Judging a Book by its Racial Cover

On By econnellIn Janis Prince Inniss, Race and Ethnicity2 Comments

author_janis By Janis Prince Inniss

 On Easter Sunday, my husband and I took my mother to church in her neighborhood. (We live about 25 miles from her.) My rationale for this was to introduce Mum to a church, and perhaps to some church-goers, in her neighborhood; she only attends church when her visits with us include Sundays. As we headed into the church, I realized that we were the only ones doing so, which was odd especially on Easter. Undaunted, we  headed into the sanctuary, sat in the back and happily joined in the singing of one of myJ0173998
 favorite hymns.

As I looked around the church, I was reminded that it serves a largely white congregation. I had attended a few services at this church when we first moved to this city but had not returned once we moved out of clip_image003[4]that general area. As I sang, I noticed a black man in a suit standing next to the white minister in his robe at the front of the church. Given the racial makeup of the church, and because the black man seemed to be assisting with the service in some way since he was up front, he was noteworthy. To my dismay, when we finished that wonderful hymn, the service was over! 

Down the aisle came the procession of church officials, followed by the congregation. We had traveled that distance for less than one whole hymn! Somewhere between annoyance and amusement, I stumbled back outside with my family. As we stood outside the church trying to figure out what had happened, my husband said that the black man had given him a note that read, “Follow me to the auditorium.” Who was that man? And why were we to follow him? 

clip_image005[4]We followed the man and found ourselves in the building next door to the main sanctuary where the service was about to begin. We found seats and I noticed that the man who had directed us to this service seemed to be taking part in the proceedings once again. I guessed he was there in his supporting role once more and that the white man I saw on stage was the minister. 

Turns out I had the roles completely reversed. The black man was in charge of this service; he preached a wonderful sermon. Ah, so he must assist with the traditional service and preach at the contemporary service. During the service a few people mentioned Dr. Smith (not his real name of course), pastor of the church, and I wondered whether we had seen him in the few minutes at the earlier service. 

Service over, I asked someone about arranging transportation to the church for Mum. She directed me to Dr. Smith. I explained that I did not know him so she showed me to his office. To my surprise the black man in the suit was Dr. Smith, senior church pastor! I was stunned! My assumptions about Dr. Smith were based on his being a black man at a church with a mostly white, affluent congregation; they were also shaped by the fact that I have never been a member of a church with a black pastor in America. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard sermons delivered by black pastors in the U.S. This is because I have never been a regular attendee of black church denominations or black churches that fit under white denominations, so my churches have been predominantly white. 

This Easter Sunday experience was a great lesson in how prejudice works: Using the information we have, based on our often narrow personal experiences, we decide where someone fits in the world. Those prejudices may take the form of race, class, gender, sexual orientation or any other lens that we choose to wear. Also, context matters. Had Dr. Smith been wearing a robe instead of a suit, I would probably have made the same assumptions, especially because I also saw a white pastor at the church. But, had I seen Dr. Smith on campus, dressed as he was, I would probably have assumed he was on the university faculty.

I know that black men occupy all spheres of life. I’m from a large family filled with black men (and women) who have attained the highest professional levels. I am married to a black man who defies just about every stereotype of the African American male. I am a black woman. I am a sociologist who writes about race, ethnicity and culture. And yet, there I was unable to guess that I was looking at the pastor of that church!

Have you had a similar experience? How have you prejudged someone or a situation based on information about their race, class or maybe their gender? Tell us about it.

Causation

On By econnellIn Statistics and Methods12 Comments

author_brad By Bradley Wright

Sociologists spend a lot of time talking and thinking about causality. (We probably spend even more time with office politics, but that’s not very interesting, so I won’t write about that).

Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that philosophers spend a lot of time defining exactly what is the essence of causality, and they probably trace it back to Romans and Greeks and people like that. Rather than go into this type of philosophical analysis, I will simply focus on how we might test for its existence.

If “A” is a cause of “B”, what does that mean? In this case, “A” and “B” could be just about anything—characteristics of people, interactions, groups, societies.

First off, we would expect some level of association between “A” and “B”. By this we mean that as levels in “A” change, we would expect usually to see some change in “B”. Some associations are positive, meaning that “A” and “B” move in the same direction. So, as “A” increases, “B” does also. (Or, conversely, if “A” decreases, so does “B”). Other associations are negative, meaning that as “A” increases, “B” decreases or the reverse.

Second, we should see changes in “A” occur before changes in “B”. Since very few sociologists can afford time-travel machines (though I think that I saw a colleague with a flux capacitor in their office), we are stuck with the linear progression of time. That means that changes in a cause have to happen before the resulting consequences in the effect. Sometimes this time difference is miniscule, so that changes in “A” and “B” seem to happen almost simultaneously, but there is still some ordering. At the very least, if “A” causes “B”, then changes in “B” can not happen before corresponding changes in “A”.

Third, there should be no spurious correlation. A spurious correlation means that some other variable causes both “A” and “B” such that they correlate with each other, and maybe “A” comes before “B”, but in fact there is not causal connection between them. (For a fuller explanation, read this previous post). This is where things get a little tricky. Researchers can measure if two variables are associated, and he or she can measure which came first, but how can you know that there is no secret variable out there that makes the correlation spurious? Who knows, given what “A” and “B” are, there could be dozens if not hundreds possible spurious correlates. How can a researcher rule out all of them? They can’t. The researcher can measure and rule out any obvious spurious correlates, but ultimately it’s an act of faith (or, as it’s called in sociology, “theory”) that a correlation between “A” and “B” is not spurious.

