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Picture this. Walking down 135th street in Harlem, you spot a park in the distance. As you walk closer, you hear a basketball bouncing and kids yelling. It’s a small, outdoor court, well-maintained with fresh paint and a sturdy chain-link fence surrounding it. The ball is constantly in motion, being passed, dribbled, and shot from all angles. As the game progresses, the excitement draws in more kids around the court.
New York City is synonymous with basketball. From Harlem to Brooklyn, basketball has been a part of the city’s culture for decades. But why has basketball become such a staple of African American culture in cities? The answer is complex, but the roots of its popularity among minority groups stem from discriminatory practices like redlining and segregation.
“Basketball was originally invented as a white man’s game”
– Micheal Novack, The Joy of Sports (1946)
Basketball was founded in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian physical education instructor seeking a way to keep his students active. By the early 1900s, it was being played in colleges and high schools across the nation. Colleges like Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Princeton began to play games against each other as early as 1901. The first professional basketball league, the National Basketball League (NBL), was founded in 1937. It was later merged with the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to form the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1949.
For the first 30 years, the majority of participants at the collegiate and professional level were white, as black participants were barred from playing. The first black collegiate player, George Gregory Jr, did not appear until 1928. In the 1949-1950 season Chuck Cooper, Nathaniel Clifton, and Earl Lloyd became the first black players to play professional basketball, breaking the color barrier. Basketball at this time was played mostly at community centers like YMCAs, where white owners refused membership to black people. If black people wanted to play basketball, they would need to build their own.
Redlining and other forms of economic discrimination depressed resources in minority neighborhoods. Redlining is an exclusionary practice that began in 1934 with the implementation of the National Housing Act (NHA). The NHA created government programs such as the Federal Housing Association (FHA) and the HomeOwner Loan Corporation (HOLC) with the intent to improve the housing market. It intended to promote homeownership by providing mortgage insurance to lenders, which would make it easier for people to obtain loans to buy homes. While the FHA improved housing conditions for White people, this support largely excluded black people.
The HOLC wrote dozens of reports to banks which categorized areas with large populations of black residents as “risky” for investors, driving down their property values and scaring off many potential investors. The FHA then used these maps to guide its lending policies, which meant refusing federally insured housing loans for minorities. In addition to this, as more black people began moving to white neighborhoods in northern cities in efforts to escape Jim Crow segregation, white people began to create suburbs outside the city to escape the influx of black people. As more white homeowners fled to the suburbs, the remaining ones agreed to sell their homes at deeper discounts, fearful of falling prices.
Economic inequality caused by redlining practices also created disparities in the types of sports played by the kids in poorer neighborhoods. Redlined neighborhoods have less green space and have smaller parks on average. According to an analysis by the Trust for Public Land, the average park size is 6.4 acres in poor neighborhoods, compared with 14 acres in wealthy neighborhoods in New York City.
In addition to available parks, minority children gravitated toward basketball because of the cost of entry barriers that other sports carried. In order to play baseball at a high level, you need money to pay for equipment and travel teams. Basketball did not carry this prerequisite. David C Ogden, a professor at the University of Nebraska who studied race and sport dynamics, wrote that the most common reasons for the lack of racial diversity were the paucity of baseball facilities in Black neighborhoods, and the cost of playing select baseball. As a result:
“More than two-thirds of the 27 coaches said that African-American youth prefer to spend their time on the basketball court rather than on the diamond”
Ogden (2003)
Basketball’s popularity among minority communities flourished because of the development of black YMCA’s. The Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn would be the first fully independent Black basketball team in America in 1907. As more and more YMCA’s appeared in major cities, basketball spread in similar fashion.
Edwin Bancroft Henderson, an educator working in Washington D.C., introduced the game of basketball to the Black community. Henderson learned the game during summer sessions at Harvard University, and then introduced the game to young Black men in the Wash. D.C. area. Soon the game would be played across the east coast of the United States, mainly in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Basketball also became a means for economic upward mobility. The Harlem Globetrotters formed in 1926 and became the most renowned basketball team for black basketball players. For black basketball players, the globetrotters provided the best and only way to make a living while playing basketball.
Now, basketball is an important part of NYC culture, regardless of race. Black participation in basketball has soared in the decades after segregation, and has especially soared in NYC. Every summer, minority communities gather for basketball tournaments held in NYC parks, some that even draw national attention. Nike sponsored “NY vs NY” and Slam magazine’s Summer Classic feature the top ranked high school players and have thousands of fans watching every summer. They both have been held in Dyckman park in Manhattan for the past 5 years.
Significant changes have occurred in professional demographics as well. In contrast to 1950, 75 % of the NBA is black, with a bunch of black athletes playing abroad in leagues all over the world. Segregation and redlining stifled black participation in basketball in its early history, but the economic conditions it fostered helped basketball become an enduring staple of the community for generations.
Sharif Nelson ‘26 is a student at Hamilton College studying economics.
Additional Resources:
Aaronson, D., Faber, J., Hartley, D., Mazumder, B., & Sharkey, P. (2020). The Long-Run Effects of the 1930s HOLC “Redlining” Maps on Place-Based Measures of Economic Opportunity and Socioeconomic Success. The Effects of the 1930s HOLC “Redlining” Maps. https://doi.org/10.21033/wp-2020-33
Bowen, F. (2023, April 7). In its early years, NBA blocked black players. The Washington Post. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/in-nbas-early-years-black-players-werent-welcome/2017/02/15/664aa92e-f1fc-11e6-b9c9-e83fce42fb61_story.html
Centopani, P. (2020, February 24). The makings of basketball mecca: Why it will always be New York. FanSided. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://fansided.com/2020/02/24/makings-basketball-mecca-will-always-new-york/
Domke, M. (2011). Into the vertical: Basketball, urbanization, and African American … Into the Vertical: Basketball, Urbanization, and African American Culture in Early- Twentieth-Century America. Retrieved March 31, 2023, from http://www.aspeers.com/sites/default/files/pdf/domke.pdf
Gay, C. (2022, January 13). The black fives: A history of the era that led to the NBA’s racial integration. Sporting News Canada. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.sportingnews.com/ca/nba/news/the-black-fives-a-history-of-the-era-that-led-to-the-nbas-racial-integration/8fennuvt00hl1odmregcrbbtj
Gorey, J. (2022, July 25). How “White flight” segregated American cities and Suburbs. Apartment Therapy. Retrieved April 30, 2023, from https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/white-flight-2-36805862
Hunt, M. (2022, October 11). What is the National Housing Act? Bankrate. Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/the-national-housing-act/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20National%20Housing%20Act%20(NHA)%3F,Loan%20Insurance%20Corporation%20(FSLIC).
Hu, W., & Schweber, N. (2020, July 15). New York City has 2,300 parks. but poor neighborhoods lose out. The New York Times. Retrieved April 21, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/nyregion/nyc-parks-access-governors-island.html
Ivy league regular season champions, by Year. Coaches Database. (2023, March 5). Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.coachesdatabase.com/ivy-league-regular-season-champions/
McIntosh, K., Moss, E., Nunn, R., & Shambaugh, J. (2022, March 9). Examining the black-white wealth gap. Brookings. Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/
Ogden, D. C. ., & Hilt, M. L. . (2003). Collective Identity and Basketball: An Explanation for the Decreasing Number of African Americans on America’s Baseball Diamond. Retrieved March 31, 2023, from https://www.nrpa.org/globalassets/journals/jlr/2003/volume-35/jlr-volume-35-number-2-pp-213-227.pdf
Ortigas, R., Okorom-Achuonyne, B., & Jackson, S. (n.d.). What exactly is redlining? Inequality in NYC. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://rayortigas.github.io/cs171-inequality-in-nyc/
Pearson, S. (2022). Basketball origins, growth and history of the game. History of The Game Of Basketball Including The NBA and the NCAA. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/basketballhistory.html
Robertson, N. M. (1995). [Review of Light in the Darkness: African Americans and the YMCA, 1852-1946., by N. Mjagkij]. Contemporary Sociology, 24(2), 192–193. https://doi.org/10.2307/2076853
Townsley, J., Nowlin, M., & Andres, U. M. (2022, August 18). The lasting impacts of segregation and redlining. SAVI. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.savi.org/2021/06/24/lasting-impacts-of-segregation/
There is prison, then there is prison within prison. Countries vary in their approach to these “deep-end” or high-security prison sections reserved for the most dangerous residents with a history of violence. Ben Crewe, Julie Laursen, and Kristian Mjåland compared two approaches towards these high-security prison units: one in England & Wales, and the other in Norway. After conducting 55 interviews with prisoners in restrictive “deep-end” confinement, the authors compared the experiences of prisoners in England & Wales’s traditional supermax system to Norway’s “inclusive othering.”
