Since first contact with Europeans, Native American nations have strived to maintain and strengthen their sovereignty. Yet, non-Native individuals and groups, as well as federal, state, and local governments, continue to challenge this sovereignty. Despite the critical importance of sovereignty, the only academic study focused on U.S. public attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty predated the rise of Native nation gaming and relied on samples from three universities. In our study, we surveyed over 2000 White Americans from across the United States to examine attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty. Of the many factors that may influence these attitudes, we focused on three: belief in “the casino Indian” stereotype, the perception that Native American interests conflict with the interests of Whites, and the presence of Native nation gaming in participants’ states.

We find two significant models predicting attitudes towards Native nation sovereignty. First, greater endorsement of the casino Indian stereotype is associated with more negative attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty. This relationship is explained, at least in part, by the perception that Native American interests conflict with the interests of Whites. That is, the more White participants endorsed the casino Indian sterereotype, the more apt they were to believe that their interests conflict with Native Americans, which in turn is related to more negative attitudes towards Native nation sovereignty. The second model revealed that the presence of Native nation gaming in the participant’s state has important indirect implications for attitudes towards Native nation sovereignty. Specifically, White participants living in states with Native nation gaming are more likely to endorse the casino Indian stereotype, which is related to greater perceived conflict of interest with Native Americans, and, ultimately perceived conflict of interest is associated with more negative attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty. We situate our findings relative to group position theory and discuss practical implications for Native nation sovereignty.

Increasingly, scholars have argued that immigration politics are inseparable from racial politics, which implies that organizations and individuals who mobilize around racial group interests influence racial and immigration attitudes and behaviors. How does the racial-political context influence anti-immigration lawmaking? In what ways does this influence vary at different stages of lawmaking? To address these questions, we combine comprehensive datasets of racially conservative organizations and state immigrant legislation and use negative binomial regression to estimate the count of anti-immigrant bills and laws in the fifty states from 1991 to 2010. We find that the presence of racially conservative organizations encourages the introduction of exclusionary proposals, but only in contexts with a Republican-dominated government. At the approval stage, on the other hand, racially conservative organizations foster the passage of exclusionary laws, and this effect is heightened in contexts with a growing foreign-born population or where a majority of voters report anti-immigrant opinions or identify as conservative. This indicates that the institutionalization of the colorblind racial ideology (in the form of racially conservative organizations) resonates with lawmakers, but in a different manner when the stakes are higher. These findings have important implications and challenge previous research on the conditions under which advocacy organizations influence lawmaking and additional forms of group behavior.

In this paper I argue that time is a social determinant of health, and one that perpetuates racial health inequalities. Specifically, Black people in the United States experience time losses across numerous domains throughout the life course, putting them at risk of disproportionate morbidity and mortality. Fundamental cause theory holds that social conditions structure health through pathways to resources including money, knowledge, power, prestige, freedom, and social networks. Racialized time indirectly harms health by disrupting or denying access to these flexible resources and by undoing utility among those that are obtained. Racialized time harms health directly when it produces stress and exacerbates conditions of racial subordination. I examine racialized time in three categories: 1) Black people spending too much time to meet basic needs; 2) Black people having less time spent on them than is required; and 3) lost years of (good quality of) life. Linkages between time and health disadvantage exist in material resources, interactions with the state, intimate lives, public space, and cognitive processes.

Drawing on two online studies among predominantly U.S.-born and lawful permanent resident Latinxs, we developed a self-report scale intended to capture how discrimination related to perceived legal status, as well as perceptions of racial/ethnic marginalization of Latinxs in U.S. society, are experienced among a wide swath of the Latinx population. We also explore how these processes may be associated with psychological distress in this population. In line with the immigration scholarship that has identified a spillover effect of immigration enforcement and the racialization of legal status beyond the undocumented population, our exploratory factor analysis results from Study I (N = 355 Latinxs) collected in fall of 2013 revealed four factors among our study population: Fear of Deportation, Marginalization of Latinxs in U.S. Society, Marginalization Due to Perceived Illegality, and Fear Due to Perceived Illegality. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis from a separate study conducted in spring of 2016 (Study II; N = 295 Latinxs) provided evidence in support of the structure identified in Study I. Results also revealed evidence of the association between the Stigma of Illegality and Marginalization of Latinxs (SIML) subscales and psychological distress, measured as anxiety and depression. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The issue of race has followed Barack Obama since he emerged on the national political scene, continuing unabated throughout his successful 2008 presidential campaign. Although the issue of race is not always explicitly acknowledged or discussed by Obama himself, the implications of his successful candidacy for U.S. politics and the ways people in the United States think about race more generally have been of great interest to media pundits, social scientists, and laypersons alike. Race has been considered a substantial barrier to the electoral success of previous non-White political candidates; therefore Obama's success requires reconsideration of how race can be expected to influence political outcomes in the future. In addition, his biracial identity also raises questions about how his role as a prominent cultural figure will affect existing racial categories in the United States. A review of social psychological evidence highlights the importance of understanding the ambivalence that characterizes contemporary racial attitudes, as well as the ways in which definitions of race and racial categories may be changing, in order to understand the impact that Obama could have on the future of racial politics. We conclude that Obama's victory represents a large step in the direction of increasingly positive racial attitudes and more sophisticated public conceptualizations of race, but steady progress in the coming years is not guaranteed. We consider some of the opportunities and obstacles that may affect the trajectory of future gains in the struggle for racial equality in the Obama era.

