RACE AND RACISMS

A CRITICAL APPROACH
BRIEF SECOND EDITION

TANYA MARIA GOLASH-BOZA

University of California, Merced
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Brief Contents

Preface
Talking about Race Outside the Classroom

CHAPTER 1
The Origin of the Idea of Race

CHAPTER 2
Racial Ideologies and Sociological Theories of Racism

CHAPTER 3
Racism and Nativism in Immigration Policy

CHAPTER 4
Racism in the Media: The Spread of Ideology

CHAPTER 5
Colorism and Skin-Color Stratification

CHAPTER 6
Educational Inequality

CHAPTER 7
Income and Labor Market Inequality

CHAPTER 8
Inequality in Housing and Wealth

CHAPTER 9
Racism and the Criminal Justice System

CHAPTER 10
Health Inequalities, Environmental Racism, and Environmental Justice

Glossary
References
Credits
Index
Contents

Preface
Talking about Race Outside the Classroom

CHAPTER 1
The Origin of the Idea of Race
1.1 Defining Race and Ethnicity
1.2 Race: The Evolution of an Ideology
Historical Precedents to the Idea of Race
Slavery before the Idea of Race
European Encounters with Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
• Voices: The Spanish Treatment of Indigenous Peoples
Slavery and Colonization
Exploitation in the Thirteen English Colonies
The Legal Codification of Racial Differences
• Voices: From Bullwhip Days
1.3 Slavery Versus the Ideal of Freedom in the United States
1.4 The Indian Removal Act: The Continuation of Manifest Destiny
1.5 The Rise of Scientific Racism
European Taxonomies
Scientific Racism in the Nineteenth Century
Intelligence Testing
Eugenics
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 2
Racial Ideologies and Sociological Theories of Racism
2.1 Prejudice, Discrimination, and Institutional Racism
Individual Racism
 • Voices: Microaggressions
Institutional Racism
Systemic Racism and Structural Racism
Systemic Racism
Structural Racism
2.2 Racial Ideologies
Biological Racism
Cultural Racism
Color-Blind Racism
Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Racism
2.3 Racial Formation
2.4 White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism
2.5 Intersectional Theories of Race and Racism
2.6 White Privilege
2.7 Whiteness, Class, Gender, and Sexuality
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 3
Racism and Nativism in Immigration Policy
• Voices: Robert Bautista—Denied Due Process
3.1 The Racialized History of U.S. Immigration Policy
Race and the Making of U.S. Immigration Policies: 1790 to 1924
Nativism Between 1924 and 1964
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the Changing Face of Immigration
3.2 Illegal Immigration and Policy Response
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and Nativism
Proposition 187 and the Lead-Up to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Re-
sponsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA)
The 1996 Laws and the Detention and Deportation of Black and Latinx Immigrants
• Voices: Hector, a Guatemalan Deportee
The DREAM Act
3.3 Nativism in the Twenty-First Century
• Voices: The Zarour Family
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
 • Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 4
Racism in the Media: The Spread of Ideology
4.1 Representations in Entertainment
Portrayals of Blacks
• Voices: Why ‘black-ish’ Is the Show We Need Right Now
Portrayals of Latinos and Latinas
Portrayals of Arabs and Arab Americans
• Voices: “Why We Hacked Homeland”
Portrayals of Asians and Asian Americans
Portrayals of Native Americans
4.2 New Media Representations
Video Games
Social Media
4.3 Media Images and Racial Inequality
4.4 Raced, Classed, and Gendered Media Images
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 5
Colorism and Skin-Color Stratification
5.1 The History of Colorism
The Origins of Colorism in the Americas
The Origins of Colorism in Asia and Africa
5.2 The Global Color Hierarchy
Asia and Asian Americans
• Voices: The Fair-Skin Battle
Latin America and Latinxs
5.3 Africa and the African Diaspora
• Voices: Colorism and Creole Identity
5.4 Skin Color, Gender, and Beauty
• Voices: After #NotFairandLovely: Changing Thought Patterns Instead of
Skintone
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
 • Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 6
Educational Inequality
6.1 The History of Educational Inequality
Indian Schools
Segregation and Landmark Court Cases
The Persistence of Racial Segregation in the Educational System
Affirmative Action in Higher Education
6.2 Educational Inequality Today
6.3 The Achievement Gap: Sociological Explanations for Persistent Inequality
Parental Socioeconomic Status
Cultural Explanations: “Acting White” and Other Theories
Tracking
Social and Cultural Capital and Schooling
• Voices: Moesha
Hidden Curricula and the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 7
Income and Labor Market Inequality
7.1 Income Inequality by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
7.2 Dimensions of Racial Disparities in the Labor Market
Disparities among Women
Disparities among Asian Americans
Underemployment, Unemployment, and Joblessness
• Voices: Jarred
7.3 Sociological Explanations for Income and Labor Market Inequality
Individual-Level Explanations
• Voices: Latinx Professionals as Racialized Tokens: Lisaʼs Story
Structural Explanations
7.4 Affirmative Action in Employment
7.5 Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
 • Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 8
Inequality in Housing and Wealth
8.1 Residential Segregation
The Creation of Residential Segregation
• Voices: Vince Mereday (from Color of Law)
Discriminatory and Predatory Lending Practices
Neighborhood Segregation Today
8.2 Wealth Inequalities
Inequality in Homeownership and Home Values
Wealth Inequality Beyond Homeownership
8.3 Explaining the Widening Wealth Gap
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 9
Racism and the Criminal Justice System
9.1 Mass Incarceration in the United States
The Rise of Mass Incarceration
Mass Incarceration in a Global Context
Race and Mass Incarceration
• Voices: Earl Washington
The Inefficacy of Mass Incarceration
Mass Incarceration and the War on Drugs
Race, Class, Gender, and Mass Incarceration
9.2 Institutional Racism in the Criminal Justice System
Racial Profiling
• Voices: Sandy Bland
Sentencing Disparities
The Ultimate Sentence: Racial Disparities in the Death Penalty
9.3 The Economics of Mass Incarceration
Private Prisons
The Prison-Industrial Complex
9.4 Beyond Incarceration: Collateral Consequences
The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Families and Children
 The Lifelong Stigma of a Felony: “The New Jim Crow”
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

CHAPTER 10
Health Inequalities, Environmental Racism, and Environmental Justice
10.1 The History of Health Disparities in the United States
Involuntary Experimentation on African Americans
Free Blacks as Mentally and Physically Unfit
10.2 Explaining Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity Today
Socioeconomic Status and Health Disparities by Race/Ethnicity
Segregation and Health
The Effects of Individual Racism on African American Health
Life-Course Perspectives
Culture and Health
Genetics, Race, and Health
10.3 Environmental Racism
10.4 Environmental Justice
• Voices: The Fight Against the Dakota Access Pipeline
• Voices: The Flint Water Crisis
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

Glossary
References
Credits
Index
Preface

This brief second edition of Race and Racisms engages students in significant questions related to
racial dynamics in the United States. In accessible, straightforward language, the text discusses
and critically analyzes cutting-edge scholarship in the field.

FEATURES
Race and Racisms includes several unique features designed to aid both teaching and learning.
Each of the following features appears throughout the book:

• Voices sidebars highlight individual stories about race and racism, bringing personal experi-
ences to life.
• Thinking about Racial Justice sidebars pose questions for students to consider in thinking
about how racism could be addressed or alleviated.
• As You Read questions point students to the key ideas in each chapter.
• Check Your Understanding sections at the end of the chapter relate to the As You Read ques-
tions and help students review.
• Critical Thinking questions guide students in questioning their own and others’ assumptions
about race and racism.
• Talking about Race prompts at the end of each chapter suggest ways to approach discussions
about race and racism.

NEW IN THIS EDITION

The goal of the second brief edition of Race and Racisms was not merely to keep up with our
changing world but to invite students to consider their own role in it. Each chapter has been care-
fully updated to reflect current issues and events as well as the latest data and research. Beyond
these updates, new stories and examples throughout engage readers in thinking about how racism
could be addressed or alleviated. Highlights of this edition include:
• Expanded coverage of white privilege
• New discussions of gender and intersectionality
• Expanded coverage of Arab and Middle Eastern Americans, in addition to new topics such as
Islamophobia
• Coverage of Black Lives Matter and other social movements
• New Voices sidebars in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10
• New feature: Talking about Race
• New section following this preface: “Talking about Race Outside the Classroom”
• New videos by the author
ORGANIZATION
Race and Racisms begins with a historical chapter on the origin and evolution of the idea of race.
From there, it moves into an overview of racial ideologies and sociological theories of racism, and
then to a historical and contemporary discussion of immigration. The next two chapters focus on
racial ideologies in the media and on colorism. The final five chapters explore racial inequalities
across five key areas: education, the labor market, housing, the criminal justice system, and health
and the environment. Each chapter uses an intersectional framework to guide our understanding of
racial dynamics.

ANCILLARIES
Oxford University Press is proud to offer a complete supplements package to accompany Race and
Racisms: Brief Edition. The Ancillary Resource Center (ARC) at www.oup-arc.com is a conve-
nient, instructor-focused, single destination for resources to accompany this book. Accessed online
through individual user accounts, the ARC provides instructors with access to up-to-date ancillar-
ies at any time while guaranteeing the security of grade-significant resources. In addition, it allows
OUP to keep instructors informed when new content becomes available.
The ARC for Race and Racisms: Brief Edition contains a variety of materials to aid in teaching:
• PowerPoint lecture slides to aid in the presentation of course material
• Recommended readings that delve more deeply into the topics discussed in the chapter
• A test bank with multiple-choice, true/false, short answer, and essay questions
• Videos that bring the content to life

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I travel around the country to give talks at universities, I am always pleased and humbled
when instructors tell me they use this book in their class and when students tell me how much they
enjoy reading it. The positive feedback I received from the first edition was a major motivation to
revise this book. I have attempted to respond to the many helpful critiques and comments I re-
ceived to make this book an even better tool for teaching about race and racism.
My interest in race and racism derives in part from my experiences growing up as a white child
in a primarily black neighborhood. I am grateful to my parents for deciding to raise our white fam-
ily on the east side of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., and for staying in that neighborhood
to this day. Had my parents made different life choices, it is likely this book would never have
been written.
Writing this textbook has been much less painful than it otherwise would have been due to the
extraordinary efforts of the editorial team at Oxford University Press, especially Executive Editor
Sherith Pankratz, Development Editor Lauren Mine, and Associate Editor Meredith Keffer. My
deepest gratitude to this amazing and efficient team. I would also like to acknowledge the design
and production team at Oxford University Press, including Managing Editor Lisa Grzan, Team
Lead Theresa Stockton, Senior Production Editor William Murray, and Art Director Michele
Laseau.
I did not write this book alone. In fact, many of these chapters were written in the company of
fabulous colleagues in coffee shops and cabins around the world—from Yosemite to Hawaii to
Bali. I’d like to extend a special thanks to my writing partners: Zulema Valdez, Ayu Saraswati,
Christina Lux, Dalia Magaña, Whitney Pirtle, Amani Nuru-Jeter, Jemima Pierre, Winddance
Twine, and Vilna Treitler.
Special thanks to the reviewers who evaluated the manuscript for this brief second edition:
Maria Isabel Ayala
Michigan State University

Jean Beaman
Purdue University

Dianne Dentice
Stephen F. Austin State University

Mark O. Melder
Northwestern State University

Allison T. Musvosvi
Pacific Union College

Allan Rachlin
Franklin Pierce University

Nadia Shapkina
Kansas State University

Jack Thornburg
Benedictine University

Santos Torres Jr.,

California State University, Sacramento

I also continue to be grateful to the many reviewers whose comments helped shape the first edition
of this book:
David Allen
Temple University

Amy Armenia
Rollins College

David Daniel Bogumil

California State University, Northridge

James L. Burnett Jr.,

Urbana University

Ione Y. DeOllos
Ball State University

Johnnie M. Griffin
Jackson State University

Joachim S. Kibirige
Missouri Western State University
Karen McCormack
Wheaton College

Deirdre Oakley
Georgia State University

Mary Roaf
Northern Arizona University

Sarah Epplen Rusche

Minnesota State University, Mankato

Matthew Schneirov
Duquesne University

Damian T. Williams
Concordia University, Chicago
Talking about Race Outside the Classroom

This book is designed primarily for classroom use. I hope teachers and students find the analyses,
narratives, and data it conveys helpful in generating productive class engagements on racial jus-
tice, racial equity, and race relations. Learning, however, is a lifelong experience. And, as many of
my students point out, few people you encounter in your daily life will be privy to all the knowl-
edge and insight conveyed in this book. So, how do you—the reader—carry this knowledge from
the classroom to your living room, to the coffee shop, to the dining room table, to the bar, or to
your workplace? How do you talk about race outside the classroom?
Each chapter of this book concludes with a “Talking about Race” prompt that provides some
suggestions on how to have conversations about the specific topics in that chapter. Here, I’d like to
address the issue of discussing race more generally.
Conversations about race can be either premeditated or surprise. Premeditated conversations can
be easier because you can decide ahead of time how and why you would like to broach a topic
with a friend, family member, or coworker. Surprise conversations are a bit harder to deal with be-
cause you have to respond on the spot—and many times emotions can make it more difficult to
have level-headed responses. Let’s consider each of these two conversation types in turn, as they
are quite different and require different tools.
Let’s say an organization you are involved in has a policy that disadvantages people of color.
You decide you would like to initiate a conversation with the leaders so that they will reconsider
the policy. Here are some tips for having a productive conversation with your colleagues, drawn
from a brief by the Annie E. Casey Foundation on “How to Talk about Race”:
– Emphasize shared values. Begin the conversation by focusing on what you all may agree on.
– Provide more than a critique. Offer a manageable solution that can be implemented.
– Use narratives more than numbers. Provide concrete examples of how people are affected
by the current policy and how a change could benefit them.
– Emphasize shared goals. Present the change you are proposing as an opportunity for the or-
ganization to move forward.
It is great when you have an opportunity to prepare for a discussion about race. Often, however,
we encounter racial microaggressions, macroaggressions, overt acts of racism, or other forms of
bigotry and have to respond on the spot. Of course, you can choose not to respond, but even si-
lence is a response in and of itself.
How do you respond if you experience a microaggression? What if you are sitting with friends
and someone makes a racial or racist joke? What if you witness someone mistreating a person
based on that person’s race? What is the best way to respond? Having a strategy ready ahead of
time can make it easier to respond in the moment. Here are some options:
– Respond with silence. If you are with someone who tells a racist joke, you can be silent. By
not laughing, you are sending a message that this joke is not appropriate.
– Leave the room. If you are with a group of people, and the conversation takes a turn toward
complaining about a particular ethnic group, you can exit the room or grab your keys and
leave the event. That sends a signal that their conversation is not appropriate.
– Question the statement. If you are with a group of people, and some of them say that all
black people are great dancers, you can ask them why they think that. You can push them and
ask if they think it is genetic or cultural. You can keep asking them questions to help them see
that their statement is problematic.
– Ask the persons making a racist statement if they would make the statement in different
company. For example, if someone makes a joke about Jewish people, ask the person if he or
she would feel comfortable making the joke in front of Jewish people. That may help every-
one in the room see that the statement is problematic.
Hearing a bigoted joke or statement—directed at you or others—can stop you in your tracks.
How you respond is a personal decision that is based on your personality as well as your relation-
ships with others. It is important to know that you have options—ranging from remaining silent to
leaving to responding directly. Thinking through these options ahead of time will make you better
prepared to respond.
 1
The Origin of the Idea of
Race

CHAPTER OUTLINE
1.1 Defining Race and Ethnicity
1.2 Race: The Evolution of an Ideology
• Voices: The Spanish Treatment of Indigenous Peoples
• Voices: From Bullwhip Days
1.3 Slavery and the Ideal of Freedom in the United States
1.4 The Indian Removal Act: The Continuation of Manifest Destiny
1.5 The Rise of Scientific Racism
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
1.1 What are race and ethnicity? What is racism?
1.2 How old is racism? How is race distinct from previous ways of thinking about human difference?
1.3 How did the writers of the U.S. Constitution think of slavery?
1.4 How did the Indian Removal Act affect Native Americans?
1.5 What role did science play in the propagation of racism?

I n the colonial Americas, no one would have described the population using the terms Native
American, white, or black. Instead, people identified themselves by groups such as Shawnee,
Irish, and Ashanti. How, then, did our current racial categories come to be? What distinguishes the
idea of race from previous ways of thinking about human difference? These are the questions we
will consider in this chapter.
In the contemporary United States, one of the first things we notice about someone we meet is
race. When we aren’t sure of someone’s race, we may get inquisitive or begin to feel uncomfort-
able (Dalmage 2000). It is as if, before interacting, we have to know if the other person is white,
black, Asian, Native American, or something else. The perceived race of the other person affects
how we treat one another and what we expect the other person to say and do.
It may be hard to imagine a time when the idea of race did not exist, when we did not categorize
ourselves and others this way. But this time was not so long ago: although humans have long used
various factors to classify one another, the idea of race as a classificatory system is a modern in-
vention. Ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, did not think that the world’s population could
be divided into races (Eze 1997). Their system of social classification was much different from
ours. Race is a modern social construction, meaning that the idea of race is not based on biologi-
cal differences among people, even though race has become important in determining how we in-
teract. It is a particular way of viewing human difference that is a product of colonial encounters.
Many people falsely believe that race has a biological basis, but advances in genetic science
show there is more genetic variation within races than between them. There are certainly not clear
genetic boundaries between races. People who are related to one another share an ancestry and
thus may share genetic similarities; however, ancestry and race are distinct concepts (Yudell et al.
2016). Your ancestry, for example, is your personal family tree—your parents, grandparents, great-
grandparents, and so on. You have genetic similarities with your ancestors. In contrast, if you were
to encounter someone you believe to be of the same race as you, you could not assume you have
genetic similarities. You could, however, assume you may share some social experiences—as you
are both racialized by others as members of the same race.
1.1 DEFINING RACE AND ETHNICITY
The word race refers to a group of people who share physical and cultural traits. The idea of race
implies that the people of the world can be divided into biologically discrete and exclusive groups
based on physical and cultural traits. This idea is further linked to notions of white or European
superiority that became concretized during the colonization of the Americas. As we will see in this
chapter, the history of the idea of race is critical to an understanding of its meaning. Racism refers
to both (1) the belief that races are populations whose physical differences are linked to significant
cultural and social differences within a hierarchy, and (2) the practice of subordinating races be-
lieved to be inferior.
The idea of race is slightly different from the concept of ethnicity. Races are categories of peo-
ple based on a hierarchical worldview that associates ancestry, descent, and phenotype with cultur-
al and moral attributes. Ethnicities, by contrast, are group identities based on notions of similar
and shared history, culture, and kinship (Cornell and Hartmann 1998). Ethnicity also has a distinct
historical trajectory from race. People self-identify as belonging to an ethnic group on the basis of
a perceived shared history and a concomitant set of cultural attributes. In contrast to ethnicity, race
is often an externally imposed category. In the United States, people are placed into races based on
socially constructed, ascribed characteristics that are often related to physical appearance, such as
skin color or hair texture, regardless of self-identification. Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
(1997, 469) argues that “ethnicity has a primarily sociocultural foundation, and ethnic groups have
exhibited tremendous malleability in terms of who belongs; racial ascriptions (initially) are im-
posed externally to justify the collective exploitation of a people and are maintained to preserve
status differences.”

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Race is a social construction, an idea we endow with meaning through daily interactions. It has
no biological basis. This might seem an odd statement, as the physical differences between a
Kenyan, a Swede, and a Han Chinese, for example, are obvious. However, these physical differ-
ences do not necessarily mean that the world can be divided into discrete racial groups. If you
were to walk from Kenya to Sweden to China, you would note incremental gradations in physical
differences between people across space, and it would be difficult to decide where to draw the line
between Africa and Europe and between Europe and Asia. There may be genetic differences be-
tween Kenyans and Swedes, but the genetic variations within the Kenyan population are actually
greater than those between Swedes and Kenyans (Smedley 2007; Yudell et al. 2016). Although
race is a social, as opposed to a biological, construction, it has a wide range of consequences in our
society, especially when used as a sorting and stratifying mechanism.
Race is also a historical construction, meaning that the idea of race was formulated at particular
historical moments and places. Of particular note in its development are the eras of colonialism—
the practice of acquiring political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and ex-
ploiting it economically—and slavery in the Americas. The idea of race involves classifying hu-
mans into distinct groups. Through this classification and the assignment of cultural and moral
traits to each group, Europeans and their descendants have used the idea of race to rationalize ex-
ploitation, slavery, colonialism, and genocide, the mass killing of a group of people, especially
those of a particular ethnic or racial group.
1.2 RACE: THE EVOLUTION OF AN IDEOLOGY
An ideology is a set of principles and ideas that benefit the dominant group. The racial ideologies
that operate today reflect our times and are rooted in the history of the Americas. The way we un-
derstand the idea of race today is distinct from previous ways of thinking about human difference.
Before the conquest of the Americas, there was no worldview that separated all of humanity into
distinct races (Smedley 2007; Montagu 1997; Quijano 2000). Understanding what race means to-
day requires delving into the historical process through which the idea of race was created. Once
we understand that racial categories are not natural but constructed, we can begin to think about
why and how these categories were created. As we will see, European thinkers created racial cate-
gories to rationalize genocide and exploitation. This brutal history in turn raises the question of
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Historical Precedents to the Idea of Race

Until the sixteenth century, Northern Europeans had limited knowledge of the world beyond their
immediate communities. Without this knowledge, it would have been difficult to develop a world-
view that classified the people of the globe into various racial groups. Southern Europeans, in con-
trast, had much more contact with other peoples. People from the Mediterranean region have had
extensive involvement with people from Asia, Africa, and the Arab world since time immemorial.
These contacts, which range from Alexander the Great’s travels to India and Greek exchanges with
Ethiopia to the conquest of Spain by Islamic peoples, did not lead to a racial worldview. Ancient
peoples did not divide the world into distinct races based on their physical and cultural traits. In-
stead, Greeks had great respect for the achievements of Ethiopians (Snowden 1970), and Muslims,
Christians, and Jews lived in reasonable harmony together in Spain for hundreds of years (Smed-
ley 2007).
Although the idea of race did not develop until later, these early interactions between Europeans
and other groups did provide important precedents for current ways of conceptualizing human dif-
ference. The Spanish Inquisition is one example. When the Catholic Church began to consolidate
its power in Spain under the reign of monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile
(1479–1504), Jews were expelled from Spain, and converted Jews were subject to scrutiny. In
1480, Ferdinand and Isabella established a tribunal called the Spanish Inquisition, which was in-
tended to ensure the orthodoxy of people who had converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholi-
cism. The monarchs issued royal decrees in 1492 and 1501 that ordered Jews and Muslims to con-
vert or leave the country. During the Inquisition, Jews and Muslims were obliged to convert, but
conversion did not ensure their safety, as converts continued to be subject to scrutiny and suspi-
cion. Moreover, people believed to be the descendants of Jews and Muslims also faced persecu-
tion. Discrimination against Jews and Muslims was more religious in nature than racial, yet the
ideas regarding purity of blood that emerged set the stage for ideas of racial difference that were to
become part of the European understanding of human differences (Smedley 2007; Quijano 2000).
Another crucial precedent to the idea of race is the English view of the Irish. England and Ire-
land were involved in centuries of conflict before the English first settled in North America, and
English soldiers often portrayed the Irish as savage, sexually immoral, and resistant to civilizing
forces. Many English colonists had been deployed to Ireland before settling in the New World.
The ideas the English developed about the Irish may thus have played a role in settlers’ perception
of Native Americans as savage (Allen 1994; Smedley 2007). This perception was a precursor to
the racial idea that some humans were less fit for civilization than others.

Slavery before the Idea of Race

Slavery was not new to the Americas: the practice of enslaving people has existed since antiquity.
In African, European, and Middle Eastern societies, conquered peoples often became slaves in the
aftermath of war. As agricultural societies grew, so did the demand for labor, leading peoples such
as the Greeks and Phoenicians to raid other societies for slaves. Slavery existed not only across so-
cieties but also within societies: people lacking the support of a family often had no place other
than as slaves, and some people became enslaved as a means of paying off a debt or as punishment
for a crime. Slavery of this latter form almost always involved persons of the same ethnic group as
their masters.
The prevalence of slavery in ancient societies does not imply that racism existed then as well.
Although some ancient writings refer to skin color, these references are rarely derogatory and by
no means represent the general ideology of any ancient society. On the contrary, Greeks and Ro-
mans held the Egyptians as well as the Ethiopians in high esteem and admired their culture and
way of life. These ancient peoples developed no known stereotypes of blacks as primitives or lack-
ing in culture (Snowden 1983). Marriages between Egyptians and other Africans were common-
place in ancient times, and Muslim conquerors regarded anyone they succeeded in converting as
brethren (Franklin 1974).
The status of slaves varied across societies. In some instances, slaves were adopted as kin after
serving for a certain number of years; in other cases, slaves were permitted to marry and own
property (Smedley 2007; Morgan 1975). Many slaves were granted rights not found in the system
of slavery in the New World. These rights included access to education, the potential to obtain
freedom for themselves and their children, the right to marry, and the right to own property. Until
the eighteenth century, no society categorically denied the humanity of slaves. Denying that slaves
were fully human was not seen as a necessary rationale for slavery. Although slaves were at times
treated brutally, the humanity of slaves was never put into question, and slavery was never at-
tributed to racial inferiority (Smedley 2007).
TIMELINE

The American Slave Trade

1492 Christopher Columbus lands in the Caribbean.
1619 First African slaves arrive in Jamestown.
1660 First slave codes enacted.
1676 Bacon's Rebellion.
 1863 Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 Slavery is abolished in the United States.

European Encounters with Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

Before the arrival of the European colonizers, the Americas were home to over 100 million indige-
nous people. As a result of warfare, slavery, and disease, about 95 percent of this population was
decimated during the first two centuries of colonization. The excerpted accounts in the Voices
sidebar provide a small window into the depths of this massacre.
When Christopher Columbus encountered the native peoples of the Caribbean islands in 1492,
he found them to be peaceable and generous. Despite the Spaniards’ initial admiration for the in-
digenous people, the relations between the two groups soon deteriorated, as it became clear that
the Spaniards’ primary motive was to extract gold from the Americas. Intent upon taking as much
gold as possible, the Spaniards used their weaponry to overpower and enslave the people indige-
nous to the Americas to compel them to find gold and silver for the Spaniards to take back to
Spain (Todorov 1984). The abuse the Caribbean peoples suffered at the hands of the Spaniards was
devastating: the Arawaks of Santo Domingo, for example, were reduced from over 3 million peo-
ple in 1496 to a mere 125 in 1570 (Jones 2003).
Reports of the Spaniards’ extreme cruelty toward the indigenous people of the Americas made
their way back to Spain and eventually became a subject of controversy. Fifty years after Colum-
bus’s arrival in the Caribbean islands, the enslavement of indigenous people was outlawed. The
Spaniards continued to extract labor from indigenous people, however, by relying on other systems
of forced labor (Wade 1997).
One of the most remarkable aspects of the conquest of the Americas is that many of the civiliza-
tions in the Americas were far more advanced than those from which the Europeans hailed. Europe
in the sixteenth century was quite a ghastly place, with frequent famines and epidemic outbreaks
of the plague and smallpox. Large cities were pestilent and dirty, with unsightly open sewers.
Crime was rampant. Half of all children died before they turned ten. Thus, we can imagine the sur-
prise and awe that the magnificent city of Tenochtitlán engendered in the Spaniards who arrived
there. Tenochtitlán, an Aztec city in central Mexico, had about 350,000 inhabitants—many times
the population of London or Seville at the time. When the Spanish explorer and colonizer Hernan-
do Cortés (1485–1547) saw this city, he declared it to be the most beautiful city on earth. His com-
panion and chronicler Bernal Díaz (1492–1585) agreed, calling it a “wonderful thing to behold.”
Unlike European cities of the time, Tenochtitlán boasted clean streets, amazing floating gardens, a
huge aqueduct system, and a market more extensive than any the Europeans had ever seen (Stan-
nard 1993).
When Christopher Columbus encountered the native peoples of the Caribbean, he found them to be peaceable
and generous.

Voices
The Spanish Treatment of Indigenous Peoples
The following excerpts are from a 1519 report of Dominicans about the Spanish treatment of indigenous peoples
in the Carib Islands.

Some Christians encounter[ed] an Indian woman, who was carrying in her arms a child at suck; and since
the dog they had with them was hungry, they tore the child from the mother’s arms and flung it still living
to the dog, who proceeded to devour it before the mother’s eyes.

When there were among the prisoners some women who had recently given birth, if the new-born babes
happened to cry, they seized them by the legs and hurled them against the rocks, or flung them into the jun-
gle so that they would be certain to die there.

Each of them [the foremen] had made it a practice to sleep with the Indian women who were in his work-
force, if they pleased him, whether they were married women or maidens. While the foreman remained …
with the Indian woman, he sent the husband to dig gold out of the mines; and in the evening, when the
wretch returned, not only was he beaten or whipped because he had not brought enough gold, but further,
most often, he was bound hand and foot and flung under the bed like a dog, before the foreman lay down,
 directly over him, with his wife.

Source: Todorov 1984, 139.

Despite their admiration, the Spaniards did not preserve this city. The arrival of the Spaniards
led to the destruction of not only this amazing city, but also many towns and cities across the
Americas. The population of central Mexico was decimated in less than a century, declining from
25 million in 1519 to barely 1.3 million in 1595. This pattern continued throughout the Americas,
so that nearly 95 percent of the native populations were destroyed in less than 200 years (Stannard
1993).

Slavery and Colonization

Africans were present in the conquest of the Americas from the beginning, both as slaves and as
sailors and explorers. Spain and Portugal were slaveholding societies long before Columbus set
sail in search of the Indies. Many, but not all, of the slaves in Spain in the fifteenth century were
Africans. Some African residents of Spain and Portugal—enslaved as well as free—accompanied
Spaniards on their initial conquest voyages to the New World. Juan Garrido (ca. 1480–ca. 1547),
for example, was born in Africa and later traveled to Portugal and then to Spain, where he joined
an expedition to Santo Domingo. Juan Garrido also participated in the conquest of Puerto Rica,
Cuba, and then Mexico. Juan García (ca. 1495–date of death unknown), in contrast, was born in
Spain as a free mulatto and traveled to Peru as a colonist (Restall 2000).
The Spanish colonists—often called conquistadores—endeavored to subdue native populations
and to convert them into Catholics and subjects of the Spanish Crown. Their main goal, however,
was to extract as much wealth as possible from the Americas. This extraction of wealth required
labor, and the Spanish colonists enslaved the native populations to this end. The harsh conditions
of this enslavement led to massive declines in the native populations, and in 1550, the Spanish
Crown outlawed the practice, although it continued to allow other forms of forced labor. The ban
on enslavement of indigenous people did not end the need for labor, and the Spaniards turned to
Africa in their search for workers. As they realized that agricultural exploitation, particularly the
harvesting of sugarcane, could bring enormous wealth, they began to bring African slaves in very
large numbers to their colonies in the Americas (Smedley 2007; Franklin 1974; Morgan 1975).
The Spaniards and Portuguese had long been trading with Africans and thus could imagine the
possibilities for slave trading with Africa. Notably, the Spaniards were well aware of the techno-
logical advances developed in Africa and did not seek Africans as slaves because they thought
they were inferior. To the contrary, the Spaniards believed enslaved Africans would be a valuable
asset. Consequently, tens of millions of Africans were brought over between the early 1600s and
the nineteenth century as slaves (Bowser 1974).
Whereas the Spaniards had had centuries of contact with Africans, the English who settled in
North America had had no such contact until the arrival of twenty Africans in Jamestown in 1619.
Slaves did not become an essential part of the workforce in North America until much later.
The form of slavery that eventually emerged in the North American colonies was unique in sev-
eral ways. First, slaves had no human or legal rights. They were seen only as property, not as peo-
ple who could marry or own property themselves. Second, slavery was permanent and the slave
status was inherited. Third, slaves were forbidden to learn to read or write, thereby ensuring their
inferior social status. Finally, slavery in North America was unique insofar as nearly all Africans
and their descendants were enslaved, and only this group could be enslaved. This unique system of
human exploitation laid the groundwork for a new idea of human difference (Smedley 2007). Be-
fore delving further into this point, let’s take a closer look at the English settlements in North
America.

Exploitation in the Thirteen English Colonies

In the late fifteenth century, Europeans began to explore parts of North America where indigenous
peoples had lived for thousands of years. The English, learning of the great wealth the Spanish had
accrued in the New World, were anxious to fill their coffers with riches as well. England first sent
colonists to Roanoke Island in the late sixteenth century, but that attempt at settlement failed. The
first permanent English settlement was at Jamestown in 1607. Much as Columbus had recounted in
1492, these English settlers reported that the local Native Americans were kind and generous and
helped them to survive the unfamiliar conditions. Amicable trade relations did not last long, how-
ever, as it became clear that the Englishmen’s intentions were not benign: they planned to take
over indigenous land and resources (Zinn 2010; Morgan 1975).
European colonists engaged in constant warfare with Native Americans, often burning their
lodgings and crops and enslaving entire tribes. The English colonists justified their takeover of in-
digenous lands in religious terms. They interpreted their successes as God’s will. For example,
John Winthrop (1588–1649), a leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the mid-seventeenth
century, wrote that the death of so many Native Americans as a result of smallpox showed that
“the Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess” (quoted in Wood 1991, 96). It is important to
note that when the English colonists interacted with Native Americans, they did not see them as
belonging to a separate race; this idea did not yet exist. Instead, the English saw themselves as su-
perior in religious and moral terms. These religious justifications laid the groundwork for racial
distinctions that emerged later (Smedley 2007; Jordan 1968).
The first fifty years of the new settlement in Virginia were full of hardship. Disease, starvation,
and war caused extremely high death rates among both Native Americans and English colonists.
There were severe food shortages, partly because the first settlers did not plant enough corn. Mor-
gan (1975) points out that most of the settlers in Virginia were not farmers but nobles or gentry
who thought food cultivation was beneath them. Although the settlers were too proud to grow corn
to eat, they were willing to take up the enterprise of growing tobacco to sell and expected to make
their riches in this manner. As there was no shortage of land in this vast country, the only commod-
ity lacking was labor power (Zinn 2010).
The English colonists were notoriously successful at decimating the Native American popula-
tion, yet less so in their attempts to use Native Americans for labor. When the English realized
they would not become rich instantaneously through gold or silver mining, as it appeared the
Spaniards had done, they turned to agricultural production to seek wealth. For this, they needed
labor—lots of it. The English were able to enslave Native Americans they captured in warfare, but
most indigenous slaves either died or ran away, leaving the English in need of more labor in order
to accumulate wealth (Zinn 2010).

Indentured Servitude
The lack of success at enslaving Native Americans led the colonists to turn to Britain, where they
recruited poor men, women, and children from the streets of economically depressed cities such as
Liverpool and Bristol. Englishmen also rounded up Irish and Scottish peasants who had been con-
quered in warfare, banished, or released from prison. Indentured servants from Europe who were
willing to work for four to seven years to pay off their passage and debt soon became the primary
source of labor for the colonies. The harsh treatment of European indentured servants needed no
justification, as servitude was a way of life in Britain at the time (Smedley 2007; Zinn 2010).
Throughout the seventeenth century, indentured servants endured harsh conditions as laborers in
the colonies. Hopeful laborers continued to come to the Americas, despite the difficult circum-
stances, because North America offered possibilities for social and economic advancement that did
not exist in England. The flow of English laborers began to decline, however, with the restoration
of the monarchy in England in 1660, as King Charles II implemented policies that discouraged
emigration (Smedley 2007).

Enslavement of Africans
In addition to bringing English laborers, colonists brought Africans to the colonies as slaves. Most
African slaves brought to North America were from West Africa and were Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, or
Mada. In 1619, English colonists brought the first group of Africans to the North American
colonies. These twenty Africans occupied nearly the same social status as European indentured
servants and were soon joined by African slaves brought over by Dutch and Spanish slave ships.
All of these early Africans were granted rights that were later denied to all blacks in Virginia.
There is no evidence that African slaves during the period before 1660 were subjected to more se-
vere disciplinary measures than European servants. Some slaves were allowed to earn money of
their own and to buy their freedom with it. There are several cases recorded in which masters set
up conditions in their wills whereby Negro slaves would become free or could purchase their free-
dom after the master’s death. The terms of these wills imply that the freed slaves would become
regular members of the community (Morgan 1975; Smedley 2007; Zinn 2010).
The enslavement of Africans turned out to be especially profitable in part because Africans
brought with them agricultural and craft experience. In addition, unlike people indigenous to the
Americas, Africans had immunities to Old World diseases and thus could live longer in slavery.
The initial justifications for bringing Africans to the colonies were not racial in nature. At the time,
slavery was an accepted social system. To the extent that a justification was offered, it was that
Africans were heathens and their enslavement would ensure their salvation (Smedley 2007). Over
time, however, racial justifications for the enslavement of Africans emerged.

FIGURE 1-1
REGIONS FROM WHICH CAPTURED AFRICANS WERE BROUGHT TO THE AMER-
ICAS, 1501–1867
The Legal Codification of Racial Differences
Slave codes of the 1660s spelled out the legal differences between African slaves and European
indentured servants. In 1667, Virginia issued a decree that slaves who had converted to Christiani-
ty could continue to be enslaved because of their so-called heathen ancestry. Whereas earlier justi-
fications for slavery were primarily religious, the idea that ancestry could be used to determine so-
cial status set the stage for developing the idea of race. In the late seventeenth century, Virginia
and Maryland each passed a series of laws that solidified the status of blacks. The strongest indica-
tor of the solidification of the status of Africans was the prohibition of manumission: masters were
not allowed to free their slaves, thereby establishing a permanent slave class. Other laws estab-
lished lifelong servitude, forbade interracial marriage, and limited the rights of blacks to own prop-
erty and bear arms. These laws specific to blacks both reflected the social order and solidified the
status quo. For most of the seventeenth century, European indentured servants and African slaves
had shared a similar social status. The slave codes gradually changed this social classification.

Laws against Intermarriage

The shared social position of African and European servants and slaves in the early years of the
colonies meant that these groups intermarried and fraternized. The fact that Africans and Euro-
peans had amicable relations can be seen in the passage of laws that forbade these relationships. In
1661, Virginia passed a law that imposed harsh conditions on English servants who ran away with
African slaves. In 1691, Virginia passed another law that prohibited free whites from intermarry-
ing with blacks and Native Americans. Had these groups been naturally disinclined to intermarry
or to fraternize, these laws would not have been necessary. As the 1661 law shows, plantation
owners were concerned that European indentured servants and African slaves would see that they
shared a common interest in fighting for more rights and better conditions. As historian Howard
Zinn puts it, “only one fear was greater than the fear of black rebellion in the new American
colonies. That was the fear that discontented whites would join black slaves to overthrow the exist-
ing order” (2010, 37).
When Africans and Europeans first found themselves together in the Americas, sexual relations
and even marriage between these two groups were not uncommon. African men and women mar-
ried European men and women (Smedley 2007). Various laws were passed, however, both to pre-
vent and to control these relationships. The aforementioned 1662 law made it clear that when
African women had children, the child’s status as slave or free would be in accordance with the
condition of the mother. The law also indicated that when Christians—here meaning Europeans—
had sexual relations with Africans, they would pay double the normal fine for adultery. The Eu-
ropean men who wrote these laws thought it important to prevent sexual relations between Euro-
peans and Africans and to ensure that the children of enslaved African women would also be
slaves. This law effectively prevented the formation of families by enslaved African women and
European men.

Bacon’s Rebellion
Bacon’s Rebellion, which occurred in September 1676, provides one example of what could hap-
pen when blacks and whites joined forces to fight for their interests. The rebellion itself was not
particularly successful, but the coalition that emerged between poor whites and African slaves and
freedmen became a cause for concern among the elite planter class, who depended on these groups
for cheap labor. In Bacon’s Rebellion, white indentured servants joined forces with enslaved
Africans and freedmen to protest their conditions. This massive rebellion, in which protestors de-
manding an end to their servitude burned Jamestown to the ground, was a clear threat to the status
quo. One of the last groups to surrender was a mixed group of eighty black and twenty white ser-
vants. This multiracial coalition indicates that blacks and whites were willing to join forces to fight
for their common interests as laborers. After Bacon’s Rebellion, an official report arguing for the
continued presence of British soldiers in Virginia stated: “Virginia is at present poor and more pop-
ulous than ever. There is great apprehension of a rising among the servants, owing to their great
necessities and want of clothes; they may plunder the storehouses and ships” (Zinn 2010, 37).
Howard Zinn and other historians argue that Bacon’s Rebellion stirred up fear in the hearts of
the elite planter class and that this fear led these elites to pass laws that divided blacks and whites.
For example, in the aftermath of the rebellion, the Virginia Assembly gave amnesty to the white
servants who had rebelled but not to the blacks. By extending this and other privileges to whites
that were denied to blacks, the elites succeeded in preventing future class-based alliances between
blacks and whites that would threaten the social order.

Wealth Imbalance and the Tenuous Social Order

Wealth in colonial North America was concentrated in the hands of very few people. In 1700,
there were about 250,000 colonists, most of whom lived in horrendous conditions. In Virginia,
there were only about fifty wealthy families, who depended on the labor of the other 40,000 poor
colonists. This imbalance of wealth made for a tenuous social order (Zinn 2010). It soon became
clear to the rich elite and the governing body that they could not continue to disregard the interests
of the majority of the population. In 1705, a law was passed requiring masters to provide white
servants whose indenture time was completed with ten bushels of corn, thirty shillings, a gun, and
fifty acres of land (Morgan 1975, 344). This tactic of giving servants a piece of the American
Dream was intended to avoid rebellion by convincing poor whites that the rich landowners were
not extortionists or enemies, but protectors of their common interests. To reinforce this impression,
it was further mandated that servants had the right to possess property but that slaves did not (Mor-
gan 1975, 333). The Virginia Assembly in 1705 also prohibited any Negro, mulatto, or Indian
from raising his hand in opposition to any Christian, which meant any white man (Jordan 1968).
By denying black slaves privileges extended to white servants, the first step was taken in creating a
division between blacks and whites (Zinn 2010).
In New York in 1708, a group of slaves was accused of murdering a farmer and his family.
Shortly afterward, a law was enacted preventing the conspiracy of slaves. This meant, in effect,
that slaves could not gather in private to talk about anything. In 1712, a slave rebellion involving
about fifty slaves left nine whites dead and six others wounded. Immediately thereafter, New
York’s repressive laws were reinforced. For example, arson committed by a slave was now consid-
ered a crime punishable by death (Szasz 1967).
One purpose of the slave codes was the prevention and deterrence of slave rebellions, which
were becoming more and more of a real danger with the increasing number of slaves, especially in
the southern colonies, where slaves often outnumbered whites. In 1730, in Virginia, the governor
ordered that all whites should bring their guns with them to church on Sunday so that they would
be prepared for a slave uprising in the event that slaves took advantage of their absence to conspire
(Jordan 1968). The idea of a slave rebellion was even more distasteful to whites because of the
widespread idea that any slave insurrection would have as its ultimate goal not only the emancipa-
tion of slaves but also the dominance of blacks over whites (Jordan 1968).

Solidifying the Idea of Race

Eventually, the entire slave class was composed of black Africans, and, as a result of manumission
restrictions, most blacks were enslaved. The creation of this sort of color line, alongside the intro-
duction of the concept of hereditary slavery, was an important step toward solidifying the idea of
race. Notably, it was not until the eighteenth century that negative beliefs about Africans became
widespread among the English settlers. Even then, there is ample evidence that blacks and whites
continued to fraternize. In 1743, a grand jury in Charleston, South Carolina, denounced “The Too
Common Practice of Criminal Conversation with Negro and other Slave Wenches in this Prov-
ince” (Zinn 2010).
The stories of Mary Peters and Daniel Dowdy (Voices: From Bullwhip Days) elucidate the cru-
elty and dehumanization that were part and parcel of colonialism and enslavement in the Americ-
as. These two phenomena—colonialism and slavery—have shaped the way people in the United
States view the world. Our contemporary racial worldview is a relic of the systems of human clas-
sification that were first used in the context of the colonization of Native American territories and
the enslavement of Africans in the Americas. Although such brutal practices are no longer morally
or legally permissible, the ideas of racial difference that emerged from those practices persist.
 Voices
From Bullwhip Days
My mother’s mistress had three boys—one twenty-one, one nineteen, and one seventeen. One day, Old
Mistress had gone away to spend the day. Mother always worked in the house; she didn’t work on the
farm, in Missouri. While she was alone, the boys came in and threw her down on the floor and tied her
down so she couldn’t struggle, and one after the other used her as long as they wanted, for the whole after-
noon. Mother was sick when her mistress came home. When Old Mistress wanted to know what was the
matter with her, she told her what the boys had done. She whipped them, and that’s the way I came to be
here.

—Mary Peters describing the brutal circumstances of her own conception

I saw slaves sold. I can see that old block now. My cousin Eliza was a pretty girl, really good-looking. Her
master was her father…. The day they sold her will always be remembered. They stripped her to be bid off
and looked at…. The man that bought Eliza was from New York. The Negroes had made up’nuf money to
buy her off theyself, but the white folks wouldn’t let that happen. There was a man bidding for her that was
a Swedeland. He allus bid for the good-looking cullud gals and bought’em for his own use. He ask the man
from New York “What you gonna do with’er when you git’er?” The man from New York said, “None of
your damn business, but you ain’t got money’nuf to buy’er.”

—Former slave Daniel Dowdy

Source: Mellon 2002, 287, 297.

1.3 SLAVERY VERSUS THE IDEAL OF FREEDOM IN THE UNIT-
ED STATES
The Declaration of Independence famously begins by stating that all men are created equal. The
question was, then, why were some enslaved? Although the concept of liberty was at the core of
the American Revolution, nearly half of the fifty-five men who made up the 1787 Constitutional
Convention owned slaves, and most of the rest profited from slavery through their business prac-
tices. A prominent member, George Washington (1732–1799), was one of the richest men in the
colonies and the owner of many slaves. These men struggled with the contradictions inherent in
advocating for freedom in a slaveholding society, yet they were unwilling to outlaw slavery (Fea-
gin 2001).
The writers of the founding documents of the United States were not willing to end slavery in
part because most of them profited directly or indirectly from it. The wealth generated by slave la-
bor in the United States had made the American Revolution possible: a significant amount of the
funds that financed the American Revolution came from profits from slavery (Feagin 2001). The
contradiction between the ideals of freedom and the prevalence of slavery led to justifications of
slavery in terms of blacks’ alleged racial inferiority. Writings by people such as Thomas Jefferson
validated the belief that people of African descent were less than human. In 1787, Thomas Jeffer-
son wrote in Notes on Virginia: “Blacks, whether originally a distinct race or made distinct by time
and circumstance, are inferior to whites in the endowment both of body and mind” (Jefferson
[1787] 2004, 98–99).
Slavery was an immensely profitable enterprise for a small number of slaveholders. In 1860, the
twelve wealthiest counties in the United States could all be found in the Deep South. The profits
were not evenly divided, however: about 7 percent of Southerners owned three-quarters of the 4
million slaves in the South. This concentration of wealth meant that slaveowners constituted a
powerful planter class that went to great lengths to protect its property, which included humans:
slaveowners saw enslaved Africans and African Americans as an investment they did not want to
lose. Additionally, many whites who did not own slaves profited indirectly from the slave system.
In the southern United States, slavery was part of the economic and social fabric of society. There
were fewer slaves in the northern states, but many Northerners had strong economic ties to slavery
insofar as they consumed and manufactured products made on slave plantations. These strong eco-
nomic interests in slavery meant that the practice was not ended in the United States until the vic-
tory of the North in the Civil War (Wilson 1996; Feagin 2001).
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) issued the Emancipation Procla-
mation, which freed the slaves held in the rebel states of the Confederacy. His willingness to issue
this proclamation was not hindered by his belief that blacks were inferior to whites. Five years ear-
lier, in 1858, Lincoln had declared: “I am not nor ever have been in favor of the social and political
equality of the white and black races: that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of
the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office or having them to marry with white
people…. I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the
white man” (quoted in Feagin 2001, 83–84).
In 1865, the United States finally abolished slavery. Slavery was one of the main reasons for the
long and bloody Civil War that had pitted the North against the South. From the perspective of
plantation owners in the South, slavery was a profitable institution that ensured the proper place of
blacks in society. From the perspective of capitalists in the North, slavery gave southern capitalists
an unfair competitive advantage (Feagin 2001). The end of slavery marked the end of an era of ex-
treme exploitation. The racist ideologies that had justified the enslavement of Africans and the
massacre and removal of Native Americans, however, would endure.
1.4 THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACT: THE CONTINUATION OF
MANIFEST DESTINY
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 enabled the administration of President Andrew Jackson to use
military power to displace at least 70,000 Native Americans, killing tens of thousands in the
process. Indian removal is often associated with the Cherokee of Georgia, but there were actually
many more “Trails of Tears,” including the forced displacement of the Apalachicola of Florida,
the Peoria of Illinois, the Shawnee of Ohio, and a host of other tribes (Littlefield and Parins 2011).
These removals violated treaties the United States had made with Native Americans, even though
the Indian Removal Act contained a clause guaranteeing that “nothing in this act contained shall
be construed as authorizing or directing the violation of any existing treaty between the United
States and any of the Indian tribes” (quoted in Cave 2003, 1335). These forced displacements,
which continued until 1859, when the Seminoles were removed from Florida, wreaked havoc on
indigenous communities (Littlefield and Parins 2011).
During these treacherous journeys, tens of thousands of Native Americans died from disease,
cold, starvation, and exhaustion. Approximately 17,000 Cherokee were forcibly removed, and
nearly half of those who embarked on the Trail of Tears died in the process. Large numbers of in-
digenous people died in other removals: about 6,000 of the 40,000 Choctaw did not survive the
journey, and only about half of the Creek and the Seminole peoples survived their removals
(Churchill 2002).
The justifications for Indian removal were distinct from those used for slavery, as whites tended
to see Africans as a vital source of labor. Native Americans, in contrast, were construed as hinder-
ing white expansion, and thus the racial ideologies surrounding Native Americans tended to ex-
plain and predict their gradual extinction. Notably, this extinction was imagined as occurring
through both assimilation (marriage to whites) and natural selection (death from disease). Whereas
colonists’ ideas about Africans served to rationalize their hyperexploitation of slaves, whites’ ideas
about Native Americans aimed to rationalize the assimilation and gradual extinction of these
groups, enabling whites to appropriate Indian lands (Berger 2009).
1.5 THE RISE OF SCIENTIFIC RACISM
In the seventeenth century, people in the Americas developed and acted on folk ideas about differ-
ences between Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans that were based on daily interactions
and the prevailing social order. The slow emergence of the idea of racial difference can be seen in
the laws passed by legislatures and the decisions made by religious leaders. However, the rise of
science in the eighteenth century would fundamentally alter this conversation. The question of hu-
manchange
difference began
your to move
cookie fromatthe
settings realms
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European Taxonomies
Before the rise of science, Westerners understood the world primarily in biblical terms. Theology
provided explanations for nearly everything. Thus, when Europeans encountered the Americas,
they attempted to place these peoples into their understanding of the history of the world, as de-
scribed in their scriptures. This led to debates over which of the three sons of Noah was the ances-
tor of the Native Americans and even over whether Native Americans were fully human. The
strong belief in the biblical scriptures carried over into scientific thought, which became the central
arena for shaping understandings of race (Smedley 2007).
One of the key features of the rise of science was the emergence of taxonomy. Scholars endeav-
ored to classify all flora and fauna known to them. Soon, scientists began to attempt to classify hu-
man beings into types. One of the first efforts to develop a classificatory system for humans ap-
peared in a French journal in 1684. The author, François Bernier (1625–1688), divided humans
into four groups: Europeans, Far Easterners, Negroes, and Lapps (people from Lapland in northern
Scandinavia). His system used physical traits such as skin color and hair texture, which would lat-
er become prominent determinants of racial status, to categorize different groups. Other scholars
worked on developing classificatory schemes, but it was not until 1735 that a comprehensive sys-
tem of classification that resembles the modern concept of race began to be developed (Eze 1997).
In 1735, the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) proposed that all human beings
could be divided into four groups. These four groups are consistent with the modern idea of race in
two ways: all of them are still used today, and Linnaeus connected physical traits such as skin col-
or with cultural and moral traits such as “indolence.” Linnaeus described these four groups, which
correspond to four of the continents, in Systema Naturae in 1735:

Americanus: reddish, choleric, and erect; … obstinate, merry, free; … regulated by customs.

Asiaticus: sallow, melancholoy, … black hair, dark eyes, … haughty, … ruled by opinions.
 Africanus: black, phlegmatic, relaxed; women without shame, … crafty, indolent, negligent;
governed by caprice.
Europaenus: white, sanguine, muscular; inventive; governed by laws.

Other European men elaborated on this schema. For example, Johann Blumenbach (1752–
1840), a German professor of medicine, proposed a classificatory system that divided humans into
five varieties that also were associated with geographical origins: Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopi-
an, American, and Malay. Both Blumenbach and Linnaeus endowed Europeans—their own group
—with the most admirable qualities. It bears repeating that the idea of race was initiated by Eu-
ropean men and that, not surprisingly, it is an idea that consistently has been used to explain and
rationalize European superiority. The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776), for example,
asserted in 1748 that whites were the only “species” to have created civilized nations and to have
developed arts and sciences. European explanations of white racial superiority espoused by Blu-
menbach, Linnaeus, and Hume soon reached the Americas, where they were used to explain and
rationalize the enslavement of Africans and the continued takeover of indigenous lands (Eze
1997).

Scientific Racism in the Nineteenth Century

The nineteenth century was an age of emancipation from slavery and liberation from colonial pow-
ers. It also saw the rise of industrial capitalism and the emergence of scientific racism—the use of
science or pseudoscience to rationalize or reproduce racial inequality. For intellectuals in the
Americas and Europe, scientific racism was central to most human and social inquiries. Eigh-
teenth-century scientists had developed elaborate systems of human classification. In the nine-
teenth century, scientists built on these classification systems by developing anthropometrics—
tools designed to measure the qualities of humans.
With the publication between 1853 and 1855 of Comte Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau’s four vol-
umes entitled Essays on the Inequality of the Human Races, by the mid-nineteenth century, the
idea of race was fully in place. Gobineau (1816–1882) divided humanity into three races—white,
yellow, and black—and argued that racial differences allow us to explain fundamental differences
between people. Gobineau’s thinking was in line with that of Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), who
contended that the superiority of the European race explained its dominant position. He pointed to
the natural inferiority of Native Americans as an explanation for their decimation. Spencer’s ideas
of the “survival of the fittest” would hold great sway for many years to come. Both Spencer and
Gobineau used ideas, arguments, and rudimentary evidence from travel accounts to make their
claims. Other scientists, however, were developing anthropometric techniques that enabled them to
measure differences between people (Gould 1996).
Samuel George Morton (1799–1851), a scientist and physician who worked in Philadelphia,
amassed an impressive collection of human skulls. He began his collection in the 1820s, and by
the time of his death in 1851 he had over 1,000 skulls. Morton used these skulls to test his hypoth-
esis that brain size could be used to rank the various human races. In his initial efforts to measure
brain size, Morton filled the cranial cavity with mustard seeds. Later, when he realized that mus-
tard seeds did not provide consistent measurements, he switched to lead shots with a one-eighth-
inch diameter that produced less variable results. Through use of both mustard seeds and lead
shots, Morton’s measurements consistently showed that Europeans had larger brains than Africans
or American Indians. In 1977, however, evolutionary biologist and scientific historian Stephen Jay
Gould reanalyzed Morton’s raw data and found several examples of unconscious bias in his work
(Gould 1996).
Morton found that American Indians had the smallest skull sizes. Gould explains that Morton
arrived at this conclusion because he had included 155 skulls of Peruvian Incas, who had an aver-
age brain size of seventy-five cubic inches, yet he only included three skulls of Iroquois people,
who had, on average, a much larger skull size. In contrast, in the Caucasian group, Morton elimi-
nated the Hindus, who had the smallest skulls, from his sample. Had Morton ensured equal repre-
sentation from each of the American Indian and Caucasian groups, he would have found no signif-
icant differences in skull size.
Stephen Gould explains that skull size is related to body size, and yet he contends that Morton
never took body size into account when he measured skulls. As women tend to be smaller than
men, women often have smaller skulls. When Morton compared the brain sizes of Africans and
Europeans, his African sample was entirely female and his English sample entirely male. Of
course, he found that Europeans had larger brains. What is remarkable about Morton’s research is
not just that it is full of unconscious bias, but also that his biases are consistently in favor of his
expectations. Morton set out to prove, through science, that Europeans were superior. All of his
miscalculations favored his hypothesis. In this sense, Morton was similar to nearly all of his con-
temporaries: European and American male scientists of the nineteenth century developed a pletho-
ra of methods to measure human abilities and consistently found that white men were superior to
all other groups.
Paul Broca (1824–1880), a French anthropologist, built on Samuel Morton’s work to develop
more elaborate techniques for measuring humans. Broca believed strongly that there was a direct
correlation between brain size and intelligence, and he spent much of his career measuring the
brains of dead people. Broca eventually ran into trouble with his arguments when he measured the
brains of eminent scholars who had passed on and discovered that many people considered to be
highly intelligent turned out to have small brains. Undeterred, Broca accounted for those anom-
alies by asserting that they had died at a very advanced age or that their brains had not been prop-
erly preserved. When a study of criminal brains revealed that criminals had abnormally large
brains, Broca argued that their sudden death by execution meant that their brains did not atrophy,
as did those of people who died of natural causes. Broca eventually went on to measure other char-
acteristics of brains and bodies; not surprisingly, his scientific measurements always showed what
he set out to prove: that Europeans were superior to other groups (Gould 1996).

