Once nearly eighty percent Black, South LA is now two-thirds Latino. The demographic change was due to many factors, including a Black exodus driven by economic precarity, fear of crime, and experiences of over-policing and a Latino influx initially spurred by an immigration surge that could not be accommodated in traditional entry neighborhoods. While earlier research often focused on the conflicts between groups, time has passed and our new work points to contemporary quotidian accommodations between residents. We also document an emerging style of Black-Brown community organizing that seeks to both acknowledge the nuance of difference and create a shared sense of place identity. This article lifts up the Black experience in that transition of space and politics and notes how a sense of loss can result from such a dramatic change in a place that was once an iconic and literal home for much of Black Los Angeles. We suggest that that sense of loss is exacerbated by a legacy of racist asset-stripping and a deep worry about Black erasure due to current displacement pressures from gentrification. We close by discussing how organizers and political leaders need to take these dynamics into account when both building coalitions and ensuring Black futures in what is now a Black-Brown political and social space.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s engagement with the thought of Karl Marx forms an important aspect of his intellectual biography, yet its contours crystallize explicitly only late in his written work, and its development prior to the 1930s remains insufficiently understood. In order to bring to light the mix of criticisms, reservations, ideals, and inspirations that shape this reception, this article explores its trajectory as exhaustively as the available documentation permits, beginning from Du Bois’s early training in economics as a university student, continuing through his increasing attention to socialism in the early 1900s and his embrace of Soviet communism in the 1920s, and culminating in the 1930s in his teaching of Marx at Atlanta University and the overtly Marxian positions he adopts in Black Reconstruction (1935).

Since first contact with Europeans, Native American nations have strived to maintain and strengthen their sovereignty. Yet, non-Native individuals and groups, as well as federal, state, and local governments, continue to challenge this sovereignty. Despite the critical importance of sovereignty, the only academic study focused on U.S. public attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty predated the rise of Native nation gaming and relied on samples from three universities. In our study, we surveyed over 2000 White Americans from across the United States to examine attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty. Of the many factors that may influence these attitudes, we focused on three: belief in “the casino Indian” stereotype, the perception that Native American interests conflict with the interests of Whites, and the presence of Native nation gaming in participants’ states.

We find two significant models predicting attitudes towards Native nation sovereignty. First, greater endorsement of the casino Indian stereotype is associated with more negative attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty. This relationship is explained, at least in part, by the perception that Native American interests conflict with the interests of Whites. That is, the more White participants endorsed the casino Indian sterereotype, the more apt they were to believe that their interests conflict with Native Americans, which in turn is related to more negative attitudes towards Native nation sovereignty. The second model revealed that the presence of Native nation gaming in the participant’s state has important indirect implications for attitudes towards Native nation sovereignty. Specifically, White participants living in states with Native nation gaming are more likely to endorse the casino Indian stereotype, which is related to greater perceived conflict of interest with Native Americans, and, ultimately perceived conflict of interest is associated with more negative attitudes toward Native nation sovereignty. We situate our findings relative to group position theory and discuss practical implications for Native nation sovereignty.

Confederate monuments are a contested piece of the public landscape. Debates generally focus on the division between “heritage” and “hate,” but some scholars have argued that the meaning of monuments is more complex. There is little research examining variation among Confederate monuments, but this may be critical to understanding their social foundations and consequences. We provide insight into Confederate monuments and their complexity by examining their inscriptions and how the use of different inscriptions changed over time and varies between the Upper South and Deep South. We employ content analysis to organize the inscriptions associated with 856 Confederate monuments located in public spaces throughout the U.S. South into common themes. Our results suggest three distinct types of inscriptions: those connected to the lost cause ideology that glorifies the Confederacy and its cause; those that were comparatively plain in their description of people, places, and events; and others that focused exclusively on mourning the death of Confederate soldiers. The majority of monuments (59%) contain a Lost Cause inscription. Plain monuments comprise 35%, and only 6% of public Confederate monuments were dedicated purely to the dead. Our descriptive analysis also indicates substantial temporal and spatial variation in the use of these different types of inscriptions. Despite sharing a connection to the Confederacy, we assert that the specific messages associated with a monument are more varied and, in part, reflect the social conditions of the time and place in which they were built.