The U.S. criminal justice system is defined and fueled by foundations and principles that uphold harmful power dynamics such as white supremacy, further destabilizing communities that face intersecting structural barriers. This paternalistic system is characterized by the imposition of punishments—including fees, fines, penalties, and deprivation of freedom and even life—that are meted out disproportionally to people of color and people living in poverty. More often than not, policymakers and justice practitioners fail to solicit the views, experiences, and expertise of community members and justice system-involved individuals, leading to policies and practices crafted under the auspices of promoting safety that undermine community stability instead. Consistent with Square One ’s charge to “reimagine how we create justice,” this paper describes approaches that communities around the country employ to craft, lead, and participate in their own public safety strategies. The paper will offer examples of crime prevention work, investment and divestment efforts, and policy reform initiatives developed and guided by people most likely to experience crime and the heavy hammer of the traditional justice system. This paper will explore the promises, strengths, and challenges associated with each approach, presenting a range of creative strategies for residents—in partnership with the broader community of advocates, activists, and researchers—to adapt, own, and implement.

This article examines the determinants and the substantive content of racial socialization strategies among African Americans. Existing studies have established that most Black parents socialize their children to race. However, studies have yet to determine whether assimilation trajectories and commitments to Black social heritage influence racial socialization outcomes. This article addresses this void within the context of a new, assimilation-based theory of adult Black identity—the investment in Blackness hypothesis. Findings from a national probability sample of African Americans suggest that there is a relationship between degree of assimilation into the mainstream and racial socialization strategies among parents. The implications of these findings are discussed, as well as suggestions for future research.

While most Americans agree that government officials failed to act promptly to provide food, water, shelter, and other relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, they disagree about the racial relevance of this negligence. Nevertheless, the unavoidable images of the storm's disproportionately high number of African American victims among those unable to flee a foretold disaster brought into view the specter of racial inequality. While most theorists and commentators have used race and poverty as the primary lenses through which to view Katrina's human toll, this paper utilizes linguistic rubrics and relative immigration status to address inequities globally suffered by people of African descent. In the case of American Blacks, our emphasis is on Blacks with ancestral ties to enslaved Africans, since those who suffered most in the wake of Katrina were not merely Black, but also direct descendants of American slaves of African origin. Framing the discussion in terms of linguistic ancestry, its relationship to slavery, and instances of (c)overt social and educational apartheid born of statutory racial segregation, I develop a Historical Hardship Index as an alternative way to advance equality in the period after the end of African slave trade. The proposed Historical Hardship Index can be applied—with slight regional modifications—to anyone, anywhere, without reference to race.

Few Black women are tenured faculty in academia, and the statistics are quite stunning. The Almanac of the Chronicle of Higher Education (2004–2005) shows that, in 2001, 1% of all faculty at the rank of professor were Black females—only 5% of all females at that rank. The numbers are only slightly better for the rank of associate professor, the only other rank where one is likely to be tenured. Of all faculty at the associate professor level, only 2% are Black women; among women at that rank, only 6% are Black. Of assistant professors, 3% are Black females (7.5% of all female faculty at that rank); Black females comprise 8% of female instructors (4% of all faculty at that rank); and 3% of lecturers (5% of all female lecturers).

In my article, Racialization: A Defense of the Concept, I argue that ‘race’ fails as an analytic category and that we should think in terms of ‘racialization’ and ‘racialized groups’ instead. I define these concepts and defend them against a range of criticisms. In Rethinking Racialization: The Analytical Limits of Racialization, Deniz Uyan critiques my “theory of racialization”. However, I do not defend a theory of racialization; I defend the concept of racialization. I argue that racialization is a useful idea, but I do not advance a theory to explain or predict the phenomena it describes. While Uyan’s critique therefore misses its mark, it raises important questions about the explanatory scope of the racialization concept. Ironically, I may be even more skeptical of the prospects of any general theory of racialization than Uyan. I argue that while we ought to develop theories to explain particular instances of racialization, we should not develop a general theory of racialization, because it is simply too varied in its agents and their intents, the mechanisms through which it operates, and the outcomes it produces. While hope for any general theory of racialisation should be abandoned, I argue that the racialisation concept is still extremely useful. It offers a necessary alternative to race realist concepts, allowing us to point to the wide-ranging effects of belief in race without falsely implying that race itself is real. Uyan does not focus on my arguments against racial realism. However, the theoretical failures and normative risks of racial realism motivate my defense of the racialization concept. In this paper, I reiterate my arguments against racial realism and offer further defense of the concepts of ‘racialization’ and ‘racialized group’.

