White Partners Research Articles

The Strategies of Forbidden Love: Family across Racial Boundaries in Nineteenth-Century North Carolina

This article contends that although local beliefs and legal edicts attempted to discourage sexual and familial relationships between women of color and white men in North Carolina, free women of mixed ancestry and white men developed relationships that mimicked legally-sanctioned marriages. These unions often produced children who maintained frequent interaction with both parents. In nineteenth-century Hertford County, North Carolina, free women of mixed ancestry and their white partners developed creative strategies to deal with the legal limitations inherent in their situation. Women and men in these relationships found ways to secure property rights for women and children and developed methods to prevent legal scrutiny of their living arrangements.

‘It's almost like white supremacy’: interracial mixed-status couples facing racist nativism

This article expands the theoretical debate on racist nativism and the specific impact that it has on the experiences of interracial mixed-status couples in the USA. In-depth interviews suggest that the costs of racist nativist microaggressions and macroaggressions are experienced differently, depending on the social status of each member of the couple. Microaggressions target Latinos/as, while racial profiling, a macroaggression, is mainly experienced by Latino men; however, in both cases their white partners also experience rebound racism on behalf of their partners. White women partnered with Latinos experience the greatest rebound effects of racist nativism. Larger macro-policies create a precarious position for couples; this leads them to make calculated legal risks to sustain their families and ultimately constrains their freedoms.

The Subjective Group Dynamics of Inter- and Intragroup Criminality in the News

Participants read a crime news story featuring two perpetrators. Building on subjective group dynamics, we predicted that a perpetrator would be evaluated differently depending on the partner’s ethnicity and participants’ prior media use. Results show that heavy news consumers were more likely to (a) give a harsher sentence to a white perpetrator acting with a white (vs. Latino) partner, and (b) develop more negative attitudes toward Latinos when members of that group were portrayed in intergroup criminal partnerships. The implications of intergroup portrayals for perceptions of the ingroup, as well as the outgroup, and the moderating effects of news viewing on such effects, are discussed.

Romancing ‘kung fu master’ – from ‘yellow peril’ to ‘yellow prowess’

Present study critically investigates the cinematic depiction of leading Chinese masculine figures in Hollywood film productions, with a specific focus on how the positioning of white female characters romantically involved with Chinese martial arts fighters serves to construct Chinese masculinity. In noted films such as The Tuxedo (2002), Kiss of the Dragon (2001), and Dragon: Bruce Lee Story (1993), Chinese martial arts fighters not only managed to fight off white antagonists but also succeeded in winning the ‘heart’ of white heroines. Drawing on Gestner's theoretical assertion that white women's falling for a man of color signifies the invasive movement of a new masculine discourse into the space traditionally bounded by the ideal of white masculinity, and grounded on Hall's conception of articulation, my critical examination of these three film texts revealed how the privileged cultural and racial position of whiteness was reformulated and rejustified via the strategic dramatic construction of romantic encounters between Chinese martial artists and their white partners. More importantly, the current study sheds light on an emerging form of cultural politics that transformed conventional mediated construction of interracial romance and yet perpetuated the racial hierarchy sustained through racist assumption and ideology.

Black gay men as sexual subjects: race, racialisation and the social relations of sex among Black gay men in Toronto

In this study of Black gay and bisexual men in Toronto, sexually active survey participants reported on their sexual behaviours with male partners of different ethnoracial backgrounds, and interview participants reflected on how their sexual relationships emerged in the context of race and interracial desire. Most survey participants reported sexual relationships with other Black men. Participants were more likely to be insertive with White and other ethnoracial men than with Black men. A significant number of participants who were receptive or versatile with Black partners switched to the insertive role when their sexual partners were not Black. Interview participants ascribed a sense of fulfilment to their sexual relationships with other Black men, but avoided relationships with White men or interpreted such relationships as either purely sexual and/or inflected by their racialised objectification. Others avoided sexual relationships with other Black men or preferred relationships with White men, sometimes in opposition to experiences of oppressive masculinity from some Black partners but mindful of the possibility of racialised encounters with their White partners. Study participants emerge as informed sexual subjects, self-conscious about their sexual relationships and variously inclined to negotiate or resist racialisation and oppression in the private and public spheres.

