Somewhere Over the Rainbow? Post-Racial & Pan-Racial Politics in the Age of Obama

Daedalus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taeku Lee
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
White House ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Black President ◽  
Shed Light

After Barack Obama's historic election, media reports overwhelmingly credited white independents with setting aside decades of racially polarized voting to send the nation's first black president to the White House. Lee looks more closely to reveal that Obama owes a greater debt to non-white voters (partisan and nonpartisan) than to white independents. As more people of color – including immigrant and second-generation Latinos and Asian Americans – join the ranks of nonpartisan voters, the concept of pan-racialism can shed light on how individuals of a shared demographic category come to engage, politically, as a group. The age of Obama calls not for the celebration of a post-racial politics, but rather for a collective struggle to build a pan-racial politics: that is, a politics of mutual recognition, inclusion, and moral partiality between all racial and ethnic groups.

“Over-zealous Parents, Over-programmed Families”: Asian Americans, Academic Achievement, and White Supremacy

2021 ◽  
pp. 233264922110184
Author(s):  
Pawan Dhingra
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
White Educators ◽  
Asian American Students ◽  
American Students ◽  
High Achieving ◽  
K 12

Discussions of white supremacy focus on patterns of whites’ stature over people of color across institutions. When a minority group achieves more than whites, it is not studied through the lens of white supremacy. For example, arguments of white supremacy in K-12 schools focus on the disfranchisement of African Americans and Latinxs. Discussions of high-achieving Asian American students have not been framed as such and, in fact, can be used to argue against the existence of white privilege. This article explains why this conception is false. White supremacy can be active even when people of color achieve more than whites. Drawing from interviews and observations of mostly white educators in Boston suburbs that have a significant presence of Asian American students, I demonstrate that even when Asian Americans outcompete whites in schools, white supremacy is active through two means. First, Asian Americans are applauded in ways that fit a model minority stereotype and frame other groups as not working hard enough. Second and more significantly, Asian Americans encounter anti-Asian stereotypes and are told to assimilate into the model of white educators. This treatment is institutionalized within the school system through educators’ practices and attitudes. These findings somewhat support but mostly contrast the notion of “honorary whiteness,” for they show that high-achieving minorities are not just tools of white supremacy toward other people of color but also targets of it themselves. Understanding how high-achieving minorities experience institutionalized racism demonstrates the far reach of white supremacy.

scholarly journals Ethnolinguistic Favoritism in African Politics

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Dickens
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Continuous Measure ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Group I ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
High Level ◽  
Shed Light

African political leaders have a tendency to favor members of their own ethnic group. Yet for all other ethnic groups in a country, it is unclear whether having a similar ethnicity to the leader is beneficial. To shed light on this issue, I use a continuous measure of linguistic similarity to quantify the ethnic similarity of a leader to all ethnic groups in a country. Combined with panel data on 163 ethnic groups partitioned across 35 sub-Saharan countries, I use within-group time variation in similarity that results from a partitioned group's concurrent exposure to multiple national leaders. Findings show that ethnic favoritism is more widespread than previously believed: in addition to evidence of coethnic favoritism, I document evidence of non-coethnic favoritism that typically goes undetected in the absence of a continuous measure of similarity. I also find that patronage tends to be targeted toward ethnic regions rather than individuals of a particular ethnic group. I relate these results to the literature on coalition building and provide evidence that ethnicity is one of the guiding principles behind high-level government appointments. (JEL D72, J15, O15, O17, Z13)

Latinizing Fenway Park: A Cultural Critique of the Boston Red Sox, Their Fans, and the Media

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Klein
Keyword(s):  
People Of Color ◽  
Cultural Critique ◽  
Media Content Analysis ◽  
Racial Tolerance ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
First Time ◽  
Fenway Park ◽  
Boston Red Sox