How do citizens interpret contentious symbols that pervade their community? And what downstream effects does state protection of these symbols have on how citizens of different backgrounds feel they belong in their community? We approach these questions through the lens of race and Confederate monuments in the American South. We rely on two original surveys to illustrate 1) the symbolic meanings Americans attach to these monuments and 2) how state protection of them impacts residents’ feelings of belonging. We find that perceptions of Confederate monuments vary by race: White U.S. residents are drastically less likely to perceive them as symbolic of racial injustice than are Black U.S. residents. Further, state protection of Confederate monuments leads to a diminished sense of belonging among Blacks, while leaving Whites unaffected. This research moves beyond scholarship examining simple support for or opposition toward contentious symbols, developing a deeper understanding of what meaning those symbols can hold for individuals and what their impacts are on individuals’ feelings of belonging and engagement in their communities.

Xenophobic narratives that describe Latinx immigrants as culturally deficient, threatening, and undeserving lawbreakers have received extensive scrutiny from the public and academics alike. However, few scholars have examined the positive narratives that surround this group, an especially important line of inquiry given the nature and prevalence of colorblind racial ideology today. In this paper, we consider how (seemingly) positive elite news media discourse contributes to the racialization of Latinx immigrants. We analyzed 1383 frames derived from newspaper articles appearing on the front page of The New York Times between 2001 and 2019. We found that even supportive articles contribute to the racialization of this group by subtly reinforcing boundaries between “us” and “them,” especially when compared to positive articles about non-Latinx immigrants. Specifically, positive newspaper articles portrayed Latinx immigrants as economically exploitable, as vulnerable but blameworthy, and as mostly illegal. We also found that positive newspaper articles portrayed both Latinx and non-Latinx immigrants as devoted to their families and traditional gender roles. However, we argue that this depiction reinforces a hierarchy based on White notions of deservingness. Our analysis shows the flexibility of colorblind discourse to prop up existing racial hierarchies in U.S. society and to “Other” racial and ethnic minorities.

In this research, I use theories of framing and social construction to investigate how race and gender are featured in national news coverage of the school-to-prison pipeline, and how policies and practices funnel students from school to the criminal justice system. Results indicate that there are three primary narratives surrounding the school-to-prison pipeline. The first is a narrative that harsh disciplinary practices in schools are irrational and negatively impact all students. The second narrative crafts the school-to-prison pipeline as a social problem for all Black students irrespective of gender. The final narrative emphasizes the impact of exclusionary discipline on Black boys. Each of these narratives functions to erase the experiences of Black girls. Ultimately, I argue that we need to take a more intersectional approach to school discipline policies and take into account how Black women and girls are situated within popular and policy discussions.

In the United States, Blacks overwhelmingly bear the brunt of gun violence. While Blacks are more likely to favor gun restrictions than are Whites, the influence of Black gun death on Whites’ attitudes about gun control has not been investigated. We advance a theory to explain White response to Black firearm fatalities: Black gun death is explicitly and implicitly racialized in the public discourse and imagination. The roots of the gun control debate are themselves likewise racialized, and portrayals of Black gun death has the potential to tap latent racial biases among Whites. As a consequence, exposure to routinized Black gun death either fails to move White opinion, or moves Whites to greater support for gun rights. The influence of race on White public opinion is particularly concerning in an era when health officials consider gun death a public health crisis. First, we evaluate this theory with a regression discontinuity (RDD) analysis of the effects of a highly salient gun death of a young Black boy in Chicago on Whites’ opinions about gun control. Relative to White people interviewed before the death, White people interviewed after the death record greater opposition to gun control. Second, we fielded a survey experiment, exposing respondents to the reported gun homicide of either Black or White thirteen-year-old boys. Relative to a control, respondents in the Black death condition are unmoved, whereas respondents in the White death condition report greater levels of support for gun control. Implications are discussed.

This research aims to enhance our understanding of the relationship between racial prejudice and White Americans’ views on cannabis legalization. The recent legalization of recreational cannabis in a handful of states, along with many other states legalizing medical cannabis in recent years, has catapulted the flowering plant back into the spotlight and nightly news cycles. Given the historically racist propaganda used to criminalize the plant, it follows that Whites’ support for legalization may be associated with racial prejudice. Using data from the General Social Survey data from 1972–2018, we find that different forms of racial prejudice have a negative effect on Whites’ support for cannabis legalization generally. Additionally, as the negative effect of overt, old-fashioned racism diminishes over time and across birth cohorts it is supplanted by the more subtle laissez-faire racism. In conclusion, we discuss the implication of the relationship between racial prejudice and views on marijuana for the increasingly complicated racial dynamics surrounding cannabis legalization.