In Norway, now famous for its less restrictive prisons, deep confinement is rare and used to protect the outside community. Deep-end prisoners continue to enjoy benefits such as attending educational and job programs alongside the general prison population, lengthy, unsupervised visitation time (including accommodations for sexual activity), and supervised, temporary release for activities such as fishing, shopping, or meals with friends. In Norway deep confinement is rare and used to protect the outside communityDespite their relative freedom, people in deep-end Norwegian prisons were still concerned about being watched by cameras, the limits placed on their phone calls, and other connections with the outside world, especially in comparison to the general, less restrictive Norwegian prison environment. Lastly, although Norway does not give life sentences, people in the deep-end sometimes do not have a specific release date, leaving some feeling hopeless about serving an indefinite sentence.
In England & Wales, people in the deep-end are isolated for the safety of other prisoners rather than the safety of the outside community. Once isolated, the deep-enders felt far removed from the general population, and they too reported feeling like they were in a “hopeless vacuum,” “on the moon,” or “in a cave.” They also felt that corrections officers used incident reports to target deep-end prisoners. However, some of these deep-end prisoners felt relieved to be removed from the “prison politics” and “batch living” of the general population. Some even reported that less competition with other prisoners provided them with greater access to staff and resources.In England & Wales, people in the deep-end are isolated for the safety of other prisoners rather than the safety of the outside communityThis research shows how looking across borders helps us understand both the distinct approaches to managing people who have done serious harm and the human impact of policies that leave some prisoners swimming in the deep-end. Although Norway’s focus on reintegration and openness seems quite different from England & Wales’s focus on “managing unruly groups”, people in both types of deep-end confinement reported feeling isolated, surveilled, and often hopeless.
Nearly a decade ago, Google released figures disclosing the diversity of its workforce (or perhaps more accurately, the lack thereof). The statistics were damning: less than 17% of Google’s technical employees were women, and only 2% of workers identified as Black.
Since then, the tech industry’s “diversity problem” has been the subject of intense media scrutiny. In 2017, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote a blog post detailing the sexism she experienced at the company. A few months later, then Google engineer James Damore published what became known as the “Google Memo,” criticizing efforts to increase diversity at the company. Yet despite this attention, major tech companies including Meta, Google, and Apple continue to release yearly diversity reports indicating that the industry remains predominately White, Asian, and male.
Amid such heightened scrutiny, how do tech workers make sense of diversity at their own companies? This is a question that I investigated in my recent Social Problems article. Drawing on interviews with 50 tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area, I found that despite recognizing diversity as an issue in the tech industry more broadly, workers often described their own companies as “better than most.” Tech workers supported this claim using three interrelated strategies: 1) drawing relative comparisons with other tech companies; 2) citing evidence of efforts companies are making to increase diversity; and 3) using expansive definitions of the term diversity.Despite recognizing diversity as an issue in the tech industry more broadly, Bay Area tech workers often described their own companies as “better than most.”When discussing diversity at their own companies, tech workers often drew comparisons with other tech companies to cast their own employer in a positive light. For example, news about Susan Fowler’s blog and the “Google Memo” were focal points for many tech workers. Even as the point of contrast shifted with the news cycle, workers could always find another company that was worse when it came to diversity.
One respondent, Joe, noticed this pattern. Joe confided that when diversity was discussed at his workplace, it was typically mentioned “in reference to other companies.” He explained,
All this Uber news that’s coming out, about how horrible they are there, we talk about that a lot and have a lot of frank discussions about it. But that’s more of a reaction to that stuff that’s happening. There’s not a lot of, “How can we be better?” [It’s like] “at least we’re not that bad.”
Despite demonstrating a significant degree of self-awareness, Joe ultimately employed this same strategy of relative comparison in his evaluation of his company’s diversity initiatives when concluding that he would rate his company “a little better than average” when it came to diversity.
In recent years, most large tech companies have introduced a range of highly publicized policies aimed at increasing diversity. There is, however, a distinction between having diversity initiatives and having effective diversity initiatives. Many of the initiatives that tech companies have implemented, such as unconscious bias trainings, are known to be ineffective. Yet, in the eyes of some workers, the existence of these diversity efforts has become more salient than their results.There is a distinction between having diversity initiatives and having effective diversity initiatives.
A final way that workers describe their workplaces as “better than most” is by using expansive definitions of diversity. While gender and race were mentioned most frequently when discussing diversity in the abstract, workers often discussed diversity in terms of geography or education when asked more specifically about their own companies. During his interview, Louis described his company as “surprisingly diverse”:
These expansive definitions of diversity give workers—as well as their companies—flexibility in terms of how they make sense of their diversity statistics. Their workplaces may lack racial or gender diversity, but tech workers were quick to point out that they featured other forms of diversity. By taking an expansive view of diversity, highlighting axes such as nationality, geography, or educational pedigree, workers were able to characterize their workplaces as diverse despite persistent racial and gender imbalances.By taking an expansive view of diversity, highlighting axes such as nationality, geography, or educational pedigree, workers were able to characterize their workplaces as diverse despite persistent racial and gender imbalances.The ratio of women in tech is significantly higher there. There are a lot of Canadians, a lot of Asians. I think that helps better than just all White or whatever. Stereotypical White. But even within White, there is a degree of diversity if you’re from Chicago. We have a lot of people from Chicago, the Midwest, New York. I think that’s healthy, rather than just being from Stanford. At [my last job], a lot were just from Stanford.
Do companies benefit from this diversity discourse? Only if their true goal is to maintain the status quo. By making relative comparisons, tech workers point to other tech companies that they see as worse when it comes to diversity. By citing evidence of effort, respondents see any diversity efforts as progress, even if the efforts themselves are ineffective. Finally, by using expansive definitions, tech workers reimagine diversity in ways that extend well beyond the axes of exclusion their company’s diversity initiatives were designed to address. These strategies ultimately allow employees to perceive of their companies as “better than most.” But they may also produce a form of complacency that leaves companies with little incentive to enact more lasting and effective diversity initiatives.
Sigrid Luhr is in the Sociology Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She studies gender, work, and family.
Elite cultural fields often lack diversity, and the fine dining field is no exception. Though we know that marginalized producers of cultural goods, such as artists and chefs, are often excluded from positions of prestige, much less is known about how racial inequality specifically affects how critics, and even the public, evaluate their products. In Social Problems, Gillian Gualtieri reports on her interviews with 120 critically recognized chefs in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area and her analysis of 1,380 Michelin restaurant reviews.
