Racial Stereotypes Research Articles

“Hi, I'm Ruan Yuejiao, from Ho Chi Minh City!”: Digital raciolinguistic enregisterment and indexical hijack of the Vietnamese Mandarin accent

Abstract This study adopts a raciolinguistic perspective to examine the portrayal and reception of Ruan Yuejiao, a Vietnamese female spouse character created by a Taiwanese male content creator. As a representative of the Taiwanese majority, this content creator utilizes linguistic features to perform a racialized Vietnamese accent and embody a Vietnamese spouse persona, which they believe counters racial stereotypes. This article introduces the concept of indexical hijack to describe how the racial majority imposes new indexical meanings on these mediatized linguistic features, disregarding the perspectives of the Vietnamese community. By highlighting a raciolinguistic listening mode embedded within Taiwan's multicultural discourse, this study reveals how anti-racist actions initiated by the Vietnamese community are reinterpreted by the Taiwanese majority as racist, reflecting the complexities of post-racial multiculturalism in East Asia. (Raciolinguistics, Taiwan, Vietnamese migrants, digital enregisterment, indexicality)*

Multiculturalism and the Experiences of Visible Minority Immigrant Women in Canada

This essay examines of multiculturalism in Canada’s constitution obscures the persistent experiences of racism and discrimination among minority immigrant women.. Immigrant women often confront an impetus to assimilate; resistance to assimilation may result in their cultural values being silenced because they do not conform to the Canadian national identity. Focusing on the period between 1987–2012, this essay will explore the challenges faced by visible minority immigrant women as they undergo settlement in a “multicultural” Canada. It argues that Canadian multiculturalism fails to adequately provide equal opportunities to visible minority immigrant women by overlooking their negative experiences exacerbated by discrimination and structural inequities. Additionally, this essay contends that visible minority immigrant women are neglected by the multicultural framework in Canada, evidenced by disproportionate experiences of challenges to social alienation, cultural preservation, and the paid labour force. This analysis reveals that multicultural policies provide a narrow definition of racism by reducing it to acts of violence against visible minorities. Policy should expand to also encompass the impacts of racial stereotyping and exclusion directed against these women. Therefore, to better address inequities between visible minority immigrant women, Canadian policy makers should address the issue of systemic racism rather than focusing on cultural homogeneity.

Crossing lines for laughs: Racial stereotyping and social identity in r/RoastMe

ABSTRACT Racial stereotypes are harmful to those they apply to, leading to the totalization of identity and problematic interactions. Invocations of stereotypes are generally taboo in conversation but are often deemed permissible when couched in humor. This project uses text mining to explore racial stereotyping in a Reddit community focused on denigrative humor, r/RoastMe. Using the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) and priming theory, this work examines the prevalence and content of stereotypes relating to users’ racial identities. The results demonstrate that jokes directed toward non-White individuals often employ stereotypes of race and nationality, providing evidence for the effects of minimal cues in online interaction. Moreover, racialized current events were found to influence the frequency of relevant racial associations.

The Shadow Carceral State and Racial Inequality in Turnout

Abstract Scholars have studied the carceral state extensively. However, little is known about the ‘shadow’ carceral state, coercive institutions lacking even the limited safeguards of the carceral state. Pretrial incarceration is one such institution. It often lasts months and causes large resource losses. Yet it is imposed in rushed hearings, with wide discretion for bail judges. These circumstances facilitate quick, heuristic judgments relying on racial stereotypes of marginalized populations. We merge court records from Miami-Dade with voter records to estimate the effect of this ‘shadow’ institution on turnout. We find that quasi-randomly assigned harsher bail judges depress voting by Black and Hispanic defendants. Consistent with heuristic processing, these racial disparities result only from inexperienced judges. Unlike judge experience, judge race does not matter; minority judges are as likely to impose detention and reduce turnout. The ‘shadow’ carceral state undermines democratic participation, exacerbating racial inequality.