Finally, we like to know how “A” causes “B”. There can be a causal relationship between the two even if we don’t know how they affect each other, but knowing “how” makes us more confident the causal connection. Basically, sociologists sleep better at night if they know the causal mechanism.

So far I’ve discussed this in rather abstract terms, and you’re probably wondering if I had intended to put you to sleep at your computer. (Sociologists sometimes forget that regular human beings don’t get excited talking about vague “A”s and “B”s).

Here’s an example.

clip_image002Suppose that a friend told you that they had a bag of magic M&Ms. Now, I realize that for some people, any bag of candy is magic, but these are special M&Ms, according to your friend. If you eat a green one, you will instantly become amazingly physically attractive (if you’re not already). You’ll be so handsome or beautiful, that you’ll end up on lists like this, this, and this. (Okay, the last one was just to see if you were paying attention.)

You are intrigued, but you want to find out if it’s true. Does eating green M&Ms make you attractive? Or, to put into boring sociological notation, does “A” cause “B”? To test this, you give a bag of the magic M&Ms to your friends, and then you take notes.

First you notice whether the friends who ate green M&Ms are more attractive than those who didn’t. If so, this would be a positive association—more green M&Ms = more good looks.

Then you would look to see which came first. Perhaps beautiful people just happen to eat more green M&Ms; if so, they “B” comes before “A”, and we don’t think “A” is a cause of “B”.

Can you think of any spurious correlation between green M&Ms and attractiveness? At this particular moment, I can’t (but then again, I may just be thinking about how thin this example is getting).

Finally, you wonder how green M&Ms would change a person so dramatically. You might send them off to the lab and have them analyzed.

Once you’ve answered all these questions, you can decide for yourself if there is hope that green M&Ms will make you so good looking. Then again, maybe you should have some anyway… just in case.

Sociology Selects a Presidential Running Mate

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Karen Sternheimer, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Social Psychology1 Comment

author_karen By Karen Sternheimer

Suppose you were in the unlikely position of choosing a running mate for your presidential bid. The right choice could help you become the most powerful person on earth. Make the wrong one and you risk becoming the pariah of your party. Can sociology help you make your decision?

Social psychologists have long studied how we make important choices like this one, and what factors make for best leaders. Here are a few simple rules based on their research:

  1. Don’t Choose One of Your Friends

It seems counterintuitive, but your friends should be the last pool you draw your running mate from. Here’s why: they tend to think like you and have similar backgrounds, lifestyles, tastes, and beliefs. They even tend to be morning people if you’re a morning person, or night people if you like to stay out late. According to the Matching Hypothesis, they even tend to match our levels of attractiveness. We are also more likely to hang out with people who share similar religious beliefs, emotional style, and sense of humor. 

While all these similarities might make for a good friend, a presidential candidate benefits from a running mate who is different. Typically, a running mate will clip_image002possess a quality, background, or social network that the candidate themselves lack. They might be from a different part of the country, have different constituents, and therefore can bring in different voters.

Aside from the problem of similarities, people tend to be more competitive with their friends than they are with others. Social psychologist Abraham Tesser conducted experiments where pairs of friends played Password (an old game show; a new version is now hosted by Regis Philbin), and had the chance to give their friends clues to help them answer the questions. When subjects were told that doing well was a sign of excellent verbal skills and leadership, friends were actually less helpful than strangers were! How come? Tesser’s Self-evaluation Maintenance Theory suggests that on issues highly relevant to our sense of self, we strive to perform well and save face even more with people who are in our social networks. Our identity is not bound up as much in what strangers think of us, so we are more likely to help them. 

For instance, I might feel less comfortable if friends or family scored higher on a sociology test than I did—that’s supposed to be my thing—compared with trivial pursuit questions about sports (not my thing). But with strangers I might not feel as deflated since they are not regularly in my life to remind me of my shortcomings.

And finally, if you have ever hired one of your friends before, trust me, there is no better way to damage a friendship than to become your friend’s boss. So save your friendship and your candidacy.

  1. Choose Someone You Dislike

I know what you’re thinking: why would anyone want to bestow a great opportunity upon someone that they don’t like? If you have ever worked with someone you didn’t much care for, you know that spending time with someone you don’t like is stressful.

But following the saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” might make a lot of sense. Keep in mind rule #1: your friends often have a similar ways of thinking and the same social networks as you do. A person you dislike frequently has a different perspective on many issues that will add valuable insight to your decision making process. They probably have completely different friends (who you will likely need favors from at some point) and different imagestrengths to draw from.

Oh, and you will probably end up liking them too. Proximity theory suggests that we feel internal pressure to like those we spend time with out of necessity. Another way of thinking about this is what is sometimes called the Ben Franklin Effect. Franklin wrote of his decision to win over a political opponent by asking  him to borrow a valued book. The rival subsequently agreed to his request–when people ask us for favors we often feel social pressure to say yes. After Franklin returned the book with gratitude, the former rival became a lifelong friend.

Why would this happen? Social psychologists explain it this way: it makes little sense to lend a valued possession to someone you dislike, so to reconcile this cognitive dissonance (or internal contradiction) we shift our beliefs to fit our choices. 

You probably do this without realizing it. I had a coworker once who bought a new car. I suspect it was out of his price range, and he continually touted the great value and performance of that automaker, even insisting that his car would appreciate in value over time. 