In “Discriminating Palates: Evaluation and Ethnoracial Inequality in American Fine Dining,” Gualtieri compares what she terms Ethnic restaurants and Classic and Flexible restaurants; the culinary products of the former are associated with non-Whiteness, while those of the latter are associated with Whiteness. Ethnic restaurants, she explains, are systematically devalued by the criteria of authenticity, which relies on subjective interpretation more than standardized measures. Classic and Flexible restaurants, on the other hand, are assessed in relation to standardized institutions of American fine dining. In interviews, Classic and Flexible chefs describe occupying a position of knowledgeable authority over their craft and valuing the opinion of formal institutions like Michelin. By contrast, for their restaurants to survive, chefs at Ethnic restaurants consistently discuss catering to diners’ “inconsistent, and often uninformed,” expectations based on previous experiences outside of the context of fine dining.
The findings reveal how inequality is reproduced through an assumption that White restaurants are the standard against which all U.S. restaurants should be evaluated. The ambiguous criteria of authenticity ensures that Ethnic restaurants are uniquely constrained by the inconsistent expectations of diners and critics. As a result, they tend to earn fewer stars and charge lower prices. Inequitable evaluation processes produce a system of value based on racial hierarchy, inflecting the ways chefs and critics understand and engage with their critical and creative work.
Millennial mothers are spending less time in the workforce and more time on housework and childcare when compared to Generation X and Baby Boomer mothers. Read our latest Special Feature by Brendan Churchill, Leah Ruppanner, and Sabino Kornrich to learn more.
As the United States continues to grapple with labor shortages today, Smithsonian Magazine recently highlighted the photography of sociologist Lewis Hine and his thousands of photos of children’s working conditions in the 1900s. Click here to read more and view dozens of pictures of child labor in the 1900s.
Summer is heating up! We have a number of projects nearing completion and coming soon to a computer/phone/or device near you. You may have also noticed that I am not Mahala. As Mahala passes the TSP torch to me this summer (Jake), I want to say a quick thank you and tribute to the years of guidance, commitment, and leadership Mahala has provided the TSP board. Thank you Mahala!
College students returning home during COVID-19 faced the challenge of living through a pandemic, while simultaneously adjusting (or not) back to their parents’ authority, writes Elena van Stee of partner Contexts’ blog.
The impacts of wrongfully imprisoning an innocent person go far beyond just the person, the friends, family, and community are also robbed of time with their loved one, Janani Umamaheswar writes in Council on Contemporary Families’ blog.
In March 2023, two visiting professors at the embattled New College of Florida published a scathing critique of what they described as a “hostile takeover” of their institution: “What the DeSantis administration is trying to do, in brief, is force a conservative Christian model of education onto our public college, attempting to choke out hard-won academic freedom.” The essay went on to describe Christopher Rufo, the newly appointed trustee of the college, as “demeaning and rude” and “unsuited to working in higher education.”
On May 12, professor Erik Wallenberg, one of the authors of the essay, was informed that the college had declined the option to renew his contract. This decision was covered by media with the strong suggestion that the professor’s critical remarks played into the decision against retaining him. PEN America described it as “an affront to academic freedom.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a non-partisan free speech advocacy organization, issued a statement demanding that the New College of Florida take “immediate steps to meet their legal obligations to respect faculty’s expressive rights.” A number of heterodox academics endorsed this statement on social media.
As we know, a mere correlation between two events does not mean one caused the other. The causal interpretation favored by FIRE, PEN, and many others was bolstered by the public comments made by trustee Rufo. On June 6, Mr. Rufo published a Twitter post in which he let his followers know about the decision: “New College will no longer be a jobs program for middling left-wing intellectuals.”
It is entirely fair to ask if professor Wallenberg’s critical essay played a role in the administration’s refusal to reappoint him. However, I find this interpretation naïve, as it ignores the social context in which the relevant behavior took place. In sociology, the term hermeneutics refers to the interpretation of human behavior through the analysis of its meaning. (Max Weber, the classic German sociologist, refers to this methodological approach as verstehen, “to understand”). Taking the perspective of the people whose behavior you are trying to understand is a key tenet of the hermeneutic method. So, let’s apply it here.In sociology, the term hermeneutics refers to the interpretation of human behavior through the analysis of its meaning. Taking the perspective of the people whose behavior you are trying to understand is a key tenet of the hermeneutic method. So, let’s apply it here.Imagine you are a visiting professor whose term is about to expire (as clearly was the case with Mr. Wallenberg). Under what conditions would you write an essay that attacks the integrity and qualifications of the people who decide on the renewal of your contract? Quite obviously, this is not the way to increase your chances of reappointment.
Of course, it is possible the two visiting professors were extraordinarily brave and therefore willing to risk their employment for the sake of academic freedom. Another and, in my view, more plausible explanation is this: As term-limited instructors of radical persuasion, they had good reasons to assume their days were numbered.
Professor Wallenberg’s academic background is consistent with that of an activist scholar. His focal interests include environmental racism and radical theatre. Dr. Debarati Biswas, the other author of the essay, is a student of queer theory and radical Black feminism, who previously served on the New College’s Center for LGBTQ Studies. As such, their scholarly orientations fit the description of “grievance studies,” a term introduced in the context of the 2018 hoax that sought to demonstrate the pervasiveness of political bias and lack rigor within gender, queer, and other cultural studies. Reducing the footprint of these kinds of disciplines within the college was a defining purpose of the administrative restructuring.
Under these circumstances, writing an essay condemning DeSantis and Rufo is not particularly risky or brave. If your termination is imminent, you have little to lose by speaking up. A highly strategic individual might even turn this predicament into an opportunity to make it appear as if you were ousted for illegitimate reasons. As it turns out, this version of events has been widely accepted among prominent advocates for academic freedom.A hermeneutic analysis suggests the essay was not the cause but a consequence of a foreseeable outcome.A superficial grasp of the circumstances has led many observers to argue that Professor Wallenberg’s critical essay influenced the college’s decision to part ways with him. However, a hermeneutic analysis of the social context surrounding these events suggests there was little chance the New College of Florida would have renewed its contract under any circumstances. This insight helps explain why professors Biswas and Wallenberg wrote the essay in the first place. The essay was not the cause but a consequence of a foreseeable outcome.
Jukka Savolainen is in the Department of Sociology at Wayne State University. He is a Heterodox Academy Writing Fellow.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, social media was criticized as a source of misinformation and conspiracy theories and, more recently, as a risk to youth mental health. We do not dispute these claims, but it is important to acknowledge the diverse functions of social media participation, particularly during outbreaks.
As we found in our study of digital emotions during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, people do not simply use social media to share and receive information. They also use social media to participate in what emotions scholar Katrin Döveling and colleagues term “digital affect cultures.” In other words, social media platforms function as socio-emotional spaces where belonging, solidarity, and emotion management take place.Social media platforms function as socio-emotional spaces where belonging, solidarity, and emotion management take place.During a public health threat, many emotions circulate online. Our study on social media discourse during the 2014 Ebola outbreak revealed that humor was the most common response among English-language tweets. Further, we discovered that several of the most popular humor tweets used AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) and referenced Black celebrities and/or cultural moments, forming a part of Black Twitter—an influential community and communicative style that media studies scholar and commentator Marc Lamont Hill describes as a “digital counterpublic.” This led us to ask, what various types of digital humor emerge during an outbreak? And how does humor help negotiate themes of risk, contagion, and connections with others, particularly within Black Twitter?
We analyzed a corpus of 47,955 tweets from the weeks surrounding and following the first Ebola case in the United States. One major category of humor-based tweets emphasized retreat and isolation, with references to moving “to the moon” or “I’m never leaving my house” as well as fatalistic acceptance of death (“I’m going to die,” “goodbye world,” and “Ebola victims rising from the dead . . . ok. Cool”).
