Gordon Allport formalized a theory about intergroup contact, positing that contact between dissimilar groups could be effective in reducing intergroup prejudice. Over half a century later, research suggests that engaging in race talk —conversations about race and racism— can offer benefits such as increased racial literacy and critical consciousness, less intimidation when it comes to addressing race, less fear of differences, and a greater appreciation for people of all cultures and communities. However, race can be a difficult topic to discuss. It typically incites strong emotions, often challenges an individual's lived reality, and triggers anxiety and discomfort for conversational participants. While these barriers to race talk have been well-studied with White participants, little empirical work has been conducted with people of color as a focus. The present study utilized a qualitative, focus-group based methodology with grounded theory analyses to gather information on people of color's barriers to race talk. Results suggest that varied interpersonal contexts — such as when talking to White individuals, other people of color from different racial groups, and their own race— elicit differing levels of comfort and subsequent changes to engagement in race talk. Furthermore, intersecting identities such as gender, sexual orientation, and skin tone further affect people of color's comfort in race talk engagement. Lastly, participants offer insight into race talk strategies that can be used to foster more helpful, respectful, and mutually beneficial race talk.

M.A., Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2008

Student Number : 8710695F - MA dissertation - School of Arts - Faculty of Humanities / In this dissertation several instances of President Mbeki’s discourse are identified and shown to reveal an excessive attachment, or “passionate attachment” to ‘race’ as a marker of social and political identity. It is proposed that this is a pattern cutting across different (discursive) interventions by the President. The interventions examined include: Letters from the President, Mbeki’s Two Nations’ Theory, Black Economic Empowerment, African Renaissance, Nepad and HIV/AIDS. Several theorists have been referred to in order to begin putting together a conceptual theoretical framework with which to clarify and account for this emergent pattern. The conceptual framework adumbrated here and employed in the analysis of Mbeki’s discourse borrows heavily from Butler and Zizek in particular. The concept of “passionate attachment” comes from Butler and those of “rigid designator” and “social fantasy” from Zizek. Use is made of these theoretical references in order to start accounting for the compulsion that characterizes these discursive interventions which are always in some respect ‘inappropriate’ or in ‘excess’ of expectations. They also seem self enclosed and to play a very specific role in Mbeki’s discourse. It is in this connection that the concepts of “passionate attachment”, “fantasy” and “rigid designator” are deployed.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

While recent scholarship has documented the long history of African American disenfranchisement leading up to mass incarceration, it has evaded a comprehensive investigation of Latino encounters with the U.S. criminal justice system by relying on a false dichotomy between black and Latino carceral experiences. The historical roots of Latino criminalization and punishment in the United States, dating back to the 1845 annexation of Texas, merit a study that both particularizes Latino experiences and problematizes essentialized racial categories. Thus, this dissertation charts the trajectories of Latino racial constructions as shaped by incarceration, revealing how prisons have defined and destabilized the boundaries of Latinidad. Furthermore, this project finds that these racializations have served as decisive factors in determining the incarcerability of Latinos, with mass incarceration and deportation acting as intertwined, complementary systems of control. Utilizing a wide range of sources including prison records, personal memoirs, political discourses, local newspapers, survey data, and imagery from street and prison culture, this study also highlights the conflict between the concept of race as a social construct and efforts to quantify racial disparities in U.S. institutions. The first chapter identifies the ways in which Latinos were perceived and recorded as racial others in registers from the nation’s flagship prisons between 1850 and 1950. The personal histories of Latinos in this early era and later in the twentieth century also capture the normalization of interactions with law enforcement and the routine of jailtime. To address the systemic complexities that have dictated Latino racial developments, in the next chapters, I introduce an analytical framework based on three different racial paradigms. Chapter Two deconstructs understandings of Latinos as perpetual foreigners paired with the notion of immigrants as criminals. Chapter Three explores Latino experiences with criminalized blackness due to African ancestry and shared socioeconomic disadvantage. Chapter Four examines Latino disenfranchisement founded on Amerindian heritage and the reappropriation of Indianism as a tool of resistance in response. Finally, the last chapter analyzes longitudinal survey data, finding nuances within the racial disparities typically cited in criminal justice reports, while unpacking the role of incarceration in Latino racial formations over time. / 2021-02-05T00:00:00Z