I seriously doubt that it appreciated in price, but I wasn’t the person he was trying to convince: he was trying to convince himself he had made the right decision. Likewise, choosing someone to be a vice presidential candidate is a big deal, and you might settle any cognitive dissonance by deciding that they’re really not that bad after all. 

  1. Agree to Disagree

Finally, pick someone who sometimes—even often—disagrees with you and is not afraid to speak up about it. If the VP can disagree with you, your other aides are more likely to be honest if they have misgivings about any of your plans. Dissenters make you develop stronger, more reasoned positions. In situations where conformity is encouraged or even demanded, decisions are more likely to be riddled with errors. 

The classic studies by Solomon Asch demonstrate this point. In his conformity experiments he asked subjects to compare lines on cards and tell him which was longer; a very simple task. Unbeknownst to the subjects, Asch instructed some participants to choose a line that was clearly shorter. While not everyone chose the wrong line, a surprisingly large percentage of subjects picked the shorter one. When there was no pressure to conform, nearly everyone made the correct choice.

The combination of conformity and power can have catastrophic effects, when agreeing with the group trumps one’s own intellectual and ethical judgment. Avoiding groupthink-the process of becoming so insulated in the group’s belief system that individual and critical thought virtually disappears–is the best way to make good decisions for the country. Besides, allowing dissent is the hallmark of a strong leader—and a free society.

Supporting Traditional Values

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Relationships, Marriage and Family, Sally Raskoff, Statistics and MethodsLeave a comment

author_sallyBy Sally Raskoff

With the introduction of same-sex marriage in California, we are hearing a lot of media reports and informal discussion on this issue. People are “for” it, people are “against” it, people are doing it, and people are picketing it. Polls have been conducted to show us what people in the state and nation think about this issue.

Here is a sampling of the poll results asking people their opinions on the California Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage:

“Do you approve or disapprove of the recent California State Supreme Court ruling declaring the state’s ban on same-sex marriage as being unconstitutional, thus allowing same-sex couples to marry?”

48% Agree; 46% Disagree (Field Poll, May 7-26 2008, 1052 CA Adult Reg. Voters, 3.2% margin of error)

“The California Supreme Court has struck down the ban on gay marriage in California. Do you agree? Or disagree with the court’s ruling?”

46% Agree; 46% Disagree (Survey USA, May 15 2008, 500 CA Adults, 4.5% margin of error)

“As you may know, last week the California Supreme Court ruled that the California Constitution requires that same-sex couples be given the same right to marry that opposite-sex couples have. Based on what you know, do you approve or disapprove of the Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage in California?”

41% Agree; 52% Disagree (Los Angeles Times/KTLA , May 20-21 2008, 834 CA Adults, 3% margin of error)

These surveys were done at roughly the same time period and only people in California were contacted. Note the variation in the percent agreeing and clip_image002disagreeing, the question wording, and the people whom they contacted. The wording of the questions, along with the types of people they contacted can help explain some of the differing percentages. On the other hand, opinions on this phenomenon may vary for many other reasons, such as religious and political affiliations and personal experience. 

To investigate the impact of how we ask about this phenomenon, let’s look at some of the other questions these polls asked.

When people are asked about their preferred form of partnering for same-sex couples, the results are equally varied although less favorable: 

“Which of the following statements comes closest to your view? ‘Same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry’, or ‘Same-sex couples should be allowed to legally form civil unions, but  not marry’, or ‘Same-sex couples should be not allowed to either marry or form civil unions.’”

35% Marry, 30% Civil Union, 29% Neither (Los Angeles Times/KTLA , May 20-21 2008, 834 CA Adults, 3% margin of error)

“Which of the following most closely resembles your own view about state laws regarding the relationships of two people of the same sex: a) gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to legally marry; b) gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to form civil unions or domestic partnerships, but not legally marry; c) there should be no legal recognition of a gay or lesbian couple’s relationship?”

45% Marry, 32% Civil Union or domestic partnership, 19% No legal recognition (Field Poll , May 7-26 2008, 1052 CA Adult Reg. Voters, 3.2% margin of error)

When asked about legal issues specifically, there is a wider variation in responses:

“Marriages between same-sex couples recognized by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriage.”

40% Valid, 56% not valid (Gallup Poll, May 8-11 2008, 1017 U.S. Adults, 5% margin of error) 

“Do you approve or disapprove of California allowing homosexuals to marry members of their own sex and have regular marriage laws apply to them?”

51% Agree, 42% Disagree (Field Poll, May 7-26 2008, 1052 CA Adults Reg. Voters, 3.2% margin of error) 

“Should the decision to marry be strictly a private decision between the people who want to marry or if the government has the right to pass laws to prohibit or allow such marriages between two people who are of the same sex.”

63% Private, 33% Government (USA Today/Gallup Poll, May 30-Jun 1 2008, 1012 U.S. Adults, 3% margin of error)clip_image002[5]

(Note that the Gallup Poll is of adults in the United States, not just California.)

Some of the studies included questions that asked if the respondent has close family, friends, or co-workers who are gay or lesbian. (One may wonder why they didn’t ask about the respondent’s own sexual orientation.)

“Do you have a friend, family member or co-worker who you know is gay or lesbian, or not?”