Intelligence Testing
When nineteenth-century scientists compared the skulls of blacks to those of whites, they used sci-
ence to demonstrate what they thought they already knew: that the white race was superior to all
others. Nineteenth-century craniometry—the measurement of cranial capacity—provided the first
opportunity for scientists to bring massive amounts of data to bear on their ideas of human hierar-
chy. These data on brain size supposedly provided “scientific” proof of white superiority. Eventu-
ally, however, craniometry lost its appeal, and scientists looked for new ways to measure human
difference and argue for European supremacy. These new methods revolved around measuring in-
telligence directly (Gould 1996).
In the United States, intelligence testing—the quantification of intellectual ability using scien-
tific measures—became popular in the early twentieth century. Such tests were used in attempts to
demonstrate the alleged superiority of not only Europeans as a whole but also particular groups of
Europeans. When the United States began to receive large numbers of immigrants from southern
and eastern Europe, American scientists used intelligence testing to draw distinctions among them
(Gould 1996; Brodkin 1998).
Intelligence tests were not originally designed to find out which races were the most intellectual-
ly fit. Instead, the goal was to identify children who needed extra help in school. Alfred Binet
(1857–1911), director of the psychology laboratory at the Sorbonne in Paris, dedicated much of his
scholarly career to developing ways to measure children’s intellectual ability. It was only when Bi-
net’s test was taken to the United States that it began to be used to determine which groups were
innately superior or inferior.
One of the first psychologists to use Binet’s test was H. H. Goddard (1866–1957), who adapted
it for use in the Vineland Training School for Feeble-Minded Boys and Girls. Goddard firmly be-
lieved that feeble-mindedness was inherited, attributing intelligence to a single gene. To provide
evidence for his beliefs, Goddard took Binet’s test to Ellis Island, where he administered the exam
to arriving immigrants who spoke little English. Many received a low score, but instead of ques-
tioning the conditions under which he performed the exam, Goddard concluded that immigrants
were of low intelligence. He further argued that, given these results, immigration had to be cur-
tailed. Later in his career, Goddard conceded that perhaps what he defined as feeble-mindedness
could be cured through education (Gould 1996).
The next prominent psychologist to use intelligence testing was Lewis Terman (1877–1956), a
professor of psychology at Stanford University. Terman modified the Binet test, endeavoring to
standardize it such that the average person would score 100. This number should sound familiar, as
it is still used today as the mean for IQ—the intelligence quotient—in what’s known as the Stan-
ford-Binet test. Terman’s colleague R. M. Yerkes (1876–1956) carried on Terman’s work and de-
veloped the Army Mental Tests, which aimed to measure innate intelligence. Yerkes succeeded in
convincing the U.S. Army to allow him to administer the tests to all of its recruits. This massive
sample of over a million respondents gave significant quantitative weight to the emerging field of
intelligence testing (Gould 1996).
Stephen Gould argued that the primary error in intelligence testing is that of reification—mak-
ing intelligence into a scientific concept by measuring it. Some people know more facts and trivia,
are more quick-witted, can calculate sums in their heads faster, and are more eloquent in speech
and writing than others. But as Gould contends, intelligence tests are flawed because they cannot
truly measure this wide range of abilities. Moreover, instead of promoting the idea that each of
these skills can be learned and nurtured, intelligence testing implies that they are innate (Gould
1996).

Eugenics
The eugenics movement, which had its heyday from about 1900 to 1930, promoted the idea that
not only intelligence but also alcoholism, laziness, crime, poverty, and other moral and cultural
traits could be inherited. Based on this notion, eugenicists advocated the selective breeding of
Americans and the sterilization of the biologically unfit as a way of creating a superior breed of
people. During this period, many Americans believed that the American population was in decline
as a result of immigration and the high fertility of poor people (Lindsay 1998).
One of the main proponents of eugenics was Madison Grant (1865–1937), a lawyer, historian,
and physical anthropologist. In much of his work, including the 1916 book The Passing of the
Great Race, Grant proposed that Europe could be divided into three races: “Nordics,” “Alpines,”
and “Mediterraneans.” He forcefully argued that Nordics were the most fit of the three and that
measures should be taken to ensure their racial purity and survival. His ideas made it into the
mainstream both through his book and through his position as chairman of the U.S. Committee on
Selective Immigration. In that capacity, he advocated for a reduction in the number of Alpines and
Mediterraneans admitted into the United States. The views of Madison Grant and other eugenicists
played an important role in the development of immigration policy in the 1920s, placing limits on
the immigration of “undesirable” groups (Jacobson 1998).
Madison Grant’s ideas—particularly that Nordics were the “master race” and that it was incum-
bent upon the state to ban interracial marriages and sterilize inferior races—found a large audience
in Germany. Adolf Hitler referred to Grant’s book, The Passing of the Great Race, as his “bible,”
and the German translation became widely read in the 1930s (Spiro 2008). Hitler put Grant’s ideas
into practice when he passed the Eugenic Sterilization Law in 1933, which led to the sterilization
of 225,000 people in Germany in just three years. Similar to sterilization laws in the United States,
this law was intended to improve the population. The Nazis then took these ideas several steps fur-
ther, first to euthanasia and then to gas chambers (Smedley 2007).
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
The brutal, troubled history of the idea of race clearly demonstrates the power of ideologies about
human difference. The idea that the world’s population can be divided into discrete racial groups is
a product of a specific series of events: colonialism, slavery, and the rise of scientific racism. To
rationalize their desire to take land from indigenous peoples in the Americas and to extract labor
from Africans, Europeans developed ideologies of inferiority.
Alongside this large-scale theft of land and exploitation of labor, science began to emerge as a
field of study concerned largely with the classification of all objects and species into specific
groups. Scientists rushed to develop taxonomies of flora and fauna, including classifications of hu-
mans. Europeans who proposed these classifications put their own group at the top of the
hierarchy.
This subjective (and overt) bias of Europeans continued with the development of anthropomet-
ric and other measurement techniques in the nineteenth century. European scientists measured hu-
man skulls, brains, and every other imaginable part of the human body and arrived at the same
conclusion: Europeans are superior. This recounting of history offers a revealing look at not only
the past but also the present. We cannot simply look at the past and point fingers at those “racists”
of yesteryear. Instead, we should also be compelled to explore the assumptions and ideologies that
govern our behavior today.

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

IN THIS CHAPTER, we have seen that the idea of race was created to rationalize mass genocide and bru-
tal exploitation. We have also seen that there is as much or more diversity and genetic difference within
any racial group as there is across racial groups. But race is an important part of our identities nevertheless.
How does what you learned in this chapter affect the way you think of yourself? Write a 500-word essay
that (1) shows what your racial identity is and how you usually think of yourself, (2) provides evidence that
race is a social construction and not a biological reality, (3) demonstrates how this evidence affects how
you think of your own racial identity, and (4) reflects on how this knowledge might be used in the pursuit
of racial justice.

Key Terms
social construction
ethnicity
colonialism
genocide
ideology
slave codes
Indian Removal Act of 1830
Trails of Tears
scientific racism
intelligence testing
eugenics

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

1.1 What are race and ethnicity? What is racism?
Race refers to a group of people who share physical and cultural traits. Race is a social construc-
tion and has no biological basis. Ethnicity is a group identity based on notions of similar and
shared history, culture, and kinship.
Racism refers to the belief that some races are superior to others, as well as the practice of sub-
ordinating races believed to be inferior.
Why do sociologists argue that race is a social construction?

1.2 How old is racism? How is race distinct from previous ways of thinking about hu-
man difference?
There are historical precedents to the idea of race, including the Spanish Inquisition and the sub-
jugation of the Irish by the English.
Slavery existed long before the invention of the idea of race.
When the Spanish colonists arrived in the Americas, they displayed extreme cruelty to the na-
tive people of the Americas.
Africans were enslaved in the Americas to meet labor needs.
The idea of race emerged to rationalize slavery and colonization.
When was the idea of race invented? Why do sociologists argue that race is a historical construction?

1.3 How did the writers of the U.S. Constitution think of slavery?
Although the Declaration of Independence declares that “all men are created equal,” nearly half
of the authors were slaveowners.
Slavery was not abolished in the United States until 1865.
Why were slavery and freedom in tension during the writing of the Declaration of Independence?

1.4 How did the Indian Removal Act affect Native Americans?
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Native Americans
as a result of forced displacements.
How and why were the rationalizations for Indian removal distinct from those used for slavery?

1.5 What role did science play in the propagation of racism?

The idea of race was originally based on simple taxonomies. However, as science developed,
scientists created more complex explanations of the differences among racial groups.
In the nineteenth century, scientists measured skulls in an attempt to assess differences among
racial groups.
In the early twentieth century, scientific racism continued. In an attempt to scientifically demon-
strate the superiority of the white race, scientists used intelligence testing, and many promoted
eugenics.
How did bias influence early scientific measurements of various racial groups?
Critical Thinking

1. Why is it important to clarify that the idea of race is a modern invention?

2. Can you imagine a world in which racial classifications had no importance? Why or why not?
3. What are today’s prevailing racial ideologies in the United States? In what ways do those ide-
ologies work to rationalize the current racial hierarchy?
4. How and why do racial ideologies related to Native Americans and African Americans differ?
5. What biases toward race might be present in today’s sciences and social sciences?

Quiz: The Origin of the Idea of Race

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Talking about Race

Imagine someone said to you that African Americans are naturally gifted at basketball. How
could you respond to such a statement in a constructive way? The first step is to ask for fur-
ther explanation. Listen to any evidence provided to support the claim. The person who made
the statement may provide anecdotal evidence or possibly cite national trends. You should be
able to draw from the knowledge you gained in this chapter to respond to the contention that
there are natural or genetic differences between racial groups. Use your sociological imagina-
tion to encourage your conversational partner to think of explanations other than genetics for
racial differences in basketball skills.
 2
Racial Ideologies and Soci-
ological Theories of Racism

CHAPTER OUTLINE
2.1 Prejudice, Discrimination, and Institutional Racism
• Voices: Microaggressions
Systemic Racism and Structural Racism
2.2 Racial Ideologies
2.3 Racial Formation
2.4 White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism
2.5 Intersectional Theories of Race and Racism
2.6 White Privilege
2.7 Whiteness, Class, Gender, and Sexuality
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
2.1 How is individual racism linked to institutional inequality?
2.2 How do systemic racism and structural racism create racial disparities?
2.3 What are racial ideologies, and how have they functioned and changed over time?
2.4 What is racial formation, and how does this concept inform our understanding of racial inequality?
2.5 What does the perspective of indigenous studies reveal about racism in the contemporary United
States?
2.6 In what ways do race, class, and gender oppression work together?
2.7 What is white privilege, and how does it function?
R acial inequality is pervasive in the contemporary United States. We see it in the criminal jus-
tice system, where black and Latinx people are several times more likely to go to prison than
whites. We can find racial inequality in employment as well: audit studies have shown that blacks
are less likely than whites to be interviewed and, once interviewed, to get a job. Once blacks have
jobs, they are less likely to get promoted. Black business owners have more trouble getting con-
tracts. In education, the picture is equally bleak. Many schools in the United States are racially
segregated, and the quality of education is lower at primarily black and Latinx schools. Within
schools, white students are given preferential treatment. When white parents visit schools, they get
more attention from staff members, and teachers are more likely to recommend white students for
gifted programs. Sociologists and other researchers have carried out study upon study demonstrat-
ing such inequality. Yet how do we explain it?
This is where sociological theories of racism come into play; they are lenses that help make
sense of patterns such as the overrepresentation of African Americans in the criminal justice sys-
tem. Sociologists use evidence from their studies to develop explanations, known as theories, for
how racial inequality is created and reproduced.
Before we begin an examination of these theories, what do you think? How would you explain
the racial disparities in the criminal justice system, for example? Do you think blacks commit
more crimes? Do you think police officers spend more time policing black communities? Do you
think police officers are biased against African Americans? All of these questions can be translated
into hypotheses that can be tested through scientific studies. First, let’s look at how racism can be
the basis of an explanation for racial inequality.
2.2 RACIAL IDEOLOGIES
The work of Patricia Hill Collins (2004) is useful for understanding ideological shifts. As she ex-
plains: “When ideologies that defend racism become taken-for-granted and appear to be natural
and inevitable, they become hegemonic. Few question them and the social hierarchies they de-
fend” (96). When Collins explains that racial ideologies are hegemonic, she means they become
so widely accepted that they become common sense. An ideology is more than an individual preju-
dice: it is a set of principles and ideas that embodies the interests of a societal group. A racial ide-
ology, then, is a set of principles and ideas that (1) divides people into different racial groups and
(2) serves the interests of one group. Ideologies are usually created by the dominant group and re-
flect the interests of that group. Both historically and today, the dominant racial group in the Unit-
ed States includes whites (Feagin 2001). Our individual prejudices and acts of discrimination are
directly related to our acceptance (conscious or unconscious) of racial ideologies.
Many scholars make a distinction between old racism—which permitted the internment of the
Japanese and the enslavement of Africans, for example—and a new but related ideology that per-
petuates racism without such practices. In new racism, it is no longer acceptable to make overtly
racist statements or to have overtly racist laws (P. H. Collins 2004; Bonilla-Silva 2013; Logan
2011; Wingfield and Feagin 2010). Racism did not disappear with the dismantling of slavery and
Jim Crow laws, nor did the civil rights era mark the end of racism. Race scholars generally agree
that the post–1965 era is distinct. Theorists Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1994) explain that
whereas the government could once be overtly violent toward nonwhites, “in the post–civil rights
era, the racial state cannot merely dominate; it must seek hegemony” (147) (emphasis in original).
By this statement Omi and Winant meant that policymakers must seek to make the current racial
order seem natural and normal, as it is no longer viable to have laws and practices that are explicit-
ly racist.
Racial inequality persists today both because of our history—colonialism, slavery, and Jim
Crow—and because of ongoing practices of discrimination and exclusion. The new racism is an
outgrowth of past racial inequality; mass media and popular beliefs “help manufacture the consent
that makes the new racism appear to be natural, normal, and inevitable” (P. H. Collins 2004, 34).
Racial inequality in the United States has become naturalized. We have come to think of it as nor-
mal that African American men are overrepresented among prisoners and that white men are over-
represented among the elite, even though we would never accept laws that overtly discriminated
against African Americans.
In the United States, most people do not consider themselves to be racist, and laws are in place
that prevent overt acts of discrimination. Despite this massive change in attitudes and laws over
the past century, racial inequality persists. African Americans have, on average, a mere 10 percent
of the wealth that whites have (Oliver and Shapiro 2006). African American men are seven times
more likely than white men to go to prison (Feagin 2001). On almost any measure, black and Lat-
inx people are doing worse socially and economically than white people in the United States (Lo-
gan 2011). How do we explain the persistence of racial inequality despite the social stigma associ-
ated with being a racist? One way is by looking at how different forms of racism operate. This al-
lows us to see how some forms of racism are more acceptable than others, even though all racial
ideologies serve the same purpose: to explain, rationalize, and normalize racial inequality and
injustice.
Another reason to examine racial ideologies closely is that despite trends that demonstrate wide-
spread racial inequality, a few prominent exceptions make it seem as if racism is a problem of the
past. Most notably, the United States had an African American president, has a Latina and an
African American serving on the Supreme Court, and has a woman of African American and Indi-
an descent serving as U.S. senator of California. How do we explain these developments? Clearly,
we need new ways to think and talk about race and racism. In this section, we will discuss differ-
ent forms of racism and consider the extent to which these racial ideologies persist.

Biological Racism
Biological racism is the idea that whites are genetically superior to nonwhites. This idea has its
origins in the scientific racism of the nineteenth century, which set out to prove whites’ superior
innate intelligence. In the 1920s, the American lawyer Madison Grant argued that Nordics were
the “master race” and that the United States should pass laws banning interracial marriages and
ensuring the sterilization of inferior races. In the twenty-first century, it would be difficult to find
people who openly advocate for the sterilization of blacks because of their biological inferiority.
Nevertheless, these ideas have not completely disappeared.
One of the most prominent examples of biological racism in recent decades is a 1994 book
called The Bell Curve. In this book, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray argue that intelligence
is quantifiable. For Herrnstein and Murray, as for a century of intelligence testers before them, the
fact that blacks scored lower on intelligence tests than whites provided support for the idea that
blacks are innately inferior to whites. More recently, Frank Miele and Vincent Sarich argued in
Race: The Reality of Human Differences (2004) that races are a biological reality and that there are
measurable intellectual differences among racial groups. The publication of The Bell Curve, Race:
The Reality of Human Differences, and other books and articles in this vein provide evidence of
the persistence of the belief that whites are genetically or biologically superior to nonwhites. How-
ever, most academics reject these views, and few Americans openly express such opinions in pub-
lic spaces today. Biological racism still exists, but it is waning and is subject to virulent criticism
whenever expressed.

Cultural Racism
Cultural racism is a way of thinking that attributes disadvantaged racial groups’ lack of prosperi-
ty to their behavior and culture rather than to structural factors. Unlike biological racism, which
claims that some races are inferior because of lower intelligence, cultural racism is the standpoint
that a particular culture—African American or Latinx culture, for example—inhibits success.
The 1965 publication of a report by the U.S. politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003)
planted the seeds for many of the ideas inherent in cultural racism. The document, which has come
to be known as the Moynihan Report, acknowledged the pervasiveness of poverty in the black
community and pointed to the breakdown of the black family as one of the principal causes of this
poverty. Moynihan argued that the history of slavery and racism had had detrimental consequences
for the black family. He made the gendered argument that the central problem of black America
was that there were too many single black mothers who were incapable of raising children on their
own. His proposed solution to black poverty was restoration of black men to their rightful place as
breadwinners and heads of families. For Moynihan, the solution to black poverty was to “fix”
black families. This stance—which ignores structural factors such as discriminatory employment
policies and practices—is typical of cultural racism. Essentially, the cultural racism argument
points to the behavioral patterns and culture of African Americans as the primary cause of their
poverty. Cultural racism persists today. For example, pundits often blame blacks’ educational fail-
ures on dysfunctional families or parenting styles rather than on failing schools and pervasive
poverty.
Cultural racism also takes another form: teachers perceive children who invoke African Ameri-
can language and style as less intelligent than those who conform to the dominant culture. Ann Ar-
nett Ferguson (2001) found in her research in an elementary school that black students were more
likely to get into trouble at school because of the way teachers and school administrators respond-
ed to their body language, oral expressiveness, manners, and styles. She found that children who
conformed to white, middle-class cultural norms were less likely to get into trouble and were more
likely to do well in school, and that the use of African American forms of expressiveness in school
was grounds for punishment. Ferguson also argues that when children are white or behave in a
white middle-class way, they are perceived to be self-disciplined and good, while children who
“behave black” are perceived as troublemakers. Ferguson’s findings point to the persistence of cul-
tural racism: whereas white, middle-class children are rewarded for behaving in school as they and
their parents do at home, working-class and poor black children are punished for speaking and act-
ing as their parents do.
Cultural racism also affects other racialized groups in the United States. Latinas are often por-
trayed as “pregnant breeders” who plan to have “anchor babies” in the United States (Hondagneu-
Sotelo 1995). Asians feel the brunt of the “model minority” stereotype—the myth that Asians are
smarter, harder-working, and more successful than other minorities. And Native Americans are
perceived alternatively as “savages” or “wise men.” The racialized sterotypes of Native Ameri-
cans, Asian Americans, and Latinx Americans are discussed further in Chapter Four.

Color-Blind Racism
Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva offers a framework for understanding how pervasive racial in-
equality exists even though no one wants to be called a racist. In his work, Bonilla-Silva (2013)
presents the notion of color-blind racism, a racial ideology that explains contemporary racial in-
equality as the outcome of nonracial dynamics, such as market dynamics, naturally occurring phe-
nomena, and nonwhites’ supposed cultural limitations. This racial ideology ignores or marginalizes
people of color’s distinctive needs, experiences, and identities. Bonilla-Silva argues that although
race is a social construction, the idea of race is real in a social sense and has produced a racial
structure that systematically privileges whites.

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How is it possible that racial inequality is widespread when most whites claim there is no
racism and that they are not racist? Bonilla-Silva offers an explanation in his book Racism Without
Racists (2013). His research team interviewed whites and asked them questions about their views
on race in the United States. He found that whites use several “frames” of color-blind racism to
rationalize and reproduce racial inequality.
One frame Bonilla-Silva mentions is abstract liberalism. This frame involves using liberal
ideas such as equality of opportunity or freedom of choice to explain or rationalize racial inequali-
ty. For example, when presented with the fact that African Americans still live in underserved,
poorer neighborhoods than whites do, a person using this frame would explain this inequality by
saying that people live in such neighborhoods because they choose to do so. Nothing prevents
them from leaving, so their situation arises not because of racism but because of individual choic-
es. This response, however, ignores the structural factors that have created segregation and contin-
ue to perpetuate it. Similarly, the naturalization frame permits people to explain racial phenome-
na as if they were natural. The explanation for segregation would be that people like to be around
others who are like them. Again, segregation develops not because of structural factors, but be-
cause it’s normal or natural.
The aforementioned frames represent explanations that whites consistently offered in interviews
about their racial attitudes. In addition, Bonilla-Silva found that whites used specific rhetorical
strategies, or ways of expressing ideas, to rationalize their own racial prejudices and discriminato-
ry actions. These rhetorical strategies permit whites to reproduce racism without being labeled as
racists. Bonilla-Silva argues that because post–civil rights racial norms do not permit the open ex-
pression of racial views, whites have developed hidden ways of voicing them.
As Bonilla-Silva found, one common rhetorical strategy is to preface discriminatory claims with
“I am not a racist, but….” Alternatively, a white person would say, “Some of my best friends are
black, but….” For example, when asked if he would mind if his daughter married a black man, a
white person would respond, “I am not a racist, but I don’t think interracial marriages work.” Or
the white person might use another rhetorical strategy called projection, according to which she
would respond: “I don’t mind if my daughter marries a black man, but you have to think about the
children.” These rhetorical strategies allow whites to express discriminatory or prejudiced ideas
without seeming racist.
In his research, Bonilla-Silva found that color-blind racial ideology is used in everyday speech
patterns to rationalize racial inequality. It influences rhetorical strategies, stories, and etiquette that
allow whites to explain why racial inequality exists even though most people are not racist. In ad-
dition to rationalizing racial inequality, color-blind racism reproduces racial inequality by permit-
ting people to engage in discriminatory actions without being labeled as racists.

Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Racism

Islam is a religion. Does it make sense, then, to define Islamophobia—the systematic marginaliza-
tion of Muslims—as racism? Because race and religion are distinct phenomena, religious discrimi-
nation and racial discrimination are not identical. Nevertheless, it is clear that the United States is a
Christian-centric society and that people who are not Christians face various forms of marginaliza-
tion. To what extent should these forms of exclusion be considered racism?
Ramón Grosfoguel and Eric Mielants (2006) state that Islamophobia began as religious discrim-
ination and has evolved into racial/ethnic discrimination. They point out that, at the same time that
the Spaniards set out to colonize the Americas, they expelled Jews and Arabs from the Spanish
peninsula. During this time, religious beliefs were the primary motivation for the marginalization
of Jews and Arabs. Grosfoguel and Mielants argue that in more recent times, however, Islamopho-
bia and anti-Arab sentiment have primarily taken the form of cultural racism—a concept discussed
in more detail in Chapter Three. They explain that the tropes used to describe Muslims and Arabs
such as “uncivilized,” “barbarian,” “savage,” “primitive,” “underdeveloped,” “authoritarian,” and
“terrorist” (4) are markers of cultural racism.
For Grosfoguel and Mielants (2006), Islamophobia is a form of racism. Steven Salaita (2006)
argues, however, that it is important to draw a distinction between Islamophobia and anti-Arab
racism. Despite the American conflation of Arabs and Muslims, only one-fifth of the world’s total
Muslim population is Arab, and not all Arabs are Muslim (Grosfoguel and Mielants 2006). Salaita
(2006) maintains that anti-Arab racism goes beyond dislike or distaste for Islam: it is used to ratio-
nalize U.S. military interventions in the Middle East.
2.3 RACIAL FORMATION
Whereas analyses of structural and systemic racism focus on racism itself, Michael Omi and
Howard Winant consider racial meanings (1994). They introduce the concept of racial formation
to help us understand how racial dynamics work in the United States. Omi and Winant define
racial formation as “the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited,
transformed, and destroyed,” and as a “process or historically situated project” (56). They argue
that the state (i.e., the national government) is the primary site where race is constructed and con-
tested. According to this theory, the state can reproduce or alleviate racial inequality through its
institutions and policies. Omi and Winant explore “how concepts of race are created and changed”
and argue that “concepts of race structure both state and civil society” (vii).
When Omi and Winant’s book was first published in 1986, it was a welcome change from earli-
er works that studied race as a variation of ethnicity, class, or nation. Instead, Omi and Winant pre-
sented race as a topic worthy of study in itself. Their groundbreaking work has greatly enhanced
our understanding of how race works in the United States.
Omi and Winant (1994) draw from the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci to argue that racial dy-
namics in the United States have changed from domination to hegemony. Domination refers to di-
rect rule by coercion, whereas hegemony involves rule by both coercion and consent. For example,
Omi and Winant contend that the United States prior to the civil rights era could be characterized
as a racial dictatorship in which racial inequality was enforced through domination. During slavery
and the Jim Crow era, white domination was legal, state-enforced, and difficult to contest openly.
In the current era of racial hegemony, racial stratification and white dominance are achieved more
subtly through coercion and consent. Omi and Winant argue that the United States is undergoing a
slow, gradual, and contentious transition from a racial dictatorship to a racial democracy.

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The concept of racial formation blends an understanding of social structures with an understand-
ing of cultural representations. Omi and Winant use the concept of a racial project, which they
define as being “simultaneously an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynam-
ics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines” (1994, 56).
Racial projects give meaning to racial categories through both cultural representations and social
structures. For example, Doris Marie Provine and Roxanne Lynn Doty (2011) argue that the crimi-
nalization of immigrants through intensified immigration policy enforcement is a racial project. In
this example, the state targets immigrants and draws attention to their vulnerable status. The in-
creased law enforcement and resulting media attention reinforce the marginalization of immigrants
as a racialized group.
For Omi and Winant, a racial project is defined as racist if it “creates or reproduces structures of
domination based on essentialist categories of race” (1994, 71). They are careful to distinguish be-
tween race and racism and to point out that not all racial projects are racist. Projects are racist only
when they reproduce structures of domination and hegemony. For example, one could argue that
the criminalization of Latinx immigrants is a racist project because it reinforces the marginalized
status of this racialized group. Omi and Winant argue that every state institution is a racial institu-
tion. They don’t go so far as to say that every state institution is racist. This is because they be-
lieve the state can also use racial schemas to promote racial equality.
2.4 WHITE SUPREMACY AND SETTLER COLONIALISM
What if we consider present-day racism in the United States from the perspective of indigenous
studies? From this perspective, we are forced to contend with questions related to the meaning of
white control of lands that once belonged to Native Americans. What would the end of racism
look like for indigenous peoples? Native Americans’ claims are different from those of African
Americans.
Andrea Smith (2012) argues that there are three pillars of white supremacy: (1) antiblack
racism, (2) genocide, and (3) orientalism (Table 4-1). Antiblack racism defines people as property,
thereby rationalizing slavery and current forms of exploitation, and is rooted in a logic of capital-
ism—that is, designed to extract profit. Genocide is rooted in colonialism. This is the idea that na-
tive people are disappearing and must disappear, and that therefore non-native people have a right
to everything that once belonged to native people. Orientalism is rooted in the idea that certain na-
tions or peoples pose a permanent threat to Western civilization and is thereby used to rationalize
war.

TABLE 2-1
Pillars of White Supremacy
Antiblack Racism Genocide Orientalism

BASIS Capitalism Colonialism Security

POSI- People can be property. Native people are disappearing Certain nations or peoples pose a
TION and must disappear. permanent threat to Western
civilization.

CON- Slavery and current Non-native people have a right to War against such nations or peo-
CLU- forms of exploitation all that once belonged to native ples is justified.
SION are justified. people.
Source: Based on A. Smith 2012

Although the United States is no longer engaged in the mass murder and expulsion of Native
Americans, many indigenous scholars contend that the logics of genocide and settler colonialism
endure (A. Smith 2012). Native Americans continue to have a unique legal position in the United
States: they are citizens both of the United States and of the tribes to which they belong. Scholars
such as Andrea Smith (2012) contend that capitalist ideas of property ownership and white su-
premacist ideas of indigenous inferiority work together to justify the expropriation (seizure) of in-
digenous lands. From this perspective, simply returning lands to Native Americans would not
solve the problem of indigenous expropriation. The more fundamental problem is the nation-state
itself and the idea that people can control territory and keep other human beings out of it.
Once we recognize that the United States is a nation rooted in white supremacy, it becomes
clear that the state will never grant native peoples self-determination. For some indigenous schol-
ars, this recognition means that the struggle against racism requires a challenge to the very exis-
tence of the United States as a legitimate state (A. Smith 2012).
Joe Feagin (2001), in his systemic racism framework, contends that antiblack oppression is at
the center of U.S. society, even though the United States was formed through genocide. Andrea
Smith (2012) contests this framework, arguing that the United States exists precisely because of
the disappearance of indigenous people and that this genocide continues today. One’s framework
for understanding the experience of native peoples is critical because it shapes how we view racial
progress or regression. Smith points to the example of high rates of intermarriage between Native
Americans and whites. Is this progress? Or is it a continuation of a pattern of genocide?
Using these perspectives, we can see how frameworks shape research questions and answers.
From the perspective of settler colonialism, one might argue that the United States is an illegiti-
mate state founded on genocide and must be dismantled. From a systemic racism perspective, one
can argue that the United States is founded on a history of racism and that the Constitution must be
rewritten. From a racial formation perspective, the United States is headed in the right direction
and through more struggles for justice and civil rights will complete the transition from racial dic-
tatorship to racial democracy.
2.5 INTERSECTIONAL THEORIES OF RACE AND RACISM
In what ways do race, class, and gender oppression work together? Some race scholars argue that
we need to develop a concrete understanding of how race and racism work before we can under-
stand other forms of oppression. Feminist scholars, however, often contend that we must look at
race and gender oppression simultaneously—a concept known as intersectionality.
Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) uses this concept in her work, making her point with the example of
a group of black and Latina women in a battered women’s shelter. Taken together, the factors of
race, class, and gender elucidate how these women ended up in the shelter. The women faced
abuse in part because of gender oppression, but their economically vulnerable situation and race
also help us understand their situation. If they had the economic resources, they likely would have
gone elsewhere—not to a shelter. If they were white, they wouldn’t face racial discrimination in
employment, meaning that they may have had more resources. If they were men, their chances of
being battered would be much lower. Any proposed method of helping these women must pay at-
tention to their gender, class-based, and racial oppression. A narrow lens that focuses on just race,
gender, or class would miss crucial aspects of these women’s situations.
Similarly, Priya Kandaswamy (2012) contends that an intersectional perspective helps us better
understand welfare policies. She argues that race scholars, Marxists, and feminists often look past
one another. In contrast, she adopts an intersectional perspective to shed light on the 1996 welfare
reforms. Interconnected ideas of gender, sexuality, race, and class influence public opinions about
who deserves state assistance and who does not. The 1996 welfare reforms, which dramatically
reduced public aid, did not mention race specifically. In contrast, the writers of the legislation had
no qualms about promoting heteronormative ideas (the assumption that heterosexuality is or
should be the norm): the first line of the 1996 law is: “Marriage is the foundation of a successful
society.” The 1996 law explicitly embraced marriage, was based on a public discussion of family
values and personal responsibility, and was designed to reform the “welfare queen,” a stereotypical
figure who is often imagined as a black woman.
Kandaswamy (2012) explains how the idea that race is historically produced and constantly
changing can complicate our understanding of intersectionality, as it forces us to look at how race
and gender “are constituted in and through each other” (26). Race is a socially constructed idea
that has developed in conjunction with ideas about gender, class, and sexuality. In this examination
of welfare policy, Kandaswamy explains concretely how the adoption of an intersectional perspec-
tive can enhance a racial formation perspective.
2.6 WHITE PRIVILEGE
Whereas most studies of racism focus on oppression, those scholars who use a white privilege
framework focus on privilege—the opposite side of oppression. White privilege refers to the ad-
vantages inherent in being categorized as white. The concept derives from earlier work by African
American sociologist W. E. B. DuBois (1868–1963), who observed that white workers in the Unit-
ed States over time came to see themselves as white like their bosses, as opposed to developing
working-class solidarity with recently freed black slaves. DuBois argued in 1936 that white work-
ers received a psychological “wage of whiteness” by aligning with the dominant group; they were
poor, but at least they were white. Additionally, by reserving certain segments of the labor market
for whites only, white laborers were able to reap material rewards from their whiteness. Other
scholars, mostly historians, have built on DuBois’s insights to explain how waves of European im-
migrants learned to be white and to reap the privileges of whiteness (Allen 1994; Jacobson 1998;
Roediger
change1999).
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Prior to coming to the United States, European immigrants of the early twentieth century did not
think of themselves as white. And, in some cases, people in the United States did not see them as
white. Irish immigrants learned to capitalize on their whiteness by forming unions and excluding
blacks from them. And although Jews faced discrimination during and after World War II, as
whites, they were able to reap the benefits of the GI bills and Federal Housing Administration and
Department of Veterans Affairs mortgages that were denied to blacks, which propelled many
whites into the middle class (Brodkin 2005). Whereas these European immigrants had to learn to
be white, most whites today never have to think about whiteness.

The Normalization of Whiteness

In the contemporary United States, whiteness is an unmarked identity. Whereas African, Latinx,
Asian, and Native Americans are constantly reminded of their race, European Americans easily
can forget that they too have a race (Dalton 2005). When we talk about race (or, more recently, di-
versity), the focus is usually on nonwhites, as if white were not also a race (Lewis 2004). When we
think of race in the United States, whiteness usually is not the first thing that comes to mind. The
reason is that whiteness has become normalized—“whiteness makes itself invisible precisely by
asserting its normalcy” (Frankenberg 1997, 6).
Privilege is often hard to notice when you have it. If you are white, it can be difficult to notice
that you are not being followed around the store; that people are smiling at you on the street in-
stead of clutching their purses; that no one asks you if you speak English; that you are not asked
for identification when paying with a credit card. Instead, you are likely to think these things are
normal—that this is simply how things are. To notice these privileges as a white person, you likely
would have to walk down the street with an African American friend or accompany a Latinx friend
to get a driver’s license. Then, you may notice a difference in terms of how white people respond
to you and your nonwhite friend. Few whites notice they are treated better than nonwhites, and
most are unlikely to attribute that better treatment to privilege. Privilege is largely invisible to
those who have it.

The Enactment of Privilege

In 2015, a white Stanford student by the name of Brock Allen Turner was found sexually as-
saulting an unconscious, semi-naked white woman behind a dumpster. She was taken to the hospi-
tal, where a nurse noted that significant trauma had been inflicted on the victim’s genitalia. When
the case went to trial, the jury found Turner guilty on three felony counts, and the prosecution ar-
gued he should get a six-year sentence. However, Judge Aaron Persky was hesitant to punish
Turner this severely and gave him six months in county jail instead. The judge explained: “A
prison sentence would have a severe impact on him.” Huffington Post writer Alanna Vagianos
wrote in response: “Turner’s lenient punishment is the perfect example of what happens when rape
culture and white privilege collide.” By rape culture, Vagianos is referring to the normalization of
sexual abuse of women in our society. Because of Turner’s whiteness and class privilege, the judge
had sympathy for him. Turner was held in protective custody and ultimately spent only three
months behind bars (Vagianos 2016).
The case of Brock Turner is just one of many showing that white privilege doesn’t simply exist
—it is enacted. The judge gave Turner a light sentence because he did not believe Turner to be a
dangerous man, despite the evidence that Turner had committed rape. When shopkeepers are not
suspicious of white shoppers, the white shopper is the beneficiary of the privilege, but only be-
cause the shopkeeper has accepted the racist idea that whites are less likely to shoplift. Privilege,
then, is related to white supremacy: white privilege exists because of past and current practices
that reproduce racism.

The Societal Costs of Privilege

In Whiteness: The Power of Privilege, the antiracism activist and writer Tim Wise contends that
“the price we pay to stay one step ahead of others is enormous” (2005, 120). The vast majority of
working people could earn higher wages and have better benefits if whites and nonwhites worked
together to demand them as a common goal. Whites are less likely to go to prison than black or
Latinx people, yet the enormous amount of resources the United States invests in the prison-indus-
trial complex are resources that don’t go into better schools, parks, libraries, and universities. For
these reasons, W. E. B. DuBois and others have referred to the “psychological wage of whiteness”:
racism makes all whites think they are getting a better deal, but the reality is that racism affects all
of us, albeit in different ways. DuBois argued that the psychological wage of whiteness drives a
wedge between white and black laborers, who otherwise share an interest in working together to
fight for better material conditions.
It is important to think about white privilege for several reasons. First of all, if we want to un-
derstand racial oppression, it is crucial to understand how it looks from the other side. Second,
white privilege often remains invisible, and by bringing it to light we can develop a better under-
standing of how racism works in our society.
2.7 WHITENESS, CLASS, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY
An important point to keep in mind when thinking about white privilege is that although it certain-
ly benefits some whites, not all whites experience white privilege in the same way. When an em-
ployer gives a white applicant the benefit of the doubt because he is white, the applicant experi-
ences white privilege, whether or not he is aware of it. However, a poor lesbian white woman in
rural South Carolina, for example, will experience her whiteness—and her white privilege—in dif-
ferent ways than a wealthy white heterosexual male stockbroker in New York. The white stockbro-
ker will have doors opened to him that will remain shut to a poor woman of any race.
White privilege can be hard to see. Similarly, class privilege also often remains invisible. In a
study that compared middle-class white students with poor white students, Kirby Moss found that
middle-class white students “overwhelmingly perceived class position as nearly nonexistent within
White culture” (2003, 32). It was very difficult for these middle-class whites to see that they had
advantages that working-class and poor whites did not. In contrast, the working-class and poor
whites criticized the middle-class whites for being lazy and entitled and for not having to work for
anything in life.
The privileges associated with being white were not the same for these two groups. The poor
whites experienced a contradiction in their identities—whites were not supposed to be poor, yet
they were. These poor whites found it difficult to envision taking advantage of their whiteness, as
their poverty presented obstacles to enjoying the privileges of whiteness. Although they were
white, they did not have the “set of cultural practices” (Frankenberg 1993, 43) associated with
whiteness because of their class background. Moreover, many of these poor whites lived in poor,
primarily nonwhite neighborhoods, where their whiteness presented obstacles to acceptance in
their own neighborhoods.
Past and present-day practices of individual and institutional racism have created segregated
neighborhoods in the United States. Whites’ privileged access to primarily white neighborhoods is
part of white privilege. The other side of this coin is that working-class and poor whites cannot al-
ways afford to live in middle-class white neighborhoods and thus are unable to reap this particular
benefit of whiteness. As Kirby Moss (2003) contends, poor whites sometimes live in primarily
nonwhite neighborhoods because that is where they can afford to live. Living in those neighbor-
hoods, poor whites encounter many of the same challenges that their nonwhite neighbors en-
counter, such as crime, violence, and lack of access to resources.
This is one example that makes it evident that white privilege does not always work in the same
way for working-class and poor whites as it does for wealthier whites. It is important to note here,
however, that most poor whites live in primarily white neighborhoods, just as most poor blacks
live in primarily black neighborhoods (Bischoff and Reardon 2014). A white man who enters a pri-
marily black neighborhood may be made aware of his whiteness once he finds himself surrounded
by blacks and receiving stares (or even glares) from residents who want to know why a white per-
son is in their neighborhood. In the narrow space of a primarily black neighborhood, a white per-
son may not feel she is experiencing white privilege. However, a middle-class white man often can
live his whole life without ever having to enter a space where his whiteness will present a chal-
lenge. He can avoid primarily black neighborhoods because there is no reason for him to ever go
there. In contrast, a black man may need to go to a white neighborhood because that is where his
job is located, or he may want to move into such a neighborhood because that is where the good
schools are. A black man may encounter problems with law enforcement or neighborhood watch
associations if he walks around a middle-class white neighborhood.
Just as whiteness is linked to class, it is also defined by gender and sexuality. White womanhood
has historically been linked to sexual virtuosity, and for women, white privilege can hinge on
maintaining an appearance of sexual respectability. Amy Wilkins (2004) uses the case of Puerto
Rican wannabes—white girls and young women who draw on Puerto Rican cultural styles to at-
tract men of color—to explain how race, class, gender, and sexuality are co-constructed. Puerto
Rican wannabes manipulate their gender and sexual identities to cross racial boundaries: by defy-
ing conceptions of white womanhood by dressing provocatively, they can claim to identify with
Puerto Rican-ness. Notably, they reject whiteness through the rejection of mainstream notions of
sexuality.
Catrin Lundström (2014) explored whiteness at the other end of the spectrum of white woman-
hood—Swedish whiteness. Through interviews with married female Swedish immigrants in the
United States, Lundstrom found that their American husbands placed tremendous value on their
wives’ Swedish heritage. These American men viewed Swedish women as representing an ideal
form of whiteness that encompasses white purity, beauty, and sensuality. Lundstrom’s work adds
nuance to sociological understandings of whiteness, as it allows us to see that there are degrees of
whiteness in the United States and that these ideas of whiteness are intertwined with ideas of gen-
der, sexuality, and white womanhood.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Theories of systemic, structural, and institutional racism provide us with different frameworks to
understand the deep-seated nature of racial inequality in the United States. These analyses place
the emphasis on racism; Feagin and Elias (2013) argue that only through an understanding of
racial oppression can we grasp the true nature of racial meanings. In contrast, racial formation the-
ory focuses on how race is constructed, and we can use these analyses to deepen our understanding
of racism (Omi and Winant 1994). Analyses of white privilege focus on privilege to show how
racial oppression works. Still other scholars invoke settler colonialism as the primary framework
for understanding racial oppression. Which perspective is the most valuable?
There is no right answer to this question. Instead, the usefulness of a perspective depends on the
kind of question you are asking. For example, imagine you were examining why African Ameri-
cans and Latinx Americans fared worse economically than whites in the aftermath of the Great Re-
cession. An analysis based on systemic or structural racism would be especially useful in this case
(Kochhar, Fry, and Taylor 2011). If you were considering why Indonesian women use whitening
creams, even though they express no desire to be Caucasian, a racial formation perspective would
offer valuable nuances (Saraswati 2010). Both of these studies are grounded in the field of racial
and ethnic studies, but they have different research questions and goals and thus draw from differ-
ent frameworks.
The frameworks set forth by indigenous and feminist scholars can also be more or less useful,
depending on the kinds of questions you decide to ask. A consideration of Mayan migration to
Houston would likely benefit from Andrea Smith’s (2012) indigenous-settler framework, and an
analysis of violence in youth gangs in Oakland would likely be enriched by an intersectional per-
spective that focuses on race, class, gender, and sexuality. A study of whiteness and class in an
economically diverse white neighborhood would do well to interrogate the white privilege per-
spective. No theory can be expected to shed light on every aspect of our society. Moreover, sociol-
ogists and other thinkers continue to develop ways for us to understand inequality. Readers of
these texts can decide for themselves which frameworks are most useful for understanding the
questions that are important to them. What about you? What frameworks do you find most com-
pelling, and why?

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

THE UNITED STATES has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. African American men are
seven times more likely than white men to go to prison. Explain this statistic using two different perspec-
tives from this chapter (e.g., cultural racism, institutional racism, structural racism, white privilege). Can
either of these perspectives help us to understand this disparity? Is either of these perspectives useful in
terms of racial justice?

Key Terms
sociological theory of racism
prejudice
discrimination
assimilation
individual racism
racial microaggression
institutional racism
systemic racism
structural racism
racialized social systems
hegemonic ideology
racial ideology
new racism
Jim Crow laws
biological racism
cultural racism
color-blind racism
abstract liberalism
naturalization
rhetorical strategies
Islamophobia
racial formation
racial project
intersectionality
white privilege
wage of whiteness

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

2.1 How is individual racism linked to institutional inequality?
Prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism are interconnected and thus should not be stud-
ied in isolation. Prejudice refers to beliefs about racial difference; discrimination refers to actions;
and institutional racism describes the larger context in which prejudice and discrimination occur.
How widespread is individual racism, and how does it persist?
What are some examples of racial microaggressions?
What is the relationship between individual and institutional racism?

2.2 How do systemic racism and structural racism create racial disparities?
Systemic racism and structural racism are two theoretical frameworks that aim to explain how
racism is deeply rooted in society. While systemic racism focuses on accumulated acts of racism
across history and throughout one’s lifetime, structural racism points to interinstitutional interac-
tions across time and space.
What is one key difference between systemic racism and structural racism?
How does structural racism explain wealth inequalities?

2.3 What are racial ideologies, and how have they functioned and changed over time?
A racial ideology is a set of principles and ideas that (1) divides people into different racial groups
and (2) serves the interests of one group. Racism has changed over the years yet continues to bene-
fit whites.
What is an example of racism pre–1965?
What is an example of racism post–1965?
What are the differences among biological, cultural, and color-blind racisms?
How is Islamophobia related to racism?

2.4 What is racial formation, and how does this concept inform our understanding of
racial inequality?
Racial formation is one of the most influential theories of race and racism in the United States. It
focuses on racial meanings—how racial categories are “created, inhabited, transformed, and de-
stroyed,” as Omi and Winant (1994) describe.
What do Omi and Winant mean when they say the United States is transitioning from a racial dictatorship to
a racial democracy?
What is an example of a racial project?

2.5 What does the perspective of indigenous studies reveal about racism in the con-
temporary United States?
One way to consider how racism works is to examine it from the perspective of indigenous stud-
ies. This leads us to consider settler colonialism theory, which offers a broad critique of racism and
capitalism.
What are the three pillars of white supremacy?
Why is it important to understand genocide in relation to contemporary race relations?

2.6 In what ways do race, class, and gender oppression work together?
Ideas of race, gender, class, and sexuality all shape how racism works, and intersectional scholars
take these factors seriously as they build their frameworks.
What is an example of a scenario that intersectional theory helps us understand?

2.7 What is white privilege, and how does it function?

White privilege refers to the advantages associated with being categorized as white and can be a
useful analytic for understanding racial oppression. Whiteness and white privilege vary by class,
gender, and sexuality.
Who benefits from white privilege, and why?

Critical Thinking

1. Think of an issue related to racial inequality and use one of the frameworks discussed in this
chapter to explain it. Justify your selection of this framework over the others.
2. What are some of the key differences between systemic racism and structural racism, and how
might they shape your research agenda?
3. Most of the scholars cited in the section on intersectionality are women of color. Why do you
think these scholars have been at the head of these debates and discussions?

Quiz: Racial Ideologies and Sociological Theories of Racism

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Talking about Race

Structural ideas of racism help us understand how racial inequality can be reproduced even in
the absence of overtly racist acts. What racial disparities in your community could be ex-
plained by a structural theory? How can you use what you have learned in this chapter to ex-
plain such disparities? Some examples might include a lack of green spaces in nonwhite
neighborhoods, a preponderance of minorities in lower-quality schools, or a concentration of
nonwhites in poorer areas of the city.
 3
Racism and Nativism in Im-
migration Policy

CHAPTER OUTLINE
• Voices: Robert Bautista—Denied Due Process
3.1 The Racialized History of U.S. Immigration Policy
3.2 Illegal Immigration and Policy Response
• Voices: Hector, a Guatemalan Deportee
3.3 Nativism in the Twenty-First Century
• Voices: The Zarour Family
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
3.1 Examine the racialized history of U.S. immigration policy.
3.2 Describe U.S. policy responses to undocumented immigration.
3.3 Analyze the relationship between nativism and racism in the twenty-first century.

A s of 2017, over 40,000 men, women, and children behind bars in the United States are not
waiting for a trial and are not serving time for a crime. These people are not citizens of the
United States and are held in preventive detention, mostly waiting to find out if they will be de-
ported to their countries of birth. Some have already been ordered deported and are waiting for the
day of their deportation. Many are asylum seekers, fleeing persecution in their home countries.
The detention of immigrants in the United States is just one aspect of our immigration law en-
forcement system. Today, as in the past, our harsh immigration policies primarily affect people
who are considered nonwhite. This chapter considers the history of immigration policy in the Unit-
ed States and the extent to which racist and nativist sentiments have played a role in U.S. immigra-
tion legislation. Although the country’s immigration policy has shifted dramatically over the years,
two trends have remained constant: (1) nativism has always been an integral part of debates over
immigration policy, and (2) the consequences of immigration policy have been more disadvanta-
geous to people considered nonwhite than to those considered white. What has changed over time
is the removal of explicitly discriminatory language from U.S. immigration laws. This chapter ex-
plores how immigration laws can have racially disparate consequences, even when the laws do not
mention race. Whereas racism presumes the superiority of a racial group, nativism presumes the
superiority of native-born citizens, favoring the allocation of resources to them over immigrants
and promoting a fear of foreign cultures.
As Robert Bautista’s story makes clear (see Voices on p. 66), U.S. immigration policy can be
draconian—even long-term legal residents can have their rights stripped away for minor transgres-
sions of the law. In this chapter, we explore the history of U.S. immigration policy, as well as
present-day laws and policies. The historical overview shows how lawmakers have used immigra-
tion policy to influence the racial and ethnic makeup of the nation. In this process, racism and na-
tivism often have become indistinguishable.
Immigration policy continues to be at the forefront of the political agenda in the United States
today. It is hard to imagine a time when the country had no immigration policy, yet just one hun-
dred years ago, there was no Border Patrol, and passports and visas were not required to enter the
United States. When the United States began to pass immigration laws governing the entry and
residency conditions of the foreign-born at the end of the nineteenth century, the laws were overtly
racialized and expressed a clear preference for people from northern and western Europe.

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Voices
Robert Bautista—Denied Due Process
In 2009, immigration agents arrested Robert Bautista as he was returning from vacation in the Dominican Re-
public, his country of birth. Once arrested, Mr. Bautista was placed in detention without the possibility of a bond
hearing. He had been a legal permanent resident of the United States for twenty-five years, had been married for
over a decade, had three school-age children, and was the owner of a successful business in Pennsylvania. His
mandatory detention caused his business to be destroyed and his family to lose their home. His children, all of
whom are U.S. citizens, had to bear witness to their father being treated as if he were a criminal, but without the
procedural protections normally accorded to people charged with crimes.
Mr. Bautista’s immigration detention was not pursuant to any criminal convictions. In 2002, Mr. Bautista had
been found guilty of third-degree attempted arson for carrying a container of gasoline near his own vehicle, but
by 2009 he had completed his parole. When immigration agents arrested him, it was not because he was being
charged with a new crime. Instead, he was detained because the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ruled
that his 2002 conviction was a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT). Because of this prior conviction, Mr.
Bautista was considered to be seeking admission to the United States, as if he were not present in the country
and as if he had not been living and working in the country for over two decades. As a person not technically in-
side the United States, Mr. Bautista was not protected by the Constitution.
Just one hour before his immigration hearing, DHS made an additional argument: that third-degree attempted
arson is also an aggravated felony, meaning that Mr. Bautista would be subject to mandatory detention and de-
portation without judicial review. In such a case, it does not matter if you have lived in the United States for
three decades, if you have three children, if you have no relatives in your country of origin, or if your family de-
pends on you for their survival. Noncitizens convicted of aggravated felonies are not given a fair and reasonable
hearing of the sort that would meet international human rights standards.
In October 2011, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) heard Mr. Bautista’s case and decided that third-
degree attempted arson is an aggravated felony, as DHS had charged. This determination means that Mr. Bautista
could not challenge his deportation on the basis of his ties to the United States. Instead, he faced mandatory de-
portation to the Dominican Republic, where he would be labeled a criminal deportee and face a bleak future. The
Dominican government treats arriving criminal deportees as if they are criminals. They are booked at the city
jail, and their deportation is recorded on their criminal record, making it nearly impossible to secure
employment.
If Mr. Bautista had been afforded the due process protections we give to criminals, he would have had a bond
hearing and likely would not have been detained for over two years. Instead, he would have had the opportunity
for a trial in which a judge could weigh the equities in his case, and he may have been eligible for a public de-
fender. Mr. Bautista was fortunate that a lawyer decided to take his case pro bono. With the help of this lawyer,
in February 2014, in an appeals case, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals found that third-degree attempted
arson is not an aggravated felony, thereby overturning the BIA decision and permitting Bautista to apply for can-
cellation of removal.

Source: Golash-Boza 2012a; Bautista v. Attorney General of the United States, No. A038-509-855 (3rd Cir. LAR
34.1(a) September 20, 2012).
3.1 THE RACIALIZED HISTORY OF U.S. IMMIGRATION
POLICY
The history of U.S. immigration policy is a reflection of societal racism and nativism. As various
scholars have noted (e.g., Lippard 2011; Sanchez 1997; Johnson 2004), racist nativism is a prom-
inent feature of contemporary American society: the fear of foreigners is clearly racialized, and
nativist sentiments are directed at particular racial groups, such as Mexicans and people from the
Middle East. Through an examination of the history of immigration policy and nativist responses
to immigration, we will see how nativism and racism have been intertwined in U.S. history and
how nativism today is distinct from that of the past.

Race and the Making of U.S. Immigration Policies: 1790 to 1924

The United States was a sovereign nation for a full century before immigration restrictions became
a subject of political debate, let alone law. Although the country did not begin to pass immigration
laws until the late 1800s, Congress passed an important piece of legislation in 1790 related to peo-
ple born abroad. The Naturalization Act of 1790 was not an immigration policy in that it did not
regulate entry; instead, it stated that only free white persons who had lived in the United States for
at least two years were eligible for citizenship. This first piece of legislation related to the foreign-
born is particularly notable because it contained a racialized provision, defining citizenship as ac-
cessible solely to whites. The purpose of this clause was to deny citizenship to African-descended
slaves, and it was later used to deny Asians naturalization, or the granting of citizenship after
birth.
When large numbers of immigrants began to arrive on the shores of the United States fifty years
after passage of the Naturalization Act of 1790, the question of who was white gained importance.
Between 1846 and 1855, over 3 million immigrants came to the United States, including
1,288,307 from Ireland and 975,311 from Germany. Jewish immigrants from Germany and eastern
Europe encountered numerous forms of anti-Semitism: discrimination, hostility, or prejudice
specifically against Jews. Labor, housing, and educational discrimination has led some scholars to
contend that Jews were not viewed as white in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
(Brodkin 1998). There is no reason to believe that the millions of Irish who came to the United
States in the mid-nineteenth century thought of themselves as “white” when they lived in Ireland.
In a context in which everyone is Irish, whiteness has little meaning. As each of these groups inte-
grated into the United States, they experienced both a process of assimilation, through which Irish,
Italians, and Germans became Americans, and a process of racialization, through which Celts,
Jews, and Mediterraneans became white. This process was not smooth, as Irish faced discrimina-
tion, and Italians and Jews were lynched in the South alongside African Americans (Jacobson
1998). Racialized fears of European and Asian immigrants eventually translated into laws that
ended these immigration flows.
TIMELINE

U.S. Immigration and Deportation Policy

1790 Naturalization Act
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
 1924 Immigration Act (Johnson–Reed Act)
1924 Creation of Border Patrol
1942–1964 Bracero program
1943 Repeal of Chinese Exclusion Act
1950–1954 Operation Wetback
1965 Immigration and Nationality Act
1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act
1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA)
1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)
1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)

The first major piece of immigration legislation was the Chinese Exclusion Act, signed into
law in 1882. This act denied entry to one specific group: Chinese laborers. In specifically exclud-
ing a group because of race and class, the Chinese Exclusion Act set the stage for twentieth-centu-
ry immigration policy, which had both overt and covert racial and class biases (E. Lee 2002). Al-
though the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943, the court cases that stemmed from it con-
tinue to shape how we treat immigrants today.
The Chinese Exclusion Act compelled the federal government to put into place the bureaucratic
machinery needed to patrol the borders of the country. As the act excluded specific groups of peo-
ple from entering the United States, it required that the government establish immigration controls
and checks. The act required the creation of an immigration inspection force, one that eventually
would evolve into the Border Patrol. It further required the creation of certificates of residence—
the precursors to today’s “green cards”—for Chinese individuals who were permitted to remain in
the United States. It was not until 1928 that other immigrants had to carry proof of legal presence.
In 1940, these cards were replaced by “alien registration cards,” which continue to be used today
(Lee 2002).
An 1893 landmark Supreme Court case, Fong Yue Ting v. United States, involved three Chinese
nationals who claimed they deserved constitutional protections in their deportation cases. The
court held that the power to deport noncitizens was inherent in the nature of sovereignty and that
constitutional protections, including the right to a trial by jury, did not apply. This case defined de-
portation as simply an administrative procedure and not a punishment. The idea of deportation as a
nonpunitive action was based on a distinction between deportation and banishment. Banishment
removes a person from a country where he or she belongs, whereas deportation returns a person to
where he or she belongs and thus is not considered a punishment. According to the Fong Yue Ting
decision, which still holds in court today, deportation is a procedure to ensure that people abide by
the terms of their visas. When they do not, they face the possibility of being returned to where they
belong. It is remarkable that this court decision, which was made in the context of strong anti-Chi-
nese sentiment, continues to hold the status of legal precedent today.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in the midst of a great wave of immigrants from both
Europe and China. In the 1840s, the United States began to experience large-scale immigration for
the first time since its founding. This influx dramatically changed both the country’s cultural land-
scape and its official stance toward immigrants. Between 1841 and 1850, 1.7 million immigrants
arrived in the United States (see Figure 3-1), and in the following decade, 2.6 million arrived. In
1870, immigrants constituted nearly 14 percent of the total population. In each subsequent decade
until 1924, millions continued to arrive. Toward the end of this wave of immigrants in the early
twentieth century, the United States began to implement policies governing the entry of the for-
eign-born.
FIGURE 3-1
IMMIGRANTS AS TOTAL NUMBER AND AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE U.S. POPULA-
TION, 1850–2015

Source: Migration Policy Institute (2015).

