snobby white chicks

This post was contributed by Nari Kim from this fall's introductory sociology class. This post was later cross-posted to The Sociological Cinema.

In this clip from the movie White Chicks, FBI agents, Kevin and Marcus (played by Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans), pick up the Vandergeld twins whom they are to supposed to protect. The sisters (played by Brittany Daniel and Jaime KIng) are white, young, and rich, as shown through their consumption of expensive goods such as private jet and designer clothes. Upon meeting, one sister demeans the agents by declaring “we already gave to the United Negro Fund.” Taken a bit back, the agents explain that they are supposed to drive them to their destination and protect them while there. In response, the women throw their bags at the agents and order them to clean up their dog's mess. As they get situated in the car, Marcus is surprised to discover that he is relegated to the cargo area as his seat is reserved for the dog. While driving, the women further bask in their privilege, noting that this isn't just “a” week, but “the” week at the Hamptons, and that only the "hottest of the hottest" (i.e., themselves) will be on the cover of the local magazine, detailing the lives of the rich and famous. In all, the twins make no effort to disguise their assumption of superiority to the agents by virtue of race and class. This clip would serve to humorously introduce any of several important stratification-relevant concepts, including status inequality, white privilege, and conspicuous consumption. 

gentrification in east Austin

This post was contributed by Rene Gonzalez from this fall's undergrad social stratification class. This post was later cross-posted to The Sociological Cinema.

Gentrification radically transformed my neighborhood. Growing up in and around east Austin, I have experienced first-hand the changes that can occur within an area over a mere decade. As a child, I visited family members throughout east Austin. All of us are Latino, and everybody not only knew everyone else, but also where they lived. Now as the city rapidly grows, many in my family are being forced by rising property taxes to sell their homes. These homes are primarily being bought up by young, affluent, white real-estate developers, who are scrapping such dwellings and doing complete renovations in order to attract young, affluent, white occupants. 

I have seen Boyz N the Hood many times, but the scene featured above really stood out to me after our class discussion. Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne) takes his son, Trey, and a friend to a nearby neighborhood where a billboard has just been put up offering to buy-up homes. Furious explains the specifics of how the property values in a neighborhood are brought down, while the land is bought out and sold for big profit. He also notes that this could be prevented if residents maintained solidarity by retaining black ownership.

Placing gentrification into a larger historical context, this clip from the Broadway play, Clybourne Park  features a mix of humorous scenes that collectively illustrate salient attitudes and behaviors accompanying neighborhood succession over time: residential areas that were once white and middle class in composition transformed through white flight into those with predominately black working-class and poor populations, and then ultimately with gentrification, back into white upscale neighborhoods. See also this recent piece featuring Spike Lee, arguing that gentrification reveals government racism in the provision of far better public facilities and services to an area once it is gentrified. 

life cycles of inequity series

Colorlines has recently distributed a series of short docs examining the consequences of the intersection of structure and culture on the lives of young black men.

According to series editor, Kai Wright:
Each month, from May to November, we are publishing a package of content focused on a life stage or event that for black men in the United States is uniquely confined by broad, societal inequities.  We certainly won’t cover the breadth of the black male experience; we won’t even exhaust the range of inequities that impact our lives. Rather, we’ve focused our efforts primarily on places where existing data shows a profound relationship between poor outcomes and being a black man. We hope simply to join a broader dialogue about these inequities, and help inform a public conversation about solutions.  

from Jose to Joe = job search success

The following post was contributed by Laurie Gleason, student in my Fall, 2014 Social Stratification class.                                               
With the ongoing concern over illegal immigration, Hispanics still find themselves routinely overlooked for decent jobs, regardless of their citizenship status. Many Americans feel immigrants serve a "worthwhile" purpose by taking unskilled labor positions like field work or housekeeping--backbreaking, under-compensated work which most Americans feel is beneath them.

Cate Matthews in a recent Huffington Post article describes José Zamora's futile attempts to obtain gainful employment until he Americanized his name. As José, he claims he did not receive a single inquiry, despite placing as many as 100 applications per day. However, "Joe," sporting the same résumé, received job offers from the exact same companies shortly after he applied. 

In this modern age, where applications are submitted online, does a person's name become the simple key for unlocking the door to a decent job? The video "Jose vs. Joe" clearly relates to the larger question of the continuing role of status ascription as critical for achievement in societies, such as ours, that purport to be meritocracies. 

Students interested in exploring this issue further should address research that has been done in this area, such as the Bertrand and Mullainathan study conducted over a decade ago that is now a classic.   

black bruin

racial profiling: stop and frisk

See the full infographic at http://www.vera.org/stop-and-frisk-study-infographic

The Vera Institute has recently published a study on stop and frisk practices in New York City based on survey interviews with about 500 young adults. The full report can be downloaded at 

http://www.vera.org/pubs/special/stop-and-frisk-reports

An excellent companion to any treatment of racial profiling is the short video, Stigma, produced in 2011 by the Yale Law School Visual Law Project. 

as black as we wish to be

Hear a fascinating audio documentary about a county in Ohio where racial identity has been historically defined by place of residence and exceptionally ambiguous for generations. This State of the Re:Union story is comprised of interviews about local racial formation practices and attitudes, where physical features and ethnic identity often do not match. The interviews are set within a historical narrative on racism within the locale. In this area
"...residents have shared the common bond of identifying as African-American despite the fact that they look white. Racial lines have been blurred to invisibility, and people inside the same family can vehemently disagree about whether they are black or white. It can be tense and confusing. As a result, everyone’s choosing: Am I black? Am I mixed race? Or, am I white?"

color grading

This blog post was contributed by Tichana Griffith, student in Miller's SOC 3013 class. 

I wanted to share this video with the class because the topic was not touched on a lot over the semester. The video addresses skin-color preferences, among a number of concerns related to racial identity. Despite the late-1960's Black Power claim that "black is beautiful," even today black teen girls still seem to believe that light skin is better than dark skin. This idea appears to have been prevalent since slavery when lighter blacks were given preference and permitted to work inside slave-owners' dwellings, while those who were darker remained outside to toil at hard labor in the fields. This video brings me to question actual changes in racial identity. Do we black Americans today really see our blackness in ways that radically oppose traditional racist definitions, or do we just think we do?

For a similar discussion about skin-color preference, see this clip from Dark Girls.

racist code-speak

In this Sociological Images post, Jason Eastman provides an example of Bonilla-Silva's contention that overt racist speech is no longer socially acceptable in public discourse, and therefore racist ideas are now generally expressed in coded terms.  In this segment from John Stewart's Daily Show, guest Larry Wilmore uses a mashup of Newt Gingrich public pronouncements about the poor and poverty to suggest that they are indeed racially targeted.

An abbreviated version is cross-posted at The Sociological Cinema.
      

poverty and progress in the Mississippi delta

This BBC Altered States magazine article and video examine social change since the civil rights era in the delta region of Mississippi. Although terrorism and racial oppression in general are no longer blatant, economic conditions remain bleak as dwindling job opportunities and poverty characterize its black population.