By contrast, Black Twitter humor—defined as tweets using AAVE, referencing Black celebrities, and/or Black cultural moments—focused on the tensions that arise when a community places high value on social relationships and is experiencing the added risk of contact with others. For example, the tweet below featuring Marques Houston brought back a memorable cultural moment in which the celebrity was roasted for his strange fashion choice. Underlying the joke is an emphasis on innovative and ridiculous fashion that allows for public life to continue despite the risks.Black Twitter humor focused on the tensions that arise when a community places high value on social relationships and is experiencing the added risk of contact with others.
In another popular example of Black Twitter humor about Ebola, a picture shows a Swisher Sweet blunt cut into small pieces, with the text “From now on there will be no more passing the blunt due to ebola everyone gets a piece of the blunt.” This humor again emphasizes the value of social connections to the point of maintaining collective smoking sessions while introducing modifications to reduce risk.
While our study focused on the 2014 Ebola outbreak, we readily found similar examples of Black Twitter humor in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in some cases following a similar pattern of referring to Black celebrities and innovations to minimize the risk of social gatherings. In one example, an image of R&B singer, Omarion, was circulated anew as the COVID-19 Omicron variant emerged.
There were also examples of COVID-19 humor that included the use of PPE (personal protective equipment) in public spaces:
Similar to the “pieces of the blunt” tweet that circulated during the Ebola outbreak, the same idea would circulate during COVID-19, with two women on Instagram sharing a video in which they cut a joint into two pieces to jokingly minimize risk. As they cut it, they count to three, each holding a side. Both smile and laugh as they take their “mini joint.”
In our analysis of Twitter humor during Ebola, we follow other studies of disaster humor to argue that humor involves more than simply coping with the fears associated with a biomedical threat like an epidemic. Humor allowed communities to share emotional energy, reaffirm values, and redraw the lines between insider and outsider. We see hints that Twitter served a similar function during the more recent global health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Black healthcare workers used tweets and humor in COVID-19 vaccine campaigns. Together, these findings illustrate how social media can facilitate belonging, solidarity, and emotion management in highly charged times.
Marci Cottingham is in the Sociology Department at Kenyon College. She is the author of Practical Feelings: Emotions as Resources in a Dynamic Social World.
Ariana Rose received her master’s degree in sociology with a focus on social problems and policy from the University of Amsterdam. She currently studies consciousness and neurodiversity.
In this episode, Dr. Kelly Underman, Associate Professor in Sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and author of Feeling Medicine: How the Pelvic Exam Shapes Medical Training (2020), joins us to read from the first chapter of Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism (2011).
Follow along HERE.
-Kyle-
In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Kelly Underman, Associate Professor in Sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and author of Feeling Medicine: How the Pelvic Exam Shapes Medical Training (2020).
In our conversation, Kelly introduces us to the work of Lauren Berlant, reflects on her experience finding their work as a graduate student interested in affect, and the value of theory that names a particular experience (or vibe) that we previously did not have language for. Kelly also helps us better understand Berlant’s concept of ‘cruel optimism’ through discussing her previous work on gynecological teaching programs, her current research on burnout among medical doctors, and the shared social experience of living through COVID.
*Make sure to join us in the companion episode where Kelly guides us through Chapter 1 of Berlant’s Cruel Optimism (2011).
-Kyle-
Why are conspiracy theories so alluring? Sure, we’ve all had a hunch about something that ran counter to conventional wisdom, but that is vastly different from a systematic belief that a group of powerful people is planning to carry out evil deeds. Yet, during COVID-19, conspiracy theories proliferated, especially on social media platforms like Twitter. Conventional explanations may blame strongman personalities and exploitative media algorithms, but a new study in the American Sociological Review highlights how conspiracy theories are also about sense-making and social connection during unsettled times.
Aggregating over 700,000 tweets from 8,000 users, including both humans and bots, Henrich Greve and his team of colleagues from Stanford University identified 13 distinct COVID-19 conspiracies that fell into two broad clusters: COVID-19 as a hoax or exaggerated threat (e.g., hospitals are secretly empty) and COVID-19 as a bioweapon spread intentionally by bad actors (e.g., Bill Gates or the Chinese). Importantly, human engagement with conspiracy theories was much more nuanced than bots’; non-human posts tended to focus on a single theory in an effort to stoke moral panic. For humans, engaging with one conspiracy theory was found to act as a “gateway” to engaging with multiple conspiracy theories, especially when faced with a perceived threat (e.g., rising case rates) and when their conspiratorial posts were affirmed by other users via retweets.
Not surprisingly, when a user tweets and is engaged with by others, not only do they feel validation, but they become motivated to seek out further conspiratorial content in an act of “collective sense-making.” While we often think of conspiracy theories as irrational beliefs held by people wearing tinfoil hats, this research pushes us to consider how they also provide a sense of solidarity and security, both ontological and social, in times of unrest.
After more than 40 years of progress towards greater gender equality for women, the gender revolution in paid work, housework and childcare has seemingly stalled. Younger generations of women are working less but doing more unpaid childcare and housework at home. At the same time, however, younger generations of men are doing more housework and childcare than their fathers, suggesting a new front in the gender revolution.
Our recently published paper used data from the American Time Use Survey between 2003 to 2018 to follow three generations of mothers and fathers: Baby Boomers (1946–1965), Generation X (1966–1980) and Millennials (1981–2000). Because the data span 15 years we were able to observe an overlap for ages 23 to 37 for Generation X and Millennials and ages 39 to 53 for Generation X and Boomers. We examined how each generation spent their time on care, housework, and paid work.
Surprisingly, we found that much of the progress made by earlier generations of women in the workforce seems to have eroded across newer generations. Generation X and Millennial mothers are spending less time in paid employment than Baby Boomer women at similar ages. This finding confirms recent research that has found women’s participation in the workforce peaked in the mid-1990s. We also find that Millennial mothers on average are spending more time on housework and childcare than previous generations of mothers–a significant reversal of long-term trends.much of the progress made by earlier generations of women in the workforce seems to have eroded across newer generationsOne explanation for this surprising trend might be the lingering impact of the Great Recession (2008-09) which affected men and women very differently. Men were more likely than women to lose their jobs during the recession, but women had significantly more difficulty getting back into the workforce during the recovery. Young women were very vulnerable during the recession, and this may have continued to affect their labor market participation well after the recession and the recovery.
But this does not explain everything, especially women’s increased time on childcare and housework. It is likely that the soaring cost of childcare in recent decades has meant that families, and in particular women, have had to make a “choice” to stay out of the labor market to provide childcare. The cost of childcare has grown at a significantly faster rate than the cost of other ‘essentials’ like housing and groceries. The average American family now spends over $10,000 for a child under six in childcare. Our research suggests that Generation X and Millennial mothers have simply reallocated the time they would have spent in paid work in the workplace to unpaid work at home.
Big picture, these findings underscore just how tough it is to achieve revolutionary social and cultural change. Women have made leaps and bounds, especially in education where they continue outperform men in degree attainment. However, women shave not been able to maintain progress in the workforce or the home. Men, on the other hand, are doing more than everat home, but it is still not enough to close the gap between them and women.
These two findings also present questions and great challenges for the future. First, can we win back the gains in women’s workforce participation and reduce the care burden at home? One way is to reduce the costs of childcare to allow mothers to make decisions about how best to organize their work and family life without having to trade time with children for time in the labor market. Greater public investments in childcare may help alleviate the demands on younger women to increase their time in paid work.
Second, and just as importantly, how do we continue the gains of recent generations of fathers? More engaged fathers are critical toadvancing gender equality at home. Maintaining and increasing men’s involvement at home will also help alleviate the care burden for women. Childcare costs for the family might be not as high if men were able to do more. Yet, only one in seven Americans believe that fathers should take paternity leave. Although these views are perhaps more common in male-dominated workplaces, they demonstratelingering stigma against fathers as primary caregivers which can make it more difficult for men to take family leave. Compounding this, men who do take leave often do not take up their full paternity leave entitlements.