The Immigration Act of 1917 expanded the Chinese Exclusion Act to deny entry to anyone
coming from the “Asiatic Barred Zone,” which included India, Burma, the Malay States, Arabia,
and Afghanistan (Calavita 2000; Lee 2002). Between 1917 and 1952, the United States placed
strict immigration limits on people from Asia while welcoming those from preferred European
countries. The intent behind these laws was to improve the racial composition of the United States.
In 1924, the U.S. Congress implemented the overtly racialized Immigration Act of 1924, or the
Johnson-Reed Act, which greatly reduced immigration from southern and eastern Europe by in-
troducing quotas, or limits on the number of people from these countries who were allowed to en-
ter the United States. The Johnson–Reed Act was overtly racist in that it was designed to increase
the Nordic population in the United States and halt the growth of other groups. The act made pass-
ports and visas a requirement for entry to the United States and established national-origin quotas
for European immigrants. These quotas dictated the number of immigrants who could enter the
United States in any given year. Calculated on the basis of the U.S. population’s composition in
1890, the quotas were applicable only to the European population. Specifically, the law stipulated
that the quotas not take into account the following four groups: (1) immigrants from the Western
Hemisphere, (2) aliens ineligible for citizenship (i.e., Asians), (3) the descendants of slaves, and
(4) Native Americans. By basing national-origin quotas exclusively on the European population at
the time, the law made it clear that Africans, Asians, and Native Americans were not considered to
be part of the nation (Ngai 2004).
The Johnson–Reed Act was implemented through the lobbying efforts of the eugenics move-
ment (see Chapter 1). Eugenicists advocated the selective breeding of Americans, the sterilization
of the biologically unfit, and selective immigration policies as a way of creating a superior breed
of people. Members of Congress took the ideas of eugenicists into account when they voted to re-
strict the immigration of people they deemed undesirable immigrants and to promote the immigra-
tion of those whom they expected might improve the American stock. The quotas that took effect
in 1929 reflect these preferences: Great Britain and Northern Ireland were granted a quota of
65,271 immigrants; Italy, 5,802; Yugoslavia, 845; and most African and Asian countries, 100
(Ngai 2004).

Nativism Between 1924 and 1964

The period between 1924 and 1964 was an exceptional period in U.S. history in that the country
welcomed relatively few immigrants. The 1924 measures significantly curbed the flow of immi-
grants until the 1965 overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. These trends are evident in Figure 3-1
and in Figure 3-2, which displays the number of people who attained legal permanent resident sta-
tus by decade. A legal permanent resident is a foreign national who is granted the right to remain
in the United States and who will be eligible for naturalization after a period of three to five years.
To become a U.S. citizen today, a legal permanent resident must have been a permanent resident
for at least five years if he or she is not married to a U.S. citizen or for at least three years if he or
she is the spouse of a U.S. citizen. The applicant must also be a person of good moral character;
have basic knowledge of U.S. history and government; and, in most cases, be able to read, write,
and speak basic English. In addition, the applicant must pay the filing fees, which were $725 in
2018.

FIGURE 3-2
NUMBER OF PEOPLE TO ATTAIN LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENT STATUS IN THE
UNITED STATES BY DECADE, 1820–2015

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics (2015).

Mass Deportation of Mexicans

Mexicans have a long history of immigration to the United States. The first group of Mexicans to
enter the United States were not immigrants, however, but became Americans following the U.S.
takeover of large swaths of Mexican land under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The first
substantial wave of Mexican immigrants came between 1910 and 1930, when the Mexican immi-
grant population tripled from 200,000 to 600,000. This wave was due largely to instability caused
by the Mexican Revolution and to the growth of agribusiness in the United States (Massey, Du-
rand, and Malone 2002; Ngai 2004; Hernandez 2010).
The second wave of Mexican immigration came during the bracero program (1942–1964).
Under this program, created by the U.S government to meet labor shortages caused by World War
II, 4.6 million Mexicans, called braceros (a Spanish term that can be roughly translated as
“farmhands”), came to work in agriculture in the United States. Mexicans also continued to immi-
grate to the United States illegally because not all workers qualified for the bracero program and
the costs associated with immigrating as a bracero were prohibitive to some.
The United States carried out mass deportations of Mexicans twice during this period, first in
the 1930s and again in the 1950s, when the bracero program was in full swing. The United States
deported 1,751 Mexicans in 1925, but this number increased dramatically to 15,000 in 1929, when
the U.S. stock market crash triggered the onset of the Great Depression. Subsequently, the Immi-
gration and Naturalization Service, in cooperation with local officials, mounted a repatriation cam-
paign, under which over 400,000 people of Mexican origin were returned to Mexico (Ngai 2004).
In the 1950s, the U.S. Border Patrol deported over a million Mexican immigrants under Operation
Wetback.
World War II created a Mexican American middle class, and during this time Mexicans were
also accorded an improved social standing in the borderlands. By the late 1940s, “No Mexicans
Allowed” signs had disappeared, and high schools were increasingly integrated. At the same time,
the Border Patrol became more firmly entrenched as part of the federal government, meaning that
its policies often reflected Washington’s interests more than local interests along the border. This
shift created tensions, as ranchers and farmers in Texas wanted to employ undocumented Mexi-
cans, whereas it was the duty of Border Patrol agents to stop immigrants from crossing over (Her-
nandez 2010).

Mexican workers in a flax field, 1946. The U.S. government’s bracero program (1942–1964) sparked a wave of
immigration from Mexico, but in the 1950s, an initiative known as Operation Wetback led to deportations.

In 1950, the Border Patrol began massive roundups of Mexicans in a series of operations that
would come to be known as Operation Wetback. One example of an Operation Wetback raid
happened on July 30, 1952. At dawn, about one hundred Border Patrol agents began to arrest Mex-
icans by the hundreds in an area near Brownsville, Texas. By the end of the day, they had made
5,000 arrests and had transported all of those people to the bridge that led back to Mexico. These
sorts of roundups continued through 1954. In October 1954, the Border Patrol announced it had
deported more than one million Mexican immigrants. These mass arrests created fear and tension
in immigrant communities, as Mexicans were forced to leave their loved ones, their belongings,
and their lives in the United States and return to Mexico (Hernandez 2010).
The McCarran Internal Security Act
Mexicans were not the only target of nativism during this period; at the same time, the United
States was gripped by a pervasive fear of Communism, which was portrayed as a product of for-
eign influence. The McCarran Internal Security Act, signed into law in 1950, was designed to
combat Communism, both outside and within the borders of the United States. Anyone in the
United States who was affiliated with the Communist Party was required to register with the feder-
al government. In addition, this act allowed for the deportation of foreign nationals who were
members of the Communist Party. Between 1946 and 1966, deportation proceedings were initiated
against 15,000 foreign nationals on ideological grounds (primarily because they were Communists
or suspected Communists). Of the 15,000 people put into deportation proceedings, 253 were de-
ported. Deportation for ideological reasons remained legal until the Immigration Act of 1990 re-
pealed these provisions (Török 2004).

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the Changing Face of Immigration
One of the most significant changes to U.S. immigration law in the twentieth century was the 1965
Immigration and Nationality Act, also called the 1965 Hart–Cellar Act. This act put an end to
the racially biased quotas set forth in the Immigration Act of 1924. In the spirit of the civil rights
movement, the 1965 act set a universal quota of 20,000 immigrants for every country in the world.
Each country could send up to 20,000 qualified immigrants a year, with no racial restrictions. Po-
tential immigrants could now qualify for entry based on either family ties to the United States (rel-
atives could petition for their entry) or their skills (employers could request immigrants based on
their skills and education). The 1965 act had two main consequences: (1) it increased immigration
from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean; and (2) it increased undocumented immigration
from Mexico.

Asian Immigration
Historically, immigrants from India, China, Japan, the Philippines, and Korea had come to the
United States to work as laborers. However, the longstanding prohibitions on Asian immigration
between 1882 and 1965 greatly decreased Asian immigration. The 1965 act opened up the possi-
bility of immigration from Asia by removing racial quotas, and large numbers of Asians began to
migrate to the United States once again.
Between 1820 and 1849, only 210 people came to the United States from Asia as legal perma-
nent residents. In the 1850s, 36,080 people from Asia became legal permanent residents. Asian im-
migration peaked in the first decade of the twentieth century, with nearly 300,000 people from
Asia becoming legal permanent residents. After the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act, this
number dropped off, and only 19,231 Asians gained legal permanent residency in the 1930s. Asian
immigration again increased in the 1950s to 135,000 and then increased exponentially to nearly
1.5 million in the 1970s, 2.4 million in the 1980s, and 2.9 million in the 1990s (see Figure 3-3). In
the first decade of the twentieth century, almost 3.5 million Asians became legal permanent resi-
dents. The most prominent countries of origin of Asian immigrants today are China, the Philip-
pines, India, Korea, and Vietnam—each with its own history of immigration to the United States.
By 2015, Asia was the largest sending region for legal permanent residents. In that year, 419,297
Asians (40 percent of the total) became legal permanent residents of the United States (Baugh and
Wistman 2017).
FIGURE 3-3
NUMBER OF ASIANS TO ATTAIN LEGAL U.S. PERMANENT RESIDENT STATUS, BY
DECADE

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics (2010).

Immigration from Asia increased dramatically with the passage of the 1965 Immigration and
Nationality Act. Asians did not come from every country in the region, but specifically from coun-
tries with which the United States had longstanding ties. In fact, with the exception of Vietnam,
those Asian countries that send large numbers of immigrant to the United States today are the
same countries that sent substantial numbers of immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twenti-
eth centuries. These immigration patterns can be directly linked to both family ties and high skills
provisions in the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
Chinese immigrants to the United States predate many other immigrant groups; the large-scale
migration of Chinese to the United States began when U.S. contractors recruited laborers to build
railroads in the mid-nineteenth century. Around the same time, recruiters in Hawaii (which would
not become a U.S. state until 1959) brought tens of thousands of Chinese migrants to work in agri-
culture and other industries. Chinese immigration peaked in the 1870s, with 133,000 Chinese be-
coming legal permanent residents of the United States. Following the Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882, however, immigration dropped off dramatically and did not begin to rise again until decades
after the act was repealed in 1943.
Following the 1943 repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigration to the United
States slowly began to pick up again. The presence of Chinese immigrants and their descendants in
the United States facilitated future waves of immigration. In the 1980s, 171,000 Chinese immi-
grated to the United States. Chinese immigration increased in the next decade to 342,000 and to
592,000 in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
The United States has a longstanding relationship with the Philippines, as well as a protracted
migration history. This helps explain why this relatively small (with a population of 88 million,
compared to China and India’s billion-plus people) and quite distant country sends large numbers
of its nationals to the United States. The Philippines was a U.S. colony from 1898 until 1946.
From 1898 to 1934, Filipinos were American nationals and could freely come to the United States.
Many were recruited as laborers by Hawaiian sugar plantations, and by 1931, around 113,000 had
migrated to Hawaii alone. Manufacturers and vineyard owners in California also recruited Fil-
ipinos as workers, attracting over 5,000 to the mainland by 1920. With the passage of the 1924 Im-
migration Act, which ended the flow of Japanese laborers, agribusiness turned to Mexican and Fil-
ipino labor, such that by 1930, there were 56,000 Filipinos on the West Coast. As the numbers of
Filipinos began to increase in the 1920s, whites increasingly began to see Filipinos as a problem
and a threat. In 1929, the California legislature asked Congress to restrict Filipino immigration.
Congress eventually responded by passing the Tydings-McDuffe Act in 1934, which limited Fil-
ipino immigration to an annual quota of fifty—the smallest of any country. The onset of World
War II and racial violence on the West Coast also contributed to slowing Filipino immigration. Be-
tween 1946 and 1965, 33,000 Filipinos immigrated to the United States, nearly half of whom were
wives of U.S. servicemen (Liu, Ong, and Rosenstein 1991; White, Biddlecom, and Guo 1993;
Ngai 2004).
As with other countries, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act changed immigration pat-
terns from the Philippines to the United States. Between 1965 and 1985, about 667,000 Filipinos
obtained visas to come to the United States. These Filipino migrants consisted of two groups of
people. The first group, which constituted about two-thirds of Filipino immigrants, came on family
reunification visas from the networks of the pre-1965 migrants. The second group included mi-
grants who obtained employment visas, mostly as professionals and other highly trained individu-
als (Liu et al. 1991). In 2015, 5 percent of all new legal permanent residents were from the Philip-
pines, making it the fourth-largest sending country (Baugh and Wistman 2017).
India is another country that sent large numbers of immigrants to the United States prior to pas-
sage of the Johnson-Reed Act. As with other Asian countries, immigration from India resumed af-
ter 1965. Between 1966 and 1981, a total of 215,640 Asian Indians came to the United States. This
rate of 14,376 immigrants per year is twenty times higher than the rate at the previous peak in the
period just before World War I. The majority of these new immigrants were professionals, with
less than 1 percent working in farm labor occupations (Gonzales 1986). In 2015, India was the
third-largest sending country for legal permanent residents, as 64,116 Indians became legal perma-
nent residents that year (Baugh and Wistman 2017).
The pattern is similar for Korea. Over 7,000 Koreans migrated to Hawaii to work on sugar plan-
tations between 1903 and 1905. Korean migration was cut off, first as a result of restrictions placed
on emigration by the Japanese imperial power and later by the 1924 restrictions. These restrictions
were lifted in the aftermath of the Korean War (1950–1953), and more than 3,000 Koreans were
admitted between 1950 and 1965, the vast majority of whom were wives of U.S. servicemen sta-
tioned in Korea. With passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, Koreans quickly be-
came one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States. In 1965, a total of 2,165 Koreans
entered the United States. In 1970, the figure was 9,314. And in 1977, the number increased to
30,917 (Reimers 1981; Min 1990). Between 1975 and 1990, Korea sent more immigrants to the
United States than any other country, with the exception of Mexico and the Philippines. Korean
immigrants were relatively highly educated, and 30 percent in the 1970s came on skills-based
visas. The remaining 70 percent came on family reunification visas (Min 1990).
Vietnam is distinct from the other Asian countries in that there were almost no Vietnamese in
the United States in the early twentieth century, or even prior to the Vietnam War. Today, there are
over one million Vietnamese in the United States. The first wave came as refugees; between 1971
and 1980, 150,000 Vietnamese were admitted to the United States (White, Biddlecom, and Guo
1993). The reunification provisions of the 1965 act led to the growth of the Vietnamese population
in the United States well after the Vietnam War ended (Kelly 1986). Those Vietnamese who were
in the United States already had the right to bring their family members to the country under the
family reunification provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Legal immigration through
family reunification policies, combined with illegal immigration, led to the continued growth of
the Vietnamese population. The 2000 census reported the presence of over one million Viet-
namese, nearly a quarter of whom had been born in the United States (Hoefer, Rytina, and Camp-
bell 2007). In 2010, Vietnam came in at number nine in the list of the top twenty countries sending
legal permanent residents to the United States, with 310,000 Vietnamese legal permanent residents
in the country (Rytina 2011). Three other countries in Asia had larger populations of legal perma-
nent residents in the United States: the Philippines (560,000), China (550,000), and India
(500,000).
Figure 3-4 shows the distribution of the population of undocumented immigrants in the United
States in 2013: 56 percent of undocumented migrants in the United States come from Mexico, 15
percent from Central America, and 14 percent from Asia.

FIGURE 3-4
REGION OF BIRTH OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS RESIDING IN THE UNIT-
ED STATES, 2013

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics (2015).

Latin American and Caribbean Immigration

As noted earlier, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act instituted quotas of 20,000 immigrants
per country. At first glance, this blanket quota may seem fair. However, most of the 180-plus coun-
tries in the world do not send 20,000 immigrants per year to the United States, and a handful of
countries send many more. Mexico is a case in point. Prior to 1965, there were no limits on the
number of immigrants that could be admitted from Mexico, and tens of thousands of Mexicans
came to the United States each year. The 1965 act initially established a ceiling of 120,000 immi-
grant visas for the entire Western Hemisphere. In 1976, the law came fully into effect, and a quota
of 20,000 immigrants per year was extended to all countries in the Western Hemisphere, including
Mexico (Joppke 1998). The imposition of a quota of 20,000 immigrants from Mexico was unreal-
istic in the 1970s because of the need for Mexican labor and the desire of many Mexicans to work
in the United States.
The restrictions on the number of immigrants from countries in the Western Hemisphere did not
end large-scale migration from Mexico. Because many employers depended on Mexican labor to
thrive, workers came illegally to the United States. At this time, there were hardly any Border Pa-
trol agents, and it was easy for Mexicans to enter the United States illegally. Thus, Mexicans con-
tinued to arrive. The imbalance between the quota and the need for Mexican labor to sustain eco-
nomic growth in the United States led to increased undocumented immigration (Massey et al.
2002).
The first Mexicans who came to be part of the United States never crossed a border. In 1848, the
United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which resulted in Mexico’s
loss of almost half of its territory. Mexico surrendered its control over California, Nevada, Utah,
Texas, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming in exchange for $15 million.
The first wave of Mexican migrants came in the early twentieth century. Up until the 1970s, over
80 percent of Mexicans who came to the United States were temporary farm workers. By 1997,
only 40 percent of Mexicans could be described as such (Massey et al. 2002). With the passage of
the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the subsequent 1986 mass legalization laws, in-
creasing numbers of Mexicans have chosen to reside permanently in the United States. Figure 3-5
shows the number of people who obtained legal permanent resident status who were from Latin
America and the Caribbean (all of the Americas except for Canada).

FIGURE 3-5
PERSONS FROM THE AMERICAS ATTAINING LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENT
STATUS, 1820–PRESENT

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics (2010).

Central Americans have been coming to the United States since the late nineteenth century, but
they did not begin to arrive in large numbers until the 1960s, with the passage of the 1965 Immi-
gration and Nationality Act. Around 8,000 Central Americans entered the United States legally be-
tween 1900 and 1910; this number increased to 17,000 in the next decade, around 6,000 in the
1930s, 21,000 in the 1940s, and about 45,000 in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the presence of U.S.
companies in Central America increased, with a concomitant increase in the presence of Central
Americans in the United States. Between 1971 and 1980, more than 130,000 Central Americans
legally entered the United States (Hamilton and Chinchilla 1991).
In the 1980s, immigration to the United States from El Salvador and other Central American
countries increased rapidly as a result of both political violence in Central America and the eco-
nomic setbacks that this violence entailed (Hamilton and Chinchilla 1991). In neighboring Ni-
caragua, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency financed and organized a counterrevolution against
the Sandinista government. In El Salvador, the U.S. government supplied military equipment to
the government in the 1980s, which was used to kill thousands of civilians (Hamilton and Chin-
chilla 1991). As part of its Cold War strategy, the U.S. government also supplied the Salvadoran
government with more than $6 billion in military and economic aid between 1980 and 1992 (Quan
2005). The civil war in El Salvador caused massive population displacements, and many of those
displaced came to the United States. While the conditions in El Salvador were the motivation for
leaving, the nation’s longstanding ties to the United States turned the latter country into a preferred
destination when Salvadorans began to seek refuge (Menjívar 2000).
Immigrants have been coming to the United States from the Caribbean as long as the nation has
been keeping records. Between 1820 and 1900, nearly 90,000 people from the Caribbean came to
the United States. Immigration from this region reached a peak in the first three decades of the
twentieth century, when 300,000 people from the Caribbean became legal permanent residents. In
the last three decades of the twentieth century, 2.5 million people from the Caribbean became legal
permanent residents of the United States. Another million migrated legally in the first decade of
the twenty-first century (Golash-Boza 2012b). Since the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Na-
tionality Act, large numbers of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Jamaica have
entered the country.
The United States has been heavily involved in the affairs of the Dominican Republic and has
been the destination of many immigrants as a consequence of this close relationship. Between
1961 and 1968, for example, the United States was closely entangled in the Dominican Republic’s
presidential elections, to the point of ensuring that the democratically elected left-wing president
Juan Bosch was ousted in 1965. This time of intense involvement in the Dominican Republic coin-
cided with the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which paved the way for Do-
minicans to enter the United States. During this time, more people from the Dominican Republic
entered the United States than from any other country in the Western Hemisphere except Mexico.
Emigration from the Dominican Republic has continued to rise. By 1980, there were 169,000 Do-
minican immigrants in the United States. By 1990, there were 348,000, and by 2012, there were
nearly a million (Garrison and Weiss 1979; Hernández 2004; Nwosu and Batalova 2014).
Cuba is another Caribbean country that has had a longstanding relationship with the United
States. In the early twentieth century, more than 20,000 Cubans lived in the United States, and by
the end of the 1950s, that number was about 50,000. This population continued to increase follow-
ing Fidel Castro’s victory in the Cuban Revolution in 1959. By the end of the 1980s, there were
nearly one million Cubans in the United States (Perez 2003). The exiles who came in the early
1960s came because of a long history of U.S. military interventions into Cuba, with the expecta-
tion that the U.S. government would assist in ousting Castro’s government. Those migrants who
come today come more often because of economic than political motives and because of ties they
have in the United States, in the context of an immigration policy that has been generally favorable
toward Cubans. President Lyndon B. Johnson established an “open door” policy that encouraged
Cuban emigration. In the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton changed that policy to a “wet foot, dry
foot” policy that repatriated Cubans found at sea but allowed those who reached land to stay. In his
last days in office in January 2017, President Obama ended this policy, thereby ending Cuban mi-
grants’ special treatment (Eckstein and Barberia 2002; Perez 2003; Pew Hispanic Center 2006).
Relatively few Jamaicans came to the United States prior to 1965, in part because Jamaicans
were primarily emigrating elsewhere: to Central America, other islands, and Great Britain. How-
ever, just as Great Britain passed a series of restrictive immigration laws in the 1960s, the United
States passed the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which facilitated the increased immigra-
tion of Jamaicans on skills- and family-based visas. By 2009, there were about 637,000 Jamaican
migrants in the United States (Glennie and Chappell 2010). Nearly half of Jamaicans in the United
States live in New York City, and another 28 percent live in southern Florida. There are also signif-
icant populations in Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta (Vickerman 1999).
Notably, over half of Jamaican migrants to the United States are women (Foner 2008; Glennie and
Chappell 2010).
Migrants to the United States from Puerto Rico are not technically immigrants, as Puerto Ricans
are U.S. citizens. Nevertheless, Puerto Ricans share a similar migration history with other Car-
ibbean countries, in terms of its relationship to the U.S. mainland. Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the
United States in 1898, and the island became a U.S. territory. In 1917, Puerto Ricans became citi-
zens of the United States. Shortly thereafter, employers in the United States began to recruit Puerto
Ricans to work in the mainland United States due to labor shortages caused by World War I. The
recruitment of Puerto Ricans—and thus the migration— intensified in the aftermath of World War
II when labor shortages in the mainland United States were even more severe. Just as Mexicans
filled key labor needs in the western and southwestern United States during this time, Puerto Ri-
cans were the primary source of migrant labor in the northeastern United States in the aftermath of
World War II. The post–World War II period of massive migration of Puerto Ricans to the north-
eastern United States is often referred to as the “Great Migration” owing to the large numbers of
Puerto Ricans who left the island. This migration tapered off in the late 1960s and 1970s, as mi-
grants from other Caribbean countries were able to more easily migrate to the United States fol-
lowing the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act (Portes and Grosfoguel 1994). There has been a
resurgence of migration from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States in recent years, related to
a protracted economic crisis on the island. Between 2010 and 2013, an average of 48,000 Puerto
Ricans left the island each year, which is over three times the average number that left each year in
the 1980s and 1990s. By 2012, about 1.4 million Puerto Ricans were living on the mainland
(Cohn, Patten, and Lopez 2014). The number of Puerto Ricans in Florida increased yet again fol-
lowing devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017.
3.3 NATIVISM IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
At the end of the twentieth century, the United States witnessed a surge in nativism not seen since
the 1920s. Because this nativism was directed primarily at new immigrants—Asians and Latin
Americans—it can be difficult to disentangle it from racism.
Historian George Sanchez (1997) suggests that three factors distinguish the racialized nativism
of today from that of a century ago:

The rise of extreme antipathy toward languages other than English. This is exemplified in a
campaign some people have launched against having to “press 1 for English” when trying to
reach customer service or townspeople’s insistence that libraries not purchase books in lan-
guages other than English.
The concern that Asian, Caribbean, and Latin American immigrants are taking advantage of af-
firmative action programs designed to help native-born minorities, especially African Ameri-
cans. This can be seen in conversations regarding the high numbers of West Indians entering Ivy
League schools.
The worry that immigrants are draining public resources through the overuse of welfare, educa-
tion, and health care services. This sentiment persists even though laws passed in 1996 severely
limit immigrants’ access to welfare and health services. The Supreme Court decided in Plyler v.
Doe in 1982 that any child in the United States has the right to an education. It is indicative of
the strong sense of nativism that exists in the United States today that a politician or pundit can
suggest that the children of foreigners are draining our funds by attending public schools, in-
stead of seeing the education of children—both immigrant and native-born—as an investment in
the future of this country.

The rise of nativism in the United States is closely tied to economic uncertainties. Nativism in
the 1920s was connected to the country’s difficult transition from a primarily agricultural economy
to a massively industrialized one. At the end of the twentieth century, the United States experi-
enced rapid deindustrialization and the rise of a service-oriented economy. These structural
changes in the economy produced economic uncertainty, especially among the working class and
poor. Moreover, as native-born black, white, and Latinx people have been displaced from factory
jobs, immigrants have come in to fill jobs in the service sector. As the economy has shifted, native-
born workers have not always been able to retool their skill sets or displace themselves to areas of
high growth. The widespread perception that immigrants are “taking our jobs” is intimately tied to
the rise of nativism.
During Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he played into these fears using nativist and
racist language, running his campaign on an anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim platform. He made
calls to ban all Muslims from the United States. He referred to Mexicans as “rapists” and empha-
sized the importance of keeping out “bad hombres.” Moreover, he made specific promises to re-
voke the rights of immigrants. Trump’s rallying cry to “build a wall” played into his constituents’
racialized fears related to economic and demographic changes in the United States.
Donald Trump did not invent these discourses, but he did tap into them. Despite President Oba-
ma’s record-high deportations, many people in the United States argued that he was not doing
enough to fix what they viewed as the immigration “problem.” But Obama also issued an execu-
tive order—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—which granted reprieve from de-
portation and a work permit to qualified immigrants who arrived to the United States as minors.
Trump, however, rescinded DACA, taking a step backwards for the rights of immigrants.
During the Obama presidency, many states passed their own restrictive laws targeting immi-
grants. The first major state law was Arizona’s Senate Bill (SB) 1070, the Support Our Law En-
forcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. This law was followed closely by Alabama’s 2011 House
Bill (HB) 56, the Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act; and by Georgia’s HB 87, the Ille-
gal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011. Many of these laws have backfired: when
Alabama passed laws restricting the rights of undocumented people, the state experienced a mas-
sive outflow of immigrants. These immigrants left jobs behind that went unfilled, as immigrants in
Alabama who picked tomatoes for a living could not easily be replaced by the urban unemployed.
Native-born workers are unlikely to see the benefit of moving from the city to the countryside to
pick tomatoes. The idea that Alabama could simply rid itself of undocumented workers and there-
by fix its unemployment problem was ill conceived and riddled with nativist logic.
When Arizona SB 1070 went into effect in July 2010, it sparked national debate, protests, and
boycotts. The law required local law enforcement agents to determine the immigration status of
any person with whom they interacted during the course of their duties. This meant, for example,
that if a police officer responded to a call for domestic violence, he would be required to check the
immigration status of both the perpetrator and the victim, if he had reason to believe that either
might be in the country unlawfully. SB 1070 was subsequently modified with the enactment of HB
2162 on April 30, 2010, which changed the language such that police officers would only be re-
quired to check the immigration status of people during a lawful stop, detention, or arrest. With
these modified provisions, SB 1070 only required intervention in those cases in which a person
was suspected of violating state laws. These modifications relieved some concerns that the law
would make victims of crimes less likely to contact law enforcement officials, yet the possibility
of racial profiling remained a substantial problem. According to an amicus brief filed by the Amer-
ican Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) (2010, 5), “there is simply no unbiased means of
implementing the term ‘unlawful presence,’ because as a legal status there are no observable char-
acteristics of ‘unlawful presence,’ or readily available means by which a police officer could dis-
cern ‘unlawful presence’ in any stop, detention, or investigative encounter.” In 2012, a Supreme
Court decision blocked three provisions of the Arizona law, but it upheld the provision that re-
quired officers to demand papers from individuals. However, in 2016, the National Immigration
Law Center and other immigrants’ rights groups won a lawsuit against the state of Arizona. As a
result, officers are no longer required to ask for papers during stops, although they may do so at
their own discretion.
The nativist restrictions in immigration law sometimes also manifest as Islamophobia (discussed
in Chapter Two). One example is the “Muslim ban.” In January 2017, shortly after taking office,
Trump signed an Executive Order called Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into
the United States, temporarily banning the admission of people from seven majority-Muslim coun-
tries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The ban was implemented as flights
from these countries were in midair, which caused chaos and widespread panic. An outcry on so-
cial media followed, and thousands flocked to airports to protest the ban. There was also resistance
in the courts: several states and individual plaintiffs sued the federal government on the grounds
that the ban was not constitutional. In February 2017, a district judge in Washington State sus-
pended the ban nationwide with a temporary restraining order. Six days later, a district appeals
court upheld that ruling. In May 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10 to 3 against
Trump’s travel ban, reaffirming the lower court’s decision.
The underlying motive for the president’s desire to ban the admission of people from these sev-
en countries is Islamophobia, which manifests here as the fear that people from Muslim countries
are the most likely to commit acts of terrorism against the United States. This fear is unfounded.
The sum total of people killed by nationals from those seven countries between 1975 and 2015 is
zero (Nowrasteh 2017). The Muslim ban would not make America any safer, but it would have
harmful effects on the lives of many people, as the Voices story of the Zarour family shows.

Voices
The Zarour Family
The scent of black tea and rice wafts through the bare apartment the Zarour family has come to call home after
fleeing Syria.
It’s been three months since they arrived in El Cajon, [California,] home to the second-largest Iraqi diaspora in
the United States…. Starting a new life has been difficult, she says, but it is better than the alternative they es-
caped four years ago: the crack of strafing fire from government or rebel troops in what was once the city of
Homs, and explosions that left only gaping craters or rubble where bustling urban life once hummed….
Zarour, her husband, and their five children are among the nearly 800 Syrian refugees who arrived in San
Diego County last year and settled in El Cajon. California led the nation in resettlement of Syrian refugees in fis-
cal 2016, taking in 1,450 immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center…. Here, grocery store signs are in
English and Arabic. Posters advertise realty and investment services in both languages, alongside signs for con-
certs headlined by Arab pop stars.
At the downtown El Cajon farmers market, resettlement agencies set up booths to explain their services and
hand out ACLU pamphlets about the right to wear a hijab. Iraqi vendors work one table over, selling cilantro,
turnips and herbs from a community garden maintained by immigrants and refugees. A sign hanging from their
tent in Arabic asks shoppers not to haggle over vegetable prices….
The stress of starting anew has been amplified in recent weeks by President Trump’s executive order that
placed a 120-day ban on all refugee admissions and an indefinite suspension of admission for Syrian refugees.
The travel ban is on pause after a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order, but Zarour’s
husband, Ahmad, who still has family in Jordan and Syria, wonders whether the order will affect them.
“Why does he view us as terrorists? We are people looking to start a new life,” he says of Trump. “We aren’t
like that. We are Muslims, but we are very kind.” …
Two years after the Syrian civil war began, Zarour abandoned his small supermarket in Homs and gave up his
work molding custom ceilings. The family settled in Damascus before it, too, became too dangerous. They fled
to Zaatari refugee camp, a squalid but sprawling outpost near the Jordanian-Syrian border. They spent 20 days in
the camp before they moved to another town….
Early in their stay in Jordan, they registered as refugees with the United Nations. Eventually, after two years
of interviews, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees referred them for resettlement in the United States….
Adjusting to a new life in America has bruised the pride of a man accustomed to providing for his family.
He struggles to learn the skills taught in workshops mandated by resettlement agencies—basics such as learn-
ing English, navigating public transportation or how to open a bank account. Attending those classes is tied to
the financial aid the family receives.
To fit all seven people in their small two-bedroom apartment, the five children sleep wall-to-wall in the master
bedroom. He and his wife sleep in the spare room.
 The three couches in his living room were donated.
Before the war in Syria, he had a home of his own, lived near his siblings, and held a government job that
helped him pay the bills. As he places a glass of tea on the cardboard box he now uses as a coffee table, Zarour
wonders if he will ever find a piece of the happiness he once knew.

Source: Parvini 2017.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
How far have we come since 1882, the year the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act?
The immigration laws passed since 1965 in the United States do not have overt racial provisions
like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act or the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. We also have not seen any-
thing as egregious as the 1954 Operation Wetback. Laws with these names or provisions would be
untenable in the twenty-first-century United States. Nevertheless, we continue to see both the
racially uneven consequences of immigration laws and racialized sentiments directed at particular
national-origin and racial groups.
U.S. immigration policy has been racialized from the beginning. At the same time, the way
these policies have been racialized has changed over time, as racial ideologies have shifted. Na-
tivism has also consistently reared its head, though in different ways over time. Harvard professor
Aristide Zolberg titled his 2009 book on immigration policy A Nation by Design, hinting at the
ways that immigration policy has been deployed with the goal of creating an ideal populace. In
1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed to end the influx of Chinese laborers. The 1924 Im-
migration Act was designed to recruit immigrants from northern and western Europe and to ex-
clude immigrants from the rest of the world. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act was
passed in the name of civil rights and ostensibly to create a diverse society, and yet it ended up cre-
ating a large undocumented Mexican population. The 1986 laws were passed with the hope of end-
ing immigration. When that did not work, the 1996 laws made life for immigrants more difficult
and precarious. The current state laws are designed with the hope that immigrants will self-deport.
Each of these laws was proposed because of a vision lawmakers had for society. But the United
States is a changing nation. Soon, the country will no longer have a white Anglo majority. As the
United States changes, whites can either become more accepting of differences or reject those dif-
ferences more forcefully. What do you think will happen? What do you think should happen?

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

THE UNITED STATES has a long history of immigration from around the world and an equally long his-
tory of welcoming some immigrants while barring or discouraging others. Since the 1960s, the vast majori-
ty of immigrants to the United States have been nonwhite. In this context, is it possible to have laws that
discriminate against immigrants without being racially discriminatory?

Key Terms
nativism
Naturalization Act of 1790
naturalization
Chinese Exclusion Act
Immigration Act of 1917
Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act)
legal permanent resident
bracero program
Operation Wetback
McCarran Internal Security Act
1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart–Cellar Act)
1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA)
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

3.1 Examine the racialized history of U.S. immigration policy.
Nativism and racism have been intertwined in U.S. immigration policies since the beginning of the
nation’s history. The first piece of immigration legislation was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.
Laws continued to be racialized over the course of the twentieth century.
What is the significance of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the court cases that stemmed from it?
Why was Operation Wetback important?
How have immigration flows and quotas changed since the 1850s?

3.2 Describe U.S. policy responses to undocumented immigration.

The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and subsequent 1986 Immigration Re-
form and Control Act created the problem of illegal immigration. Since then, more restrictive laws
have been passed.
What were some major changes brought about by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act?
What legislative changes sparked Asian and Latin American immigration in the late twentieth century?
What restrictive immigration laws were passed in the late twentieth century?

3.3 Analyze the relationship between nativism and racism in the twenty-first century.
When most immigrants are people of color, racism and nativism are difficult to disentangle.
How has nativism changed from previous historical periods?

Critical Thinking

1. How have economic circumstances played a role in the passage of immigration laws?
2. How have U.S. colonial and imperial relationships with other countries affected migration
flows?
3. Are IRCA and IIRIRA related to racialized sentiments? How so?
4. Why are Latin American immigrants the most likely to be deported?

Quiz: Racism and Nativism in Immigration Policy

[Please Note: You must have an Internet connection in order to view this content.]
Talking about Race
There are no statutes of limitations for illegal entry (laws specifying how long after events a
case may begin), as there are for most other crimes. The next time you hear someone say
something such as “what part of illegal don’t you understand?” try bringing up statutes of
limitations. For example, you could explain that a person who shoplifted in 2010 could not be
brought to trial for it in 2019, yet an immigrant can be deported for illegal entry even decades
after the original offense. Use this as an entry point for broader discussions of illegal
immigration.
 4
Racism in the Media: The
Spread of Ideology

CHAPTER OUTLINE

4.1 Representations in Entertainment

• Voices: Why Black-ish Is the Show We Need Right Now
• Voices: Why We Hacked Homeland
4.2 New Media Representations
4.3 Media Images and Racial Inequality
4.4 Raced, Classed, and Gendered Media Images
Conclusion and Discussion
• Check Your Understanding
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
4.1 How are racial stereotypes propagated in popular culture?
4.2 How have new media changed the way stereotypes are spread and countered?
4.3 How do media images and messages support the rationalization of racial inequality?
4.4 How are media representations raced, classed, and gendered?

T he media feed us a constant stream of images that shape our beliefs. The media also promote
and reinforce stereotypes—widely held but fixed and oversimplified images or ideas of
types of people or things. In early American film, for example, people of color were overwhelm-
ingly portrayed in stereotypical roles: Native Americans as silent chiefs, Arabs as mysterious or
villainous desert sheikhs, Latinas as sexual objects, and African Americans as maids or buffoons.
Fast-forward to the twenty-first century, and we find more nuanced depictions. Nevertheless, sig-
nificant traces of these historical stereotypes remain in contemporary film, television, and new
media.
Moreover, these stereotypes are not harmless: they have real and enduring consequences. Repre-
sentations of black and Latinx people as poor and lawbreaking undesirables, for example, rein-
force popular notions about supposed cultural deficiencies. The pervasiveness of these images can
lead to false conclusions about racial groups. In this light, it may come as no surprise that many
Americans incorrectly attribute higher incarceration rates among blacks and Latinxs to higher
criminality (P. H. Collins 2004; Feagin 2001). This stance ignores evidence to the contrary, as well
as the racially discriminatory nature of the criminal justice system. However, it makes sense to
people who constantly see media images of blacks and Latinxs shooting and robbing. Many media
representations of people of color are essentially modern versions of past stereotypes; both histori-
cally and today, these images have been used to rationalize slavery, segregation, genocide, colo-
nialism, and exclusion.
In this chapter, we will focus on racial ideologies propagated in the media. How do these ideolo-
gies play a role in normalizing and supporting racial inequality? Why do racial segregation and in-
equality remain prevalent despite laws against racial discrimination? An understanding of how the
media reproduce racial stereotypes will help us answer these questions. More pointedly, this exam-
ination will show how media portrayals may partly explain why so little is being done about racial
disparities in a nation that purportedly values equality and democracy.
4.2 NEW MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS
In 2013, the amount of time Americans spent online surpassed television viewing for the first time
—the average adult spent five hours per day online (eMarketer 2013) By 2016, Americans spent
an average of 10 hours and 39 minutes each day using smartphones, tablets, TV, radio, computers,
or video games (Associated Press 2016). Many of the same stereotypes prevalent in television are
also apparent in video games and social media.

Video Games
About 91 percent of children between the ages of two and seventeen regularly play video games
(Reisinger 2011). Moreover, instead of being passive viewers, video game players are actively en-
gaged and thus potentially more susceptible to stereotypes. Anna Everett and S. Craig Watkins
(2008) carried out a study in which they explored how youths’ interactions with video games af-
fected how they thought about race. The researchers argue that the interactive nature of the games
enhances the potential for the games not only to perpetuate stereotypes but also to counter them.
Additionally, as technology has improved and permitted video games to be more realistic, game
creators have been able to produce what they perceive to be more real and authentic places in
video games. This increased realism has led, for example, to the creation of urban spaces that are
dominated by African American and Latino young men.
Studies of video games have revealed consistent stereotyping: Latinxs are overrepresented in
sports games, Asians are almost exclusively portrayed in fighting games, and Arabs are typically
portrayed as targets of violence (Saleem 2008; Burgess et al. 2011). A study of video games by
Melinda Burgess and her colleagues (2011) revealed that black characters were more likely to be
portrayed as thugs, athletes, and gun-toting figures than white characters. Burgess and colleagues
also found that black women were largely absent from video games.

Social Media
While corporations have the means to produce films, television, and video games, individuals can
produce and consume social media. In the United States, it is easy to create a Twitter account or
YouTube video. For example, in 2012, one of the students in my sociology class posted a video on
YouTube called “I Am Not Trayvon Martin,” which quickly went viral. Her statement is just one
example of how social media allow people with low budgets and few connections to spread a
message.
Social media have the power to counter stereotypes, not just reinforce them. But how often does
this happen? Are people using social media to counter stereotypes, or are they simply reproducing
them?
Kopacz and Lawton (2011b) conducted an analysis of YouTube videos and found that, in con-
trast to mainstream media, many YouTube videos in which Native Americans played central roles
were depicted as both modern members of society and active agents against discrimination. Their
findings indicate that user-generated videos such as those found on YouTube have the potential to
counteract stereotypes. To uncover whether these videos did in fact counter stereotypes, Kopacz
and Lawton (2011a) assessed audience reactions to these videos. This second study had two cen-
tral findings: (1) users preferred videos that adhered to stereotypical depictions of Native Ameri-
cans, such as the wise elder and the doomed warrior; and (2) viewers also favored videos that
countered stereotypes and offered accurate depictions of Native American tribal diversity and ac-
tivism. Whereas previous research had only shown that viewers prefer stereotypical portrayals, this
study of user-generated videos found that there is also a positive audience reception to counter-
stereotypical portrayals. Their study suggests that social media do have the potential to work in
positive ways to counter stereotypes.
One phenomenon worthy of exploration is the racial meme—an idea, image, video, or phrase
that spreads in a culture, particularly via social media. Memes can be an effective way to get mes-
sages across because they are easy to digest and can be widely shared across a variety of social
media platforms, from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram to Snapchat. The meme shown in this
section plays on stereotpyes and may help people see their own biases.
Social media often afford some degree of anonymity to those who wish to propagate and vali-
date racial stereotypes. Sociologist Jessie Daniels studies online hate speech and has found that
people in the United States who have created websites with overt hate speech often go unpunished.
In many cases, these website creators are protected by free speech laws and can post overtly racist
messages on their own site without facing any legal troubles. Daniels (2008) also has found
“cloaked” websites that seek to deceive Web users by appearing to have a neutral stance but actu-
ally give false information supporting a white supremacist outlook. One example of such a website
is www.martinlutherking.org, which at first glance appears to be a tribute to civil rights leader Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. but in fact aims to undermine him and other civil rights leaders.
Twitter and other social media platforms can be used to debate racial issues. In 2012, the much-
awaited film The Hunger Games was released, based on the novel with the same title. The movie
was a box-office success and exceeded expectations. However, some viewers were surprised about
the race of the characters and made their feelings public. In the book, author Suzanne Collins de-
scribes several of the main characters as having “dark brown skin.” When viewers went to the pre-
miere and saw that several of the main characters were African American—Amandla Stenberg as
Rue, Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, and Dayo Okeniyi as Thresh—some were disappointed and made
their views known on Twitter:

“why does rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie”
“for the record, im still pissed that rue is black”
“rue is too black for what I pictured”
“call me racist but when i found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad”
“why did the producer make all the good characters black smh
[shaking my head]”
“ewwww rue is black?? I’m not watching”
“awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you
picture”

These tweets make it evident that some viewers would like to keep their heroes white. These
viewers were able to share their ways of thinking via social media. However, these tweets soon
caught the attention of bloggers, who called them out.
In contrast, some social media responses and campaigns can lead to positive changes, as we saw
leading up to the 2017 Academy Awards. In 2015, the four acting categories included only white
nominees, Activist April Reign started the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in response, but in 2016, these
four categories were again all white. This time, however, the hashtag went viral and caught the at-
tention of Hollywood. Filmmaker Spike Lee, actress Jada Pinkett, and others announced they
would be boycotting the ceremony. As a result of the outcry, in June 2016 the Academy extended
683 new membership invitations, 41 percent of which went to people of color. In 2017, the Oscar
nominations and winners reflected much greater diversity— the winners of two of the four Oscars
given to actors were African Americans. This represents a remarkable turn in the history of the Os-
cars. Additionally, Dev Patel was the first actor of Indian descent to be nominated in 13 years, and
Mahershali Ali was the first Muslim actor to ever win an Oscar (The Times of India 2017). Never-
theless, no actor of indigenous, Latinx, or Asian descent has won an Oscar in the past sixteen years
(Yuen 2016). This did not change in 2018, although writer-director Jordan Peele was the first black
winner in the Original Screenplay category for Get Out, a racially charged horror story.
As another positive example of the power of social media, a study by Kopacz and Lawton
(2011b) found that YouTube videos have the potential to counteract stereotypes. The researchers
assessed audience reactions to user-generated videos featuring Native Americans. Although view-
ers preferred videos that adhered to stereotypical depictions, they also had a positive response to
videos that countered stereotypes and offered accurate depictions of Native American tribal diver-
sity and activism. This study suggests that social media can work in positive ways to counter
stereotypes. Resistance to and reproduction of racial stereotypes in new media is an emerging area
of sociological inquiry, and future studies will further demonstrate how racial stereotypes are re-
produced and contested in this realm.
4.3 MEDIA IMAGES AND RACIAL INEQUALITY
Pop-culture representations have evolved over time and yet continue to propagate old racial ide-
ologies. While the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century representation of black men as lazy served
to rationalize slavery, the current representation of black men as thugs serves to rationalize aston-
ishingly high rates of incarceration. And while the eighteenth-century representation of black
women as sexually depraved served to rationalize rape, the current representation of the “ho” in
films and other media serves to rationalize cuts in social services. Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins
argues that such rationalizations rely heavily on mass media representations of African Americans.
She defines and describes a new racism, current reflections of racial formations from prior histori-
cal periods (2004, 55).
Modern-day representations of African Americans as thugs and whores are some examples of
what Collins calls controlling images (2004, 165), or raced, classed, and gendered media depic-
tions of a particular racial or ethnic group. Throughout U.S. history, blacks have been represented
as grotesque, physically resistant, and hypersexual. These representations create a fascination with
blackness, but they also define what whites are not. In this way, every representation of nonwhites
also defines whiteness. If blacks are represented as embodying physical strength, then whites can
see themselves as embodying intelligence—brawn versus brain. The same could be said of stereo-
types of other groups: for example, representations of Latinos as gangbangers and gardeners send
the message that whites are not. These stereotypical representations not only shape how Americans
view one another but also fuel inequalities.

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Common representations of Latinos as criminals serve to rationalize the disproportionate rates
of imprisonment for Latinos. Representations of Latina women as hypersexual serve to rationalize
cuts in welfare by spreading the idea that Latinas are immoral or culturally unworthy. Other com-
mon representations of Latinxs show them in some form of service to whites, reinforcing the idea
that they are of a lower class and destined for low-wage occupations. The maid and the gardener
keep the well-to-do neighborhoods looking nice while fulfilling the sexual fantasies of the whites
who live there.
Representations of Arabs and Muslims often propagate Islamophobia—the systematic marginal-
ization of Muslims—and Orientalist stereotypes, and they also work to rationalize foreign inter-
ventions. Hollywood has played an important role in portraying the Arab world as an exotic place
that requires white Westerners to civilize its people and drag them into the twenty-first century.
Shoba Sharad Rajgopal argues that representations of Arab women as veiled, traditional, and op-
pressed work to reinforce the stereotype that Western culture is “dynamic, progressive, and egali-
tarian,” whereas Arab cultures are “backward, barbaric, and patriarchal” (2010, 145). She further
contends that these stereotypes reinforce the idea that Americans needed to go to Iraq and Af-
ghanistan to rescue women from themselves and, in particular, from their brutal and oppressive
Arab husbands.
Media representations often give white characters more depth and redeeming qualities than peo-
ple of color. Such portrayals shape our perceptions and support the notion that it is somehow right
or reasonable for whites to do better in the United States on nearly every social measure.
4.4 RACED, CLASSED, AND GENDERED MEDIA IMAGES
As we have seen increasing numbers of people of color in popular culture, we have also seen a va-
riety of representations across class lines. African Americans, for example, are no longer portrayed
only as mammies or con artists. Instead, many are doctors and lawyers. Portrayals of people of
color on television are raced, gendered, and classed—meaning that the representations vary by
race, class, and gender, and that they influence how we think about various racial groups in this
country. Patricia Hill Collins’s (2004) concept of “controlling images” argues that the media pro-
duce class- and gender-specific depictions of people of African descent in popular culture. She fur-
ther contends that “mass media has generated class-specific images of Black women that help ra-
tionalize and shape the new racism of desegregated, color-blind America.” Collins’s analysis of
the representations of black men and women in popular culture is useful, and I describe it in detail
later in this chapter. In addition, her idea of controlling images can be extended to other groups,
including Latinxs, Native Americans, Asians, and Arabs.
Collins maintains that the vast majority of representations of blacks on television fall into the
raced and classed categories presented in Table 4-1.

TABLE 4-1
Raced and Classed Categories of Black Representations on Television
Working-Class Middle-Class

WOMEN BITCH: Aggressive, loud, rude, and pushy MODERN MAMMY: Loyal female servant;
BAD BITCH: Materialistic, sexualized; iconized focuses on work and subservience to white
in hip-hop culture; modern version of the male boss
Jezebel BLACK LADY: Designed to counter images
BAD BLACK MOTHER: (BBM): Mother who of black women’s promiscuity; focuses on
neglects her children; characterized by bad the home
values; welfare queen EDUCATED BLACK BITCH: Has money,
FEMALE ATHLETE: Feminized; focuses on the power, and job; is beautiful; success de-
family; lesbianism erased pends on her being tamed by men

MEN ATHLETE: Physically strong; harsh temper; SIDEKICK: Black buddy in service to whites;
needs to be controlled by coaches origins lie in Uncle Tom; loyal to whites;
THUG OR GANGSTA: Inherently physical and, asexual, nonviolent, safe, nonthreatening
unlike the athlete, his physicality is neither ad- SISSY: Effeminate and derogated black mas-
mired nor easily exploited for white gain culinity; gay characteristics, a queen; rein-
BLACK PIMP: Involved in illegal activity; hus- forces heterosexuality of others
tler; uses women for economic gain; refuses to
work; promiscuous
BLACK RAPIST: Hypersexual, desirous of
white women

Based on P. H. Collins 2004.

Collins argues that these images influence how blacks treat each other and how others treat
them. However, this does not mean that these images determine how blacks are treated. Instead,
their pervasive nature means that they affect all people in our society. Faced with these images, we
can: (1) internalize them and accept them as reality, (2) resist them and develop our own ideas
about black masculinity and femininity, or (3) ignore them. Any of these reactions requires some
action on our part and will affect how we think of ourselves and others.
Collins restricted her analyses primarily to African Americans. The idea of controlling images
can be applied to other groups, however, as it is evident that stereotypical representations vary by
gender. Table 4-2 lists some examples of prominent gendered stereotypes of Arabs, Native Ameri-
cans, Latinxs, and Asians. As with African Americans, these controlling images account for the
vast majority of representations of these groups. Moreover, each of these depictions also defines
what whites are not. White men are not terrorists or savages; they are peaceful and civilized. White
women are not exotic or hot-blooded; they are reserved and ethical.

TABLE 4-2
Prominent Gendered Stereotypes by Racial/Ethnic Group
Men Women

ARABS Terrorist Veiled victim

Immoral billionaire Exotic seductress
Haggler Maiden

NATIVE AMERICANS Savage Squaw

Sidekick Princess
Wise elder Matriarch
Doomed warrior

LATINXS Latin lover Hot-blooded Latina

Greaser/bandito Maid
Gangbanger Abuela (grandma)
Gardener Mexican spitfire
Buffoon

ASIANS Buddy Butterfly

Threatening foreigner Dragon Lady
Martial artist
Corrupt businessman

Based on Rajgopal (2010); Kopacz and Lawton (2011a, 2011b); Rodríguez (1997).

Each of these representations is gendered. Arab women are rarely portrayed as terrorists, and
men are almost always the perpetrators, not the victims, of gendered violence (Rajgopal 2010).
Native American men are usually portrayed either as savages (cruel and primitive men who brutal-
ize white people), as wise elders who use their knowledge to help whites, or as warriors who are
romanticized but know that their tribe will ultimately meet its doom. In contrast, Native American
women are usually portrayed as either princesses who fall in love with a white hero or as pro-
miscuous squaws (Kopacz and Lawton 2011a). When Latinos on television are not involved in ur-
ban violence as either criminals or police officers, they are most likely to be found in unskilled la-
bor occupations such as janitor or gardener. This portrayal of Latinos as subservient is comple-
mented by the portrayal of the Latin lover, who, despite his success in meeting the sexual desires
of the Anglo woman, ends up being the “Latin loser” when his lover is in turn conquered by an
Anglo man
(Rodríguez 1997). Latina women, in contrast, tend to be portrayed as hot-blooded women, maids,
or abuelas (grandmothers) who are out of touch with modern life (Berg 2002). Asian women tend
to be portrayed either as Dragon Ladies or as Butterflies, both of which highlight their sexuality. In
contrast, Asian men are usually desexualized and emasculated. These gendered stereotypes rein-
force prevalent stereotypes about people of color in the United States and also work to define
whites as morally superior.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Within the television industry, debates over the representation of people of color often revolve
around a sort of “chicken and egg” question: Do the media create or simply reflect popular stereo-
types? For example, would a film that portrayed black women as demure intellectuals and white
women as gangbangers be unsuccessful because it would seem unrealistic?
The stereotypical portrayals we see in the media today certainly were not invented by the media.
Instead, they are part of our history and were created decades or even centuries ago. In this chap-
ter, we have seen both how these stereotypes have evolved and how they continue to be part and
parcel of popular media. We have also seen some of the consequences of these stereotypes: how
they work to reproduce and rationalize racial inequalities. This raises the question of whether the
media have a responsibility to try to alter stereotypes.
One recurring complaint about representations of people of color in the media is that they lack
the depth that white characters have. One way that this perception could change is by including
more people of color as writers and producers of popular media. Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the
popular series Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder, is a
prominent African American woman with a significant role in creating television shows in the
United States. Rhimes’s shows have garnered praise both for including more characters of color
and for giving those characters more depth than we are used to seeing on other shows. Thus, with
the inclusion of more people of color in Hollywood as creators of media, we will perhaps see few-
er stereotypes.
One of the most prominent African American male showrunners is Tyler Perry, who is widely
criticized for his use of stereotypical depictions of black women in his works, including House of
Payne, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea Goes to Jail, and many other television shows, films,
and stage plays. Although Tyler Perry has the ability to portray black women in a nuanced fashion,
he is still very much aware that the primary motive for the entertainment industry is making a prof-
it. For Perry, it is clear that making fun of African Americans sells. In 2011, Forbes magazine
named Tyler Perry the highest-paid man in entertainment—with five movies and two television
series, he earned $130 million between May 2010 and May 2011 (Pomerantz 2011). Perry’s body
of work shows that simply having black producers is not enough if the goal is to reduce
stereotypes.
To return to the question of the media’s responsibility for reproducing stereotypes, there are two
sides to this issue. On the one hand, you could argue that the media are responsible to the public,
as the public constitutes their customer base. On the other hand, you could contend that the media
are simply responding to market forces and giving their customers what they desire. What do you
think?

