As opposed to challenging the racialized structure in the United States, Spencer argues the actions of the American multiracial movement protected Whiteness and was conservative—rather than transformative—of the existing U.S. racial order.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2015-08-03 02:14Z by Steven

Scholars also analyze a multiracial movement that emerged around mixed-race identity in the 1990s. Rainier Spencer (2006, 2011) complicates previous scholars’ and activists’ claim that the emergence of multiraciality in the 1990s uncovered a new racial order. As opposed to challenging the racialized structure in the United States, Spencer argues the actions of the American multiracial movement protected Whiteness and was conservative—rather than transformative—of the existing U.S. racial order. Daniel and Castañeda-Liles (2006) similarly posit that the neoconservative rearticulation of racial classification to denote egalitarian ideals of individual choice influenced conservative politicians and policymakers’ push to add multiraciality to formalized methods of racial categorization. Melissa Nobles (2000) extends this pertinent analysis by centering on the discursive context of the multiracial movement. According to Nobles, multiracial public recognition in the midst of ongoing American cultural wars publicly legitimated multiracial visibility and helped disseminate discourse on multiraciality and create an imagined politicized community. Indeed, the emergence of multiracialism in the 1990s also influenced public recognition of multiraciality through increased marketing and commercialization of mixed-race identity and interracial families (DaCosta 2007).

Celeste Vaughan Curington, “Rethinking Multiracial Formation in the United States: Toward an Intersectional Approach,” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Volume 2, Number 1 (January 2016), 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2332649215591864.

Tags: ,

(Collective) Memory of Racial Violence and the Social Construction of the Hispanic Category among Houston Hispanics

Posted in Articles, Latino Studies, Media Archive, Social Science, Texas, United States on 2015-07-21 01:51Z by Steven

(Collective) Memory of Racial Violence and the Social Construction of the Hispanic Category among Houston Hispanics

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Volume 1, Number 3 (July 2015)
pages 424-438
DOI: 10.1177/2332649215576757

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn
Department of Sociology
Rice University, Houston, Texas

Prior U.S.-based research examining the collective remembrance of racially charged events has focused on the black-white binary, largely bypassing such remembrance among U.S. Hispanics. In this article, I ask how a group of Mexican-origin Hispanics in an historic Houston barrio remember two racially charged events as well as whether and how these events are publicly commemorated. Additionally, race and collective memory research has often highlighted the role of collective memory in shaping race relations. I argue that collective memory can also be an institution, structuring macro- and micro-level representations of race. Thus, I ask whether and how respondents’ memories shape the social construction of the Hispanic category. I find strong memory convergence with respect to one event—the case of Jose Campos Torres—and divergence in three directions with respect to the Moody Park riot. The former corresponds to a collective understanding of what Hispanic meant in the past while the latter corresponds to a fractured understanding of what Hispanic means in the present. I also explore how respondents’ racial self-perceptions coincide with their various interpretations of the riot. Overall, I theorize that a fractured collective memory of a racially charged event suggests a fractured collective identity and contributes to an ambiguous Hispanic category. I conclude by discussing suggestions for future research.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: , , ,

More Than a Knapsack: The White Supremacy Flower as a New Model for Teaching Racism

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Social Justice, Social Science, Teaching Resources, United States on 2015-01-23 18:55Z by Steven

More Than a Knapsack: The White Supremacy Flower as a New Model for Teaching Racism

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Volume 1, Number 1
pages 192-197
DOI: 10.1177/2332649214561660

Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

This article suggests that White supremacy versus White privilege provides a clearer and more accurate conceptual understanding of how racism operates, evolves, and sustains itself. This article suggests a specific model for teaching White supremacy, the White supremacy flower, and describes the application and benefits of the model.

Teaching race and racism, particularly to undergraduate students who are often learning this type of information for the first time, can be especially trying for professors (Jakubowski 2001; Lucal 1996; Moulder 1997). This difficulty has spawned many teaching articles that address race but relatively few that provide instruction on teaching racism (Khanna and Harris 2009; Kwenda 2012; Sharp and Wade 2011). Furthermore, while the articles that do suggest strategies for teaching racism are insightful, most center on the concepts of “White privilege” or “advantage” as the guides for conversation (Gillespie, Ashbaugh, and Defiore 2010; Pence and Fields 1999; Wooddell and Henry 2005). Thus, some scholarship is attentive to teaching race but neglects racism while others focus on White privilege at the expense of White supremacy. This article addresses both of these concerns by teaching racism using a particular model of White supremacy.

In this article, I first review how and why White privilege and White supremacy should not be conflated. Second, I argue that White supremacy should replace White privilege as the primary concept to teach racism. Third, I propose a specific model for teaching White supremacy, the White supremacy flower model…


Figure 1. The White supremacy flower model.

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , ,

Toward a Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Social Science on 2015-01-16 18:18Z by Steven

Toward a Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Volume 1, Number 1
pages 1-9
DOI: 10.1177/2332649214562028

David L. Brunsma, Professor of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia

David G. Embrick, Associate Professor of Sociology
Loyola University, Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Megan Nanney
Department of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia

“The ideal that I visualize for SREM is that it will constantly seek to maintain and develop the highest levels of interest in, scholarly-concern about, and professional focus upon, all aspects of racial and ethnic minorities within the sociological domain.”

—Charles U. Smith, 1980 Founder of SREM

“Much more needs to be done, and I am certain that we have both tapped and untapped resources within our Section membership.”

Loretta J. Williams, 1981 Chair of SREM

Introduction

In 1981, the Chair-Elect of the Section of Racial and Ethnic Minorities (SREM) of the American Sociological Association (ASA), Loretta J. Williams, succeeding the section’s founder, Charles U. Smith, wrote in the section newsletter, Remarks (short for Racial & Ethnic Minorities Announcements Reminders Kudos Statements), about a Spring 1981 issue of Daedalus that sounded a national call for a “greater working knowledge of racial and ethnic identity issues.” Williams continues to report on the article as well as the then recent spring issue of Annals, writing, “Little is known of the myriad forms of racial and ethnic relations of other groups within the U.S. and beyond. Conceptualizations of race relations exclusively based on data and theories relating to black/white conditions in the U.S. are insufficient” (Williams 1981:1). The opening quote represents one of the clarion calls from the founding leadership of SREM to the members of an urgent need for a sociology of race and ethnicity and that SREM members have the methodological tools, theoretical acuity, and epistemological breadth to breathe it to life. SREM has served as the social and professional space for sociologists focused on issues of race and ethnicity for over 35 years now. Throughout those decades, and up until now, SREM has lacked a home to publish, debate, and build that sociology of race and ethnicity. Welcome home. Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity!…

Read the entire introductory article here.

Tags: , , , , ,