Cognitive costs of contemporary prejudice

Two studies examined the cognitive costs of blatant and subtle racial bias during interracial interactions. In Study 1, Black participants engaged in a 10-minute, face-to-face interaction with a White confederate who expressed attitudes and behaviors consistent with blatant, subtle, or no racial bias. Consistent with contemporary theories of modern racism, interacting with a subtly biased, compared with a blatantly biased, White partner impaired the cognitive functioning of Blacks. Study 2 revealed that Latino participants suffered similar cognitive impairments when exposed to a White partner who displayed subtle, compared with blatant, racial bias. The theoretical and practical implications for understanding the dynamics of interracial interactions in the context of contemporary bias are discussed.

Perceived importance of cross-race targets facilitates recall: Support for a motivated account of face memory

The cross-race effect (CRE) is the tendency to remember same-race (SR) faces better than cross-race (CR) faces. While there has been debate about the causes of the CRE, recent perspectives suggest that a lack of motivation to remember CR faces causes this effect. We provide direct support for this model across two studies manipulating the perceived importance of target faces. In Study 1 participants were outcome-dependent on a Black or White research partner. When participants were dependent on a Black partner compared with a White partner, the CRE was reduced through an increase in Black face recognition. In Study 2 we used a novel procedure to increase the perceptual size of target faces. According to conceptual metaphor theory, targets that appear subjectively large will be perceived as more important. We found that the CRE was eliminated when CR faces appeared larger than SR faces.

Both sides of Alfred Hutchinson's Road to Ghana: An immoral love story with Hazel Goodwin

This article investigates the escape account written by Alfred Hutchinson (1924–1972) called Road to Ghana (2006. London: Gollancz), first published in London in 1960. As the riveting autobiography of a black ex-Treason Trialist and teacher fleeing apartheid South Africa, the story soon became a key work of exile literature. Its reprint as an unbanned Penguin Modern Classic in 2006 brought to light the other side of the same story. This was when his white partner, now called Hazel Goodwin, was spurred to write her account of the same story in a book entitled The Other Side of the Road, under the name Hazel Hutchinson (2010. Guildford, Surrey: Grosvenor House). This records an equally engrossing tale of persecution and delivery into the New Africa of the 1960s, which is likewise discussed. Hazel was simultaneously deported for her love affair with Hutch, since their relationship was condemned under the Immorality Act.

P6 Cultural differences in the acceptability of home sampling for HIV infection

BackgroundMSM community outreach using oral home sampling kits posted to virology for testing previously demonstrated success in attracting non-healthcare seeking individuals at risk of HIV. The outcome of targeting other...

Les unions mixtes sont-elles plus fragiles que les unions entre partenaires de même origine ethnique? Nouveaux résultats pour la Grande-Bretagne

The increasing proportion of ethnic minorities in Britain has been paralleled by an increase in the occurrence of mixed-ethnic marriages between one White partner and an ethnic minority partner. Such marriages are thought to be at higher risk of divorce, but empirical studies so far have been inconclusive. This paper uses the Office for National Statistics longitudinal study for England and Wales to investigate whether mixed-ethnic unions are more likely to end in divorce than co-ethnic unions. We followed married couples in 1991–2001 and examined their risks of divorce. We found evidence that mixed-ethnic unions have a higher risk of dissolution than co-ethnic unions. However, after controlling for partners’ characteristics, most importantly the younger ages of people in mixed-ethnic unions, the risk of divorce for mixed-ethnic unions was no longer elevated, but lay close to the higher risk found for the two constituent co-ethnic unions.