Elusive privilege: class, race and gender in Ukrainian war migrants’ (un)employment in France

AbstractWhat happens when the state removes the usual obstacles preventing refugees to ‘integrate’? Our article analyses the case of Ukrainians who fled the war to settle in France. Their legal status is different from that of ‘classic’ refugees: the EU directive on temporary protection gives them the freedom to move and the right to work. Moreover, they benefit from a rather positive attitude of the general public. The absence of racist stereotypes and institutional barriers, however, does not translate into easy integration into the labour market: 2 years after the beginning of the Ukrainian exile, two thirds of the refugees in Western Europe remain unemployed. Based on our fieldwork made in three French regions from February to August 2023, we analyse the predicament of Ukrainian war migrants. We conclude that granting formal access to jobs and putting racist discrimination on pause is not enough to overcome other handicaps: lack of language and other ‘soft’ skills; lack of social capital that would allow insertion into formal and informal labour markets; the burden of social reproduction magnified by forced single motherhood; and the temporary nature of one’s supposedly generous legal status. The latter turns the perceived privilege into a handicap: Ukrainians are tolerated temporarily and being increasingly differentiated into ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’, ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ migrants. While those deemed ‘productive’ may be encouraged to remain in the EU, those who fail to integrate into the labour market are likely to gradually be cut off from social support and forced to return to Ukraine.

#WatchingAfricaOnKuaishou: performing racial stereotypes on a Chinese short video platform

ABSTRACT With China’s growing engagement in African affairs, an increasing number of Chinese individuals residing or working in Africa are sharing short travel and exploration videos on Kuaishou. These videos have gained significant popularity on the platform while also reflecting racial stereotypes. An analysis of 277 videos using the #WatchingAfricaOnKuaishou hashtag reveals the hybridization of internalized racism originating from the West and racial perceptions rooted in Chinese culture. Creators strategically employ hashtags, comments, and platform policies to perpetuate explicit stereotypes of Africans while downplaying discussions about racial tensions and advocating for assimilation into Chinese modernity and culture. Beneath the facade of harmony, power dynamics are established over Africans, positioning the Chinese as both adversaries and reformers within the racial hierarchy of white supremacy. The overarching aim of these videos is to project Chinese national identity and assert a sense of cultural and civilizational superiority, thereby transforming Africans through Chineseness and reshaping power dynamics once dictated by Whites. This study examines an undercurrent of racism that exists between two previously colonized groups and calls for increased attention to specific manifestations of racism across diverse social landscapes.

The Lived Experiences of Women Leaders in Nonprofit Organizations

This qualitative study aims to explore and understand the leadership experiences of women in mid-level roles in nonprofit organizations. By employing role congruity theory and intersectionality as analytical frameworks, the study aims to identify the unique personal, professional, and organizational challenges these women face. The research also seeks to contribute to the literature by examining how gender intersects with other social identities to shape the leadership trajectories of women in educational settings. The study identifies self-confidence and gender, and racial stereotypes as major challenges experienced by women leaders in mid-level roles. The research highlights how these stereotypes can undermine women's leadership effectiveness and limit their opportunities for career advancement. Overall, this study adds to the existing body of knowledge by addressing gaps related to the intersection of gender with other identities.

The Otherness in Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Take My Hand

In her recent historical fiction, Take My Hand (2022), New York Times bestselling author Dolen Perkins-Valdez explores the specific manifestations of post-slavery racism, particularly institutional racism. This is vividly portrayed through the experiences of Civil Townsend, a determined new nurse, who witnesses the systematic denial of reproductive rights and autonomy among impoverished African American females. Due to the novel being published within the last two years, there is a significant lack of extensive scholarly analysis on its critical themes. This research employs the postcolonial concept of Otherness to examine the oppression of black women in the narratives. It investigates how stereotyping and dehumanizing as facets of Otherness within a postcolonial framework, contribute to their oppression. It also gives an analysis of the causes and consequences of the practice of Othering. The study offers insights into the power dynamics between the dominant and marginalized racial groups, underscoring the persistent battle against racial stereotypes and institutional racism. The conclusions of this research underscore the notion that the ideology of Otherness is central to the oppression experienced by the African American female characters in the novel. It advocates that achieving equality involves recognizing and respecting differences ideologically.