We have a generation of men who are poised to step into caregiving work and roles. Now, we just need to give men the institutional support to make more engaged fatherhood the new normal.
Key references and Recommendations for Further Reading
Paula England, Andrew Levine, and Emma Mishel. (2020). “Progress Toward Gender Equality in the United States has Slowed or Stalled.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(13), 6990-6997.
The article examines multiple indicators of gender progress–employment, education, occupational segregation and pay–between 1970 and 2018 to show that there’s been significant progress towards gender equality over almost 50 years but this progress has slowed in recent decades.
Frances Goldschieder, Eva Bernhardt, and Trude Lappegård. 2015. “The Gender Revolution: A Framework for Understanding Changing Family and Demographic Behavior.” Population and Development Review 41(2):207–39.
This article examines trends associated with the second demographic transition (SDT) and compares them with the on-going gender revolution, arguing that there may be some improvements and progress in some areas and declines in others. The authors make a timely intervention that demands we consider the gender revolution as two parts – women’s progress in the public sphere and men’s in the private.
Buddy Scarborough, Ray Sin, and Barbara Risman. 2019. “Attitudes and the Stalled Gender Revolution: Egalitarianism, Traditionalism, and Ambivalence from 1977 through 2016.” Gender & Society 33(2):173–200.
The article examines attitudinal data from the General Social Survey from 1977 to 2016 to show that there has been increase in the number of people who support both gender equality the public and private spheres. However, there remains a significant number of people who are ambivalent about gender equality. Recent generations of men and women hold the most egalitarian views.
Dr Brendan Churchill is a sociologist and expert in gender, work and youth from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Professor Leah Ruppanner is a sociologist and gender scholar from the University of Melbourne.
Associate Professor Sabino Kornrich is a sociologist and researches inequality, gender and the family from NYU Abu Dhabi.
Dr Brendan Churchill is a sociologist and expert in gender, work and youth from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Professor Leah Ruppanner is a sociologist and gender scholar from the University of Melbourne.
Associate Professor Sabino Kornrich is a sociologist and researches inequality, gender and the family from NYU Abu Dhabi.
I remember it vividly, like it was just yesterday.
I was a first-year PhD student in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. It was March 2020. Like many students, I had been traveling for spring break—then, like many (privileged) students, I ended up spending the rest of the spring 2020 semester sheltering in place in my childhood bedroom.
Having spent the better part of my first year of graduate school studying inequality in families and educational institutions, I was acutely aware that class privilege was shaping my experience of COVID-19 lockdowns. In the days and weeks after Penn sent almost all its students off-campus, I heard countless stories of other students struggling to find housing arrangements, pay for groceries, and access the technology necessary to participate in virtual classes—challenges I was mostly insulated from.The heightened inequality, risk, and uncertainty introduced by the pandemic was exposing how college students from different class backgrounds seek help from their parents. Studies from sociologists, including Annette Lareau, Elizabeth Armstrong, and Laura Hamilton, demonstrate that parents are unequally positioned to provide the kind of support that facilitates college persistence and achievement. Yet our discipline has paid less attention to young adults’ expectations for parents’ roles in this stage of their lives—or how this may vary across social class.The heightened inequality, risk, and uncertainty introduced by the pandemic was exposing how college students from different class backgrounds seek help from their parents.
Working from a folding table in my parents’ basement that March, I designed a qualitative interview study. Through it, I hoped to understand how undergraduates from different social class backgrounds were navigating the transition to remote instruction, focusing on parents’ roles. I interviewed 48 working- and upper-middle-class undergraduates from an elite residential university in the American northeast, along with ten mothers (five from each class group).
When I began the project, I expected to observe inequalities in the material resources parents could provide for their children—plane tickets, learning technology, help with living expenses, etc. And I certainly did. But the class divides I observed went beyond immediate resource constraints. As I wrote for the Journal of Marriage and Family, the factors that students weighed when deciding where to live and how to interact with their families also reflected class-specific understandings of their parents’ authority, their own entitlement to their parents’ resources, and their obligations to help and protect their families.
Most upper-middle-class students in my sample turned to their parents for reassurance, guidance, and assistance—demonstrating what I term privileged dependence. Conversations about housing in these families often explored where the student would learn best and where their parents could best take care of them. Here, the student’s needs and interests took priority. Upper-middle-class parents’ greater socioeconomic resources and the shared assumption that students would continue to rely on their parents for support shielded those students from many academic and financial disruptions during the tumultuous transition to virtual instruction.Most upper-middle-class students turned to their parents for reassurance, guidance, and assistance—demonstrating what I term privileged dependence. Less privileged students exhibited what I call a precarious autonomy, typically seeing themselves as responsible for figuring things out on their own.By contrast, less privileged students exhibited what I call a precarious autonomy. Working-class students typically saw themselves as responsible for figuring things out on their own, and many in this group expressed a sense of freedom rooted in their financial independence from their parents. Even so, these students’ awareness of their parents’ needs, limitations, and vulnerabilities deeply shaped their decisions. Many expressed fears of being a financial burden, a COVID risk, or an inconvenience to their families. Some declined to live with their parents because they knew their homes would be too cramped or noisy to provide a good study space. Some were struggling to keep up with school as they took on new caregiving responsibilities and encountered financial and environmental barriers to participating in virtual classes. Thus, working-class students were denied a variety of academic and financial protections available to their upper-middle-class peers.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a unique crisis in our time—one that, according to the WHO’s recent declaration, is now over. But I found that understanding the housing decisions students made during the pandemic offered insights into social class, young adulthood, and intergenerational relationships that have ongoing sociological and policy relevance.Students’ decisions about where to live and how to interact with families during the crisis reflected different expectations about parents’ roles, including understandings about who was in charge and who was responsible for protecting whom in the transition to adulthood. To the extent that similar classed patterns of dependence and autonomy emerge in response to other challenges and crises, prolonged dependence on parents seems likely to yield further socioeconomic advantages for privileged students. Thus, my conversations throughout this study underscored that understanding educational inequalities—and designing policies to address them—requires an understanding of how students are embedded in families and communities and how they think about their rights and responsibilities within them. Students’ decisions about where to live and how to interact with families during the COVID-19 crisis reflected different expectations about parents’ roles, including understandings about who was in charge and who was responsible for protecting whom in the transition to adulthood.
Read the full article here and watch for my feature article in Contexts’ summer issue!
Elena G. van Stee is in the sociology program at the University of Pennsylvania. The blog editor for Contexts, she studies culture and inequality, focusing on social class, families, and the transition to adulthood.
Although many states have laws requiring judges to order the confiscation of guns when emergency restraining orders including threats of violence are issued, most don’t. On the site, Jacob Otis writes up this surprising finding from Julie Kafka and colleagues.
Although homophobic lyrics were once common, mainstream rappers now apologize for using slurs and share the spotlight with LGBTQ artists. Matthew Oware writes on the changing culture of hiphop for The Conversation.
This week Shiny, Happy People, a docuseries about reality TV family the Duggars, and the fundamentalist Christian organization they belong to, premiered featuring sociologist Danielle Lindeman, who emphasized that the men in the family profited off the labor of their wives and daughters, whose births and weddings drew viewers.
ALL of partner Contexts Spring 2023 issue is open access for just a few more days! Check out the table of contents and download great content for your to-be-read list while you can.
First-generation college graduates are often the advantaged members of their disadvantaged class while people who don’t graduate college like their parents are often relatively disadvantaged. For Council on Contemporary Families‘ blog Anna Manzoni and Jessi Streib share their findings on what differentiates first-generation students, as well as students who do not follow in their parents’ footsteps to college, from their peers.