As racialized and gendered structures, organizations can reinforce complex inequalities, especially with regard to emotional labor. While the literature on emotional labor is established, little is known about how race and sexual orientation shape feeling rule enforcement. Interviewing staff at university LGBTQ resource centers, we argue that feeling rules have a sexual orientation-based dimension and are experienced and enforced differently based on race. White LGBTQ staff find that they can express anger strategically to bring awareness to issues of race, but do not confront racism in their work for fear of alienating other Whites, which they believe would harm their center. LGBTQ staff of color experience organizational consequences for their anger, which is directed toward the racism they and students of color experience in the university. Lacking the credential of Whiteness (Ray 2019), staff of color find they cannot reach the benchmark set by Whites’ enthusiastic performance of emotional labor. These feeling rules operate in service of what James M. Thomas (2018) calls diversity regimes, which are performances of a benign commitment to racial equality, that retrench racial inequality by failing to redistribute resources along racial lines. By sanctioning anger toward the university—as an institution that reproduces racism—feeling rules have organizational consequences: Whites can advance through compliance and enthusiasm; staff of color are terminated or denied opportunities; and critiques of racism are silenced. While created to address diversity, LGBTQ centers are purposely not structurally positioned to radically shift resources in a way to combat racism, and feeling rules maintain these arrangements while allowing universities to claim a commitment to equality. These findings hold implications for broader concerns of racism, sexual orientation, and inequality within work organizations, especially manifestations of worker control within diversity work.

The examination of student group performance is a constant need as American higher education continues to expand and become more racially and ethnically diverse. Recent scholarship on the academic performance of Black students at elite colleges and universities has glossed over possible disparities among these students, particularly among different immigrant groups. The current study clarifies these differences in academic performance by examining four Black student groups at elite colleges and universities in the United States: native Blacks, Black immigrants from Africa, Black immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America, and Black immigrants from other parts of the globe. The analyses point to many similarities and differences among the four Black student groups in their characteristics and influences on their academic performance in college such as gender, precollege friendships, high school academic preparation, college major, and closeness to Whites and Blacks. Additionally, this study found evidence of possible colorism among Black students at elite colleges.

In 2013, the United States Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ruling is part of longstanding efforts to maintain American institutions that have provided wide-ranging benefits to White citizens, including disproportionate political power. Over time, such efforts are likely to fail to prevent significant increases in political gains for African Americans, Latinos, and other minority citizens. But they threaten to foster severe conflicts in American politics for years to come.

Although Hurricane Katrina generated a compassionate public response toward those affected, it did not lead to a serious discourse about the nature of poverty in America, nor did it lead policymakers to re-examine antipoverty policies. In this paper, we present data on long-run trends in the economic status of African Americans and Whites. We demonstrate that even though earnings are lower and poverty rates are higher for African Americans than for Whites, the economic experiences of poor Americans have been similar over the last three decades. The period since the early 1970s has been an era of slow growth in median earnings for all workers and falling real earnings for less-educated men. Although the economy has generated increasing economic hardship for less-educated workers, antipoverty policies have not taken up the slack. If the United States had in place a more comprehensive safety net, the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the poor would have been smaller than they were. We discuss a series of policies that address the broad poverty problem that persists. However, since these safety net reforms are not likely to be implemented, we also propose a “disaster-assistance safety net” that could better serve the poor in the aftermath of any future natural or other disaster.

While many sociological studies analyze the causes, conditions, and mechanisms perpetuating American racial inequality, the literature on how African Americans understand and explain these inequalities is less developed. Drawing on 150 interviews with middle-class and working-class African American men and women, this paper analyzes inductively how respondents define and conceptualize the most pressing obstacles facing their group when probed on this question. We find that middle- and working-class respondents alike identify the problem of racism as the most salient obstacle facing African Americans. Class differences appear with respect to what other obstacles are singled out as salient: while middle-class respondents focus on lack of racial solidarity among Blacks and economic problems (in this order), working-class respondents are more concerned with the fragility of the Black family followed by the lack of racial solidarity. This analysis discusses the relevance of considering how groups make sense of obstacles, and of racism and discrimination in particular, for the study of destigmatization and antiracist strategies of stigmatized minorities.

