Invisible no more: White racialization and the localness of racial identity

What does it mean to be white? How do whites see themselves and other white people, racially? These are empirical questions, questions that sociologists have spent decades trying to answer. Among numerous findings, none have been as pronounced as white racelessness; the theory that whites possess invisible, or raceless, identities. Despite its influence on our understanding of race, the construction of whiteness as an invisible identity has been called into question, as a number of scholars, past and present, focus more on the local dynamics of white racialization. For a growing cross-section of whites, modern cultural and demographic change has shattered the illusion of white normality, causing them to confront their own racial identities in intimate and explicit ways. How do these and other whites respond to being seen as white? Though adept at detailing the way whites conceptualize white racial identity, generally, sociologists have been far less successful in examining how whites conceptualize white racial identity, locally. In this article, after reviewing both general and local constructions of white racial identity, I argue that going forward, researchers need to dispense with contextual overgeneralizations and focus more the localness of white identity formation.     

The Impact of the Economic Downturn,Immigrants, and Political Representation on White Supremacist Group Organization in the United States

Abstract

On the surface, groups advocating white supremacy appear similar. However, upon closer examination these groups vary in their strategies and goals as well as how they are affected by the economic downturn, immigrants, and political representation. This study utilizes resource mobilization theory to examine the relationship among political ideology, partisanship, public policy, social factors, and white supremacist group organization in the United States between 2000 and 2007. With the fifty states as the unit of analysis, I conduct a pooled time-series analysis to answer the following research questions: Is there a relationship among a state's political ideology, partisanship, public policy, social factors, and individual white supremacist group organization? Does this relationship vary by white supremacist group type? White supremacist group data disaggregated by type reveal that group dynamics are in play as groups navigate state political and social factors to determine ideal areas to organize. This study reveals the importance in examining white supremacist groups disaggregated by type, particularly the political and social factors that motivate their level of organization.     

The Correlates of Religiosity Among Black and White Americans*

This paper explores the correlates of religiosity among blacks and whites, asking two questions: (1) Is the relationship between SES and religious attendance the same for both races? (2) What factors best predict church attendance among both races? The findings show that (1) SES is positively related to religious participation among whites; (2) the best non-religious predictors of attendance across all denominations and churches studied are SES and age; (3) including a measure of religious belief greatly increases the explanatory power of a predictive model; but (4) the relationship between SES and attendance varies by denomination and church among blacks.     

Identity Isomorphism: Role Schemas and White Masculinity Formation

This article explores a counterintuitive intersection of class, gender, and race within two politically antagonistic white movements—white nationalists and white antiracists. Ethnographic field‐notes, in‐depth interviews, and content analysis provide comprehensive data and triangulation for how implicit perceptions of class and gender are intertwined with the social construction of an ideal white, male, middle‐class identity. While both organizations express antithetical political goals, they together reinforce broader discourses about whiteness and white supremacy. In so doing, these two organizations present an empirical and theoretical puzzle: How and why do two supposedly antithetical and divergent white male organizations simultaneously rationalize the inclusion and exclusion of women and the lower class from their ranks? Findings gesture toward tempering conceptual models of white male identity formation to further explore how cultural schemas are utilized toward the construction of both identity formation and interest protection.     

Land of the Free,Home of the Brave: Voting Accommodations for Older Adults

Voting is a fundamental right for all United States citizens, one that usually continues for elderly people as long as they are alive. As adults age, certain issues regarding voting warrant deeper consideration than in previous years, especially those presenting as a result of impaired sight, hearing difficulty, dementia, or other special needs. What will happen to millions of men and women who have taken the right to vote for granted, but who gradually become immobile or physically impaired? What are states doing to help secure the enfranchisement of an increasing number of older adult voters? The purpose of this article is to address these issues by focusing on the following questions: What has been the historical nature of polling place accommodations for elderly people? What are states doing in terms of accommodating older voters at the polls while ensuring the integrity of the voting process? What effect has recent Help America Vote Act legislation had with regard to polling place accommodations? Our results indicate that accommodations for older voters are being made but are not yet at a level required to serve a rapidly aging population.     

