Members Of Racial Groups Research Articles

This Is Why I Leave: Race and Voluntary Departure

Despite continued research on workers’ quit behavior, questions remain on how race influences voluntary departure. To make progress on this topic, in this study I treat race as a structural position with respect to resources in order to develop a theoretical frame on why members of racial groups leave jobs. I argue that Black workers are more apt than White workers to voluntarily depart for reasons related to a lack of resources, such as a lack of health or transportation, whereas White workers are more likely than Black workers to depart for reasons that require resources, such as to start a new business or to take a new job. Using a nationally representative cohort sample spanning a period of two decades, I find support for my theory. The results indicate that Black workers are more likely than White workers to voluntarily depart their jobs due to resource constraints, and White workers are more likely than Black workers to voluntarily depart their jobs for reasons that require resources. This study suggests ways to reconceptualize the constraints and opportunities underlying voluntary departure and why such departure varies across racial groups.

Where Did Hegel Go Wrong on Race?

AbstractWhere exactly did Hegel go wrong on race? Moellendorf helpfully tells us that Hegel's treatment of race begins systematically in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit and that he went wrong philosophically in the use of the biological category of race. This is basically correct but requires precisification. This article considers why Hegel's category of race is not unambiguously biological. Race's biological status can be problematized from the standpoint of contemporary biology and from the standpoint of Hegel's system. The textual placement of Hegel's systematic discussion of race in the philosophy of spirit makes clear that Hegel conceived of race in spiritual terms. Hegel took race to be a biospiritual category. Hegel was clearly committed to the now-controversial proposition that there is such a thing as human biological race, that there is a plurality of biological human races. He regarded race as a robust natural kind. His preferred list of races includes Caucasians, Negros, Mongolian, Malaysians and Americans. One noteworthy feature of his understanding of race's physical aspect was his focus on the formation of the skull and the face. At the same time, he clearly held that there were other deeper physical differences that accounted for the spiritual differences of race. Hegel was perfectly clear that race has a spiritual as well as physical aspect. He held that that the members of racial groups essentially shared certain fundamental, heritable, moral, intellectual and cultural characteristics with one another that they did not share with members of any other race and that these differences were such as to support an objective ranking. This shows that Hegel took the category of race to be the sort of category we today would characterize as ‘racialist’. Hegel's concept of race was the racialist concept of race.

Disentangling the nuances of diversity ideologies.

Minoritized racial groups typically report greater psychological engagement and safety in contexts that endorse multiculturalism rather than colorblindness. However, organizational statements often contain multiple (sub)components of these ideologies. This research broadens our understanding of diversity ideologies in the real-world by: (1) mapping out the content of real-world organizational diversity ideologies, (2) identifying how different components tend to cluster in real-world statements, and (3) presenting these statements to minoritized group members (Study 2) to test how these individual components and clusters are perceived (e.g., company interest, value fit). 100 US university statements and 248 Fortune 500 company statements were content coded, and 237 racially minoritized participants (Mage = 28.1; 51.5% female; 48.5% male) rated their psychological perceptions of the Fortune 500 statements. While universities most commonly frame diversity ideologies in terms of value-in-equality, companies focus more on value-in-individual differences. Diversity rationales also differ between organizations, with universities focusing on the moral and business cases almost equally, but companies focusing on the business case substantially more. Results also offered preliminary evidence that minoritized racial group members reported a greater sense of their values fitting those of the organization when considering organizations that valued individual and group differences. These are some of the first studies to provide a nuanced examination of the components and clusters of diversity ideologies that real-world organizations are using, ultimately with implications for how we move forward in studying diversity ideologies (to better reflect reality) and redesigning them to encourage more diverse and inclusive organizations.

Light Privilege? Skin Tone Stratification in Health among African Americans.