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

CAN YOU THINK of a positive representation of a person of color in film, television, or new media to-
day? Describe the character and explain the extent to which they conform to the stereotypes mentioned in
this chapter. To what extent do positive representations of people of color contribute to a more racially just
society?
Key Terms
stereotype
enlightened racism
Mammy
Sapphire
Jezebel
Cantina Girl
Suffering Señorita
Vamp
Dragon Lady
Butterfly
meme
new racism
controlling images

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

4.1 How are racial stereotypes propagated in popular culture?
Media images shape our beliefs by creating and reinforcing stereotypes.
How have representations of African Americans changed since the 1950s?
What are some of the common stereotypes of Latinxs, Asians, and Arab Americans on television?
What are the historical origins of stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans?

4.2 How have new media changed the way stereotypes are spread and countered?
Old stereotypes prevail even in new media such as video games and social media, which have an
increasingly important influence.
How do user-generated media affect the spread of stereotypes?

4.3 How do media images and messages support the rationalization of racial
inequality?
Media images and messages are not harmless: they can support racial inequalities by shaping
stereotypes about racial and ethnic minorities as well as about whites.
In what areas have controlling images exacerbated inequalities?

4.4 How are media representations raced, classed, and gendered?

Media images vary not only by racial group but also by race and class.
What are the historical origins of the “video ho” stereotype?

Critical Thinking
1. Television shows change constantly. Do the stereotypes mentioned in this chapter apply to the
shows you currently watch? Why or why not? Pick two popular shows and assess the extent to
 which the nonwhite characters fit into stereotypical roles. Are the Latinx characters portrayed
as hypersexual? Are the Asians and Native Americans stoic? Describe at least two characters,
and then assess the extent to which those characters fit into the controlling images for their
group.
2. Do you think social media platforms can be useful in countering racial stereotypes, or do you
think they simply provide an arena for the proliferation of stereotypes? Use at least one exam-
ple from social media to make your case.
3. Give an example of a stereotype from the media that is used to rationalize racial inequality.
4. Why does Patricia Hill Collins argue that media representations are race-, class-, and gender-
specific?

Quiz: Racism in the Media: The Spread of Ideology

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Talking about Race

The success of television shows and films is often dependent on word of mouth. If you watch
a film or show that breaks away from traditional stereotypes, you can talk to your friends and
family about it and encourage them to watch it. When you have that conversation, you can
refer to what you learned in this chapter about stereotypes and the importance of broad repre-
sentation. You can also post your thoughts on social media and play a larger role in promot-
ing media that avoid negative stereotypes.
 5
Colorism and Skin-Color
Stratification

CHAPTER OUTLINE
5.1 The History of Colorism
5.2 The Global Color Hierarchy
• Voices: The Fair-Skin Battle
5.3 Africa and the African Diaspora
• Voices: Colorism and Creole Identity
5.4 Skin Color, Gender, and Beauty
• Voices: #NotFairandLovely: Changing Thought Patterns Instead of Skintone
Conclusion and Discussion
Thinking about Racial Justice
Check Your Understanding
Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
5.1 When and how did colorism and skin-color stratification originate?
5.2 How does colorism differ across societies?
5.3 How does skin color relate to gender and beauty?

W hereas racism relies on the belief that some races are better than others, colorism is the
idea that, within races, lighter is better. Colorism refers primarily to skin color, but it also
encompasses physical characteristics that are related to skin color, such as eye color, hair color and
texture, and facial features (Nakano Glenn 2009).
The prevalence of colorism has led to skin-color stratification, in which resources such as in-
come and status are distributed unequally according to skin color. In the United States, lighter-
skinned people generally have higher incomes and education than their darker-skinned counter-
parts and are more likely to own homes and marry. Darker-skinned people generally have longer
prison sentences and lower job statuses on average than lighter-skinned people (Hochschild and
Weaver 2007). Verna Keith (2009) has found that lighter-skinned African Americans have advan-
tages over their darker-skinned counterparts in terms of earnings, education, and occupations. Ed-
uardo Bonilla-Silva and David R. Dietrich (2009) contend that the United States is a pigmentoc-
racy— a society in which blacks, Asians, and Latinxs have different social statuses according to
their skin color.
Skin-color stratification is also evident among immigrants to the United States from Africa,
Asia, and Latin America. Using data from the New Immigrant Survey, Joni Hersch (2008) found
that darkerskinned immigrants generally earned less than their lighter-skinned counterparts. This
nationally representative survey included interviews with people who had recently been granted
legal permanent residence in the United States. Each interviewee’s skin color was rated on a scale
of 1 to 10, with 1 being the lightest and 10 the darkest. Overall, Hersch found that light skin color
was associated with higher wages across the board. There was a pay disparity of 17 percent be-
tween the lightest-skinned immigrants and the darkestskinned immigrants, even accounting for
gender, education, English-language skills, visa type, and occupation. In a follow-up study, Rosen-
blum et al. (2016) found this effect was most pronounced among Latin American immigrants. Dis-
parities among immigrants also extend to health-related outcomes: Wassink, Perreira, and Harris
(2017) found that darker-skinned black and Hispanic young adults have worse cardiometabolic
health outcomes than their lighter-skinned counterparts. These disparities provide evidence for the
prevalence of skin-color-based discrimination in the United States.
5.1 THE HISTORY OF COLORISM
When and how did colorism originate, not only in the United States but also around the world?
Some scholars argue that the preference for light skin stems from the history of slavery and geno-
cide in the Americas. Their argument is that the preference for light skin is fundamentally a prefer-
ence for whiteness and thus that colorism has the same history as racism (Hunter 2005, 2007). For
these thinkers, colorism is a modern phenomenon. Scholars who focus on Asia (Rondilla and
Spickard 2007; Saraswati 2010, 2012) attribute the preference for light skin to earlier ideas that
equated leisure with light skin and work with dark skin. Most scholars of colorism would agree
that colorism is a global phenomenon, with a long history and distinct manifestations around the
world.
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The Origins of Colorism in the Americas

Colorism has existed in the United States since the colonial era. The Africans who were brought to
the North American colonies as slaves were primarily dark-skinned. Soon after the arrival of
Africans in the Americas, the progeny of blacks and whites became a new class of mixed-race
people, known as mulattos, who were darker than whites but lighter than blacks. At first, mulattos
were officially recognized as a distinct category in the United States. In fact, the U.S. census in-
cluded a mulatto category from 1850 to 1910. However, eventually both law and social custom
changed, and hypodescent—the idea that having any amount of black ancestry makes you black—
became more prevalent.
Each state had the authority to define which people would be classified as black. In some states,
an individual was legally black if one of his or her grandparents was black (i.e., if he or she was
one-quarter black). In other states, an individual was black if his or her great-grandparents were
black. In still other states, an individual was considered black if he or she was one-thirty-second
black. These laws were eventually abolished in the 1960s (Telles 2009). However, they have had a
lasting impact in that people with relatively little African ancestry (and thus very light skin) can be
considered black. The existence of a wide color spectrum in the black community is one factor that
has enabled colorism to flourish.
Skin-color stratification was prevalent during the era of slavery: lighter-skinned slaves were
more likely to work in the house instead of the fields, to be taught to read, and to be manumitted
(freed). The manumission of some slaves led to a small class of freedmen who tended to be lighter
in skin tone than their enslaved counterparts. These lighter-skinned blacks eventually formed the
core of the black elite in the United States; hence, skin color has been mapped onto social status in
the African American community for centuries (Hunter 2005).
 The association of light skin with elite status continued into the twentieth century. Jewish Amer-
ican anthropologist Melville Herskovits conducted a study of blacks in Harlem in the 1920s and
found that the black elite was disproportionately light-skinned and that black men preferred light-
skinned partners. His study revealed that whereas only 9 percent of the Harlem black elites were
very dark-skinned, 28.9 percent of the elites were very light-skinned. Herskovits also found that in
over half of Harlem couples, wives were lighter than husbands, revealing that men often preferred
lighter-skinned women and that women were able to marry higher-status darker-skinned men.
Within the black community, lighter skin was valued more highly than dark skin. Additionally,
light skin became associated with elite status. Thus, the desire to be light was connected both to
the idea that white was better and to the idea that light skin meant higher class.

In Harlem in the 1920s, the black elite were disproportionately light-skinned.

Consequently, skin bleaches and hair straighteners were very common in Harlem in the 1920s.
Skin bleaches that promised to provide women with “light skin that men can’t resist” formed a
substantial portion of the cosmetics products sold in Harlem at the time (Dorman 2011). The prac-
tice of skin bleaching persists today: Christopher A. D. Charles (2011) found that pharmacies and
beauty supply stores in Harlem were still selling bleaching products in 2010. Moreover, the labels
on these products devalued black skin by promising to help customers with “problems” associated
with dark skin.
In Latin America, a skin-color hierarchy has existed for centuries. During the period that Latin
American countries were Spanish colonies, the Spaniards developed an elaborate system of castas
based on ancestry that determined one’s social and legal ranking in society. By the end of the colo-
nial period in 1821, over one hundred possible categories were memorialized in a series of casta
paintings. The categories included españoles (Spaniards), indios (indigenous people), mestizos
(persons with one Spanish and one indigenous parent), castizos (persons with one mestizo parent
and one Spanish parent), and mulatos (persons with one African parent and one Spanish parent).
The categories went on to divide people into over one hundred different possible mixtures, each
with its own name. These categories were based on ancestry, not color. Nevertheless, we can say
that, generally, more Spanish ancestry meant both lighter skin and more prestige. These categories
are no longer used in Latin America, but the inequalities that stemmed from them persist (Telles
and Steele 2012).
Brazil, in contrast to the United States and Spanish America, never had a system of official clas-
sification whereby a person with a certain amount of African ancestry would be legally considered
black. Instead, in Brazil, usually only a person who looks black is considered black, whereas a per-
son who looks white is considered white, regardless of his or her actual ancestry. The Brazilian
census classifies people as white, pardo (brown), and black, and the term mulatto [mulato in Por-
tuguese] is used in everyday language to describe people who are neither black nor white. There is
a certain amount of fluidity between these categories, and many families report blacks, whites, and
pardos in their households on the Brazilian census. Although Brazil has never had laws that man-
dated racial segregation, racial inequality exists, and privilege is mapped along color lines, with
lighter-skinned people generally having more education and income (Telles 2009). The presence of
skin-color stratification in Brazil today is a relic of colonialism.

The Origins of Colorism in Asia and Africa

The preference for light skin in the Americas seems to have its roots in the period of colonization.
In contrast, Asia has a longer history of colorism. As early as the late ninth century, the ancient
Sanskrit text Ramayana featured light skin as ideal. Ayu Saraswati (2010) explains that in both the
Indian and Indonesian versions of this text, beautiful women are described as having white faces
that shine like the full moon. Aryan Indians spread their preference for white skin to the rest of
South and Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, this predilection for light skin was reinforced during the
Dutch colonial period in the nineteenth century. Colonial authorities granted preferential treatment
to persons of mixed Dutch-Indonesian ancestry. When the Japanese became the colonial power in
Indonesia in 1942, they also brought their fondness for lightness with them. And U.S. popular cul-
ture has made its mark in Indonesia through advertising, with blue-eyed blonds staring out of im-
ages in this primarily nonwhite country. In Indonesia today, dark-skinned people continue to be
seen as unattractive and undesirable. As in other places, this social pattern has clear gendered di-
mensions: women feel more pressure than men do to alter their appearance and lighten their skin
(Saraswati 2012).
What about preferences in Africa? Was there preference for light skin in this continent prior to
the arrival of Europeans? There are people of every skin shade on the African continent, with
lighter-skinned people living in the north and those with darker skin living close to the Equator
and in the south. Anthropologist Peter Frost (2006) has reviewed the evidence from several
African tribes and found some evidence that a preference for lighter skin predates colonialism in
Africa. In many tribes, women with brown or reddish skin are seen as more beautiful than those
with very dark skin, and there are indications that these preferences are deeply rooted in these so-
cieties. For example, the languages of many tribes include value-laden terms that distinguish be-
tween skin color, and early-twentieth-century anthropologists found preferences for lighter skin
even among older Africans who were born before the arrival of Europeans in their communities
(Frost 2006). Whether or not the preference for light skin predates colonialism is an unresolved
question. However, it i s clear that the obsession with light skin increased with colonization and
the presence of large numbers of Europeans in Africa. In South Africa, for example, skin lighten-
ers have been available since the 1930s (Thomas 2009).
 The preference for light skin seems nearly universal. Despite varying local histories, these pref-
erences have converged in the current era as a result of cultural globalization and the spread of
transnational corporations that tend to promote whiter or lighter beauty ideals.
5.2 THE GLOBAL COLOR HIERARCHY
How does colorism differ across societies? Consider a 2016 commercial from Thailand for a prod-
uct called Snowz, skin-whitening pills with the slogan “white makes you win.” In the television
advertisement, Cris Horwang—a 35-year-old actress, model, singer, and dance teacher—explains
that the whiteness she has achieved through beauty products has brought her fame. She says: “Be-
fore I got to this point, the competition was very high. If I stop taking care of myself, everything I
have worked for, the whiteness I have invested in, may be lost.” As she is talking, another younger
model comes onto the screen and Cris’s skin slowly fades to charcoal-black. She looks at her dark
skin with despondence, and the narrator says “whiteness makes you win.” The younger model
smiles as the narrator adds that Snowz contains glutathione, derived from kiwi seeds which “helps
you not return to black.” After the Snowz pills appear on the screen Cris turns white again, and
smiles return to her face.
Skin-whitening products are prevalent not only in Asia but also in Latin America, Africa, and
the United States. They are evidence of a global color hierarchy, in which white (or light) skin is
privileged and people—especially, but not exclusively, women—strive to become lighter. These
dynamics play out differently in distinct areas of the world.

In Thailand, a 2016 commercial for a skin-whitening pill called Snowz proclaimed, “Just being white, you will
win.”

In this section, we will examine three areas of the world: Asia, Latin America, and Africa, as
well as the diaspora, or dispersion, of their populations in the United

Asia and Asian Americans

The privileging of light skin in Asia and among Asian Americans has its roots in ancient Aryan
Indian beauty ideals, Japanese and Chinese ideas of white skin as a sign of leisure, and colonial
domination of India and Indonesia by European powers. Today, women from Thailand, South Ko-
rea, Vietnam, Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India use skin-whitening creams in an
effort to make their skin as light as possible, and they even undergo eyelid surgery to widen their
eyes (Saraswati 2010, 2012). In India, the preference for light skin is also connected to the caste
system. Although not all high-caste members (Brahmins) are light, a pattern can be seen whereby
higher-caste people in India tend to be lighter than those of lower caste. In addition, the term for
caste, varna, literally means “color,” and there has been some historical association of Brahmins
with whiteness and the untouchables with blackness. In India and across Asia, there are historical
and present-day advantages associated with light skin, especially for women (Parameswaran and
Cardoza 2009).
These preferences for light skin in Asia have carried over to Asian Americans in the United
States. Research by Joanne Rondilla and Paul Spickard (2007) reveals a fascinating aspect of skin-
tone discrimination among Asian Americans: the preference for light skin is omnipresent, yet
Asian Americans do not want to be too white. The researchers tell the stories of a Vietnamese
American woman who uses a destructive skin-whitening cream because she feels excluded by her
ethnic group and a Filipina woman who stays out of the sun to avoid being called “dark.” On the
flip side, they also describe a Chinese woman whose great-grandmother was French who is ex-
cluded from social groups because her freckles and reddish hair make her look too white, as well
as a woman whose mother is Japanese and father is white who struggles to feel accepted in either
community. Based on these interviews and other evidence, Rondilla and Spickard argue that light
skin is preferred in Asian American communities but that this does not signal a desire for
whiteness.

Voices
The Fair-Skin Battle

A box of Fair & Lovely, a skin-lightening cream from New Delhi, India.

I will admit: I’ve avoided the sun so I wouldn’t get darker. I’ve gone swimming at night instead of during the
day to avoid tan lines. It’s completely and utterly ridiculous. I should enjoy the sun’s warm rays and get some
exercise! But where do these thoughts come from? We weren’t born with the innate ability to distinguish be-
tween skin colors and assign meanings to them. But for some women, the fair skin battle draws them into deeper
depths than just avoiding sunshine during the day.
In South Asian tradition, a light-skinned woman is supposedly more beautiful than a dark-skinned woman.
This belief can be traced back to early invasions of India by the Turks and British. As light-skinned people in-
habited India and wielded their authority, natives who sought power and beauty likened fair skin with power and
status. Some say the Caste System also contributed to these attitudes, with light-skinned higher-caste members
dominating the lower-caste members with darker skin. Additionally, history might indicate that lighter-skinned
people enjoyed a more fanciful life, while darker-skinned people worked in the fields.
 For an even more blatant and modern perpetuation of this stereotype, watch any Bollywood movie’s actors
and actresses. The movies tend to feature ultra-fair-skinned heroes and heroines, while villains and village
women tend to be portrayed by darker-complexioned actors.
Can this be a realistic depiction of South Asian people? Do South Asian women strive to appear like the beau-
tiful women seen in the movies? The majority of South Asians are not as fair skinned as the movies portray.
They range in hues from ivory to caramel, from mocha to ebony.
(As a humorous side note, check out some of the matrimonial ads seeking fair maidens.)
Furthermore, the South Asian skin product market is littered with skin lightening products. Everything from
our aunt’s Fair and Lovely to our dermatologist’s hydroquinone is being consumed for the purpose of a fair com-
plexion. Some of these crèmes are harmful for the skin, and can lead to irritation. It’s amazing to observe the
lengths some women will go to, sometimes dangerous lengths, just to achieve a slightly lighter shade.
However, Fair and Lovely is now the topic of controversy in South Asia nowadays, where a movement led by
the All India Democratic Women’s Association finally begins to bring some justice to the issue of skin color.
This issue doesn’t just concern South Asians. African American celebrities like Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Halle
Berry are so beautiful and talented in their genres, but in all actuality, they’re considerably fair! In fact, an
MSNBC article posed the question of whether Vanity Fair lightened Beyoncé’s skin for a cover photo (which
they vehemently denied). A darker-skinned woman like Fantasia Barrino doesn’t get nearly the same spotlight,
despite her enormous talent. Some African American bloggers speak of similar sentiment concerning skin color
in their communities as well.
It’s clear that American Desi girls feel the fair-skin pressure because of the media coming at them from both
sides of the world. Both Desi culture and American culture subconsciously allude towards the idea that a lighter
complexion is more beautiful than a darker one. It’s not easy living in a society where vanity and visual appear-
ance speak volumes before a woman even speaks!
The vast diversity in our skin colors is just one of the visual aspects of our heritage. And there’s so much won-
der woven into our heritage to fret over skin color! So, feel free to bask in the sun and be proud of your glow!

Source: Mohideen 2009.

Latin America and Latinxs

In Latin America, people of mixed ancestry have historically been considered mulattos (when they
have African and European ancestry) or mestizos (when they have European and indigenous an-
cestry). Mestizo is an official classification in Mexico, Peru, and other countries, and pardo
(brown) is an official classification in Brazil. Within this system, only people who are very dark-
skinned are considered black, and only those who both are dark-skinned and display indigenous
cultural features are considered indigenous (Golash-Boza 2011. Thus, you could find a family in
which one child is considered black, another mulatto, and still another white. In these families, of-
ten the lighter-skinned children are given preferential treatment (Twine 1998; Hordge-Freeman
2015). Latin Americans often strategically choose romantic partners who are lighter in skin tone
than themselves, with the hope that their children will be lighter and thus better positioned in soci-
ety. In Spanish, this strategy is called mejorando la raza, or improving the race, and is common
across Latin America (Sue 2009).
Latin American countries are marked by a skin-color hierarchy in which lighter-skinned people
possess a disproportionate share of the resources. Because of the existence of intermediate cate-
gories, we can say that whites are often at the top of the hierarchy, mestizos and mulattos in the
middle, and blacks and indigenous people at the bottom (Telles and Steele 2012).
Edward Telles and Liza Steele (2012) conducted a study in which they compared skin color and
educational attainment across Latin America. They wanted to know whether or not lighter-skinned
Latin Americans are more likely to complete high school and go to college than darker-skinned
Latin Americans. Using a recent and innovative dataset that contained information about skin col-
or and education for nearly 40,000 people in twenty-three Latin American countries, they were
able to explore the relationship between skin color and each respondent’s educational attainment.
These data allowed them to ask if lighter-skinned people completed more years of schooling on
average than darker-skinned people. In most Latin American and Caribbean countries, they found
that lighter-skinned people were more likely to have higher educational attainment than darker-
skinned people. This trend was most prominent in Andean countries such as Peru and Bolivia,
where darker-skinned people receive an average of eight years of schooling, as compared to the
thirteen years received by lighter-skinned people. In all the countries except four—Panama, Suri-
name, Belize, and Guyana—their study revealed that lighter-skinned people had more years of ed-
ucation than darker-skinned people. Educational attainment is an important indicator of socioeco-
nomic success. Thus, this study makes it clear that a pigmentocracy continues to be prevalent in
Latin America.
The prevalence of skin-color stratification in Latin America raises the question of whether this
stratification is also present among Latin American immigrants in the United States. Do lighter-
skinned Latinxs in the United States have more education, income, and resources?
Having light skin has real, material rewards for Latinxs in the United States in terms of educa-
tion and income. Social scientists have conducted a few quantitative studies that measured skin
color and tested whether light-skinned people tend to have higher incomes and education. In 1996,
Edward Murguia and Edward Telles published a study based on the 1979 National Chicano Study.
They found that whereas only 7 percent of light-skinned Mexican Americans had less than five
years of schooling, 10.2 percent of them had finished college. By comparison, about 19 percent of
medium- and dark-skinned Mexican Americans had less than five years of schooling, but only
about 5 percent of them had finished college. Murguia and Telles’s analyses also revealed that skin
color still influenced educational outcomes even when parents’ education was taken into account.
This means that skin color had an independent effect on the likelihood that Mexican Americans
would attain high levels of education.
Margaret Hunter (2005), using data from the 1979 National Chicano Study as well as the 1980
National Study of Black Americans, also found that skin color predicted educational outcomes for
Mexican American and African American women. Those with lighter skin generally had higher
educational levels, even controlling for their own class backgrounds.
You might wonder if things have changed since 1979 and 1980, the years from which the data
used in these studies were drawn. The findings of more recent studies are, not surprisingly, similar.
A study, based in Boston, found that Latinxs with light skin were more likely to be married than
dark-skinned Latinxs (Gómez 2008), while more recently, Karletta White (2015) found evidence
that Latinxs and blacks with darker skin are more likely than their lighter-skinned counterparts to
be stopped and arrested by police officers. In addition, Alexis Rosenblum and colleagues (2016)
found that Latin American immigrants with darker skin tones earn less than their lighter-skinned
counterparts, even when taking into account other relevant factors such as age, education, and la-
bor market experience. Using a wide variety of measures, researchers have consistenly found that
Latinxs with darker skin tones face more discrimination than their lighter-skinned counterparts.
5.4 SKIN COLOR, GENDER, AND BEAUTY
How does skin color relate to gender and beauty? Colorism is evident in the U.S. entertainment
industry, especially for women of color. Many of the most prominent Latina stars—Salma Hayek,
Jennifer Lopez, and Eva Longoria—are very light-skinned. The same could be said about newer
Latina stars such as Selena Gomez and Gina Rodriguez. Light-skinned artists of color are more
likely to rise to fame because light skin is associated with beauty both in the United States and
around the globe. Margaret Hunter (2005) explains that beauty, like colorism, is an ideology that
can be used as a tool to maintain patriarchy, or male dominance in a society. Beauty divides
women through competition and diverts their attention to their physical appearance and away from
other oppressive forces in their lives.
In the United States, light skin, long hair, light eyes, and straight noses are all associated with
beauty—and with whiteness. When a woman is called “fair,” this label refers both to light skin and
to physical attractiveness. Thus, African American women with long, straight hair and light skin
are often perceived to be more attractive than their darker-skinned counterparts. Of course, there is
individual preference and variation. Yet studies have consistently shown that dark-skinned women
are devalued both by their co-ethnics and by whites (Hunter 2005).
Hunter (2005, 70–71) introduces the concept of a beauty queue to explain “how sexism and
racism interact to create a queue of women from the lightest to the darkest, where the lightest get
the most resources and the darkest get the least. The lightest women get access to more resources
because not only are they lighter-
skinned and therefore racially privileged, but their light skin is interpreted in our culture as more
beautiful and therefore they are also privileged as beautiful women.” For women, beauty is an as-
set that can lead to better jobs, better pay, and more status. Because lighter women are seen as
more beautiful, they can be considered to have skin-color privilege, even if they belong to a dis-
advantaged racial group.

Many Latina stars, such as Selena Gomez, are very light skinned—a trait often associated with beauty around the
globe.

Siobhan Brooks (2010) uses the concept of erotic capital to explain how skin color relates to
beauty for women of color. Doing research with strip club workers, Brooks found that white
women often earned more than Latina and black women, but that light-skinned Latina and black
women were able to use their erotic capital—their attractiveness and sensuality—to earn more
than darker-skinned black women. Whereas lighter-skinned Latina and black women were seen as
exotic, dark-skinned black women were perceived as hypersexual and thus devalued. Similar to
Hunter (2007), Brooks found evidence of a beauty queue, in which white women earned the most,
followed by lighter-skinned blacks and Latinas, and then darker-skinned women. In the case of
strip clubs, being whiter or lighter had material advantages.
Although there are clear advantages to being light-skinned, there is also evidence that women of
color do not necessarily want to be white, even if they prefer lighter skin. Dionne Stephens and
Paula Fernández (2011) interviewed thirty-four Hispanic women to shed light on their perspective
on the relationship between skin color and attractiveness. The researchers found that “having
‘some color’ was viewed as an important symbol of [the women’s] ‘authentic’ Hispanic identity”
(85). The women they interviewed specifically stated that they did not desire white skin, but that
they preferred to be tan and viewed being tan as being attractive and sexy. Notably, the women
also did not want to be “black” or too dark.
This research is also relevant for Asian Americans. Rondilla and Spickard (2007) interviewed
ninety-nine Asian Americans about their skin-color preferences. They found that respondents
widely agreed that lighter skin was better in that it was associated with beauty, intelligence, and
high class. Women and men recalled being told by their parents not to marry too dark so they
could have light-skinned children. As part of the interview process, the researchers showed inter-
viewees a picture of three conventionally beautiful Asian American women and asked them to
make up a story about each woman. One woman had light skin, hair, and eyes; another was medi-
um-toned and had black hair; and the third was dark-skinned. The stories about the medium-toned
woman were the most positive: she was seen as smart, wealthy, and stylish. In contrast, the dark-
skinned woman was seen as likely an immigrant, poor, and hardworking. The stories about the
lightest woman were not positive either: interviewees saw her as confused about her identity, lazy,
a partygoer, and unhappy. These findings reveal that Asian Americans have an abstract desire for
whiteness but do not desire features that make them look too white. In her later work, Joanne
Rondilla (2009) argues that Asian women do not use skin lighteners in an attempt to become
white; instead, they use them out of a wish to become a better version of themselves.
This research has parallels with work conducted in other parts of the world. Aisha Khan (2009)
argues that although there is a color hierarchy in Indo-Trinidadian society, the ultimate desire is to
become light, but not white, as whiteness signifies cultural loss. Lynn Thomas (2009) points out
that in South Africa, women use skin lighteners not to become white but to attain a lighter shade of
black. Christina Sue (2009) contends that people in Veracruz, Mexico, use mestizaje as a whiten-
ing strategy to become lighter mestizos, not to become white. Evelyn Nakano Glenn (2009) argues
that Filipinas associate light skin with modernity and social mobility, not necessarily with white-
ness. And Ayu Saraswati (2012) finds that Indonesian women use skin whiteners to become
lighter, but not to become Caucasian or to attain the light skin of Chinese women. Instead, they
prefer Indonesian whiteness.
In a study of beauty pageants in Nigeria, Oluwakemi M. Balogun (2012) examined two beauty
pageants: the Queen Nigeria pageant, which focuses primarily on Nigeria, and the Most Beautiful
Girl in Nigeria pageant, which is geared to a more international audience and is connected to the
Miss Universe and Miss World pageants. Balogun found that beauty pageant directors did not ig-
nore skin color, nor did they give universal preference to light skin. Instead, they chose dark-
skinned women when their goal was to find an authentic African woman to represent their country
to the world and lighter-skinned women when they were searching for a woman with global mass
appeal as a beautiful woman.
 Most of these works on skin color focus on women, as colorism is a gendered dynamic. Skin-
color valuations more heavily affect women’s lives than men’s. Jyostna Vaid (2009) highlights the
increasing salience of skin color, as well as the gendered nature of judgments based on skin color,
for Indians in India and the diaspora. Vaid found that Indian women are twice as likely as men to
mention skin color in marriage ads, signaling that skin color is more important in marriage negoti-
ations for women than for men. Evelyn Nakano Glenn (2009) conceptualizes light skin as a form
of symbolic capital and makes the case that this form of capital is more important for women than
for men. Ayu Saraswati (2012) interviewed forty-six Indonesian women about their use of skin-
whitening creams and found that many of the women had experienced discrimination and denigra-
tion because of their dark skin color. Many had received comments on their skin color when they
were girls and used skin-whitening creams to hide what they viewed to be a deficiency—their dark
skin. Whereas dark skin can be seen as masculine, and thus appropriate, for men, Saraswati found
that women in Indonesia overwhelmingly preferred light skin. Moreover, women around the world
feel more pressure than men to be beautiful (Hunter 2005).
Nevertheless, men also can experience benefits from being light-skinned and having European
features. Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, for example, explained: “To some people I might be
a celebrity because I’m physically attractive. We are programmed to believe that someone is at-
tractive because they told you that blue eyes are hot. I am not going to participate in that shit,” he
says. “I aim to do what I can with what I have. And I have my [looks]—you know, European beau-
ty standards give me access to things.” Williams acknowledges that his blue eyes and light skin
grant him unearned privileges, yet he disparages the system that gives him these advantages
(Kasperkevic 2015).
In India, it continues to be common for people to use advertisements to find spouses, and these
advertisements make it clear that fair skin makes women more marriageable. Radhika Para-
meswaran and Kavitha Cardoza (2009) report that men are much less likely than women to report
their own skin color in these advertisements and that men are much more likely to indicate a pref-
erence for light skin in a partner. These researchers consistently found ads written by men that
sought a “fair” bride and even reported one advertisement by a father who lamented the fact that
his daughter’s skin was not fair. These preferences have generated a market for skin-lightening
creams in India. In 2013, fairness products constituted 45 percent of the cosmetics and toiletries
market in India (McDougall 2013). Companies that make these products also use advertising to
reinforce the idea that lighter women are more marriageable. One ad for Fair & Lovely Fairness
Cold Cream shows a young woman with a beaming smile. The caption reads: “This winter, I dis-
covered the only cold cream that also made me fairer. (And he discovered me.)” (Parameswaran
and Cardoza 2009). A consistent theme in Indian advertisements for whitening creams is that
women who wish to be more beautiful can use these creams to become more fair and thus more
desirable to men.
Transnational corporations have taken advantage of the widespread desire for fair skin around
the world and have used it to generate immense profits. Through advertising, large transnational
corporations have not only reinforced the idea that light skin is essential for success, but also have
profited immensely from selling products that promise to save women from the pain and rejection
associated with dark skin. Lynn Thomas (2009) underscores the importance of transnational entan-
glements for the global preference for lighter skin, as most companies that sell whitening products
are transnational. In Indonesia, for example, transnational corporations such as Unilever, L’Oréal,
and Shiseido are the main sellers of skin whiteners. And out of all the products in the cosmetics
industry, it is skin-whitening products that are the most profitable in Indonesia, which is the fourth-
most populous country in the world. (Saraswati 2012).
 Voices
After #NotFairandLovely: Changing Thought Patterns
Instead of Skintone
The MuslimARC-launched hashtag #NotFairandLovely recently trended in London. The tweets were heart-
breaking. Women shared how they were limited from going outside to play in the sun as children, their struggles
to overcome an internalized hatred of a dark skin tone, and subsequent acts of self-shaming and devaluation.
Some questioned whether their husband’s compliments were genuine and expressed concern over the future lives
of their children who may inherit their skin tone. People related stories of children judged from the day they are
born by the color of their skin: a light-skinned baby is a joy … and a dark-skinned baby? ..
I ask that we begin un-training ourselves from using the word ‘fair’ to mean light. No skin tone should ever be
considered unfair, nor should we settle for a world in which possession of a certain skin tone brings with it an
assessment of strength of character. A “fair” world is a just world.
Second, let us remind ourselves and those around us that our words and our thoughts and our actions matter.

Namira Islam, Executive Director of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC), argues that by mod-
ifying our use of language, we can reshape our thinking on beauty and skin color.

For example, if someone lists skin tone as [a] factor in considering whether a person is a good candidate for
marriage, ask why the person’s skin color is relevant to the discussion. Listen. Follow up. If you cannot end the
conversation with a verbal request (i.e., to refrain from making comments valuing one skin tone over another or
using skin tone to determine the worth of a person in front of you), do so in your heart. Letting people politely
know that you dislike what is being said and that you are uncomfortable with it is an important starting point.
Stop adding value judgments to words in your own vocabulary. Don’t use “fair” to refer to light-skinned in
your thoughts, your writing, or your speech. Realize that this usage does not reflect an objective truth—this is a
construction we maintain. “Fair” does not have to refer to any one particular skin tone. The human body is a mir-
acle, skin is fascinating, and an individual is beautiful, period. Statements like “beautiful for a … ” should be
corrected when uttered by others and eliminated from our thinking and speech. Repeat as necessary.
Lastly, realize that this entire discussion is grounded in the use of appearance as a metric of quality. Reject the
notion that outward beauty dictates self-worth. Reject the idea that someone’s physical beauty is the outward
manifestation of their inward value. Reject the idea that your face, your skin, your hair, and your bone construc-
tion bear any connection with your strength of spirit, depth of heart, or beauty of imagination….
We must retrain our brains to understand that skin tone does not dictate physical beauty, and that physical
beauty does not guarantee happiness. Our words should reflect these concepts. Begin within yourself. True
happiness comes from valuing the self and valuing others so that we treat ourselves well in order to better the
lives of those around us.

Source: Islam 2014.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
As we have seen in this chapter, skin-color valuations have been pervasive throughout history and
around the world. The preference for whiteness or lightness can be found in Africa, Asia, Latin
America, and the United States. There are local variations on these preferences, yet they also have
many aspects in common and are closely related to gender and sexuality. Colorism, it turns out, is
a manifestation of racism that further splits fractured groups into an internal hierarchy related to
color. At the same time, since race is closely tied to identity, there are costs to being perceived as
too light or, especially, too white. Examining colorism around the world allows us to perceive both
commonalities and differences in terms of racial stratification.
This examination also sheds light on the gendered nature of colorism: the color hierarchy has
different meanings for men and women. Although some men use skin-whitening creams or pills,
women are much more likely to use these products, which can be dangerous and even fatal. Dark-
er-skinned men may find it more difficult than lighter-skinned men to find romantic partners, but
this effect is more pronounced among women. And although physical attractiveness serves as capi-
tal for both men and women, patriarchy has created a situation in which women must depend more
than men on their physical appearance. To the extent that light skin is viewed as more desirable
around the world, this aspect of the human body more heavily influences women’s lives than
men’s.

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

RACIAL JUSTICE IS the creation of a society free of racial oppression. How might a consideration of col-
orism affect how we think about racial justice? Explain how the presence of colorism could challenge our
thinking about racial justice. Reflect on how we might overcome that challenge.

Key Terms
colorism
skin-color stratification
pigmentocracy
mulatto
hypodescent
mestizo
pardo
global color hierarchy
diaspora
patriarchy
beauty queue
skin-color privilege
erotic capital
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
5.1 When and how did colorism and skin-color stratification originate?
Colorism has a long history and many distinct manifestations around the world.
What is the difference between colorism and skin-color stratification?
How long has colorism been a factor in the African American community?
How is skin-color stratification in Brazil related to colonialism?
What is the history of colorism in Asia and Africa?

5.2 How does colorism differ across societies?

Skin-whitening creams, which are evidence of a global color hierarchy, can be found from the
United States to Asia to Latin America to Africa.
What are some indicators of colorism and skin-color stratification in the United States, Asia, Latin America,
and Africa?

5.3 How does skin color relate to gender and beauty?

Skin-color stratification and colorism are more prominent for women than men, and this disparity
is largely related to beauty norms.
What is a “beauty queue”?
How does skin-color privilege vary by racial group?

Critical Thinking

1. Why might it be important to understand whether colorism predates colonialism?

2. What are some distinctions between a desire to be white and a desire to have light skin?
3. In what ways is colorism “gendered”?

Quiz: Colorism and Skin-Color Stratification

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Talking about Race

How would you respond if a friend or relative implied that you are a better (or worse) person
because of your skin color or hair texture? Your friend might first ask for an explanation of
what this comment means. Listen to any justification offered, and then use the knowledge
you have gained in this chapter to respond accordingly. For example, you can demonstrate
how remarks that devalue dark skin are harmful, or you can explain the connections between
colorism and racism.
 6
Educational Inequality

CHAPTER OUTLINE
6.1 The History of Educational Inequality
6.2 Educational Inequality Today
6.3 The Achievement Gap: Sociological Explanations for Persistent Inequality
• Voices: Moesha
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
6.1 What are the dimensions of racial inequality in our educational system?
6.2 How does the legacy of inequality affect contemporary educational opportunities and outcomes?
6.3 How can we explain continuing racial disparities in educational achievement?

E ducation is meant to be the great equalizer. Every child in the United States, regardless of
race, gender, or citizenship status, has the right to attend free public school up until the
twelfth grade. With these educational opportunities, any child should be able to be successful.
Nevertheless, there are tremendous gaps in educational achievement in the United States. And
these gaps fall along racial and ethnic lines.

Historically, educational opportunities in this country have not been equal. Enslaved Africans
and their children were forbidden to learn how to read or write. Chinese immigrants were banned
from public schools. African American, Asian American, and Mexican American children were
relegated to separate and unequal schools. Prior to 1954, U.S. laws prevented many nonwhite chil-
dren from accessing the best educational opportunities.
Today, over six decades later, some things have changed. There are no longer any all-white uni-
versities in the United States, and the number of all-white high schools has decreased. The best
colleges and universities now seek out a diverse student body, and many offer scholarships to stu-
dents who can contribute to campus diversity. Elite private high schools offer similar incentives to
attract students who are neither white nor from privileged backgrounds. Yet nonwhite children still
do not have equal access to the opportunities available to their white counterparts.
In this chapter, we will look at the history and current state of educational inequality in the Unit-
ed States. We will see how far we have come and how far we must go to achieve equality in educa-
tional opportunities and outcomes for all children in the United States.
6.1 THE HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY
In the United States, the idea of equal opportunity holds great weight, even as the reality has fallen
short of the ideal. Before the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, children who were
not white were systematically prevented from attending white schools under a doctrine called
“separate
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equal.”
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During slavery, most African Americans were prevented from learning to read and write, some-
times by law. Free blacks were not permitted to enroll in the few public schools that existed in
southern states. With emancipation came the freedom to learn and to teach. African Americans
across the South started schools wherever they could—in fields, in one-room schoolhouses, and in
people’s homes. Southern blacks who managed to learn to read and write taught others in their
community. They also recruited Northerners as teachers. By the end of the nineteenth century,
states across the South were able to ensure free public schooling for all children (Span 2002).
Beginning in the early twentieth century, racial tensions heightened. African Americans lost the
right to vote in several southern states. In this context, school segregation was implemented and
enforced in both the North and the South. With segregation, black children were often left with
few educational resources. Their communities often had to make do with one-room schoolhouses
provided by the state, or else they had to pool their own funds to build better schools. Community-
established schools provided some of the first educational opportunities to black children in the
South, but they were gravely underresourced (Span 2002).
Official segregation in public schools persisted until 1954. Whereas many African American
and Mexican children were obliged to attend segregated schools in their home communities, many
Native American children were sent to Indian boarding schools. The history of segregated and un-
equal schools in this country stretches over many decades and continues to have implications
today.

Indian Schools
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, U.S. government officials enacted policies to
ensure that Native Americans would leave behind their traditional ways and assimilate into Ameri-
can society. One of the measures aimed at obliterating native cultures was the creation of Indian
schools, as these institutions were called in the early twentieth century.
The three main types of schools designed for Native Americans were (1) boarding schools locat-
ed outside of reservations, (2) boarding schools located on reservations, and (3) day schools on
reservations. In addition, starting in 1819, there were federally subsidized mission schools, which
focused on teaching Native American children about Christianity. These schools were designed to
assimilate Native Americans into mainstream society (Watras 2004).
The first boarding school was the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, established in 1879.
The philosophy of the school’s founder, Richard Henry Pratt, was that by fostering assimilation,
the school could “kill the Indian and save the man.” By 1926, about 70,000 of the 84,000 Native
American children in the United States were attending a government-created school (Watras
2004). In 1930, there were 707 Indian schools across the United States, with 52 in Montana alone
(Noel 2002).
Some Native American children attended boarding schools by choice, often with the hope that
they would be provided for materially and would learn skills that would help them survive in
mainstream society. Many children, however, were forced or coerced to attend these schools (Noel
2002). Once there, students who tried to run away were often harshly punished. At Chemawa
School in Oregon, for example, there were forty-six runaway attempts in 1921 and seventy in
1922. At this school, runaways, called deserters, were forced to stand in the hallway with their
arms and legs tied. If they tumbled over because they fell asleep, the matron would whip them and
make them stand again (Marr n.d.). At Haskell Indian School, there were fifty-three runaways in
September 1910, and another thirty-five in October. If runaways were returned to the school, they
would face physical punishment for their behavior (Stout 2012).
When children arrived at these schools, they were often renamed. A young man named Raining
Bird, for example, was renamed Arthur Raining Bird. If the boys had long hair, it was cut. Native
American children were forbidden from speaking in their native language and from practicing
their own religions. Children who spoke in their native languages were often physically punished
if the teacher overheard them. Native languages, dress, and hairstyles were forbidden in order to
inculcate Native American children in the ways of white Americans (Noel 2002).
The children spent half of the day in classes learning English, reading, and mathematics, and the
other half of the day doing industrial, agricultural, or domestic chores, which were framed as “pro-
ductive activities.” The girls were assigned to kitchen duties, sewing, laundry, ironing, and clean-
ing, while the boys were required to do farm labor, gardening, grounds keeping, and carpentry
(Noel 2002). In some cases, once Native American girls learned how to keep house, they were sent
to local white homes to work as servants (Trennert 1983).

Students in the cadet uniforms at the Carlisle Indian School, ca. 1880.

Native American children who went to boarding schools were often underfed at the schools, and
many became ill or died. In 1926, a comprehensive study of Indian schools showed that the board-
ing schools’ budget for feeding children was only eleven cents a day—$1.41 a day in today’s cur-
rency, and not nearly enough to provide a reasonable diet. Because of undernourishment, the chil-
dren often succumbed to diseases such as tuberculosis (Watras 2004). Many boarding schools
across the United States today have burial grounds for Native American children who died while
at school.
Following the official end of assimilation programs in 1993, these boarding schools were either
reformed or closed. The repercussions of these institutions, however, continue to be felt.
Genevieve Williams, who was born in 1922, went to an Indian school as a young girl. She remem-
bers being forced to scrub floors on her hands and knees and being beaten for speaking in her na-
tive language. She recalls girls being flogged for wetting the bed. When she returned home at age
fourteen, she no longer recognized her mother. Having never bonded with her own mother,
Williams found it hard to nurture her own children. Her husband had been physically abused at
school, and this also affected his ability to raise their children (King 2008). The effects of Indian
schools are felt across generations as the children of Native Americans like Genevieve Williams
and her husband continue to suffer from this intergenerational trauma.

Segregation and Landmark Court Cases

Prior to 1885, Chinese American students were not allowed to attend public schools in California.
Between 1896 and 1954, it was legal for states to deny African Americans, Mexican Americans,
Native Americans, and Asian Americans access to public schools and other facilities designated
for whites (Wollenberg 1974). The 1896 court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson was used to justify
the existence of separate educational facilities for white and nonwhite students. By 1931, more
than three-quarters of the school districts in California practiced segregation (Wollenberg 1974).
At that same time, 90 percent of the schools in Texas were racially and ethnically segregated
(Godfrey 2008).
The schools established for nonwhites were inferior in many ways to those that served whites.
Schools for Mexican American children were designed to “Americanize” them through instruction
in cooking, hygiene, English, and civics. In these segregated schools, children were punished for
speaking Spanish, and girls were taught home economics so that they could work in the homes of
whites (Wollenberg 1974).
In the 1930s and 1940s, Mexican Americans in Texas and California initiated protests against
these separate and inferior schools. In Texas, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LU-
LAC), founded in 1929, led the protests. The first case brought by LULAC was Salvatierra v. Del
Rio Independent School District, in 1930. The court decided that segregation was permissible, rea-
soning that it was not based on race but on language and academic abilities. Over the next two
decades, advocates of educational equality in Texas continued to be unsuccessful through a series
of similar court cases.
One of the first victories of the civil rights movement came in 1947 with the case of Mendez v.
Westminster, when a federal circuit court in California ruled that the segregation of children of
Mexican and Latin American descent was unconstitutional. The Mendez case was a critical fore-
runner to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education,
which overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling. Mendez began when Gonzalo Mendez, a Mexican
American naturalized U.S. citizen, and his Puerto Rican wife, Felicítas, attempted to enroll their
three children in the 17th Street Elementary School in Orange County, California. Although Gon-
zalo Mendez had attended the school himself as a boy, his children were turned away because the
school no longer allowed Mexican Americans to attend. Following failed attempts to win over the
school board, he and 5,000 other people filed suit against several Orange County school districts in
1945. Their court case was successful, and the Supreme Court ruled that segregation based on a
Spanish surname was unconstitutional (Ruiz 2001).
For African Americans, the landmark case regarding educational segregation was Brown v.
Board of Education in 1954, which was a compilation of four separate cases from four different
towns. It involved two rural communities—Clarendon County, South Carolina, and Prince Edward
County, Virginia—and two urban districts—Topeka, Kansas, and Wilmington, Delaware. African
Americans in each of these communities perceived that the education their children received in
segregated schools was inferior to that given to white children. Indeed, local governments spent
less money on the education of black children. Nationally, prior to 1950, the average expenditure
for black students was less than two-thirds of that for white students (Siddle Walker 2000). In
1951, in Clarendon County, for example, the annual average expenditure was $44.32 per black stu-
dent, compared with an average of $166.45 per white student. Additionally, white children did not
have to pay for their school materials, whereas black students did (Anderson and Byrne 2004).
These unequal expenditures meant that African Americans had access to fewer educational re-
sources (Siddle Walker 2000). Parents in Clarendon County got together to protest this tremendous
inequality, and their case became one of the four cases heard in Brown v. Board of Education.
Despite tremendous obstacles, African Americans in the pre–civil rights era worked hard to en-
sure that their children had educational opportunities. Parents often provided equipment and spa-
ces when they could. Communities mobilized to ensure educational opportunities. At exemplary
high schools such as Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., 60 percent of graduates went on to
attend college in the 1950s. At this same high school, several of the teachers had doctorates from
elite institutions (Siddle Walker 2000).
The rulings in Mendez v. Westminster and Brown v. Board of Education were only the beginning
of the long process of school desegregation. In Prince Edward County, Virginia, for example, the
Brown decision led to the closing of all public schools so that white students would not have to in-
tegrate. In 1964, a Supreme Court decision—Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward
County—forced the county to reopen public schools (Orfield and Lee 2004).

The Persistence of Racial Segregation in the Educational System

Educational institutions are no longer allowed to prevent nonwhite children from attending. Never-
theless, segregation persists, in part because school districts are not required to promote integra-
tion, and in part because residential segregation persists. In the 1970s, courts often ordered schools
that continued to be racially segregated to bus children in from across town. This strategy worked
because even though neighborhoods were segregated, busing meant that schools did not have to
be. However, busing was short-lived (McNeal 2009). In 1991, the Supreme Court decided in Dow-
ell v. Oklahoma City that schools were not obliged to desegregate. This decision meant that many
school districts abandoned desegregation programs. Once children began to attend schools in the
neighborhoods where they lived (as opposed to being bused to other neighborhoods), schools
rapidly became resegregated (see Figure 6-1).

FIGURE 6-1
THE RETURN OF SEGREGATION AFTER RELEASE FROM COURT OVERSIGHT
Note: Stanford researchers used a “dissimilarity index” to measure segregation, from 0 (balanced integration)
to 1 (complete segregation).

Source: PBS Frontline (2014)/Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis (2012).

Although 1988 was a high point of desegregation for black students, the Dowell decision re-
versed that trend. Since 1991, we have seen increasingly high rates of segregation, as measured by
the percentage of schools that are over 90 percent nonwhite—nearly one in five by 2013. At the
same time, the larger numbers of nonwhite students overall in the U.S. educational system means
that progressively fewer schools have less than 10 percent nonwhite students (Orfield, Ee,
Frankenberg, and Siegel-Hawley 2016).
This high level of racial segregation is often associated with poverty: in 2011, half of schools
that were over 90 percent black and Latinx also had poverty rates over 90 percent (Orfield and
Frankenberg 2014; Table 6-1). In contrast, 69 percent of schools with less than 10 percent black
and Latinx students had poverty rates of less than 50 percent. There is a direct relationship be-
tween the percentage of black and Latinx students in a school and the percentage of poor students
(Orfield and Frankenberg 2014). A recent study of Florida schools found that more than 80 percent
of students in primarily black schools were impoverished, compared with 50 percent of students in
integrated schools and 43 percent of students in primarily white schools. This study also found that
only 32 percent of fifth-graders at the primarily black schools had passed a basic test, compared
with about 55 percent of those at the primarily white and integrated schools. Students at schools
that were over 90 percent black fared the worst on standardized tests (Borman et al. 2004).

TABLE 6-1
Relationship between Segregation and Poverty, 2011–2012
% Poor Percent Black and Latinx Students in Schools
in
schools 0-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-100

0–10 11.4 10.0 3.6 1.9 2.2 2.2 2.1 2.9 2.1 2.2

11–20 11.8 16.2 11.3 4.2 2.8 1.9 1.8 1.6 1.5 1.3

21–30 13.4 14.7 14.4 10.1 5.2 3.7 2.5 2.2 1.7 1.5
31–40 16.1 15.0 15.2 14.8 10.7 7.2 4.8 2.7 2.2 1.8

41–50 16.3 14.3 15.5 16.5 15.1 12.7 8.6 4.9 3.0 2.4

51–60 13.4 12.7 14.9 17.1 16.7 16.9 13.4 8.0 4.6 3.5

61–70 9.0 9.3 12.5 15.7 19.1 17.8 18.5 15.5 9.2 5.4

71–80 4.7 4.7 7.7 11.3 16.0 18.8 20.8 22.0 18.3 10.5

81–90 2.0 1.9 3.4 5.7 8.7 13.2 17.5 23.2 29.3 20.6

91–100 1.9 1.2 1.5 2.6 3.4 5.6 10.0 17.0 28.0 50.8

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

% U. S. 33.2 13.9 9.0 6.9 5.9 4.9 4.4 4.2 5.0 12.7
schools

Source: Adapted from Orfield and Frankenberg (2014).

Affirmative Action in Higher Education

Racial diversity in schools is a contentious issue at the university level as well. Title VI of the
1968 Civil Rights Act enabled colleges and universities to take affirmative action to enhance
racial diversity on campus. Affirmative action encompasses policies and procedures designed to
combat ongoing discrimination in schools and in the workplace. In higher education, it has meant
giving preferential treatment to people who are members of historically disadvantaged groups. In
schools with affirmative action programs, admissions committees can consider the racial diversity
of applicants as one factor in their decision to admit a student to a university.
In 1965, only 2 percent of medical students in the country were African American. In response
to this underrepresentation, the University of California at Davis Medical School set aside sixteen
of its one hundred admission slots for underrepresented minority students. In 1978, a white appli-
cant named Allan Bakke was denied admission to the medical school. Bakke believed that in the
absence of these racial quotas, he would have been admitted. He therefore filed a class-action law-
suit alleging that UC Davis had discriminated against him based on his race. In the Regents of the
University of California v. Bakke (1978) case, the Supreme Court ruled that the preferential racial
quotas did deny equal protection to white students and thus were unconstitutional. However, the
Supreme Court also ruled that race could still be used as one factor in determining admission. With
this ruling, racial quotas were no longer permissible, but diversity could continue to be used as a
factor in determining admission. The Bakke decision thus ended the relatively short history of
racial quotas in university admissions, leaving us today with more ambiguous options for promot-
ing diversity. The University of California system, for example, can argue that a student or job
candidate would contribute to the diversity of the campus, but it cannot say that it did or did not
offer a position because of racial or ethnic identity (Yosso, Parker, Solorzano, and Lynn 2004).
After the Bakke decision, affirmative action programs continued to come under attack across the
United States. In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209, which banned the consideration
of race in higher education admissions. Consequently, admission rates of black, Latinx, and Native
American students to the University of California system fell dramatically. Between 1997 and
1998—the year the ban took effect—admissions of underrepresented students fell 61 percent at
UC Berkeley and 36 percent at UCLA. These disparities continue today: black, Latinx, and Native
American students made up 54 percent of all California high school graduates in 2012 but just 27
percent of all UC freshmen in that same year (Murphy 2013).
In June 2016, in Fisher v. The University of Texas, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the right of the
University of Texas to take racial status into consideration in university admissions. This factor is
one of many considered, including grades, test scores, extracurricular activities, hardship, and oth-
er personal characteristics. The case came to the Supreme Court after applicant Abigail Fisher,
who is white, filed a lawsuit alleging that her denial of admission to the University of Texas was
due to her race. Fisher was not in the top 10 percent of her high school graduating class, and she
thus was not able to enroll at the University of Texas through the program that guarantees admis-
sion to top students in Texas. Instead, she was competing for a relatively small pool of spots for
students not in the top 10 percent. University officials argued that, with an SAT score of 1180 and
a 3.59 GPA, Fisher’s record simply did not qualify her for admission. The Supreme Court agreed
that Fisher had not faced discrimination based on her whiteness (Hannah-Jones 2016).

Demonstrators in support of affirmative action in schools gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.
6.2 EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY TODAY
At all levels of schooling, educational achievements in the United States vary by racial or ethnic
group, affecting earning potential (Figure 6-2). In 2015, 88.4 percent of people in the United States
had completed high school. However, only two-thirds of Hispanics had completed high school, as
compared with 93.3 percent of whites (National Center for Education National Center for Educa-
tion 2016). In 2015, over half of Asians had a bachelor’s degree or higher—well above the nation-
al average of 32.5 percent. In contrast, only 19.8 percent of Native Americans, 15.5 percent of His-
panics, and 22.9 percent of blacks had a bachelor’s degree. The data are similar if we look at pro-
fessional degrees, though the percentage of graduate students of color is increasing (National Cen-
ter for Education Statistics 2016).

FIGURE 6-2
EDUCATIONAL DISPARITIES BY RACE AND ETHNICITY, 2015

Source: NCES (2016).