Global Studies: Have Catechism,Will Travel

This second response to comments on my article ‘What is Global studies?’ (Globalizations 10, 4, 2013) notes that the comments feature research agendas. These provide scaffolding for global studies but not of course a complete building. Among themes that need further attention are political economy and finance, the dimension of time and history, and the dynamics of twenty-first century globalization and the role of emerging economies.     

Learning Racial Literacy While Navigating White Social Studies

Abstract

How do children develop racial literacy? How do they make sense of and respond to the master narratives of race and racism? What role does elementary social studies education play in children’s racial literacy development? I explored these questions as a parent–researcher, inquiring how my child, an Asian American elementary student, develops racial literacy as she learns U.S. history at school. In the following, I first situate my inquiry within the literature on social studies education from a critical race perspective. Next, I delineate my positionality as a critical race motherscholar and the rationale for studying my own child. Last, I present the findings from my inquiry and discuss its implications for elementary social studies education.     

White Sociologists and Black Students in Predominantly White Universities*

This article examines the attitudes of white soclologists and black students in predominantly white colleges and universities in all geographic regions of the country. Respective attitudes are at sharp variance and produce several kinds of conflict behavior. The personal and professional crises experienced by white sociologists when challenged by black students are described, along with the principal grievances of black students against social scientists in the race relations field. Also examined are structural and organizational changes in sociology and in the academic institutions resulting from a particular form of black-white conflict. Attention is given to black-Jewish conflict in sociology as well as to the distinctiveness of black-white relations in Southern colleges and universities.     

Singing in Dangerous Places (Flores,Lamaholot, Indonesia)

At the eastern tip of Flores Island (Indonesia), there is a people whose members sing in special places, both inhabited and uninhabited, and at special times. Approximately four times a year, songs and dances are performed around a group of stones, in the dancing place. Singers move around these stones all night until dawn. They also sing in front of special trees when going out to their fields, or standing in circles around posts, stones or altars set up on the cultivated land. All these locations are named ‘dangerous places’. They are as far flung as seashores and forests. What relationships with these places do humans enter into? What kind of history and stories do these places mark? What potency do they bear? This paper shows that singing brings people into relationships with various categories of beings at certain places in every ceremonial domain of this peninsula.     

Girls,boys, money. Economic socialisation,gender, and generations in Italy

The aim of this article is to discuss the issue of economic socialisation in Italy from a gender perspective. What do boys and girls know about money and economy? How do they acquire this knowledge? What roles do the family, school, and the media play?

The empirical material making up the base of our observations is composed of in-depth interviews with a group of Milanese families on the questions of economic socialisation and practices of money management. Gender differences emerge in the construction of the relationship with money by children and young adults: girls, in particular, undergo the strongest pressure, i.e. they are still more driven towards discipline and self-control.

Our results also suggest the need to activate targeted, gender-sensitive training programmes in economic education.     

The Race for Education: Class,White Tone,and Desegregated Schooling in South Africa

In the early 1990s, privileged “white” South African public schools began to admit “black” pupils. Drawing on interviews, ethnography, and archival sources related to formerly‐white schools in Durban, this article addresses two main questions: first, why did white parents so enthusiastically vote for schooling desegregation when apartheid was still in place?; and second, why, over time, did intense competition emerge between schools, and become so focused on improving sports results? In addressing these questions this study takes an historical‐geographical approach, paying particular attention to two areas of Durban: the middle‐class central Berea area and the more working‐class areas in Durban's south. This story begins in the 1950s, a period of major schooling expansion and urban segregation, tracing how a hierarchy of white schools developed in relation to the city's uneven geographies of race and class. It is this schooling hierarchy and the way it became contested in the 1990s that is key to understanding the schools' shift from “cooperative desegregation” to “aggressive competition.” More broadly, the article argues that education provides a window into key post‐apartheid tensions – namely between the deracialization of privilege, the continued dividend of whiteness, and efforts to redistribute resources to the poor. Finally, in an age of mass education, it argues that the actions of schools play an important role in shaping raced and classed divisions in society.     

