Racial Context
The Diversity Contract: Constructing Racial Harmony in a Diverse American Suburb
Kiara Wyndham Douds
American Journal of Sociology, May 2021, Pages 1347-1388
Abstract:
Although theorists argue that ideology and material conditions emerge in relation to one another, the connection between racial ideology and place is undertheorized. Analyzing in-depth interviews (N=109) with residents of a racially diverse suburb -- Fort Bend County, Texas -- the author uncovers a local racial ideology that they term the diversity contract. In contrast to colorblindness, which requires avoidance of race talk, residents exhibit selective engagement: race is recognized for certain purposes -- including to celebrate diversity -- but recognition of racial inequality in the community is disallowed. Through the diversity contract, residents co-construct the appearance of racial harmony. The author theorizes that this ideology emerges in highly selective, socioeconomically homogeneous diverse suburbs and finds preliminary support for this theory through comparative interviews in Queens County, New York (N=20). Overall, findings suggest that place should be centralized in analyses of racial ideology and illustrate how racial inequality is upheld through different ideologies across varying local contexts.
Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights
Alvaro Calderon, Vasiliki Fouka & Marco Tabellini
NBER Working Paper, June 2021
Abstract:
Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized racial discrimination. This paper shows that the Great Migration and support for civil rights are causally linked. Predicting Black inflows with a shift-share instrument, we find that the Great Migration increased support for the Democratic Party and encouraged pro-civil rights activism in northern and western counties. These effects were not only driven by Black voters, but also by progressive and working class segments of the white population. We identify the salience of conditions prevailing in the South, measured through increased reporting of southern lynchings in northern newspapers, as a possible channel through which the Great Migration increased whites’ support for civil rights. Mirroring the changes in the electorate, non-southern Congress members became more likely to promote civil rights legislation, but also grew increasingly polarized along party lines on racial issues.
After the Burning: The Economic Effects of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Alex Albright et al.
NBER Working Paper, July 2021
Abstract:
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre resulted in the looting, burning, and leveling of 35 square blocks of a once-thriving Black neighborhood. Not only did this lead to severe economic loss, but the massacre also sent a warning to Black individuals across the country that similar events were possible in their communities. We examine the economic consequences of the massacre for Black populations in Tulsa and across the United States. We find that for the Black population of Tulsa, in the two decades that followed, the massacre led to declines in home ownership and occupational status. Outside of Tulsa, we find that the massacre also reduced home ownership. These effects were strongest in communities that were more exposed to newspaper coverage of the massacre or communities that, like Tulsa, had high levels of racial segregation. Examining effects after 1940, we find that the direct negative effects of the massacre on the home ownership of Black Tulsans, as well as the spillover effects working through newspaper coverage, persist and actually widen in the second half of the 20th Century.
Racial group affect and support for civil liberties in the United States
Logan Strother & Daniel Bennett
Politics, Groups, and Identities, forthcoming
Abstract:
Civil liberties are a linchpin of liberal democracy, and are central to the practice and discourse of American politics. However, there is little research exploring whether or to what extent group attitudes influence public opinion on constitutionally guaranteed liberties. For this reason, we seek to shed light on whether the public actually views rights as fundamental, or whether attitudes toward groups – in this case, racial groups – moderate attitudes about civil liberties. We use a series of survey experiments to assess whether public support for constitutional protections – such as those found in the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments – is contingent on respondents’ attitudes toward the group identity of those benefiting from these protections. We show that while Americans do hold civil liberties in high esteem, attitudes toward a variety of constitutional rights are significantly conditioned by attitudes toward the group exercising a given right. Our findings indicate a gap between the ideal of civil liberties and what we see in reality, and suggest that racial attitudes may be endangering a core tenet of our political system.
Black Americans demonstrate comparatively low levels of depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic
Victoria Owens & Htay-Wah Saw
PLoS ONE, June 2021
Methods: We analyzed nationally representative longitudinal data from the Understanding America Study COVID-19 Tracking Survey spanning March through November of 2020 to assess differences over time in prevalence of anxiety and depression between Black and non-Black Americans.
Results: We found that Black Americans were significantly less likely to report symptoms for anxiety, depression, or both during the pandemic. In a given month between March through November of 2020, the odds of Black Americans reporting such symptoms was on average about half that of Non-Black Americans. We also found that in September 2020, the gap in reporting symptoms for depression began to widen gradually. Specifically, since that time, prevalence of depression remained stable among non-Black Americans while it declined gradually among Black Americans. Our main results were robust to adjusting for demographics, risk perceptions, and baseline pre-pandemic mental health status.
