Getting Race Right

#BlackLivesMatter has become a national force in the year since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri.  Businesses are scrambling to adapt to the new work force, and the new customer base.  “Social justice” is the subject of sermons and studies in churches, synagogues, and mosques around the country.

And 51% of likely American voters want to build a wall along the Mexican border.

Continue reading “Getting un-befuddled”

Back in the ‘80s, there was a lot of concern about the coarsening of U.S. culture, especially in entertainment, including the use of violent, crudely sexual, and misogynistic lyrics in both heavy metal and rap music.  At the time, heavy metal was considered a genre mostly for young White men, and rap a genre mostly for young Black men.

Sociologist Amy Binder (1993) studied the ways in which journalists and others expressed their concerns about both heavy metal and rap during those years, and discovered a very important difference.  People were concerned that the messages of heavy metal would in some way harm its White listeners.  The concerns about rap, however, were not about its effects on the listeners themselves, but about the possibility that rap music would motivate its Black listeners to harm others.  “I’m worried about those (White) kids” vs. “I’m worried about what those (Black) kids will do to the rest of us.” Continue reading “Are those kids our kids?”

I was talking with a physician recently, a specialist, really good at his work and a darn nice guy.  He asked me about a book I was reading on health disparities by race and class and then commented, “That’s really interesting, but come to think of it, all my patients are White.”

He’s been practicing medicine for 20 years or so, and from what I could see, that conversation was the first time he’d thought about the racial make-up of his patient population.  He works in a county in which 25% of the population is not White, and he draws patients from all over.  People of color are just as likely as Whites to need his particular services.  Like most of us, however, he’d never stopped to think about the people who weren’t there, the ones not sitting in his waiting room.  And therefore he’d never wondered why. Continue reading “Who’s in the room? Who isn’t? Why?”

We had friends over the other evening.  I excused myself a bit early from an afternoon gathering, saying, “It’s my experience that when you have people over, they expect a clean house and a decent meal.  I need to go work on that.”

Yesterday afternoon, about 50 Hope College folk gathered for a webinar on racial climate on college campuses, presented by the Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington of theWashington Consulting Group, and a co-founder of the Social Justice Training Institute.  I am grateful to the Office of Multicultural Education and Counseling and Psychological Services for making it possible. Continue reading “Is it clear that we expected them?”

There are lots of stories, and a lot of research, about people who are adept in two different cultures.  There can be a cost to that—knowing two or more ways of being can make it difficult to feel completely at home in either place.  But there are advantages, too, to being able to move in and out of different contexts and operate well in both of them.

Sometimes that skill is called code-switching.  It takes practice.  After returning home from a semester teaching in Japan, I went to the bank to get some things settled.  Upon completing my transactions, I bowed deeply to the teller.  On the way down, I realized my mistake.  I thought about wheeling around and walking out so I didn’t have to face her.  But I came back up and, as I expected, she seemed both puzzled and worried.  I offered a brief explanation and walked quickly out the door. Continue reading “Code-Switching for Success”

I spent my adolescence and young adulthood in Tennessee, but I’m no expert on Southern history or culture.  With all the talk about the Confederate battle flag in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Charleston on June 17, however, I do have one small observation that might be helpful.

In the New York Times video, below, about Southern reactions to the flag, one brief shot shows a wall plaque that says, “It’s a Southern thang.  Yankees wouldn’t understand.”  That’s at least partially true, I think, and for several different reasons.  “Is it heritage or is it hate?” is an important question logically, but psychologically, there’s a whole lot more going on than that.  Understanding that can bring a bit of empathy even in the midst of profound disagreement. Continue reading “The Battle over the Battle Flag”

One of the very first things researchers need to do is define their terms, to develop “operational definitions” of the things they are studying.

When it comes to race, however, very few researchers have taken the time to do that very difficult, but very important, task.  Maya Sen and Omar Wasow have made that much easier with a recently-published article entitled Race as a ‘Bundle of Sticks’: Designs that Estimate Effects of Seemingly Immutable Characteristics.  (You can also read a synopsis and analysis at Vox.com.)

Their essential point is that race is a catch-all term that refers to many different things.  They are all bundled together into a single package, but it still is possible to tease apart the individual pieces–and essential to do that when you are using race as a research variable. Continue reading “Race as a Bundle of Sticks”

So many responses to the tragic shooting in Charleston on June 17.  A surprising number of them thoughtful, by the usual standards of public discourse on race.

Kudos, first, to South Carolina Gov. Nicki Haley, a Republican, who in the wake of the Charleston shootings, suggested that the state move the Confederate battle flag off the state capitol grounds.  Most candidates for the Republican nomination refused to take a stand of any kind on the Confederate flag.  Gov. Haley stepped in, pointing clearly to the right way to go.The contrast between her truth-telling and their embarrassing, unctious cowardice couldn’t have been clearer. Continue reading “Symbols and Substance”

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday, 5 – 4, that Texas can ban the use of Confederate flags on its license plates.  Clarence Thomas surprised many observers by casting the deciding vote.

Wednesday night, nine people were gunned down in an AME church in Charleston by a young White man who hates Black people.  At the capital in Columbia, the South Carolina state flag was lowered to half-mast, but the Confederate flag was not. Continue reading “Peak-a-boo! I see you!”