Skin tone is a significant marker used by others to evaluate and rank the social position of minorities. While skin color represents a particularly salient dimension of race, its consequences for health remains unclear. This study uses four waves of panel data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study and random intercept multilevel models to address three research questions critical to understanding the skin color-health relationship among African American adults (N=1,680): what is the relationship between skin color and two global measures of health (cumulative biological risk and self-rated health)? To what extent are these relationships gendered? Do socioeconomic resources, stressors, and discrimination help explain the skin color-health relationship? Findings indicate that dark-skinned women have more physiological deterioration and self-report worse health than lighter-skinned women. These associations are not evident among men, and socioeconomic factors, stressors, and discrimination do not explain the light-dark disparity in physiological deterioration among women. Differences in self-ratings of health among women are partially explained by education and income. Results of this study highlight heterogeneity in determinants of health among African Americans, and provide a more nuanced understanding of health inequality by identifying particularly disadvantaged members of racial groups that are often assumed to have monolithic experiences.

Racial Attributions in the Justice System and Support for Punitive Crime Policies

How do members of racial groups explain the large disparity in the way Blacks and Whites are treated by the criminal justice system in the United States? And how do such explanations (attributions) influence support for punitive crime control policies in America, as well as arguments against such policies? Our study of the structure, sources, and consequences of racial attributions in the justice system, using original survey data in Washington state, contributes to the literature in several ways. First, unlike traditional measures of racial prejudice—that is, racial resentment and stereotypes—our measure of racial attributions distinguishes cleanly between dispositional explanations (e.g., Blacks’ aggressive nature) and discrimination. Second, we examine the attributions of three pivotal groups with different experiences with legal authorities: Latinos, Blacks, and Whites. Third, an issue framing experiment demonstrates the power of both attributions for shaping support for the death penalty and arguments against the policy based on racial justice.

“Breaking Bad” in Black and White: What Ideological Deviance Can Tell Us about the Construction of “Authentic” Racial Identities

This article contributes to the study of racial-group politics by examining how Black and White Americans create authentic racial identities through the regulation of ideological adherence to color-consciousness and color-blindness, respectively. The article first theorizes about the relationship between racial ideology and racial authenticity. We then illustrate our hypotheses through an analysis of responses of Black and White racial group members to Black conservatives and White racial justice activists, whose viewpoints and agendas are read as contradictory to the broad goals of the majority of their racial counterparts. We explore, through an examination of empirical instances of chastisement, exclusion, and public de-authentication of individuals who deviate from the dominant ideology of their racial group, some of the ways Black and White Americans attempt to control in-group political behavior and to enforce indigenous standards for group-based public representation.

Social exclusion and stereotyping: Why and when exclusion fosters individuation of others.

Exclusion triggers a desire to re-capture connections with others. To facilitate this goal, excluded individuals typically process social information especially carefully. One implication of this is that exclusion may foster judgments of others that are reliant on a careful consideration of their idiosyncratic behaviors rather than on more superficial features. We predicted, therefore, that excluded individuals should individuate more and stereotype less than non-excluded individuals and that such effects should be in service of identifying appropriate re-affiliation candidates. In 3 replications of Experiment 1, excluded (compared to non-excluded) individuals rendered less stereotypic judgments of occupational and racial group members described with mildly or ambiguously counter-stereotypic information. Confirming such processes aid with re-affiliation, Experiments 2 and 3 showed that these effects occurred for social targets that represented reasonable sources of re-affiliation, but not for offensive social targets (i.e., Skinheads) or non-social agents. Experiment 4 underscored that excluded participants process presented social information more carefully (individuate), showing greater differentiation in judgments of highly stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent targets. Implications for the social exclusion literature are discussed.

Just a preference: racialised language in the sex-seeking profiles of gay and bisexual men

Racialised language is a salient and contested aspect of contemporary sexual cultures, particularly in the online domain. This paper explores the ways in which gay men in Australia employ race-related language when using online sex/dating websites. Using inductive content analysis, descriptive categories were developed to identify recurrent patterns in the racialised language employed by website users. A coding framework was then constructed to identify the ‘subject’ (self, other or concept) of each piece of race-related content, its ‘purpose’ (marketing, negative or positive discrimination, commentary) and the ‘position’ adopted (defensive, normalised or critical). Descriptive and comparative analyses revealed differences in the ways in which members of racial groups employed racialised language online. These differences are reviewed in relation to broader discourses on Whiteness and race in Australia, as well as recent community-produced anti-racism campaigns.