Although disparities in educational outcomes persist, it is undeniable that they have lessened
over the course of the past hundred years in the United States. Legal segregation has been ban-
ished, Native American children are no longer forced to attend boarding schools, standard curricu-
la now include multicultural components, nearly all youth have achieved literacy, and high school
graduation rates for all racial groups are converging. Between 1971 and 1996, the gap in reading
test scores between blacks and whites shrank by almost onehalf (Kao and Thompson 2003). There
are still some significant disparities among racial groups, but they are not as pronounced as they
were at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when 28 percent of Hispanic/Latinx youth
dropped out of high school, compared with only 12 percent in 2014 (Fry and Taylor 2013; Krogs-
dad 2016).
In aggregate data, it becomes apparent that Asian students are outperforming all other students
in test scores and high school and college completion rates. These achievements have led to a
“model minority” myth, according to which Asians are widely perceived as the racial minority
group that has succeeded in the United States. As we saw earlier, Asians have not always been
viewed as a model minority. In fact, as already noted, they were prevented from attending public
schools in California in the late nineteenth century. The current stereotype did not become preva-
lent until the late twentieth century (Wing 2007). And today, even though Asians perform better on
average than other groups, it is not the case that every single Asian student is an overachiever. Ad-
ditionally, when we break the Asian population down into groups by national origin, we can see a
more complex story (Ngo and Lee 2007). For example, only about 14 percent of Hmong, Laotian,
or Cambodian adults in the United States have college degrees, compared with about half of all
Chinese, Filipino, and Pakistani adults. Indian adults have the highest rate of college graduation, at
70 percent (Piccorossi 2012).
Disparities in college attendance and completion are continuing, although these disparities have
changed over the years. In 2012, Asians were the most likely racial or ethnic group to attend col-
lege, with 84 percent of Asian recent high school graduates enrolled in college. Of these students,
79 percent were enrolled at a four-year college or university, and 91 percent were enrolled full
time (Fry and Taylor 2013). In 2012, 69 percent of Latinx high school graduates enrolled in col-
lege, compared with 67 percent of white high school graduates, 84 percent of Asian high school
graduates and 63 percent of black high school graduates. Latinx, however, were less likely to at-
tend a four-year college than white students. In 2012, 56 percent of Latinx college students were at
a four-year college, compared with 72 percent of white students. In addition, Latinxs were less
likely than whites to attend a selective college, to be enrolled in college full time, and to complete
a four-year degree (Fry and Taylor 2013).
Educational disparities among racial and ethnic groups are evident at each level of the educa-
tional system. In the next section, we will explore these disparities in more detail and look at the
various explanations sociologists offer for them. Before we proceed with sociological explana-
tions, pause to think about why black, Latinx, and Native American students are faring less well
than white and Asian students in the educational system. What have we learned so far that might
inform your explanations?
6.3 THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP: SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANA-
TIONS FOR PERSISTENT INEQUALITY
What explains persistent disparities in educational outcomes by race and ethnicity? Sociologists
describe the disparate educational outcomes of whites, Asians, blacks, Latinxs, and Native Ameri-
cans as the achievement gap. A variety of sociological explanations have been offered for this
gap, and we will explore a few of them in this section.
The first observation to make when discussing educational disparities is that public education in
the United States depends heavily on local property taxes. Inequalities in housing values translate
into inequalities in schools.

Parental Socioeconomic Status

In the United States, parental education, income, and wealth are not distributed evenly. A major
factor that can help us understand racial and ethnic inequality in education is overall socioeconom-
ic inequality. For example, one study tracked the college completion rates of youth who were
sophomores in high school in 1980. Over half of the youth whose family incomes were in the top
25 percent had earned a college degree by 1992, compared with only 7 percent of those whose
family incomes were in the lowest 25 percent. The higher-income group therefore had seven times
higher chances of completing college than the lower-income group. Overall, differences in family
income can explain about one-third of the test score gap between blacks and whites and nearly all
of the differences in college completion rates (Gamoran 2001).
In addition to family income, parental education matters. Children whose parents have college
degrees, for example, are much more likely to attend college than children whose parents have not
completed high school. Parental education is one factor that explains Asians’ relatively high edu-
cational attainment. In 1990, 65 percent of immigrants from India had college degrees, as did 63
percent of immigrants from Taiwan. However, it is important to recognize the variety in the Asian
American experience: less than 5 percent of Cambodian and Laotian immigrants had a college de-
gree in 1990 (Kao and Thompson 2003). The reason for these differences is related to immigration
policy: most Taiwanese and Indian immigrants came on skill-based visas, which required high lev-
els of education, whereas most Cambodians and Laotians came as refugees.
In their 2015 book, Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou explored the factors that have led to Asian
Americans’ educational success in the United States. One factor they focus on is the hyperselectiv-
ity of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants—a pattern whereby these immigrants have much higher
rates of educational attainment than the general population in their countries of origin. In China,
for example, only about 4 percent of adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. In contrast, 50 per-
cent of Chinese immigrants to the United States hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Chinese immi-
gration to the United States is thus hyperselective in terms of college education. Selectivity works
very differently in the case of Mexicans. People in Mexico are much more likely to have college
degrees than people in China—17 percent versus 4 percent. Only 5 percent of Mexican immigrants
to the United States, however, have bachelor’s degrees or higher. For Mexican immigrants, then,
we witness negative educational selectivity, when compared with the general population in
Mexico.
Children from working-class backgrounds tend to fare less well in school than children from
middle-class or wealthy families. In 2013, these differences in test scores persisted, both by so-
cioeconomic status (SES) and by race/ethnicity (Kena et al. 2016; Figures 6-3 and 6-4).

FIGURE 6-3
AVERAGE SCIENCE SCALE SCORES, K–2ND GRADE, BY FAMILY SOCIOECONOM-
IC STATUS (SES), 2011–2013

Source: Kena et al. (2016).

FIGURE 6-4
AVERAGE NAEP READING SCALE SCORES, 4TH–8TH GRADE, BY
RACE/ETHNICITY

Source: Kena et al. (2016).

The fact that African Americans and Latinxs are, on average, less wealthy than white students
helps explain some of the inequalities in educational outcomes. In one study, sociologists Vincent
Roscigno and James Ainsworth-Darnell (1999) found that family SES could explain about half of
the difference between the test scores of black and white children. What explains the other half?
Why do black and Latinx children fare less well in school than white children who have the same
family structure and income levels? Sociologists offer a few explanations, which we will consider
next.

Cultural Explanations: “Acting White” and Other Theories

Sociologists and other social scientists have long conducted research on the role of culture in the
achievement gap. Culture is a broad analytical concept and can refer to a wide variety of factors,
often revealing disconnects among students, parents, and teachers.
Scholars of education have spent much ink trying to understand why black students perform
more poorly in school and have lower test scores than white students. One explanation that gained
currency in the 1980s and 1990s is the oppositional culture thesis. Anthropologists Signithia
Fordham and John Ogbu (1986) are credited with proposing this thesis, which has two basic com-
ponents: (1) African American children don’t do well in school because they equate school success
with “acting white,” and (2) African American children have responded to widespread discrimina-
tion by developing an identity in opposition to dominant white culture, and thus in opposition to
school success. The basis of this argument is that black children receive signals from both the
white and black communities that lead them to reject schooling as a route to success. Fordham and
Ogbu contend that the experiences of black students and their parents with discrimination cause
them to distrust white authority figures and institutions. Additionally, they argue that black stu-
dents develop anti-achievement attitudes to avoid peer sanctions. They found that black students
equate “working hard to get good grades in school” (186) with acting white. Fordham and Ogbu’s
thesis is based on a study with only thirty-three students, yet it gained an inordinate amount of me-
dia attention.
The idea that black students do not do well in school because they have antischool attitudes was
widely accepted and publicized because it resonated with the popular belief that black people do
not value education. However, a series of subsequent studies have shown that it is simply not true
that black students consciously underachieve or equate academic success with acting white. For
example, using a nationally representative sample of nearly 17,000 students, James Ainsworth-
Darnell and Douglas Downey (1998) found that black students had more positive attitudes toward
school than white students. They also found that black students reported being more popular when
they did better in school, refuting the claim that black students experience peer pressure to reject
school. They did not find support for the claim that black students perceive lower returns from ed-
ucation than white students; instead, black students were more likely than white students to agree
with the statement that education is important to getting a job.
In a qualitative study of seventy-two black students from the southeastern part of the United
States, Karolyn Tyson (2002) found that black third and fourth graders were consistently very ex-
cited about school and about learning. In her study, students were proud when they excelled and
disappointed when they got answers wrong or were not allowed to participate in classroom activi-
ties. Instead of experiencing high achievement as a burden, as Fordham and Ogbu (1986) have ar-
gued, Tyson (2002, 1174) found that black youth experienced a “burden of low achievement,” in
which they felt emotional distress when they did not do well.

Tracking
Even when schools are supposedly integrated, there is often internal segregation. In her well-
known book titled “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” (2003), Bever-
ly Daniel Tatum provides many answers to this question. One response is that schools are internal-
ly segregated, with white students being the most likely to be in the more advanced classes. When
children are in different classes, it is not surprising that they do not spend time together during so-
cial hours.
From elementary to high school, students in U.S. schools are placed in different classes based
on ability groups, or “tracks.” Many studies have found that nonwhite children are more likely to
be placed in low-ability groups, beginning in elementary school, whereas white children are more
likely to be placed in college-bound tracks in high school. Kao and Thompson (2003) discuss data
from 1997 which reveals that nearly half of whites and Asians were in college preparatory tracks,
compared with about a third of Latinx and Asian students and less than a quarter of Native Ameri-
can students. Another study, based on 1998 data, found that white students were twice as likely as
blacks to be in advanced mathematics courses. This study, however, found that the differences
could be explained by accounting for test scores, grades, prior track placement, and socioeconomic
status (Kelly 2009). A more recent nationally representative study found that African Americans
and Latinxs were underrepresented in advanced sophomore math classes in a large number of
schools. Moreover, black and Latinx students at those schools had lower average GPAs and rates
of university enrollment (Muller et al. 2010).

Why are schools often internally segregated?

In addition to within-school differences, there are also disparities between schools. Schools that
are predominantly white are more likely to have advanced placement (AP) classes than primarily
black and Latinx schools. The different opportunities of black, Latinx, and Native American stu-
dents to take advanced classes have important impacts on their overall academic achievement and
college success rates (Kao and Thompson 2003).

Social and Cultural Capital and Schooling

Sociologists of education also often turn to social and cultural capital as explanations for the
achievement gap. Social capital refers to relationships and networks, whereas cultural capital de-
scribes available cultural resources. Put simply, social capital is who you know, whereas cultural
capital is what you know. Students who know many people who have had educational success—
parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins with college degrees—will have more information and re-
sources at their disposal than students whose social networks primarily include high school
dropouts or people with no schooling at all. This social capital will play a role in a student’s ability
to succeed. In a similar fashion, students with access to dominant cultural capital—the norms, val-
ues, and cultural knowledge of the school—will have more chances for success than students
whose families are not part of the dominant culture.
Based on their research with Mexican-origin students in the Bay Area, sociologists Ricardo
Stanton-Salazar and Sanford M. Dornbusch (1995) argue that to be successful in school, adoles-
cents require supportive ties with institutional agents. An institutional agent is a person who oc-
cupies a position of power and is able to access or negotiate resources for students. These institu-
tional agents can be family or community members as well as school personnel. An institutional
agent can be a high school counselor who helps a student obtain financial aid, an alumnus of a lo-
cal college who serves as a mentor to a student and helps him or her fill out college applications, or
a high school teacher who writes a college recommendation for a student. These institutional
agents constitute a form of social capital that permits students to reach their educational goals.
Working-class youth have less access to this necessary form of social capital, which makes reach-
ing their educational goals more difficult.
Most schools in the United States make some effort to recognize the multicultural nature of the
nation. Nevertheless, people whose culture and experiences are part of the dominant culture are in
charge of most schools. Children whose families are part of the dominant culture thus have an in-
herent advantage, as they do not have to learn the codes and norms of the dominant culture to be
successful in school. Moreover, the school does not devalue their experiences and culture.
The concept of cultural capital draws from the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu
(1984), who argued that the dominant group in a society makes its preferences, tastes, and norms
appear to be superior to those of the nondominant group. He describes the power of the dominant
group to do this as symbolic violence, as the dominant group creates a context in which the norms,
values, and tastes of other groups are labeled as inferior. An example of this symbolic violence in
the United States is the idea that the standard form of English spoken by middle-class white Amer-
icans is an indication of intelligence and eloquence, whereas the forms of English that working-
class African Americans speak to one another is an indication of ignorance. The dominant group—
middle-class whites—sets the standards.
What all this means for education is that children who grow up in homes where Standard Eng-
lish is spoken can speak this language in school and receive praise for their intelligence and elo-
quence. Meanwhile, children raised in homes where other forms of English or other languages are
spoken must learn new languages and accents in school, and their teachers may tell them not to
speak the way their parents do at home. The act of telling children that the way their parents speak
is inferior and unacceptable in a school environment can amount to symbolic violence.
Scholars such as Michèle Lamont and Annette Lareau (1988, 164) define cultural capital as
“widely shared, legitimate culture made up of high-status cultural signals (attitudes, preferences,
behaviors, and goods) used in direct or indirect social and cultural exclusion.” Other scholars,
however, contend that all people have cultural capital, not solely those who belong to the dominant
group. Sociologist Prudence Carter (2003) explains that nondominant cultural capital refers to
those cultural resources and tastes that people who do not belong to the dominant group use to
gain authenticity as members of their group. For example, African American youth may use non-
dominant cultural capital such as knowledge of the latest underground hip-hop music to signify
their cultural authenticity. In this way, nondominant cultural capital also has an instrumental use—
even though that use may not gain the youth very much in terms of the dominant society.
In a 2003 study, Prudence Carter interviewed African American youth in New York, who ex-
plained to her that they used different ways of talking at home and at school because they knew
that speaking Standard English would be valued in a school setting. Carter’s interviewees pointed
to dress, musical, and speech styles as the most salient cultural indicators of what it means to be
authentically black. Carter, however, found that a certain amount of tension was involved in these
students’ navigation of their home and school identities. Students told her that they could easily
navigate the different cultural markers and language of the two environments. However, in some
cases, the youth “sensed that their cultural presentations of selves negatively influenced teachers’
evaluations” (150). Black youth who wish to maintain cultural authenticity have to work hard to
maintain an appropriate balance. However, middle-class white youth whose families and commu-
nities value dominant cultural capital do not have to worry about this balancing act. As Carter ex-
plains, the black youth she worked with

perceived that teachers evaluated them as deficient based on the teachers’ and the schools’
standards of cultural decorum. They understood that most Whites with whom they came into
contact used Standard English primarily, the language that facilitates success in U.S. schools
(although it is not a sufficient condition by itself). At the same time, they did not believe their
own speech styles to be incompatible with school success. (151)

Although most teachers have good intentions, the reality is that teachers are members of our so-
ciety and, like all of us, they are inundated with media images that reinforce stereotypes. The
prevalence of stereotypes about blacks and criminality, for example, influences how teachers re-
spond to black boys who misbehave. This, in turn, affects black boys’ schooling outcomes. Ann
Arnett Ferguson (2001) offers a poignant example from a school in California where a white
teacher compared black children who didn’t return library books to “looters.” Instead of seeing the
children as careless or forgetful, the teacher resorted to racialized stereotypes of black men as
thieves. Ferguson argues that cultural representations of black men as criminals serve to adultify
black boys in the eyes of teachers. Thus, instead of seeing black boys as “just being boys” when
they misbehave, teachers were inclined to say things such as “that boy has a jail cell with his name
on it.”

Voices
Moesha
Prudence Carter’s (2003) work introduces us to a young African American woman named Moesha, who had re-
cently graduated from high school, found an entry-level job, and taken a few college courses. Moesha was what
Carter calls a “cultural straddler” in that she was able to use “black” cultural capital as well as dominant cultural
capital, depending on the situation. However, Moesha perceived that there are tensions between dominant and
“black” cultural capital.
Moesha explained to Carter in an interview:

We’re [African Americans] not ignorant; there are just certain ways that we talk to each other. It might
not seem right, but that doesn’t mean we’re dumb. See I know people who can act ignorant [clownish] as
anything, but they are also smart, and they can also talk in an intelligent way. It’s just that when you talk
with your friends, you talk in a certain way. Or when you’re at work or wherever you’re at, you have to
act intelligent.

Later, Moesha explained how these ideas were carried over into the school setting:
 There were like certain teachers, they would give you attitude for no reason. And you’re like … I didn’t
do anything. But for me, it was only like for certain friends that I had [who] were outspoken, and me I
was very passive. I’d let whoever say whatever. And [my friends] weren’t like that. I guess … for my
friends, I didn’t like the way that the teacher would talk to them. I had friends that … were very smart.
They were very, very smart, and the teachers think that because they are a certain way, and they act a cer-
tain way, that they are not smart. And that’s not true. They are; they are very smart. It’s important that you
learn about people.

Even though Moesha had learned that she was expected to use Standard English and deferential modes of behav-
ior in school to gain the teacher's favor, she recognized that these expectations also meant that students who were
more outspoken were mistreated.
It is also important to think about the fact that whereas white, middle-class students can use the same speech
styles and behavioral mannerisms at home and at school, children from working-class and nonwhite communi-
ties are expected to alter their behavior when at school. This puts a certain burden on students who do not hail
from the dominant culture. In addition, a strong message is sent when a teacher tells a student that the way he or
she (and his or her parents) speaks at home is “ignorant.”

Source: Carter 2003.

Hidden Curricula and the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Schools are sites of socialization and learning: it is in schools that students learn to become mem-
bers of society and develop the skills necessary to be successful. The official curricula of schools
include subjects such as math, science, history, and, increasingly, test-taking skills. Schools are
also meant to function as sorting mechanisms: students who work hard and perform well will be-
come the future leaders of society. Some education scholars argue that there is also a hidden cur-
riculum: that is, the school curriculum is designed to reflect the cultural hegemony and to ensure
the class interests of the dominant group. From this perspective, schools also function as sorting
mechanisms, but not in a meritocratic fashion. Instead, schools reproduce the status quo.
One way in which schools reproduce racial inequality is through rules and punishment. Students
are evaluated not only on their achievement, but also on their ability to conform to rules. Punish-
ment for rule breaking becomes a mechanism of social differentiation and normalization. The dis-
ciplinary techniques used by schools label children as “good,” “bad,” “gifted,” and “troublemak-
ers,” and children are judged on their ability to conform to school rules (Ferguson 2001, 52).
In her book Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, Ann Arnett Ferguson
argues that teachers are more likely to interpret the behavior of African American boys as defiant
or inappropriately expressive (2001). As a result of this interpretation and labeling, these students
are more likely to receive punishment. There is a certain circularity here: since punishment often
involves exclusion from the classroom, these students fall further behind.
This circularity is a crucial part of what some scholars call the school-to-prison pipeline—a set
of practices that leads to children being funneled from public schools into the juvenile and crimi-
nal justice system. Factors contributing to this pipeline include a rise in suspension rates across the
country and increased policing of and arrests within schools. These practices build up over the
course of a child’s educational career and have harmful effects on black and Native American
youth in particular. Across all age groups, starting with preschool, black students are three times
more likely than white students to be suspended from school, and Native American students, twice
as likely. Relatedly, black and Native American students are also twice as likely as other students
to be subject to school-related arrest (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights,
2014).
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
In the United States, one-third of adults over the age of twenty-five have a bachelor’s degree. With
the changing labor market and growing inequality, postsecondary education has become increas-
ingly important. Opportunities for financial stability increasingly depend on completing college.
In this chapter, we have explored various dimensions of educational inequality. Sociologists of-
fer a range of explanations for why Native Americans, Latinx Americans, and African Americans
are less likely than white adults to have a college degree. Some of these reasons are historical; the
parents of many people of color did not have college degrees because of extreme barriers to higher
education in the past. Other reasons are socioeconomic. For example, it is more difficult to attend
college if you are in a financially precarious situation, and whites have, on average, higher in-
comes than other groups. There are also structural and cultural explanations for racial disparities in
educational outcomes.
What do we do with all of this information? Many top-tier public schools across the country
continue to be primarily or exclusively white. Meanwhile, many underresourced and even danger-
ous schools primarily serve black, Latinx, and Native American youth. What are the implications
of failing to provide truly equal opportunities to children from disadvantaged backgrounds?

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

HOW HAS YOUR cultural capital affected your educational experience? Reflect on the extent to which
you have had access to dominant versus nondominant cultural capital and how that has shaped your educa-
tion. Drawing from the readings and your own experiences, describe an idea for how youth without access
to dominant cultural capital could excel academically.

Key Terms
affirmative action
“model minority” myth
achievement gap
oppositional culture
acting white
social capital
cultural capital
institutional agent
symbolic violence
adultify
hidden curriculum
school-to-prison pipeline

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

6.1 What are the dimensions of racial inequality in our educational system?
The United States has a long history of educational inequality. In the early twentieth century, Na-
tive American, African American, and Mexican American children were relegated to separate and
inferior schools. Segregation was outlawed in 1954, yet it has produced lingering effects.
How has educational attainment across racial and ethnic groups changed over time?
What are Indian schools, and what were the conditions like in those schools?
On what basis could plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education case argue that schools were not “sepa-
rate but equal”?
Why did it take so long for schools to become integrated after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
decision?

6.2 How does the legacy of inequality affect contemporary educational opportunities
and outcomes?
Asian and white students tend to do better on tests, have higher GPAs, and have higher rates of
college completion than African American, Native American, and Latinx students.
What is the relationship between school segregation and poverty?
Why have schools begun to resegregate since 1991?

6.3 How can we explain continuing racial disparities in educational achievement?

Sociologists offer several explanations for disparate educational outcomes, including oppositional
culture, tracking, social and cultural capital, and hidden curricula.
Give examples of the theoretical explanations sociologists offer for the achievement gap.
What is the difference between social and cultural capital? How are social and cultural capital related to ed-
ucational success?

Critical Thinking
1. What are some lingering effects of forced school segregation?
2. How might the concept of intergenerational trauma help us understand racial inequalities
today?
3. Why is there so much variation in the educational success rates among Asian American stu-
dents of different nationalities?
4. Explain and reflect on the tension some youth face between maintaining cultural authenticity
and being perceived as serious students. To what extent have you observed or experienced this
tension personally?
5. How do racial ideologies play a role in reproducing racial inequalities within the school sys-
tem? Explain how specific ideologies are connected to inequality.
6. Which explanation for the achievement gap do you find most convincing? Why?
7. To what extent do you think black children do less well in school than white children to avoid
being perceived as “acting white”? On what empirical basis do you make your arguments?
8. How are social capital and cultural capital important for school success? Reflect on their im-
portance in your own educational experiences.

Quiz: Educational Inequality

[Please Note: You must have an Internet connection in order to view this content.]

Talking about Race

Have you ever heard someone say that Asians are naturally good at math? Based on what you
have read in this chapter, what are some ways you could respond to such a statement? Could
you talk about the variation in Asian American rates of success? Could you talk about hyper-
selectivity? What other factors can help us unravel the model minority myth?
 7
Income and Labor Market
Inequality

CHAPTER OUTLINE
7.1 Income Inequality by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
7.2 Dimensions of Racial Disparities in the Labor Market
• Voices: Jarred
7.3 Sociological Explanations for Income and Labor Market Inequality
• Voices: Latina Professionals as Racialized Tokens: Lisa’s Story
7.4 Affirmative Action in Employment
7.5 Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
7.1 What is the extent of income inequality, and how does it vary by race, ethnicity, and gender?
7.2 What are some dimensions of labor market inequality?
7.3 How do sociologists explain labor market inequality?
7.4 Can affirmative action be an appropriate remedy for labor market discrimination?
7.5 What is the relationship between self-employment and labor market inequality?

A fter World War II, quality of life for those in the working and middle classes improved each
year until 1973, when average income began to fall. Meanwhile, the income of the upper
classes began to skyrocket. Today, the United States is one of the most unequal countries in the
Western Hemisphere (Johnston 2015). Moreover, inequality is mapped along race and gender
lines, with African Americans and Latinxs earning substantially less than whites. We see this racial
inequality not just in income but also in the labor market as a whole. In this chapter, we will take a
closer look at income and labor market inequality and develop a deeper understanding of racial in-
equality in the United States today.
Studies of labor market discrimination and income inequality clearly show that men earn more
than women and that white workers earn more than nonwhite workers, even accounting for differ-
ences in education, skills, years on the job, and productivity (Pager, Western, and Bonikowski
2009). Why are employers willing to pay a premium for white male workers? It seems as if in a
capitalist society, employers should want to get the best worker they can for the lowest price. Yet
the evidence suggests that employers routinely pass over highly qualified black and Latinx candi-
dates and offer raises and promotions to white candidates (Pager and Shepard 2008). Why do you
think this is the case? Why are employers less likely to hire black and Latinx candidates? Why are
highly qualified Asians paid less than their white counterparts?

[Please Note: You must have an Internet connection in order to view this content.]
7.2 DIMENSIONS OF RACIAL DISPARITIES IN THE LABOR
MARKET
Disparities in earnings and wages are tied to many facets of the labor market, including unemploy-
ment rates, promotion practices, and employment stability. For example, black women are at a
higher risk of unemployment than white women, meaning they are even more economically disad-
vantaged than the wage gap suggests (Pettit and Ewert 2009).
Is it harder for people from some racial or ethnic groups to obtain jobs? Are some groups less
likely to be promoted? Are some groups less likely to be in stable employment? All of these fac-
tors are relevant to understanding the extent of labor market disparities.

Disparities among Women

First, let’s look at how gender plays a role. There is a wage gap between men and women in the
United States: women earn, on average, 83 cents an hour for each dollar that men earn (Gould,
Schieder, and Geier 2016). Moreover, earnings differences by gender within and across racial and
ethnic groups can be striking. White women earn 81 cents for each dollar that white men make.
However, black women make only 65 cents for each dollar that white men make, and Latina
women only 58 cents (Economic Policy Institute 2016) (Figure 7-5). Thus, analyses of racial in-
equality in the labor market that do not take gender into account provide an incomplete picture
(Browne and Misra 2003).

FIGURE 7-5
WOMEN’S HOURLY EARNINGS ON THE DOLLAR VERSUS MEN’S BY
RACE/ETHNICITY

Source: Economic Policy Institute (2016).

A study by Raine Dozier (2010) helps us understand how labor market forces affect the earnings
gap between black and white women. Her study found that both groups experienced wage gains
during the 1980s and 1990s, but white women gained more. Dozier explains that this disparity de-
veloped because white and black women were not equally represented in the job sectors that had
the most earnings growth. Between 1980 and 2002, more women entered the labor force and more
highly paid professional positions became available to them. White women were more likely to
attain these highly paid positions and thus gain more than their black counterparts.
 Black, Latina, and white women have different labor market outcomes, and these vary further
by level of education. Among high school graduates aged eighteen to twenty-four, 61 percent of
white women are employed, compared with 52 percent of black women and 55 percent of Latinas.
The trends are distinct for college graduates: 86 percent of black female graduates aged 25 to 34
are employed, compared with 82 percent
of white graduates and 77 percent of Latina graduates of the same age (Alon and Haberfeld 2007).
These higher rates of labor force participation among young college-educated black women, how-
ever, do not translate into higher average incomes over the course of their careers.
Earnings disparities continue over the length of time spent in the workforce. We can see this by
looking at wage differentials over time. For unskilled women—defined as women with a high
school degree or less who do not have a skilled trade—first entering the labor market, the average
hourly rate (in 1995 dollars) does not vary greatly by race and ethnicity: $6.28 for black women,
$6.42 for white women, and $6.67 for Latinx. However, by the fourteenth year in the labor market,
average pay for white and Latinx women increases to $10.04 and $9.34 per hour, respectively. In
contrast, after fourteen years of work, unskilled black women earn, on average, only $7.48 per
hour. Thus, over time earnings in low-skill jobs tend to increase for Latina and white women but
not for black women (Alon and Haberfeld 2007).

In the United States, women earn an average of 83 cents for each dollar men earn. This pay gap was one of the
reasons for the 2017 Women’s March on Washington.

Disparities among Asian Americans

Given the tremendous diversity within the Asian American population, it can be helpful to break
these groups down by national origin when analyzing economic disparities. Among U.S. Asians of
different national origin groups, household income varies greatly (Figure 7-6). Whereas the aver-
age annual household income for Indian Americans in 2015 was $100,000, it was only $36,000 for
Burmese American households.

FIGURE 7-6
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME AMONG U.S. ASIANS BY NATIONAL ORIGIN
GROUP, 2015

Source: Pew Research Center (2017).

In a study using data from the 2000 U.S. census, Emily Greenman and Yu Xie (2008) looked at
full-time, year-round workers between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-five. They found that
among men, four groups had higher earnings than white men: Chinese, Asian Indians, Koreans,
and Japanese. However, among women, in addition to those four groups, Cuban women and Filip-
ina women also out-earn their white counterparts. Overall, Greenman and Xie found that white
women earn seventy-one cents for each dollar that white men earn, and that white women have the
largest gender disadvantage of all of the racial and ethnic groups. Korean women, for example,
earned eighty-six cents for each dollar that Korean men earned, and black and Filipina women
earned eighty-four cents for each dollar that their male counterparts earned. These results show
that it is not the case that race and gender are additive factors in the labor market. Instead, racism
and sexism operate in distinct ways for different ethnic and racial groups.
Asian American men have the highest average earnings in the United States. Does this mean
they do not face discrimination? Not necessarily. Many sociologists have pointed out that Asians
earn more than whites, but that their average earnings should actually be even higher because
Asians have higher average educational attainment than whites. Because of how our society is or-
ganized, we should expect people with more education to earn more than their less educated coun-
terparts, not the same or less. One study, for example, found that over half of Asians born in the
United States complete college, compared with less than a third of whites. Asians are also more
likely than other groups to major in areas that have higher pay, such as science and engineering
(Kim and Sakamoto 2010).
ChangHwan Kim and Arthur Sakamoto (2010) conducted a study on whether Asian American
men experience labor market discrimination. Their study included only men who were college
graduates. Thus, it considered labor market discrimination among highly skilled workers. They
found that Asian American men who are college graduates do earn more than their white counter-
parts. However, once you take into account the region where they live, their field of study, and
their college type, native-born Asian American men have an 8 percent earnings disadvantage. In
other words, if an Asian American man and a white man both live in New York, both went to se-
lective universities, and both studied engineering, we could expect that the Asian man would earn,
on average, 8 percent less than the white man. In contrast, Kim and Sakamoto found that Asian
American men born abroad who went to school and now work in the United States do not experi-
ence a labor market disadvantage relative to white men.
Kim and Sakamoto’s 2010 study only included college-educated men. However, in a follow-up
study published in 2014, the researchers revealed that Asian American men without a college de-
gree earn substantially less than their white counterparts. Kim and Sakamoto explain that the mod-
el-minority myth can have negative effects for Asians who do not achieve a certain level of educa-
tional success. The follow-up study showed particularly striking results for Asian American male
high school dropouts, who earned significantly less than white male dropouts (Kim and Sakamoto
2014).

Underemployment, Unemployment, and Joblessness

Earnings inequality is compounded by unemployment rates. Earnings data do not factor in unem-
ployed people, who may not be taking home any income. It is thus important to consider the ef-
fects of unemployment and underemployment on the bigger picture. These rates vary significantly
by race and ethnicity, as shown in Figure 7-7. Since 1970, the unemployment rate for blacks has
been about twice that for whites.
Wage differentials in the labor force provide a limited view of overall inequality, as analyses of
the earnings gap account only for people who are actually working. Thus, as we will see, the find-
ing that the earnings gap between whites and blacks has decreased since 1980 may not be as
promising as it seems in terms of racial equality. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts people as
unemployed when they do not have a job and have actively looked for work in the previous
month. Insofar as many people do not work and have given up looking for work, the unemploy-
ment rate is only one measure of joblessness (University of California Berkeley Labor Center
2013).

FIGURE 7-7
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BY RACE/ETHNICITY, 1973–2013

Sources: Freeman (2011); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2013b).

The labor market prospects of black and Latinx workers also look bleak when we take underem-
ployment into account. The underemployment category includes jobless workers actively seeking
work, people who are working part-time yet are available to work fulltime, and those who have
looked for work in the past year but are not actively seeking employment. In 2017, 15 percent of
Latinx workers and 13 percent of black workers met this definition of underemployed, compared
with 8 percent of white workers. For all workers, these rates had improved since 2010, when 25
percent of black and Latinx workers and 15 percent of white workers were underemployed (Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics 2017).

Voices
Jarred
Jarred, a forty-nine-year-old African American grandfather, has been out of work for over a year. Unemployment
is financially and emotionally taxing. His story is similar to that of many African American men who live in
deindustrialized cities.
Jarred’s first job began shortly after he graduated from high school. He worked at a turkey farm for four years.
He feels fortunate to have secured his second job in the better-paid manufacturing sector, where his father also
worked, at a local turbine factory. He worked there for fourteen years, until a large-scale layoff in the 1980s—a
time when many factories that provided good jobs to working-class men were closing.
After the layoff, Jarred was unemployed for nine months before securing another job. This job was also in the
manufacturing sector and provided a living wage. Jarred was the only African American man in the plant where
he worked. He remained there for four years before being laid off again.
After his latest layoff, Jarred not only has trouble supporting his two children and three stepchildren, but also
feels emotionally drained. Jarred defines his masculinity in part through his ability to work. Being unemployed
feels “degrading” to him. He explained to Kenlana Ferguson, who interviewed him:

Being unemployed [is] … rough. Now, I’ve been out of work since October 28th of last year, and it’s a
degrading feeling…. If you don’t watch it, it’ll ruin your manhood because it comes to the point where
you just feel like you worked all those years for nothing at all…. I just want to keep building on what I’ve
already worked for…. My wife and I have three grandkids living with us full time. So, a family that size
and you’re going from $60 grand a year to $15,900. It’s a big loss.

When factories closed in the 1980s, many workers found themselves unemployed after having worked decades
at the same factory.

Jarred’s wife is disabled, and her disability check is not enough to support their family. He continues to look
for work, but his chances are relatively low, given that he is nearly fifty years old and there are many other men
in the town where he lives who have also been laid off and are looking for work. The chances of his finding a
well-paying manufacturing job are even slimmer, as most of those jobs have moved overseas where employers
can take advantage of lower wages and a more vulnerable workforce.

Source: Adapted from Ferguson 2012.

The 2 million people in the criminal justice system are also mostly outside the labor force, yet
they are not included in the official counts of the unemployed. As many as 1 in 10 black men age
20–34 are in prison or jail on any given day, as compared to 1 in 100 members of the general pop-
ulation (Pettit and Sykes 2015). High rates of incarceration for young black men exacerbate their
rates of joblessness. As one example of how the incarceration rate affects the jobless rate, we can
consider a study by Western and Pettit (2002) that looked at the percentages of black and white
high school dropouts with jobs. The study found that without taking the incarcerated population
into account, 50 percent of black high school dropouts aged twenty-two to thirty had jobs, com-
pared with
80 percent of white high school dropouts. After factoring in the incarcerated population, however,
this percentage dropped to less than 30 percent for black male high school dropouts, compared
with over 60 percent for their white counterparts (Western and Pettit 2002; Figure 7-8).

FIGURE 7-8
EMPLOYMENT PERCENTAGES OF MALE HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS, AGE 22 TO
30, BY RACE AND EDUCATION HISTORY, 1980 AND 1999

Source: Western and Pettit (2002).

Western and Pettit (2005) found that the gains in black men’s wages between 1980 and 1999
must be assessed in light of the large numbers of black men who went to prison and became job-
less during that same time period. Incarceration is an important factor in assessing labor market
inequality for black men. If we look at labor market inequality without taking into account incar-
ceration rates, we will have an incomplete picture because large numbers of black men are effec-
tively taken out of the labor market by imprisonment. As Western and Pettit (2002) explained,
when we take into account the incarcerated population, less than a third of black male high school
dropouts are employed.
One in three black men born in the twenty-first century can expect to spend time in prison dur-
ing his lifetime (Mauer and King 2007). While incarcerated, people are either unemployed or em-
ployed at extremely low wages, as the minimum wage does not apply to prison labor. Moreover,
the effects of imprisonment endure after incarceration. People who spend time in prison often have
trouble finding work once released because of the stigma of a criminal record (Pager 2007). They
also are likely to earn less than people who have not been to prison, as their time in prison takes
them out of the labor market, rendering them incapable of gaining work experience during this
time. In a recent study, Lyons and Pettit (2011) explored how spending time in prison affects wage
trajectories for black and white men. They found that there was relatively little difference between
black and white men’s wage growth prior to incarceration, but that after incarceration, black men’s
wages grew at a 21 percent slower rate than the wages of their white counterparts.
7.3 SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS FOR INCOME AND LA-
BOR MARKET INEQUALITY
One question that arises from these disparities is whether the gaps in earnings and employment are
due to differences in human capital, labor market discrimination, or other factors. Human capital
refers to educational attainment, skills, and job experience. Scholars who study labor market dis-
parities often measure earnings gaps while taking into account human capital differences. The idea
is that an individual’s earnings should be based on his or her qualifications. If disparities remain
once we take into account human capital differences, we can argue that labor market discrimina-
tion plays a role in the earnings gap. Studies of the earnings gap consistently show that about
10 to 20 percent of this gap cannot be explained by human capital differences. Sociologists often
consider the unexplained gap to be an indicator of labor market discrimination (Pager et al. 2009).
The existence of an earnings gap tells us that labor market discrimination is likely at play. Field
research or audit studies provide further evidence of labor market discrimination, particularly in
terms of hiring. In these studies (e.g., Pager et al. 2009), researchers send out people with similar
qualifications but different racial and ethnic identities to apply for existing jobs to find out if racial
identity plays a role in employers’ hiring decisions.
The lower earnings of African Americans and Latinxs can be attributed in part to individual fac-
tors such as discrimination and lower levels of human capital. But lower earnings are also at-
tributable to structural factors such as changes in the labor market. During the 1980s, for example,
wages increased for high-skilled jobs, government sector work declined, many unionized jobs
went overseas, and part-time and temporary work rose. These structural changes affected labor
market disparities. Of course, individual and structural factors also work together. For example,
blacks have, on average, lower educational attainment than Asian Americans. This disparity has
disadvantaged blacks in recent years because of the diminished opportunities for low-skill work
that has resulted from outsourcing. This section considers both individual-level and structural ex-
planations for labor market inequality.

Individual-Level Explanations
One way to explain the earnings gap among different racial groups in the United States is on an
individual level. Some scholars argue that the earnings gap is due to individual human capital dif-
ferences; for example, if Asian Americans have higher levels of education than blacks, we can ex-
pect them to have higher incomes.
In 2012, 84 percent of Asians, 69 percent of Latinxs, 67 percent of whites, and 63 percent of
blacks who graduated from high school immediately enrolled in college (Fry and Taylor 2013).
Higher levels of education among Asians are part of the reason they earn more than other racial
groups. But to what extent does educational attainment explain overall patterns of income
inequality?
Sociologists Moshe Semyonov and Noah Lewin-Epstein (2009) examined the earnings gap be-
tween black men and white men by looking at individual-level characteristics such as age, marital
status, immigrant status, region of residence, education, hours worked, and occupation. Using cen-
sus data between 1960 and 2000 to examine how inequalities have changed over time, they found
that even when we take all of these characteristics into consideration, black men continue to have
an earnings disadvantage. Nevertheless, this disadvantage has lessened over time among men with
similar occupational and social statuses. In 1960, black men had an earnings penalty of 25 percent
(meaning they earned 25 percent less than their white counterparts with similar backgrounds). This
penalty declined to 10 percent in 1980 and was down to 4.2 percent in 2000. By 2000, black men
earned 4 percent less than white men with similar backgrounds. For Semyonov and Lewin-Ep-
stein, human capital and other individual-level characteristics explain most, but not all, of the earn-
ings gap between white and black men. When differences in earnings cannot be explained fully by
workers’ labor market characteristics, many scholars argue that the disadvantage can be explained
by discrimination.
Racial discrimination in the labor market occurs when racial status plays a role in an employer’s
decision to deny a person a job, promotion, or raise. A survey conducted in 2001 found that more
than 33 percent of blacks and nearly 20 percent of Latinxs believed they had experienced labor
market discrimination (Schiller 2004). Other studies have found that employers admit they are hes-
itant to hire black workers (Pager and Shepherd 2008).

Voices
Latina Professionals as Racialized Tokens: Lisa’s
Story
Glenda Flores argues that Latina professionals are “racialized tokens.” When they are numerical minorities in
white-collar occupations, they experience a series of uncomfortable situations rooted in racial conflict. Flores’s
work on Latina doctors introduces us to Lisa, a thirty-four-year-old family medicine physician born in El Sal-
vador. Lisa moved to the United States with her family as an infant and settled in the Pico Union District in
downtown Los Angeles.
Lisa explained that her college-educated, white-collar parents experienced downward mobility upon arrival.
As undocumented immigrants, they found work in the garment industry. Lisa overcame obstacles associated with
her parents’ low socioeconomic status and earned her medical degree from the University of California at Davis.
Despite experiencing intergenerational upward mobility and securing a prestigious profession that paid over
$100,000 a year, Lisa shared that she frequently experienced gendered and racial inequities in her interactions
with colleagues and patients, both co-ethnics and non-Latinxs. In an interview, Lisa recounted a situation with a
white physician:

I ended up doing way more [work] than that [white] doctor. That doctor slowed me down because his
Spanish was broken and he did not know anything about medical Spanish, which I have been studying. So
they were using me to interpret [for him] and I was really mad … I’m like “why am I doing that?” … I
am okay doing it but it was just funny that [another] Latino [doctor], a Peruvian guy, was putting him [the
white doctor] on a pedestal because he is male, white, and older and I am the opposite.

Later, Lisa, who had a very slight accent indicative of a native Spanish speaker, explained how racial/ethnic in-
equality influenced how patients interacted with her during office visits:

There was an intern who was an Asian [male] and had seen this patient. I am understanding it was [an in-
stance rooted in] race because this is what the [white] patient said…. I am talking [to the patient] in Eng-
lish and he is like “I don’t understand you. Bring back the Asian doctor. I don’t understand you.” [I say]
“Sir, I am speaking English!” He says, “no but I don’t understand your English.”… the Caucasian [pa-
tients] are the ones that [it has happened with] at least in two situations. It is more race and language be-
cause I do have an accent and I realize that but I can communicate.
 While Lisa felt she was culturally competent to aid patients of various social and economic backgrounds, she
was aware that her race/ethnicity and gender meant that both physicians and patients undermined her medical
expertise, favoring medical interns who held a lesser rank or less competent white doctors over her.
White women also face gender discrimination in male-dominated jobs. However, the experience is different
for professional Latina who encounter gendered racism. Inequality in the professions manifests itself in different
ways, and bilingual Latina working in the “token” context often find themselves doing additional work—such as
translations—that others performing the same job are not asked to do.

Source: Glenda Flores, University of California at Irvine.

One way of measuring labor market discrimination is to use statistics to identify systematic dis-
parities between different groups. For example, if we compare the earnings of thirty-five-year-old
college-educated white men to similarly situated black men and find a disparity, we can conclude
that labor market discrimination plays a role in the earnings disparity. As previously mentioned,
another method for uncovering discrimination involves the use of field experiments or audit stud-
ies in which researchers send equally qualified individuals out to apply for jobs and calculate the
extent to which race or ethnicity affects employers’ hiring practices. Each of these methodologies
has revealed labor market discrimination (Pager and Shepherd 2008).
Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan (2004) conducted an extensive audit study to find
out if employers discriminate against African Americans. They created four résumés—two high-
skill and two low-skill—to send to over 1,300 job ads in Chicago and Boston. To isolate the effect
they were studying, they randomly assigned either an African American–sounding name (such as
Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones) or a white-sounding name (such as Emily Walsh or Greg
Baker) to each résumé. They found that applicants with white-sounding names needed to send out
about ten résumés to get a callback, whereas applicants with African American–sounding names
needed to send about fifteen. This audit study shows that African Americans have a harder time
securing interviews that lead to employment than whites in part because employers often prefer
white employees. This preference may reflect conscious or unconscious bias.
Researchers who study implicit bias explain that we all have biases at a subconscious level.
Owing to stereotypes, for example, a potential employer may exhibit bias in evaluating the same
résumé from “ Lakisha Washington” versus “Emily Walsh” without even being aware.
A clear example of implicit bias comes from a study of lawyers. A group of researchers crafted a
fictitious legal research memo and asked sixty law firm partners to evaluate the memo. The memo
contained seven deliberate spelling and grammatical errors. The partners (which included twenty-
three women, thirty-seven men, twenty-one racial/ethnic minorities, and thirty-nine Caucasians)
all received the same memo. However, half were told the author was black, and the other half were
told the author was white. The partners were asked to find the errors in the memo. Evaluators who
were told that the author was black found more of the embedded errors and rated the memo as
lower quality than did those partners who were told the author was white. Specifically, they found
an average of 2.9 spelling or grammar errors in the memo allegedly written by the white attorney,
as compared with 5.8 spelling/grammar errors in the one supposedly written by the black attorney.
The author of the study explains: “we see more errors when we expect to see errors, and we see
fewer errors when we do not expect to see errors” (Reeves 2014, 6).
The evaluators in the lawyer study were not people who think of themselves as racist or who
hold a low opinion of African Americans. Instead, their implicit biases led them to find more er-
rors when they thought the author of the memo was black. Understanding these biases helps us un-
derstand some ways that African Americans are disadvantaged in the labor market.
Structural Explanations
Some scholars have looked beyond individuals to explain the disparities between social groups in
terms of larger structures. One prominent explanation for earnings disparities between black and
white men points to the changing nature of U.S. cities, where the decline in manufacturing has
meant the disappearance of work. This shift in the labor market has affected black men in particu-
lar because of their concentration in the manufacturing sectors of many major cities.
Deindustrialization, the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, has affected work-
ing-class people in all racial and ethnic groups in the United States. After World War II, working
families in the United States experienced newfound prosperity as the U.S. economy grew rapidly
with the production of automobiles and steel. These manufacturing jobs often paid well and came
with benefits. Mostly men worked in these jobs, and many earned a family wage—an income suf-
ficient to support their wives and children (Milkman 1997; Sugrue 2014). Between 1950 and 1960,
average incomes in the United States increased steadily. However, these increases began to level
off, and by the 1970s, incomes for the working poor had stopped increasing. The average income
for people with less than a high school diploma actually decreased from about $30,000 in 1967 to
about $25,000 in 2014 (in constant 2014 dollars; Cahalan and Perna 2015).
One reason for the decreases in the average pay for low-skilled workers is deindustrialization. In
1950, 40 percent of all jobs involved the production of goods. By 1997, less than 20 percent of all
jobs were goods-producing (see Figure 7-9). Whereas, historically, manufacturing jobs often of-
fered stable employment and a family wage, service-sector jobs are often temporary and part time,
and offer lower wages. Between 1979 and 1985, the United States lost 10 percent of its manufac-
turing jobs. These losses were concentrated in certain geographical areas, thereby amplifying their
localized effects. The Midwest lost over a million jobs, and the Northeast lost 800,000. By con-
trast, the West gained 53,000 manufacturing jobs (Sassen 1989). Detroit was one of the cities hit
hardest by global economic restructuring: it lost 70 percent of its manufacturing jobs between
1969 and 1989. By the end of the 1980s, over a third of all African Americans in Detroit lived in
poverty, as did half of Detroit’s African American children (Kodras 1997).

FIGURE 7-9
PERCENTAGE OF U.S. LABOR FORCE IN MANUFACTURING, 1939–2016

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015, 2017).

 The decline in manufacturing was also accompanied by a decline in unionized jobs: In 1954, 35
percent of the nation’s workforce was unionized. By the early 1980s, this figure had dropped to 20
percent. And, by 2008, the unionization rate was 8 percent (Thompson 2009). As unionized work-
ers tend to earn more, the decline in unions has affected wage inequality (Morris and Western
1999).
In the 1950s, many urban African American families lived in poverty, but they were among the
working poor. For example, in 1960, 69 percent of men over the age of fourteen who lived in the
Black Belt region of the city of Chicago were regularly employed. By 1990, only 37 percent of
men sixteen or over were regularly employed (Wilson 1996). This figure is even smaller if we take
into account the incarcerated population, as discussed previously.
Until the 1980s, many black men were employed in manufacturing jobs, which provided bene-
fits and a family wage, permitting families to attain comfortable standards of living. Once these
factories began to close, these comfortable lifestyles went with them. Black men were the hardest
hit by this economic restructuring: Oliver and Shapiro (2006, 26) write that “from 1979 to 1984
one-half of black males in durable-goods manufacturing in five Great Lakes cities lost their jobs.”
When the economic crisis hit Detroit and other cities, white residents often fled, whereas
African American residents rarely had this option. As a result, by the end of the 1980s, urban areas
were much less white and much more impoverished than they had been a decade earlier. The un-
employment rates of African American men in these urban areas rose to extraordinarily high rates
—by 1990, only 37 percent of males sixteen or over who lived in the Black Belt in Chicago were
regularly employed (Wilson 1996).
African American men in Detroit were hit particularly hard by deindustrialization. This is due in
part to the fact that, in 1970, 94 percent of employed black men in Detroit had blue-collar jobs, the
sector that experienced the greatest decline (Sugrue 2014). This deindustrialization trend that start-
ed in the 1950s continued for five decades: between 1972 and 1992, three out of four production
jobs disappeared from Detroit (Boyle 2001). As the availability of manufacturing jobs declined,
black men began to have difficulty finding work (Farley, Danziger, and Hozer 2000).
The prevalence of black unemployment in deindustrializing urban areas such as Detroit and
Chicago is better understood by examining both the skills mismatch and the spatial mismatch that
deindustrialization has created. The skills mismatch hypothesis suggests that many African
American men in particular often do not have the skills required to secure work in the current
economy. Although employment sectors that require a college degree have experienced growth,
many African American men do not have the qualifications for these jobs.
The spatial mismatch hypothesis sheds further light on these trends, as it explains that African
American families have been excluded from buying homes in the suburbs where much of the job
growth has occurred. This exclusion has created a disconnect between where African Americans
live and where the jobs are concentrated. In Detroit, for example, the city is 80 percent African
American, whereas the Detroit metropolitan area (including the suburbs) is 22 percent black. The
city is much poorer than the suburbs and has fewer well-paying jobs. Over half of city residents
live in areas where the poverty rate is over 40 percent. Over 100,000 people who live in Detroit
commute to the suburbs for work—and 36 percent of them earn less than $15,000 a year. Less than
a third of employed Detroit residents both live and work in Detroit. In sum, Detroit’s overwhelm-
ing black population has a spatial disadvantage in the labor market due to a spatial mismatch be-
tween where they live and the jobs available to them (Abello 2017).
7.4 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN EMPLOYMENT
In a profit-based economic system, wages should be determined by competition, and the most
qualified people should get the available jobs. If there are lots of people with a certain skill set,
wages will be lower for that job. In contrast, if there are fewer people with the requisite skills, then
wages should be higher. However, prior to the civil rights era, employers practiced overt discrimi-
nation: they refused to hire African Americans and paid them less than whites when they did hire
them.
Edna Bonacich (1976) explains that historic disparities between blacks and whites are due to a
split labor market, which refers to a difference in the price of labor for two or more groups of la-
borers. For example, in 1927 in Virginia, the average daily pay rate for white bricklayers was
$11.00, whereas it was $9.60 for blacks. Similarly, white cement workers earned an average of
$6.33 per day, whereas blacks earned an average of $4.42. While many companies paid African
Americans less, others refused to hire them at all. This seems somewhat illogical, as we would ex-
pect employers to hire the lowest-paid workers they could find. However, often racial discrimina-
tion is not based on logic.
One story from the late 1950s is that of Thomas Bailey, a skilled brickmason who had trouble
finding steady work. When he applied for jobs, foremen often told him that he had to be a member
of a union to work there. Yet, when he applied for membership in the union, the business agent
told him he could only be a member if he was actively working. Bailey, an African American, was
caught in a bind. He had trouble getting steady work because the unions often refused to allow
black men to join, and the unions controlled access to construction employment. When this issue
came to the attention of local civil rights leaders, they pressured the union to allow Bailey to join.
He eventually was let in but faced intimidation by other union members. Because of the wide-
spread nature of cases like Bailey’s, national leaders began to push for more systemic changes.
The construction industry was one of the first targets because it relied on federal contracts. The
federal government had the power to require these companies to obey antidiscrimination laws as a
condition of their contracts (Golland 2011).
One of the proposed solutions to labor market discrimination came to be known as affirmative
action. This term was first used in 1935 in the National Labor Relations Act, which specified that
employers could not discriminate against union members or organizers. If they did, they would
have to take affirmative action to remedy the effects of that discrimination (Skrentny 1996). Three
decades later, President Lyndon Johnson used the term in Executive Order 11246 (1965). In this
order, Johnson called for federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants
are employed, and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, col-
or, religion, sex or national origin.”
Because of this order and other civil rights legislation and rules, by the 1960s, federal contrac-
tors had to sign pre-award affirmative action agreements ensuring active recruitment of a diverse
workforce. Contractors also had to agree to sponsor nonwhite workers for apprenticeships and
training. In this way, in towns and cities across the nation, African Americans and Latinx were
able to secure employment in what had been a primarily white employment sector (Golland 2011).
Today, affirmative action refers to policies and procedures designed to combat ongoing discrim-
ination in the workplace and in schools (see Chapter Six). Affirmative action policies aim to pre-
vent discrimination by requiring employers to be proactive in their attempts to diversify their
workforce. In addition, affirmative action policies require employers to be conscious of the racial
and ethnic makeup of their employees to ensure a more diverse workforce (Skrentny 1996). The
overarching goal of affirmative action in employment is to decrease the influence of racial discrim-
ination on the employment prospects of people of color.
Government orders for contractors are one of four kinds of affirmative action in the United
States:

1. Government orders regulating government contractors and subcontractors

2. Regulations requiring affirmation action by public employers
3. Court orders based on antidiscrimination law
4. Employers’ voluntary human resources policies

Since 1965, companies that do business with the federal government have been required to meet
affirmative action requirements. The U.S. Department of Labor website (n.d.) indicates that “for
federal contractors and subcontractors, affirmative action must be taken by covered employers to
recruit and advance qualified minorities, women, persons with disabilities, and covered veterans.
Affirmative actions include training programs, outreach efforts, and other positive steps.” In other
words, any company that works with the federal government has to show that it is taking positive
steps to maintain or increase the diversity of its workforce. One example is the promotion of broad
recruitment strategies: posting a job advertisement for at least thirty days, advertising in a range of
venues, and using objective evaluation criteria to review the applicants.
In 1972, the Equal Opportunity Act created a provision mandating that employers found guilty
of discrimination must implement affirmative action policies. Since 1965, hundreds of employers
have implemented affirmative action voluntarily in their hiring and promotion strategies. Never-
theless, despite fifty years of affirmative action, African Americans, Latinx, and Asian Americans
continue to experience labor market discrimination.
7.5 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SELF-EMPLOYMENT
Given the unequal conditions of the formal labor market, many racial and ethnic minorities turn to
self-employment as a means to achieve the American Dream and to be their own boss. Self-em-
ployment rates vary significantly among groups. In 2010, 13.5 percent of white men were self-em-
ployed, compared with 6.2 percent of African Americans, 34 percent of Israelis, 27 percent of Ko-
reans, 10 percent of Mexicans, and 9 percent of Dominicans. Most sociologists explain these dis-
parities in self-employment rates by pointing to differences in social and ethnic networks and hu-
man capital (Portes and Yiu 2013).
The self-employment strategy has worked better for some groups than for others. Chinese and
Cuban small-business owners, for example, tend to do better than their counterparts who are not
self-employed. However, African American, Korean, and Mexican small-business owners often
experience severe setbacks. The work of both Adia Harvey Wingfield (2008) and Zulema Valdez
(2008a, 2011) adds complexity to traditional understandings of the ethnic enclave economy,
which refers to clusters of small businesses that primarily serve people of the same ethnicity and
work to facilitate the success of co-ethnics. The ethnic enclave economy has helped immigrants of
certain national origins, such as Cubans, attain economic success in the United States. According
to this framework, immigrants such as the Chinese, Cubans, Greeks, and Koreans have attained
success in small-business ownership because of their high human capital, social networks, and
close-knit ethnic communities. However, both Wingfield and Valdez have criticized scholarship
that focuses solely on ethnicity and culture. They argue that it is critical to understand how race,
class, and gender—in addition to ethnicity and culture—play a role in the success of small
businesses.
Wingfield (2008) draws on the concept of a racial enclave economy, in which a business’s suc-
cess is both shaped and limited by the racial group membership of the business owner. She uses
the example of black female owners of hair salons to elaborate on this concept. Valdez (2011)
draws from interviews with restaurant owners of different ethnic origins to explain how race, class,
and gender play a role in shaping the success of local businesses. To explain disparities in the suc-
cess of small businesses, she uses the concept of an embedded market—a market economy em-
bedded within interlocking systems of oppression and privilege, such as “capitalism, patriarchy,
and White supremacy” (37). These systems of oppression affect an individual’s possibilities for
success as an entrepreneur. Whereas previous scholarship on ethnic enclaves might presume that
Mexicans have similar options in the restaurant industry, Valdez explains that an upper-class male
Mexican may be able to open a highly profitable Italian restaurant in a wealthy neighborhood,
whereas a poor female Mexican may be limited to opening a taqueria in the barrio.
Valdez (2008b) conducted a national study in which she looked at four groups of entrepreneurs:
white, Korean, Mexican, and black men. She found that 40 percent of the white owners earned
over $75,000 a year, as did 25 percent of the Koreans, 20 percent of the Mexicans, and 17 percent
of the black business owners. In contrast, nearly half of the black business owners earned less than
$25,000 a year, as did 41 percent of the Mexicans, 33 percent of the Koreans, and 24 percent of the
white male business owners. Her study found that this disparity can be explained in part by the
fact that Korean and white small business owners are more likely to have higher educational levels
than the Mexican and black business owners. Black and Mexican business owners with higher lev-
els of education and more access to bank loans are able to do much better with their businesses.
Nevertheless, as Wingfield (2008) notes, some African American women without college educa-
tions are able to do well for themselves in certain racial enclave economies, such as hair salons.
She further points out, however, that the enclave places limits on the success of black female hair
salon owners: they are able to do well, but their profits tend to plateau after about five years.
The 2015 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report emphasizes that the number of women-
owned minority businesses has grown substantially over the past twenty years. However, it also
shows that revenues from minority-owned businesses continue to lag behind those of white-owned
businesses. The average revenue for businesses owned by black women in 2015, for example, was
just $39,893, compared with an average of $155,477 for all women-owned firms (The State of
Women-Owned Businesses Report, 2015, 7). As shown in Figure 7-10, whites own 79.3 percent of
all firms but take in 90 percent of all revenue. In contrast, African Americans own 9.5 percent of
firms but take in only 1.3 percent of all revenue.

