Conversations About Race and Perceptions of Racial Discrimination Among Emerging Adults

Conversations About Race and Perceptions of Racial Discrimination Among Emerging Adults Alanna Cason, Depts. of Psychology and Criminal Justice, Angel Whitfield, Maria Cisneros, Dept. of Psychology Graduate Student, Arlenis Santana, Dept. of Psychology Graduate Student, & Eryn DeLaney, Dept. of Psychology Graduate Student, with Dr. Chelsea D. Williams, Dr. Tricia Smith, Dr. Amy Adkins, and Dr. Danielle Dick College students of color have positive race-related experiences (e.g.., positive conversations), as well as negative race-related experiences (e.g., racial discrimination and negative experiences about race; Spencer 2006). Limited work has focused on conversations students have about race, although the U.S. has become more diverse especially in college settings (Martinez-Acosta & Favero, 2018). To address these gaps, the current study focused on bidirectional relations between students’ conversations about race and how they are related to discrimination experiences among 95 college-age students of color. We hypothesized that (1) more negative conversations about race (and less positive conversations) would increase students’ perceptions of racial discrimination, and (2) the more students experienced discrimination, they would have more negative conversations (less positive conversations) about race. Two linear regression analyses were conducted. The first analysis indicated that negative conversations about race (B = .38, phttps://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1303/thumbnail.jp

Comparing Race and Sex Discrimination in Custody Cases

In her article Prof. Bartlett focuses on race and sex, not where they cross, but what they look like side by side using child custody as a starting point for a more detailed assessment of the similarities and differences between sex and race discrimination. The author focuses on the operation of, and attempts to eliminate, race and sex discrimination in child custody law, using a methodology of moving back and forth between examples of race discrimination and sex discrimination, showing how looking at one in relation to the other contributes to a better understanding of both

Experiencing discrimination increases risk taking.

Prior research has revealed racial disparities in health outcomes and health-compromising behaviors, such as smoking and drug abuse. It has been suggested that discrimination contributes to such disparities, but the mechanisms through which this might occur are not well understood. In the research reported here, we examined whether the experience of discrimination affects acute physiological stress responses and increases risk-taking behavior. Black and White participants each received rejecting feedback from partners who were either of their own race (in-group rejection) or of a different race (out-group rejection, which could be interpreted as discrimination). Physiological (cardiovascular and neuroendocrine) changes, cognition (memory and attentional bias), affect, and risk-taking behavior were assessed. Significant participant race × partner race interactions were observed. Cross-race rejection, compared with same-race rejection, was associated with lower levels of cortisol, increased cardiac output, decreased vascular resistance, greater anger, increased attentional bias, and more risk-taking behavior. These data suggest that perceived discrimination is associated with distinct profiles of physiological reactivity, affect, cognitive processing, and risk taking, implicating direct and indirect pathways to health disparities

Evidence of Employment Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: Complaints Filed with State Enforcement Agencies, 1999-2007

To more accurately measure the effect of anti-discrimination laws, this report compares sex, race, and sexual orientation complaint rates through a population-adjusted model. Today, twenty states and the District of Columbia prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Of those, thirteen also prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. An aggregation of all available state level data reveals that sexual orientation discrimination laws are used at similar frequencies by Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (LGB) workers as sex discrimination laws by female workers, both at 5 complaints per every 10,000 workers. Race complaints are filed at the higher rate of 7 per 10,000 workers

A New Look at Racial Profiling: Evidence from the Boston Police Department

This paper provides new evidence on the role of preference-based versus statistical discrimination in racial profiling using a unique data set that includes the race of both the driver and the officer. We first generalize the model presented in Knowles, Persico and Todd (2001) and show that the fundamental insight that allows them to distinguish between statistical discrimination and preference-based discrimination depends on the specialized shapes of the best response functions in their model. Thus, the test that they employ is not robust to a range of alternative modeling assumptions. However, we also show that if statistical discrimination alone explains differences in the rate at which the vehicles of drivers of different races are searched, then search decisions should be independent of officer race. We then test this prediction using data from the Boston Police Department. Consistent with preference-based discrimination, our baseline results demonstrate that officers are more likely to conduct a search if the race of the officer differs from the race of the driver. We then investigate and rule out two alternative explanations for our findings: race-based informational asymmetries between officers and the assignment of officers to neighborhoods.

Critical race theory in a swedish context

Race has been a term avoided in the Swedish debates, while at the same time, protections with respect to unlawful discrimination on the basis of race or ethnic origins have not been vigilantly upheld by the courts. This paper looks at the treatment of race by the Swedish legislature, as well as the treatment by the courts, specifically the Labour Court, with respect to claims of unlawful discrimination in employment on the basis of ethnic origins, against the background of Critical Race Theory. The disparities between the intent of the legislature and the outcome of the cases brought to the Swedish courts can be in least in part explained through the lens of Critical Race Theory, particularly with respect to the liberal approach taken by the courts when applying the law

The Intersections of Race, Gender, Age, and Socioeconomic Status: Implications for Reporting Discrimination and Attributions to Discrimination.