Skin tone bias and the US presidency: The portrayal of a black incumbent and a black candidate in newspaper photographs
Markus Kemmelmeier, Ian Scot Nesbitt & Ryan Erhart
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across cultures, darker skin tone is associated with lower social status. We propose that Black politicians are subject to skin tone biases in US newspapers, with hostile biases resulting in them being portrayed as more dark-skinned. We hypothesized that such biases occur as a function of negative racial attitudes. We contrast this with an ingroup bias hypothesis, according to which partisans denigrate Black politicians of the other side, but not their own side. The present research evaluated skin tone biases toward President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and Dr. Ben Carson, a Republican, in US newspapers. We collected published photographs of President Obama during his first term in office (n = 3781 from 34 newspapers) as well as for Dr. Carson during his 2015–2016 presidential run (n = 1049 from 53 newspapers) from high-circulation newspapers, which had endorsed Democratic or Republican presidential candidates. Blind coders rated the darkness of Obama's and Carson's skin tone. Multilevel modeling revealed that Democratic-leaning newspapers portrayed both Obama and Carson as lighter than Republican-leaning newspapers. Findings did not support a partisan ingroup bias. We conclude that Black politicians of either party are subject to a skin tone bias, where Republican-leaning newspapers portray them with darker skin tones, regardless of whether they are a Democrat or a Republican.
Americans Misperceive Racial Disparities in Economic Mobility
Shai Davidai & Jesse Walker
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
What do people know about racial disparities in “The American Dream”? Across six studies (N = 1,761), we find that American participants consistently underestimate the Black–White disparity in economic mobility, believing that poor Black Americans are significantly more likely to move up the economic ladder than they actually are. We find that misperceptions about economic mobility are common among both White and Black respondents, and that this undue optimism about the prospect of mobility for Black Americans results from a narrow focus on the progress toward equality that has already been made. Consequently, making economic racial disparities salient, or merely reflecting on the unique hardships that Black Americans face in the United States, calibrates beliefs about economic mobility. We discuss the importance of these findings for understanding lay beliefs about the socioeconomic system, the denial of systemic racism in society, and support for policies aimed at reducing racial economic disparities.
Can information help Lakisha and Jamal find housing? Evidence from a low-cost online experiment of landlords
Judson Murchie, Jindong Pang & David Schwegman
Regional Science and Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the federal government, as well as local and state governments and non-profit organizations, have attempted to eliminate housing discrimination by enforcing fair housing laws. This strategy, however, requires prospective tenants to actively report discrimination. In this paper, we conduct a randomized field experiment to examine if being sent a public service announcement (PSA) about fair housing laws affects a landlord's propensity to discriminate against prospective black tenants in the early stages of the rental housing process. We find landlords who are sent a PSA are more likely to respond to black clients one day and one week after treatment, though the effect appears to dissipate quickly.
“It’s a Racist Plot”: An Experimental Test of the Racial Defense
Nyron Crawford
Urban Affairs Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Black municipal leaders are routinely accused of using race and racism to sidestep allegations that they have run afoul the ethics of public office. That is, they use racial defenses to respond to what they view as racist attacks against them. This type of race-based account has been treated as commonplace in American politics, but its effectiveness as a political account has received little scholarly attention. For example, how effective is the racial defense at minimizing negative political fallout for scandalized Black politicians? Using data from a survey experiment, I test how Black Americans respond to the political accounts proffered by Black elected officials accused of official misconduct. I show that a strategy involving a racial defense can yield positive evaluations in terms of trait judgment and voter intention, while offering no comment reduces participant suspicion about investigative malfeasance.
Examining persistent effects of extractive institutions in the United States
Liam Rose & Asha Shepard
Economics & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper estimates the medium- to long-run effects of slavery in the United States in a spatial regression discontinuity design. Using the boundary between free and slave states immediately antebellum, we find that legal slavery decreased per capita manufacturing output by as much as 30% in the decades following the Civil War. Perhaps surprisingly, agricultural output and farm values were only briefly depressed in former slave states after the war. Although emancipation ended slavery, political forces kept the institution from being completely disintegrated, and we explore channels through which this was possible. We show that slavery affected the structure of the economy in a given region -- specifically through agricultural production decisions -- and that these structures persisted long after passage of the 13th Amendment. However, sharecropping played a relatively small role in this region. Our results support mounting evidence in recent literature of the significant and lasting effects of institutions on economic development.
Ethnic Identity and Genome Wide Runs of Homozygosity
Martin Fieder et al.
Behavior Genetics, July 2021, Pages 405–413
Abstract:
It is long known that inbreeding increases the detrimental effects of recessive sequence variants in “Runs of Homozygosity” (ROHs). However, although the phenotypic association of ROH has been investigated for a variety of traits, the statistical power of the results often remains limited as a sufficiently high number of cases are available for only a restricted number of traits. In the present study, we aim to analyze the association of runs of homozygosity with the trait “in-group ethnic favoritism”. This analysis assumes that if ethnic identity is important for an individual, that individual may tend to marry more frequently within their own group and therefore ROH are expected to increase. We hypothesize that an attitude preferring one’s own ethnic group may be associated with a stronger tendency of inbreeding and, as a result, with more and longer ROHs. Accordingly, we investigated the association between the attitude to someone’s own ethnicity and ROH, using the Wisconsin Longitudinal data (WLS, total N ~ 9000) as discovery data set and the Brisbane Twin data as replication data set (N ~ 8000). We find that both the number as well as the total length of homozygous segments are significantly positively associated with “in-group ethnic favoritism”, independent of the method used for ROH calculation.