69% Yes, 28% No (Los Angeles Times/KTLA, May 20-21 2008, 834 CA Adults, 3% margin of error)

“Do you have any friends or relatives or co-workers who have told you, personally, that they are gay or lesbian”

57% Yes, 42% No (USA Today/Gallup Poll, May 30-Jun 1 2008, 1012 U.S. Adults, 3% margin of error)

When assessing the context of these opinions, one may wonder how these issues resonate with each other. Would having friends or family members or co-workers who are open about their sexuality effect opinions on same-sex marriage? It seems likely, yet few of these polls actually included such a comparison in their findings.

The Pew Research Center for People & the Press issued a report that examined the effect of knowing gay/lesbian people on opinions about same-sex marriage.

They found in their national sample (2,007 adults, Dec 12-Jan 9, 2007) that those who agree that gays should be able to legally marry are more likely to be people who have a close gay friend or family member. image 

Beyond the obvious percentage differences, we might as whether these patterns are statistically significant. Taking into account the margin of error (adding to and subtracting from the percentages listed with each poll) we see that perhaps there is less of a difference in opinion and even more variation in these opinions as measured by these surveys. We should use caution when interpreting these results, since any apparent differences could be due to chance, sampling issues, or other problems. Without a statistical test of significance, perhaps we shouldn’t even be talking about these survey patterns as real!

It will be interesting in the coming months and years to see how opinions change – and perhaps to compare these patterns to those of inter-racial marriage (especially from 1950 to the present time) and in other phenomenon we can measure with Social Distance Scales. Created by Emory S. Bogardus, the Social Distance Scale asks respondents how comfortable they are with particular groups, ranging from comfort as members of one’s family to members of society. Do you think people will become more comfortable with gay marriage in the future?

The Gloucester Pregnancy “Pact”: When Gossip Goes Global

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Immigration, Population, Aging, and Demography, Karen Sternheimer, Relationships, Marriage and Family, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change6 Comments

author_karen By Karen Sternheimer

Once upon a time, in a land not too far away, when teenagers gossiped about one and other the rumors stayed between teens. Not so today.

Combine a lull in a year of presidential election politics, the start of summer, and a principal’s comment to Time magazine, and voila, a rumor that seventeen pregnant girls from Gloucester, Massachusetts all made a pact to get pregnant and raise their children together spreads under the “breaking news” banner. 

I first heard about this when local radio hosts who usually focus on Hollywood gossip talked about the story, how naïve these girls must have been, and how they probably saw the movie Juno and thought it would be cool to get pregnant. (Of course if you saw the movie it would be hard not to notice how painful and isolating it was to be pregnant in high school, even if Juno did have a sharp wit). No no no, a co-host offered, it’s Jamie Lynn Spears’ fault: she got pregnant at seventeen and because she is famous she made it cool. 

The Gloucester story became a staple on the major networks and cable news outlets, complete with commentators offering their explanations: celebrity clip_image002culture that gushes over any pregnancy, naïve teens who can’t understand the consequences of their actions, and whether or not there is too much/not enough birth control available for teens.

Left out of the story…the teens’ thoughts. That is, until one pregnant girl appeared on Good Morning America with the baby’s father. She said she had been taking birth control pills and had not intentionally gotten pregnant, and there was no pact to get pregnant. Instead she told of a pact to help each other out to deal with the challenges that lie ahead—something that indicates an awareness that having a baby was more than just about buying cute little outfits and having baby shower parties.

The principal later stood by his statement to Time, asserting that there really was a pact to get pregnant. I have no inside information on what the pregnant girls may or may not have said to each other. But I have my doubts that the school principal would have been in on this sort of info either.

Pre-pregnancy pact or not, the reality is that many girls did get pregnant. While blaming Juno and Jamie Lynn make for interesting radio talk, sociologists have studied why teens get pregnant, and there are several more compelling explanations. Let’s consider some of them.

  1. Real or perceived lack of opportunity

Yes, it seems counterintuitive, but the less economic opportunity the greater likelihood of early pregnancy. It may appear like an irrational decision, especially since having a child is a pretty expensive endeavor. 

But here’s why lack of opportunity and poverty predicts higher fertility rates in people of all ages (in the U.S. and globally): when people feel as though bearing a child will not jeopardize a clear, concrete, goal they are less likely to take steps to prevent pregnancy from happening. By contrast, when the prospect of attending college seems very likely and a fulfilling, lucrative career will follow, people are more likely to protect those opportunities. clip_image002

When I was in high school, we had counselors cheering us through PSATs, SATs, walking us through the college application process and peers that we saw enter into the nation’s top universities. Most of our parents and other family members went to college and often graduate school in order to become professionals and top earners. Having a baby then would have been a devastating detour away from a path of near-certain upper-middle class status.

By contrast, in some communities counselors are few in number and perhaps only focus on a handful of the top students. I have had my own students tell me of high school counselors that actually dissuaded them from applying to college, suggesting it “wasn’t for them.” Pair that with little information about the all-important tests, how or when to fill out a college application, and not having a family member who ever attended college. Now higher education seems more like a fantasy than reality, especially in communities where they see few upper-middle class professionals in their daily lives. Yes, many people from working-class and low-income communities do go on to college and most do not get pregnant, but the stakes seem lower for them to begin with. Gloucester has traditionally been a working-class fishing community, and it has been struggling economically in recent years. While again this may seem counterintuitive, higher teen pregnancy rates are more likely in a community like this than they are in more affluent areas. 