Confronting racial prejudice: The ideological implications of racial conflict on ABC's Wife Swap

Through an in-depth analysis of an episode of Wife Swap, this study examines the ideological implications of racial conflict on the lifestyle makeover show. Wife Swap constantly addresses the viewers as individuals who must abandon their own racial prejudice rather than members of racial groups who need to reflect on their racial conditions. Although audiences were able to critique racial stereotypes and prejudice on Wife Swap, their critical reading did not move much beyond the conventional critique of stereotypes, but remained primarily within the boundaries set by the neo-liberal discourse. While white and non-white respondents defined racism differently, their readings all involved rearticulating the essence of the racial ideology; in other words, abandoning racial prejudice to resolve racial problems, as indicated by the fact that the respondents criticized racially prejudiced spouses, yet spoke highly of the their transformation into ‘good citizens’ (e.g., overcoming individual prejudice) toward the end of the show.

The Religious Racial Integration of African Americans into Diverse Churches

Recent scholarship asserts that members of racial groups can transcend their ethnic differences, but other research asserts that ethnoracial identities must be reinforced in order to participate in multiracial churches. Analysis of field notes and interview data from a large, black-white Protestant congregation shows that while the core membership of African Americans come specifically for its ethnic and racial diversity, they also look for markers that affirm a distinctive African-American experience. Ethnic reinforcement attracts highly race-conscious participants who eventually move toward processes of ethnic transcendence and congregational integration. The value for researchers is that distinguishing ethnically transcendent and ethnically reinforcing processes encourages the discovery of subtle, racially specific, and continually reinforced affinities that would otherwise remain hidden in seemingly ethnically transcendent settings.

Race, Roll‐Off, and Racial Transition: The Influence of Political Change on Racial Group Voter Roll‐Off in Urban Elections*

Objectives. Many cities in the United States have undergone or are undergoing racial transition from a majority white to a majority black population. Accompanying this is a change in the racial makeup of elections and officeholders. This article seeks to explain racial patterns in voter roll‐off as a city undergoes racial transition.Methods. Using a fixed‐effects regression model, we analyze the level of voter roll‐off (from the top‐of‐the‐ballot mayoral contest) among black and white voters across Memphis City Council elections, from 1967 through 2003.Results. The level of voter roll‐off among racial groups is sensitive to the racial aspect of political change. Black voters are most likely to continue to vote in council contests when there is a racial choice among candidates, when blacks have previously been elected, and when blacks occupy the mayoralty and a majority of council seats. Whites are most likely to vote in racially competitive council contests, as well as when there are a large number of white candidates, and when whites hold a majority of the council seats.Conclusions. In settings such as Memphis, where race has played a pronounced historic role, the racial context of political empowerment has a strong influence on electoral participation. Elections below the top‐of‐the‐ballot become more salient, and political efficacy grows among racial group members when that cohort occupies institutional positions, particularly the majority of positions in a governing institution.

Unequal Quality of Cancer Pain Management: Disparity in Perceived Control and Proposed Solutions

To examine poverty-related and racial and ethnic disparity in cancer pain management. Published articles, conference proceedings, testimony, and clinical case studies. Disparity in the quality of cancer pain management exists resulting from interactions among patient, provider, and environmental factors. Irrespective of etiology, disparity results in inadequate management of cancer pain for vulnerable populations (poor patients, ethnic and racial group members, older adults) and is unacceptable in cancer care. Inadequate symptom management affects cancer treatment tolerance, exacerbating disparity in treatment outcomes and affecting end-of-life care. Evidence-based solutions include a systems approach, quality-improvement and quality-assurance processes that expose disparities and enforce evidence-based treatment per national guidelines, and statewide comprehensive cancer planning to target pain management outcomes. Oncology nurses and interdisciplinary teams must be aware of disparities in cancer pain management for vulnerable groups, intervene to empower patients through customized educational approaches, and simultaneously implement systemwide strategies to ensure effective pain management and targeted monitoring for high-risk patients.