The Weight of It All

Abstract Sociologists often interpret racial differences in help-seeking behavior in the United States as stemming from differences in cultural capital, an implication being that those who hesitate to seek help lack understanding of how important it is for success. In this paper, we draw on the work of W. E. B Du Bois and research on gender and racial stereotypes to show that it is not a lack of understanding about the importance of help-seeking, but rather, Black women’s double consciousness that underlies their reluctance to seek help relative to White women. Through twenty-nine in-depth interviews with Black and White college-aged women, we investigate how they make meaning of two competing ideals: the need to be seen as a strong woman and the need for help and social support. We identify a discourse around gender stereotypes for White participants and intersectional stereotypes for Black participants. Where Black and White women experience a consciousness born out of their marginalization relative to men, comparing how they differently navigate stereotypes about strong women reveals the analytic power of Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness. First, the “veil” reveals the racialized gender stereotypes Black women worry they might confirm by seeking help. Second, Black women’s sense of “twoness” means they more often than White women saw their help-seeking behaviors as reflecting negatively on their broader community. Finally, consistent with Du Bois’s point that “second sight” brings awareness but not liberation, we find that even though Black women were hyperaware of the disadvantages of not seeking help, they tended more often than White women to reach a breaking point before seeking it.

The Structural Origins of Racial Inequality and Attitudes Toward Redistribution

AbstractA long line of research demonstrates that priming race undermines support for redistribution by activating negative racial stereotypes that tend to place blame for racial inequalities on individual members of minoritized groups and downplay the systemic causes of racial inequality. Here we suggest that information emphasizing the structural origins of racial disparities can disrupt these typical patterns and generate more positive attitudes toward redistributive policies because structural narratives run counter to individualistic racial stereotypes. To evaluate this possibility, we conduct a novel survey experiment that assesses how exposure to information about the structural underpinnings of racial inequality affects redistribution attitudes. Our analysis shows that support for redistributive policies increases after exposure to our treatment, with the effect most pronounced among White Republicans and those with high levels of racial resentment. These findings suggest that how we talk about racial inequality matters—focusing on structural accounts can bolster support for redistribution, especially among those groups least likely to support egalitarian policies overall.

“Who Cancelled Lee Highway?”: Expressions of White Racial Frames and Counterframes on Nextdoor

In July of 2021, the Arlington County Board, just outside of Washington, DC, voted to change a major thoroughfare – previously known as Lee Highway – to Langston Boulevard. Despite this well-publicized and openly debated name change, the sight of the new road caused an uproar on the neighborhood social media site, Nextdoor. While social media sites have been central to the mobilization efforts of racial justice activists, these same sites are also often fundamental to a growing and more visible community of white supremacists. This study focuses on the ways in which geographic proximity, through the social media site Nextdoor, constructs community-based expressions of racial justice and whiteness. Using the 151 posts and responses that were published on Nextdoor the day after the street name change in a neighborhood in Arlington, VA, this study analyses how a primarily white, upper-class neighborhood publicly communicates its understanding of race and racial justice. This study was grounded in Feagin’s (2020) concept of the white racial frame, an overarching white worldview dominant in the Global North that embraces a broad and persisting set of racial stereotypes and ideologies. Findings suggest community members engaged in equal numbers in white racial frames and counterframes. Within the white racial frames, community members used whiteness as virtuousness and non-whiteness as unvirtuous, while counter-frames primarily relied on unveiling the white racial frames used. These findings indicate the ways in which social media as a form of communication works to reinforce existing spatial hierarchies while also reimagining community participation.

EXPRESS: Racial Inequity in Donation-based Crowdfunding Platforms: the Role of Facial Emotional Expressiveness

Donation-based crowdfunding platforms often claim to pursue equitable outcomes for all beneficiaries, yet many face criticism for failing to do so across different demographic profiles. In response, platform managers are eager to understand how these inequities emerge and explore solutions to address them. In this research, we show that the degree of facial emotional expressiveness of beneficiaries in uploaded images can differentially impact donation amounts for White vs Black beneficiaries. Drawing on social vision theory, we propose that facial emotional expressiveness in images combined with the race of the faces activates racial stereotypes of emotion expression that result in differential donation amounts to Black and White individuals. Analyzing a sample of 4,153 campaigns from GoFundMe between June 2021 and September 2022, along with a follow-up experiment, we find that higher facial emotional expressiveness is associated with significantly lower donation amounts for Black compared to White beneficiaries. Further exploring our moderating constructs reveals that the use of call-to-action cues, affective messaging, and race-gender homophily cues can attenuate the activation of stereotypes and therefore reduce differences in donation amounts between racial groups. Based on these findings, we offer targeted recommendations for platform managers to help reduce racial inequities in crowdfunding outcomes.