A Content Analysis of Career Development Theory,Research, and Practice—2013

This annual review of the career counseling and development literature presents a content analysis of refereed journal articles published in 2013. Four research questions guided the analysis: (a) What content topics were included in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (b) To what extent are theory, research, and practice integrated in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (c) What variation exists in the characteristics of career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? and (d) What variation exists in the content included in theory, research, and practice articles? A total of 360 unique topics were identified in 357 articles from 24 journals. Results indicated that topic content in journals evolved slowly with limited integration of theory, research, and practice. Implications are suggested for (a) future topic content; (b) better integration of theory, research, and practice; (c) education and training; (d) journal editorial policy; and (e) future content analyses of journal articles.     

When White Boys Kill

Abstract

The image of male youth homicide is primarily associated with young black males. However, recent school shootings in which multiple innocent victims were murdered indicate that young white males may be at serious risk of a much more tragic homicidal phenomenon known as multicide. This paper offers a conceptual framework to explain multicide and violence generally among young white males by employing an Afrocentric analysis. This analysis assumes that multicide among young white males can be explained by the convergence of three structural-cultural factors, which are (1) the concept of manhood that places considerable emphasis on physical aggression; (2) the phenomenon of spiritual alienation; and (3) the anxiety and stress associated with concerns over maintaining white male privilege. The paper also presents recommendations that describe how the effects of these three factors could be prevented and mediated, and it offers suggestions for future research that applies an Afrocentric framework to investigate young, white male violence.     

Private thoughts and public actions:: A commentary on articles dealing with ethical issues in evaluation

This commentary represents a personal reaction to seven articles on ethical issues in evaluation. The author of the commentary begins with two assumptions: (1) Professional evaluators might not have the vocabulary and constructs to analyze their thoughts and actions in ethical terms, and (2) professional evaluators have often confronted troubling situations that probably contain ethical issues embedded within them. Consequently, she queries the seven articles individually and collectively in terms of the following questions: 1. What is the range of ethical problems I might encounter as an evaluator; and how do I recognize the ethical characteristics of professional dilemmas? 2. How do I describe troubling evaluation problems I have encountered that seem to have an ethical component? 3. What are some approaches I have used or might use in thinking about a proper course of action? 4. How do I know if, in a given situation, I have behaved ethically? 5. Where do we go from here?     

“Mostly we are White and Alone”: Identity,Anxiety and the Past in Some White Zimbabwean Memoirs

Using the space created by the land invasions, over the last ten years or so there has been a proliferation of exile memoirs written by white Zimbabweans living in the diaspora, which foreground colonial nostalgia and postcolonial anxiety. This article profiles elements of this latest wave of “white (female) writing”, arguing that writers such as Alexandra Fuller construct their own personal narratives based on an extremely teleological and narrow interpretation of the history of Zimbabwe. It is argued that memoirs are used as a mechanism to uphold an idealised (i.e. powerful) white identity, because whites' current “destabilised” identity has resulted in them clinging to a seemingly utopian version of both what it meant to be white and the past. The article also examines some aspects of whiteness studies, utilising Peter McLaren's framework to argue that these memoirs are beset by a whiteness of social amnesia.     

Race,risk, and American religious groups' views of Nazi Germany in 1935

What explains American religious groups' views of Nazi Germany before the U.S. entered the Second World War? Using a comparative-historical approach, we employ a novel set of data on 25 of America's most prominent religious denominations to answer this question. We find that two factors were crucial in explaining religious elite discourse about Hitler in the U.S. in 1935: whether leaders believed in white supremacy and whether their denominations were incumbents or challengers in the American religious field. Our findings underscore the growing theoretical consensus that racial resentment is key to support for authoritarianism and call attention to religious groups' complicity in its growth, both active and passive.     

