Category: Race and Ethnicity

Place Matters: Learning from South Central Dreams

On By econnellIn Cities and Urbanization, Karen Sternheimer, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Statistics and MethodsLeave a comment

By Karen Sternheimer

Who we are is shaped by the places where we live, and we in turn shape these places. This is one of the resounding messages in a new book by my colleagues Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Manuel Pastor, South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South LA.

When many people hear the phrase “South Central LA” they may think they know a lot about the area, even if they have never been to Los Angeles. Movies such as Colors (1988), Boyz n the Hood (1991), and Menace II Society (1993) brought the collection of neighborhoods known as “South Central” to national attention, painting the area as a bleak landscape of gangs, violence, and mayhem.

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Unconventional Combat: Exploring Intersectionality through the Study of Military Veterans

On By econnellIn Karen Sternheimer, Race and Ethnicity, Sex and Gender, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and MedicineLeave a comment

Author photoBy Karen Sternheimer

When you picture a military veteran, what image comes to mind? A buff young man? An older man wearing his weathered uniform?

Michael Messner’s new book, Unconventional Combat: Intersectional Action in the Veterans’ Peace Movement, gives us insights into the lives of veterans who may not neatly fit into the public image of what a vet “looks like.” In this follow-up to his 2018 book Guys Like Me, Messner shares the often-hidden experiences of veterans: women, those who identify as gender fluid, persons of color, including Native Americans, and LGBTQ+ people, including two-spirit individuals.

These categories, of course, are not mutually exclusive, which is the main point of the book: people’s identities are intersectional, which shapes the way they navigate their relationships with institutions (such as the military) and organizations (like those formed as part of the veteran’s peace movement).

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Asian American Hate: Exploring the Intersection of Race and Gender

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Myron Strong, Race and EthnicityLeave a comment

Myron strongBy Myron Strong

More than a year ago in my post, "Fear, Race, and the Yellow Peril," I explored many of the historical aspects of anti-Asian hate. Racialization of COVID-19 served as a catalyst for the increase of violence that has manifested in mass shootings, violent attacks, shunning, civil rights violations, verbal, and online attacks.

Equally disturbing are that most of the attacks have been directed toward women. This brings to mind dangerous stereotypes noted in the article “From Exotic to Invisible: Asian American Womens' Experiences of Discrimination,” where authors Shruti Mukkamala and Karen Suyemoto explore the consequences of the many stereotypes associated with Asian women. The authors note that Asian women are seen as docile and subservient, overly sensual or erotic ("The Geisha"), the manipulative and untrustworthy "Dragon Lady," or the hardworking, conscientious worker bee.

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Who are the Stars at Your University?

On By econnellIn Class and Stratification, Janis Prince Inniss, Race and Ethnicity, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine1 Comment

Janis prince innissBy Janis Prince Inniss

I will never forget the day Dr. Levine told me that Lillian Rubin was coming to teach at Queens College. I couldn’t believe that he knew her! Or that she would be teaching at my school and I could take a class with her. In terms of today’s music celebrities, he might as well have said that Rihanna, Dua Lipa, or Ariana Grande was going to grace Kissena Hall. Before that conversation, I had read Dr. Rubin’s book Intimate Strangers and marveled at what seemed to be her ability to get into people’s heads and to explain issues that, as a 22-year-old, I was beginning to notice. Even the name of the book captured my attention as I struggled to understand intimate relationships.

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Who is Afraid of CRT?

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Myron Strong, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change6 Comments

By Myron Strong

Sociologists Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons recently wrote article for the Brookings Institution noting that the term “critical race theory” (CRT) has been mentioned 1,300 times in less than four months on Fox News. They attribute this to critical race theory becoming a new boogie man for people unwilling to acknowledge our country’s racist history and how it impacts the present.

This boogie man is getting bigger in some of the media and state governments who spread misinformation and propaganda. This plays on the fears of many whites who have not been given the tools to process change, and lack the proper understanding of the historical context for the circumstances of people of color.

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Bridgerton: Groundbreaking or Same Old Stereotypes?