Once upon a Time When Patriotism was What You Did

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. --James Baldwin I AM A patriot. To most people who know me that statement probably comes as a surprise. Critical, yes. Radical, perhaps. But patriot? Not her. Yet I make this statement with the same vehemence that Cornel West asserts that he is a Christian (and I am one of those, too). (1) The reason this declaration seems so strange to most people is that, like many words in the English language, the term patriot has been hijacked by an increasingly narrow and undemocratic sector of society. Other words that have fallen into this category include Christian, liberal, multicultural, and religious. George Lakoff asserts that progressives have to learn to recapture the public discourse by reframing the debate. (2) I believe we are in a much worse place than simply lacking the ability to frame the debate. Indeed, I want to argue that there is no debate to frame. Instead there are shouting matches. Everything is already settled, and if you do not subscribe to the current dominant orthodoxy, you are unpatriotic and godless. Your very presence is a threat to the society. According to conservative pundit Ann Coulter, you are a traitor. (3) In this article I hope to address the challenge of in this current age. I want to challenge those who are patriotic enough to criticize common discourses about the nation and national policies to work on recapturing the language so that real debate is not only possible but valued. And I make my argument in a time when this bold kind of is being eroded in favor of a new patriotism that is more akin to indoctrination than critical and analytic citizenship and civic discourse. My thinking about is deeply autobiographical. Having grown up as an African American in the Fifties and Sixties, I have clear memories of what being an American meant in that era. For one thing, it meant participating in regular air raid drills in schools--huddling under our desks, away from windows, in anticipation of an attack by the Communists. It meant recognizing Communism as the worst evil that could happen to the nation and identifying and rooting out Communist influences wherever they appeared. It meant that, after the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik, it was part of my duty to be a good student and that when I became one I was participating in the national defense. Indeed, when I made my way to college, I was eligible to borrow money for tuition and fees at extraordinarily low interest rates (or not pay the money back at all if I decided to teach in a low-income community) thanks to the National Defense Education Act. It also meant that some people had to be excluded and persecuted for their collaboration with Communism either through party affiliation or through association with known Communists. Thus people like Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois, heroes in my eyes, could not be spoken of in open conversation. It meant a war hero like Dwight Eisenhower was a more valuable national leader than an intellectual like Adlai Stevenson. My vision of patriotism, the nation, and my role in it was also shaped by the race relations of this period. In the early 1950s, African could legally be excluded from attending schools that white children attended. A 14-year-old boy from Chicago could be killed (beaten, lynched, castrated, and drowned) for whistling at a white woman. Children could not expect to go to school with members of racial groups and social classes different from their own, even if it meant they had to go miles outside of their neighborhoods to a school with inferior resources. In short, racial and ethnic encapsulation was a way of life, and we could be Americans only within our own groups. I knew that we were because there were photos of my dad and the other adult men in my family--uncles and cousins--on display throughout our home, smiling out at me in their military uniforms. …

Latino VR Access Rates by Disability Type and Proportions in the General Population with Disabilities

The access (application and entry) rates of Latino and other ethnic/racial group members to the state-federal vocational rehabilitation (VR) system was provided and compared to proportions with the same corresponding disability in the general population. Percentages were slightly higher (2-3%) for Latinos with visual impairments, and Latinos with deafness and hearing loss, and about the same for Latinos with substance dependence and those with mental retardation relative to the percentages of Latinos with the same types of disabilities in the national population. We concluded that the socioeconomic disadvantages of Latinos with visual impairments and with deafness and hearing loss may increase their need to access VR relative to all other ethnic or racial group members (i.e., African Americans, Whites) with visual impairments or with deafness and hearing loss. There was additional discussion of a strikingly higher percentage of African Americans with substance abuse in VR.

Racial and Nonracial Factors That Influence Spouse Choice in Black/White Marriages

Biracial marriage has historically been an important barometer of race relations in the United States. Mores prohibiting biracial marriage have existed for every ethnic and racial group that has occupied a subordinate position in American society. This type of marital union has been generally viewed by sociologists as a product involving individuals from dissimilar racial backgrounds, thereby constituting an exogamous relationship (Heer, 1974). Norms and attitudes against it by both dominant and subordinate racial group members have served as significant social barriers to biracial marriages. Gordon (1964) stressed that the acceptance of interracial marriage within society is a major step in the subordinate group assimilation process. Stember (1976) asserted that maintaining a race-gender caste is necessary for keeping White women and African American men in their social places. It can be posited that pressures against Black/White marriages are based on general societal approval of racially endogamous marriages. Recent studies demonstrate that since 1970 a small but steady increase of biracial marriages has occurred in the United States, including those involving African Americans and Whites (Spigner, 1994). The pressure against racially heterogeneous marriages could be lessening. Survey research conducted during the 1980s and early