FIGURE 7-10
SHARE OF BUSINESS REVENUE BY GENDER AND RACE/ETHNICITY

Note: Among those firms whose ownership can be classified by gender and race/ethnicity. Hispanics/Latinos can
be of any race; white, black, and Asian figures include Hispanics/Latinos.

Source: Desilver (2015).

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Despite fifty years of affirmative action and scores of antidiscrimination laws and lawsuits, non-
whites continue to be disadvantaged in the labor market. There are many reasons for this
discrimination.
One reason is that it is difficult, or even impossible, to legislate away discrimination. Some em-
ployers may discriminate against nonwhites and women unconsciously. Racial ideologies are often
ingrained in our individual perceptions. A white hiring manager may not be aware that because of
entrenched stereotypes and implicit biases, he thinks of a white man as a “ natural leader.” He also
may not realize that he presumes a black man is irresponsible or a Latinx is incapable of being pro-
fessional. Labor market discrimination will not disappear until racial stereotypes do.
Another set of reasons for the earnings gap is structural: growth in certain industries and con-
traction in others are due to global forces that are beyond the control of a single government. Nev-
ertheless, a government can provide training programs to get people up to speed and to work in
emerging fields. This is an example of a race-neutral program that may help reduce racial
disparities.
A related reason for this gap is that the labor market and the small-business market are struc-
tured by deeply entrenched inequalities, patriarchy, and racial divisions. Racial segregation in
housing and schools, for example, leads to racially segregated social networks, which themselves
reproduce preexisting inequalities. As the United States becomes increasingly unequal, it is critical
to work toward ameliorating overall inequality while striving to reduce disparities among racial
groups.

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

IMAGINE THAT EVERYONE in the United States, regardless of racial status, had an equal chance of be-
ing rich, middle class, or poor. Imagine further that the overall level of inequality remained the same.
Would that be racial justice? Keep in mind that, in that scenario, with so many poor people in the United
States, millions of people of color would continue to be poor. Reflect on the extent to which racial justice is
tied to economic justice.

Key Terms
Gini coefficient
earnings gap
wage gap
underemployment
human capital
implicit bias
deindustrialization
skills mismatch hypothesis
spatial mismatch hypothesis
split labor market
ethnic enclave economy
racial enclave economy
embedded market

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

7.1 What is the extent of income inequality, and how does it vary by race, ethnicity,
and gender?
Overall income inequality in the United States is at a historic high. This inequality is exacerbated
when we take racial, ethnic, and gender disparities into account.
How has inequality changed over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?
How unequal is the United States compared with other countries?
What is the difference between the wage gap and the earnings gap?

7.2 What are some dimensions of labor market inequality?

A complete understanding of racial disparities in the labor market requires a consideration of gen-
der, national-origin differences, incarceration rates, and unemployment rates.
Why is it important to take human capital into account when measuring earnings disparities?
How do racism and sexism operate differently in the labor market?

7.3 How do sociologists explain labor market inequality?

Sociologists offer various explanations for labor market disparities, ranging from human capital
disparities to employer discrimination and structural changes in the overall economy.
To what extent are Asian Americans advantaged or disadvantaged in the U.S. labor market?
How do the individual-level explanations for labor market disparities differ from the structural explana-
tions? To what extent could these explanations work together?

7.4 Can affirmative action be an appropriate remedy for labor market discrimination?
Few employers have affirmative action policies in place. Those that do are required to take posi-
tive steps to ensure that their company does not practice racial discrimination and has a diverse
workforce that reflects the working-age population of the United States.
How has affirmative action been implemented in the United States?

7.5 What is the relationship between self-employment and labor market inequality?
Self-employment and entrepreneurship have worked well for some racial minority groups but not
for others.
In owning successful small businesses, what barriers do women and racial minorities face in particular?

Critical Thinking
1. How do the wage and earnings gaps represent different facets of inequality?
2. Why has earnings inequality increased over the past fifty years?
3. Of the explanations provided, which do you find most convincing for explaining the earnings
 disparities between black men and white men? Why?
4. Why does the author argue that the incarcerated population should be included in counts of the
unemployed?
5. Are audit studies a useful way to measure discrimination? Why or why not? What are the
weaknesses and strengths of this approach?
6. Why is it important to take gender into account when studying racial inequality?
7. What strategies do you think could be implemented to reduce the earnings penalty for non-
white workers?
8. Can people of color avoid discrimination by becoming entrepreneurs? Why or why not?
9. How is an embedded market related to ethnic and racial enclaves? Evaluate how the embedded
market affects minority-owned businesses.

Quiz: Income and Labor Market Inequality

[Please Note: You must have an Internet connection in order to view this content.]

Talking about Race

Income inequality has increased overall in the United States since the 1970s: the rich have
become richer while the poor have become poorer. Think of ways to use what you have
learned in this chapter to talk with people close to you about inequality. What is the relation-
ship between overall inequality and inequality between racial groups? How could a decrease
in overall inequality lead to a decrease in racial inequality? Do you think there could be room
for interracial solidarity in discussions about income inequality?
 8
Inequality in Housing and
Wealth

CHAPTER OUTLINE
8.1 Residential Segregation
• Voices: Vince Mereday (from Color of Law)
8.2 Wealth Inequalities
8.3 Explaining the Widening Wealth Gap
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
8.1 What are some historical reasons for housing and wealth inequalities in the United States?
8.2 When and how did residential segregation become a characteristic of U.S. cities?
8.3 What is the extent of wealth inequalities today in homeownership and beyond?
8.4 What factors are sustaining and exacerbating wealth inequalities?

I nequalities in housing and wealth are deeply rooted in American history. In this chapter, we
will learn about wealth inequality—both overall inequality and inequality among racial and
ethnic groups. Wealth is the sum total of a person’s assets—cash in the bank and the value of all
property, not only land but houses, cars, stocks and bonds, and retirement savings—minus debt. It
is something built up over a lifetime and passed on to the next generation through inheritances.
Wealth inequality in the United States is staggering: 1 percent of Americans own nearly half of
the wealth in the country (Norton and Ariely 2011). Despite this tremendous inequality, the idea
persists that if you work hard, you will succeed. This ideology is deeply rooted in the American
psyche and sustained through popular media and folklore. Yet many people work hard all of their
lives and die with no assets. As writer and activist George Monbiot (2011) put it, “If wealth was
the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.”
In Chapter Seven, we learned about income inequality. Wealth inequality, as we will see, is both
more entrenched and more severe. Most Americans think wealth should be distributed more equal-
ly—even as they underestimate the true extent of inequality. Most believe a fair distribution would
mean a substantial amount of wealth for the middle class. The reality, however, is very different,
with the middle class holding very little or no wealth and the poor having no wealth at all. These
proportions—broken down into ideal, perceived, and actual distributions—are shown in Figure 8-
1. As this figure shows, the United States is a highly unequal society in terms of wealth and is even
more unequal than most of us realize. The top 20 percent of the population controls over 80 per-
cent of the wealth (Norton and Ariely 2011).

FIGURE 8-1
IDEAL, PERCEIVED, AND ACTUAL WEALTH DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED
STATES

Source: Norton and Ariely (2011).

When we add race into the equation, the numbers get starker. Black and Latinx families in the
United States own just nine cents of wealth for each dollar white families own (Pew Research
Center 2014). How do we explain such racial disparities in wealth?
As we will see, the reasons for these disparities run deeper than those for income disparities.
Wealth inequality is related to income inequality, but wealth and income inequality function differ-
ently. The wealth inequality between whites and blacks, for example, is a result of historically em-
bedded inequalities that go back to the time of slavery, the Jim Crow era, and early-twentieth-cen-
tury housing policies. Today, these disparities are perpetuated and even exacerbated by inequalities
in homeownership, college attendance, inheritance, and unemployment rates. Homeownership, of-
ten considered the cornerstone of the American Dream, is one of the primary driving forces behind
racial disparities in wealth. In this chapter, we will take a close look at the historical roots of
wealth inequality, as well as contemporary trends, through the lens of race.
8.2 WEALTH INEQUALITIES
Racial segregation in housing is one of the driving factors behind wealth disparities among racial
groups. On average, African Americans and Latinx have less than 9 percent of the wealth of
whites (Figure 8-3; Pew Research Center 2014). The disparities between the wealth portfolios of
whites and Latinxs and between those of whites and blacks are about twice as large today as they
were prior to the recession that began in 2007, primarily as a result of residual effects from the re-
lated crisis in the housing market. The housing crisis wiped out all of the gains in wealth made by
black and Latinx families compared to whites since 1984, when the United States first began to
track wealth inequality. In 2009, one-third of black and Latinx households had zero or negative
wealth (Kochhar et al., 2011). By 2013, the median white household had 13 times the net wealth of
the median black household and ten times the wealth of the median Latinx household (Traub, Sul-
livan, Meschede,
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FIGURE 8-3
MEDIAN NET WORTH OF HOUSEHOLDS BY RACE/ETHNICITY: 2007, 2010, 2013 (IN
2013 DOLLARS)
Source: Pew Research Center (2014).

Let’s briefly review the differences between income and wealth. Americans primarily use their
income to live on a day-to-day basis: to pay the rent or mortgage, to buy food and other necessi-
ties, to pay for school, and to pay bills. Income differentials often translate into differences in stan-
dards of living. Wealth, by contrast, has a different functionality. Wealth includes an individual’s
accumulated assets, such as savings, home equity, stocks, and business ownership. People don’t
use wealth to pay for daily expenses (except in financial emergencies). Instead, wealth grants fi-
nancial stability and is often used to ensure the financial success of future generations through in-
heritances. Oliver and Shapiro (2006, 175) contend that “wealth is money that is not typically used
to purchase milk, shoes, or other necessities…. It is used to create opportunities, secure a desired
stature and standard of living, or pass along a class status already obtained to a new generation.”
The vast discrepancies between black and white wealth, then, translate into the solidification of
racial inequality across generations.
Many factors affect wealth inequality. One of the main factors is inequality in home values and
homeownership. In 2005, blacks and Latinx derived much greater proportions of their wealth from
their homes than whites. Looking at the loss in average wealth for families between 2005 and
2009, we clearly see that nearly all of the losses for all families came from losses in home equity
(Figure 8-4). Since black and Latinx families had almost no other wealth—an average of $479 for
Latinx families and $626 for black families—these households lost nearly all of their wealth as a
result of the housing crisis (Kochhar et al., 2011).

FIGURE 8-4
AVERAGE WEALTH OF FAMILIES BY RACE/ETHNICITY BEFORE AND AFTER
THE HOUSING CRISIS—IN 2005 AND 2009

Source: Kochhar, Fry, and Taylor (2011).

In 2000, Native Americans were the racial group in the United States with the lowest average
incomes. Although relatively little data is available on their wealth holdings, Jay Zagorsky (2006)
was able to use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth to assess their wealth. He
found that in 2000, the average Native American born between 1957 and 1965 had only $5,700 in
wealth, compared with the $65,500 amassed by his or her white counterpart. He also found that
only 43 percent of the Native Americans in this age group had bank accounts, compared with 65
percent of baby boomers overall. Only a third of Native American baby boomers owned homes,
compared with 57 percent overall. Zagorsky (2006) found that Native Americans own fewer busi-
nesses, have lower rates of homeownership, and reside in homes with lower values than the aver-
age person living in the United States.
In a study of wealth inequalities in Washington, D.C., Kijakazi and colleagues (2016) found that
white households have, on average, a net worth that is eighty-one times greater than that of black
households. The nation’s capital is 47.7 percent black, 35.7 percent white, 10.4 percent Latinx, and
3.7 percent Asian. The study found substantial wealth disparities by race and ethnicity. The medi-
an net worth—the sum of all assets less the value of debts—for white households was $284,000,
compared with $13,000 for Latinx households, $3,500 for U.S. black households, and $3,000 for
African households. Korean, Asian Indian, and Vietnamese households all had a median net worth
of over $400,000, higher than that of the average white household.
Kijakazi and colleagues (2016) found that even highly educated black families have less wealth
on average than white families. For white households headed by an individual with a high school
diploma or less, the average net worth was $265,000, compared with $130,000 for black house-
holds headed by an individual with a graduate degree. Whereas net worth for whites varies rela-
tively little between those who have a high school diploma or less and those with a bachelor’s de-
gree, for Latinx households the difference is substantial: $5,500 versus $53,000. For black house-
holds, the largest gain is between a B.A. degree (−$19,000) and a graduate degree ($130,000). At
all educational levels, however, net worth for blacks lags behind that for whites (Figure 8-5).

FIGURE 8-5
MEDIAN NET WORTH BY EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND RACE/ETHNICITY IN
WASHINGTON, D.C., 2016

Source: Kijakazi et al. (2016).

Inequality in Homeownership and Home Values

Using the 2001 American Housing Survey, Lauren Krivo and Robert Kaufman (2004) found that
over 70 percent of white households owned their homes, compared with 46 percent of black
households, 49 percent of Latinx households, and 55 percent of Asian households. In addition,
they found that white homeowners have more home equity than do blacks and Latinxs. The medi-
an value of home equity for blacks was $52,882, and for Latinxs it was $60,000. In contrast, the
median home equity value for whites was $80,000. At $111,100, Asians had the highest average
home equity. Moreover, blacks and Latinxs were the most likely to have high-interest mortgages: 4
percent of whites had an interest rate higher than 9 percent, compared with nearly 11 percent of
black homeowners and 7 percent of Latinx homeowners. Asians were the least likely to have this
kind of mortgage, with only 1.5 percent reporting high interest rates.
Between 2007 and 2009, blacks and Latinxs were twice as likely as whites to experience fore-
closures (Kochhar et al. 2011). Analyses of home loans made between 2005 and 2008 reveals that
790 African Americans experienced a foreclosure by 2009 for each 10,000 loans, compared with
769 Hispanics and 452 whites. By 2010, 17 percent of Latinx homeowners, 11 percent of African
American homeowners, and 7 percent of non-Hispanic white homeowners had lost or were at im-
minent risk of losing their homes (Gruenstein Bocian, Li, and Ernst 2010). The housing crisis thus
exacerbated preexisting inequalities in homeownership and home values.

Wealth Inequality Beyond Homeownership

Families can have negative wealth if the total of their debts exceeds the total value of their assets.
This situation has become increasingly common with the expansion of home equity loans, falling
housing prices, and rising student debt.
Wealth includes factors beyond homeownership, such as stock holdings. When stock prices
plummeted in 2007, black and Latinx families lost the largest shares of their holdings. Latinxs who
owned stocks and mutual funds saw a 32 percent decline in their value between 2005 and 2009,
and blacks saw a 71 percent decline in the same period. The stocks owned by whites fell only 9
percent, and those owned by Asians actually increased 19 percent during this same period
(Kochhar et al. 2011). In 2013, only 3.3 percent of black households owned stocks, compared with
17.2 percent of white households (Herring and Henderson 2016).
High levels of debt also help explain wealth inequality. In 2002, over a quarter of black and Lat-
inx households had negative net worth, compared with 13 percent of white households. The num-
bers are even starker when we consider gender: nearly half of all Latina and black women had zero
or negative wealth in 2007 (Kochhar et al., 2011). In 2013, over half (54 percent) of young black
households (aged twenty-five to forty) had student debt, compared with 39 percent of young white
households. Relatedly, these young black households had a median wealth of $3,600, compared
with young white households’ median wealth of $35,800 (Huelsman et al., 2015).
8.3 EXPLAINING THE WIDENING WEALTH GAP
Rather than decreasing over time, inequalities among whites, blacks, and Latinxs are increasing.
The wealth gap between blacks and whites tripled between 1984 and 2009. In 2013, Thomas
Shapiro, Tatjana Meschede, and Sam Osoro published a study that sought to explain why. Based
on their study of 1,700 households, these analysts attributed the wealth gap to five factors:

1. Years of homeownership
2. Household income
3. Years of unemployment
4. College education
5. Inheritances or financial support from family members

Notably, Shapiro and colleagues did not find the wealth gap to be a consequence of behavioral
differences, such as consumption patterns or the propensity to build savings. It is also not solely a
function of income differentials. Instead, the researchers were able to explain two-thirds of the
wealth gap using these five factors. Years of homeownership accounted for 27 percent of the dif-
ference, household income for 20 percent, unemployment for 9 percent, and college education and
inheritances for 5 percent each (Shapiro, Meschede, and Osoro 2013).
Figure 8-6 presents an explanation of the gap between black and white wealth. Many people
would expect household income to account for the differences in wealth. However, as we have
seen, income differences can explain only a portion of wealth inequalities. And although it is true
that college education makes it easier to build up wealth, the fact that whites are more likely to be
college educated accounts for only 5 percent of the differences in wealth between white and black
households.

FIGURE 8-6
HOW DO WE EXPLAIN THE BLACK/WHITE WEALTH GAP TODAY?

Source: Shapiro, Meschede, and Osoro (2013).

 In a follow-up study, Amy Traub et al. (2017) found that racial wealth inequality was not at-
tributable to factors such as educational attainment and out-of-wedlock birth. White adults with
less than a high school education who had children but were not married and who did not work
full time had more wealth on average than black and Latinx adults who were married, completed
higher levels of education, or worked longer hours. For example, among households under age
fifty-five, the median white high school dropout has a similar amount of wealth to the median
black or Latinx adult who graduated from high school and attended some college. Additionally,
white adults who attended college have 7.2 times more wealth than their African American coun-
terparts and 3.9 times more than their Latinx counterparts (Figure 8-7).

FIGURE 8-7
MEDIAN WEALTH BY EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND RACE/ETHNICITY
(WORKING HOUSEHOLDS UNDER AGE 55), 2017

Source: Traub et al. (2017).

Years of homeownership accounted for the largest portion of the differences in wealth between
white and black families. African American families tend to purchase homes later in life because
they face more obstacles in home buying than whites. Further, black homeowners are less likely to
build up equity over the years because of residential segregation, and white families are more like-
ly to receive financial assistance in purchasing a home from their family members. Even though
homeownership accounts for, on average, 53 percent of the black families’ wealth, compared with
39 percent for whites, the return on investment in housing turns out to be far greater for white than
for black households (Shapiro et al. 2013). Black families who are able to purchase homes face
outright discrimination by real estate agents who continue to steer them to black neighborhoods
and by lenders who quote them higher interest rates. The limited market potential for homes in pri-
marily black neighborhoods inhibits the possibility for the value of these homes to increase, and
the higher interest rates make it more difficult for blacks to pay off their mortgages quickly. These
factors work together to reduce the home equity of blacks, thereby enhancing the wealth gap (Kri-
vo and Kaufman 2004).
The foreclosure crisis of 2007–2009 further decimated black and Latinx wealth portfolios. A
study by the Center for Responsible Lending (Bocian, Li, and Ernst 2010) found that among recent
borrowers, nearly 8 percent of black and Latinx homeowners lost their homes, compared with 4.5
percent of whites. Nearly two-thirds of all foreclosures between 2005 and 2008 were on homes
mortgaged using subprime loans; that is, people with subprime loans were three times as likely to
experience a foreclosure than people with conventional or government loans. And black and Lat-
inx borrowers were the most likely to obtain subprime loans with unfavorable conditions (Bocian
et al. 2010).
Whites and blacks at similar income levels tend to have vastly different wealth portfolios. One
reason is that whites are more likely to have jobs with benefits. Whites are therefore less likely to
dip into their savings for medical emergencies, and their employers are more likely to be contribut-
ing to a retirement plan (Shapiro et al. 2013). Blacks also tend to be in more precarious employ-
ment situations and are more likely to lose their jobs. When unemployment rose from 5.0 percent
in December 2007 to 9.5 percent in June 2009, Latinxs and blacks were hit the hardest, with black
unemployment rates peaking at 15.6 percent and the Latinx rate at 12.6 percent in 2009 (Kochhar
et al. 2011).
The 2013 study by Shapiro and his colleagues found that 36 percent of white households inher-
ited some money over the twenty-five-year period under study, compared with only 7 percent of
black households. Moreover, the inheritances black households received were, on average, only
about 10 percent of the amount inherited by white households. Inheritances are thus another im-
portant part of the legacy of inequality in the United States.
Wealth researchers such as john powell (2008), and Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro (2006)
make a case for asset-based social policies that are designed to help narrow the wealth gap. These
researchers contend that the FHA policies of the early twentieth century set the stage for the wealth
gap and that now the United States has the responsibility of reversing that trend by setting up
proactive policies. These policies could include individual-level assistance in buying homes as
well as larger-scale efforts such as improvements to transportation and investments in neighbor-
hoods. For example, if the local, state, or federal government invested money in a working-class
black neighborhood by building a transportation hub, transforming empty lots into parks, and revi-
talizing the business district, this investment would increase property values and provide job op-
portunities for the local community, thereby enhancing their wealth portfolios. It would take enor-
mous investments to reverse the trend, but that is primarily because of the decades of investment
the federal government has put into white communities.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, we have seen how wealth inequalities are entrenched and complex. Married white
couples with college educations are well positioned to accumulate wealth over the course of their
lives. However, married black couples with the same levels of education consistently earn less
money and have much less wealth. Wealth provides a safety net for emergencies, such as serious
medical issues or the loss of a job. This means that comfortably middle-class black families are at
a much greater risk of descending into poverty than similarly placed white families. Not all white
families have wealth, but historical racial disparities in the United States, as well as ongoing dis-
criminatory practices, ensure that white families are more likely to accumulate wealth than black
and Latinx families.
Wealth also provides opportunities and allows families to invest in their future and to take risks.
Families with substantial home equity can use this asset to finance their children’s college educa-
tions. Families with significant savings and a wide social net can use them to take risks and invest
in business opportunities. In these and other ways, wealth begets more wealth. For these reasons,
wealth inequality is hard to overcome.
Between 1933 and 1978, federal government policies enabled over 35 million families to pur-
chase homes in new suburban areas. As a direct consequence of these policies, these families will
pass on trillions of dollars of wealth to their children through accumulated home equity. Nearly all
these families are white because nonwhite Americans were locked out of this tremendous wealth-
generating federal program. Today, most black families have no wealth to pass on to their children.
For this reason, many activists contend that it is time for the federal government to enact new
wealth-generating programs that, unlike past programs, are not exclusive to white Americans
(Oliver and Shapiro 2006).

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

SOME SCHOLARS ARGUE that programs such as the Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Af-
fairs bills formed the basis of the black/white wealth gap. Can you imagine federal programs that would be
capable of helping close this gap?

Key Terms
wealth
assets
residential segregation
racially restrictive covenants
steering
Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
predatory lender
subprime loan
dissimilarity index
isolation index
segregation index
hypersegregation
asset-based social policy

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

8.1 What are some historical reasons for housing and wealth inequalities in the Unit-
ed States?
Enslaved African Americans were unable to accumulate wealth. Once freed, their opportunities for
land ownership were limited.
What does slavery have to do with contemporary wealth inequalities?

8.2 When and how did residential segregation become a characteristic of U.S. cities?
Today, most U.S. cities are segregated, but this has not always been the case. Residential segrega-
tion was created in the early twentieth century by white residents’desire for homogeneous neigh-
borhoods, by the real estate industry’s profit seeking, and by federal housing programs that were
exclusively available to whites. Whites are the only group that, on average, lives in primarily white
neighborhoods. Black families are the most likely group to be hypersegregated.
What factors contributed to the creation of residential segregation?
How is residential segregation related to the racial wealth gap?

8.3 What is the extent of wealth inequality today in homeownership and beyond?
On average, African Americans and Latinxs have less than 9 percent of the wealth of whites. The
2007–2009 housing crisis exacerbated racial inequalities in wealth.
What is the difference between wealth and income? Why is this difference important in studies of racial
inequality?
Why and how did the wealth gap between whites and other groups change between 2005 and 2009?

8.4 What factors are sustaining and exacerbating wealth inequalities?

Black families with incomes similar to those of white families have substantially less wealth. This
is because wealth is not solely a function of income differentials. The disparity is also attributable
to years of homeownership, years of unemployment, college education, and inheritances.
What programs and policies have contributed to the racial wealth gap, and in what ways?
What other factors have exacerbated the wealth gap in the twenty-first century? Give examples.

Critical Thinking
1. In the United States, why does the idea endure that if you work hard, you will get ahead? Why
might this not be true, especially for people of color?
2. How have race, class, and immigration history played a role in your family’s amount of
wealth? Consider factors such as Veterans Administration or Federal Housing Authority loans.
3. Why is racial segregation problematic? Suggest at least three reasons.
4. What distinct social challenges stem from overall wealth inequality and the racial wealth gap?
5. To what extent would narrowing the racial income gap contribute to narrowing the racial
wealth gap?
6. How would asset-based social policies work in practice? Could they work?

Quiz: Inequality in Housing and Wealth

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Talking about Race

The overall wealth inequality between white families and African American or Latinx fami-
lies is staggering. Citing this issue is one way to broach the topic of racial inequality. After
reading this chapter, have a discussion with family and friends, mentioning that white fami-
lies have, on average, over ten times the wealth of African American or Latinx families.
Highlight historical reasons for this disparity. How would you respond to potential comments
or questions about African Americans’ or Latinxs’ spending habits or educational levels?
 9
Racism and the Criminal
Justice System

CHAPTER OUTLINE
9.1 Mass Incarceration in the United States
• Voices: Earl Washington
9.2 Institutional Racism in the Criminal Justice System
• Voices: Sandy Bland
9.3 The Economics of Mass Incarceration
9.4 Beyond Incarceration: Collateral Consequences
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
9.1 What factors explain the rise of mass incarceration in the United States?
9.2 How are disparities in the criminal justice system reflective of institutional racism?
9.3 How is the rise of mass incarceration tied to large-scale economic trends?
9.4 What are the collateral consequences of mass incarceration?

W riting at the turn of the twentieth century, W. E. B. DuBois likened the prison system to
“slavery in private hands” (1904, 2). He explained that with the end of slavery, the num-
ber of black convicts in the South rose substantially, in large part because of vagrancy laws passed
in the aftermath of emancipation. Police officers often used vagrancy laws to arrest African Ameri-
cans whom they perceived to be vagrants or drifters. African Americans’ testimonies in courts
were largely ignored, and any accusation by whites could result in conviction. Southern states,
however, were not able to build prisons fast enough to house these new convicts. Thus, a convict-
lease system was born, whereby convicts could be leased to the highest bidder to work as slaves.
This practice was legal because the Thirteenth Amendment allows forced labor as a punishment
for crime. Notably, in our present system, prisons still can (and do) force prisoners to work for lit-
tle or no pay.
Convict leasing was a system of both forced labor and social control. Today, prisons do not
function to the same extent as a source of unpaid labor, yet the element of social control persists.
One place we can see this is in the lifelong stigma attached to being labeled a felon. As Michelle
Alexander (2010) explains, this stigma makes various forms of racial discrimination legal. Felons
face discrimination in housing, employment, and access to social services.
This chapter elaborates on these and other ways mass incarceration is a tool of social control,
and how this crime control strategy has disproportionately affected people of color. The evidence
presented makes it clear that mass incarceration not only is ineffective at preventing crime, but
also has been particularly detrimental to communities of color across the United States. This chap-
ter begins with a discussion of mass incarceration and then moves to an analysis of institutional-
ized racism in the criminal justice system. It concludes with a consideration of the economic and
collateral consequences of mass incarceration.
The United States has more people in prison than any other country in the world and today in-
carcerates people at a higher rate than at any other time in history. Our crime rate, however, is not
higher than that of other countries nor is it higher than it has been historically. Why, then, are so
many Americans behind bars? The answer lies in the United States’ use of mass incarceration as a
strategy to reduce crime and particularly to fight illicit drug use. Yet, mass incarceration has not
been effective at reducing crime and illicit drug use. It has, however, destroyed families and com-
munities and exacerbated racial inequality in that the primary victims of intensified law enforce-
ment efforts have been people of color.
9.1 MASS INCARCERATION IN THE UNITED STATES
An understanding of the racially disparate consequences of the criminal justice system in the Unit-
ed States must begin with an exploration of the uniqueness of this system. The United States is
distinctive among wealthier nations in its liberal use of the prison system. While drugs such as
marijuana and cocaine have been decriminalized in western Europe, the United States has en-
hanced the punishments for use of illicit drugs. Repeat offender laws and mandatory sentencing
have meant that in the United States, many people spend years behind bars for nonviolent crimes.
Because of the racially disparate implementation and character of these laws, their impact is most
visible in black
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In the United States, prisons are crowded with nonviolent offenders.

The Rise of Mass Incarceration

Mass incarceration is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States and marks a divergence
from the attitudes of the mid-twentieth century. At that time, Americans tended to view incarcera-
tion as an ineffective means of controlling crime and searched for other solutions to make commu-
nities safer. Prison was seen as a last resort, and accordingly, the Federal Bureau of Prisons
planned to close large prisons in Kansas, Washington, and Georgia. In 1970, Congress voted to
eliminate nearly all federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, as most Americans
viewed drug addiction as a problem of public health, not criminal justice (Alexander 2010).
Just ten years later, this mindset—that drugs are a public health problem and that prisons are
barbaric—was pushed to the margins as a policy of mass incarceration took off. Many scholars at-
tribute the start of this change to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, signed by Pres-
ident Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. This law was the convergence of liberal and conservative anti-
crime agendas, as both parties realized that anticrime rhetoric could help win elections. Parties be-
gan to compete with one another as to which could be tougher on crime, and this competition con-
tributed to a surge in incarceration rates (Gottschalk 2015; Murakawa 2014).
The U.S. incarceration rate was about 1 per 1,000 residents for almost the entire twentieth cen-
tury until the 1970s. That rate doubled between 1972 and 1984, and doubled yet again between
1984 and 1994. By the end of the twentieth century, the United States had an unprecedented num-
ber of inmates: over 2 million, more than ten times the number of U.S. inmates at any time prior to
the 1970s. In 2016, the incarceration rate was more than 7 per 1,000, and there were 2.3 million
Americans behind bars (Wagner and Rabuy 2016). The increase in incarceration cannot be ex-
plained by a rise in crime, as crime rates have fluctuated independently of incarceration rates
(Wacquant 2009; Gottschalk 2016). Incarceration rates soared primarily because now laws both
lengthened sentences and made a wider variety of crimes punishable by incarceration. In 2015,
6,741,400 people were under correctional supervision in the United States, and 1,525,900 were in-
carcerated (Figures 9-1 and 9-2). Although the current incarceration rate is about one in thirty-sev-
en adults, it is the lowest since 1994 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016).

FIGURE 9-1
TOTAL U.S. ADULT CORRECTIONAL POPULATION, 2015

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016).

FIGURE 9-2
TOTAL U.S. ADULT INCARCERATED POPULATION, 1980–2015
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016).

Mass Incarceration in a Global Context

The United States stands alone in its rate of incarceration. In 2017, 666 of every 100,000 U.S. resi-
dents were incarcerated—a rate nearly eight times that of western Europe’s average rate of 84 per
100,000 residents (Walmsley 2017; Figure 9-3). The American prison population also dwarfs that
of other, larger, countries, including China, in terms of sheer numbers (Walmsley 2017).

FIGURE 9-3
INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OF INCARCERATION RATES (PER 100,000), 2017

Source: Walmsley (2017).

The so-called War on Drugs in the United States accounts for much of this disparity. In the Unit-
ed States, a moral panic erupted in the 1980s surrounding the emergence of crack cocaine, which
led to harsh laws against selling or possessing crack and other narcotics. These laws in turn result-
ed in historically and globally unprecedented rates of imprisonment for drug sales and possession
(Gottschalk 2016). In most other developed countries, a first-time drug offense leads to no more
than six months in jail, and rehabilitation is more common than criminalization. In the United
States, the typical mandatory minimum sentence in federal court for a first-time drug offense is
five or ten years (Alexander 2010). At the state level, there are even more extreme examples: in
Florida, illegal possession of 100 grams or more of the painkiller hydrocodone (one of the most
frequently prescribed drugs in the United States) leads to a twenty-five-year mandatory minimum
sentence (Riggs 2014).

Race and Mass Incarceration

When we consider racial disparities in the U.S. incarceration rate, the picture becomes even more
unsettling. In 2008, less than one-third of the population of the United States was black or Latinx.
In that same year, blacks and Latinxs made up 58 percent of the nation’s prison population (Sabol,
West, and Cooper 2009). In 2014, the imprisonment rate of white males was 465 per every
100,000 in the population, as compared to 1,091 per 100,000 Latino males, and 2,274 per 100,000
black males. Black males were five times as likely to be incarcerated as white males in 2013 (Car-
son 2015). Figure 9-4 shows these rates by race and gender.

FIGURE 9-4
RATE OF INCARCERATION* PER 100,000 U.S. RESIDENTS, 2015, BY GENDER AND
RACE/ETHNICITY

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016).

Voices
Earl Washington
Earl is African American and was born in Washington, D.C., in 1974. When he was six years old, his father went
to prison. His mother, an in-home beautician, raised him on her own until she was murdered in 1987. He testified
in court at the trial of his mother’s killer James Jones:
“I am 15 years old. My mom died when I was 14. Ever since then I’ve been in and out of trouble…. I don’t
care how much time you give Mr. Jones. I mean I care but if you give Mr. Jones all of the time in the world it
won’t bring my mother back.”
Orphaned at age fourteen, Earl went to live with his elderly grandmother. In elementary school, he had been in
the Gifted and Talented Program. Shortly after his mother died, however, he dropped out of school. Earl still re-
members the last day he went to school, when he was fifteen. His friend saw him with a neon green notebook
and asked him if he was a square. Earl said he wasn’t, and he did not go to school that day—or ever again. With
no parents to guide him, he was led to the streets.
 When Earl was sixteen, he was hanging out with some friends in his neighborhood. When a group of young
men from another neighborhood came around, he and his friends decided to scare them away. What he did not
expect was that one of his friends would shoot and kill one of the other young men.
Earl was arrested for this crime and, although he was only sixteen, charged as an adult with murder, armed
robbery, assault with intent to kill, and a host of other charges. He was sentenced to fifteen to eighty years in
prison.
He had only finished the seventh grade. When he got to prison, however, he began reading books as a rite of
passage, starting with The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Next, he read The Confessions of Nat Turner and The
African World Revolution. In prison, he found that being smart garnered respect.
In 2009, when he was thirty-five years old, Earl was released from prison. He has been able to find work
through a local nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated people.
His story helps us see that in place of preventive interventions, incarceration has been the typical response to
challenges faced by poor black communities.

Source: Golash-Boza interview with “Earl Washington” (a pseudonym) (2016).

Much of the racial disparity is due to imprisonment for drug crimes, even though people of all
races use and sell drugs at similar rates (Alexander 2010). This disparity has increased over time.
In 1975, the ratio of black to white arrests for drug crimes was two to one. By 1990, the ratio was
five to one, even though there is no evidence that blacks began to use or sell drugs at higher rates
than whites during this period (Wacquant 2009).
By the end of the twentieth century, black men were seven times more likely than white men to
go to prison (Figure 9-5). Over the course of a black man’s life, he is more likely to go to prison
than to get a bachelor’s degree or join the military. Whereas a white man is ten times more likely
to get a college degree than to go to prison, a black man is nearly twice as likely to end up in
prison than to finish college. Imprisonment has become an expected life outcome for some black
men: one in every three black males in the United States will be in prison at some point in his life,
compared with one in every six Latino males, and one in every seventeen white males (The Sen-
tencing Project 2013). The number of incarcerated women has also increased over the past few
decades– at a rate 50 percent higher than that of men since 1980 (The Sentencing Project 2016).

FIGURE 9-5
PERCENTAGE OF MALE POPULATION IN PRISON BY RACE/ETHNICITY, 2015

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016).

The Inefficacy of Mass Incarceration

Incarceration has emerged as the most popular crime control strategy in the United States. Howev-
er, according to state-level incarceration trends, there is limited evidence that incarceration is an
effective strategy to control crime. Between 1998 and 2003, some states greatly increased the
number of people they sent to prison, while other states did not. The average decrease in crime
rates in these states, however, was similar. Additionally, the states with higher increases in incar-
ceration did not experience more substantial declines in their crime rates (King, Mauer, and Young
2005).
Incarceration has had a limited impact on crime rates for two reasons. First, it is just one of
many factors that influence crime rates: changes in the economy, fluctuations in the drug market,
and community-level responses often have more pronounced effects. Second, there are diminish-
ing returns from incarceration: incarcerating repeat violent offenders takes them off the streets and
thus reduces crime, whereas incarcerating nonviolent offenders has a minimal effect on crime rates
(King et al. 2005).
The rates of incarceration began to increase in the 1970s, during a time when violent and prop-
erty crime rates were high. Even though crime rates began to fall in 1993, incarceration rates and
populations continued to rise for another decade. Some of the most draconian laws were passed in
the mid-1990s, after crime rates had started falling. Figures 9-6 and 9-7 provide a visual represen-
tation of how violent crime and property crime rates have decreased since 1993.

FIGURE 9-6
PROPERTY VICTIMIZATION RATE, 1993–2015

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016).

FIGURE 9-7
VIOLENT VICTIMIZATION RATE, 1993–2015

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016).

Nonviolent offenders are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. Between 1980
and 2000, incarceration rates in the United States increased five-fold (Figure 9-8), in large part be-
cause of drug arrests. As such, drug offenders represent “the most substantial source of growth in
incarceration in recent decades, rising from 40,000 persons in prison and jail in 1980 to 450,000
today” (King et al. 2005, 6). The irony is that the incarceration of drug offenders is a highly inef-
fective way to reduce illegal drug sales in the United States. When street-level drug sellers are in-
carcerated, they are quickly replaced by other sellers, since what drives the drug market is demand
for drugs. Incarcerating large numbers of drug offenders has not ameliorated the drug problem in
the United States (King et al., 2005).

FIGURE 9-8
U.S. INCARCERATION RATE, 1980–2015

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2017).

Despite the lack of evidence that increased incarceration rates lead to decreased crime (Lynch
1999), the United States continues to build prisons and imprison more of its population (Gilmore
2007). In addition, the United States has not changed its policies in response to substantial evi-
dence that being tough on crime does not lead to safer communities. Politicians who invest money
in the criminal justice system can claim to their constituents that they are serious about law en-
forcement. This strategy, creating the impression that they have the crime victims’ interests at
heart, has become essential for winning electoral campaigns (Simon 2007). In 1998, political ac-
tivist and scholar Angela Davis pointed out: “Mass incarceration is not a solution to unemploy-
ment, nor is it a solution to the vast array of social problems that are hidden away in a rapidly
growing network of prisons and jails. However, the great majority of people have been tricked into
believing in the efficacy of imprisonment, even though the historical record clearly demonstrates
that prisons do not work” (1998, 3). The emergence of mass incarceration as a proposed—and
failed—solution to social ills can be attributed primarily to the War on Drugs, as we will see.

Mass Incarceration and the War on Drugs

Whereas only 41,000 people were behind bars for a drug offense in 1980, the figure had risen as-
tronomically to about half a million in 2010 (Alexander 2010). Many people are incarcerated for
low-level drug crimes. Between 1993 and 2011, thirty million people were arrested for drug
crimes. About 80 percent of these arrests were for drug possession, and only 20 percent were for
drug sales (Rothwell 2016; Figure 9-9).

FIGURE 9-9
DRUG SALES VERSUS DRUG POSSESSION ARRESTS, 1993–2011

Source: Rothwell (2016).

Zealous enforcement of drug laws disproportionately affects people of color, even though
whites are more likely to use and sell drugs. In the United States, black men are sent to prison on
drug charges at thirteen times the rate of white men, yet five times as many whites as blacks use
illegal drugs (Alexander 2010). According to results from the National Household Survey on Drug
Abuse, white youth aged twelve to seventeen are more likely than blacks to have sold illegal drugs
(Alexander 2010). These data are based on self-reports, yet they are confirmed by more objective
data: white youth are about three times as likely as their African American counterparts to end up
in an emergency room for drug-related emergencies. Whites who use and abuse drugs most often
buy their drugs from white sellers, just as blacks who use drugs buy from black sellers (Alexander
2010).
Law enforcement agents cannot fully enforce drug laws because drug use and selling are too
widespread. More than half of the people in the United States have violated drug laws at some
point in their lives, yet relatively few have been punished for it. In any given year, about 10 per-
cent of American adults violate drug laws. As law enforcement agents have neither the resources
nor the mandate to prosecute every lawbreaker, they must be strategic with their resources and en-
forcement tactics. Because of stereotypes that drug law violators are black, combined with the rel-
atively weak political power of poor black communities, law enforcement agents have targeted
open-air drug markets in poor black communities instead of the places where whites use and sell
drugs (Alexander 2010).
Crack cocaine was often portrayed as public enemy number one in the War on Drugs. Yet crack
did not hit the streets until 1985—three years after U.S. President Ronald Regan prioritized the
War on Drugs (an initiative President Richard Nixon had declared in 1971). In 1982, less than 2
percent of Americans viewed drugs as the most important problem facing the nation. Public opin-
ion changed drastically after Reagan greatly expanded the drug war’s reach in 1982, however, and
crack cocaine became an urban problem in 1985. A media frenzy broke out over the problems of
crackheads, crack babies, and crackwhores. The media often racialized the crack problem as a
black problem by showing images of black people in connection with stories about crack cocaine
(Alexander 2010).
The penalties that emerged for possession and sale of crack cocaine were the harshest drug
penalties in U.S. history. When the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed in 1988, it meted out a five-
year mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack. This was unprecedented: prior
to this legislation, one year of imprisonment was the maximum sentence one could receive for pos-
session of any amount of any drug (Alexander 2010). Along with the federal laws, states began to
pass stricter laws, including “three strikes,” “truth in sentencing,” and “zero tolerance” legislation,
which led to a huge upswing in incarceration rates. By 1996, nearly three-quarters of all people ad-
mitted to state prisons were nonviolent offenders with relatively minor convictions (Ladipo 2001).
At the federal level, three major laws were passed in 1984, 1986, and 1988 that marked the be-
ginning of a new era in criminal justice:

The 1984 Crime Control Act established mandatory minimum sentences and eliminated feder-
al parole.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 imposed even more mandatory minimum sentences. Most
significantly, it set a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for offenses involving 100 grams
of heroin, 500 grams of cocaine, or 5 grams of crack cocaine.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 included a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for sim-
ple possession of crack cocaine, with no evidence of intent to sell. Prior to 1988, one year of im-
prisonment had been the maximum penalty for possession of any amount of any drug.

Race, Class, Gender, and Mass Incarceration

Mass incarceration has led to the filling of jails with black and Latino working-class and poor men.
Mass incarceration is thus evidently raced, classed, and gendered. However, an intersectional
analysis requires consideration not only of the numbers of blacks, Latinxs, and men behind bars,
but also of how mass incarceration affects people in distinct social locations differently. When we
look at women, for example, it becomes clear that mass incarceration has directly affected women
in three distinct ways from men:

1. Very few women were behind bars prior to 1970, so incarceration is a relatively new phe-
nomenon for women. Incarceration rates for women rose dramatically in the context of the War
on Drugs. Between 1970 and 1997, the population of women in prison rose more than twelve-
fold, from 5,600 to 75,000. With the addition of 35,000 more women in jails, there were about
100,000 women incarcerated by the late 1990s (Covington and Bloom 2003). By 2015, the sum
total of women in prison or jails, on probation, or on parole was 1,249,900 (Bureau of Justice
Statistics 2016). Similar to men, women of color are incarcerated at a higher rate than white
women. In 1990, black women were three times as likely as white women to be incarcerated,
and Latinas were twice as likely (Zatz 2000).
2. Women are more likely than men to have been the primary caregivers prior to being incarcerat-
ed. This means that the incarceration of women often has a more direct and immediate effect on
their children.
3. Women are more likely than men to have experienced physical or sexual abuse. One study
found that nearly 80 percent of women prisoners had experienced some form of abuse in their
lives. Many of the women serving time for violent crimes are in jail for retaliating against their
abuser (Covington and Bloom 2003).
9.2 INSTITUTIONAL RACISM IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE
SYSTEM
Racial disparities in incarceration rates are a classic example of institutional racism. As discussed
in Chapter Two, institutional racism is the creation of racial disparities as a result of institutional
practices and policies that distribute resources, power, and advantages to whites. Racial inequali-
ties in law enforcement are institutionalized at every level of the criminal justice process, from
stops to arrests to charges to sentencing to release. Black and Latinx people are more likely to be
arrested than whites. They are more likely to be charged, more likely to be convicted, more likely
to be given a longer sentence, and more likely to face the death penalty. The cumulative effect of
these disparities at each stage of the process creates a situation in which black men are seven times
more likely than white men to be put behind bars.

Racial Profiling
Racial profiling is the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspicion. In the United States,
blacks and Latinxs are more likely than whites to be stopped by police (Baumgartner et al. 2017).
In the early 1990s, statistician John Lamberth (1994) conducted a detailed investigation that pro-
vided convincing evidence of racial profiling. Lamberth’s study revealed that only 13 percent of all
cars on the New Jersey Turnpike had a black driver or passenger but that 35 percent of those
stopped on the turnpike were black, and 73.2 percent of those arrested were black. Blacks were
much more likely than whites to be stopped, even though blacks and whites violated traffic laws at
almost exactly the same rate. Studies in other states have revealed similar results: police officers
are more likely to pull over African American drivers than white drivers. In Maryland, an Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) study found that 75 percent of drivers along Interstate 95 were
white, but between January 1995 and September 1996, 73 percent of the motorists whom Mary-
land state police searched were black (Harris 1999). Racial profiling also extends to Hispanics: a
study in Volusia County in Florida, for example, revealed that blacks and Hispanics were more
likely to be pulled over and much more likely to be searched once pulled over than whites (Mauer
1999).
In response to these findings that police officers engage in racial profiling, state legislatures be-
gan to mandate that police departments collect more data. Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani,
Derek A. Epp, Kevin Roach, and Kelsey Shoub (2017) were thus able to analyze publicly avail-
able information about racial profiling from hundreds of police agencies across thirteen states.
Baumgartner and his colleagues focused their analysis on police searches following a traffic stop.
They wanted to know the likelihood that a motorist would be searched by the police after being
pulled over and how that likelihood varies depending on the race of the driver. After analyzing 55
million stops and 1.9 million searches, they found that police officers search an average of 3.2 per-
cent of white drivers whom they stop, compared with 7.6 percent of black drivers and 8.7 percent
of Hispanic or Latinx drivers. The Evanston (Illinois) Police Department had the greatest disparity
in its stops of black and white drivers: it was seven times more likely to search a black driver than
a white driver. The Cook County (Chicago metropolitan area) Sheriff’s Department had the single
largest racial disparity: its police officers were eighteen times more likely to search a Hispanic or
Latinx driver than a white driver. Of the 132 agencies surveyed, only 9 of them were less likely to
search black drivers than white drivers.
 Racial profiling happens on street corners as well as highways, where police officers stop and
frisk blacks and Latinxs much more frequently than they do whites. African Americans make up
13 percent of the U.S. population and 14 percent of illegal drug users in this country. However,
they account for 37 percent of the people arrested for drug offenses, in part because they are more
likely to be stopped and frisked than whites (Mauer 2009). In New York City, for example, one
study found that blacks account for half of all people stopped by the police, even though they are
only a quarter of the New York City population (Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss 2007). Once stopped,
New York police officers are more likely to frisk blacks and Latinx than whites. According to data
provided by the New York Police Department (NYPD), between 1998 and 2008, NYPD officers
frisked 85 percent of blacks and Latinxs whom they stopped, compared with only 8 percent of
whites (New York City Bar 2013). A study in Seattle revealed similar results. Seventy percent of
people in Seattle are white, and the majority of those who sell and use drugs in Seattle are white.
However, blacks represent nearly two-thirds of all those arrested for drug offenses (Barnes and
Chang 2012). This is primarily because police officers tend to target predominantly black neigh-
borhoods in criminal law enforcement operations.

Racial profiling leads to disparate treatment of whites, blacks, and Latinxs by police agencies.

Racial profiling leads to disparate treatment of whites, blacks, and Latinxs by police agencies
and vigilantes. It also can have deadly consequences, as in several high-profile cases. Sandra
Bland, whose story is told in the Voices sidebar in this section, was pulled over after she failed to
use her turn signal.
The Black Lives Matter movement arose in 2013 as part of a broad campaign against this type
of racial violence. The associated hashtag—created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal
Tometi—channeled reactions on social media following the outcome of Florida v. George Zim-
merman. Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, fatally shot unarmed teenager
Trayvon Martin in 2012 yet was acquitted of all charges. In 2014–2015, Black Lives Matter gained
momentum in response to a series of police-related deaths, including those of Eric Garner in New
York City; Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Caroli-
na; Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland; and Sandra Bland in Waller County, Texas.

Voices
Sandy Bland
Sandra Annette Bland—who went by Sandy—was born in 1987, in Chicago. After completing high school, she
received a music scholarship at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black university in Waller County,
Texas. She graduated in 2009 with a degree in animal science.

A protestor holds a sign in remembrance of Sandra Bland.

Sandy secured a low-paying job in nearby Houston after graduating. Driving around Houston, she racked up a
series of traffic tickets. When she was unable to pay them, a warrant was issued for her arrest. She later was ar-
rested for marijuana possession and was sentenced to thirty days in jail. She did that time in addition to several
days for the traffic tickets.
After that experience, Sandy moved back to Illinois, where she worked in several low-paying jobs. While in
Illinois, she battled depression, yet managed to hold on to work most of the time.
In July 2015, Sandy applied for a job at Prairie View A&M University. When she was called for an interview,
she left her job in Chicago and drove down to Texas. On July 10, she signed the papers for her new job. On her
way home, Texas state trooper Brian Encinia pulled her over.
Encinia claims that he pulled Sandy over because she had failed to use her turn signal. Sandy claims she was
trying to move out of the way so that he could pass.
As Encinia was writing her ticket, he asked her to put out her cigarette. Sandy, annoyed that she was getting a
ticket for such a minor traffic offense, insisted that she did not have to put out her cigarette as she was in her own
car.
At that point, Encinia asked her to get out of her car. She refused, saying that he did not have the right.
Encinia opened her car door and told her that if she did not step out, he would remove her. He then began to use
force against her while Sandy insisted that he did not have the right to remove her from her car. Encinia then
stated she was under arrest. When she asked what for, he did not respond but pulled a gun and yelled that she
had to get out of the car. At that point, she stepped out.
Sandy was arrested and taken to the jail. As she did not have funds for bail, she remained there. Three days
later, she was found dead in her cell, and her death was labeled a suicide.
Encinia was indicted for perjury because a grand jury decided he had lied when he said he forced Sandy to get
out of the car to conduct a safe traffic investigation. He was fired by the Texas Department of Public Safety after
the indictment.
The family of Sandra Bland settled a wrongful death lawsuit against officials in Waller County for $1.9
million.

Sources: Chammah 2016; Chicago Tribune 2016; Nathan 2016.

Sentencing Disparities
Blacks and Latinxs are more likely to be arrested than whites. An arrest is just the first point of en-
try into the criminal justice system, where blacks and Latinxs are likely to continue to find the
odds stacked against them. A recent study of federal offenders, for example, found that blacks and
Latinxs are more likely to be sentenced to longer prison terms than whites, even after taking into
account the severity of the charges. In contrast, whites are more likely than blacks to get no prison
time when that option is available. This study also found that the disparities between sentences for
whites and nonwhites is most evident in drug-trafficking cases (Mustard 2001).
Although more whites than blacks are convicted of drug felonies, more blacks are admitted to
prison. This disparity is related to the differing severity of sentences that blacks and whites receive
in courts of law. Overall, blacks are sent to prison on drug charges at nearly twelve times the rate
of whites, even though, as mentioned previously, blacks and whites use and sell drugs at about the
same rates (Alexander 2010). One of the main reasons for this disparity is that police officers tar-
get open-air drug markets in black neighborhoods and yet often ignore the widespread usage of
narcotics in primarily white suburban areas and on college campuses. Because whites are less like-
ly to be arrested for drug offenses, they are less likely to be charged, convicted, or sentenced to
prison for drug offenses. This means that harsh penalties for drug offenses have had a dispropor-
tionate impact on people of color.
As the War on Drugs advanced in the 1980s, discretionary power was increasingly taken away
from judges out of fear they might be soft on crime. One of the trends in sentencing reform has
been the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences and mandatory guidelines for calculating
prison sentences (Simon 2007). The implementation of mandatory prison terms for certain drug
crimes has had a disproportionate impact on African Americans. The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act
established mandatory prison terms of five years for possession or sale of 5 grams of crack cocaine
or 500 grams of powder cocaine. This sentencing disparity is emblematic of how drug law en-
forcement has meted out different sentences to blacks and whites.
Between 1986 and 2006, more than 80 percent of people sentenced to prison for crack cocaine
were black (Mauer 2007). This statistic is especially remarkable when we consider that two-thirds
of regular crack cocaine users are either white or Latinxs (Mauer 2009). The 1986 act is one of
many pieces of legislation that set mandatory minimum sentences, which have disproportionately
affected African Americans. Blacks are 21 percent more likely than whites to receive a mandatory
minimum sentence when facing an eligible charge, and black drug defendants are 20 percent more
likely than white drug defendants to be sentenced to prison (Mauer 2009).