  1. Overall teen birth rates have been falling

You might have heard about the rise in teen birth rates in 2006. This was a shift from fourteen straight years of decline, but as the Centers for Disease Control(CDC) press release notes, “It’s way too early to know if this is the start of a new trend,” but it of course important to take a look at. 

clip_image003

According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, between 1990 and 2004 the percentage of birth to women fifteen to nineteen dropped from thirty percent of all births to unmarried women to about 23 percent. In 2004 girls under fifteen accounted for .4 percent of all births to unmarried women, down from .9 percent in

1990. By contrast, births to unmarried women in their twenties increased slightly. Between 1990 and 2005 birth rates had fallen by fifty percent for those under fifteen, and by 34 percent for teens fifteen to nineteen. 

The 2006 data tell us that birth rates for those under fifteen continued to decline, and the biggest increase was in births to teens eighteen and nineteen. For fifteen to nineteen-year-olds, the rate rose from 40.5 live births per 1,000 in 2005 to 41.9 births per 1,000 in 2006.

As the CDC notes, “The birth rate for older teens aged 18-19 is 73 births per 1,000 population –- more than three times higher than the rate for teens aged 15-17 clip_image006(22 per 1,000).” As we can see from the table on the right from the CDC, the fifteen- to seventeen-year-old rate was 77 in 1990, and the eighteen- and nineteen-year-old rate was 168, still substantially higher than in 2006. Abortion rates also fell substantially since the late 1980s. The CDC also found that fewer high school students are sexually active now than in the early 1990s: down from 54 percent in 1991 to just under 48 percent in 2007, and that condom use is way up (from 46 to 62 percent). So despite this high-profile case, the news is mostly good.

As you can see, teen pregnancy is a bit more complicated than a funny movie about it or a profile of a young celebrity would suggest. In addition to socio-economic status, dramatic racial/ethnic differences still persist: African American and Latina fertility rates are higher than that of whites, regardless of age. The reasons for this are complex, and probably related to higher poverty rates of African Americans and Latinos in the population.

And finally, what about the boys (and men) involved? When we talk about teen pregnancy, we often leave them out of the discussion. Despite the reports that practically ignored males, the girls did not get themselves pregnant. But girls are still the ones we gossip about.

Colorblindness and the Martin Luther King Jr. Statue

On By econnellIn Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change2 Comments

author_cn By C.N. Le

You might remember my previous post that described criticisms over the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. memorial statue in Washington DC. That initial controversy centered on the fact that the sculptor was not African American, or even American — he was Chinese. Critics charged that King’s legacy was being "outsourced" to China.

Well, a new and different controversy about the statue has emerged — as MSNBC reports, the federal commission that has final approval over the statue now wants the form of the statue changed: the current pose appears too "confrontational" and "totalitarian":

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that mlk1 has recently been pulled down in other countries," commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April. . . .

The centerpiece is to be a 2 1/2 -story sculpture of the civil rights leader carved in a giant chunk of granite. Called the Stone of Hope, it would depict King, standing with his arms folded, looming from the stone. At 28 feet tall, it would be eight feet taller than the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. . . .

Its general design was approved by the seven-member federal commission that year, based on drawings of the Stone of Hope that showed a more subtle image of King, from the waist up, as if he were emerging organically out of the rock, the commission said. . . .

The team wants to hold on "to the power and inspirational image" of the current version, [the memorial’s executive architect] said. The sense of confrontation in the sculpture is not a coincidence. "We see him . . . as a warrior," Chaffers said yesterday. 

"We see him as a warrior for peace . . . not as some pacifist, placid, kind of vanilla, but really a man of great conviction and strength."

It should come as no surprise that such national memorials are inherently prone to historical, cultural, and political disagreements and controversy. We only have to remember the initial storm of criticism surrounding Maya Lin’s design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

In my previous post, I included a picture of the current sculpture. In my opinion, King’s pose in the statue is certainly serious rather than playful. And it is probably true that a lot of statues of totalitarian leaders through the years also strike a "serious" pose. But for me, that is where the similarities end. Dr. King’s pose is a reflection of his legacy — one of the most inspiring and important leaders in modern American history.

As such, I think it is more than appropriate that his pose symbolize the significance and weight of his accomplishments and the entire Civil Rights Movement. Isn’t that one of the main reasons to create this memorial in the first place?

I see this latest controversy about Dr. King’s “warrior” pose as another example of a 21st century American society that is trying to be “colorblind.” As I recently wrote, the dominant discourse in American race relations these days seems to stress the virtues of a "colorblind" Society.

mlk3In theory, it’s great to not treat people differently based on their racial/ethnic identity. But in practice, ignoring people’s racial identity means ignoring their different histories, characteristics, and community needs and instead, relying on the simplistic idea that we now live in a true meritocracy where racism no longer exists and everyone is on a completely level playing field. 

In that context, I am not surprised that the federal commission (perhaps composed predominantly of whites?) found the current pose too "confrontational." Apparently, they do not want the statue to remind people that the Civil Rights Movement was a struggle and that many people actually died in the process of "confronting" racism.

They would rather pretend that everything is perfectly fine now and that as a "colorblind" society, we don’t need to dwell on the past and be reminded that a little over 40 years ago, it was perfectly legal and normal to treat people of color as inferior, subordinate, second-class citizens.

In other words, the commission’s desire that Dr. King’s statue look less "confrontational," reflects a desire to avoid confronting the racism that Dr. King fought against and that still subtly pervades the mind set of American society today.

Like I said, that is what it means to be colorblind these days.