Persistence of the Gender Frame: Gender Perceptions of Ambiguous Chinese and Gender-Neutral American Names in the United States

How do people conduct gender classification in ambiguous contexts? A gender framing perspective suggests the pervasiveness and consequences of using gender in novel contexts, but there is a paucity of knowledge about how people assign a gender to ambiguous targets in interpersonal relations. This study fills in this knowledge gap by investigating how U.S. individuals classify the gender of two types of gender-ambiguous names—Chinese names written in English letters and gender-neutral American names. It also examines how respondents’ gender ideologies and racial stereotypes are associated with their perceptions of gender-ambiguous names. An online survey experiment with 795 U.S. individuals finds that respondents predominantly assign a binary gender (versus neutral or unsure) to both Chinese names (40.8 percent men and 37.4 percent women) and gender-neutral American names (41.1 percent men and 19.4 percent women). Multivariate analyses reveal that respondents with traditional gender ideologies associate a gender-binary perception with gender-neutral American names rather than Chinese names. Meanwhile, respondents who endorse the racialized stereotypes that Chinese people are socially cold and/or generally competent are more likely to perceive Chinese names as men’s names. These findings demonstrate that a gender-binary frame persists in ambiguous contexts, and that the classification outcome is conditional on contextual signals and preexisting cultural beliefs. They also deepen understanding of gender neutrality during social interactions and a gendered nature of racialized stereotypes.

How Racism and Discrimination Impacts Black Young Women’s Sexual Health: The Influence of Racial and Sexual Stereotypes on Educational Access

PurposeStructural racism and racial discrimination may increase adverse sexual health outcomes in Black adolescent girls. However, the influence of racism on sexual health has not been well-described in qualitative studies. The purpose of this study was to explore definitions of structural racism and determine how experiences of racial discrimination impact sexual health and decision-making in a sample of adolescent Black girls. MethodsBlack girls aged 13–19 years were recruited from an ongoing longitudinal study. Virtual focus groups and individual interviews were facilitated, inquiring about understandings of structural racism, experiences with discrimination, and factors that influence sexual health decision-making and healthcare-seeking. Transcripts were professionally transcribed and coded by two independent, blinded team members. Thematic content analysis was used to identify emergent themes. ResultsFour themes emerged as follows: (1) slavery and medical racism in the United States impact the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) choices of Black girls; (2) stereotypes and oversexualization of Black girls are considered a barrier to SRH education; (3) adults serve as both barriers and facilitators to SRH and resource utilization; and (4) Black girls often seek information from friends or social media outlets to make SRH decisions. DiscussionReproductive health education for Black girls should integrate historical influences of systemic oppression. Practitioners should include reproductive justice to build trust in clinical and community spaces. Engaging caregivers in health education may reduce barriers for youth to engage in care.

Immigration in the 2024 US presidential election campaign: policy stalemate, disinformation, and a call for mass deportation

Immigration has been one of the most contentious and defining issues of the 2024 presidential election, rivaled only by economic policy and national security. The Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, has largely succeeded in setting the terms of the debate – hammering away at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, with hyperbolic claims that she supports “open borders” and false accusations that the US is experiencing a wave of violent crime committed by migrants. Trump’s immigration rhetoric relies increasingly on lies, misinformation, and racist stereotypes. But his claim that immigration is “out of control” – and his insistence that firm measures are needed to address it – have become central to the Republican platform, and one of Trump’s most frequently repeated campaign promises is that he will deport millions of undocumented immigrants soon after taking office. Why is immigration such a controversial issue in the US? How have the different administrations dealt with it? Is it an overused issue in this campaign?

The psychology of social change – 30 years post-apartheid: what went wrong and how to fix it?