The Ultimate Sentence: Racial Disparities in the Death Penalty

A study conducted in California found that people accused of killing whites are over three times
more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill African Americans (American Civil Lib-
erties Union 2003). Another study examined all death penalty cases since 1977, when the death
penalty was reinstated, and found that although whites accounted for about half of all murder vic-
tims, 80 percent of all death penalty cases involved white victims (American Civil Liberties Union
2003). In addition, between 1976 and 2002, only twelve people were executed for crimes in which
the defendant was white and the victim black, compared with the 178 black defendants who were
executed after having been convicted of killing a white person (American Civil Liberties Union
2003). Between 1976 and 2017, over 75 percent of murder victims in death penalty cases were
white, even though only about half of all murder victims are white. In that same period, more than
1,400 people were executed in the United States, and 34 percent of them were African American.
Remarkably, more than 155 people were released from death row in that period after being found
innocent (Death Penalty Information Center, 2017).
In recent years, the death penalty has come under increasing scrutiny. New Mexico and New
Jersey have abolished the death penalty, and death sentences have decreased since their peak in the
1990s. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court has abolished the death penalty for minors and mental-
ly retarded people (Amnesty International 2010).
9.3 THE ECONOMICS OF MASS INCARCERATION
Mass incarceration is a consequence of laws passed at both the state and federal levels. Before the
election of Ronald Reagan as president, however, keeping street crime in check had traditionally
been the responsibility of state and local law enforcement. To fulfill Reagan’s campaign promise to
fight crime, his administration poured money into federal law enforcement agencies, and Congress
passed federal laws that enhanced the punishments for drug-related offenses.
California led the states in prison buildup. Between 1977 and 2007, the California State Assem-
bly passed more than 1,000 laws extending and toughening prison sentences (Wacquant 2009).
The California state prison population increased five-fold between 1982 and 2000, even though the
crime rate peaked in 1980 and declined thereafter (Gilmore 2007). Notably, California’s incarcera-
tion rate increased after the crime rate had begun to decrease. California had built only twelve
prisons between 1852 and 1964, yet it built twenty-three major new prisons between 1984 and
2004 (Gilmore 2007). What happened? Why did California engage in this massive prison-building
project? Why did the legislature pass so many anticrime laws?
The answers to these questions can be found through a consideration of the economic restructur-
ing that California underwent leading up to this period. During World War II, much of California’s
prosperity had been tied directly to defense contracts: people from across the country flocked to
California to secure well-paying jobs building defense machinery. After the war, California invest-
ed in education and technology to ensure that defense contracts would continue, and it endeavored
to make itself uniquely able to provide research, development, and manufacturing for the Depart-
ment of Defense (DoD). DoD contracts continued to come in until the 1980s, but they contributed
to splitting the labor market into high-skilled, well-paid technology jobs on one hand and low-
skilled, poorly paid jobs on the other (Gilmore 2007).
The restructuring of California’s economy led to increases in unemployment, poverty, and in-
equality. By the 1980s, California was a highly unequal state, with high poverty rates, high hous-
ing costs, and high unemployment rates while also being home to some of the wealthiest people in
the nation. Over the next fifteen years, its economy continued to change, with increasing numbers
of low-paid manufacturing and service jobs and fewer high-paid manufacturing jobs. Childhood
poverty rates had increased 25 percent between 1969 and 1979, and they continued to soar over
the next decade, increasing another 67 percent between 1980 and 1995, so that by the end of the
twentieth century, one in four children in California lived in poverty (Gilmore 2007). Beset with
social problems, the California legislature attempted to use mass incarceration as a solution to
poverty, unemployment, and inequality. Prisons serve the double purpose of providing employ-
ment to tens of thousands of Californians and locking away a good proportion of the surplus labor
force.
The economic restructuring in California mirrored that of the rest of the country, as did cuts in
government spending. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, he implemented Reaganomics, a
set of economic policies that involved heavy cuts to a wide variety of social programs across the
country. Christian Parenti (1999, 40–41) explains: “In 1982 alone, Reagan cut the real value of
welfare by 24 percent, slashed the budget for child nutrition by 34 percent, reduced funding for
school milk programs by 78 percent, urban development action grants by 35 percent, and educa-
tional block grants by 38 percent.” These enormous cuts in social spending disproportionately af-
fected low-wage people of color in urban areas.
While states were cutting spending on education and social services, all but two states (Mass-
achusetts and New Hampshire) increased spending on incarceration. Nationwide, spending on
state and local corrections outpaced spending on PK–12 education three-fold from 1979–1980 to
2012–2013 (Figure 9-10). Public school expenditures increased by 107 percent (from $258 to
$534 billion), while total state and local corrections expenditures increased by 324 percent (from
$17 to $71 billion). The magnitude of this increase varied considerably from state to state. In New
Mexico and Wyoming, incarceration spending outpaced education spending eight-fold (Stullich,
Morgan, and Schak 2016).

FIGURE 9-10
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN EDUCATION EXPENDITURES (PK–12) VERSUS STATE
AND LOCAL CORRECTIONS EXPENDITURES FROM 1979–1980 TO 2012–2013

Source: Stullich, Morgan, and Schak (2016).

Neoliberalism is a label for the ideology stating that open markets, liberalized trade, and priva-
tization are the keys to economic success. It is based on the idea that the government’s primary
role is to protect property rights, free markets, and free trade, and not to hand out social services to
its citizens. Under this ideology, the government does not provide any social assistance, and the
needs of the poor are left to the market. Although neoliberalism demands that the government cut
back its social services, there is one area that tends to grow when these policies are implemented:
its coercive arm (i.e., the police force and the military). Insofar as neoliberalism diminishes oppor-
tunities and services for the poor, the government must ensure that working-class and poor people
do not pose a threat to the rich. Government cutbacks in social services often lead to dissent and
increases in crime. The government responds by strengthening the police force and the military.
Under neoliberalism, “in the United States, incarceration became a key state strategy to deal with
problems arising among discarded workers and marginalized populations. The coercive arm of the
state is augmented to protect corporate interests and, if necessary, to repress dissent” (Harvey
2005, 77).
At the same time as the government began to cut social spending, companies began to out-
source manufacturing, moving jobs once held by Americans overseas, where cheaper labor could
be found. This practice, part of the larger process of deindustrialization, led to the impoverish-
ment of cities such as Chicago and Detroit. Detroit was hit particularly hard: it lost half of its pop-
ulation in the 1980s. In Detroit as well as other cities across the country, the War on Drugs kicked
off at the same time that inner-city communities were experiencing a dramatic economic crisis. As
discussed in Chapter Seven, well-paying, stable blue-collar jobs disappeared, leaving unemploy-
ment, as well as social unrest, in their wake (Alexander 2010). This social unrest in turn led to the
expansion of the criminal justice system, which was designed to manage and contain the under-
class created by neoliberal economic policies.
When we tie economics into an analysis of the criminal justice system, however, it also becomes
clear that the Great Recession (2007–2008) finally gave elected leaders the political will to make
cuts to the prison system. In 2009, after thirty years of prison building, California found itself with
a massive prison system it was no longer able to finance, and it began to release some prisoners to
cut costs. Nationwide, the number of prisoners decreased for the first time in thirty-seven years
(Aviram 2015). By 2011, one-fourth of states had closed or planned to close a prison (Clear and
Frost 2015). In 2010, then-president Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which re-
pealed the five-year mandatory sentence for first-time offenders and for repeat offenders with less
than 28 grams of cocaine. The change also involved reducing the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity be-
tween crack and powder cocaine convictions to 18-to-1, in response to decades of activism (Mu-
rakawa 2014). And in 2016, Obama announced that the federal government would be ending its
contracts with private prisons that held federal prisoners. When Donald Trump took office in 2017,
he decided not to honor that agreement.

Private Prisons
Private prisons in the United States date back to 1984, when the Corrections Corporation of Amer-
ica (CCA) was awarded its first government contract. During the 1990s, the CCA began to see
substantial profits, and by 1998 its stock prices had hit $44 a share. The CCA was doing so well
that at the end of the twentieth century, the company began to build speculative prisons—“excess
prison space for inmates who did not yet exist” (Wood 2007, 232)—with the expectation that the
prison population would continue to grow.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, rates of incarceration leveled off, and the
CCA faced serious problems. Its stock values fell from $44 in 1998 to a mere $0.18 in December
2000. By 2001, the CCA had 8,500 empty beds and was over a billion dollars in debt (Wood
2007). Its rival, Wackenhut, also saw its stock lose a third of its value between 1998 and 2001
(Berestein 2008). Both companies had reinvested their immense profits in new prisons that were
now sitting empty, and funding options seemed bleak.
Because states had cut back funding for prisons, the CCA looked to the federal government. Its
federal lobbying expenses increased from $410,000 in 2000 to $3 million in 2004, and these ef-
forts appear to have paid off. Not only has the CCA been awarded lucrative federal contracts in re-
cent years to build new prisons, but the government has increased its rate of immigrant detention,
leaving no doubt that newly built prisons can be kept full (Golash-Boza 2012a). There was a slight
decline in CCA stock prices when Obama announced that the Department of Justice would not be
using private prisons, but their stock rebounded a few months later when Donald Trump—who had
campaigned on a promise of mass deportation—was elected. The day after Trump’s victory was
announced, shares of the two largest private prison companies—the CCA and the GEO Group—
increased 43 and 21 percent, respectively (Takei and Egan 2017).
The CCA has been able to obtain favorable government contracts in part because of its ties to
current and former elected officials. The former head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, J. Michael
Quinlan, is one of the CCA’s top executives. Both the CCA and its competitor Wackenhut have
dominated the private prison sector because of their political influence. As Phillip Wood notes,
“both benefit from extensive and intimate connections with state and local politics and the public
corrections sector as well as from the usual interlocking directorships with other corporations in
prison services, construction, the media and finance” (2007, 231). The enormous public and pri-
vate investment in the criminal justice system has led some scholars to argue that we now have a
prison-industrial complex.

The Prison-Industrial Complex

The prison-industrial complex (PIC) refers to the vast network of prisons, jails, courts, police of-
ficers, and other elements that purport to reduce the amount of criminal activity in our society. The
PIC is a “self-perpetuating machine”: the enormous investment in prisons, jails, and law enforce-
ment, combined with the perceived political benefits of crime control, has led to policies such as
mandatory minimum sentences that ensure that more people are sentenced to prison, thereby creat-
ing the need for more prison beds (Brewer and Heitzeg 2008, 637). A core feature of the idea of
the PIC is that prisons are not built solely to house criminals; instead, a confluence of interests has
led to building more prisons, enacting harsher laws, and mass incarcerating poor people. The con-
stituencies with interests in mass incarceration include the media, private contractors, politicians,
state bureaucracies, and private prisons (Davis 1998; Gilmore 2007; Schlosser 1998; Do Valle,
Huang, and Spira 2006).
Ideas of racial otherness play an important role in the demonization of criminals. This otheriza-
tion allows politicians to play on public fears and portray these groups as threatening public safety.
As Michael Welch argues, the punitive drug control legislation passed in the last decades of the
twentieth century to control crime and immigration is “not only poorly formulated, but also unjust
and discriminatory against the poor and people of color” (2002, 14). Welch further contends that
these laws are passed in the context of a “moral panic, a turbulent and exaggerated response to a
putative social problem” (8).
The PIC relies on the production of criminals through repressive laws and the policing of com-
munities to fill the prisons it builds (Richie 2005). The creation of increasingly strict crime laws is
partly due to campaign tactics used by politicians who aim to play on fears regarding crime to cap-
ture more votes. One of the most famous examples of a politician using the fear of crime as a cam-
paign tactic is the “Willie Horton” case. In the 1988 presidential race, George Herbert Walker
Bush’s campaign played on white Americans’ fear of crime and racial prejudices against blacks
through use of an ad that featured “Willie Horton.” Horton, a young black man, escaped from
prison while on a weekend pass. He then “kidnapped and brutally assaulted a white couple in their
home, raping the woman and stabbing the man” (Mendelberg 1997). An ad that featured this story
and a mugshot of Horton were used by the Bush campaign to portray the opposing party as being
lax on crime. This ad was part of Bush’s successful campaign to keep the presidency in Republi-
can hands. It is just one of many examples of politicians using fears about crime for political gain.
Notably, the Willie Horton case used both the fear of crime and the fear of black men to push for-
ward a political agenda.
The PIC has come into being because it serves the interests of powerful groups in our society.
Politicians have used a tough-on-crime approach to gain votes. The mass media have highlighted
local crime to attract viewers (Chermak 1994). Rural areas have turned to building prisons to boost
local economic development. For example, over two-thirds of the prisons built in California be-
tween 1982 and 1998 were built on formerly irrigated agricultural land that had ceased production
(Gilmore 2007, 105–106). Finally, private prisons have cashed in on growing rates of incarceration
(Brewer and Heitzeg 2008; Schlosser 1998; Do Valle et al. 2006). For these reasons, not because
of excessive rates of criminality, we now have over 2 million people behind bars in the United
States, over ten times as many as we did prior to the 1970s. Mass incarceration of poor people has
generated profits for private prisons and political capital for politicians, yet it has not made this
country any safer (Hattery and Smith 2006).
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Legal scholar Michelle Alexander (2010) has recently made the case that mass incarceration is the
civil rights issue of the twenty-first century. She contends that because incarceration has become a
common life event for African Americans, and because it is legal to discriminate against felons,
our criminal justice system systematically denies rights and opportunities to African Americans,
effectively replacing openly racist policies of the past. According to Alexander, “today it is per-
fectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to dis-
criminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination
—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educa-
tional opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service
—are suddenly legal” (2010, 2). As discussed previously, she even goes so far as to contend that
“today a criminal freed from prison has scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a
freed slave or a black person living ‘free’ in Mississippi at the height of Jim Crow” (138). What do
you think? Is mass incarceration the “New Jim Crow”?
Mass incarceration has been condoned by American voters because crime control is considered
a crucial element of a safe society. However, the evidence presented in this chapter makes it clear
that mass incarceration is not an effective crime control strategy. Moreover, the consequences of
zealous law enforcement have been felt more deeply in already-disadvantaged communities. What
if, instead of creating a safer society, mass incarceration has been the root cause of poverty, vio-
lence, and instability in U.S. cities?
The incarceration rate appears to have leveled off in recent years, largely because the global
economic crisis has required states to cut back on expenditures—the highest of which are related
to criminal justice. In short, states do not have the budgets to incarcerate more people. But the
question of whether we will witness yet another turn in the history of criminal justice is an open
one.

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

THE UNITED STATES has the largest prison population in the world, and black men are dramatically
overrepresented in our prisons. What role does racism play in this process? More broadly, what would pris-
ons look like in a racially just society? Does the devaluation of black lives make it possible for the United
States to have the largest prison system in the world? Or is our society punitive independent of racial
ideologies?

Key Terms
1984 Crime Control Act
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988
racial profiling
Reaganomics
neoliberalism
outsourcing
deindustrialization
prison-industrial complex (PIC)

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

9.1 What factors explain the rise of mass incarceration in the United States?
The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Moreover, black and
Latino men are disproportionately affected by harsh crime control policies.
What is the difference between crime rates and incarceration rates?
Explain the trends in property crime and violent crime rates between 1970 and 2000. Compare these trends
to incarceration rates. What differences do you see?
How do incarceration rates in the United States compare to those of other developed countries?
Why does the author argue that the United States is in the midst of an era of mass incarceration?
9.2 How are disparities in the criminal justice system reflective of institutional
racism?
The high rates of incarceration for black and Latino men can be traced to racial profiling and sen-
tencing disparities. Racial ideologies of black male criminality have serious implications for the
lives of African American men.
How does racial profiling affect incarceration rates?
What roles do individual racism and institutionalized racism play in maintaining the high rates of incarcera-
tion for African Americans?
What are three reasons African American men are seven times more likely than white men to be
incarcerated?
9.3 How is the rise of mass incarceration tied to large-scale economic trends?
Mass incarceration came about at the same time that inner cities began to lose jobs. There are prof-
it motivations behind private prisons, and certain groups have benefited economically from mass
incarceration.
How is economic restructuring related to incarceration and crime rates?
What is the prison-industrial complex? How did the Great Recession affect incarceration rates?
9.4 What are the collateral consequences of mass incarceration?
Mass incarceration affects the 2 million people behind bars and the 7 million people under crimi-
nal justice supervision. It also affects millions of felons in the United States and their families and
children.
What are some of the ways that mass incarceration affects men and women differently?
What parallels does Michelle Alexander draw between the Jim Crow Era and the present era?
How are children affected when their parents are incarcerated?

Critical Thinking
1. What unique features of the United States might play a role in its high incarceration rates?
2. How has the War on Drugs affected mass incarceration?
3. Why do you think police officers are more likely to conduct drug raids in low-income, black
neighborhoods than in wealthier, primarily white neighborhoods?
4. What role might individual discrimination play in maintaining the high incarceration rates for
African Americans?
5. Evaluate the evidence presented in this chapter for the connection between economic trends
and mass incarceration.
6. Evaluate the human cost of incarceration: in what ways, beyond financially, does the United
States pay for mass incarceration?

Quiz: Racism and the Criminal Justice System

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Talking about Race

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In a discussion, consider
why incarceration rates in the United States continued to increase in the 1990s even as crime
rates fell. How are our distinctively high incarceration rates related to ideas about race? For a
contemporary example, you may be able to compare responses to the current heroin epidemic
versus the crack epidemic of the 1980s.
 10
Health Inequalities, Envi-
ronmental Racism, and En-
vironmental Justice

CHAPTER OUTLINE
10.1 The History of Health Disparities in the United States
10.2 Explaining Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity Today
10.3 Environmental Racism
• Voices: The Fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline
10.4 Environmental Justice
• Voices: The Flint Water Crisis
Conclusion and Discussion
• Thinking about Racial Justice
• Check Your Understanding
• Talking about Race

AS YOU READ
10.1 What is the racial history of health disparities in the United States?
10.2 How do health disparities in the United States today vary by race and ethnicity?
10.3 What are the effects of environmental racism?
10.4 What are some community movements for environmental justice?

T hus far, we have examined racial inequalities in education, the labor market, housing, and the
criminal justice system. But the accumulated disadvantages for people of color, what Joe
Feagin (2001) calls “systemic racism,” are also found in the areas of health and the environment.
Racial inequalities in the United States not only diminish opportunities but shorten lifespans and
have profound effects on quality of life.
In this chapter, we will explore the complexities of racial inequalities in health and the environ-
ment. This discussion will shed light on why some people of color have lower life expectancies
than whites, as well as a host of other facts related to health disparities. We will continue to con-
sider the effects of racial ideologies by asking, “How have unequal health outcomes been ex-
plained in the past, and how do these explanations relate to changing racial ideologies over time?”
10.1 THE HISTORY OF HEALTH DISPARITIES IN THE UNITED
STATES
Disparities in life expectancy for blacks and whites in the United States are not new. Medical treat-
ment of African Americans during and since slavery has been at best subpar and at worst deadly. It
is not difficult to imagine that the lives of people of African descent were devalued in the past, but
a look into the history of health disparities and medical care also gives us insight into present-day
inequalities.

Involuntary Experimentation on African Americans

During slavery in the United States, medical care was brutal and ineffective for most people.
Slaves in particular suffered in innumerable ways under the care of physicians, and they had no
option to refuse treatment. The accounts that remain about the treatment of slaves by southern doc-
tors provide a window into some of the brutality slaves endured. One account is that of John
Brown, who escaped from slavery and lived to tell his story.
In 1847, a former slave who had been known as “Fed” escaped to England, where he took on
the name John Brown. In his memoir, Brown describes how he was subjected to medical experi-
mentation in Georgia in the 1820s and 1830s. Dr. Thomas Hamilton had cured Brown’s former
master of an illness and, in exchange, asked to perform experiments on a slave. John Brown de-
scribes several sets of experiments Dr. Hamilton performed on him. The first was to subject him to
extreme levels of heat in order to find a treatment for sunstroke. The next set involved letting him
bleed every day. Then Dr. Hamilton burned Brown in an effort to see how deep his black skin
went. Brown explained that Dr. Hamilton “also tried experiments upon me, which I cannot dwell
upon” (quoted in Washington 2006, 54).
Dr. Hamilton’s tactics, unfortunately, were not an isolated case. The famed American doctor
James Marion Sims (1813–1883) is sometimes called the father of American gynecology. A lesser-
known fact about Dr. Sims is that he used involuntary subjects—many of them enslaved African
Americans—for experiments. During the nineteenth century, vesicovaginal fistulas (abnormal pas-
sages connecting the bladder and the vagina that often developed as a result of childbirth) were a
serious problem for women of all races. In developing a cure for the fistulas, Dr. Sims carried out a
series of painful operations on enslaved women.
Sims convinced the owners of eleven female slaves with the condition to lend the slaves to him
for treatment. It took Dr. Sims scores of experimental operations to arrive at his cure: silver sutures
to prevent infection. One of the slaves, named Anarcha, was seventeen when she came under his
care in 1844. She developed a fistula and a torn vagina after a forceps-induced birth to a stillborn
baby. Sims repeatedly sewed up Anarcha’s vagina, yet it became infected every time, and he had
to painfully reopen the wounds. Sims knew about anesthesia but refused to administer it to Anar-
cha or to the ten other women. When Sims began his experiments, he worked with several other
doctors who helped him hold down the women as he performed the surgeries. Within a year, how-
ever, all the other doctors left, as they could not bear to hear the screams of the women. From then
on, the enslaved women had to hold one another down as Sims operated without anesthesia. In
1849, Sims at last announced that he had found the cure and succeeded in repairing Anarcha’s fis-
tula. It remains unclear whether he repaired the fistulae of the other ten enslaved experimental sub-
jects. This example is one of many situations in which treatments that would primarily benefit
whites who could afford a doctor were first tried in an experimental fashion on slaves (Washington
2006).
The practice of using involuntary black experimental subjects continued after slavery and in-
volved both live and dead bodies. In 1989, construction workers in Augusta, Georgia, uncovered
nearly 10,000 human bones and skulls beneath what was once the Medical College of Georgia.
This discovery led to an appalling finding: in the nineteenth century, doctors at the Medical Col-
lege of Georgia had ordered porters at the college to remove bodies from nearby cemeteries for
medical dissection. Most were removed from an African American burial ground. Overall, 75 per-
cent of the bones belonged to African Americans, even though blacks made up less than half of the
local population. When Harriet Washington (2006) researched the grave-robbing, she discovered
that faculty at the Medical College had sent a slave called Grandison Harris to pull bodies from
graves. Harris continued to work at the Medical College and to rob African American graves after
emancipation until his death in 1911.

Dr. James Marion Sims carried out horrific operations on enslaved women without their consent.

Involuntary experimentation continued well into the twentieth century. One infamous example
is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. In 1932, the Public Health Service (PHS) and the Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama recruited nearly 400 poor black men for a study of the longterm effects of
syphilis. They determined that the men had syphilis but did not give them this diagnosis, instead
telling them they would be treated for “bad blood,” a nonspecific, nonmedical term. Unable to af-
ford health care, these men agreed to participate in the study in exchange for free medical exams,
free meals, and burial insurance. Rather than treating the men for syphilis, the PHS doctors used
the study to determine what untreated syphilis would do to the body. When it finally came to an
end in 1972, the unethical study had involved a total of 624 participants and lasted for four
decades (Reverby 2009).
Another area of research in which blacks were disproportionately affected is the experimental
use of radiation. In 1945, an African American truck driver named Ebb Cade was in a serious acci-
dent. When he arrived at the hospital in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, doctors determined that he would
not survive his injuries. Unbeknown to Cade, the doctors were under contract with the U.S. Atom-
ic Energy Commission and had been waiting for a moribund patient so that they could test the ef-
fects of plutonium, a radioactive element used in nuclear weapons and reactors. Without Cade’s
consent, they injected him with plutonium. The doctors’ expectation was that Cade would soon
die, but they hoped to keep him alive long enough to see the effects of the high dose of radiation
on his body. In order to do so, they extracted bone chips and pulled fifteen of his teeth. Cade re-
covered, however, and escaped from the hospital six months later. He returned to his home in
Greensboro, North Carolina, where he died in 1953 of heart disease, unrelated to his injection
(Washington 2006).

During the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, black men were diagnosed with syphilis, yet were neither treated for it
nor told they had it.

In 1953, the U.S. Department of Defense adopted the Nuremberg Code. Under this policy, any
research subject has to be provided with information about the nature, duration, and purpose of the
research before participating in it. Subjects also have to be informed that their participation in any
research project is voluntary. Despite this order, approximately fifty more experimental radiation
treatments on uninformed subjects occurred during the 1960s and 1970s (Washington 2006).

Free Blacks as Mentally and Physically Unfit

The 1840 U.S. census indicated that free blacks suffered from far worse mental health than either
whites or enslaved blacks, reporting that whereas only 1 in 1,558 (enslaved) blacks in the South
were “idiot or insane,” 1 in 144 (free) blacks in the North fell into this category. People who de-
fended slavery used these numbers to argue that blacks were incapable of self-government. These
writers portrayed slavery as necessary to protect whites from mentally unstable blacks as well as to
protect blacks from themselves (Washington 2006).
A few statisticians took it upon themselves to review the 1840 census data and found enormous
statistical errors. For example, they found towns that reported having a total of only three blacks
but six insane blacks. Once these errors were made public, the U.S. Congress ordered a review.
However, William A. Weaver, the originator of the census, was the person appointed to examine it;
he of course declared the census to be error-free (Washington 2006).
Whites used pseudoscience to justify slavery on the basis that blacks were physically stronger
than whites and that blacks would suffer mentally if they were freed. Yet “scientific” studies were
also used during the postslavery era to argue that blacks were physically weak. Many pundits pre-
dicted the eventual demise of the black race based on physical unfitness. It was true that blacks
were more likely to suffer from diseases. However, instead of blaming poor living conditions, lack
of sanitation, and poverty for their illnesses, scientists often chose to blame blacks’ presumed in-
herent defects.
One of the most pernicious consequences of the widespread belief that blacks were physically
unfit was compulsory surgical sterilization. In the early to mid-twentieth century, hundreds of
thousands of black girls and women were subjected to involuntary sterilization. Women who went
to the doctor for other reasons, such as an appendectomy, would later discover that they had been
sterilized without their permission. In some areas of the South, involuntary sterilization of black
women was so common that it became known as a “Mississippi appendectomy” (Washington
2006).
Sterilization was not unique to African Americans, and it continues to the present day. Thomas
Volscho (2010) offers the concept of sterilization racism, which he defines as those health care
policies and practices that attempt to control the reproductive capacities of women of color.
Volscho argues that Native American, Latina, and black women are more likely to be sterilized
than white women because health care providers see these women as incapable of controlling their
own reproductive capacities. Volscho found that over a third of American Indian women had un-
dergone a tubal sterilization in 2004, as did 30 percent of African American women. In contrast,
only 19 percent of white women had undergone this procedure. Moreover, Volscho found that
black and Native American women are more likely to undergo sterilization than white women,
even when the women in the cohort had similar characteristics, including marital status, income,
education, and health insurance. Both Volscho (2010) and Elena Gutiérrez (2008) argue that these
women are more likely to be sterilized because of stereotypes about nonwhite women as breeders
and unfit mothers.
When we look back in history and then at our medical care system today, it is clear that dispari-
ties between whites and nonwhites persist. How we decide to explain these disparities is a matter
of racial ideology. Is the low life expectancy of blacks a result of their genetic makeup, or is it a
result of social factors such as poverty and isolation? Is it a result of direct racial discrimination by
doctors, or is it a result of institutional racism? The facts of racial inequalities are clear. For sociol-
ogists, the task is to explain them.
10.2 EXPLAINING HEALTH DISPARITIES BY RACE AND ETH-
NICITY TODAY
African Americans at every age have a much higher death rate than any other racial or ethnic
group (Figure 10-1). Black men have a life expectancy of seven years less than white men (Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Prevention 2016), and the age-adjusted death rate is 15 percent higher
for African Americans than it is for whites (MMWR 2017). Sociologists have offered a range of
theories to explain these and other health disparities by race and ethnicity, as we will explore in
thischange
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FIGURE 10-1
AGE-ADJUSTED DEATH RATE BY RACE/ETHNICITY, 2015

Source: MMWR (2017).

Socioeconomic Status and Health Disparities by Race/Ethnicity

First, we should note that health disparities are clearly linked to socioeconomic status. These dis-
parities are evident in our earliest records and have been found in every country where they have
been examined: people with higher incomes live longer, healthier lives. Moreover, it is not just
poverty that affects health—relative poverty is also important. One way this relationship can be
seen is through a comparison of life expectancies in Japan and Great Britain. In 1970, these two
countries had similar life expectancies and similar levels of inequality. Over the next two decades,
inequality increased dramatically in Great Britain while it narrowed in Japan. By 1990, Japan had
the highest life expectancy in the world, while Great Britain’s had declined (Williams and Collins
1995).
Every step up in income and wealth translates into an increased likelihood of having good
health. However, once we begin to parse these outcomes by race, a different story emerges.
African Americans do not experience the same health gains as whites do by virtue of an increase
in socioeconomic status—though they do experience some health gains. There is clearly a relation-
ship between health and socioeconomic status, but these factors work in different ways across
racial and ethnic lines.
Black/white disparities do not disappear as African Americans gain more education and income.
In 2008, for example, the birth rate for black women without a high school education was 60 per-
cent higher than it was for white women with a similar background and level of education. In con-
trast, the infant mortality rate for black women with a college education was 78 percent higher
than it was for white women with a college education. Whereas the disparities among white,
Asian, Latina, and Native American women narrowed with higher levels of education, the gap ac-
tually expanded for black women (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2011).
Studies of birthweight by race/ethnicity and level of education reveal a similar pattern. Babies
born with low birthweight are at a higher risk for death, making birthweight an important factor
for health scholars to consider. As shown in Figure 10-2, African American mothers with college
degrees are more likely than whites, Hispanics, and Asians with less than a high school education
to have low-birthweight babies (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2011).

FIGURE 10-2
LOW BIRTHWEIGHT AMONG MOTHERS 20 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER, BY
RATE/ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION OF MOTHER, 2008

Source Centers for Disease Control (2011).

One example of health outcomes that vary by race is that of Jasmine Zapata, an African Ameri-
can medical student at the University of Wisconsin. Jasmine, studying to be a doctor, knew the im-
portance of proper prenatal care. She neither smoked nor drank during her pregnancy, and she
carefully followed her doctor’s advice. When she felt pain in her abdomen during her twenty-fifth
week of pregnancy, Jasmine knew something was wrong. When she began to bleed profusely, she
mentally prepared herself to lose the baby. Jasmine’s daughter, Aameira, was born shortly after-
ward. Weighing just over a pound, her daughter miraculously survived. Jasmine was overjoyed but
couldn’t help but wonder why her daughter was born prematurely (Johnson and Ghose 2011).
Researchers continue to investigate why African American women have poorer birth outcomes
than white women. Furthermore, why is it the case that health outcomes for African Americans do
not improve with higher levels of income and education? If socioeconomic status alone does not
explain these disparate outcomes by race and ethnicity, what does? Sociologists and public health
scholars have offered several different explanations, which we will consider next.

Segregation and Health

David Williams and Chiquita Collins (2001) argue that racial residential segregation is the primary
cause of black/white health disparities because it affects the educational opportunities of children,
concentrates poverty and resources, and forces many African Americans to live in environments
that are unhealthy on a variety of levels. Williams and Collins suggest that segregation has adverse
health outcomes for blacks because it creates “pathogenic residential conditions”—unsafe streets
where people are scared to exercise, have few opportunities to buy fresh produce, see more adver-
tisements for alcohol and tobacco, and live with higher rates of violent crime. One study in Balti-
more, for example, found that neighborhoods with a high percentage of African Americans are
more likely to have liquor stores than are white communities (LaVeist and Wallace 2000). People
living in disadvantaged neighborhoods also have higher incidences of heart disease, diabetes, obe-
sity, tuberculosis, infant mortality, and hypertension.
Availability of healthy food is one way that segregation can affect health outcomes. A study in
New York compared East Harlem, which is 6 percent white, with the Upper East Side, which is 84
percent white. East Harlem has the highest prevalence of diabetes and obesity in New York City,
whereas the Upper East Side has the lowest. The researchers who carried out the study wanted to
know if stores in these neighborhoods carried foods that doctors recommend for people with dia-
betes. They surveyed stores to find if they had diet soda, 1 percent or fat-free milk, high-fiber
bread, fresh fruit, and fresh vegetables. They found that Upper East Side stores were three times as
likely to carry all of the recommended food items as East Harlem stores (Horowitz, Colson,
Hebert, and Lancaster 2004). The lack of access to healthy food in poor neighborhoods is a nation-
al problem (Ghosh-Dastidar et al. 2014).
Persons of low socioeconomic status, blacks, and Latinxs all have higher obesity rates than the
general population. One possible explanation for this disparity has to do with the resources avail-
able in the neighborhoods where they reside. Public health scholars have found that people who
live close to supermarkets and have safe places to exercise are less likely to be obese. Low-income
and nonwhite people are more likely to live far from supermarkets with healthy produce and closer
to fast-food outlets and convenience stores. They are also more likely to live in areas where crime
is higher, making it less safe to walk around the neighborhoods. By concentrating poverty and peo-
ple of color, segregation can contribute to higher levels of obesity in these groups (Lovasi, Hutson,
Guerra, and Neckerman 2009).
American Indians, African Americans, and Hispanics are about twice as likely as whites to be
diagnosed with diabetes (Isaac 2012). These disparities are closely related to diet. What people eat
is a result of their personal food preferences as well as what food is available where they live. The
Tohono O’odham and Pima Indians of southern Arizona have the highest rate of type 2 diabetes in
the world—nearly 50 percent of the people in their community have diabetes. A century ago, there
were almost no cases of diabetes among these American Indian tribes. What happened? The film
Bad Sugar explains that the Tohono O’odham diet changed when the government cut off their irri-
gation water supply, preventing them from growing their own food. Instead of growing and eating
the food they had eaten for centuries, they consumed food from the U.S. Commodity Supplemen-
tal Food Program (Adelman 2008). Prior to 1999, this program included no fresh produce. When
the Tohono O’odham people began to consume large amounts of white flour, shortening, sugar,
and canned foods, their diabetes rate skyrocketed. We see similar patterns, though not as drastic, in
black and Latinx neighborhoods, which have high concentrations of fast-food restaurants and cor-
ner stores selling many more packaged, processed foods than fresh produce. Diet is influenced by
what food is available, and what we eat affects our health outcomes.

The Effects of Individual Racism on African American Health

To explain why African Americans have the worst health outcomes on nearly every measure, some
scholars point to perceived discrimination. They argue that African Americans are disproportion-
ately exposed to racial discrimination, that discrimination can produce stress, and that stress can
lead to negative health outcomes. When African Americans experience discrimination, their re-
sponses may include anger, resentment, fear, frustration, and other stress responses. Scientists have
found that these responses cause the adrenal gland to produce hormones that inhibit immune re-
sponses and increase vulnerability to disease (Clark, Anderson, Clark, and Williams 1999).
Although African Americans have higher levels of most physical ailments, it turns out they have
lower levels of mental illness. Public health scholar James Jackson and his colleagues (Jackson,
Knight, and Rafferty 2010) offer an explanation for this finding. They contend that African Ameri-
cans have developed coping strategies that enable them to deal with stress (such as that related to
individual racism), but that these same coping strategies ultimately have negative physical health
outcomes. For example, many African Americans are confronted with stressful conditions such as
poverty, crime, poor housing, and racial discrimination. To alleviate stress, many engage in un-
healthy behaviors such as smoking, alcohol use, and overeating of fatty foods. Jackson and his col-
leagues found that African Americans are likely to eat comfort foods to deal with stress because
fatty foods inhibit the release of certain hormones and do provide short-term stress relief. Howev-
er, the consumption of these foods leads to long-term health problems, obesity, stroke, and cardio-
vascular disease. They argue that the consumption of comfort foods does help reduce stress in the
short term, thus leading to lower levels of mental illness, but has long-term physical effects.
One effect of eating to cope with stress is obesity. About half of all African American women
are obese; the rate for white women, by contrast, is 30 percent. Christie Malpede and her col-
leagues (2007) explored the extent to which weight-related beliefs and attitudes are linked to obe-
sity among black and white women. When the researchers asked black women how being black
affected their weight, the most common responses included the consumption of unhealthy foods
and lack of exercise. In contrast, white women responded that being a white woman meant that
they had distorted expectations of body type, that they thought their success depended on being
thin and beautiful, and that they had negative body images. Overall, black women talked more
about food choices, and white women talked more about body image when asked about their
weight-related beliefs.
The majority of the research on racism and health focuses on African Americans (Williams and
Mohammed 2013). However, a few recent studies have shown similar patterns for other people of
color. For example, Paradies et al. (2015) found a stronger association between poor mental health
and racism for Asian Americans and Latinx Americans than for African Americans, whereas the
association between racism and poor physical health is strongest for African Americans. In another
study, Diane Lauderdale (2006) found that Arab women who gave birth in the six months follow-
ing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, had a higher risk of poor birth outcomes than those
who gave birth before 9/11. She attributes this higher risk to heightened discrimination against
Arabs in the aftermath of 9/11. A study of emergency room care providers found implicit biases
against Native American adults and children, which are likely to affect their care in these settings
(Puumala et al. 2016). Ongoing research in the area of racism and health will help us better under-
stand these nuances; yet the current research demonstrates that racial discrimination continues to
be prevalent in our society and leads to negative health outcomes for people of color.

Life-Course Perspectives
Health inequality increases with age across a range of outcomes. For example, older African
Americans have significantly higher levels of daily function limitations and disability than do old-
er whites. Because of this type of health disparity, scholars have offered life-course perspectives,
which focus on how health outcomes change over the life course. Two of the most accepted life-
course explanations are the cumulative disadvantage perspective and the weathering hypothe-
sis. The first explanation focuses on how disadvantages accumulate over the life course, and the
second focuses on how constant exposure to stress accelerates health decline for blacks (Thorpe
and Kelley-Moore 2012).
The cumulative disadvantage perspective provides a framework to explain the increasing diver-
gence between black and white health outcomes. It focuses on the fact that many health conditions
are related to stressors that accumulate over the life course. These stressors include poor nutrition,
discrimination, and living in disadvantaged neighborhoods (Thorpe and Kelley-Moore 2012).
Scholars who adopt the weathering perspective contend that the health status of blacks declines
more quickly than that of whites as a consequence of long-term exposure to unhealthy conditions.
According to this perspective, black Americans age more quickly than whites because of the so-
cial, economic, and environmental conditions they face. The focus in this perspective is on the ef-
fects of sustained stressors—constant discrimination, financial stress, family crises, and fear—
which can wear down the body in tangible ways (Thorpe and Kelley-Moore 2012).
Jan Warren-Findlow (2006) interviewed black women with early-stage heart disease to better
understand how the weathering perspective could be applied to their lives. She found that two-
thirds of the women she interviewed were taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication as a
response to high levels of stress. All of the women talked about being stressed for reasons such as
family problems, neighborhood violence, and financial strain. One woman explained that the stress
of living “one paycheck away from homelessness” was “killing” her. Warren-Findlow argues that
high levels of stress over the life course of these African American women contributed to their de-
velopment of heart disease and the worsening of their condition.
A recent study found that although blacks and Mexican Americans have worse health outcomes
than whites overall, Mexican Americans do not experience cumulative disadvantage or weathering
in the same way that African Americans do. Instead, Mexican Americans’ higher likelihood of
having serious medical conditions does not increase with age (Brown, O’Rand, and Adkins 2012).

Culture and Health

Is simply being or becoming an American bad for your health? The United States ranks fairly low
for a country in the developed world on a wide range of health indicators. Moreover, immigrants
often have better health than their native-born counterparts. In the United States, foreign-born
women have substantially better pregnancy outcomes than women born in the United States.
Gopal Singh and Stella Yu (1996) found that foreign-born women have lower infant mortality
rates, lower rates of low birthweight, and lower rates of teenage births than their counterparts born
in the United States. However, their study found some important variations. The reduced risk for
infant mortality is most pronounced among Cuban immigrants—compared with Cubans born in
the United States, they have a 39 percent lower risk. Black immigrants also are 25 percent less
likely to experience infant mortality than native-born blacks. Overall, foreign-born blacks, Cubans,
Mexicans, and Chinese have lower risks for infant mortality and low birthweight than their native-
born counterparts.
In a phenomenon scholars call the Hispanic Paradox, health outcomes for Latinxs compare fa-
vorably with those of other groups on a wide variety of measures. Recall Figure 10-1. In 2013, the
age-adjusted death rate for Latinxs was lower than that of all groups except Asians, and Latinxs
had the lowest rates of low-birthweight babies (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2016).
And even though Latinxs have, on average, a lower socioeconomic status than whites, they have
comparable infant mortality rates (Lara, Gamboa, Kahramanian, Morales, and Bautista 2005).
One hypothesis to explain the Hispanic Paradox is that many Hispanics are immigrants and
have better health behaviors than native-born Americans. There is some support for this explana-
tion, but the results are mixed. Mariaelena Lara and her colleagues (2005), for example, found that
Latinxs who are more acculturated into U.S. society are more likely to engage in unhealthy behav-
iors such as eating unhealthy foods, smoking, and drinking alcohol. In contrast, there were positive
factors associated with acculturation, or the process by which immigrants adopt the behaviors
and preferences of the host society: more acculturated Latinxs were more likely to go to the doctor,
get preventative care, be screened for cancer, and have health insurance. Overall, the researchers
found that acculturation has negative effects in terms of health behaviors, but positive effects in
terms of health care usage and access.
Research by Edna Viruell-Fuentes (2007), however, challenges these findings on acculturation.
Viruell-Fuentes acknowledges that Mexican immigrants often have better health outcomes than
Mexican Americans. Yet, she argues that this is because Mexican Americans are more attuned to
racial discrimination in the United States and that this discrimination leads to stress, which has
negative effects on their health. Viruell-Fuentes’s interviews with Mexican immigrants and Mexi-
can Americans shed light on the differences between these two groups. Mexican immigrants are
likely to live in ethnic enclaves, where they have few interactions with non-Mexicans and thus are
less likely to experience discrimination. In contrast, Mexican Americans experience persistent dis-
crimination, exclusion, and “othering” beginning in elementary school. Mexican Americans re-
counted to Viruell-Fuentes that they grew up feeling angry about being excluded by white Ameri-
cans. This exclusion was alienating and psychologically straining. Viruell-Fuentes argues that
these stressors—not acculturation—can explain why Mexican Americans have worse health out-
comes than Mexican immigrants.
Most of the research on acculturation and health has focused on Latinxs. However, there may be
similar patterns for other groups. A recent study (Al Dahir et al. 2013) investigated the relationship
between acculturation and diabetes risk among Arab Americans in southeastern Louisiana—a
group that has higher than average rates of diabetes and other chronic diseases. The findings were
mixed: men who were less acculturated to U.S. society had lower risk for diabetes, whereas
women who were less acculturated had a higher risk. Across groups, immigrants tend to have
worse health outcomes the longer they stay in the United States. Research continues on why this is
the case—and how to change it (Oza-Frank, Stephenson, and Narayan 2011).

Genetics, Race, and Health

Although most social scientists accept that there is no biological basis for dividing humans into
distinct racial groups, it can be hard to fully divorce ourselves from the idea that there are races
and that they are distinct. Some medical researchers continue to hunt for genetic explanations for
racial disparities in disease rates. One example is the Genetics of Asthma Lab, which studies the
interplay between genes and the environment to determine the causes of asthma. It is certainly true
that black and Latinx children are more likely to suffer from asthma than white children. Most
scholars, however, would attribute that disparity to the fact that black and Latinx children are more
likely to live in highly polluted areas. A 2007 report entitled Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty—
1987–2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism in the United States
(Bullard 2007) used 2000 census data and databases of hazardous waste facilities to find out if
there were racial disparities in the location of toxic waste facilities. The authors discovered that
“people of color make up the majority of those living in neighborhoods within two miles of haz-
ardous waste facilities, and toxic neighborhoods have twice the percentage of minorities as non-
toxic neighborhoods.” Despite substantial evidence linking asthma and unhealthy air, some scien-
tists insist on searching for genetic explanations for these and other disparities. What could their
motive be?
A primary motive for seeking genetic explanations is profit potential. If diseases have genetic
causes, corporations can design personalized medicine to cure them. In contrast, no profit is to be
found in addressing deep structural inequalities that contribute to health disparities. In Fatal Inven-
tion, Dorothy Roberts (2012) explains how race is increasingly being used as a proxy for genetics
to explain health disparities. Rather than blame structural inequality for poor health outcomes
among people of color, researchers point to race and genetics.
Myths that “black” diseases exist may also motivate some researchers to seek genetic explana-
tions for racial disparities in health. Many people, for example, believe that sickle cell disease is a
black disease, but this is not true. Sickle cell disease is common wherever malaria is common.
Thus, you can find sickle cell disease in parts of Africa as well as in parts of Europe, Oceania, In-
dia, and the Middle East—all regions where malaria is common (Malaria Atlas Project 2013). In
contrast, large swaths of Africa are unaffected by both malaria and sickle cell disease. If doctors
were to look for sickle cell disease only in black patients, they would risk the lives of many other
patients who also are vulnerable to the disease. Sickle cell disease is more common among African
Americans than other groups in the United States because the ancestors of many African Ameri-
cans were from parts of Africa where malaria is common. African Americans whose ancestors
came from other parts of Africa, however, are at much lower risk of sickle cell disease than people
from Saudi Arabia, where malaria is also common.
In terms of health outcomes, race is often used as a stand-in for a more precise genetic explana-
tion. For example, if researchers find that a certain glaucoma drug works better for blacks, the
most likely explanation is that the drug actually works better for people with dark eyes and thus
could be harmful for blacks with light eyes. Or a drug found to require a low dose for Asians could
be related to weight, not to Asian ancestry. When scientists find that drugs work better for some
races than for others, or in different doses depending on race, these racial explanations are most
likely explained by another factor. Racial dosing and racial prescribing are imprecise and poten-
tially harmful because race is always a stand-in for a better explanation (Roberts 2012).
10.3 ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM
As discussed earlier, African Americans and Latinxs are more likely to live in neighborhoods
where they have less access to fresh produce, parks, jogging trails, and healthy foods. In addition,
people of color and poor people are also more likely to live close to places that can directly dam-
age their health—toxic waste dumps, highly polluted freeways, and other environmental hazards.
In this way, health disparities can be linked directly to environmental racism: institutional poli-
cies and practices that differentially affect the health outcomes or living conditions of people and
communities based on race or color. The disparities between the living conditions of white and
nonwhite communities are clear.
In the United States, poor people and people of color are more likely to be exposed to environ-
mental hazards. Black children are five times more likely than white children to have lead poison-
ing. More than 68 percent of African Americans live within thirty miles of a coal-fired power
plant, compared with 56 percent of white Americans. In 2000, neighborhoods with hazardous
waste facilities were, on average, 56 percent nonwhite, and neighborhoods without such facilities
were 30 percent nonwhite. In the southeastern region of the United States—the area once dominat-
ed by slaves and slaveowners—three out of four of the largest hazardous waste landfills can be
found in majority-black areas (Checker 2006). Commercial hazardous waste treatment, storage,
and disposal facilities sited between 1966 and 1955 were placed in locations that were dispropor-
tionately poor and nonwhite at the time of siting; not surprisingly, those neighborhoods have be-
come poorer and more nonwhite over time (Mohai and Saha 2015). As shown in Figure 10-3,
neighborhoods with hazardous waste facilities—called host areas—have, on average, higher per-
centages of people of color than nonhost areas.

FIGURE 10-3
PERCENTAGES OF PEOPLE OF COLOR LIVING IN NEIGHBORHOODS WITH AND
WITHOUT TOXIC WASTE FACILITIES, IN STATES WITH THE LARGEST DISCREP-
ANCIES, 2007
Source Bullard (2007).

The placement of hazardous waste facilities affects community health. The lack of basic plumb-
ing also has serious consequences and renders communities vulnerable to a host of diseases. In
1950, 27 percent of houses in the United States lacked complete plumbing facilities. By 2000, this
percentage had dropped to 0.64 percent—a great improvement. However, nearly 700,000 house-
holds, representing 1.7 million people in the United States, continued to live without complete
plumbing facilities in 2000, and a half a million households in 2014 still were without plumbing
(Byrne 2015). The lack of plumbing continues to disproportionately affect nonwhites. In 2000,
0.47 percent of whites lived without plumbing, compared with 1.1 percent of blacks; 1.47 percent
of Hispanics; and 4.41 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives, primarily concentrated on
reservations (Rural Community Assistance Partnership n.d.).
Faced with these disparities, communities around the United States have fought to have their
communities cleaned up and to gain better access to clean air, water, and soil. These struggles can
be contentious, and the possible outcomes are not always clear. What does a community do when
it realizes that a toxic waste dump is in its backyard? Should everyone leave? They can’t, in good
conscience, sell their properties, so are they stuck?
10.4 ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
The movement for environmental justice focuses on the right to live in nontoxic neighborhoods.
Many scholars locate the beginning of the environmental justice movement in the 1980s, when pri-
marily nonwhite communities began to come together and insist on their right to live in nontoxic
neighborhoods. Melissa Checker (2006) traces this activism back to earlier struggles to get city
services in low-income and primarily black communities. Dorceta Taylor (2009) agrees and argues
that blacks’ fights for lead screening, Chicano and Filipino struggles against the use of pesticides
in agriculture, and Native Americans’ battles for fishing rights in the 1950s and 1960s are all part
of the movement for environmental justice. Environmental justice movements fight for causes
ranging from the creation of parks and open spaces to clean-up efforts by toxic waste producers to
clean air and water and other initiatives to improve the health and quality of life in neighborhoods.

Voices
The Fight Against the Dakota Access Pipeline
In 2016, a Native American tribe engaged in a long fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline—a construction
project that could endanger the lives and well-being of people in and around North Dakota. North Dakota has
recently undergone an oil boom, in part owing to a new technology called fracking, which allows for oil to be
drilled from beneath the earth. One issue oil companies face is getting the oil from North Dakota to the rest of
the country. Pipelines allow for crude oil to be transported underground.
In 2015, a coalition of business interests known as Energy Transfer Partners began the process of constructing
a pipeline to transport crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. When the Standing Rock Tribe learned the pipe-
line would pass through their reservation, they requested a full archaeological investigation, which never took
place (Sammon 2016). Although North Dakota has experienced economic growth thanks to the oil boom, the
Standing Rock Sioux reservation sits in one of the poorest counties in the nation.
Nearly 40 percent of the residents of the reservation live below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate is 86
percent. They do not stand to benefit economically from construction of the pipeline, yet they will face conse-
quences if the pipeline bursts.
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux feared the pipeline could burst and contaminate the Missouri River. For
this reason they mounted a protest in opposition to the pipeline. On April 1, 2015, members of the tribe launched
a prayer camp to protest the pipeline. They called on other tribes to join them. Over 300 tribes came together in
solidarity in an effort to shut down construction of the pipeline (Democracy Now 2016).
Energy Transfer Partners began construction in May 2016. In July 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers granted
permits for the pipeline to cross beneath the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers. Although this pipeline would pass
through tribal lands, the Army Corps of Engineers did not seek approval from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
As a result, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers on July 27, 2016,
and asked them to stop construction immediately (EarthJustice 2016).
On September 3, 2016, bulldozers came to prepare the ground to install the pipeline. Hundreds of protestors
gathered to protest the construction. When the protestors went through the fence, the result was violent con-
frontation. Security guards hit and pushed protestors, unleashed dogs on them, and sprayed pepper spray in pro-
testors’ faces. Eventually, the protestors were able to stop the construction for that day (Democracy Now 2016).
Over the next couple of months, thousands of people gathered at Standing Rock to protest the pipeline. By
December 2016, there were 7,000 people camping at Standing Rock in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux
Tribe. Even though authorities deployed pepper spray, rubber bullets, and water cannons at the protestors, and
even though temperatures are well below freezing, the protestors persisted (Mele 2016). However, shortly after
taking office, on January 24, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum ordering the Secretary of the Army
to expedite approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline. And, on February 22, 2017, state officials ordered the pro-
testors to evacuate. Just before the final evacuation, protestors set fire to the camp.

Melissa Checker (2006) conducted an in-depth study of Hyde Park, a black community near
Augusta, Georgia, that has long struggled for environmental justice. In 1970, Hyde Park residents
won a two-year struggle to get sewage, paved roads, and running water in their community. In
many ways, this was both an environmental battle and a battle against racism, as the conditions in
the neighborhood during heavy rains were toxic, and the white neighborhoods had long had ade-
quate city services.
In Hyde Park, the struggle for environmental justice is clearly linked to the fight for civil rights.
In the late 1960s, Hyde Park residents formed an organization called the Hyde and Aragon Park
Improvement Committee (HAPIC) to fight for better services for their neighborhood. This same
organization survived over many decades and evolved into a movement for environmental justice
during the 1990s, when it became clear that many of the nearby factories were emitting toxic
chemicals and poisoning the community. Residents of Hyde Park became increasingly incensed as
a junkyard in their neighborhood continued to expand—at times practically into their backyards—
and when dust from a ceramics factory left white powder sprinkled on their cars and smelly waters
filled their ditches during heavy rains.
Residents began to tie these environmental hazards to high rates of disease and death in their
small community of 250 people. For Hyde Park residents, the environmental hazards were evident:
whereas they once were able to grow bountiful gardens, their plots became less productive after
the factories and junkyards moved in. In 1991, researchers from the University of Georgia con-
firmed their suspicions when they found elevated levels of arsenic and chromium in the local soil
and produce and warned residents not to eat the produce from their gardens.

Residents of Hyde Park near Augusta, Georgia, faced a long struggle for environmental justice as factories and
junkyards polluted their community.

Around that same time, residents of the neighboring Virginia subdivision filed a lawsuit against
Southern Wood Piedmont—the local wood-processing plant—for contamination. Although the
neighborhoods are very close and the same water travels between them, the primarily white resi-
dents of the Virginia subdivision did not include Hyde Park residents in their lawsuit.
Hyde Park residents decided to file their own lawsuit in 1991. When the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (EPA) tested the air, water, and soil in Hyde Park, they found weak evidence of conta-
mination. However, when HAPIC commissioned its own studies, a neuropsychologist found a high
degree of neurological abnormalities among residents, and a dermatologist found a high rate of ar-
senical keratosis. For Hyde Park residents, it was clear that they had a high number of health is-
sues and that their neighborhoods were toxic and filled with smelly air and water. EPA testers,
however, were unable to find conclusive evidence of a connection between contamination and
their illnesses. In all, Hyde Park residents filed three separate lawsuits between 1991 and 1995.
One was dismissed, and fifteen years later, the other two were still pending. At the end of the
twentieth century, Hyde Park residents were finally able to secure government grants to clean up
the toxic waste near their neighborhood and to clear out a junkyard. The struggle for a clean envi-
ronment, however, continues (Checker 2006).
How is the fight for environmental justice in Hyde Park tied to race? Many of the residents of
Hyde Park interpret their experiences through a racial lens: the failure of the local, state, and feder-
al governments to respond to their need is part of a history of exclusion that African Americans
have faced since slavery. Additionally, African Americans are more likely to live in toxic neigh-
borhoods than whites—meaning that we can tie their plight to structural racism in the United
States insofar as environmental rules, laws, and policies reproduce historical racial disparities.
The struggle in Hyde Park is decidedly local: residents of this Georgia community experienced
the direct effects of the emission of toxins by industrial facilities that were right in their communi-
ty. They won a small victory when some of the toxic waste was cleaned up. But where did that
waste go? It is conceivable that it went to another country. Ninety percent of the hazardous waste
in the world is produced in industrialized nations such as the United States, Japan, and European
countries. Much of it is eventually shipped to Latin America, the Caribbean, South and Southeast
Asia, and Africa. In some cases, environmental clean-up in the United States can have detrimental
effects on poor countries that accept the hazardous waste in exchange for much-needed cash (Pel-
low 2007).
The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet generates 19 percent of the
world’s waste. The waste output of residents of the United States is the highest in the world (Pel-
low 2007). Within the United States, there is continued controversy over what to do with the
waste. One solution is to incinerate it. However, this produces incinerator ashes, which also must
be disposed of.
In 1986, the mayor of Philadelphia found himself with 15,000 tons of incinerator ash, and
nowhere to dump it. Local environmental activists had succeeded in closing the Kinsley landfill,
and Philadelphia found itself with tons of ash. The city contracted a local company to get rid of the
ash, which in turn handed it over to Amalgamated Shipping, a company headquartered in the Ba-
hamas. The shipping company loaded the ashes onto the Khian Sea, and the ship set sail for the
Bahamas on September 5, 1986. However, officials in the Bahamas refused to accept the toxic
waste, which then traveled to the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guinea-Bissau, Puerto Rico,
Bermuda, and the Dutch Antilles. Each port refused to accept the waste. Finally, in December
1987, the boat landed at Gonaives, Haiti, where the captain was able to work out an agreement
with the military regime, in part because he told them the ash was fertilizer. The crew succeeded in
unloading 3,700 tons of ash onto the beach before local activists and authorities became suspicious
and were able to stop the dumping. The ship left Haiti, leaving the ashes on the beach. The Khian
Sea continued its journey, unable to get rid of the remaining waste. The ship’s captain later admit-
ted he dumped the ashes in the middle of the Indian Ocean several months later. But, the 3,700
tons of ash dumped on the beaches of Gonaives still remained. It took years of local and in-
ternational activism until the toxic ash was finally removed from Haiti in April 2000.
The story of the Khian Sea is part of a story of global environmental injustice. Wealthier coun-
tries consume more resources than poorer ones and thus produce more waste. This global inequali-
ty is exacerbated when wealthy countries dump their waste in poorer countries. These inequalities
are also drawn along racial lines: western European countries and the United States attempt to
dump their waste in Africa and the Caribbean.

Voices
The Flint Water Crisis
In March 2016, the Flint Water Advisory Task Force Report found that the residents of Flint, Michigan, a majori-
ty-black and overwhelmingly poor city, had been exposed to environmental and health hazards because of water-
supply decisions made by city officials. The report also showed that these decisions were made with outright dis-
regard for the lives and health of the residents of Flint, Michigan.

Residents of Flint pick up bottled water and water filters from Red Cross disaster relief volunteers.

