Perceptions of Racial Slurs Used by Black Individuals Toward White Individuals: Derogation or Affiliation?

Research suggests that racial slurs may be “reclaimed” by the targeted group to convey affiliation rather than derogation. Although it is most common in intragroup uses (e.g., “nigga” by a Black individual toward another Black individual), intergroup examples of slur reappropriation (e.g., “nigga” by a Black individual toward a White individual) are also common. However, majority and minority group members’ perceptions of intergroup slur reappropriation remain untested. We examined White (Study 1) and Black (Study 2) individuals’ perceptions of the reappropriated terms, “nigga” and “nigger” compared with a control term chosen to be a non-race-related, neutral term (“buddy”), a nonracial derogative term (“asshole”) and a White racial slur (“cracker”) used by a Black individual toward a White individual. We found that the intergroup use of reappropriated slurs was perceived quite positively by both White and Black individuals. Our findings have important implications for research on intergroup relations and the reappropriation of slurs.

Behavioral and neural evidence for an evaluative bias against other people’s mundane interracial encounters

Evaluating other people’s social encounters from a third-person perspective is an ubiquitous activity of daily life. Yet little is known about how these evaluations are affected by racial bias. To overcome this empirical lacuna, two experiments were conducted. The first experiment used evaluative priming to show that both Black (n = 44) and White Americans (n = 44) assess the same mundane encounters (e.g. two people chatting) less favorably when they involve a Black and a White individual rather than two Black or two White individuals. The second experiment used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate that both Black (n = 46) and White Americans (n = 42) respond with reduced social reward processing (i.e. lower activity in the ventral striatum) and enhanced mentalizing (e.g. higher activity in the bilateral temporal–parietal junction) toward so-called cross-race relative to same-race encounters. By combining unobtrusive measures from social psychology and social neuroscience, this work demonstrates that racial bias can affect impression formation even at the level of the dyad.

Held in Checks: Du Bois, Johnson, and the Figurative Work of Financial Forms

This essay investigates the personal check as it appears in two novels, W. E. B. Du Bois's The Quest of the Silver Fleece and James Weldon Johnson's he Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. In these novels, checks move money between a wealthy white individual and an African American; a close analysis of the check's form and function shows how Du Bois and Johnson revise mid-nineteenth-century connections among feeling, money, and social change by exploiting, rather than challenging, the abstraction of this financial form. The checks in Du Bois and Johnson present the logic of reparations. In doing so, the checks make a material difference in the lives of black beneficiaries, tying them to the flow of money made possible by finance capitalism, a flow from which most African Americans were excluded. At the same time, the check's figuration of the drawer's emotional motivations salvages the potential for progressive individual actions in those whose self-interest limits their willingness to act decisively for the benefit of others.

Prevalence of the Short Face Pattern in Individuals of Bauru-Brazil

Aim: This study aimed at assessing the prevalence and severity of short face pattern in ethnically different individuals. Material and Methods: The sample comprised 4,409 Brazilians (2,192 females and 2,217 males), with a mean age of 13 years, enrolled in secondary schools in the municipality of Bauru. The sample inclusion criteria involved subjects with vertically impaired facial relationship based on excessive lip compression, when standing at natural head position, with the lips at rest. Once short face syndrome had been identified, the individuals were classified into three severity subtypes: mild, moderate, and severe. The sample was then stratified by ethnic background as White (Caucasoid), Black (African descent), Brown (mixed Caucasian–African descent), Yellow (Asian descent), and Brazilian Indian (Native Brazilian descent), using the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics classification. The chi-square test at the 5% significance level was used to compare frequency ratios of individuals with vertically impaired facial relationships and across different ethnicities, according to severity. Results: The prevalence of short face pattern was 3.15%, as 1.11%, 1.99%, and 0.02% considered mild, moderate and severe subtypes, respectively. The severe subtype was rare (0.02%) and found only in one White individual. The White group had the highest relative frequency (45.53%) of the moderate subtype, followed by Brown individuals (43.40%). In the mild subtype, Yellow (68.08%) and White (62.21%) individuals showed similar and higher relative frequency values. Conclusion: The prevalence of short face pattern was 3.15%, and White individuals had the highest prevalence.

Differences in Credit Card Use Between White and Hispanic Households

This study uses the 2013 U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances dataset to investigate differences in credit card use between Hispanic and White households. The sample includes 3,784 households, with 3,165 households headed by a White individual and 619 households headed by a Hispanic individual. The results show that the factors related to credit card use differ for the two groups. Risk tolerance, marital status, and education are significant in explaining credit card use for White, but not Hispanic, households. Income is significant in explaining credit card use among Hispanic, but not White, households. When accounting for race/ethnicity only through a dummy variable, researchers may be missing a part of the puzzle in exploring racial/ethnic disparities in financial well-being.

Augustine, Boethius and the Fortune Verses of Thomas More

William J. Bouwsma influentially argued, in 1975, that “[t]he two ideological poles between which Renaissance humanism oscillated may be roughly labelled ‘Stoicism’ and ‘Augustinianism.’” He suggested that white individual humanists might, at different times, favour some version of one over some version of the other, their intellectual allegiances were nonetheless fundamentally divided between the two. An unacknowledged possibility in Bouwsma’s essay is that humanist texts might interplay the two—knowingly or unselfconsciously. Stoical elements and Augustinianism can be seen to co-exist in Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy, a notable precedent, perhaps. Further, they can be seen to co-exist in More’s Fortune Verses, which are at once a sophisticated contribution to the literature of Fortune and an example (most likely a self-conscious one) of Stoicism’s literary cohabitation with Augustinianism.

An Unobtrusive Measure of Prejudice toward Negroes under Differing Durations of Speech

This study investigated the relationship between the voting behavior of naive white Ss toward a Negro or white individual in a small group discussion when the Negro or white individual talked more than anyone else in the group or did not speak. 64 white female college students were divided into 32 experimental groups engaging in one of two experimental conditions. Groups in one condition consisted of two Ss and one Negro confederate (unknown to Ss). The other condition contained groups composed of two Ss and one white confederate (also unknown to Ss). They solved 20 relatively unstructured concept-formation problems, discussed their solutions, and then voted for the person that they thought had the most insight into the problem. 32 other female college students served in a control condition in which 16 groups, consisting of two Ss and a Negro confederate each, solved concept-formation problems; but no talking was permitted. Results showed that, in the silent control condition, there was no significant difference in Ss' voting behavior where each S voted between the Negro confederate and the other white S. In the high-talk experimental condition, however, the Negro confederates received significantly fewer votes than did the white confederates in their respective groups. It was concluded that the number of votes obtained by an individual depends, to a large extent, on that individual's race when engaged in high verbal interaction but not when engaged in a non-speaking situation.