Race and reputation: perceived racial group trustworthiness influences the neural correlates of trust decisions

Decisions to trust people with whom we have no personal history can be based on their social reputation-a product of what we can observe about them (their appearance, social group membership, etc.)-and our own beliefs. The striatum and amygdala have been identified as regions of the brain involved in trust decisions and trustworthiness estimation, respectively. However, it is unknown whether social reputation based on group membership modulates the involvement of these regions during trust decisions. To investigate this, we examined blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) activity while participants completed a series of single-shot trust game interactions with real partners of varying races. At the time of choice, baseline BOLD responses in the striatum correlated with individuals' trust bias-that is, the overall disparity in decisions to trust Black versus White partners. BOLD signal in the striatum was higher when deciding to trust partners from the race group that the individual participant considered less trustworthy overall. In contrast, activation of the amygdala showed greater BOLD responses to Black versus White partners that scaled with the amount invested. These results suggest that the amygdala may represent emotionally relevant social group information as a subset of the general detection function it serves, whereas the striatum is involved in representing race-based reputations that shape trust decisions.

Intergroup anxiety effects on implicit racial evaluation and stereotyping.

How does intergroup anxiety affect the activation of implicit racial evaluations and stereotypes? Given the common basis of social anxiety and implicit evaluative processes in memory systems linked to classical conditioning and affect, we predicted that intergroup anxiety would amplify implicit negative racial evaluations. Implicit stereotyping, which is associated primarily with semantic memory systems, was not expected to increase as a function of intergroup anxiety. This pattern was observed among White participants preparing to interact with Black partners, but not those preparing to interact with White partners. These findings shed new light on how anxiety, often elicited in real-life intergroup interactions, can affect the operation of implicit racial biases, suggesting that intergroup anxiety has more direct implications for affective and evaluative forms of implicit bias than for implicit stereotyping. These findings also support a memory-systems model of the interplay between emotion and cognition in the context of social behavior.

You deplete me: The cognitive costs of colorblindness on ethnic minorities

This study examined how priming Whites with colorblind or multicultural approaches to diversity prior to an interracial interaction affects ethnic minorities' cognitive functioning. Although ethnic minorities did not explicitly know which prime their White partner received, ethnic minorities paired with Whites primed with colorblindness (vs. multiculturalism) showed poorer cognitive performance on the Stroop (1935) color-naming task following the interaction. Furthermore, Whites in interracial interactions primed with colorblindness exhibited more behavioral prejudice, which mediated ethnic minorities' decreased cognitive performance. These findings suggest that Whites' exposure to certain ideologies may affect the cognitive performance of the ethnic minorities they encounter.

The Effects of Differentiation and Attachment on Satisfaction and Acculturation in Asian-White American International Couple Relationships: Assessment With Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese Partners in Relationships With White American Partners in the United States

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of differentiation and attachment on acculturation and relational satisfaction in Asian partners in Asian-White American international couple relationships. Eighty-seven native-born Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese partners within an international couple relationship with a White American partner in the United States participated in this study. Regression results supported the hypotheses that differentiation and acculturation were significantly related to relationship satisfaction. Differentiation was also significantly associated with acculturation. Attachment style was not significantly associated with levels of relationship satisfaction or acculturation. Overall, the researchers found that differentiation and acculturation were important factors influencing the relationship satisfaction in Asian-White American international couples in the United States. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Race of male sex partners and occurrence of bacterial vaginosis.

Whether bacterial vaginosis (BV) is sexually transmitted is uncertain. Also it is unknown why BV is approximately twice as prevalent among black as among white women. An association of BV with a characteristic of the male sex partner, such as race, might support sexual transmission as well as account for the observed ethnic disparity in BV. Three thousand six hundred twenty nonpregnant women 15 to 44 years of age were followed quarterly for 1 year. At each visit, extensive questionnaire data and vaginal swabs for Gram's staining were obtained. The outcome was transition from BV-negative to positive (Nugent's score > or =7) in an interval of 2 consecutive visits. BV occurred in 12.8% of 906 sexually active intervals to white women-24.8% of intervals when the woman reported a black partner and 10.7% when all partners were white. Among white women, there was a 2-fold increased risk for BV incidence with a black, compared with a white partner (risk ratio [RR] 2.3, 95% confidence interval 1.6-3.4; adjusted RR 2.2, 95% confidence interval 1.5-3.4), but differed according to condom use. In the presence of consistent condom use, the adjusted RR was 0.7 (0.3-2.4); it was 2.4 (1.0-6.2) in the presence of inconsistent use; and 2.7 (1.7-4.2) in the absence of condom use. Black women could not be studied, as there were insufficient numbers who reported only white male sex partners. The association of BV occurrence with partner's race, and its blunting by condom use, suggests that BV may have a core group component and may be sexually transmitted.