In 2016, Kobe Bryant was elected to the NBA All-Star game even though there were plenty of statistically better players. How could this happen?
In our study, recently published in the American Sociological Review, my co-authors Michael Kühhirt, Wim Van Lancker, and I argue that Bryant’s arguably undeserved All-Star nomination was an instance of the phenomenon that sociologists call “the Matthew effect.” This term references the Gospel of Matthew, which states:
“For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” (Matthew 25:29, KJV)
In other words, success begets success. Or in this case, All-Star nominations beget All-Star nominations.
We used highly detailed data on all NBA players from 1983-2016 to show how people tend to confirm existing status hierarchies rather than rewarding the best-performing players. Specifically, we demonstrate that voters’ choices are biased by previous selections. Thus, a previous All-Star nomination improves a player’s chance of being nominated in future years. This means players without a previous All-Star nomination need to outplay others by a significant margin to overcome this disadvantage.
Sociologist Robert Merton’s seminal work on the Matthew effect describes the mechanisms underlying this process of cumulative advantage. First, initial status signals determine the allocation of resources. Then, as those with higher initial status accrue resources, they can use those resources to further improve their productivity, which legitimates their status. The rich get richer.
Sociologists have documented such status advantages in various domains ranging from academia to product markets. The same mechanisms also arguably underlie persistent status hierarchies, including gender and racial/ethnic hierarchies.
Despite much sociological interest in Matthew effects, until recently we lacked a way to empirically test the full feedback loop Merton hypothesized (i.e., the full chain from initial status to confirmation of said status). In our study, we use the setting of annual NBA All-Star elections to analyze the full status-to-status loop and to show that the confirmation of status is not completely justified by actual productivity differences. We demonstrate that in addition to actual productivity differences, players also benefit from status-biased votes. The more previous nominations a player could show, the more positive bias they would receive from voters—a process we call cumulative status bias.
The advantage of the NBA setting is not only the repeated nature of the status assignment process, but, uniquely, the detailed productivity measures we could use. We downloaded statistical information for every game played by each player from Basketball-Reference.com (check it out!). Due to data limitations, we focused on the years between 1983–2016.
Using this data, we ran a series of models assessing whether a previous election increased a player’s chances of election in subsequent years, adjusting for performance indicators before the previous election. And we found that it did. In fact, we found a total status advantage—a Matthew effect—of almost 5 percentage points. Given that the unconditional chance of becoming an All-Star is about 5% (24 spots for ~450 players), this is a significant move of the needle. Further analyses demonstrate that this Matthew effect is only partially explained by improved productivity after an All-Star nomination. Voters’ evaluations are also directly biased by a player’s prior status. Finally, we found that every additional previous nomination increases the chances over and above the immediately preceding nomination. Thus, there is cumulative status bias.What does it mean? Besides corroborating existing evidence on status advantages, our study shows that initial advantage feeds back into status hierarchies—that there is cumulative status bias.What does it mean? Besides corroborating existing evidence on status advantages, our study shows that initial advantage feeds back into status hierarchies. Moreover, the decoupling of status and productivity potentially increases over time. This severely undermines meritocratic justifications of persistent status hierarchies.
We think that the NBA is a conservative test case for cumulative status bias for three reasons: (1) meritocratic ideals are relatively salient, (2) it is clear what productivity means, and (3) productivity is relatively easy to observe for voters. This suggests that the decoupling between status and productivity is potentially more severe in other domains, such as product markets or (brace yourself) academia. Moreover, this process is likely to reinforce broader structures of inequality, including racial/ethnic and gender hierarchies. In other domains, the intersections of achieved and ascribed status signals make the meritocratic allocation of resources extremely difficult. But if cumulative status bias helped Kobe Bryant obtain an 18th All-Star nomination, we expect to see even greater effects in everyday life, where the “points” are more often contested and hidden.
Read the full article here.
Find our data and code here.
Thomas Biegert is in the Social Policy Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He researches labor market inequalities, underlying mechanisms, and how they relate to institutional contexts.
Ignorance is an activity, it isn’t simply not knowing but a form of knowing supported by the socio-political system. –Lisa Slater
It is well documented that youth sport teaches young people life lessons – about themselves, the importance of teamwork, etc. In this short reflexive essay (drawn from a larger book project), I consider another kind of education at work in youths’ encounters with sport in settler states – countries founded upon the theft of land from Indigenous peoples: it teaches young settlers, in particular, about their place in the world, their “right” to live on stolen lands.
Here, I take up selected fragments of my childhood and youth, interrogating how my encounters with sport (as both a participant and a consumer) shaped my understandings of myself and my belonging on lands claimed by Canada. I consider, in the words of social scientist Lisa Slater, some of the “dimly lit memories” that provide clues to my developing sense of self.
I sit on the hard bleachers of McMahon stadium, bouncing my legs as fast as I can to try to generate warmth while we watch a Calgary Stampeders Canadian Football League game. As Dad and I drink hot chocolate from a thermos, the “Stamps” score a TD, and a horse and rider run the length of the field in celebration. I scream in joy, looking around at the thousands of mostly white boys and men doing the same. My “home team” is playing their perpetual rivals, now called the Edmonton Elk.
A snippet like this could just as easily have come from an NHL hockey game between the Calgary Flames and the team from Chicago. On one hand, then, I encountered tropes of Indigeneity such as Indigenous team names and mascots in these hyper-masculine professional sport settings, normalizing this as part of my childhood, teaching me what kind of person I should (want to) be. On the other, attending these games – or fervently following the Flames, in particular, especially as part of the “battle of Alberta” in the heydays of both the Flames and the Edmonton Oilers – produced a sense of belonging, tying me to this place, making it feel very much like home. It was my home, but was also produced as such in ongoing and banal ways.
I am playing a sport; I don’t even remember which one. Judging by the coaches I encountered in my high school years, I’d guess football. The coach is trying to get our attention: “Boys. Pow-wow over here!” He blathers on, something about putting in the work if we want to make it to the “top of the totem pole.”
I am caught up in the excitement of Calgary hosting the Olympic Winter Games. I covet the Sun Ice jackets volunteers and others sport, follow the saga of Eddie the Eagle, attend a couple of medal ceremonies at Olympic Plaza downtown, getting choked up when I see Canadians atop the medal podium as “O Canada” plays over the loudspeakers. I collect pins, and consume many events, both in person and via the televised broadcasts.
As historian Christine O’Bonsawin articulates, the Calgary Olympics employed “Indigenous imagery” in numerous dimensions of the organization of the Games, marshalling the caché of the Calgary Stampede to garner international attention and construct the Games as of this place. Organizers, she notes:
utilized the international prestige of the Calgary Stampede and based their cultural programming around the Stampede’s symbolic use of the Mountie, the cowboy and the Indian… For example, the composition of the Olympic medals displayed winter sporting equipment protruding from a ceremonial headdress, an enormous teepee at McMahon Stadium supporting the Olympic cauldron, and the Calgary Stampede Board’s suggestion that an ‘Indian attack and wagon-burning’ be a part of the opening ceremony (this was ultimately rejected).
The Olympics, then, mobilized and marketed “Indigenous imagery” while, at the very same moments, hailing me – producing me – as Canadian, as rightfully belonging on these lands. Think here of the anthem, for instance, the notion of “home and native land.” (Also consider Jully Black’s recent act subverting these lyrics.)
Part of the ideological “[sleight] of hand” of settler colonialism is the illusion that it is a process that is finished as opposed to one that requires constant nurturing and reproduction. Similarly, my at-homeness as a settler was and is not simply a given, but one that was and is nourished in innumerable spaces and ways, not least through my encounters with sport as a youth. We are born into these positions, but we also encounter everyday teaching moments that shape our understandings of and relation to ongoing histories on these lands. Only if we recognize these teaching moments can we interrogate and, perhaps, refuse them as we come to understand, in the words of cultural studies scholar Mark Rifkin, “that the very terrain [we] inhabit as given has never ceased to be a site of political struggle.”