Black-White Differences in the Use of Personal Advertisements for Individuals Seeking Interracial Relationships

The study of interracial unions is valuable in understanding the nature of race relationships (Aldridge, 1978). Negative attitudes toward interracial unions from both dominant and subordinate racial group members provide for formidable psychological and emotional barriers to interracial contact, helping to maintain a racially stratified society (Lewis & Yancey, 1994-1995). Stember (1976) has argued that majority group attitudes and beliefs that negatively view interracial marriages are key components of sexual racism. Gordon (1964) stresses that widespread acceptance of biracial marriage within society is a major step in an assimilation process whereby majority and minority racial groups eventually amalgamate one another. It has been suggested that assimilation may provide a realistic way topromoteracial equality (Myrdal, 1964; Parsons, 1965-1966; Patterson, 1977). This viewpoint holds that wherever racial and cultural separation exists, misunderstanding and division canoccur. Therefore, members of other races can become alienated from each other if they do not have sufficient personal interaction. Assimilation may give the opportunity for individuals of different races to develop intimate and personal knowledge of each other and thus reduce the probability of conflict. Thus, biracial relationships may

Tuberculosis in HIV Infection

Persons with AIDS (PWAs) are 100 times more likely to develop tuberculosis (TB) than the general population. The TB incidence rates in PWAs in the US range from 4-21%, especially among intravenous drug users and Haitians. In Florida, 60% of Haitian AIDS patients also had TB compared to 2.7% of non-Haitian AIDS patients. At a hospital in London, England, 25% of PWAs also had TB and 42% of all AIDS patients at this hospital were members of racial groups with a high prevalence of TB. In developed countries, reactivation of a latent TB infection is generally what occurs in AIDS patients. The absolute number of AIDS patients with TB in these countries is low and unlikely that it will spread to non-HIV seropositive patients. On the other hand, 30-60% of adults have been infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis in central Africa and HIV seroprevalence is also high. So many AIDS patients here can develop TB through reactivation or exogenous primary infection. This situation significantly increases the risk of TB for HIV seronegative persons. In fact, TB is 1 of the most frequent opportunistic infections in PWAs in developing countries, such as central Africa. In patients at an early stage of HIV infection, TB manifests itself classically. The clinical presentation in patients in the late stages includes fever, weight loss, malaise, productive cough accompanied with labored breathing, an atypical chest radiograph, and extrapulmonary TB. This atypical pattern often results in delays of diagnosis and treatment. Many sputum samples do not test positive for M. tuberculosis therefore if a physician suspects TB, treatment should begin immediately. Some studies demonstrate that isoniazid prophylaxis substantially decreases the incidence of TB in HIV seropositive patients in Zambia. There is no conclusive evidence of the harm or effectiveness of the BCG vaccine in HIV children and adults.

Race and Religiosity: An Empirical Evaluation of a Causal Model

A causal model of the dimensions of religiosity and its social determinants, especially race, is presented and evaluated using cross-sectional survey data collected in a southern metropolitan area (n = 611). Religiosity is measured in two ways: a single item measure of church attendance and a multi-item Likert scale. The latter is factor analyzed to reveal three additional dimensions of religiosity: religious ritualism, religious communalism, and beliefs in God. Blacks report relatively higher levels of church attendance, ritualism and communalism, net of covariates. For each racial group, social determinants are hypothesized to influence church attendance via the other dimensions of religiosity. The hypothesis is partially confirmed. In addition, race and age are found to interact, with age directly influencing church attendance more for blacks than for whites. Many institutions in American society continue to be segregated by race, and no institution is segregated more than religion. If social scientists are to further understanding of the experiences of members of racial groups, then we must extend the study of racial patterning of religious belief and behavior. This is particularly true for the study of African-Americans, because of the historical significance of the church for this group. The present paper examines racial patterns in religiosity using survey data collected in a southern metropolitan community. In particular, two sociological questions frame the analysis. First, does racial group membership (black or white) continue to make a significant difference in the patterns of religious belief and practice? Second, what is the nature of the causal relationships among the dimensions of religiosity and its social determinants, including race?