Understanding race relations within the Tumblr role-play community

The occupants of the online world cannot typically see the physical attributes of other users and therefore embrace alternative methods to make sense of another person’s identity. Through the process of assuming and assigning identity, users rely on and carry over offline racialized attitudes, actions, and beliefs into digital domains, thus further perpetuating racism. Racism persists in online spaces that are typically social justice oriented and populated by marginalized groups. Specifically, the Tumblr role-play community perpetuates both covert and overt forms of racism through out of character and fictional interactions. Through online ethnography, the content analysis of callout posts relating to the topic of race, and interviews with role-players of color, categories arose to reveal the extensive amount of racial exclusion, slur usage, reliance on racial stereotypes, and colorblindness that exists within a population reputed for its seemingly inclusive stance. This research invites further inquiry and examination of methods needed to interrupt the continuous trend of inequality as it occurs offline, online, and through fiction

Labour market experiences of young UK Bangladeshi men: Identity, inclusion and exclusion in inner-city London

Detailed qualitative data are used to explore the processes perpetuatinglabour market disadvantage among young UK-Bangladeshi men living in central London. Strong forces of inclusion within the Bangladeshi community are found to interact with forces of exclusion from ‘mainstream’ society to constrain aspirations and limit opportunities. Though diverse forms of young Bangladeshi masculinity are found, a common pattern is heavy dependency on intra-ethnic networks. Negative experiences of and isolation from ‘mainstream’ society further reinforce reliance on ‘our own people’. However, acute ambivalence towards belonging to a dense Bangladeshi community exists, exemplified in the widespread denigration of the restaurant trade. Many respondents express the desire to ‘break out’ and access new experiences. The findings support current policy emphasis on ‘connecting people to work’ but highlight the more fundamental need to connect people across ethnic boundaries. The paper urges researchers to ‘unpack’ ethnicity to consider carefully what ethnic identity implies in terms of access to resources and opportunities for different individuals in different contexts in order better to understand the diversity of labour market outcomes and the persistence of disadvantage

Hierarchies, scale and privilege in the reproduction of national belonging

It is increasingly recognised both that belonging divides hierarchically and that people have different capacities to be seen as belonging. However, while the existence of hierarchies of belonging is well‐documented from the perspective of ethnically minoritised and migrant groups, what characterises, produces and underpins these hierarchies is largely unaddressed, as is a geographically‐informed analysis of their reproduction. This paper, based on interviews with white British people in the suburbs of London, takes a novel approach, examining the reproduction of national belonging among people for whom such belonging is relatively privileged. The paper identifies three constructions of national belonging within white British narratives – “belonging in Britain”, “belonging to Britain” and “being of Britain” – and argues that, although not always recognised as such, the three constructions are hierarchical in their differing temporalities and connections to whiteness. The elucidation of these different belongings and, crucially, the recognition of their hierarchisation and scalar‐reproduction, represent major contributions to research on belonging, and also help to explain the exclusion from a full sense of national belonging articulated by British people of colour

LGBT Equality and Sexual Racism

Bigots such as the trial judge in Loving have long invoked religion to justify discrimination. We agree with other scholars that neither religion nor artistic freedom justifies letting businesses discriminate. However, we also want to make manifest the tension between the public posture of LGBT-rights litigants and the practices of some LGBT people who discriminate based on race in selecting partners. We argue that some white people’s aversion to dating and forming relationships with people of color is a form of racism, and this sexual racism is inconsistent with the spirit of Loving. Part I provides a review of empirical literature on the prevalence of racial preferences in intimate relationships and shows that racial preferences are particularly pronounced among gay men. Part II supplements this overview with a qualitative exploration of how race informed the intimate experiences of people who sat for interviews as part of our ongoing study, LGBT Relationships and Well-Being. We also offer a theory that may partially explain sexual racism in the LGBT community. Specifically, exposure to mainstream gay culture may teach sexual minority men that race and desire are closely intertwined. In Part III, we propose ideas for further research, including a study that would test our theory

Why Yellow Fever Isn't Flattering: A Case Against Racial Fetishes

Most discussions of racial fetish center on the question of whether it is caused by negative racial stereotypes. In this paper I adopt a different strategy, one that begins with the experiences of those targeted by racial fetish rather than those who possess it; that is, I shift focus away from the origins of racial fetishes to their effects as a social phenomenon in a racially stratified world. I examine the case of preferences for Asian women, also known as ‘yellow fever’, to argue against the claim that racial fetishes are unobjectionable if they are merely based on personal or aesthetic preference rather than racial stereotypes. I contend that even if this were so, yellow fever would still be morally objectionable because of the disproportionate psychological burdens it places on Asian and Asian-American women, along with the role it plays in a pernicious system of racial social meanings