For nearly five decades, Flint had obtained clean drinking water from Lake Huron, the third largest body of
fresh water in the world. Beginning in June 2012, however, in an effort to save money, Flint city officials began
to seek out alternative water sources. At the time, Flint was on the verge of financial collapse, and the city was
being run by a governor-appointed emergency manager, Darnell Earley. City officials calculated that Flint could
save $200 million over twenty-five years if it built its own pipeline to derive water from the Karegnondi Water
Authority (KWA). However, by 2014, it became clear that the transition to the KWA would be delayed. Officials
then decided to connect a temporary pipeline to obtain water from the Flint River, beginning in April 2014.
City officials received advice that they should add an anticorrosive element to the water, but they decided not
to do this because it would cost $100 a day. The Flint River water was highly corrosive, however, and shortly af-
ter the switch to it, residents began to complain about the water’s smell and color. In August 2014, test of the wa-
ter revealed the presence of E. coli and total coliform bacteria. Residents were advised to boil their water before
consuming it. They began to complain of skin rashes and hair loss, among other issues, as they became ill due to
the water. City officials ignored nearly all complaints. In fall 2014, only one complaint was finally answered—
that of General Motors.
The owners of the General Motors factory in Flint had become concerned about the water quality, as it was
causing their car parts to corrode. In October 2014, they complained to Governor Rick Snyder, who used
$440,000 of state funds to reconnect the factory to the Lake Huron pipeline. Nevertheless, the other residents of
Flint remained connected to the contaminated Flint River water.
In January 2015, Flint was found to be in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. A month later, the water
was found to contain extremely high levels of lead, a highly toxic element. In September, a local study reported
that following the switch to the Flint River water, twice as many children under the age of five had elevated lev-
els of lead in their blood.
 In October 2015, Flint switched back to the Lake Huron water supply, but the corroded, lead-tainted pipes
were still in use. One year later, in 2016, many residents continued to distrust the city’s government and to doubt
the water’s safety. Three years later, in 2018, Flint still did not have clean water.

Sources: Bosman, Davey, and Smith 2016; Kennedy 2016; New York Times 2016; Sanburn 2017.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
During slavery, medical professionals had no qualms about using slaves as involuntary subjects in
medical experiments. We no longer live in such brutal times, but we can’t ignore our legacy. One
hundred and fifty years after the abolition of slavery, whites continue to receive better medical care
than blacks. Moreover, it is hard to say that white and black lives are equally valued when black
life expectancy continues to be years lower than that of whites.
The ability to breathe clean air, eat healthy food, have access to good medical care, and spend
time outside in green spaces all lead to better health outcomes. In this way, the movement for envi-
ronmental justice is intimately tied to the fight against health disparities.
Outright disregard for people of color informed the decisions made by industry and local leaders
in the early twentieth century to place toxic waste facilities in primarily nonwhite neighborhoods.
These same sentiments meant that nonwhite neighborhoods and towns were often the last to re-
ceive sewage infrastructure and piped water in their homes. By 2000, most communities had clean
water, but nonwhite households continue to be the most likely to lack basic services.
Social scientists and public health scholars have provided the data we need to see the persis-
tence of these disparities. These scientific studies leave little room for doubt that white Americans,
on average, have better access to clean air and water and healthy communities than do nonwhite
Americans. People of color in the United States and around the world are the most likely to have
to contend with the health and environmental consequences of toxic dumping.
How do we explain these disparities? In each chapter, we have seen how racial ideologies help
explain and justify inequalities. When looking at health and the environment, we can also uncover
ideologies that serve this purpose, such as the misconception that African Americans are not inter-
ested in healthy eating and exercise. Such ideologies blame African Americans for their high
prevalence of heart disease and diabetes while overlooking the structural reasons for health dispar-
ities, such as the lack of fresh vegetables and safe places to exercise in black neighborhoods.
One of the United States’ core values is the right of everyone to have an equal opportunity to
flourish. How does the ideology of equal opportunity coexist with the reality that nonwhites have
less access than whites to education, to jobs, and to services and circumstances that promote
health? How is this discord related to racial ideologies?

THINKING ABOUT RACIAL JUSTICE

WORLDWIDE, PEOPLE WITH higher standards of living have longer and healthier lives. In the United
States, African Americans are on average not as healthy as whites with similar incomes. How do we think
about racial justice given this context? What would racial justice look like in terms of our health and
environment?

Key Terms
Tuskegee syphilis experiment
Nuremberg Code
life-course perspective
cumulative disadvantage perspective
weathering hypothesis
Hispanic Paradox
acculturation
environmental racism
environmental justice

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

10.1 What is the racial history of health disparities in the United States?
During and even following slavery, African Americans were subjected to involuntary experimenta-
tion that was often brutal and had no therapeutic effects.
What is involuntary experimentation?
Why was the Nuremberg code important?
10.2 How do health disparities in the United States today vary by race and
ethnicity?
African Americans have lower life expectancies than whites, and racial disparities in health can be
found from the womb to the deathbed. Many of these disparities are due to structural and individ-
ual-level discrimination.
Describe the differences in infant mortality rates for black and white women.
How are health disparities related to segregation?
Why has diabetes become a problem for Native Americans?
How can racial discrimination affect health?
What is a life-course perspective on health disparities?
What is the Hispanic Paradox?
10.3 What are the effects of environmental racism?
Black and Latinx neighborhoods are more likely to host toxic waste facilities than white neighbor-
hoods. These facilities have negative health outcomes for the residents.
How prevalent is environmental racism?
10.4 What are some community movements for environmental justice?
The fight for clean neighborhoods has come to be called the environmental justice movement.
How did the environmental justice movement get started?

Critical Thinking

1. Why is it important to understand the history of health injustice in the United States?
2. What factors led doctors to conduct cruel experiments on African Americans?
3. How does our understanding of health disparities change when we take into account both race
and socioeconomic status?
4. Is segregation at the root of health disparities? Or are there more deeply rooted causes? Ex-
plain your position.
5. What role do you think acculturation plays in explaining the Hispanic Paradox?
6. What are some reasons that genetic explanations for health disparities may be problematic?
7. How is the fight against toxins in Hyde Park related to race and racism?

Quiz: Health Inequalities, Environmental Racism, and Environmental

Justice

[Please Note: You must have an Internet connection in order to vgiew this content.]

Talking about Race

In light of this chapter’s data on racial disparities in health outcomes, consider the findings
most relevant to your own experiences. What information in this chapter could you draw
from to have a conversation about health disparities and environmental racism in your com-
munity? For example, does your family live in a neighborhood with access to healthy food
and green spaces? What structural explanations might explain why or why not? How are
racial ideologies used to explain persistent health disparities?
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CHAPTER 2
pp. 38–39: by permission of The Microaggressions Project

CHAPTER 3
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CHAPTER 4
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series/. Reproduced by permission

CHAPTER 5
pp. 138–139: from Ismath Mohideen for Brown Girl Magazine; pp. 146–147: from CNN.com, December 9,
2009 © 2009 Turner Broadcast Systems. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright
Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without ex-
press written permission is prohibited; p. 151: by Namira Islam, Executive Director of the Muslim Anti-Racism
Collaborative (MuslimARC) from: http://www.muslimarc.org/afternotfairandlovely/

CHAPTER 7
pp. 197–198: by permission of Glenda Flores
Index

Page numbers followed by f and t refer to figures and tables, respectively. Italic page numbers refer to images.

A
Abstract liberalism, 48, 296
Academy Awards (2017), 121
Acculturation, 281–82, 296
Achievement gap, 168–78, 296
ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), 249
Acting white, 171, 297
Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), 262
Adultify (term), 176, 297
Advanced placement (AP) classes, 173
AEDPA. See Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
Affirmative action, 95, 297
in education, 164–65
in employment, 203–5
Africa/Africans
beauty standards of, 148
color hierarchy for, 141–44
colorism for, 135
hazardous waste facilities in, 290
intermarriage by, 15–16
scientific racism against, 24, 25
skin-color stratification for, 131
slaves from, 10–11, 13–16, 14, 18–19
African Americans
achievement gap for, 170–73
affirmative action for, 204
in aftermath of Great Recession, 60
citizenship for, 68
color hierarchy for, 139, 141, 143–44
with criminal records, 263
cultural capital for, 175–76
cultural racism against, 44–46
deindustrialization for, 200–203
drug use by, 34
educational inequality for, 156–57, 160–63
environmental racism against, 284–85, 287–90
health inequalities for, 268–83, 293
income inequality for, 183
individual racism against, 35–36
involuntary experimentation on, 268–72
 labor market inequalities for, 196–99
life-course perspectives for, 279–80
media images of, 104, 124t, 126, 127
microaggressions against, 36
as murder victims, 254
new racism against, 45
racial profiling of, 249, 250
school-to-prison pipeline for, 178
self-employment of, 206–7
in split labor market, 203
and sterilization racism, 273
symbolic violence against, 174
systemic racism against, 41–42
wealth inequality for, 222, 224
See also Blacks
Africanus group, 23
Agan, Amanda, 200
AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association), 97
Ainsworth-Darnell, James, 170, 171
Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, 96
Al-Arian, Laila, 113
Alaska Natives, 285. See also Native Americans
Alexander, Michelle, 263
Alexander the Great, 5
Ali, Mahershala, 121
Alien registration cards, 69
All India Democratic Women’s Association, 139
Allotment and Assimilation Period, 297
Alpine race, 27–28
Alsultany, Evelyn, 113
Amalgamated Shipping, 290
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 249
American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), 97
American Indians. See Native Americans
American Revolution, 19
Americanus group, 23
Americas
colonization of, 3, 10–11
colorism in, 132–34
Europeans and indigenous people in, 7–10
income inequality in, 185f
legal permanent residents from, 79–81, 81f
slavery in, 6f, 11–19
Amin, Heba, 114–15
Amos ‘n’ Andy (television series), 106–8
Anarcha (enslaved woman), 269, 270
Ancestry, 2
Annie E. Casey Foundation, xv
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, 247, 253, 297
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, 247, 297
Anti-Semitism, 297
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 88, 89, 297
Apalachicola, 21
Apartheid, 297
AP (advanced placement) classes, 173
Arab Americans, 113–15, 282
Arabs
health inequalities for, 279
media images of, 104, 113–15, 122–23, 125t
racism against, 49–50
in video games, 118
Arawaks, 7
Arizona, 96–97
Army Corps of Engineers, 287
Army Mental Tests, 27
Aryan Indians, 135, 137
ASFA (Adoption and Safe Families Act), 262
Asia/Asians
citizenship for, 68
color hierarchy for, 137–39
colorism in, 132, 134–35
educational achievement of, 170f
home values for, 226
immigrants from, 75–79, 76f
legal permanent residents from, 79
media images of, 105, 115–17, 116, 124–25, 125t
skin-color stratification for immigrants from, 131
and U.S. immigration policy, 70, 71, 75–79, 76f
in video games, 118
wealth inequality for, 227
Asian Americans
achievement of, 172–73
beauty standards of, 147–48
color hierarchy for, 137
cultural racism against, 48
educational inequality for, 160, 166–68, 166f
health inequalities for, 279
income inequality for, 184–86, 189f
labor market inequality for, 189–91, 189f, 196
media images of, 115–17 116, 125t
microaggressions against, 36–37
segregation for, 220–21
Asiaticus group, 23
Asset-based social policies, 230–31, 297
Assets, 212, 297
Assimilation, 34–35, 68, 158, 297, 304
Athletes, 107–8
Average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading score, 170f
Awkward Black Girl (webseries), 109
Aztecs, 9

B
Bacon’s Rebellion, 16
Bad Sugar (film), 277
Bahamas, 290
Bailey, Thomas, 203–4
Bakke, Allan, 164
Balogun, Oluwakemi M., 148
Baltimore, Maryland, 276
Banishment, 69
Barrino, Fantasia, 139
Baumgartner, Frank R., 249
Bautista, Robert, 66–67, 88
Beauty, skin color and, 146–51
Beauty queue, 146–47, 297
Becker, Bradley, 37
Beirut, 113
Belize, 140
Bernier, François, 22
Berry, Halle, 139
Bertrand, Marianne, 199
Beyoncé, 139
BIA (Board of Immigration Appeals), 66
Bigotry, responses to, xvi
Binet, Alfred, 26
Biological racism, 46, 297
Birthright citizenship, 297
Black (classification), 132, 134
black-ish (television series), 109, 109–10
Black Lives Matter, 251, 298
Blacks
in American film and television, 105
detention and deportation of, 88–90, 93
discriminatory/predatory lending policies for, 218–19
drug crimes of, 246, 247
educational achievement of, 170f
educational inequality for, 164–68, 166f
in environmental justice movement, 286
environmental racism against, 284–85
health inequalities for, 268–83
homeownership for, 216–18, 226
home values for, 226
incarceration of, 241–43, 247–48, 262, 263
income inequality for, 184–85, 196–97
institutional racism against, 39–40
labor market inequalities for, 187–89
media images of, 104, 106–10, 111f, 122–24
mental and physical unfitness of free blacks, 272–73
racial profiling of, 250–51
racism against, 52
residential segregation for, 213–22
sentencing disparities for, 252–54
underemployment, unemployment, and joblessness for, 191–95
in video games, 119
wealth inequality for, 212–13, 227–32, 228f
See also African Americans
Bland, Sandra, 251, 251–52
Blumenbach, Johann, 23
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), 66
Boer War, 298
Bolivia, 140
Bonacich, Edna, 203
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, 3, 34, 43, 48–49, 131, 299
Bosch, Juan, 82
Bourdieu, Pierre, 174
Boycotts, 121
Bracero program, 72–73, 73, 298
Brain size, 26
Brazil, 134, 139, 240
Brazzaville, Congo, 142
Broca, Paul, 25
Brooks, Siobhan, 147
Brown, John, 268–69
Brown, Michael, 251
Brownsville, Texas, 74
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 156, 161, 298
Bryant, Kobe, 108
Bullard, R., 282
Bullwhip Days (Mellon), 18–19
Burgess, Melinda, 119
Burmese Americans, 189
Burnett, Eugene, 218
Bush, George H. W., 260
Butterfly (stereotype), 115, 298

C
Cade, Ebb, 271–72
California
affirmative action in, 164–65
educational segregation in, 160, 167
immigrants in, 77, 85–87
mass incarceration in, 254–55, 257–58, 260
Cambodians, 167–69
Canada, 85
Cantina Girl, 112, 298
Capitalism, 298
Captivity narrative, 117
Cardoza, Kavitha, 149–50
Caribbean
color hierarchy in, 140
deportation/detention of immigrants from, 89–94
European encounters in, 7, 8
hazardous waste facilities in, 290
and U.S. immigration policy, 75, 79, 80, 82–84
Carlisle Indian School, 158, 159
Carmichael, Stokely, 39, 40
Carter, Prudence, 175–77
Castas, 134
Castizos, 134
Castro, Fidel, 82, 83
Categorical exclusion, 298
Catholic Church, 5
Caucasians, 24–25
CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), 258–59
Central Americans, 79–81
Certificates of residence, 69
Charles, Christopher A. D., 133–34, 143
Charles II, 13
Charleston, South Carolina, 18
Checker, Melissa, 286–88
Chemawa School, 158
Cherokee, 21
Chicago, Illinois, 40, 201, 202, 214, 220, 257
Chicanos, 286. See also Latinx
Children, of inmates, 261, 261–63
China/Chinese, 167
achievement of immigrants from, 169
color hierarchy in, 137
deportation/detention of immigrants from, 91
health outcomes for immigrants from, 281
incarceration rate in, 240
labor market inequalities for, 189, 189f
self-employment for, 205–6
and U.S. immigration policy, 69, 75–77
Chinese Americans, 160
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 69, 76, 296, 298
Choctaw, 21
Choueiti, Marc, 105
Chow, Kevin, 116
Christiani, Leah, 249
Christianity, 49, 157
CIMT (crimes involving moral turpitude), 66
Citizenship, 68, 71–72, 94, 297
Civil rights, 298
Civil Rights Act (1968), 164
Civil rights movement, 160, 298
Civil War, 20
Clarendon County, South Carolina, 161
Class, 53–54, 57–58, 123–26, 247–48
Clinton, Bill, 83
Cloaked websites, 120
Cold War, 81
Collective black, 298
Collins, Chiquita, 276
Collins, Patricia Hill, 122–24
Collins, Suzanne, 120
Colonialism (colonization), 4, 298
and colorism, 134–35
settler, 52
slavery during, 10–11, 14f
See also North American colonies
Color-blind racism, 48–49, 298
Color-blind universalism, 298
Color hierarchy, global, 136–44
Colorism, 130–52, 298
 and Creole identity, 145–46
and global color hierarchy, 136–44
history of, 132–36
and relationship of gender, beauty, and skin color, 146–51
Coloured, 298
Columbus, Christopher, 7, 8, 11
Comfort food, 278
Communist Party, 74
Confederacy, 20
Congress, U.S., 238, 254
Conquistadores, 10
Constitution, U.S., 42
Constitutional Convention, 19
Controlling images, 122–26, 299
Convict-lease system, 236
Cook County Sheriff’s Department, 250
Correctional population, 239f
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), 258–59
Cortés, Hernando, 9
Cosby Show, The (television series), 107
Courts, U.S., 160–61. See also Supreme Court, U.S.
Crack cocaine, 246–47, 253, 258
Craniometry, 26
Creek, 21
Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 53–54
Creole identity, 145–46
Crime, fear of, 259–60
Crime Control Act (1984), 247, 296
Crime rates, 236–37, 243–45, 244f
Crimes involving moral turpitude (CIMT), 66
Criminal justice system, 235–64
collateral consequences for inmates, 261–63
and colorism, 144
immigrants in, 65, 89–91
institutional racism in, 39–40, 248–54
and joblessness, 193–95
mass incarceration in United States, 237–48
role of economics in, 254–60
and school-to-prison pipeline, 178
and sociological theories of racism, 33
white privilege in, 56
Criminals
discrimination against, 263
media portrayal of, 104
Critiques, in conversations about race, xv
Cuba/Cubans, 10, 82–83, 189–90, 205–6, 281
Cullors, Patrisse, 251
Cultural capital, 173–76, 179, 299
Cultural racism, 46–48, 299
Culture, 171–73, 281–82
Cumulative disadvantage perspective, 279, 280, 299

D
DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), 94, 96
Dakar, Senegal, 142
Dakota Access Pipeline, 286–87
Daniels, Jessie, 120
Davis, Angela, 245
Dawes Act (1887), 296
Death penalty, 254
Debt, wealth inequality and, 227
Declaration of Independence, 19
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), 94, 96
Deindustrialization, 200–203, 257, 299
Deportation, 69, 91t
of Robert Bautista, 66–67
of blacks and Latinos, 88–90, 93
under McCarran Internal Security Act, 74
of Mexican immigrants, 71–73
of undocumented migrants, 92f
U.S. policies on, 68f
Desi culture, 139
Desperate Housewives (television series), 111–12
Detention, of immigrants, 65–67, 88–90, 93, 97
Detroit, Michigan, 200–203, 214, 215, 220, 257
Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM Act), 94
DHS (U.S. Department of Homeland Security), 66
Diabetes, 277, 282
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (film), 127
Diaspora, 137, 141–44, 299
Díaz, Bernal, 9
Diet, diabetes and, 277
Dietrich, David R., 131
Discipline, in schools, 175, 177–78
Discrimination, 33–35, 299
against criminals, 263
against immigrants, 100
labor market, 190, 196–99
and new racism, 45
religious, 49–50
and sociological theories of racism, 33–40
in split labor market, 203
Discriminatory lending policies, 218–19
Dissimilarity index, 219, 220, 299
Diversity, neighborhood, 220–22, 220f
DoD. See U.S. Department of Defense
Domination, 51
Dominican Republic/Dominicans
deportation/detention of immigrants from, 67, 90–92, 92f
self-employment rates for, 205
and U.S. immigration policy, 82
Dornbusch, Sanford M., 173
Doty, Roxanne Lynn, 51
Dowdy, Daniel, 18–19
Dowell v. Oklahoma City, 162–63
Downey, Douglas, 171
Dozier, Raine, 188
Dragon Lady, 115, 299
DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors), 94
Drug crimes
incarceration for, 236–37, 240, 241f, 244–47, 246f
racial profiling and arrests for, 250
sentencing for, 253
Drug use, 34
DuBois, W. E. B., 57, 155, 236
Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.), 161
Durbin, Dick, 94
Dutch. See Netherlands/Dutch

E
Earley, Darnell, 291
Earnings, 186f, 187f
Earnings gap, 184–85, 196–97, 299
Economic justice, 208
Economics, 95, 206, 254–60
Education
and cultural capital, 179
and health inequalities, 275, 275f
and immigration policy, 95
and income equality, 196
intelligence testing in, 26–27
and net worth, 226f
parental, 168–69
and skin color, 140–41, 144
spending on, 256, 256f
and wealth inequality, 228–29, 229f
Educational inequality, 155–79
and achievement gap, 168–78
current state of U.S., 166–68
history of, 156–65
and sociological theories of racism, 33
Egyptians, 6
Ellis Island, 26
El Salvador, 81–82, 91–92, 92f
Emancipation Proclamation, 20
Embedded market, 206, 299
Employment
affirmative action in, 203–5
for dropouts, 194, 194f
and sociological theories of racism, 33
and wealth inequality, 230
Encinia, Brian, 252
Energy Transfer Partners, 286–87
England/English, 5, 11–13. See also Great Britain/British
English language, 94–95, 174–76
Enlightened racism, 107, 299
Entrepreneurship, 205–7
Environmental justice, 286–92, 299
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 289
Environmental racism, 284–86, 299
Epp, Derek A., 249
Equal Opportunity Act (1972), 205
Erotic capital, 147, 299
Españoles, 134
Ethiopia/Ethiopians, 5, 6
Ethnic enclave economy, 206, 299
Ethnicity(-ies)
achievement gap by, 170f
assimilation, 34–35
defined, 3, 300
health and, 273–84, 274f
incarceration rate by, 241f, 243f
income inequality by, 183–86
median net worth by, 223f
and race, 3–4
wealth by, 224f, 229f
Eugenics, 27–28, 71, 300
Eugenic Sterilization Law, 28
Europaenus group, 23
Europe/Europeans
and colorism in Africa, 134–35
incarceration in, 237, 239
and indigenous people in Americas, 7–10
and intelligence testing, 26
intermarriage laws in, 15–16
race as concept for, 3–4
racial ideologies of, 4–6
scientific racism favoring, 23–25
taxonomies of, 22–23
toxic waste produced by, 289, 290
and U.S. immigration policy, 69–71, 85
Evanston Police Department, 250
Everett, Anna, 118

F
Fair, use of term, 150–51
Fair Housing Act (1968), 215
Fair & Lovely, 138, 139–39, 150–51
Fair Sentencing Act (2010), 258
Families, 92, 261–63
Farley, Reynolds, 222
Fatal Invention (Roberts), 283
Fathers, incarceration of, 261–62
Feagin, Joe, 34, 35, 41–42, 53, 89, 268
Federal Bureau of Prisons, 238
Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 216, 217, 231, 232, 300
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 218
Felons, 88–90, 263
Ferdinand II of Aragon, 5
Ferguson, Ann Arnett, 47, 176–78
Ferguson, Kenlana, 192–93
Fernández, Paula, 147
FHA. See Federal Housing Administration
Filipinos. See Philippines/Filipinos
Fisher, Abigail, 165
Fisher v. The University of Texas, 165
Flint water crisis, 291–92
Flores, Glenda, 197–98
Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 69
Food, access to healthy, 276–78
Fordham, Signithia, 171, 172
Foreclosure crisis (2007-2009), 230
Frankenberg, R., 55
Freedom, 19–21
Freedom Riders, 300
Fresh Off the Boat (television series), 116, 116
Friedman, Samuel Robert, 40
Frost, Peter, 135
Fulani, 13

G
Game of Thrones (television series), 116
García, Juan, 10
Garner, Eric, 251
Garrido, Juan, 10
Garza, Alicia, 251
Gel Eclaircissant, 141
Gender
and beauty/skin color, 146–51
and incarceration rate, 241f, 247–48
income inequality by, 183–86
and likelihood of deportation/detention, 92
in media images, 123–26, 124t
and race/class, 53–54
and wealth inequality, 227
and white privilege, 59
See also Women
General Motors, 291–92
Genetics, 2, 282–84
Genetics of Asthma Lab, 282
Genocide, 4, 52, 300
Genotype, 300
GEO Group, 259
Georgia, 96
German Americans, 68
Ghana, 141–42
Gini coefficient, 184, 300
Girls (television series), 105
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 148
Global color hierarchy, 136–44, 300
Gobnineau, Joseph-Arthur de, 24
Goddard, H. H., 26
Gomez, Selena, 146, 147
Gonaives, Haiti, 290
Gone with the Wind (film), 108
Gotham, Ken, 214–15
Gould, Stephen Jay, 24, 25, 27
Gramsci, Antonio, 51
Grant, Madison, 27–28, 46
Gray, Freddie, 251
Great Britain/British, 83, 274. See also England/English
Great Depression, 73
Great Migration, 84
Great Recession, 60, 257
Greece/Greeks, 2, 6, 206
Green cards, 69
Greenman, Emily, 189–90
Grey’s Anatomy (television series), 115, 126
Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 161
Grosfoguel, Ramón, 50
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 72, 80
Guatemala, 90–92, 92f
Gutiérrez, Elena, 273
Guyana, 140

H
Haiti, 91, 290
Hamamoto, Darrell, 115
Hamilton, Charles, 39, 40
Hamilton, Thomas, 268–69
HAPIC (Hyde and Aragon Park Improvement Committee), 288, 289
Harlem, New York, 133, 133–34, 143, 276–77
Harris, Grandison, 270
Harris, Kathleen M., 131
Harris-Perry, Melissa, 109
Hart-Cellar Act (1965), 74–84. See also Immigration and Nationality Act (1965)
Harvey Wingfield, Adia, 206
Haskell Indian School, 158
Hatch, Orrin, 94
Hate speech, 120
Hawaii, 76–78
Hayek, Salma, 146
Hazardous waste facilities, 282–86, 285f
Health inequalities, 267–93
and culture, 280–82
environmental justice movement, 286–92
and environmental racism, 284–86
explained by race and ethnicity, 273–84
and genetics, 282–84
history of U.S., 268–73
and individual racism, 278–79
life-course perspectives on, 279–80
and residential segregation, 276–78
and socioeconomic status, 274–76, 275f
Hector (Guatemalan deportee), 90
Hegemony, 44, 45, 51, 300
Henson, Drew, 108
Herrnstein, Richard, 46
Hersch, Joni, 131
Herskovits, Melville, 133
Hidden curriculum, 177–78, 300
Higher education, 164–65
Hindus, 24–25
Hispanic Paradox, 281–82, 300
Hispanics. See Latinx
Historical construction, 4
Hitler, Adolf, 28
Hmong, 167
Homeland (television series), 113–15 114
Homeownership, 213, 216–19, 224, 226, 228–30
Home values, 216, 226
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette, 85
Honduras, 91–92, 92f
Honorary white, 300
Horwang, Cris, 136
House of Payne (television series), 127
Housing crisis (2007-2009), 226, 230
Housing inequality, 212, 231–32
and achievement gap, 168
and homeownership rates/home values, 226
and income inequality, 202–3
and individual racism, 35
and residential segregation, 213–22
and wealth gap, 227–31
How to Get Away with Murder (television series), 126
“How to Talk About Race,” xv
Human capital, 195–96, 300
Human rights, 300
Hume, David, 23
Hunger Games, The (film), 120
Hunter, Margaret, 141, 146–46
Huron, Lake, 291, 292
Hyde and Aragon Park Improvement Committee (HAPIC), 288, 289
Hyde Park, Georgia, 287–89, 288
Hypersegregation, 221, 300
Hyperselectivity, 169
Hypodescent, 132, 300

I
“I Am Not Trayvon Martin” video, 119
Iceland, 240
Identity(-ies)
Creole, 145–46
racial, 29
Ideology, 4, 300. See also Racial ideologies
Igbo, 13
IIRIRA (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act), 88–89, 300
Illegal immigration, 79f, 80, 84–94, 91t, 92f
Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act (2011), 96
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), 88–89, 300
Immigrants
 country of origin of, 85f
detention of, 65
health inequalities for, 280–82
intelligence testing for, 26
laws discriminating against, 100
skin-color stratification for, 131
in U.S. population, 70f
white privilege for, 155
See also specific groups
Immigration Act of 1917, 301
Immigration Act of 1924, 70, 71, 75, 77, 78, 301
Immigration and Nationality Act (1965), 74–84, 296
Immigration and Naturalization Service, 73
Immigration policy, 64–100, 68f, 70f, 72f, 86f
from 1790 to 1924, 67–71
from 1924 to 1964, 71–72
and Asian immigration, 75–79, 76f
and assimilation, 34
Robert Bautista on, 66–67
current, 94–99
DREAM Act, 94
eugenics in, 27, 28
and illegal immigration, 79f, 80, 84–94, 91t, 92f
Immigration and Nationality Act (1965), 74–84
and Latin American/Caribbean immigration, 73, 79–84, 79f, 81f
nativism in, 71–72, 94–99
quotas in, 71, 79–80
racialization in history of, 67–84
as racial project, 51
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), 79, 84–85, 296
Implicit Association Test, 34
Implicit bias, 199, 301
Incarceration. See Mass incarceration
Incas, 24
Income, 140–41, 168–70, 223–24, 274
Income inequality, 183, 186f
by race, ethnicity, and gender, 183–87
sociological explanations for, 195–203
See also Labor market inequality
Indentured servants, 12–13
India/Indians, 5
beauty standards in, 149–50
color hierarchy in, 137, 138
colorism in, 135
deportation/detention of immigrants from, 91
education of, 168–69
U.S. immigration policy and, 75, 78
Indian Americans, 189
Indian Appropriations Act (1851), 296
Indian Appropriations Act (1871), 296
Indian Removal Act of 1830, 21, 301
Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 296
Indian schools, 157–59
Indigenous peoples
appropriation of lands from, 11–12
encounters of Europeans and, 7–10
enslavement of, 10
in Latin America, 139
See also specific groups, e.g.: Native Americans
Indios, 134
Individual racism, 35–39, 196–266, 278–79, 301
Indonesia, 135, 137, 149, 150
Infant mortality, 281
Insecure (television series), 109
Institutional agents, 173–74, 301
Institutional racism, 39–41, 248–54, 301
Intelligence quotient (IQ), 27
Intelligence testing, 25–27, 301
Intermarriage, 15–16
Internal segregation, 172–73
Intersectionality, 53–54, 301
IQ (intelligence quotient), 27
Iran, 97–98
Iraq, 97–98
IRCA. See Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
Ireland/Irish, 5, 12, 68, 155
Iron Fist, The (webseries), 116–17
Iroquois, 24
Isabella I of Castile, 5
Islam, Namira, 150–51 151
Islamophobia, 49–50, 97–98, 301
Isolation index, 219, 301
Israelis, 205
Italian Americans, 68

J
Jackson, Andrew, 21
Jackson, Daren W., 109–10
Jackson, James, 278
Jacobson, Robin Dale, 85–86
Jamaica, 82, 83, 90–91, 93, 143
Jamestown, 11, 16
Jane the Virgin (television series), 112, 112
Japan/Japanese
color hierarchy in, 137
colorism in, 135
health inequalities for, 274
labor market inequalities for, 189
toxic waste produced by, 289
U.S. immigration policy and, 77, 78
Jarred (African American man), 192–93
Jefferson, Thomas, 19–20
Jews, 5, 155
Jezebel (stereotype), 108–9 301
Jhally, Sut, 107
Jim Crow laws, 45, 301
Joblessness, 191–95
Johnson, Kevin, 87, 89
Johnson, Lyndon B., 83, 204, 238
Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, 70, 71, 301. See also Immigration Act of 1924
Jones, Finn, 116, 117
Jones, James, 241

K
Kandaswamy, Priya, 54
Kansas City, Missouri, 214
Kao, G., 172–73
Kapp, Caram, 114–15
Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA), 291
Karl, Don “Stone,” 14–15
Kaufman, Robert, 226
Keith, Verna, 131
Khan, Aisha, 148
Khian Sea incident, 290
Kim, ChangHwan, 190–91
King, C. Richard, 108
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 120
Kopacz, Maria, 119, 121
Korea/Koreans, 75, 205, 206
color hierarchy in, 137
labor market inequality for, 189, 190
self-employment for, 206–7
U.S. immigration policy and, 75, 78
Kpanake, Lonzozou, 143
Kravitz, Lenny, 120
Krivo, Lauren, 226
Krysan, Maria, 222
KWA (Karegnondi Water Authority), 291

L
Labor market discrimination, 190, 196–99
Labor market inequality, 183, 187–95, 191f
and affirmative action in employment, 203–5
among Asian Americans, 189–91, 189f
and assimilation, 34
and colorism, 144
and entrepreneurship/self-employment, 205–7
and individual racism, 34
sociological explanations for, 195–203
underemployment, unemployment, and joblessness rates, 191–95, 191f
for women, 187–89, 188f
Lagos, Nigeria, 142
Lahoud, Raymond, 66, 67
Lakeview, New York, 217
Lambrath, John, 249
Lamont, Michéle, 174–75
Land, 11–12
Language, 94–95, 174, 175, 177
Laotians, 167–69
Lara, Mariaelena, 281
Lareau, Annette, 174–75
Latin America
color hierarchy in, 134, 139–40
deportation/detention of immigrants from, 89–94, 93
hazardous waste facilities in, 289–90
illegal immigration from, 84
skin-color stratification for immigrants from, 131
and U.S. immigration policy, 75, 79–81, 81f
See also specific countries
Latinx
achievement gap for, 170, 172–73
affirmative action for, 204
beauty ideals of, 146, 147
color hierarchy for, 140–41
cultural racism against, 48
detention and deportation of immigrants, 88–94
discriminatory/predatory lending policies for, 218–19
and DREAM Act, 94
educational achievement of, 170f
educational inequality for, 163–68, 166f
environmental racism against, 284–85
health inequalities for, 276–83
homeownership/home values for, 226
incarceration of, 241, 243, 247–48, 262
income inequality for, 183, 184
labor market inequalities for, 187–89, 196–97
media images of, 104, 105, 110–12, 111f, 122, 124–25, 125t
and new racism, 45
racial profiling of, 249–51
residential segregation for, 219–21
sentencing disparities for, 252–53
and sterilization racism, 273
underemployment, unemployment, and joblessness rates for, 192
in video games, 118
wealth inequality for, 212, 222, 224, 301–4
Latinx Americans
in aftermath of Great Recession, 60
education of, 178
mental health of, 279
microaggressions against, 36
Lauderdale, Diane, 279
Lawton, Bessie Lee, 119, 121
League of United Latin American Citizens(LULAC), 160
Lee, Jennifer, 169
Lee, Spike, 121
Legalization, of immigrants, 79, 85
Legal permanent residents, 71–72, 72f, 75, 76f, 79, 80, 81f, 89, 301
Legal system, 14–18, 42
Lending policies, 218–19
Leonard, David, 108
Levittown, New York, 217–18
Lewin-Epstein, Noah, 196
Lewis, Justin, 107
Liberalism, 48, 257, 296
Libya, 97–98
Life-course perspective, 279–80, 302
Life expectancy, 274
Lincoln, Abraham, 20
Linnaeus, Carolus, 22–23
Lisa (Latina woman), 197–98
Loans, subprime, 219
London, England, 9
Longoria, Eva, 146
Lopez, Jennifer, 146
L’Oréal, 150
Los Angeles, California, 220
Low-birthweight babies, 275, 275f
LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens), 160
Lyons, C., 195

M
Mada, 13
Madea Goes to Jail (film), 127
Malaria, 283
Mali, 142
Malpede, Christie, 278–79
Mammy (stereotype), 108, 302
Mandatory minimum sentences, 253
Manifest destiny, 21
Manufacturing sector, 200–203, 201f
Market, embedded, 206, 299
Martin, Trayvon, 251
Maryland, 15, 249
Massachusetts, 12, 256
Massad, Joseph, 114
Mass incarceration, 237–48, 239f
class and gender disparities in rates of, 247–48
collateral consequences of, 261–63
economics of, 254–60
by gender and race/ethnicity, 241f
in global context, 239–40
inefficacy of, 243–45, 244f, 245f
and labor market inequalities, 193–95
racial disparities in rate of, 60, 241–43, 243f, 247–48, 264
rise in, 238, 239f
and War on Drugs, 245–47, 246f
Master race, 28
McCarran Internal Security Act (1950), 74, 302
McKinney, K. D., 35
Media images, 103–27
of Arabs and Arab Americans, 112–15, 125t
of Asians and Asian Americans, 115–17 116, 125t
of blacks, 106–10, 111f
in entertainment, 104–18
influence of, 104–5
 of Latinx, 110–12, 111f, 125t
of Native Americans, 117–18, 125t
raced, classed, and gendered, 123–26, 124t, 125t
and racial inequality, 122–23
on social media, 119–21
in video games, 118–19
Medical College of Georgia, 270
Medical experimentation, 269–71
Mediterranean race, 27, 28
Mejorando la raza, 140
Mellon, James, 18–19
Memes, 119–20, 302
Men
incarceration of, 243f, 261–62
media portrayals of, 111, 113, 115, 117, 122–26, 124t
See also Gender
Méndez, Felicítas, 160
Méndez, Gonzalo, 160
Mendez v. Westminster, 160–61
Mental illness, 278
Mereday, Vince, 217
Merskin, Debra, 112
Meschefe, Tatjana, 227
Mestiçagem, 302
Mestizos, 134, 139, 302
Mexican Americans
color hierarchy for, 141
detention/deportation of, 93
educational inequality for, 157, 160
health inequalities for, 280–82
Mexican Revolution, 72
Mexico/Mexicans
achievement of immigrants from, 169
colonization of, 10
color hierarchy in, 139
colorism in, 148
deportation/detention of immigrants from, 71–73, 91–93, 92f
European encounters with, 9–10
health outcomes for immigrants from, 281–82
illegal immigration from, 80, 84–87
income inequality for, 184
self-employment by, 205–7
Donald Trump’s comments about, 95–96
and U.S. immigration policy, 73, 77, 79–81
Microaggressions, 36–39, 304
Microaggressions Project, The, 38–39
Middle Easterners, 105, 113
Mielants, Eric, 50
Miele, Frank, 46
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 219
Minimization of racism, 302
“Mississippi appendectomy,” 273
“Model minority” myth, 48, 167, 190–91, 302
Moesha (African-American young woman), 176–77
Mohideen, Ismath, 138–39
Monbiot, George, 212
Monk, Ellis, 144
Monk-Turner, Elizabeth, 110–11
Montana, 158
Morgan, Edmund, 12
Morton, Samuel George, 24–25
Moss, Kirby, 58
Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria pageant, 148
Mothers, incarceration of, 261, 262
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 47
Moynihan Report, 47
Mulatos, 134
Mulattos, 132, 134, 139, 302
Mullainatha, Sendhil, 199
Mullet, Etienne, 143
Multiracial people, 37, 302
Murguia, Edward, 141
Murray, Charles, 46
Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC), 150
Muslim ban, 95, 97–98
Muslims
historical discrimination against, 5
and Islamophobia, 49–50, 97–98
media images of, 113, 122–23

N
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), 107
NACARA (Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act), 90
Nadal, Kevin, 37
Narratives, xvi
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 107
National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), 214–15
National Immigration Law Center, 97
National Labor Relations Act (1935), 204
Native Americans
achievement gap for, 173
cultural racism against, 48
and Dakota Access Pipeline, 286–87
educational achievement of, 170f
educational inequality for, 157–59, 164–66, 166f
English views of, 6, 11–12
in environmental justice movement, 286
environmental racism against, 285
in European taxonomy, 22–23
health inequalities for, 277, 279
and immigration quotas, 71
and Indian Removal Act of 1830, 21
individual racism against, 35
intermarriage by, 15
media images of, 104, 117–19, 121, 125t
school-to-prison pipeline for, 178
 scientific racism against, 24
segregation of, 221
and sterilization racism, 273
wealth inequality for, 225–26
and white supremacy, 52–53
See also Indigenous peoples
Nativism, 65, 71–74, 84–85, 94–99, 302
Naturalization, 68, 302
Naturalization (frame), 49, 302
Naturalization Act/Law of 1790, 68, 302
Nazis/Nazism, 28
NEAP (Average National Assessment of Educational Progress) reading score, 170f
Neoliberalism, 257, 302
Netherlands/Dutch, 13, 135
Net worth, 43f
New Hampshire, 256
New Immigrant Survey, 131
New Jersey, 249, 254
New Mexico, 254, 256
New racism, 44–48, 122, 302
New World, slavery in, 6–7
New York, New York, 105, 250–51, 276–77
New York Police Department (NYPD), 250–51
New York State, 17
New Zealand, 85
Nicaragua, 81, 82
Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA), 90
Nigeria, 148
Nordic Americans, 71
Nordic race, 27, 28, 46
North American colonies, 11–13, 14, 132
Norway, 184
#NotFairandLovely, 150–51
Nuremberg Code, 272, 302–3
NYPD (New York Police Department), 250–51

O
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 271
Obama, Barack, 83, 94, 96, 258
Obesity, 276–79
Occupy Wall Street movement, 184
Office of Immigration Statistics, 85
Ogbu, John, 171, 172
Okeniyi, Dayo, 120
Oliver, Melvin, 43–44, 202, 224, 230–31
Omi, Michael, 50–51
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968), 238
Operation Wetback, 73–74, 303
Oppositional culture, 171, 303
Orange County, California, 160–61
Oriental Exclusion Act (1924), 71, 75, 303
Orientalism, 52
#OscarsSoWhite, 121
Osoro, Sam, 227
Otherization, 259–60
Outsourcing, 257, 303
Overt racism, 44

P
Pacific Islanders, 170f
Pakistanis, 167
Panama, 140
Paradies, Yin, 279
Parameswaran, Radhika, 149–50
Pardo, 134, 139, 303
Parenti, Christian, 256
Parents, 93, 168–70, 261–62
Parker, Candace, 108
Patel, Dev, 121
Patriarchy, 146, 303
People of color
in American films and television, 105, 106f
media representations of, 127
See also specific groups
Peoria (tribe), 21
Perreira, Krista M., 131
Perry, Tyler, 127
Persky, Aaron, 56
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), 88, 303
Peru, 139, 140
Peter, Christian, 108
Peters, Mary, 18
Petit, B., 194, 195
Phenotype, 303
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 214, 290
Philippines/Filipinos
beauty ideals of, 148
color hierarchy in, 137
deportation/detention of immigrants
from, 91
education of, 167
in environmental justice movement, 286
labor market inequalities for, 189–90
and U.S. immigration policy, 75, 77–78
Phillips, Lawrence, 108
Phoenicians, 6
PHS (Public Health Service), 270–71
PIC (prison-industrial complex), 259–60, 303
Pieper, Katherine, 105
Pierre, Jemima, 141–42
Pigmentocracy, 131, 303
Pima, 277
Pinkett, Jada, 121
Plessy v. Ferguson, 160, 303
Plumbing facilities, 284–85
Plyer v. Doe, 95
Police brutality, 39–40, 109–10, 252
Police officers, 96–97, 249–51
Politics, 65, 87, 259–60
Population Registration Act (1950), 303
Portugal/Portuguese, 10
Poverty, 163, 163f, 221, 255
Prairie View A&M University, 252
Pratt, Richard, 158
Predatory lenders, 218–19, 303
Prejudice, 33–40, 303
Prince Edward County, Virginia, 161
Prison-industrial complex (PIC), 259–60, 303
Private Practice (television series), 126
Private prisons, 258–59
Property crime rate, 244f
Proposition 187(California), 85–87
Proposition 209(California), 165
Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, 97
Provine, Doris Marie, 51
PRWORA (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act), 88, 303
Pseudoscience, 272, 303
Public Health Service (PHS), 270–71
Puerto Rico/Puerto Ricans, 10, 83–84

Q
Queen Nigeria pageant, 148
Questioning, as response to bigotry, xvi
Quinlan, J. Michael, 259

R
Race, 1–29, 304
achievement gap by, 170f
and ethnicity, 3–4
evolution of racial ideologies, 4–18
and genetics, 2, 282–84
health inequalities by, 273–84, 274f
incarceration rate by, 241–43, 241f, 243f, 247–48
intersectionality of, 53–54
and manifest destiny/Indian Removal Act, 21
rise of scientific racism, 22–28
and slavery/freedom in United States, 19–21
solidification of, 18
wealth by, 224f, 229f
Race-based job channeling, 304
Racial categories, formation of, 50–51
Racial democracy, 304
Racial difference, 14–18, 22
Racial enclave economy, 206, 304
Racial formation, 50–51, 304
Racial identity, 29
Racial ideologies, 44–50, 304
and assimilation theories, 34–35
biological racism, 46
 color-blind racism, 48–49
cultural racism, 46–48
evolution of, 4–18
Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, 49–50
new racism, 44–48
spread of, via mass media (See Media images)
Racial inequality
and economic justice, 208
and media images, 122–23
Racial issues, on social media, 120–21
Racialization, 67–85, 87, 304
Racialized assimilation, 304
Racialized social systems, 43
Racialized tokens, 197–98
Racial justice, 304
and colorism, 152
cultural capital and educational experience, 179
and economic justice, 208
federal programs and black/white wealth gap, 232
and health inequalities, 293
immigration laws and racial discrimination, 100
incarceration rates, 60, 264
media representations of people of color, 127
racial identity, 29
Racially restrictive covenants, 214–15, 304
Racial microaggressions, 36–39, 304
Racial profiling, 249–52 250, 304
Racial project, 51, 304
Racism, 3, 304
in immigration policy, 65–66
and racial ideologies, 44–50
of racial projects, 51
and sexism, 146–47
and slavery, 6
and white privilege, 56–57
See also Sociological theories of racism; specific types
Radiation experiments, 271–72
Rae, Issa, 109
Rajgopal, Shoba Sharad, 115, 123
Rape culture, 56
Reagan, Ronald, 246, 254–56
Reaganomics, 255–56, 304
Real estate industry, 214–15
Recognition, 304
Reconstruction, 305
Refugees, 98–99
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 164
Reign, April, 121
Religious discrimination, 49–50
Reparations, 305
Residential segregation, 213–22, 276–78, 305
Responsibility, 305
Rhetorical strategies, 49, 305
Rhimes, Shonda, 126
Rihanna, 139
Roach, Kevin, 249
Roanoke Islands, 11
Roberts, Dorothy, 283
Robertson, Dwanna, 35
Robinson, Kristina, 145–46
Rodriguez, Gina, 146
Rome, ancient, 2
Rondilla, Joanne, 137, 147–48
Roscigno, Vincent, 170
Rosenblum, Alexis, 131, 141
Russia, 240

S
Safe Drinking Water Act, 292
Sakamoto, Arthur, 190–91
Salaita, Steven, 50
Salvatierra v. Del Rio Independent School District, 160
Sanchez, George, 94–95
Sanctions, 85
Sandinistas, 81
Santo Domingo, 10
Sapphire (character), 108, 305
Saraswati, Ayu, 135, 148, 149
Sarich, Vincent, 46
Sastre, María Teresa Muñoz, 143
Scandal (television series), 126
School-to-prison pipeline, 178, 305
Scientific racism, 22–28, 305
eugenics, 27–28
intelligence testing, 25–27
Scott, Walter, 251
Scottish, 12
Seattle, Washington, 251
Segregation, 305
and educational inequality, 160–65, 162f
internal, 172, 172–73
media portrayals of, 105
and poverty, 163, 163f
residential, 213–22
and white privilege, 58
See also Apartheid
Segregation index, 219–20, 305
Self-employment, 205–7
Seminoles, 21
Semyonov, Moshe, 196
Sentencing, prison, 252–54
September 11 terrorist attacks, 113, 279
Settler colonialism, 52
Seville, Spain, 9
Sex in the City (television series), 105
Sexuality, 54, 59
Shapiro, Thomas, 43–44, 202, 224, 227, 230–31
Shared goals, xvi
Shared values, xv
Shawnee, 21
Shifting standards, 305
Shiseido, 150
Shoub, Kelsey, 249
Sickle cell disease, 283
Silence, as response to bigotry, xvi
Sims, James Marion, 269, 270
Singh, Gopal, 281
Skills mismatch hypothesis, 202, 305
Skin bleaching (skin-lightening products), 133–34, 136–39, 141–44, 142f, 143, 148–51
Skin color, 146–51. See also Colorism
Skin-color privilege, 147, 305
Skin-color stratification, 131–34, 305
Slave codes, 14–15, 17, 305
Slave rebellions, 16, 17
Slavery
in Americas, 6f, 11–19
during colonization, 10–11
before concept of race, 6–7
and criminal justice system, 236
and educational inequality, 156–57
and freedom in United States, 19–21
pseudoscientific justification of, 272
and solidification of race, 18
Smith, Andrea, 52, 53
Smith, Stacy, 105
Snowz, 136, 136
Snyder, Rick, 292
Social capital, 173–74, 306
Social construction, 2, 306
Social media, 119–21
Social order, 16–17
Social systems, racialized, 43
Socioeconomic status, 168–70, 169f, 274–76, 275f
Sociological theories of income and labor market inequality, 195–203
Sociological theories of racism, 32–60, 306
individual racism, 35–39
institutional racism, 39–41
intersectionality of theories of race and racism, 53–54
microaggressions, 39–40
prejudice and discrimination, 33–40
racial formation in, 50–51
and racial ideologies, 44–50
settler colonialism, 52
structural racism, 40–44
systemic racism, 40–42
white privilege, 54–59
white supremacy, 52–53
Somalia, 97–98
South Africa, 135, 148
South Asia, 138–39, 290
Southeast Asia, 290
Southern Wood Piedmont, 289
South Korea. See Korea/Koreans
Spain/Spaniards, 5, 83
color hierarchy of, 134
encounters with indigenous people, 7–10
religious discrimination in, 50
slavery and colonization by, 10, 13
Spanish Inquisition, 5
Spatial mismatch hypothesis, 202–3 306
Spencer, Herbert, 24
Spickard, Paul, 137, 147–48
Split labor market, 203, 306
Springfield, Massachusetts, 220
Springwood, Charles Fruehling, 108
Standard English (language), 174, 175, 177
Standing Rock Sioux, 286–87
Stanford-Binet test, 27
Stanton-Salazar, Ricardo, 173
Starr, Sonja, 200
State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, 207
Steele, Liza, 140
Steering (practice), 215, 306
Stenberg, Amandla, 120
Stephens, Dionne, 147
Stereotypes, 104, 306. See also Media images
Sterilization of blacks, 272–73
Sterilization racism, 273, 306
Stigma, for felons, 263
Stock holdings, 227
Stress, 278–79, 282
Structural racism, 40–44, 306
Subprime loans, 219, 306
Sudan, 97–98
Sue, Christina, 148
Sue, Derald Wing, 36
Suffering Señorita, 112, 306
Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, 96–97
Supreme Court, U.S., 42, 97, 165, 215, 254. See also specific cases
Suriname, 140
Symbolic violence, 174, 306
Syria/Syrians, 97–99
Systemic racism, 40–42, 89, 93, 268, 306

T
Taiwan, 168–69
Tan, Lewis, 116–17
Tanzania, 142–43
Tatum, Daniel, 172
Tax policies, 44
Taylor, Dorceta, 286
Telles, Edward, 140, 141
Temporary workers, 85
Tenochtitlán, 9
Terman, Lewis, 26–27
Terrorists, 97, 113
Texas, 74, 160, 252
Thailand, 136, 136, 137
Thomas, Lynn, 148, 150
Thompson, J. S., 172–73
Title VI (Civil Rights Act of 1968), 164
Todorov, T., 10
Togo, 143
Tohono O’odham, 277
Tometi, Opal, 251
Topeka, Kansas, 161
Toxic waste facilities, 282–86, 285f
Tracking (of students), 172–73
Trails of Tears, 21, 306
Traub, Amy, 228–29
Trinidad, 148
Trump, Donald, 95–98, 258, 259, 287
Turner, Brock Allen, 56
Tuskegee syphilis experiment, 270–71, 271f
Tydings-McDuffe Act (1934), 77
Tyson, Karolyn, 171–72

U
Ugly Betty (television series), 112
Underemployment, 192, 306–7
Undocumented immigrants, 79f, 92f, 94. See also Illegal immigration
Unemployment, 191–95, 191f, 201–2
Unilever, 150
Unionized jobs, 201
United Nations, 99
United States
beauty ideals in, 146
country of origin of immigrants in, 85f
culture of, 280–82
educational inequality in, 156, 166–68
film and television in, 104–5
health inequalities in, 268–73
immigrant population of, 70f
immigration policy in, 67–84, 68f
income inequality in, 183–86
institutional racism in, 39–40
mass incarceration in, 237, 237–48, 264
media portrayals of, 123
race in, 2
racial formation in, 50–51
skin-color stratification in, 131
slavery and freedom in, 19–21
systemic racism in, 42
toxic waste produced by, 289–90
wealth inequality in, 212, 213f, 222–27
 See also North American colonies
University of California at Davis Medical School, 164, 197
University of California system, 164–65
University of Georgia, 288
University of Missouri, 37
University of Nebraska, 108
University of Texas, 165
Uruguay, 184
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 271
U.S. Border Patrol, 69, 73–74, 80
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 81
U.S. Commodity Supplemental Food Program, 277
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), 35, 255, 272
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 66
U.S. Department of Justice, 258
U.S. Department of Labor, 205

V
Vagianos, Alanna, 56
Vaid, Jyostna, 149
Valdez, Zulema, 206–7
Vamp (stereotype), 112, 307
Veterans Affairs, 232
Video games, 118–19
Vietnam/Vietnamese
achievement of immigrants from, 169
color hierarchy in, 137
deportation/detention of immigrants from, 91
and U.S. immigration policy, 75, 78–79
Vietnam War, 78–79
Vineland Training School for Feeble-Minded Boys and Girls, 26
Violence, 174, 214
Violent crime rate, 244f
Virginia, 12–17, 203
Viruell-Fuentes, Edna, 281–82
Volscho, Thomas, 273
Volusia County, Florida, 249
Voting rights, 263

W
Wackenhut, 258
Wage gap, 196–97, 307
Wage of whiteness, 55, 57, 307
Walmsley, Roy, 240
War on Drugs, 240, 245–47, 253
Warren-Findlow, Jan, 280
Washington, D.C., 40
Washington, Earl, 241–42
Washington, George, 19
Washington, Harriet, 270
Washington State, 97
Wassink, Joshua, 131
Watkins, S. Craig, 118
Wealth, 212,223–24 224f, 307
Wealth gap, 227–32, 228f
Wealth inequality, 212–13, 213f, 222–32
beyond homeownership, 227
in colonial North America, 16–17
current state of U.S., 222–27
reasons for increases in, 227–31
and residential segregation, 213–22
and structural racism, 43–44
Weathering hypothesis, 279, 280, 307
Weaver, William A., 272
Welch, Michael, 259–60
Welfare queen, 54
Welfare services, 54, 88, 95
West Africa, 13
Western, Bruce, 194
White, acting, 171, 297
White, Frederick, 117–18
White, Karletta, 141
Whiteness
for Asian Americans, 137–39
in Brazil, 134
and scientific racism in 19th and 20th centuries, 22–28
wage of, 55, 57, 307
See also White privilege
Whitening, 148, 307
White person of color, 307
White privilege, 307
described, 54–57
impact of class, gender, and sexuality on, 57–59
and systemic racism, 42
Whites
and achievement gap, 172–72
as athletes, 108
drug crimes for, 246
educational achievement of, 170f
and environmental racism, 284–85
in European taxonomy, 23
health inequalities for, 274–82
homeownership for, 216–18, 226
honorary, 300
in immigration policy, 68
incarceration of, 242, 243
income inequality for, 184–85, 196–97
labor market inequalities for, 187–89
life-course perspectives for, 279–80
media images of, 105, 110, 111f, 123
as murder victims, 254
new racism favoring, 45
racial microaggressions by, 36–37
and racial profiling, 249–51
segregation for, 214, 219–22
self-employment of, 205–7
 sentencing of, 253
in split labor market, 203
underemployment, unemployment, and joblessness rates for, 191, 192, 194
wealth inequality for, 212–13, 222, 227–32, 228f
White supremacy, 52–53, 307
Wilder, Jeffri Anne, 143–44
Williams, David, 276
Williams, Genevieve, 159
Williams, Jesse, 149
Williams, Serena, 108
Williams, Venus, 108
“Willie Horton” case, 260
Wilmington, Delaware, 161
Wilson, Pete, 87
Winant, Howard, 34, 50–51
Winthrop, John, 11–12
Wise, Tim, 56
Wolfe, Tim, 37
Women
as athletes, 108
educational attainment of, 141
health disparities for, 278–80
homeownership for, 216
incarceration of, 243, 261, 262
labor market inequality for, 187–89, 188f,
197–98
media portrayals of, 109, 111–13, 115–16, 122–26, 124t, 125t
self-employment for, 207, 207f
See also Gender
Women’s March on Washington, 189
Wood, Phillip, 258, 259
World War I, 78, 83
World War II, 72, 77, 83–84, 183, 200, 255
Wyoming, 256

X
Xie, Yu, 189–90

Y
Yeakey, Carol Camp, 39–41
Yemen, 97–98
Yerkes, Robert, 27
Yoruba, 13
YouTube, 119, 121
Yu, Stella, 281
Yuen, Nancy, 105

Z
Zagorsky, Jay, 225–26
Zambia, 142
Zapata, Jasmine, 276
Zarour family, 98–99
Zhou, Min, 169
Zimmerman, George, 251
Zinn, Howard, 15, 16
Zolberg, Astride, 100