acase@tulane.edu / Two common metaphors can be used to spatially represent time: the ego-moving metaphor, wherein one sees themselves as moving forward in time past stationary objects; and the time-moving metaphor, wherein an individual perceives time moving toward them while they remain stationary. The way in which one conceives of time can influence the way events in time are perceived, and conversely, perceptions of events in time can influence the metaphor one adopts. Study 1 examined the influence of one's racial group membership on the time perspective one adopts. It was hypothesized that when considering a future where racial equality has been achieved, White Americans would be more likely to adopt a time-moving perspective, whereas Black Americans would be more likely to adopt an ego-moving perspective. Furthermore, this relation was hypothesized to be moderated by endorsement of group hierarchies. Results showed that participant race did influence time perspective-Black participants were more likely to adopt an ego moving time perspective than were White Participants. However, this effect was not moderated by social dominance orientation or by egalitarianism. Study 2 sought to build upon Study 1 by examining the consequences of adopting a particular time perspective for White Americans when considering racial equality. It was hypothesized that participants exposed to an ego-moving prime who are high in social dominance orientation would perceive more threat toward their ingroup than those who are exposed to a time-moving prime, and in turn impact policy support. A similar model was also examined with egalitarianism as a moderator. Evidence for moderated mediation was not found. Participants who were high in social dominance orientation were more likely to perceive threat to their ingroup and perceived threat did predict policy endorsement. Conversely, those who were high in egalitarianism perceived less threat to their group, and threat again predicted policy support. These findings suggest that an individual's perception of time can be influenced by their racial group membership. / 1 / Emily Shaffer

acase@tulane.edu / 1 / Xzania W Lee

The problem of the black-white gross earnings gap is near its largest amongst lawyers; blacks earn a significantly lower income than whites (Dinovitzer et al. 2004; Grodsky and Pager 2001). There is also a white advantage in overall job satisfaction amongst lawyers (Payne-Pikus et al. 2010; Dau-Schmidt and Mukhopadhaya 1999). This study examines how social capital contributes to racial differences in these two aspects of overall job success. Social capital theories hypothesize that more social capital leads to increased job status attainment (Lin et al. 1981; Lin 2001). Blacks receive fewer and lower paying jobs than whites, perhaps in part because of a lack of social capital in their lower status and segregated social networks (Braddock and McPartland 1987; Elliot 1999; although see Mouw (2003) for a challenge which showed little to no effect of the use of contacts on earnings). Similarly, Ducharme and Martin (2000) found that social relationships with co-workers increase overall job satisfaction. This project specifically examines social capital in the attorney job market, because this is a specific job market in which there are strong theoretical reasons to expect social capital to affect wages and job satisfaction. Using Portes' (1998) definition of social capital, the ability to secure benefits from one's social networks, I distinguish between three major social networks (professional, non-professional, and kinship), and then derive hypotheses about their effect on earnings and job satisfaction. The main hypothesis is that black and white differences in professional and non-professional networks account for part of the earnings and job satisfaction inequality between blacks and whites. The study also develops competing hypotheses to test the effect of kinship networks on job satisfaction. This study takes a mixed methods approach. Nationally representative longitudinal data from the After the Juris Doctorate Survey (AJD) test the hypotheses to see if there is an effect of social capital on earnings and satisfaction. Qualitative interviews seek to further investigate these relationships and look for emerging themes for racial differences in earnings and job satisfaction. The interviews take place with nine black and white lawyers in Chicago. The survey results reveal the significance of professional social capital networks in obtaining a higher salary among private firm attorneys. The effects of social capital do not vary across race. However, there are some black-white differences in the types of social capital used. The interview results reveal the significance of social capital in acquiring clients in small private firms, and of mentor-protégé relationships. Concluding remarks discuss the significance of professional and non-professional social capital in and beyond the legal profession, explanations for the higher levels of social capital in whites, and suggestions for ways to decrease these racial social capital disparities.

acase@tulane.edu / In 1933, the Cuban Communist Party experienced a change in leadership from the white poet and lawyer Rubén Martínez Villena to a black former shoe repairman from Manzanillo, Blas Roca. This shift marked the beginning of a new era in Cuban politics. This thesis argues that the Communist Party was an unparalleled space for black political activism in Cuba’s late republic period due to the unique convergence of black actors within its ranks. The Party reflected a singular intersection of labor leaders, members of black fraternal organizations, and black intelligencia. This group of black political actors fought for an end to racial discrimination throughout the history of the Party and successfully reintroduced a public engagement with race in Cuban political rhetoric during the 1940 Constitutional Assembly. Unlike other contemporary political parties, the Communist Party created a space for simultaneous expressions of blackness and Cubanness that drew black Cubans into its ranks. The Party’s decades long struggle for anti-discrimination legislation ultimately failed, but their prolonged struggle for greater equity on the island disrupted domestic politics and distinguished the Cuban Party from other contemporary Communist parties. / 1 / Kaitlyn D Henderson

Statistics consistently show that minorities are overrepresented at each level of the juvenile justice system. However, while Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) in the juvenile justice system is well documented, the cause is still unclear. Some have suggested that DMC is simply the result of disproportionate amounts of crime committed by minority youth, while others claim that racism, be it overt, subtle, individual or institutional, plays a significant role in DMC. Observation of juvenile court proceedings and interviews with juvenile court judges and lawyers, each coded for content analysis, were used to determine the effects of race in juvenile court decision making. In this research, I suggest that race plays a significant, yet subtle role as personal beliefs, political necessities and motives of both professional participants in the system and political and community civic leaders, result in racial stratification established within a racialized social framework.