Jason (Jay) Laurendeau is a white, cisgender, settler scholar in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, in Lethbridge, Alberta, located on lands of the Siksikaitsitapii people, who are part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. His research interests lie at the intersections of sport and physical culture, gender, settler colonialism, and childhood. He is the author of Sport, Physical Activity, and Anti-Colonial Autoethnography: Stories and Ways of Being.
Today, we remember those who lost their lives 29 years ago during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
Lasting only 100 days, April 7th, 1994, marked the beginning of the Rwandan Genocide in which over 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed as the international community and UN peacekeepers stood by. Emboldened by state-sponsored propaganda and armed with rudimentary weapons, ordinary Rwandans of Hutu ethnicity were mobilized into killing militias. Scholars have estimated that the rate of killing was four times that of Nazi Germany and carried out by 175,000 to 230,000 Hutus. Much has been written about the causes and courses of this tragic event, as well as commemoration practices in Rwanda. But today, in honor of the lives lost, I would like to share with you how some Rwandans work to prevent future genocide in the land of a thousand hills.
Twenty-nine years after the conclusion of the genocide, there is now a whole new generation of Rwandans born after 1994. Over the course of five months in 2022, I had the privilege to interview history teachers, education experts, and parents in Rwanda to learn how older generations who experienced the violence teach this newer generation about their nation’s history. The teachers I spoke with emphasized the importance of learning and teaching history to younger generations. Many teachers discussed the importance of learning about Rwanda’s history to create a better future, increase knowledge of Rwandan culture, and prevent future violence. For example, one teacher remarked,
“[The] history of Rwanda was characterized by the evils and wrongly taught. So, we studied wrongly; they gave us information that is not true about the history of Rwanda. And for me, I said I must change [that] … and this is my contribution to my country, to change this bad history.”
Before the genocide, schools had been sites of structural violence, where anti-Tutsi propaganda was disseminated and discrimination enforced. And during the genocide, many schools were actual sites of violence. Given this history, teachers understood how easily history may be used and manipulated to mobilize populations into violence. Thus, teachers expressed a commitment to teaching youth about the causes and consequences of genocide.
While in Rwanda, I met with local organizations and individuals dedicated to preventing genocide and promoting peace. I met with PeacEdu Initiative, a local organization that works with communities to foster reconciliation and prevent genocide through peace education. Here, survivors and those who committed genocide crimes come together to learn about genocide and gain new skills.
I was also fortunate to attend trainings where teachers throughout the country volunteered their time to learn about peace and human rights education. Many of these teachers ran peace and human rights clubs during the weekends at their schools. Finally, I spoke with parents, many of whom placed their faith in education to prevent future violence. As one parent stated,
“…we need now to put reconciliation first and foremost. We shouldn’t be stuck in our zones of thinking [that] we are divided or different. But rather, we should learn about the history and get lessons from it which will help bring national unity.”
This parent’s comment reflects the sentiments of many others. In fact, many parents who taught their children about the genocide emphasized the importance of reconciliation and national unity. Holistically, parents aimed to teach their children that national identity must be prioritized over all other identities.
I am encouraged by the commitment of teachers, parents, and local communities in Rwanda to ensure younger generations know about genocide. Today, on a day of sorrow and remembrance, I hope you, too, are inspired by their commitment to foster unity and reconciliation in the hope of a more peaceful future.
Jillian LaBranche is a PhD student at the University of Minnesota in the Sociology Department. She currently holds the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship. Her doctoral research examines parents and teachers in Sierra Leone and Rwanda who experienced mass violence educate younger generations about their nation’s sensitive history. She has broad interests in Genocide Studies, Comparative Methods, and Memory Studies.
As sociologists who study race as it relates to immigrant detention, we see White ignorance as different from ignorance in the more general sense. In line with the dictionary definition of ignorance, someone is “ignorant” because they lack knowledge or are naïve about a particular subject (not because they intentionally engage in harmful practices). In contrast, White ignorance is much less passive. According to political philosophy scholar Charles Mills, White ignorance refers to the active and willful “unknowing” Whites possess about race relations and racial inequality. Mills and others we rely on in our work describe society as deeply “racialized,” meaning that people are treated as more or less valuable depending on their race. This deep racialization results in equally deep racial inequities, yet White Americans actively ignore them within their everyday lives. For example, at many universities, we learn about White contributors through the buildings that are named after them (at North Carolina State, D.H. Hill, Banks C. Talley, and James B. Hunt come to mind), but we don’t learn the names of the people actually responsible for maintaining university campuses, many of whom are non-White. With national holidays, street and park names, monuments, and even standard school curricula following a similar pattern, Americans devalue non-White lives by constantly acknowledging Whites’ presence and placement in society while “unknowing” the essential role of racial minority groups in the United States.
The consequences of this active racial unknowing are profound. As sociologist Jennifer Mueller explains, White ignorance “surround[s] White privilege, culpability, and structural White supremacy.” In other words, White ignorance supports the current racial status quo. Notable news stories from the past several months show how diverse this support can be, from doubt that police violence against Black Americans committed by Black officers perpetuates racist law enforcement to support for racial segregation as a peacekeeping strategy. And while White ignorance includes obvious racial bigotry reflected in individuals’ statements and actions, it also operates more subtly within institutional practices. During our review of 631 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) news releases from 2020, we found a striking example of this institutional White ignorance: ICE’s silence on immigration detention and emphasis on fraud in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.White ignorance operates within institutional practices.In functioning democracies, governmental agencies should be accountable to the public. However, this type of accountability is not what we found in ICE’s pandemic response. Rather, the most striking pattern is what we did not find within ICE’s news releases—what sociologists call a patterned absence. Only 49 of the 631 news releases, or about 8%, even mentioned COVID-19. This means that, in a year where the pandemic was at the center of global attention, ICE spent only a small portion of its press even acknowledging that pandemic. Thus, ICE’s primary strategy during the initial year of the pandemic was avoidance.
So, what did we observe ICE discussing among the scant 8% of news releases about COVID-19? The agency mainly introduced and promoted a new type of enforcement campaign: Operation Stolen Promise. In an April 2020 news release, ICE explained the operation as a “collaboration with multiple federal departments and agencies, along with business and industry representatives” intended to “combat COVID-19 related fraud and other criminal activity.” Prior to the pandemic, ICE’s discussions of counterfeit merchandise accounted for about 3% of its news releases that year. However, references to Operation Stolen Promise specifically or counterfeit COVID-19 merchandise more generally appeared in approximately 49% of ICE’s news releases on COVID-19 that year. By highlighting this operation, ICE abandoned the role of an immigration enforcer to portray itself instead as a heroic protector against COVID-19 fraud. In doing so, the agency avoided providing a justification for its detention of migrants during the pandemic.
We view ICE’s framing of immigration detention, or lack thereof, during the pandemic as a powerful example of institutional White ignorance, given that most migrants detained by the United States are people of Latin American descent. The agency’s reluctance to take responsibility for COVID-19 transmission within its detained populations contributed significantly to the vulnerability of migrants in its custody. And, by not addressing how COVID-19 impacted detained migrants despite the media attention on the subject, ICE actively engaged in ignorance that showed an extreme lack of compassion toward an oppressed group. To be clear, ICE’s pandemic response was not just a public relations spin in response to bad press about immigration detention, as we have seen the agency use when facing past scandals. Instead, we witnessed ICE nearly abandon updates on immigration detention altogether as one of its responsibilities during the pandemic.