Examining the consequences of exposure to racism for the executive functioning of Black students

Recent research has demonstrated that interracial interactions, reminders of stigmatized identities, and exposure to ambiguous racism can deplete the self-control resources of minority group members. In the current study we examined whether hearing blatant racism expressed in an interracial context would deplete the self-control of Black participants and whether this depletion would be moderated by participants’ level of racial centrality. After listening to a Black or a White confederate express either support for racial profiling (racist condition) or increased campus parking fees (neutral condition), Black participants completed a Stroop color-naming task to assess self-control depletion. Participants experienced self-control depletion following interracial encounters, regardless of whether the views expressed were racist. As expected, however, racial centrality moderated the depletion effect when racism was involved, with participants higher in centrality showing greater depletion following an encounter with racism from a White partner.

Compensatory Stereotyping in Interracial Encounters

The judgment dimensions of competency and warmth capture much of the space into which our perceptions of individuals and groups fall. Though these dimensions are orthogonal to each other, they may also be inversely related, as perceivers may compensate for low ratings on one with high ratings on the other (Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, 2005). We predicted that Whites would perceive Black targets as warmer but less competent relative to a White target, and that their behavior would be in accord with these perceptions. In two studies, behavioral indicators of warmth and competence (as well as explicit judgments) were assessed among White participants who anticipated interacting with a Black or White partner. Black targets were judged and received treatment consistent with low competency but high warmth perceptions. In Study 1, these indicators were negatively correlated only when the target was Black, and particularly among those high in prejudice. The data are discussed in terms of the functions of compensatory stereotyping and importance of considering multiple indicators of judgment and behavior in anticipated or actual interracial interactions.

Relationship Characteristics of Women in Interracial Same-Sex Relationships

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship characteristics of women in interracial same-sex relationships with respect to their current level of stress, internalized homophobia, perceived relationship equality, relationship satisfaction, and social support. Four groups were compared according to their current type of race relationship (ethnic minority women with White partners, White partners only, both ethnic minority partners, and White women with ethnic minority partners). No significant differences were found in terms of children and income; however, ethnic minority women with ethnic minority partners reported lower education attainment than the other groups. Relationally, there were no significant differences by race relationship for social support, relationship equality, relationship satisfaction, or stress. Internalized homophobia was lowest for interracial partnerships (ethnic minority paired with White partner). These findings are discussed in relationship to minority stress.

Getting Acquainted in Interracial Interactions: Avoiding Intimacy but Approaching Race

It is important to understand the content dimensions that influence the quality of intergroup interactions. The present research organized potential conversation content according to theoretically relevant underlying dimensions and investigated Whites' willingness to discuss topics of varying content with a Black partner. Specifically, it investigated Whites' willingness to engage in intimate self-disclosure and their willingness to discuss controversial and race-related topics with White versus Black interaction partners. Results across two experiments indicated an unwillingness among Whites to discuss both intimate and race-related topics with a Black partner. In addition, this research examined the role played by participants in the interaction (i.e., asking vs. answering) and found that although Whites were unwilling to ask Black relative to White partners about race-related topics, they were more willing to answer Black relative to White partners about such topics.

Liberating Effects of Losing Executive Control

Across numerous domains, research has consistently linked decreased capacity for executive control to negative outcomes. Under some conditions, however, this deficit may translate into gains: When individuals' regulatory strategies are maladaptive, depletion of the resource fueling such strategies may facilitate positive outcomes, both intra- and interpersonally. We tested this prediction in the context of contentious intergroup interaction, a domain characterized by regulatory practices of questionable utility. White participants discussed approaches to campus diversity with a White or Black partner immediately after performing a depleting or control computer task. In intergroup encounters, depleted participants enjoyed the interaction more, exhibited less inhibited behavior, and seemed less prejudiced to Black observers than did control participants--converging evidence of beneficial effects. Although executive capacity typically sustains optimal functioning, these results indicate that, in some cases, it also can obstruct positive outcomes, not to mention the potential for open dialogue regarding divisive social issues.