The Culture of White Space,the Racialized Production of Meaning,and the Jamband Scene

This study critically examines the subculture of the jamband scene, particularly that of the band Phish, through the notion of “white space.” We demonstrate the existence of colorblind racism and denial of white privilege in the white space of Phish subculture, which is also emblematic of the jamband subculture at large. This study utilizes content analysis drawing from social media comments that react to an article written by Headcount, a political organization in the jamband subculture, titled “Phish Scene is So White: Let's Talk.” The most salient themes we found were colorblind racism and particular online forms of colorblind racetalk through emotional deflection and sarcasm—that we term NIMBY. Our findings add to our understanding of how colorblind racism operates in online versions of subcultural white spaces. We conclude by considering the importance of sociologists to urgently map the social and cultural contours by which white spaces are (re)produced, particularly through cultural processes of meaning-making.     

Cities, states, and trust networks: chapter 1 of Cities and States in World History

An introduction to a vast but uncompleted survey of world history, this article argues that the study of the changing relationships among cities, states and trust networks can help us understand key elements of the emergence of our modern world. Beginning in ancient Uruk in modern-day Iraq, roughly five thousand years ago, the essay defines each of its central categories: city, state and trust network. It poses four questions to be pursued throughout the rest of the study. What determines the degree of segregation or integration of cities and states? What determines the relative dominance of cities and states? What determines the extent of separation or integration between cities or states, on one side, and trust networks on the other? What difference do these variable configurations make to the quality of ordinary people’s lives?     

Appraisal distortions and intimate partner violence: gender, power, and interaction

In relationships characterized by control, abuse, or violence, many appraisal distortions occur including denial and minimization. However, the nature of the distortion varies depending on the individual’s role in the relationship (i.e., abuser or victim). Reducing these distortions is an important component in treatment success and involves accepting responsibility for actions and attributions. This study used constructivist grounded theory methods to explore the following questions: (1) What are the types of distortions that are used by individuals who have been in violent or abusive relationships? (2) What are the gender and power differences in the appraisal distortions used? (3) What are the functions and interactions of the distortions in the relationship dynamics? Qualitative analysis of interviews with 29 individuals who had been in abusive relationships found that there were several types of distortions used by participants, but there were differences in the function of the distortion, depending on the individual’s role in the abuse. These generally corresponded to power and gender, where the male as perpetrator used different distortions (or used similar distortions for different reasons) than did the female as victim. Suggestions for research as well as treatment implications for both offenders and survivors of abuse are given.     

White settler death drives: settler statecraft,white possession,and multiple colonialisms under Treaty 6

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes histories of white settler colonial violence in Treaty 6 territory by arguing that the 1870 Hudson’s Bay Company charter and transfer of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory to the Dominion of Canada helped to make past imperial violence an ongoing settler colonial terror structure into the present. It argues that this transition from imperial to settler colonial control of territory is best understood by using a multiple colonialisms framework, to examine the ways in which heteropatriarchal family structures transitioned from Indigenous-European to white settler kin networks that crystallized whiteness as a racialized means to control land as private property. Following Kanien’kehá:ka feminist scholar Audra Simpson’s work, I suggest that this territory’s multiple and overlapping colonial histories (French, English/British, and Canadian) are a crucial lens through which to understand the historical and ongoing formation of Canada as a white settler state, and that these histories still relationally drive anti-Indigenous violence and the settler killing of Indigenous peoples today. The essay concludes by arguing that the seeming daily placidity of white settler violence against Plains Indigenous peoples under Treaty 6 ultimately supports a relational violence that supports a killing state and its armed citizens in the name of protecting private property for white settlers.