Marketing Ideas and Fears Through Email: Pass Along Hoaxes and Urban Legends

On By econnellIn Janis Prince Inniss, Popular Culture and Consumption, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change1 Comment

author_janis By Janis Prince Inniss

I love email! I have been exchanging emails with one aunt in Toronto since 1995—long before most people I knew had email. But what drives me absolutely nuts are forwarded emails designed to scare us. You know the ones that offer safety tips and supposed health information? Very few are true or correct. So why do so many people forward those emails, propelling the crazy ideas even faster around the world? J0283757

Today, it seems that everybody uses the internet. The reality is that there are great disparities in computer use: Europe, North American and Australia/Oceania are the only areas of the world where internet usage has penetrated about half or more of the population. Within these countries who has computer access varies; for example in the U.S. those who are over age 65, have less education, or are African American are less likely to use the internet.

clip_image002Email is the number one internet activity in which we engage. On a typical day in 2004, 58 million people in the U.S. alone used email. Ever think about how many people receive the same loopy emails that crowd your inbox? In 2001, MIT graduate student Jonah Peretti, sent an email to 12 friends about his attempts to personalize his Nike shoes with the word “sweatshop”. The email made its way around the world and into international media; the story was profiled in large media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and NBC’s Today Show. In less than a three-month period, Peretti received 3,655 inquiries about his email! He got responses from every continent, and his email was translated into several languages. As Peretti writes: “You send an email to 10 friends, and each friend forwards the email to 10 of their friends. If this process continues just 6 steps the message will reach a million people. After 10 steps, the message would hypothetically reach more people than the total population of the earth.”

clip_image005Emails help us maintain social networks and build social capital. They allow us to stay in contact with ever growing networks. As people’s networks grow it becomes increasingly difficult for them to stay in contact, except with the use of emails. With email, people are able to stay in contact with more people, more easily. Forwards are one way that people do this. We can forward one note to many people, therefore staying in touch with that many people all at once.

I really like the terms that researchers have come up with to describe some of this: “viral marketing” and “viral consumers”. Business researchers examine the ways that consumers become marketers of products and services through the use of emails to spread—hence the term viral—information to friends and family. Avoiding these forwards feels a lot like I’m dodging a real virus! They are the marketing of ideas and fears through email. How does this happen? One aspect of this phenomenon is that we do not automatically delete forwarded emails from people we know, although we might do so very easily with notes from strangers. Emails from people we know are more persuasive than those from strangers. Many forwarded emails take a dash of truth and embellish the core with scary details, add names and places, along with an emotional aspect guaranteed to scare us. These urban legends and hoaxes often include details that are possible, but highly unlikely. The details make the claims appear legitimate. 

clip_image007Further, email is quick, and cheap or free. Those passing them along don’t have to write or type anything. They simply hit the forward button. The fact that those forwarding emails mostly don’t write anything means that the messages are passed on unchanged, unlike the “telephone game”. Sometimes there are versions of the same forward, so there is “tampering” at some point. However, because we don’t think of our friends or relatives as note originators, they may appear more authentic. It is not Aunt Mary who said this; it’s some really knowledgeable, albeit unknown, person. We know the immediate sources of these emails—the people who send them to us—and we assume that if someone we know sends a note, it must be okay. People may not realize that they can check the veracity of emails at websites such as Snopes and figure they are doing more good than harm passing on warnings. None of this is a recipe to discontinue the practice of passing along emails. Indeed, researchers found people pass along emails to be altruistic, and to share what seems to be good information regarding warnings about health and safety. There may also be a degree of impression management in passing along forwards; it is a chance to subtly convey to others what we know, and presumably, they do not. J0288908

Global Poverty for Sale

On By econnellIn Class and Stratification, Karen Sternheimer, Popular Culture and Consumption, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change3 Comments

author_karen By Karen Sternheimerinspiration

Do you ever get unsolicited catalogs in the mail? I occasionally get them from “upscale” stores featuring high-priced designer brands.  This makes me laugh because I am an outlet mall shopper at heart, and the thought of spending thousands for a dress or a pair of shoes or a handbag never crosses my mind. I suspect that since many affluent people live in my zip code I am mistaken for one of “them.” 

 

These catalogs usually go right into the recycling bin, but occasionally I give them a look for a good mock now and clip_image004then. A recent catalog seemed ripe for a laugh, with its extra-thick paper attempting to lure me to shop at South Coast Plaza, the largest mall in Orange County, California, which according to Mapquest is exactly 53.15 miles from my home (for point of reference, Rodeo Drive is less than ten miles away, so if I wanted to spend ridiculous amounts of money I could do so much closer to home). 

 

But leafing through the catalog was not so funny. The high-fashion shots featured models in their over-priced designer clothes against the backdrop of global poverty. The motorcycle pictured on the left features a license plate that reveals that the shoot took place in the Dominican Republic, a Caribbean island where approximately thirty percent of the population lives in poverty. In 2000, their per capita income was about $2,326.

 

But poverty is apparently chic, at least when it can add some element of authenticity to the new spring fashion line. As you can see from the ad copy on the right, words like “exotic,” “primitive” and “tribal colors” provide “inspiration” for “new designs.”

