This research examines laws in the colony of Virginia created by a powerful landowning planter class that attempted to draw a color line separating three descent groups: an indigenous native population (Indian), an immigrant population from Europe (English), and an imported population from Africa (Negro). Textual analysis of the Laws of Colonial Virginia shows that the English lawmakers had to learn they were the White component of a color line; they did not, for many years, refer to themselves as White. Contrary to some widely held views that race relations began as soon as these groups came into contact at some point in the seventeenth century, the analysis of written law suggests it took over 100 years, until near the middle third of the eighteenth century in Colonial Virginia, before a definitive concept of race was socially-constructed and a color line was drawn in Black and White.

Since the 1980s, everyday racism has gained ground within the social sciences. However, the theory of everyday racism has not been properly adopted and, consequently, varies across different research fields. The main goal of this study is to improve the scientific rigor within research on everyday racism in the human and social sciences. Following a review of the ground-breaking work of Philomena Essed, three main components in everyday racism literature are theoretically distilled and conceptualized: (1) repetitiveness and familiarity, (2) racism and (3) the interdependent link between micro-interactions and macro-structures. This is followed by a critical assessment of what everyday racism means and how it is assessed in research today, by performing a systematic electronic review of qualitative-methods papers. We make three suggestions towards a more complete and sophisticated understanding of everyday racism. Firstly, the concepts of everyday racism and microaggressions need to be disconnected from each other. Secondly, research should focus more on the symbiotic relation between micro-interactions and macro-structures and should also identify relevant situational features at the spatial meso-level. Lastly, it is important to be cautious of the pitfall of cultural determinism that is still a popular perspective in today’s field of (everyday) racism.

Various research has demonstrated that rapid racial demographic change may aid in triggering various forms of backlash under certain conditions. This has led scholars to speak of Whites “defending” their local environment in the face of eroding racial dominance. However, little research has addressed how perceptions of racism among minorities may be triggered under conditions of demographic change. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between racial demographic change for Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians and perceptions of racial problems among these groups in the United States. Using standard OLS regressions, ordered logistic regressions, multinomial logistic regressions, and techniques accounting for selection into treatment, I find that Blacks and Hispanics living in counties undergoing rapid growth of Black and Hispanic populations, respectively, have higher perceptions of racial problems. Asians show no evidence of increased perceptions of racial problems in counties undergoing rapid Asian growth. For Blacks, this relationship is concentrated among those without at least a four-year degree and residents of counties with lower initial White populations (and higher initial Black populations). For Hispanics, it is similarly concentrated among those without at least a four-year degree, but also is likely stronger among residents of counties with higher initial White populations (and lower initial Hispanic populations), highlighting unique racial dynamics. This research adds to a growing body of work showing the importance of examining demographic change at the local level in order to understand some of today’s most pressing political and social issues.

Over the period of mass criminalization, social scientists have developed rigorous theories concerning the perspectives and struggles of people and communities subject to criminal legal control. While this scholarship has long noted differences across racial groups, it has yet to fully examine how racism and criminalization interrelate in the making of criminalized people’s perspectives and their visions for transforming the legal system. This article engages with Du Boisian sociology to advance a theory of subjectivity that is attuned to the way criminalization reproduces the subjective racial order and that aims to uncover subaltern strategies and visions for transforming the structure of the law and broader society. Through a critical review of interpretive scholarship across the social sciences and an original analysis of interviews with a diverse sample of criminal defendants conducted in the early years of the Black Lives Matter movement, I illustrate how a Du Boisian approach coheres existing theories of criminalized subjectivities, clarifies the place of White supremacy and racism, and provides a theory of legal change rooted in ordinary people’s experiences and needs. I introduce the concept of legal envisioning, defined as a social process whereby criminalized people and communities imagine and build alternative futures within and beyond the current legal system. Du Boisian sociology, I conclude, provides the methodological and theoretical tools necessary to systematically assess legal envisioning’s content and to explain its contradictions, solidarities, and possibilities in overlooked yet potentially emancipatory ways.

Drawing on two online studies among predominantly U.S.-born and lawful permanent resident Latinxs, we developed a self-report scale intended to capture how discrimination related to perceived legal status, as well as perceptions of racial/ethnic marginalization of Latinxs in U.S. society, are experienced among a wide swath of the Latinx population. We also explore how these processes may be associated with psychological distress in this population. In line with the immigration scholarship that has identified a spillover effect of immigration enforcement and the racialization of legal status beyond the undocumented population, our exploratory factor analysis results from Study I (N = 355 Latinxs) collected in fall of 2013 revealed four factors among our study population: Fear of Deportation, Marginalization of Latinxs in U.S. Society, Marginalization Due to Perceived Illegality, and Fear Due to Perceived Illegality. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis from a separate study conducted in spring of 2016 (Study II; N = 295 Latinxs) provided evidence in support of the structure identified in Study I. Results also revealed evidence of the association between the Stigma of Illegality and Marginalization of Latinxs (SIML) subscales and psychological distress, measured as anxiety and depression. Implications of these findings are discussed.