Hong Kong (a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China) is promoted as “Asia’s World City” due to its interconnectivity, East-meets-West geopolitical orientation, and composition of migrants from both Asian and non-Asian countries. Hong Kong-based scholars have suggested that Hong Kong’s policy towards the social inclusion of non-Chinese communities is ambiguous. For example, the Race Discrimination Ordinance (RDO) lacks an informative description of racial discrimination, which may lead to shortcomings in ethnic minority protections under the current social policy for integration (e.g., ethnic minorities’ experiences related to religious discrimination). Most of the non-White ethnic minority population of Hong Kong consists of low-income South Asians and Southeast Asians, with some ethnic groups (e.g., Nepalese) reported to reside in socially segregated districts. Furthermore, scholars have highlighted that current social policy in Hong Kong appears to be partially or completely different from Western-based approaches to multiculturalism, necessitating further examination to promote social inclusion. To fill this gap, this study explores the perspectives of Chinese and non-Chinese individuals regarding multiculturalism in Hong Kong. The study adopts a qualitative research design and includes interviews with twenty ethnically Chinese and non-Chinese teachers serving minorities in Hong Kong. Three themes emerge in this study: 1) a general understanding of multiculturalism as diverse cultural/ethnic backgrounds, mutual understanding and acceptance, and inclusive social harmony and social justice; 2) perceptions of Hong Kong-based multiculturalism and the perceived hierarchy of ethnic groups; and 3) the main differences between Western and Hong Kong-based multiculturalism, including more acceptance of diversity in the West and geographic location. In sum, this study provides recommendations to ensure a respectful and ethical inclusion of non-White ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, such as developing a tailor-made policy.

The size and especially the growth of the Latino population in the United States are associated with anti-Latino and anti-immigrant attitudes. Findings from a recent line of experimental work suggest that Latino growth may also be associated with Whites’ anti-Black attitudes. Racial status threat could account for this association if Whites view Latino growth as a potential challenge to their status within a multi-group system that includes Blacks. Alternatively, or in addition, by engendering instability and uncertainty, Latino growth may promote ideological conservatism, which itself predicts racial attitudes. Building on prior work, this study examines the association between real, local Latino population growth––as opposed to manipulated or perceived growth––and Whites’ anti-Black resentment for a nationally representative sample of White Americans. Using data from the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, the study finds that Whites in counties where the Latino population grew more report stronger anti-Black resentment. They are also more likely to perceive a threat to Whites’ racial status and to endorse ideological conservatism. Perceived threat and conservatism each partially account for the association between Latino growth and anti-Black resentment, suggesting the effect of Latino growth on anti-Black resentment is mediated through both channels.

Using previously untranslated Chinese sources, this article adds dimension and insight into the visits of W. E. B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois to the People's Republic of China in 1959 and 1963. After discussing Du Bois's earlier writings and visit to China in 1936, the article reveals the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) awareness of Du Bois's favorable commentary on the nation during the 1950s. Using articles from the People's Daily (Renmin ribao) and other Chinese sources, I argue that the CCP and the Du Boises gained mutual benefit from the visit outside of the “arranged reality” of such political tourism. The CCP gained increased legitimacy among African nations as a nation of color. Du Bois widened his famous dictum about the importance of the color line in the twentieth century to include Asians. In a preface to a 1959 Chinese translation of the Souls of Black Folk (published to commemorate his visit), Du Bois amended his argument about the color line to emphasize the international struggle of the working classes. In addition to discussion on W. E. B. Du Bois's writings about China following the 1959 visit, I focus on Shirley Graham Du Bois's interactions with the Chinese, their knowledge of her scholarship about Paul Robeson, the celebrated Black American singer, actor, and communist, and her politically sympathetic actions toward China. After the death of her husband, Graham Du Bois sustained involvement with China throughout the Cultural Revolution until her death in 1977 and interment in the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionary Heroes in Beijing. Her burial fixed an appropriate identity with China. While her husband's grave site was in Ghana, an unfriendly military government controlled that nation and the United States was no longer her home country. China became her permanent home.

Barack Obama's election as the first Black president of the United States has stimulated much discussion about progress toward racial equality in the United States. Opinion surveys document that White Americans reliably perceive the rate of progress toward racial equality as greater than do Black Americans. We focus on two psychological factors that contribute to these diverging perceptions: (1) the tendency of White Americans and Black Americans to adopt different reference points to assess racial progress, and (2) the general tendency to frame social change as a zero-sum game in which Black Americans' gains entail losses for White Americans. We review research examining how these two factors contribute to racial polarization on the topic of progress toward equality. We also draw on excerpts from Barack Obama's speeches and writings to demonstrate that he often frames issues in ways that, our research suggests, has the potential to substantially bridge these racial divisions.