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Yes, infant mortality rates in the Dominican are 47 per 1,000 live births, more than seven times the U.S. rate of 6.3 per 1,000, and 2.5 percent of the adult population is HIV positive, but they provide us with “simple shapes” and “vivid scenery.”clip_image008

 

I found this ad for the green Dolce & Gabbana dress particularly interesting. The dress is nice, but the background is what is really interesting: the crumbling shack to the left and people adding “local color” in the far right. While I could not find the price for this particular dress, D & G dresses typically range from $1,500-$2,800 each. In other words, just about the annual income of an average Dominican.

 

The Quiksilver ad on the right offers a more up-close view of the “vivid scenery.” Here we have decidedly unhappy locals leaning against a house resting on crumbling concrete. Note that only the white model smiles. While his outfit probably cost under $150, much less than the D & G dress, his casual attire contrasts with the shabbier clothes of the others in the picture, particularly the boy with holes in his rolled-up jeans.

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In these photos, the people of the Dominican Republic are mere props. Adding to a backdrop of what the ad describes as “exotic,” is the man riding a donkey pulling a cart on the left, and the young boys staring at the model on the right as she poses. 

 

clip_image012Both of the women’s poses are interesting in light of the persistence of the global sex trade in developing nations. According to a 1997 Miami Herald article, prostitution is a particularly bad problem in the Dominican, with its high poverty rate and increase in international tourism. The majority of women working as prostitutes are mothers trying to support their children; and as with other poor countries, children themselves often end up ensnared in global sex tourism.

 

clip_image016Yet the images of children in the ads are highly sentimental, enabling us to overlook some of the serious challenges children in “exotic places” confront. In the Dominican Republic, school children must wear uniforms, like the kids in these pictures, although no funding is provided for them. The girls in the ad on the right in the front are dressed in the American store’s clothes, in contrast with their uniformed peers. All stand in rubble but appear happy. clip_image014

 

The white model to the left, posed as “teacher,” appears pregnant herself, and it is interesting to think about the different life chances that child likely will have compared with children in developing countries. Adding to the “local color,” the book she holds “Incas, Mayas, y Aztecas,” recalls other colonized peoples in a crumbling classroom.

 

clip_image018Finally, nature itself becomes commodified in these ads. This Jimmy Choo handbag, pictured with a hay-thatched hut in the background, retails for $3,050, more than the average annual income of a Dominican citizen. 

 

And this necklace pictured on the right turns being green on its head. While the ad copy shown above details the “vivid scenery” and “colors inspired by nature,” this picture seems to suggest clip_image019that nature itself needs adornment.

 

Advertising may not make us more likely to buy any of this stuff, but it is loaded with interesting sociological components. Here we see issues of the environment, race, socioeconomic status, and globalization embedded into a series of ads. They (probably unintentionally) help us see some of the contrasts between the materialism of the wealthy in industrialized nations and the extreme poor of developing countries. What do you see?

Girls, Boys, and Violence: Who’s Really at Risk?

On By econnellIn Crime and Deviance, Sally Raskoff, Sex and Gender15 Comments

author_sally By Sally Raskoff

I was in a hotel elevator recently, heading down for breakfast. The doors opened on a floor and there were two women and about eight girls who looked to be around the ages of seven or eight. To the side was a man who gestured them to enter the elevator and follow them in. The women declined his offer and gestured for him to go ahead and one said that they would catch the next elevator. He continued to gesture them towards the elevator, the women did their best to stop the girls from entering and said very politely to him, “No, you go ahead.” 

Eventually he laughed and said as he continued to gesture, “Hey, I’m not one of those, I’m not one of those guys on the post office wall, I’m OK! Really, I’m an OK guy!” 

When he said this, the girls seemed oblivious to his meaning but the women recoiled and put their arms around the girls and pulled them back while the one woman said louder and with emphasis, “No, really, you go ahead, we’re fine.”

He got on the elevator, the group of girls did not, and we rode down to the ground floor. 

I was a bit creeped out by his response and turned to look out the elevator windows and away from him. Later I asked my spouse, who was with me for that exchange, if he had noticed it and thought anything about it. He hadn’t really paid attention to the content of the interaction, since he was ready to get breakfast and didn’t care who got on the elevator as long as someone did! (He’s not a sociologist although he has developed a sociological imagination from clip_image002living with me for the last 24 years!)

Later at the family gathering we were attending, I asked my relatives their opinion about the exchange. All the women were as appalled as I was at the man’s comments. 

Our reactions had strong commonalities: why did the man choose to define himself as a non-predator? Why did his mind go there so fast when there were a myriad of other things he could have said? And, why was he laughing about such a premise, when his comments had made the women visibly uncomfortable?

In our society, we socialize women to be aware of threats, especially from strangers. Girls are kept closer than boys when they are playing outside. Women don’t tend to go out alone at night, and there are a host of other protective behaviors that constrain what they do on a daily basis. We are taught these things to stay safe. In general, men don’t learn these things and they don’t grow up thinking about how safe they are at any given moment.

Whether or not there are real threats, girls and women often assume that we must not trust strangers and not expose ourselves to outside dangers, especially when we’re young.

Let’s look at the data on violence and assault to see if these protective behaviors are useful for women and girls. The National Violence against Women Survey, published in 2000 and sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, validates what we know from other studies on these issues.

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In Exhibit 12, from the NIJ/CDC study, among those victimized as a minor, physical assault by a caretaker is the most likely threat for both gender groups while rape (by any perpetrator) is slightly more likely for women compared to men. This data show that 40% of women and 53.8% of men have been physically assaulted by a caretaker before they were eighteen; 9% of women and 1.9% of men were raped before they were eighteen.

