigrant community as well as its impact on attitudes towards professional mental health services. We contend that our framework, the idealized cultural identities model on help-seeking and child sexual abuse, provides a unique analytical model for clinicians and researchers to understand how South Asian Americans process, experience, and react to child sexual abuse.     

Shifting categories,changing attitudes: A boundary work approach in the study of attitudes toward migrants

Considerable research exists that examines attitudes toward migrants. Most studies are quantitative, relying on surveys or survey experiments, but a growing body of literature explores such attitudes from a qualitative perspective. At the same time, the study of symbolic boundaries and how people use cultural repertoires of meanings to draw distinctions between “us” and “them” is increasing. This review looks at research, both quantitative and qualitative, which has put these two streams of work into conversation with one another. We organize this work along three dimensions: (1) the micro-level of individuals and their life-worlds; (2) the meso-level of negotiation among the moral communities of civil society; and (3) the macro-level of institutions and policy. We also highlight those studies that cut across levels. By doing so, we help bridge the quantitative/qualitative divide. Studying attitudes toward migrants through the concept of symbolic boundaries allows us to apply a more sensitive and meaning-centered approach toward attitude formation, contestation and change and to explore the linkages to available cultural repertoires.     

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.     

RACE AND RELIGION IN THE BIBLE BELT: PARENTAL ATTITUDES TOWARD INTERFAITH RELATIONSHIPS

This study examines the racial and religious differences in parental attitudes toward interfaith relationships in the Bible Belt region of the United States. Using data from the 2007 Georgia Southwestern Omnibus Community Survey, we explore attitudes toward interfaith unions and whether opposition becomes stronger as the union becomes more intimate. We utilize marriage market theory and third party influence to explain subjective parental attitudes toward the interfaith unions of their children. We employ a tolerance scale and logistic regression to predict the racial, religious, and cultural differences in opposition toward interfaith friendship, dating, and marriage. Results indicate that religious importance is a more significant predictor of interfaith opposition than religious affiliation. In addition, white parents exhibit greater opposition toward interfaith dating and marriage than black parents. Overall, the level of opposition toward interfaith unions increases as the relationship becomes more intimate.     

The immigrant experience: Houstonians’ family attitudes and behaviors

ABSTRACT

Although there is extensive scholarship that examines differences in family behaviors and attitudes between whites and blacks, there are very few studies that examine these differences across whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians in the United States. In the current study, we do so by examining data from the 2011 Houston Area Survey. We explore Houstonians’ likelihood of engaging in interracial relationships, attitudes toward working mothers, and attitudes toward same-sex marriage. Houston was selected as the target of the study given its rise as the most racially and ethnically diverse metropolitan area in the nation. Non-white Houstonians are more likely to date members of other racial/ethnic groups. With regard to attitudes toward working mothers, only Latino and Asian immigrants hold less accepting views than whites. Finally, the results with regard to same-sex marriage equality suggest that increased migration and diversity within Houston could hasten social change and acceptance.     

Music Education and minority groups cultural and musical identities in the ‘newer’ South Africa: white Afrikaners and Indians

Music Education, as well as cultural and musical identities are all being renegotiated, post‐Apartheid, within the so‐called ‘newer’ rather than the commonly known ‘new’ South Africa. The developing situation with certain minority groups is particularly interesting. Education in general has undergone much change since the first democratic elections in 1994: music education specifically has been affected by such change in terms of content, delivery and assessment. Within the South African context, cultural and musical identities are often intertwined with language, racial and even tribal identities, and discussing one implies the others. We are particularly interested here in the role of formal Music Education in relation to white Afrikaners and Indians as they renegotiate their cultural development, including musical aspects.     

Impact of Research Orientation on Attitudes Toward Research of Social Work Students

This article discusses the Self and Other Awareness Project (SOAP) cultural competence development model and presents the results of a study that evaluated its impact on the racial attitudes of 110 undergraduate students enrolled in an undergraduate interdisciplinary Minority Groups course at a mid-sized public university in the Southeastern United States. Findings indicate that students experienced a statistically significant change in racial attitudes (measured by the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000) from the beginning to the end of the course. Further analysis revealed that social work majors (n=30) were significantly more aware of racial privilege and blatant racial issues at the end of the course than they were at the beginning of the course.