This article presents some snapshots from 30 years of my collaborative work in the social psychology of social change in South Africa. Projects with students and colleagues used ethnographic, discursive, and survey methods to document racial encounters in the newly desegregated spaces of post-apartheid South Africa. I will review some of the successes and failures of desegregation efforts both in the country and in social psychology, where intergroup contact theory has come under considerable scrutiny. Critically, an assimilate-to-privilege form of desegregation has not resulted in systemic change but replaced the apartheid ‘colour line’ with an ‘epistemic line’ of White privilege and race stereotyping. Towards the end of the article, I’ll consider why anticolonial discourse rejects intergroup contact as a solution, and turn, finally, to Mbembe’s concept of Afropolitanism to make modest proposals for a way forward – the ‘how to fix it’ part of the article.

Downplaying difference: how ethnoracial minorities strive for labour market access in an egalitarian context

ABSTRACT This article explores the type of destigmatisation strategies minorities use to access employment in Norway, a country characterised by ambiguous egalitarianism, a rapidly changing demographic, and a public “silence about race”. Analysing 52 interviews with minority Norwegians about their job search behaviour, we found that they hide or downplay minority-specific cues in their resumes to avoid immigrant stereotypes and to signal Norwegianness. Non-white informants also engage in detailed management of their phenotypical appearance through photographs but seldom frame their strategies as responses to racial stereotypes. These findings suggest that Norwegian minorities respond to a clearly defined hierarchy of national belonging related to immigrant status, which includes an unarticulated racial component. Drawing on comparative scholarship on destigmatisation, we argue that minorities’ job search strategies are shaped by broader sociocultural factors and highlight the importance of conducting studies of this kind in national contexts that lack a language for addressing racial differences.

Germany in the Melbourne Punch, 1855–1914: British Entanglement or Autonomous Developments?

This article explores the representation of Germany and the Germans in the pages of the Melbourne Punch (1855–1925). Grounding its imagery in contemporary racial stereotyping of Germans, Melbourne Punch commented in muted terms on German immigration and the events of 1870–71 but reacted with alarm at the sudden arrival of the Kaiserreich as an expanding imperial power in the Asia-Pacific in 1884–85. The consolidation of this presence in the 1890s, combined with the simultaneous threat posed to Australia’s security via Germany’s challenge to the Royal Navy, raised antagonism to extremes (more so than in comparable British publications like the London Punch). The fear of Prussian military culture threatening Australia’s liberal-British society was expressed palpably in ordinary weekly numbers, as well as in dedicated special issues of 1898 and 1909, which featured Germanophobic invasion stories, anticipating – but never approaching – the hatred towards the ‘Hun’ during the Great War.

Ecology stereotypes exist across societies and override race and family structure stereotypes.

Perceivers hold ecology stereotypes-beliefs about how the environments others live in shape their behavior. Drawing upon a life history perspective, we examine the stereotypes people hold about those who live in relatively harsh and unpredictable ecologies. First, across diverse demographic groups and societies (the United States, India, Japan, Romania, the United Kingdom), people believe that individuals who live in harsh and unpredictable environments engage in "faster" behaviors (n = 2,078; ds from .80 to 2.14)-that they are more impulsive, sexually unrestricted, opportunistic, and invest less in education and their own children (Studies 1, 2, and 3). Second, these ecology stereotypes seem to underlie certain Black/White race stereotypes held by White perceivers in the United States (Study 1) and family structure stereotypes (i.e., growing up in a single-mother home) held by perceivers in both Japan and the United States (Studies 4a and 5a). Supporting this, the application of these race and family structure stereotypes is overridden or attenuated when perceivers are presented with direct information about a specific person's ecology (Studies 1, 4A, and 5B). Third, beliefs that there is high ecological mobility within a society reduce the magnitude of ecology stereotypes (Study 3), as one would expect if ecology stereotypes function to help perceivers better predict others' behavior. Last, ecology stereotypes do not seem to be just general valence biases or to simply reflect social class stereotypes. In sum, ecology stereotypes may be an influential but relatively unexamined type of stereotype, with broad implications for thinking about other group stereotypes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of Racial Stereotypes and Sociodemographic Profile on Anxiety, Flow, and Performance during the Use of Digital Educational Technologies

Effects of Racial Stereotypes and Sociodemographic Profile on Anxiety, Flow, and Performance during the Use of Digital Educational Technologies