DBF: Racialized Part 2

(This post is part of a series based on Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's book Divided By Faith.)

In the last post I introduced the term "racialized society" to refer to a society "that allocates differential economic, political, social, and even psychological rewards to groups along racial lines; lines that are socially constructed."

Racialized societies can perpetuate themselves with or without overt racial discrimination. In fact, the authors state that racialization can exist in forms that:

1. Are increasingly covert.
2. Are embedded in the normal operations of institutions.
3. Avoid direct racial terminology.
4. Are invisible to the majority racial group.

Intent of action need not matter for racialization to exist and even increase. Nor does awareness even need to be a factor.

Last time, I examined anecdotal evidence to answer the question, "Is America a racialized society?" While anecdotes often carry emotional or memorable weight, they are not a reliable source for drawing larger conclusions. For example, anecdotally I could tell you that New Zealanders often times are white British citizens and speak Mandarin as their native language. I say this because the only New Zealander I ever met was born in London and raised in New Zealand as the adopted son of a Taiwanese couple. This anecdote is 100% true, but its conclusions are far from representative for the Kiwi Country.

To check our anecdotal evidence is the wonderful art/science of demography (which also is full of interesting shortcomings), but with enough volume and care statistics do allow us to draw solid conclusions. So here, I will seek to answer our question of racialization via statistical analysis.

Is America a racialized society? Does race matter profoundly for outcomes and life experience in America?

The book presents an extremely compelling case to answer this question, but seeing that the book is now 13 years old, I have sought to update these numbers with newer statistics.

There are a number of different categories we can examine, here is just a minimal sampling. 

Economics:

In 2011, 27.5% of African Americans lived below the poverty line, compared to 9.8% of whites. For child poverty these numbers were 37.4% and 12.5%. (Census Bureau)

In the state level, Minnesota for example saw just 9% of whites fall below the poverty line in 2011 while 48% of African Americans lived in poverty. (Census/Kaiser Family Foundation)

For the city of Jacksonville (of those children in public schools), 35% of white children received free or reduced price lunch, while 71% of black children did. (JCCI, 2011)  

These economic statistics become far more telling when dealing with wealth. The average white household in 2012 had 22 times more wealth ($110,729) than the average black household ($4,955) (Census/CNN). Further, the recession impacted black families' wealth much more than white families. With black families losing 31% of their wealth compared to white families 11% (Urban Institute/NYT). Emerson and Smith write, "When white America gets a cold, black America gets pneumonia."

Health:

In Jacksonville, the infant mortality rate for black babies is on par with that of Libya (12.8 per 1000). It fits with the national average for whites (2.8 per 1000). (JCCI, 2012) The rate of new HIV cases for blacks is 664% that of whites. (JCCI, 2011)

Education:

In nationwide results, black and Hispanic students have about a two grade level difference from white students in math and reading examinations. (NAEP/EdWeek) 

In Jacksonville, while only 49% of white students read at grade level in tenth grade those numbers drop to 18% for black students. (JCCI, 2011)

Jobs:

Nationwide, the black unemployment rate of 13.7% is twice that of white's rate (6.6%). (Bureau of Labor Statistics) 

For jobs, these statistics become all the more compelling when we look to several academic studies performed on race and job seeking. Devah Pager of Princeton University (at the time, now at Harvard, Pager also not insignificantly holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin) found conducted an experiment in Milwaukee and New York City. White and black college students were trained to impersonate job seekers. They were taught to act similarly, the speak similarly, to dress similarly, and were given identical resumes. Nearly identical. They were to seek to turn in resumes for entry level positions in person and then the number of callbacks received would be recorded.

The one difference in the applicants (besides race) was that Pager had half of the applicants in each case admit to a prior criminal offense. A felony drug conviction. 

The results:

Whites with clean records received the most call backs. 

Next? Whites with a felony. 

Then? Blacks with a clean record.

If Pager is accurate, being black in America is the equivalent to being born with a felony conviction on your record. (her book, CNN)

In a similar study, two scholars from the University of Chicago sent identical resumes out in Chicago and Boston. Their variation was the give some candidates statistically significant names associated almost exclusively with blacks (i.e. Jamal, Lakisha) and other candidates names statistically almost always associated with whites (i.e. Emily, Greg). Their findings? White-sounding names received almost 50% more callbacks than black sounding names.

Remember, identical resumes. There is no reasonable argument to be made here for any factor other than race accounting for this difference.

In response to the staggering evidence above, there is no choice but to answer the question "Is America a racialized society?" except in the affirmative.

Remember, this is not to say the explanation for this racialization is inherent within race, nor is it to say there are not complex factors other than race that play into racialization, but what it is saying is that, "Yes, race matters profoundly in America." It impacts the life experiences and outcomes of people.

Once we establish that race does matter, we can pursue questions of why, how, and what it all means. Next, we will look at race as it interacts with religion in America, both historically and in the present as we move closer to me actually telling you the thesis of the book.

Anecdotally and statistically, American society is indeed racialized. Race impacts our lives. With or without our awareness of it, race matters.