On By econnellIn Janis Prince Inniss, Popular Culture and Consumption, Race and Ethnicity1 Comment

Janis prince innissBy Janis Prince Inniss

You’ve probably seen Bridgerton, the sexy Shondaland Netflix standout. If you haven’t, the first eight episodes of the series premiered in December 2020 on Netflix. The series is based on eight books written by Julia Quinn, featuring stories of romance in the Regency era.

This first season focuses on the “market launch” of the eldest daughter of the white Bridgerton family: Daphne is 21 years old and therefore ready to occupy her most important functions and only possible roles as wife and mother. Set in London in 1813, the show centers on Daphne as she and other young women vie for the affections and proposals of men, young and old.

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Vaccine Disparities and COVID-19

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Class and Stratification, COVID-19, Karen Sternheimer, Race and Ethnicity3 Comments

Author photoBy Karen Sternheimer

As I write, both of my parents just received their second COVID-19 vaccinations. This is of course a great relief, since they are in their 70s, but their experience highlights some of the inequities built into the scramble to get vaccinated.

While the U.S. supply cannot keep up with demand at the moment, in some countries there is no supply at all. According to UNICEF, and reported by NPR, about 130 countries had no vaccine as of mid-February. In the U.S., the distribution varies quite a bit per state, with some states vaccinating at twice the rate of others. (See this NPR Tracker to find out how your state compares.)

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Reflections on the Capitol Insurrection: Values, Symbols, and Contradictions

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Myron Strong, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social ChangeLeave a comment

Myron strong author photoBy Myron Strong

Like most kids in the 1980s, part of my daily school routine each morning back then was to stand for the pledge of alliance. Images of my grade school teachers asking a class of snaggle-toothed, freshly groomed brown-skinned joyous third graders run across my mind. We all rose for the pledge, but none of us really knew what it meant. How could we, since we were children? 

I remember standing together, silent and thinking more about the impending morning chocolate milk more than the pledge. But the pledge has never felt right to me, even when I was just a kid. I stopped rising and standing for it about 30 years ago. Throughout the years various people have asked me why I don’t rise. I usually just respond with an answer based on the treatment of minorities (racial, sexual, religious) and women, and I explain that I do not feel like the United States its iconography represents justice, respect, acceptance, and freedom.

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Amanda Gorman’s Sociological Imagination

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Class and Stratification, Janis Prince Inniss, Race and Ethnicity, Theory14 Comments

By Janis Prince Inniss

The breakout star of the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris inauguration was not Biden or Harris, or even Bernie Sanders! Amanda Gorman takes that title as evidenced by the media swirling around her, her new modeling gig, and the fact that her as yet unpublished books took the top two spots on Amazon’s bestseller list the following day.

At age 22, Gorman is the youngest poet to recite poetry at a United States inauguration and is the nation’s first National Youth Poet Laureate. In the poem she read at the inauguration, “The Hill We Climb,” I heard a sociological perspective. Therefore, I was not surprised when I learned that Gorman was a sociology major at Harvard who graduated cum laude and see how that may have shaped her poetry. My intention here is to highlight some of the sociological aspects of “The Hill We Climb.” Disclaimer: I am not an English literature professor; my intention is not to provide a definitive or literary analysis of the poem, but instead to highlight its sociological connections.

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Health, Racial Inequality, and Residential Segregation

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Cities and Urbanization, Class and Stratification, COVID-19, Race and Ethnicity7 Comments

By Jenny Enos, Sociology Doctoral Student at Rutgers University – New Brunswick

We often talk about health as a strictly biological concept. After all, poor health outcomes such as heart disease and cancer are heavily dependent on biological factors such as our genetic makeup and our age. Public discourse is also rife with notions that viruses, such as COVID-19, “do not discriminate” and affect all of us equally – regardless of the vastly different social circumstances under which people in the U.S. are living.

Sociologists, however, have long emphasized that health outcomes are far from strictly biological. In fact, the subfield of medical sociology – one of the American Sociological Association’s largest sections – is entirely devoted to the study of how social contexts and structures influence health, illness, and healthcare. Although certain poor health outcomes are indeed influenced by factors outside of the social world, medical sociologists stress the importance of social influence in examining e.g. who gets sick and why.

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