As racialized and gendered structures, organizations can reinforce complex inequalities, especially with regard to emotional labor. While the literature on emotional labor is established, little is known about how race and sexual orientation shape feeling rule enforcement. Interviewing staff at university LGBTQ resource centers, we argue that feeling rules have a sexual orientation-based dimension and are experienced and enforced differently based on race. White LGBTQ staff find that they can express anger strategically to bring awareness to issues of race, but do not confront racism in their work for fear of alienating other Whites, which they believe would harm their center. LGBTQ staff of color experience organizational consequences for their anger, which is directed toward the racism they and students of color experience in the university. Lacking the credential of Whiteness (Ray 2019), staff of color find they cannot reach the benchmark set by Whites’ enthusiastic performance of emotional labor. These feeling rules operate in service of what James M. Thomas (2018) calls diversity regimes, which are performances of a benign commitment to racial equality, that retrench racial inequality by failing to redistribute resources along racial lines. By sanctioning anger toward the university—as an institution that reproduces racism—feeling rules have organizational consequences: Whites can advance through compliance and enthusiasm; staff of color are terminated or denied opportunities; and critiques of racism are silenced. While created to address diversity, LGBTQ centers are purposely not structurally positioned to radically shift resources in a way to combat racism, and feeling rules maintain these arrangements while allowing universities to claim a commitment to equality. These findings hold implications for broader concerns of racism, sexual orientation, and inequality within work organizations, especially manifestations of worker control within diversity work.

The racial composition of couples is a salient indicator of race’s impact on mate selection, but how well do those in intimate partnerships know the racial identities of their partners? While prior research has revealed that an individual’s race may be perceived differently than how they identify, most of what is known comes from brief interactions, with less information on established relationships. This study examines whether discrepancies in the reports of a person’s race or ethnicity can be identified even within intimate relationships, as well as which relational, social, and attitudinal factors are predictive of divergent or concordant reports. We draw on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n=3467), a U.S.-based dataset that uniquely provides both the father’s self-reported race and Hispanic origin and the mother’s report of the father’s race and ethnicity. We compare reports of the father’s race/Hispanic origin from both parents to assess the extent of mismatch, and we distinguish between whether mothers view the father’s race as similar to or different from her own. We find roughly 14% of mothers provide a race and Hispanic origin that is inconsistent with the father’s report, with a large share reflecting differences in the self-identified and perceived race of fathers who are reported as Hispanic. Among mismatched reports, mothers are more likely to report a race/ethnicity for the father that matches her own, depressing the number reporting interracial unions. Perceptions of racial homogamy are especially likely when mothers view racial sameness as important to marriage. Further, mismatches are more common in the midst of weak relational ties (i.e. non-marital relationships) and are less common when both parents are college-educated. These findings reveal that intimate unions are a site where race is socially constructed and provide insight into how norms of endogamy manifest within formed relationships.

Increasing research attention is being given to former felons, or returning citizens, after their release from prison. This paper contributes to that dialogue by exploring the documentary-making process of a grassroots organization founded by and for returning citizens and their families, and the contributions it made when it was completed in 1996, and continues to make today. Little is known about how community organizations can use the making of an organizational documentary to build the capacities of the organization, its affiliates, a neighborhood, and social change. By exploring the collaborations and challenges that took place during the local reintegration process back into family and community, the start and completion of the documentary in the mid-1990s was quite innovative. This article analyzes reciprocal tensions of service (Simmel 1908) reflected in the documentary when it was completed in 1996, and its continuing relevance to the growth of returning citizenship today.

Zainichi Koreans are the descendants of colonial subjects who migrated to Japan from 1910 to 1945, when Korea was part of the Japanese empire. In 1952, the Japanese state stripped them of their nationality status and left them stateless. Like racial minority groups in other societies, Korean descendants still face systemic discrimination in contemporary Japan. Although they were colonized by a non-European power and are not physically distinct from the dominant Japanese population, their situation is often compared to that of African Americans. Yet, for scholars who think that race is necessarily based on “phenotype,” anti-Korean oppression cannot qualify as an instance of racism in Japan and the comparison with Black Americans is misguided. This article explores the intellectual and political issues at stake in debates over the use of racial comparisons—what I call the “racial politics of comparison.” Examining the views of scholars and Zainichi Korean activists, I show how the latter have drawn inspiration from the Black liberation struggle and built alliances with African Americans in order to resist oppression. I argue that their unique situation forces us to revise the role attributed to phenotype in current definitions of race and racism.