This study employed an intersectional approach (operationalized as the combination of more than one social identity) to examine the relationship between aspects of social identity (i.e., race, gender, age, SES), self-reported level of mistreatment, and attributions for discrimination. Self-reported discrimination has been researched extensively and there is substantial evidence of its association with adverse physical and psychological health outcomes. Few studies, however, have examined the relationship of multiple demographic variables (including social identities) to overall levels self-reported mistreatment as well the selection of attributions for discrimination. A diverse community sample (N = 292; 42.12% Black; 47.26% male) reported on experiences of discrimination using the Everyday Discrimination Scale. General linear models were used to test the effect of sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., race, gender, age, SES) on total discrimination score and on attributions for discrimination. To test for intersectional relationships, we tested the effect of two-way interactions of sociodemographic characteristics on total discrimination score and attributions for discrimination. We found preliminary support for intersectional effects, as indicated by a significant race by age interaction on the selection of the race attribution for discrimination; gender by SES on the age attribution; age by gender on the education attribution; and race by SES on the economic situation attribution. Our study extends prior work by highlighting the importance of testing more than one factor as contributing to discrimination, particularly when examining to what sources individuals attribute discrimination

Social Barriers to Cooperation: Experiments on the Extent and Nature of Discrimination in Peru

We present a series of experiments to understand the nature and extent of discrimination in urban Lima, Peru. The experiments exploit varying degrees of information on performance and personal characteristics as people sort into groups to test for statistical versus taste-based discrimination. This allows us to examine the nature of discrimination. Our sample is similar to the racial and socio-economic diversity of young adults in urban Lima. This allows us to look at the extent of discrimination. We use a unique method to measure race, along four racial dimensions common in Peru, and find that race is clearly observable. This gives us confidence that we can examine discrimination based on race. While behavior is not correlated with personal, socio-economic or racial characteristics, people do use personal characteristics to sort themselves into groups. Beauty is a robust predictor of being a desirable group member as is being a woman. Being unattractive or looking indigenous makes one less desirable and looking white increases oneâ??s desirability. Interestingly, indigenous subjects are three times more likely to be classified as unattractive, suggesting that beauty might mask discrimination. We find that once information on performance is provided, almost all evidence of discrimination is eliminated, except in the most-preferred group. The evidence in these cases is consistent with taste-based, rather than statistical, discrimination.

Socially-Tolerable Discrimination

History is replete with overt discrimination of various forms. However, these forms of discrimination are not equally tolerable. For example, discrimination based on immutable or prohibitively unalterable characteristics such as race or gender is much less acceptable. Why? I develop a simple model of conflict which is driven by either racial (gender) discrimination or generational discrimination (i.e., young versus old). I show that there exist parameters of the model where racial (gender) discrimination leads to conflict but generational discrimination does not.

Race Audits

The U.S. Supreme Court’s race jurisprudence suffers from a stunning lack of imagination where possibilities for meaningful local government involvement in combating structural racial inequality are concerned. Cases such as Parents. and Ricci limit dramatically the freedom that localities have to address racial inequity within their borders. Instead of constraints on local efforts in the race context, Professor Lenhardt argues that what we need, if persistent racial inequalities are ever to be eliminated, is greater innovation and experimentation. In this article, Professor Lenhardt thus introduces an extra-judicial tool called the race audit, which would permit individual cities or a regional coalition of localities voluntarily to determine the extent to which their governmental systems and policies create, enable, or perpetuate inequitable conditions for racial minorities. This tool, grounded in the tenets of structuralism, breaks from traditional audit mechanisms in the race context by eschewing a singular focus on intentional discrimination. Instead, it seeks to uncover the specific structural mechanisms that generate cumulative racial disadvantage across domains, time and generations by, inter alia, being attuned to the spatial dimensions, meaning, and operation of race in the United States. The race audit’s main goal – which falls outside the reach of most existing tools for measuring discrimination – would be achieved through the work of a “community of inquiry” consisting of academics, philanthropic organizations, non-profits and civil rights groups, governmental agencies, and business leaders charged with assessing the segregative effects of the locality’s policies and programs. The race audit process, whose results might be similar to those produced by truth and reconciliation commissions, would produce a counter-narrative about race in metropolitan areas whose telling would have numerous benefits, including generating more effective remedies for addressing structural discrimination, and promoting democratic conversations about equality and what is necessary to secure belonging at the local level. Most of all, the race audit would make apparent the deep potential cities have for being important “equality innovators.” designed to identify the sources of persistent racial inequality that can be productively deployed by localities. This tool, grounded in the tenets of structuralism, eschews a singular focus on intentional discrimination. Instead, it seeks to uncover the specific structural mechanisms that create cumulative racial disadvantage across domains, time, and generations by, inter alia, being attuned to the spatial dimensions, meaning, and operation of race in the United States. The race audit process, in addition to highlighting the capacity of localities to be important change agents, would help produce a counternarrative about race and the seeming naturalness of the racial segregation and disadvantage now evident in urban and suburban areas alike. The Author contends that, in doing so, the race audit would identify better, more effective strategies for alleviating structural racial inequality. Situating the race audit proposal in a larger project on the commitments underlying civil rights advocacy more broadly, she highlights the potential that the race audit and other innovative tools might have to spur democratic conversations about race and the conditions necessary for belonging at the local level; generate a thicker, more substantive account of equality than has thus far been forthcoming in U.S. Supreme Court cases; and reconcile the perceived tensions between notions of equality and liberty in the area of race