The agency’s practices negatively affected detained migrants. Of course, the agency did not openly endorse policies benefitting White Americans and harming people of color; instead, it implied support for racially inequitable policies through subtle yet strategic omissions in its descriptions of pandemic-era immigration detention and uncharacteristic diversions like Operation Stolen Promise. Just as Americans regularly “unknow” the contributions of non-White communities through building and street names, we observed ICE “unknow” the ways it harmed the people it detained, the majority of whom are non-White, by emphasizing the need to stop “COVID-19 fraud” rather than to minimize COVID-19 transmission risks.
Since government institutions like ICE keep racial inequality alive through White ignorance, it is essential to consider what can be done to lessen this active “unknowing.” From our broader analyses of immigrant detention, we understand practices like ICE’s COVID-19 response to be part of the U.S. government’s greater dependency on White ignorance. Changing radical dependency ultimately requires a radical intervention: a wholesale alteration of the government. But a change this large must start on a smaller scale. For instance, everyday White Americans can intentionally attune themselves to the life experiences of people of color rather than accepting the images government and other institutions present of non-White racial groups without question.Since government institutions like ICE keep racial inequality alive through White ignorance, it is essential to consider what can be done to lessen this active “unknowing.”A functioning democracy relies on government officials being accountable to the people they represent. While we, the people, cannot end White ignorance ourselves, we can start the process. Assuming we still live in a functional democracy, government change will follow.
Joshua R. Hummel is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at North Carolina State University. His research explores the discursive construction of difference and racial identity. Emily P. Estrada is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at State University of New York at Oswego. Her research investigates the implicit racialization of Latinx immigrants through cultural and institutional discourses.
Whether parents are less happy than adults with out kids varies by race and gender in surprising ways according to recent research from Jennifer Augustine and Mia Brantley written up for the site.
Warmer weather have you in the mood for some spring cleaning? Read this archive piece rounding up research on the sociology of dust (?), the division of household labor, and why cleaning is a gendered task as you sweep out those winter cobwebs.
This week Matthew Desmond visited the University of Minnesota to give a public talk on his new book Poverty, by America. Our Society Pages’ board packed a few rows at the very front of the auditorium. It was a fun opportunity to see how long-form sociological work is translated to a live public, especially as we had just read a few chapters of the book together. The presentation was engaging and rich with stories of real people, as is typical of Desmond’s work. We even snagged a few funny inscriptions during book signing time (which you can see above).
Dawn Brancati wrote for Sociological Images on how pandemic lockdown measures actually reduced ISIS activity, removing crowd cover and public gatherings such as markets.
Ginevra Floridi wrote for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog on their new research finding that wealthier college-educated parents send more money to their young adult children as inequality increases, such as in the years following the Great Recession.
Lauren Crosser is the author, along with Sarah Mayorga and Megan R. Underhill, of the feature article “Aisle Inequality” in the Winter 2023 issue of Contexts. Listen to this short interview to learn why Crosser and her coauthors chose Contexts as an outlet for their work and what readers will find when they delve in.
Editor’s note: This is the second in our collected statements in response to SF 2442, a bill currently being debated in the Minnesota legislature. If passed, the bill would mandate Holocaust and genocide education in middle and high schools across the state. Please see the earlier post by CHGS Interim Director Joe Eggers for background and context on the bill and Joe’s statement in response. Below is a statement submitted by George D. Dalbo, UMN Ph.D. and High School Social Studies Teacher.
University of Minnesota
Twin Cities Campus
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education and Human Development
March 20, 2023
Chair Cheryl Youakim
Republican Lead Ron Kresha
Members of the Education Finance Committee;
“Why have we never learned about this before?” This question was asked by a high school junior in my Genocide and Human Rights course just last week as we began learning about the Cambodian Genocide. The student, a second-generation Hmong-American whose family members experienced mass violence and came to the United States as refugees, is often frustrated that, until my course, her education has excluded most of the genocides we are covering in the course. Quite frankly, as her teacher, I am also frustrated and disheartened that most of my students have little knowledge of these events and the broader patterns of genocide. Thus, I am writing to support HF 2685 and Holocaust and genocide education in the State of Minnesota. As both a middle and high school social studies teacher and a scholar in the field of Social Studies Education, I have seen firsthand through my teaching and research the power of Holocaust and genocide education.
I am currently nearing the completion of my 17th year as a classroom teacher. I have taught social studies at every grade from 5th through 12th in public, charter, and private schools in urban, suburban, and rural communities in Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as two years in Vienna, Austria. As a teacher, I have seen firsthand the unique power of Holocaust and genocide education to engender attitudes of tolerance, justice, and citizenship within a pluralistic democracy. While students often come into my class curious about the topics, they leave inspired to seek a better world both locally and globally. I have also seen how teaching about genocide and mass violence, especially cases that are often absent from middle and high school social studies classes, can affirm students’ (and their families’) identities and lived experiences, as is the case for so many of my students from communities that have experienced mass violence. This is so important for Minnesota, as new and existing refugee and migrant communities seek to see themselves reflected in education and the state more broadly. Importantly, learning about Indigenous genocide provides opportunities for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students to better understand the history of the state and begin to imagine and work towards a more just future.
However, like most social studies teachers, I came to the profession with little awareness of other genocides and limited knowledge of the Holocaust. Early in my career, when a principal asked that I develop and teach a high school elective course on the Holocaust, I began to seek out professional development opportunities, largely through the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS). Through CHGS’s summer institutes, I was exposed to other cases of genocide, such as those in Armenia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. Importantly, I also learned from scholars and community members about the genocide of the Dakota and Ho-Chunk and the violence perpetrated against the Ojibwe. Soon my Holocaust course expanded to include these and other cases of genocide. HF 2685 stands apart from Holocaust and genocide education in other states in its support of funding for professional development for teachers, who will seek out and use these opportunities to create meaningful learning experiences for their students.
In 2022, I completed my Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and Social Studies Education, with a minor in Human Rights, at the University of Minnesota. Broadly, my research examines genocide education in high school social studies classrooms and curricula. My dissertation joins a growing body of research that shows the benefits of Holocaust and genocide education. My research also shows the power of legislation in strengthening and advancing Holocaust and genocide education in states which have adopted mandates. In Wisconsin, a newly implemented Holocaust and genocide mandate has spurred tremendous growth in professional development opportunities for teachers, and I have received dozens of requests to share my syllabus and resources with middle and high school teachers who are developing and teaching their own courses or weaving genocide into their existing social studies courses. Specific legislation places importance on the topic.
I drafted all of the language related to the Holocaust and genocide in the 2021 Minnesota K-12 Social Studies Standards. While I laud the work of the standards committee in securing and expanding genocide education in Minnesota for years to come, I also recognize the limitations of the state’s teaching and learning standards. HF 2685 provides additional, essential safeguards and opportunities to secure and expand genocide education. Naming specific genocides matters. It ensures genocide education about and, importantly, beyond the Holocaust, including Indigenous genocide. Likewise codifying this language in legislation expresses an enduring recognition of the importance and commitment to genocide education within the state.
HF 2685 is an important piece of legislation for Minnesota’s teachers and, especially, students. For students, this legislation will advance attitudes of tolerance, justice, and citizenship within a pluralistic democracy, affirm their and their families’ identities and lived experiences, and provide a step towards truth-telling in terms of Indigenous genocide within the state. For teachers, this legislation supports professional development opportunities and resources to ensure appropriate and responsible education. The community support for this legislation speaks to the importance of genocide education for Minnesotans of many different backgrounds. Perhaps, the most powerful call for such legislation is from my students when they ask: “Why have we never learned about this before?” This question speaks to the pressing need for such legislation.
Sincerely,
George D. Dalbo, Ph.D.
High School Social Studies Teacher
FreshRSS