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Exhibit 14 illustrates that relatives and acquaintances are the most likely perpetrator of rape for both men and women prior to the age of eighteen. Stranger rape accounts for a smaller portion of rapes for females than for males.

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If you’re wondering about the age distribution of rape victims, Exhibit 13 shows us that 21.6% of female victims and 48.0% of male victims are less than 12 years old. Note how the pattern is different for females and males: rape becomes less likely for males as they get older while for females, there is a more gradual distribution and the most prevalent ages are 12-17 years old and 18-24. 

clip_image008Exhibit 21 illustrates the adult victimization types and shows that, compared to childhood and adolescence, the rates of physical assault decline for both men and women while the stalking threat increases along with the rape risk for men – and only slightly for women. 

If our main question is the source of the threat and from whom should be protecting ourselves, let’s take one more look at the data: what are the victim-perpetrator relationship patterns for adults?

Exhibit 27 shows that once we are adults, the source of the greatest threat changes– although the most radical change is for men. Adult males are much more likely to be raped or assaulted by strangers while women’s threat comes primarily from their intimate partners.

clip_image010Considering this data, do we socialize men and women appropriately? 

If we socialize girls and women to suspect strangers and people outside their families, does that work effectively to protect them since most of the real threat comes from people they know?

If we socialize boys and men to assume they are safe from outside threats, are they adequately prepared to protect themselves in childhood and adolescence from people they know and from strangers when they are adults? 

In any case, should we be socializing people at all to be fearful of attack? If we do that consistently, what might happen to the fabric of our society? Will we retreat from social life, as we fear people we know and those we don’t?

It is not effective to teach people to fear those who are less threatening and to trust those who could be a threat, but this is exactly what we socialize women to do. It is also not effective to teach people they are not at risk and can do just about anything they want, yet this is how we socialize men. 

If you were crafting a social policy and educational plan to effectively reduce violent behavior, what would you focus on?

The Economics of Selling Drugs

On By econnellIn Class and Stratification, Crime and Deviance3 Comments

author_brad By Bradley Wright

One of the joys of doing social research is the constant exposure to empirical data. I can’t count the number of times that I was sure that the world worked in one way only to be corrected by data (and sometimes my research corrects others’ misperceptions).

Here’s a great example of how actual data about a topic can correct prevailing misconceptions. I think that most people in society would view drug dealing as a fairly lucrative business. Illegal drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, are bought from growers and resold at a substantial mark-up. Somebody has to be making lots of money, no? Stories of drug busts often emphasize the enormous amounts of money involved. In movies and television, drug dealers usually seem to live on yachts and have private airplanes and waiting, chauffeured cars. 

Well, it turns out that once social scientists actually measured how much money that drug dealers were making, the results suggested that most dealers work for close to minimum wage. That’s right—that make about as much money selling drugs as if they were working at McDonalds or at the mall.

The best known study of the drug dealers’ finances was conducted by Levitt and Venkatesh. While they published it as an academic article, it is best known from a chapter in their best-selling book Freakonomics. What’s unique about this research is its data. Venkatesh, a sociologist, spent years living with a crack-dealing gang in Chicago.

(Check out the video clip of Venkatesh describing some of his work on the right.)

In the process of getting to know the gang members, Venkatesh was given financial records covering four years of the gang’s activities. These were the accounting books of the gang—the amount of drugs sold, expenses, and the pay given to each member of the gang. This remarkable data gave insight to the inside workings of a drug-dealing street gang.

The data indicated that the gang received its money from selling drugs, collecting dues from its members, and extorting individuals and companies doing business in the gang’s turf. The majority of money came from selling drugs. The gang’s expenses went to buying the drugs, hiring mercenary fighters, giving money to the gang hierarchy, paying for funerals for its members, buying weapons, and paying its members.

The picture that emerged from the wage data was one very similar to a conventional corporation. A few members made lots of money, but the majority made barely enough to live on; in fact, some of the dealers had to live with their mothers because they couldn’t afford to move out. The actual hourly wage earned by a gang’s foot soldier—the person on the street making the sales—ranged from $2.50 to $7.10 an hour (in 1995 dollars). That’s not much money at all. The gang leaders or “officers” did much better. They earned from $32 to $97 dollars an hour. These are data for one local gang. The central gang, which oversaw the local gangs much like a company would oversee its franchises, made substantially more money. As with a regular, legal corporation, the low-level workers of the gang did most of the work but the high-level members received most the pay. 

An interesting question arises from these data: Why do foot soldiers sell drugs for so little money? Any job has its potential costs—a worker at McDonalds might get sore feet, occasional grease burns, and probably some weight gain—but selling drugs is extraordinarily dangerous. The death rates in Venkatesh and Levitt’s sample was 7% annually. That means that, on average, about 1 in 14 gang members was killed. Why would anyone risk so much for so little?

A standard sociological answer would hold that the gang members had few opportunities for legitimate wages. In addition, the sample members spoke of being foot soldiers as a way of stepping up to becoming an officer of the gang and make much better money. Just as a college student might work in the mail room of a large corporation, in order to start climbing the ladder, these gang members started with selling drugs on the street for near minimum wage pay.

Despite the considerably different cultural context between gangs and corporate America, it seems that they share a lot of similarities. Both have hierarchical pay scales that represent inequality, and both have individuals willing to suffer through the lower ranks in hopes of getting to the higher ranks.

Who would have thought? 

Want to learn more? Here’s a presentation by Steven Levitt about this research.