This study examines racial tolerance through the intersection of the media, fans, and the Boston Red Sox. Through the 1998 season Red Sox home games in which Dominican Pedro Martinez pitched attracted large numbers of Latinos. This marked the first time that large numbers of people of color regularly attended Fenway Park. Media reports simultaneously promoted both an awareness of this cultural phenomenon and portrayed it as widely applauded. In presenting a story of Boston’s “embracing the ace,” the media reports also wound up pushing a view of widespread approval of the new Latino presence both in Fenway and society at large. This study sought to compare the impressions of widespread exuberance for Martinez and the Dominicans at the Park with actual interviews of those Anglos at the Park. It also sought to examine what motivated the Dominicans to attend in such large numbers and to so publicly celebrate their identity. The results showed that Anglos held a fractured view about Dominicans: a very positive view of Pedro Martinez as a Dominican but a fairly evenly split view of Dominicans in general. For their part, Dominicans were unconcerned with what Anglos thought and came to the game only to lend support to their Latino hero, as well as bask in his reflected glow. One methodological conclusion arrived at is that media content analysis must be cross checked against some sort of data and must not be assumed to accurately reflect social reality.

scholarly journals Ethnic Differences in Perceptions of Mental Illness: Examining Intergroup Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Sara Aringer ◽  
Jimmy Calanchini
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Factor Analyses ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Exploratory Factor Analyses ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Racial Ethnic

People with mental illness are often stereotyped as dangerous, unstable, or unreliable, and these stereotypes perpetuate prejudice against those who are already vulnerable. However, many of these stereotypes are Eurocentric due to a lack of diversity within psychology. The present, preregistered research investigates whether depictions of mental illness are idiosyncratic to various racial/ethnic groups, or if these perceptions generalize across groups. Participants reported their endorsement of a series of mental illness descriptions (e.g., “This person spontaneously explodes in outbursts of anger”) as they apply to African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic/Latinxs, Caucasians, as well as to individuals with unspecified race/ethnicity. Exploratory factor analyses of these descriptions revealed three factors that describe mentally ill people -- ashamed, self-destructive, irresponsible -- and participants’ perceptions of mental illness on these three factors varied by racial/ethnic groups. Participants rated Asian Americans as more ashamed, but less self-destructive and irresponsible than other racial/ethnic groups. Conversely, participants rated Caucasians as less ashamed, but more self-destructive and irresponsible than other racial/ethnic groups. Perceptions of mental illness did not differ between Hispanic/Latinxs and African Americans. Additional analyses indicate that, compared to Caucasian participants, non-Caucasian participants rated mentally ill members of their ingroup as more ashamed but less self-destructive and irresponsible. This research indicates that participants from different racial/ethnic groups vary in the extent to which they ascribe different facets of mental illness to their ingroup versus outgroups. Implications for Eurocentric versus more diverse perceptions of mental illness are discussed.

scholarly journals Altai in the light of the cult of the mountain and sky: to the problem of the origin of the toponym

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 20-23
Author(s):  
V. E. Vasiliev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Close Similarity ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Working Hypothesis ◽  
The Common ◽  
Sacred Mountain ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Shed Light

The article suggests a working hypothesis that the root of the toponym «Altai” is the semantics of the sacred mountain, which at the tribal, tribal, and then national-ethnic level symbolizes the sacred center of the universe, associated with the cults of ancestors and deities. The ethnographic materials of T. D. Dyrenkova testify to the close connection of the cult of mountains with the spirits-ancestors of shamans, who acted as defenders of the genus and tribe of the Turks of the Altai-Sayan highlands. This information, in our opinion, is confirmed by etymological experience of comparisons of Turkic-Mongol and partly tunguso-Manchu terms. The semantic unity or close similarity of the concepts of mountain, ancestors and sky can shed light on the archaic beliefs of the Turkic ethnic groups, whose shamanism dates back to the common Altaic layer of culture. Thus, it can be assumed that the cult of the sacred Altai existed in the Neolithic past, even before the bronze age and the culture of the early nomads of the Scytho-Saka world.

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